Why do people assume that aliens require mechanical devices to travel?

[Kaleva]

We humans tend to create beings in our own image such as what we did with the old Greco-Roman gods, the Norse gods, the gods of the Incas and Aztecs and the divine beings of the Abrahamic religions. Religion gives meaning to that which we do not understand. Thus aliens are highly advanced creatures who travel to our Earth in pimped out versions of our own spacecraft or the spacecraft of science fiction novels.

Ever wonder why God has a throne or why Heaven has rooms or why angels carry trumpets and swords? Maybe because the people back when the books of the Bible were supposedly written could understand a throne, a room, a sword or a trumpet. Today some believe in aliens visiting Earth in spacecraft as most everyone understands spacecraft.

UFOs could be non-intelligent, earthbound phenomena. They could be highly advanced aliens' who, over the course of millions of years, have evolved into pure energy and they zip around at fantastic speeds through multi-Universes and in and out of our dimension. But humans like to create beings in our own image and thus many believe aliens to be humanoids from other Earth like planets who travel in highly advanced spacecraft.

[wcmagumba]

1. Spaceships? We are the stinking spaceships....nt

👽👽👽👽👽👽👽👽👽👽👽👽👽👽👽👽👽👽👽👽👽👽👽👽👽👽👽👽👽👽👽👽👽👽👽👽👽👽👽👽👽👽👽👽👽👽👽👽👽👽👽👽👽👽👽👽👽👽👽👽👽

[jpak]

2. Bigfoot don't need no stinking spaceship

Yup

[BigmanPigman]

3. They are 1,000,000 times more advanced from us

and even when we "imagine" the impossible, we are using our limited intelligence and that is not even close to the real story. We can't fathom what they are capable of...it is beyond our wildest imaginations. We are lower than dung beetles compared to other advanced beings.

[Shermann]

4. I thought Oumuamua was an alien ship

Turns out, it was a giant space turd.

[uriel1972]

5. Uh, physics?

[Kaleva]

6. does an average person with an average education who believes that aliens travel...

in spaceships has that belief because of that person's knowledge of physics?

[uriel1972]

11. no..

but I do, because (although I hate to blow my own trumpet here) I am not the average person. Even if the alien is pure energy they are still constrained by the speed of light in a vacuum.

As to the pure energy form, what maintains the pattern of energy? Why would it not dissipate into the surrounds due to entropy? There are a myriad of factors affecting the physical universe that would make the existence of pure energy beings untenable.

We can see down to the Planck Length and out to the edges of the universe and yet there is no evidence of a physics that would make these beings at all likely or indeed possible.

Oh and as for God(s) there is no evidence of a 'super-nature' where they could hide. If such beings interact with the universe they MUST leave a trace of their involvement, yet, such has not been found. It is up to those who posit such a super-nature to provide evidence or at least a viable theory on how a realm which cannot be reached or found by the physical interacts with the physical.

[Kaleva]

13. The super natural wouldn't be super natural if it could be scientifically explained.

But the point I was trying to make was that humans tend to create that of their own image. The gods of old were basically humans with super powers. The average layman of today who believes UFOs aliens are visiting Earth think of them as humanoids who travel in mechanical contraptions. It's a way to explain phenomena that, at the time, cannot be understood. UFOs are spacecraft operated by humanoid aliens as the Sun was Apollo riding a horse drawn chariot across the sky.

I readily concede that my description of aliens possibly being pure energy is scientifically not tenable, I do think that we ought to consider the possibility that aliens, if they exist, are not close to being humanoid in form nor do they travel by means that humans could possibly create or use.

[uriel1972]

14. I am quite ready to be wrong....

However, I require some convincing.

[Maraya1969]

7. Also aliens always have arms and legs and a head. What if they are round or

invisible?

I get you.

Edit: I read the rest of your post and you did say this. Sorry.

[Jeebo]

8. "The Ceres Solution" by Bob Shaw

The aliens in that science fiction novel are extraterrestrial humans. One premise of the novel is that we humans are a star-faring civilization, and we Earth humans are sort of the "poor relations" of the human race. We don't know about the extraterrestrial humans, but of course they know all about us. They get around not by means of space ships, but by tapping into natural forces called "third-order forces" that we Earth humans are as unaware of as cave people were of infrared light. The extraterrestrial humans tap into those third-order forces to transport themselves around the planets and stars by means of some kind of mathematically precise gesticulations that instantly transport them from one node to another. The nodes are confluence points of the third-order forces, and there are several of them here on Earth. Stonehenge is one of those nodes. Not surprising to me; I have visited Stonehenge and there really is something weird about that place, about the feel of the place. The extraterrestrial humans are long-lived; they live several thousand years and they are among us, keeping a close watch on us as they move among us. A very good, highly imaginative and original novel. I read it in the late 1990s and wish I knew where my copy is because I would love to read it again.

-- Ron

[uriel1972]

12. Yet these humans have to have evolved on Earth..

I'm sorry, but biology, DNA, Genes and the like demonstrate a relationship far too strong with the paleontological evidence for humans to have been 'Johnny-come-latelies'. What evidence do we have for the development of such technology and how did we forget it?

I'm sorry Niven fans no "Protectors"

[tblue37]

20. You can get it as an ebook for just $1.99:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00GU3D24M/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?ie=UTF8&qid=&sr=

[Ferrets are Cool]

9. And they could use an old police call box

[Shermann]

16. Those are surprisingly spacious inside! nt

[Ferrets are Cool]

17. ...

[Archae]

10. I thought they went "poof" like Q does.

[Baitball Blogger]

15. Daaaahhhmmmm! That was super deep. And makes lots of sense.

I'm thinking they have a drone powered astral projector/telescope. So, all these "ships" that can fly the speed of light, are actually telescopic probers that can be there, without really being here.

Like a giant alien laser light, and we're cats chasing it when we can.

[Kaleva]

18. I got a headache from thinking about the subject and writing the OP.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

19. I am bemused by the almost universal assumptions that

1. There are aliens out there.
2. They are visiting us.
3. They are vastly more advanced than we are.

My Son The Astronomer tells me that a lot of respectable people in his field think we may well be the very first intelligent, technologically advanced species in our Galaxy. Forget the rest of the Universe, any other galaxies. They are too far away for travel to occur between them. Or, if there actually are super-advanced species out there, they will still be constrained by the laws of physics. So probably no Faster Than Light (FTL) drive.