Origin of the Species: The Greys - An Astrobiological Analysis of a Familiar ET Stereotype

Happy New Year,

This is Part 2 in a series of threads I have been posting regarding different aspects of the Aliens and UFO subject hopefully from a new and refreshing scientific viewpoint. Seeing as how I am about to become very busy with school as well as attending the 225th American Astronomical (AAS) Meeting, which started here in Seattle on Saturday, (1) it's best I post this now as I'll likely be busy posting interesting stories over on the Space Exploration forum based upon research revealed at that meeting during and following it.

I've also noticed a couple people have posted on similar subjects today. I do not mean to step on toes but I've been working on these posts for over a week. I'd hope that the depth I go into here is appreciated by those who may have posted similar threads.

Lastly, I want to apologize in advance to those who find this lengthy. I wanted to roll everything up into a series of posts which covered every aspect of this subject and included lots of links to relevant research. You will find both a list of references and list of excellent books for further reading at the end.

I could have rushed out something shorter but I'd not have felt it was complete.


PREFACE

So, most of you know me as skeptical, science-oriented person who does not feel there is overwhelmingly conclusive convincing evidence for UFOs representing some sort of contact with extraterrestrial intelligence. (dodges rotten tomatoes from hard core believers).

Despite this I'd love to be wrong as it would make my future job a lot easier if any of it were true.

More seriously, I am highly interested in the UFO subject as per the recommendations(2) of Stanford astrophysicist Peter A. Sturrock.I am interested in it insofar as the 2-5% of reports which remain unidentified may point us to new but rare earthly phenomena and/or rare atmospheric activity. I view the odds that any of the remaining 5% of UFOs represent extraterrestrial visitation to be extremely long. I am also highly skeptical of UFO abduction reports.

But what if I am wrong? As a scientist I have to be completely open to that possibility, regardless of what I think about it, because the universe does not need to conform to what I believe. Without this willingness to be wrong a scientist can potentially miss out on contributing to a new discovery. No matter how long the odds may be, it is quite likely that there is a non-zero chance that the Earth could have been visited at sometime in our past, or perhaps even now by something manufactured by an extraterrestrial species.

Yes skeptics, I'm going down the rabbit hole here….

So I will take a position opposite of my own in this thread. I, invite discussion and debate from either side of the skeptic/believe divide of the things I outlined below. Hopefully both will find something of value these posts.

As an aside, I often wish more people who have a firm belief in UFOs as evidence of alien contact would be more open to the opposite position if for no other reason than it sharpens the mind to consider other possibilities from those which we are comfortable.

So now that I've talked the talk, I'll proceed to walk the walk.

PART A: THE PREMISE

Before we take a look at "The Greys" I want to lay some ground work for why it would even make sense to do so. It must be noted that most scientific disciplines are by necessity, narrowly focused. This is because the research space within them is often vast. As such the UFO subject finds itself on a basic level outside of the realm of these tightly focused disciplines.

It's not that science has ignored the UFO phenomena. There have been more than a few scientific studies of the phenomena both officially sanctioned ones and those by UFO groups such as MUFON, CUFOS, etc. The study of this phenomena by necessity is a multi-disciplinary in nature but even more important is the question of which scientific disciplines the study of unidentified objects would benefit and which aspects of science would be relevant to the study of the UFO phenomena?

This relevancy often varies greatly from case to case. Some might require astronomy, others strongly suggest psychology, still others may involve metallurgy or even geology.

In truth they all apply. The right scientific tools should probably be applied to the right questions the individual aspects of the UFO phenomena may at times ask.

Scientific UFO Investigation At A Glance




Just in case you missed it, I have previously taken a skeptical look at another oft-cited "extraterrestrial species" in Part 1: Origin of the Species: The Rise of the Reptilian Alien Mythos.(3)

While there are sightings by people around the world of objects they can not readily identify and often these are credible reports which come from credible people, the jury is out for most in science regarding sightings of UFOs as proof of alien visitors.

While we await new and better evidence to support the extraordinary claims of UFO abductees interaction with extraterrestrials I am going to play devil's advocate for a moment -and assume for the sake of this post that all were true-. :-o

For the sake of balance in my next iteration of this series, Part 3: Origin of the Species: Young Stars, Old Aliens? - A Critical, Science Based Look at "Nordic Human Aliens from the Pleiades" Mythos. I will be returning to my default skeptical position (as you'll hopefully see for very good reasons).

But for now, assume I am believer in stories of grey aliens, MJ-12, Roswell, alien autopsies and abductions. And assume for a moment that as an astrobiology student that I am going to look closely at their morphology to provide a reverse view of their evolutionary and perhaps even cultural and technological history.

IN PRACTICE

Before going further I'd like to answer a common criticism on ATS and in the Aliens and UFO's forum specifically, that mainstream science and scientists (which usually means competent people who hold degrees in various disciplines) are close-minded and unwilling to think outside of conventional wisdom or unable to think outside the box.

I'd counter that there has been cutting edge research at NASA done on such fringe science subjects as Hyperspace (See: Alan C. Holt), Anti-Gravity (See: Eugene Podkletnov and Ning Li), Cold Fusion (See: Joseph Zawodny and Dennis Bushnell), Warp Drives (See: Miguel Alcubierre and Harold "Sonny" White) and Inertialess Acceleration (See: Mark Millis), Furthermore, all of this research is publicly accessible.

