If the prototypical alien is the gruesome monster that a crew of highly unfortunate humans found in a remote space outpost in the film Aliens, with Sigourney Weaver, you might say our future seems bleak.The aliens in that film -actually a series that began with Alien in 1979 -are terrifying and bloodthirsty, salivating from their two sets of jaws, bent solely on turning human bodies into wombs from which baby aliens violently burst. But come on, just how realistic -biologically speaking -is an alien whose blood is acidic enough to eat through several decks of a spaceship?Or what about the Martians in H.G. Wells's The War of the Worlds, hideous blobs with Gorgon-like tentacles descending from their quivering mouths, pipetting victims' blood into their own veins? Or, for that matter, the blob in the Steve McQueen movie of the same name? There has been no shortage of alien depictions in literature, comic books and film. But now scientists are putting some extra thought into the idea of aliens. They've come up with some interesting results. An exhibition, set to open April 10 at the Montreal Science Centre, intends to add scientific rigour to a subject heretofore solely the domain of human imagination. Using the expertise of a number of renowned scientists, the exhibition presents ideas on what aliens might look like, taking into consideration biology, astronomy, and the laws of physics and chemistry."It's fiction, yes, but it's science-based science fiction," says Louise Julie Bertrand, the head of exhibitions at the Centre. Such an exercise, she adds, will appeal to both kids and adults.

"People are often attracted to the bizarre and intriguing and weird."The stars of the exhibition are these alien forms envisioned by the scientists to fit the specific characteristics of two "planets," such as carbon content, the temperature, the type of atmosphere."It was a real attempt to come up with creatures, that, although fanciful, are plausible," says Michael Meyer, an astrobiologist and the lead scientist for NASA's Mars Exploration Program.

View: Full Article | Source: The Star

With the Universe as big as it is i say that there are all kinds of life forms out there. As many as our imaginations can come up with. There are probably even more human beings just like us on some distant somewere else in the universe.,

Tee hee i love the movie aliens! but i think the scientists need to get out more and research something a lil bit more realistic lol

I think aliens would mostly look like a modern-day Joan Rivers.........just my opinion. lol

Its hard to imagine anything outside the box of what a alien may look like, everything in science fiction has to have a eye(s), a mouth(s), and with more than two legs or none. The movie 'Cloverfield' tried to be somewhat creative with a new monster but everything is limited to what we know from here on earth.

Some of the best monsters are right here on earth and in our oceans, the museum has put on exhibition a 'Sabertooth Fish' and 'Creepy Sea-Spiders!'

Yeah, unless if our universe is not as big as once thought.

TeraLink Was Here!

I thought the Aliens in the Alien series were suposed to be a form of biological weapon created by an unknown alien species. Of course this is never mentioned in any of the movies, but thats what I walked away thinking after seeing the first one. If that is indeed the case, then I would say that their design is pretty impressive, especialy compared to their Predator counterparts who are far less original.

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I can't remember off hand whether they were actually a "created" biological weapon or a "found" biological weapon. But I know the enormous dead fella in the ship they find the eggs in was of a race that was more or less galactic prison guards and the ship was essentially a prison transfer vessel.

So perhaps think of Alien as just another psychopathic escaped con heh

LMAO, I tried to watch the movie Alien the other day. . .I couldn't do it. . .I laughed so hard. .. I just kept thinking about that Family Guy episode with the weird sounding alien. . ."Stop. Not so fast y'all. You think you can just up and run away, you crazy. I like to eat people from other planets. especially y'all" *little mouth pops out* "I likes to eat you with my little mouth, too". . ..lol . . .that just totally ruined the movie for me.

Anyways, I completely understand what Bear's Quest said. We are limited to what we know here on earth, so its difficult for us to create the image of another creature without using what we know on earth. Its difficult for us to think that life could exist without the things that we consider the "building blocks" of life. . .they are the building blocks for us on our planet. . .but we are limited to what we know here. . .there could be things that exist on other planets that totally contradict all that we know. . . .just some musings. . .

If we are to think outside the box in what aliens might be like, we can take a look at our universe and see how small we are compared to other planets in other solar systems.
Who is to say aliens will be the size of us and why not the size of our err uhm 'planet'.

Compare The Size -Link

Our planet is a speck of dust to these stars and if these stars have planets, who knows what we expect E.T. to look like?!

I agree with that...we have just in our planet alone multiple species

I'll be long dead before Our planet becomes advanced enough to see the universe. That blows