01/26/2005 Archived Entry: "Truly Alien"
I’m trying to think of all the ways that Aliens could communicate differently from us. Visually, perhaps they can see our same visual spectrum, or maybe their eyes are totally different and they see well into the infrared or ultraviolet ends. Similarly, its possible aliens can only hear in the microwave or radio wave frequencies, maybe they only communicate in those ranges and there’s no natural way for us to hear them. Perhaps they communicate by emitting light, or they pass along complex molecules to each other that have meaning to them, maybe they excrete chemicals, or have developed amazingly complex body language. There’s always the possibility of telepathy, or they could be like the Founders on DS9 where they’d only have to touch each other to share everything. Maybe they can control their skin pigmentation and communicate through drawing moving pictures on their own bodies.
It's possible they even have speech, but their language could be so insanely different that humans would have no way at all of understanding it and they ours, or they can make sounds that we can hear but can't reproduce, or they can make sounds that we can't hear properly (like how Ls and Rs sound the same to people who know only chinese).
On a bit of a tangent, it could be that aliens are used to a completely different gravitational pull or atmospheric pressure and would either explode or be crushed if they landed on Earth. Maybe if they landed on Earth and accidentally brought along their version of the common cold it would wipe out our entire species (very possible, like the natives and the...flu?). Heh, maybe friggen oxygen is poisonous to them.
Anyways, I’m sure there’re a great many more possibilities…
Replies: 2 comments
I can't imagine any being could 'hear' microwave or radio. They're both electromagnetic radiation, like light, so possibly they could 'see' these frequencies. Maybe aliens could hear ultrasonic or infrasonic sounds, though.
Posted by Ian @ 01/26/2005 03:28 PM EST
...I will admit that my physics is weak...so I don't understand why they can't "see" it?
Posted by Rayne @ 01/28/2005 02:12 PM EST