The history of science is such that ideas which are often first viewed as fringe may, upon further research and closer examination attain some level of mainstream credibility and respectability below I present two recent examples.

FROM FRINGE to MAINSTREAM: SETI and Low Energy Nuclear Reactions (aka Cold Fusion)


(Carl Sagan with Immanuel Velikovsky at a debate at the 1974 AAAS meeting.)

Both SETI and LENR research started out being all but laughed at as fringe sciences by most of the legitimate mainstream science crowd back in the 1960s and 1980s respectively yet both now sit with respectability among mainstream astronomy and chemistry and physics. There are good reasons for why that occurred and lessons to be learned for UFOlogy from the struggles both have had with lack of verifiable results for that which they seek, misinterpretation of results, unverifiable data, even hoaxes. The differences in how such things are treated in UFOlogy are stark when compared to how SETI or LENR research has dealt with them. As a result SETI and LENR research are looked at with respectability and seldom laughed at anymore.

Research grants are given for them and academia is very involved. The more smart, highly trained people you can put on a problem or mystery, the better.

SETI for instance receives plenty of unknown signals, most famously "The Wow!" signal and less famously this signal.(4) They don't repeat, yet they pass all tests that they are not terrestrial interference or to use a quote from the movie "Contact", 'they're not local.'

But because these signals do not repeat they can not be further examined for artificiality and because the discovery of technological extraterrestrials on another world is kind of a big deal, SETI does not claim those unidentified signals as evidence of intelligent, technological alien civilizations.

Instead it publishes its results which have so far been null results, no ET yet. However, SETI is also utilizing that null data as a means to constrain the problem of finding aliens and by doing this, designs better, more varied and more sensitive experiments in which to search in new and different ways. Finding out that a signal is interference from someone's cell phone and publishing that fact, does not invalidate the field, in fact it has served to make it more credible among other mainstream sciences.

SETI stresses identification over mystery and has made a habit out of not jumping the gun on something which at first appears mysterious. Where once SETI seemed like a huge long shot in an era when no planets were known outside our own Solar System it now stands as a legitimate science.

Likewise Low Energy Nuclear Reactions (LENR) research (aka Cold Fusion) started on bad footing with the news conference by Pons and Fleischmann. Funding had all but dried up for looking for what many high energy physicists laughed at or considered impossible. However LENR has now reached a new level of credibility as effects were better described and some level of repeatability was attained outside of sensationalist media. The US Navy and even NASA have looked into LENR.

Like SETI, LENR may still have long odds but with more people involved in the experiments the chance of turning up something interesting and perhaps even world-changing increases.

Long tern scientific UFO studies have traditionally lacked both funding and brainpower. Even worse is that those who have offered a scientific approach towards identification have often been accused of all sorts of paranoid nonsense. The UFO field is not without its financial interests either. The general public's interest in the topic has ensured plenty of money is available to be made off of the UFO subject. Many books have been sold and conferences attended. It's just that this money is seldom rolled back into hard scientific research in the UFO arena by competent professionals. Instead it often serves to keep the nature of unidentified flying objects a mystery. It's good for business.

UFOlogy also has a problem in that many stories are propagated before they are or can be properly investigated. This has reached the point to where there exist vast amounts of people, some of which are UFO researchers themselves who are all too willing to put forth anomalous reports as proof of extraterrestrial visitation in a light-year sized leap of logic.

It is understandable why the field took this turn. Juicy tales of alien contact sell more books than the results of science based studies of UFO reports which might turn up a null result with regards to the Extraterrestrial Hypothesis but this approach of "unidentified means extraterrestrial" does not garner credibility nor acceptance as a serious area of study among those who might be willing to give it a second look.

So..

There are necessary lessons UFOlogy will need to learn from those two fields I highlighted above and how they conduct themselves if the UFO field wants to actually take the next step and move things forward to perhaps move into mainstream acceptance.

It's not all negative of course, outside of the often loud gaudy, theatrical nature of UFO conventions and the people who frequent them both as patrons as well as speakers, there may be subtle movements back in the direction of science.

WORLDS COLLIDING:



There is a slow but welcome recognition on the UFO research side of things, that those of us working on things like studying data gathered by Kepler and other exoplanet studies are actually gathering evidence which may add more credibility to the Extraterrestrial Hypothesis. The better information we gather about how common habitable planets like our Earth are as well as how with near-future telescopes, we might detect life on the other worlds we discover, the more we open up the possibility that someone, perhaps long ago might have cataloged our own planet (since our Earth and solar system are relatively young, compared to the rest of our Milky Way galaxy), the more plausible the idea of extraterrestrial visitation becomes.



(Images above from the University of Puerto Rico at Arecibo's Planetary Habitability Laboratory)

If the Earth has already been cataloged long ago, why wouldn't a curious, space-faring alien species eventually attempt to get a closer look?


It turns out that there are optical limits to what can be seen from even massive, advanced arrays of alien telescopes spread out over a thousand or even millions of miles. Aliens might be able to see objects the size of a Honda Accord on Earth but things smaller than that might elude them due to a number of things in the interstellar medium which would blur the image beyond that resolution. Still it is an exciting possibility.

