Exactly, that's why its so easy to disbelieve and/or disregard just about every abduction story or alien sighting, they're so two dimensional and unimaginative. Every experience is gleaned from information half remembered from other sources and then enhanced or altered and adapted to suit their encounter. In reality, the occurrences are as fictional as the inspiration that provoked them. Its just that simple.

Or is it??

Remember, we only have one example of biological evolution to study from.....Earth......and we just don't know what may be found on other planets. Yes, we will get aliens which are utterly bizarre, but not in every case and probably not in a majority of cases. Given a similarity of conditions such as atmospheric composition, percentage of free water, similar organic chemistry etc etc....even given the apparent randomness of evolution you will get some species taking similar paths to biological problems through convergent evolution. There are numerous examples here on Earth of such occurences. The apparent fact that the aliens by and large are humanoid is most likely a factor of convergent evolution on planets with similar environments. That they appear "unimaginative and two dimensional" would predicate more towards them being real than something outlandish. Just because they don't fit notions of what "should" be out there as a result of evolution and scientific opinion (remember that word) doesn't mean they don't exist in those forms (or couldn't exist in those forms). Frankly, the aliens could take whatever form they like.....hell, there's enough diversity here on Earth to bear this out. They could be humanoid, they could also look like an octopus or a sea urchin.....whatever. You can discount nothing, unless you know for certain that you can do so.

The problem stemming with aliens is having hard enough evidence to backup your claims. In most cases, unfortunately, you're not going to get it. Look at it this way.....let's say it's the year 2150 (for instance) and we've landed on a planet around a sunlike star 8000 light years away from here. The society that we find there is at the stage we are now, pre-warp era. We have to be careful still, as they can detect us and do have a reasonable technology. But even if we encountered anyone from that society, we're not going to go out of our way to give them evidence of our presence on their planet. It would be very prudent that we didn't, given the historical track record on this planet...at least not until their society was advanced enough to be able to move about in space as freely as we could and accept the possibility of alien civilisations. Even if there was a widespread belief in aliens on the planet, the poor person who had the evidence would never see a day's peace after the encounter and would still most likely be ridiculed by some.

It's easy to dismiss something out of hand when you don't have enough evidence to put a case forward either way. You maybe right......and there is certainly some reports which are most likely fantasies of the people who experience them, but to lump them all under "science fiction" or hallucinations/misinterpretations etc is a bad, bad mistake.

Yes. What if?

I believe that this notion should be considered with some cases of alleged alien phenomenon. Sometimes the most obvious answer is the correct one.

Just because it is the obvious answer doesn't mean it will be arrived at quickly. Nor does it mean that the obvious answer should be taken first without further investigation.

Untill conclusive answers are exhibited, whether aliens exist will remain a mystery, it most certainly is NOT an impossiblity.

I disagree. I feel that I would be able to accomplish more faster if I had a few extra limbs. Also, I would like them to be prehensile, like an octopuses tentacles, and with two opposing thumbs, instead of just one, which would allow me to tie my shoes with one hand.

Seriously, what the heck makes you think our form is so darn perfect? And even if it was, what makes you think we had a choice in what we were going to look like?

It is this thought that, I believe, had to have happened sometime in our evolutionary journey. Not exactly this desire, but we must have realized that we could increase our chances of survival by utilizing our bodies differently.

Over millenia of this altered behaviour being learned taught and mastered our bodies may very well have adjusted physically to adapt to our new iniatives.

This then leads me to believe that the reason for our bipedial body structure is a direct result of our intelligence, for if we hadn't the brain power to devise a method to use our bodies more effectively or recognized the need to, then we wouldn't have survived in the manner which we have.

Not saying this realization was thought about and premeditated but was an intelligent adaptation to our environment......it was bound to happen as a result of our cognitive skills and problem solving abilities.

The Humanoid aliens must have done the same thing in their evolutionary journey. Now it would seem then that they may not use their bodies in the same ways as we do, the lack of muscle(greys) indicates that there is no need for labor in their environment...telekenesis maybe, or lower gravity.

I once asked my dad why all aliens seemed to be bipedal in reports/movies. (I thought it just sounded very unimaginative.) He gave a similiar answer: he said that other non-bipedal creatures would not be able to manipulate their space craft or develop the tools needed as the base for higher technology.

We debated it for a while, because I, for one, do not see our anatomy as being extraordinarily superior. We are very vulnerable to outside conditions. We cannot run very fast, we are left in a constant upright position that leaves our internal organs vulnerable (all it takes is a deep hit from the side/front/back and we're screwed. . . .), etc. Now, I know that these are things that an alien would not necissarily need. . . . though they are fairly crutial for survival if their environment resembled our food-chain driven communities at all. But our bipedal structure is not what makes us superior when it comes to technology and intellect. Our brains are what make us, and any alien that could make its way to our planet, superior.