9 Ways You're Picturing Aliens Wrong

1. ...Or They Could Be Just Like Us

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BBC

Double hearts and regeneration aside, it could be that aliens look as similar to us as timelords.

As far as we know, our groovy little set up has worked once, so why wouldn't it happen again? Even if they aren't totally indistinguishable from humans, they may well have certain features that we would recognise.

The eye, for example, has evolved separately multiple times here on earth. Unless they have found a novel solution for depth perception, our alien friends would probably have two of them.

Bilateral symmetry seems to have done pretty well on this planet and, whilst true bipedalism is the preserve of man alone, we might find that E.T. also walks on two legs. By standing up straight, early humans freed up their hands to make tools, carry water and build a civilisation - we could reasonably expect another space faring species to have at least a couple of dexterous appendages to fly their spaceships with.

If they had a centralised brain, then they'd probably keep their sensory organs near it to ensure quick signal transmission. This would mean that their faces would probably be on their heads, although not necessarily in the configuration we have them. They might also carry their heads on the tops of their bodies like we do, as having your eyes high up is good for spotting both predators and prey.

Humans, and other life on earth, evolved in response to the conditions thrown at them by the universe. If the laws of physics are constant throughout the cosmos, then maybe the laws of biology are too and there's another little you out there somewhere.

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