SEE: Forget Space Travel, Build this Telescope(5) - Seth Shostak, Huffington Post

So as you can see, that article by a known vocal skeptic of the premise that UFO reports represent evidence of extraterrestrials could refute and undermine one key criticism some less informed skeptics might have of the whole subject: That even if intelligent extraterrestrials existed elsewhere in our Milky Way galaxy, they wouldn't know our Earth, its life, or we existed.

The premise we on Earth would not have been found is probably wrong.

(Very) Simply the numbers:


4.5 Billion - The number of years our Earth has been detectable as a planet within the habitable zone of our Sun. The majority of stars and planets in our Milky Way galaxy are older than our Solar System and Earth often by billions of years.The alien equivalent of Kepler and our other exoplanet research could have detected our planet's existence shortly after it formed 4.5 billion years ago.


2 Billion - The number of years life on Earth has been detectable since photosynthesis became widespread and filled our atmosphere with Oxygen. The alien equivalent of our James Webb Space Telescope (to be launched in 2018) or even better telescopes could detect oxygen in the atmosphere of our Earth as far back as 2 billion years ago. Oxygen is a key "biomarker" a gas which if found in sufficient quantity could point to photosynthetic (plant) life since Oxygen loves to hook up and bond with other elements it doesn't last in an atmosphere long unless it is replenished by something. There are very few things other than life which can do that.


11,000-13,000 The number of years in our past at which human civilization built large monolithic structures, bigger than a Honda Accord and detectable with a sufficiently large network of alien space telescopes 100 hundred light years away.

2,900 The estimated number of planets in the habitable or "Goldilocks" zone of stars within 100 light years of the Earth.

2.9 Billion The number of Earthlike planets in the habitable zone of stars within 11,000 light years of the Earth.


40 Billion The conservative estimate based on Kepler data of the number of Earthlike planets in the habitable zone of stars in our entire Milky Way galaxy.


100 Billion The conservative estimate of the total number of planets in our Milky Way Galaxy. Nearly every star in our Milky Way Galaxy has a planet(6)

Based on statistics regarding the distribution of various types of planets gathered by Kepler(7), within 32.6 light years (10 parsecs) of Earth there are estimated to be between 132-160 small, rocky planets in orbits similar to Earth where liquid water could exist on its surface given Earth-like atmospheric pressures.



Expand that sphere from 32 light years to 100 light years and the number of these planets skyrockets to close to 3,000 (2,900). Expand it again out to 11,000 light years (the furthest distance our civilization's large structures might have become visible to a mega telescope wielding group of aliens) and the number is an astounding 2.9 billion for a total of around 40-50 billion in the entire Milky Way galaxy.



Bottom Line: If only 1 in 1 Million habitable planets produce civilizations with advanced telescopes then perhaps 2 or 3 nearby civilizations (within 1,000 light years of the Earth) might have detected the Earth and civilization since the dawn of civilization and its constructions of large scale structures visible at interstellar distances.

If advanced life and civilization is more common than 1 in a million, say 1 in 100,000 then around 30 nearby civilizations may know that we're here and probably will have known that fact here for a long time.

SEE ALSO: What would aliens be able to tell about earth from their home stars?(8) - Phys.org, AboveTopSecret.com

WHAT'S IT MEAN TO UFOLOGY?



(Image above from NASA's PlanetQuest Site)

I highlight this to illustrate why UFOlogists themselves would stand to benefit from becoming more familiar with astronomy in general as many of its discoveries it can serve to bolster their contention that our Earth might be visited. And it is just as important for UFOlogists to be familiar with astronomy and the sky in general because it allows them to deal with the problem of false-positives: the misidentification of things such as planets, stars, meteors, comets, satellites and spacecraft as something more mysterious.

Regardless of how populated our galaxy may or may not be, interstellar travel will probably never be a trivial undertaking so the vast majority of UFO reports as shown in study after study would be false positives from the standpoint of the Extraterrestrial Hypothesis (ETH).

It also might help the credibility of the field of UFOlogy for those who allege visitation to be more familiar with the current state of knowledge about our Solar System, the neighborhood around it and the Milky Way it inhabits.

ACADEMIA & UFOS in 2014

On the academic side of things, contrary to pronouncements by elder statesman of UFOlogy, Stanton T. Friedman who often characterizes SETI (and by extension its adjacent fields such as comparative planetology and exobiology) as a "Silly Effort to Investigate", there is a slow but gradual acceptance that much of the public has keen interests in topics such as life in the universe, how our Earth formed and whether intelligent extraterrestrials exist elsewhere. These people are often completely unaware of our research but very well aware of and even well versed in the UFO subject.

For decades the UFO subject, UFO conventions, UFO researchers, and UFO TV shows were the most visible things with regards to these questions. And the UFO subject capitalized on that fact often with dubious evidence from people who supposedly had all the answers. Say what you will about the UFO subject but there is no denying that it financially, it has capitalized on the average person's interest in this subject in ways we in academia are only beginning understand.

This is to be expected since most of these questions used to lay firmly in the realm of speculation or sci-fi and only since the 1980s have they been seriously addressed by the young fields of bioastronomy/astrobiology/exobiology and comparative planetology through exoplanet research.

So some of us see the UFO subject as a sort of "gateway drug" to more public interest in scientific research into these questions and public outreach efforts to interest people in the more broad search for life and intelligence in our Milky Way and the universe beyond.

