9 Ways You're Picturing Aliens Wrong

5. Humans Have Superpowers

We often think of alien races as either a carbon copy of mankind, or so mind-bogglingly advanced so as to appear as superheroes or even gods to puny old humans. There's a very good chance, however, that this could work both ways.

We might view a race of telepaths as amazingly advanced, but what if they thought that our ability to form such complex sounds with our faces just as mind-blowing? Perhaps they spent their history building complex instruments to reproduce the effect, only to find a race of "hoomans" that can do it organically without even thinking.

Aliens might arrive on Earth and be totally blown away by our ability to detect chemical compounds with our tongues and even be able to distinguish which will harm us and which will help us from our infancy.

Aliens' eyes might have adapted to see microwaves, but the idea of seeing a spectrum of colours such as we do might blow their extraterrestrial minds. If they could see some types of ultraviolet light, they might be astonished at our ability to see "through" glass which blocks it - it would be our equivalent of Superman's x-ray vision.