When, far from our cities, over-saturated with artificial light, we look to the stars, we find ourselves speaking softly, as though we are entering a grand cathedral and casting ourselves upwards into silent, celestial contemplation.

Something about the star-filled spectacle in the sky takes us elsewhere in to metaphysical thought. In turning our eyes towards the millions of distant suns, we cannot help but to think about the infinite cosmos, of its beginning and of its order. We cannot help but think about the Earth, of its smallness and its fragility. We think about the mystery of our lives. Some enjoy imagining that our descendants will voyage into the universe one day and will live their lives in other places in the galaxy. And then, going beyond humanity, we send our thoughts into other stars where we might find other beings and what their thoughts might be when considering the vastness of space. Who knows whether they look down and see us, or if they pose the same questions we do? If other beings exist, can we find them when all we are is in the center of our single, small patch of light?

While these questions remain unanswered, our imagination runs wild. We try to lessen the great distances that separate us from these hypothetical beings. We wonder if inhabitants of other planets might look like us. If they might have built cities or constructed a whole civilization. They might have generals, or emperors, scholars, popes, cooks, and doctors. Maybe they invented the arts and have written great music. They might be even less reasonable than us or even more philosophical and more beautiful. They might have visited other planets or dream of doing it soon. Who knows if they are curious to see us, like we are of them?

On the other side, extraterrestrials might be different from anything we could possibly imagine. They could live in the depths of their oceans or on the top of their mountains without ever having wanted to leave. They might have a collective intelligence, much like a version of our bees and ants. They could even have achieved immortality by hybridizing with machines. They could be awful and terrifying, like how we sometimes portray them in science fiction. Our bodies, our scents, and our voices could even inspire in them a great and terrible feeling of disgust. 

Speculations of this type have fueled many works by Western poets and philosophers ever since or even before the era of the Roman philosopher Lucretius. They have helped produce many novels and films ever since the 20th century where visitors from another planet appear on Earth. The movement of ufology in the 1940s was fed by fiction just like how fiction was fed by ufology. The testimony surrounding flying saucers and other UFOs, various documents, investigations, specialized books, and the circulation of images on social networks made aliens a topic on everyone’s mind. Various investigations which have taken place throughout more recent years show that a significant number of people think that it is possible and maybe even probably that there is life and advanced civilizations on other planets. Many astrophysicists and astronomers of today also share that opinion that there are probably civilizations with advanced scientific techniques. However, anyone who publicizes their thoughts on the likelihood of superior beings, which may have or will end up on our planet, has been generally treated with derision. Thus, aliens are given a somewhat ambiguous status where their existence is probable, but irremediably far way. 

Another oddity surrounding our ideas of aliens is that, while we actually know nothing about their existence and theoretical culture, we all have a preconstructed notion and stereotypes of what aliens are which are universally accepted like we have of heroes in mythology or characters in books. Aliens are communally represented as social creatures, who collaborate and are intelligent, much more so than us. Sometimes aliens don’t speak, and they just communicate via their spirits or telepathy. They take from inferior species, much like us. They are often portrayed as hairless, almost scrawny beings. Their eyes are huge and black with a cold and impenetrable stare. They can easily dominate us much like how an ogre would with a young child; how we, the human race, do with livestock. 

This vulnerability we have is far from what scares us the most, of course. We could become the plaything or become prey to a species superior to us. Humanity could even disappear entirely. And while these new masters might not even have any hostility towards us, they could cause our presence to become unimportant and eventually nonexistent. We would lose our privileged position of importance and prestige. Humanity would no longer be playing to role of God’s proxy on our planet or in the galaxy; we would always have a metaphorical older brother in the universe, constantly the subordinate, forced into the role of the guinea pig. Humans will understand that we are only the ruler of our small kingdom, piddling and fragile. Some question if it would be possible to return from such a level of humiliation. Would our humanism even survive it?

Others do not have these beliefs. They want to believe with all their hearts that our species will be visited by more-evolved civilizations. They believe that these beings will descend from the sky and will right our wrongs, prolong our lives, and take us away from destruction. Aliens could be our teachers, our mentors, and our guardians. Their superiority would not cause us any harm, including to our ego. They would only be here to confirm our excellence. 

Whatever does happen, aliens, should we find them one day, will most likely provoke a huge shock to our consciousness. They would bring about a whole new era. Our history would cease to be limited to our planet and even our solar system. Our societies would hybridize; we would no longer be alone. Aliens would always be there, whether they were physically with us, or just there in our knowledge. 

Meanwhile, this myth that we have collectively created says a lot about our curiosity, our aspirations and our beliefs, our paranoia, and our hopes. It illustrates our uncertainties of how the world began and how it works still. We question our world’s scope and age and ownership. This all showcases our taste for the marvelous, our need for transcendence, and our thoughts on the final destiny of humans.