For example, 2014 marked the first time a UFO researcher, Joe Buchman, spoke at and was well received by the long-running Astrobiology & SETI academic gathering known as Contact 2014: Cultures of the Imagination conference when he talked about the Citizen Hearing on UFO Disclosure at the Saturday banquet prior to a keynote address by Dr. Michael Sims, Research Scientist with the Center for Mars Exploration and the Computational Sciences Division of NASA Ames Research Center.




For those of us who point telescopes to the skies looking for and hoping to characterize distant worlds, we could benefit greatly from the majority of Americans who subscribe to UFO coverup theories. According to a 2002 Roper Poll, 72% of Americans believe that the government has covered up evidence of alien visitation. (9)

If that same 72% would get behind and strongly back increased science budgets by Congress in this area, we perhaps could find definitive proof of aliens through astronomy within the next 20-30 years:



And regardless of how convinced UFOlogy might be that extraterrestrials are visiting the Earth, without the ability to question these extraterrestrials (due to the cover up claims), we in the sciences could not learn anything of scientific value from them, therefore they might as well not exist. So, our own independent search for information about their potential home worlds through astronomy and astrobiology would be necessary.

So here's another New Years toast.

Heres to a more symbiotic relationship between the two camps. UFOlogy can benefit from science, its tools and methods in multiple ways. It has been a long time since hard scientists such as James E. McDonald, J. Allen Hynek, Marjorie Fish, Susan Clancy, Carl Sagan and Donald Menzel delved into the subject.

The alternative is that the study of the UFO subject becomes more one of belief rather than science and becomes another para-topic like ghosts, astrology, channelling, psychic reading, which might be just fine for some but it would represent an opportunity missed for serious science.

Perhaps UFOlogy has already crossed that point of no return? If it hasn't it is very close to the edge.

Point of fact, detecting life on Earth at interstellar distances is not impossible, traveling to the Earth over interstellar distances from then nearby stars is not impossible either. We already posses the technology to mount a search for life on other nearby worlds beyond the solar system and already have many ideas how to build an interstellar probe or starship.

Most of us who are skeptical of the UFO subject know that visitation by a nearby extraterrestrial civilization if it exists, is not impossible. It is just improbable that it would be so common that we would be visited in numbers large enough to produce the many unexplained UFO reports therefore according to Occam's Razor, a simpler explanation for them likely exists.

However, when the impossible is eliminated what we're left with is the improbable. So why not examine it?

Which leads us back to…..


PART B: THE GREYS



Beyond the assumption that they actually exist, I am now going take a scientific look at the supposed extraterrestrial species known as "The Greys" also known as "The Grays" and "Extraterrestrial Biological Entities (EBEs, Eben, etc). "The Greys" are the archetype of the stereotypical "alien" these days. This alleged species is alleged to visit earth for various reasons (depending on who you ask) and is named for its skin color which has been described as grey but also sometimes with a mix of grey with blue, beige or tan.

They are typically described as "childlike" in appearance with an height of around between 4 feet tall and a height range of 3 feet, 5 inches to 5 feet, 4 inches tall. They are hairless, bipedal creatures with a skull larger in proportion to their body than that of humans. They have arms which are long and almost reach to their knees. Hands are long and often described as having a small palm and claw like, webbed fingers. They have very large tear shaped eyes which are often described as opaque black or very dark brown, angularly slanted at approximately 37 degrees and almost wrapping around with almost no pupil. Pupils resemble a vertical slit. The Greys nose is not very pronounced and their ears are described as either small holes or raised bumps/buds on each side of their head. Their mouths have been described as a thin, unmoving, lipless, slit which looks more like scars rather than functional openings for nutritional intake or communication.

EARLY REFERENCES

The earliest reference to "The Grays" often cited was in the Betty and Barney Hill abduction story, though there are some key differences in the eye structure, height and other characteristics which would indicate the Hill aliens were substantially different enough from the typical representation of "The Greys" as to be considered something else altogether. The aliens in the 1977 film Close Encounters of the Third Kind more closely resemble the Hill's aliens (not a coincidence since UFO researcher Dr. J. Allen Hynek was a consultant to the film and that is what they were based on).

Therefore the earliest printed reference I can find to this species is in the Raymond Fowler's 1978 book The Andreasson Affair about the alleged abduction of Betty Andreasson in January of 1967.



Not long after this another book appeared on the UFO scene. William Moore and Charles Berlitz's 1980 book The Roswell Incident which detailed the alleged 1947 crash and retrieval of a UFO and bodies of beings which fit the description of "The Greys". And from there various UFO abduction books from Budd Hopkins 1981 book Missing Time to Whitley Streiber's 1987 book Communion and others often featured the image of "The Greys". The MJ-12 documents which surfaced in 1984 and allegedly are 1952 briefing papers for former US President Harry Truman also heavily feature aliens fitting the description of "The Greys" referring to them as "Extraterrestrial Biological Entities" or "EBEs".




POP CULTURE: Grey Fever In the 1990s

The 1990s brought about the widespread popularization of and proliferation of the image of "The Greys" through pop culture TV and Films such as The X-Files, Dark Skies, Stargate SG-1, South Park and Babylon 5. Most recently a "Grey" features as the main character in the 2011 film Paul. The image of the Grey also appeared in TV commercials, on Hot Air Balloons, album covers, music festivals, the logo for one NASA contracted aerospace company and in the logo of at least one minor league baseball team: The Las Vegas '51ers.


Grey as featured in the FOX series X-Files



Greys also feature in NBC series Dark Skies



The Greys are called the Vree in the Babylon 5 series



The Greys are called the Asgard in Stargate SG-1 series



The Greys also are described by UFO abductee Travis Walton in the 1993 film "Fire In the Sky" which detailed alleged 1975 abduction.


The Grey alien "Paul" in the 2011 movie "Paul"



NASA contractor, Bigelow Aerospace's facility in las Vegas


Logo for the Las Vegas 51s minor league baseball team.

Three decades later, today the image of "the Greys" is synonymous with the term extraterrestrial in the minds of most of the world. It is firmly entrenched in American pop-culture and is one of the most recognizable images.

Unsurprisingly, half of all reported alien encounters in the United States describe Grey aliens.




PART C. - POINT OF VIEW, METHODOLOGY. ASTROBIOLOGY and ANALYSIS


POINT OF VIEW

My analysis will be similar to that of an astrobiologist called into to make an assessment of the body of this supposed extraterrestrial species to determine its evolutionary history, point or points of origin and point out strengths and weaknesses. As such, I am going to assume they are real and doing all the things which people from Bob Lazar to Whitley Streiber allege that they do.

So if it prevents you from being bored you can imagine I work for some super secret alphabet agency who had a chance to examine such a creature in great detail.


Of course that isn't true but go with it. ;-)

In this post I will analyze the Grey's anatomy (no pun intended, even though I -am- from Seattle).

Specifically, I have collected a wide array of descriptions of such beings from various stories offered up as evidence: MJ-12 and related documents, the Betty Andreasson Affair, Budd Hopkin's Missing Time, books by John Mack, the various EBE/J-Rod stories online from supposed "whistleblowers", the Dulce story etc.

I have consumed it all and will work off of consistent descriptions to build up aspects these stories seem to agree on with regards to this alleged extraterrestrial species.

Most importantly, this analysis will be based on good solid science (beyond the assumption that these creatures actually exist). I will highlight these science facts in italics under the heading SCIENCE CHECK.

I am going to use my expertise in Astronomy and Astrobiology to analyze the morphology (size, shape, texture, etc) of "The Greys" to learn more about them by tracing a possible evolutionary history as well as pinpointing the kind of place from which they could have originated and point to nearby star systems and exoplanets which are a good fit.

SIDENOTE: I held off on posting this analysis because I have had reservations about providing detailed information which could be used to perpetuate a hoax, provide a new angle to the next abduction book or form the root of a new "Project SERPO" style conspiracy theory. However, if you or anyone else use my research in a short story, book, TV show or movie all I ask is that you credit the information as coming from ATS. I don't want a percentage of anything. I just want this post persist as interesting information on AboveTopSecret.com

The counter-argument to my reservations about posting this were that in publishing this I might perhaps interest many of you who are interested in UFOs in learning more about and supporting the real science of Astrobiology. Which brings us to….

ASTROBIOLOGY



Some of you may be asking "what is Astrobiology?"

By now most of you know I currently study Astronomy and Astrobiology as a student at the University of Washington in Seattle.



Astrobiology (previously called Bioastronomy) is the study of the origin, evolution, distribution, and future of life in the universe. Both extraterrestrial life and life here on Earth. It is an interdisciplinary field which encompasses the search for habitable environments in our Solar System and habitable planets outside our Solar System (habitable exoplanets), the search for evidence of prebiotic chemistry, laboratory and field research into the origins and early evolution of life on Earth, and studies of the potential for life to adapt to challenges on Earth and in outer space.

As such Astrobiology draws upon the scientific disciplines of astronomy and astrophysics, organic chemistry, evolutionary biology, geology and planetology, exoplanet and comparative planetology research and sometimes anthropology and sociology.

So, Astrobiology addresses the question of whether life exists beyond Earth, and how humans can detect it if it does often by asking smaller fundamental questions shown in this chart below:



In other words, Astrobiology seeks definitive answers to both the broad questions of both: "Are we alone?" as well as "Where are all of the aliens?" by breaking those questions down into smaller questions which can be answered through observation and experiment.

In doing so we are searching for aliens large and small and the places where they might live




METHODOLOGY AS APPLIED TO AN ANALYSIS OF A "GREY"

There have been many exercises done using what we know about the various science fields above to make educated guesses at what kinds of life might evolve on other planets similar to the Earth as well as those which have very little in common with the Earth, and every type of planet and habitable environment in between.

Usually these step-by-step exercises start with a the birth of a star and a planetary system forming around it and play out over gigayear time-scales (billions of years) since our Solar System and Earth took around 4.5 billion years to evolve us.

Over time ever more complex species uniquely adapted to their environment evolve in increasing levels of complexity, perhaps leading to an intelligent and even technological species.

I will be doing this same type of thing with "The Greys", albeit in a limited fashion, in reverse.

I am going to reverse-engineer the history and evolution of "The Greys" by starting with what they supposedly look like and work backwards to see why that would be. And in doing this I will also link to relevant research which might support each point.

Lastly, by running time backwards it might also be possible to pinpoint possible places of origin for "The Greys" in our Milky Way Galaxy.

CRITICISM

A good criticism of all of this might be that this just speculation.

Yep, I'd agree. However there are different kinds of speculation and not all speculation is created equal. It can often run from the wild and fanciful fantasies which the laws of the universe need not apply to more scientific, "educated guessing".

I chose the latter.

This will be science based speculation. While people often imagine anything is possible, the reality is that our universe is governed by the laws of physics and chemistry. These laws are the same throughout the universe and we have plenty of observational evidence to support that, so speculation within the laws of physics and chemistry will always be more useful than fanciful imaginings devoid of scientific merit. So expect me to stick close to scientific facts as I speculate. And as I stated earlier, you will find these science facts in italics under the heading: SCIENCE CHECK.

Speculation can also be useful and perhaps some of you might learn something new in the process regardless of which side of the believer/skeptic aisle in the "Great Hall of WTF is going on!?" you sit.

Now with that out of the way, let's get started…..

DESCRIPTION & ANALYSIS

Below is a composite image of a stereotypical "Grey Alien" based on various descriptions with certain features highlighted. Following that will be my analysis of such features.




Heigh & Body:


Short stature and low body mass index - With an average height of ~1.5 meters (5 feet) tall "The Greys" are described as shorter than the average human. This might indicate this species evolved on or lived on terrestrial type planet known as a SuperEarth with higher mass and density than our Earth, which also means higher gravity than Earth.



Their planet could be a planet similar to the Earth but perhaps around twice as large. Alternatively their height could also in part be due to nutrition in a way similar to the recently discovered small brained, small bodied, homo-floresiensis which stood on average around 1.1 meters (3.5 feet) tall. It is also possible that "The Greys" planet contained limited high density food sources on limited land on a mostly water covered planet with a thicker oxygen atmosphere (more calorie burning) or more competition for such food sources (more on that later).

Another thing to mention regarding their stature is their thinness. Thinness may indicate they evolved or were built for speed and high acceleration. A planet twice the size and mass of the Earth would have a deep gravity well and high escape velocity as a result. Because of this, chemical rockets would not get into space, nuclear rockets however world. Thinness in the "tall grey" type may indicate they evolved further in Zero-G or were built for the velocity and high acceleration of interstellar pace travel.

SCIENCE CHECK: SuperEarths

One of the most interesting things NASA's Kepler mission has discovered is that there is a whole class of planets larger than the Earth but not as big as Neptune. These are called Superterrans or SuperEarths(10). These planets are often defined as planets which are anywhere from 1.5 to 10 times as massive as our Earth and often between 1.2-2.4 Earth radii wide.

Though our Solar System does not contain such a planet, we are finding they are remarkably common circling other stars in our Milky Way galaxy, especially small, dim, M-type (Red Dwarf) stars (more on this later). In fact so far they are the most common type of extrasolar planet (exoplanet) we've found:

Some nearby SuperEarths less than 250 light years away, in the "Goldilocks" or Habitable Zone of their stars have had their densities measured...



…..and they seem to have a much higher water content by volume, than Earth. In fact one is thought to be entirely composed of water (sans Kevin Costner AFAIK). As such these planets are generally thought to be wetter than the Earth and such oceans will last longer than our own:



Hot off the presses today from the AAS meeting in Seattle today…..

SEE: Exciting Exoplanet News from AAS: How Rocky Worlds are Made; Oceans on Super-Earths - Universe Today (11)

Super-Earths Have Long Lasting Oceans

Another team of astronomers took a closer look at that dash of water. There’s no doubt that life, as we know it, needs liquid water. The Earth’s oceans cover about 70 percent of the surface and have for nearly the entire history of our world. So the next logical step suggests that for life to develop on other planets, those planets would also need oceans.

Water, however, isn’t just on Earth’s surface. Studies have shown that Earth’s mantle holds several oceans’ worth of water that was dragged underground. If water weren’t able to return to the surface via volcanism, it would disappear entirely.

Laura Schaefer, also from the CfA, used computer simulations to see if this so-called deep water cycle could take place on Earth-like planets and super-Earths.

She found that small Earth-like planets outgas their water quickly, while larger super-Earths form their oceans later on. The sweet spot seems to be for planets between two and four times the mass of Earth, which are even better at establishing and maintaining oceans than our Earth. Once started, these oceans could persist for at least 10 billion years.

“If you want to look for life, you should look at older super-Earths,” said Schaefer. It’s a statement that applies to both realms of research presented today.

The atmospheres of many SuperEarths are thought to be thicker than that of the Earth. There is certain to be a range of this type of planet and the retention and thickness of their atmospheres will vary by many factors beyond simple size/mass/density, for instance Mars in our solar system was once thought to possess a thick atmosphere but no longer does. And if an atmosphere is too thick that is just as bad for our type of life as well (and presumably "The Greys" type too since they are never seen in space suits). Beyond a certain size, SuperEarths would become "mini-Neptunes" with thick hydrogen/helium atmospheres, inhospitable to life as we know it.

But figuring out if a planet may be habitable is a complex question as illustrated in this info graphic:



We are just at the beginning of characterizing these intriguing alien worlds. We've just started studying the atmospheres of some of the nearby ones which are not in habitable zone orbits(12) such as GJ1214b, HD97658b and others. Much more will be known about SuperEarths in the next 4 years due to the launches of NASA's TESS mission and the James Webb Space Telescope as well as the ongoing European Space Agency mission known as GAIA.

One thing we do know, life, if it existed on any of these strange new worlds at all would likely take a much different evolutionary path than that of the Earth. So let's continue to examine "The Greys" morphology and anatomy for more clues of how it may have played out on one of them.

Head:


Large head - Higher brain capacity due to higher brain-to-body mass ratio. This may also indicate substantially higher intelligence due to a higher encephalization quotient when compared to humans.

SCIENCE CHECK: Encephalization

Encephalization(13) is defined as the amount of brain mass related to an animal's total body mass. Quantifying an animal's encephalization has been argued to be directly related to that animal's level of intelligence. It may also refer to the tendency for a species toward larger brains through evolutionary time. Anthropological studies indicate that bipedalism preceded encephalization in the human evolutionary lineage after divergence from the chimpanzee lineage. Compared to the chimpanzee brain, the human brain is larger and certain brain regions have been particularly altered during human evolution. Most brain growth of chimpanzees happens before birth while most human brain growth happens after birth.

Brain size usually increases with body size in animals (positive correlation), large animals usually have larger brains than smaller animals.The relationship is not linear, however. Generally, small mammals have relatively larger brains than big ones. Mice have a direct brain/body size ratio similar to humans (1/40), while elephants have a comparatively small brain/body size (1/560), despite being quite intelligent animals.

Several reasons for this trend are possible, one of which is that neural cells have a relative constant size. Some brain functions, like the brain pathway responsible for a basic task like drawing breath, are basically similar in a mouse and an elephant. Thus, the same amount of brain matter can govern breathing in a large or a small body. While not all control functions are independent of body size, some are, and hence large animals need comparatively less brain than small animals. This phenomenon has been called the cephalization factor:

(E and S are body and brain weights and C is the cephalization factor.)

To compensate for this factor, a formula has been devised by plotting the brain/body weight of various mammals against each other and a curve fitted so as to give best fit to the data.

There is an equation called the "Encephalization Quotient" (EQ) which quantifies encephalization, The cephalization factor and the subsequent encephalization quotient was developed by H.J. Jerison in the late 1960s.

I did a rough "back of napkin" calculation of the "Greys" based on an average of multiple descriptions and found the ES and EQ for this alleged alien species. What I found was that if the "Greys" brain is given a similar composition to that of Earthly vertebrate species then they could be quite superior to humans intellectually in just about every way.

With a substantially higher brain to body ratio (ES) and an encephalization quotient (EQ) of a range between 8.5-9.4 (dependent on descriptions) our grey aliens could appear to have a substantially larger capacity for intelligence than human beings whose EQ is in the range of 7.4-7.8.


Furthermore this higher intellectual capacity may have been due to a much higher population than humanity currently occupies as well as socialization factors on their home world (more on this later). Here's an excerpt from an interesting article from Discover magazine entitled "The Inevitable Social Brain"(14)

It would seem that the trajectory humanity has been on over its history has been in the direction of a higher ES. How high might our ES be in a 500 million to 1 billion years? Or better to put it another way, how much smarter might we be if we were at our present level, 500 million or 1 billion years ago? You'll see a little later why I post that question.

The article continues:

One interesting fact though is that the median cranial capacity of our species seems to have peaked around one hundred thousand years ago. The average human today has a smaller brain than the average human alive during the Last Glacial Maximum! (see this old post from Panda’s Thumb, it’s evident in the charts) This may be simply due to smaller body sizes in general after the Ice Age. Or, it may be due to the possibility that social changes with the rise of agriculture required less brain power.

Ultimately if Dunbar and his colleagues are correct, if social structure is the most powerful variate in explaining differences in brain size when controlling for phylogenetics and body size, then in some ways it is surprising to me. After all, it does not seem that ants have particularly large brains, despite being extremely social and highly successful. Clearly the hymenoptera and other social insects operate on different principles from mammals. Instead of developing “hive minds,” it seems as if in mammals greater social structure entails greater cognitive structure.

This would seem to indicate that contrary to what many UFO books have stated about "The Greys" having a "hive mind" it would seem that the mentality of "The Greys" would be closer to mammals than they are to social insects like ants. Any hive type activity might therefore be technological rather than biological in nature. In other words. "The Greys" "hive-like" mentality is probably more like that of human "flash mobs" than the regimented distributed intelligence of an ant hill.

Bottom line: The Greys "hive mind" probably does not exist in the sense that this term is commonly used. Nor does their observed mentality suggest telepathic or other supernatural means of communication. It is more likely a function of communications technology (which may be detectable!).

Perhaps someone should check to see if they take selfies with their equivalent of smart phones (joke).

Eyes:

Large dark eyes - Largeness of the eyes would seem to indicate "The Greys" originated on a planet which closely orbits either a small dim red dwarf also known as an M-type or M-dwarf star or even lower mass objects such as L-Type "Brown Dwarfs". Larger eyes would allow better stereoscopic vision in the low visible light environment of a planet circling such stars since M-type stars emit most of their light in the infrared.

In addition habitable planets around M-dwarfs will most often be tidally locked like our moon is to our Earth. One side would always face the star and the other would always be dark. It was once thought that this would cause the atmosphere on the night side of the planet to freeze off but this no longer seems to be the case. There have been a number of papers written on this subject including the following:

On the Habitability of Planets around M dwarfs - James Davenport, University of Washington.(15)

Relevant excerpt:

The HZ (habitable zone) for an M dwarf is so close in that nearly all habitable planets are at risk of being
tidally locked, even at the far freeze-out edge of the HZ. A tidally locked planet faces clear
challenges to habitability. The constant exposure to the nearby star is fixed to a single side
of the planet. This could create a “night” side which is far too cold, or a “day” side far
to hot for life. A small day–night boundary could be the only region capable of sustaining
liquid water.

As the freeze-out limit for the HZ can be mitigated by a dense heat-trapping atmosphere,
so too can the day–night concerns for tidally locked planets. A very dense atmosphere could
thermally distribute the solar radiation to the night side (e.g. Tarter et al., 2007). This could
bring enough heat to the eternally dark face of the planet to support life (Joshi et al., 1997).

M-dwarf planets which are Earthlike in composition and size might be very strange yet habitable. These types of worlds are sometimes called "Eyeball Earths" because there might be a "ring of habitability" on such a planet:




SEE: 'Eyeball Earth' Planets Could Harbor Extraterrestrial Life, Scientists say - Huffington Post(16)

One can imagine "The Greys" inhabit this ring which would tend to receive lower visible light due to the low angle of the star as compared to the "high noon" of the M-dwarf in what might be a completely inhospitable desert.

M and even cooler L-dwarfs are also prone to more flare activity radiation than our Sun. (17) though this in and of it self does not preclude life from developing:



Though M-dwarf Habitable Zone planets must orbit far closer to these dim stars than Earth does to our Sun to stay warm, they could sustain thick atmospheres. Higher Ultra-Violet output from our Sun could possibly affect sensitive biologicals in and degrade vision of eyes which evolved on planets around M-Dwarfs. M-dwarfs do not radiate much UV. So such beings would have their vision blasted by the UV of our Sun unless protected. This could also account for "The Greys" darkness of eyes. The dark black membrane things which some have described in "alien autopsy" reports may be a form of protection.

As such it is possible that the dark eyes are some form of "alien sunglasses" (either biological or artificial in nature) for "The Greys" operating on Earth since our Sun would be shockingly brighter and produce more UV than the small red dwarf of their home world.

So all this perhaps indicates such a species might have evolved on a planet around a dim star but have to use eye protection for travel to stars similar to our Sun.

Additionally there is a possibility that the planet is not tidally locked but in a resonant orbit where its day/night cycle is long and is in resonance with its yearly orbit. - These planets could experience nights that last for months. (19)

Therefore it might be a good reason to have big eyes which absorb visible light at night while deflecting UV during the long day.

SCIENCE CHECK: Habitable Planets in Resonant Orbits Around M-type (Red Dwarf) stars.

Here is an excerpt from an Space.com article on habitable planets in resonant orbits around M-type stars.

Another problem these long spans of darkness pose for life is the cold, which could freeze the atmospheres of these planets. Still, the investigators note that heat can flow from the dayside of such a planet to its nightside and prevent this freezing if that planet's atmosphere is sufficiently dense and can trap infrared light from the planet's star. This heat flow could lead to very strong winds, but this does not necessarily make the world uninhabitable, they added.

However, the researchers noted that the strength of a world's magnetic field depends in large part on how quickly it spins, which suggests that planets with orbits like Mercury's might have relatively weak magnetic fields. This could mean these worlds are not as good at deflecting harmful electrically charged particles streaming from their red dwarfs and other stars that can damage organisms and strip off the atmospheres of these planets.

The investigators suggested that dense atmospheres could help keep such planets habitable in the face of radiation from space. They added that life might be confined to certain spots on the surfaces of those planets that experience relatively safe levels of radiation. Are astronomers capable of detecting habitable planets with a 3:2 spin orbit resonance?

Nose, Mouth & Skin:


Very small nostrils - These may indicate a thicker, denser atmosphere, which as you've we've already covered might be expected on a SuperEarth type world. These may also indicate the winds on such a world are higher than those on Earth.

Small perhaps non-functional mouth - The mouth has been described as "scar like" in appearance which may indicate evolutionary atrophy. It could be possible this alleged species long ago stopped using it for either communication or sustenance through eating.

Skin - The descriptions of the skin of "The Greys" would indicated it would function well both in water and on land. This might indicate "The Greys" evolved from amphibians on a large mostly water covered planet with little land, a water world which again is consistent with what we know so far about the density of several SuperEarth size planets. This SuperEarth might be lower in high density nutrition as a result with only a few land based species. A species evolving intelligence on such a world might be highly competitive for resources and leery of potential predators. They also might not be at all uncomfortable with returning to the sea. The Greys could very well have evolved from something like these tadpoles:



And as a result, like frogs, they might be as comfortable in water as on land.

Hands:


Hands - These in many descriptions have webbing between the digits or fingers similar to amphibians on Earth. That they still had webbing between fingers might indicate they still spend considerable time in water. Their evolved, elongated nature might indicate they were at one time or perhaps still are used for climbing on a planet which has vegetation similar to that of the Earth but probably not green in color.

SCIENCE CHECK: Colors of Vegetation on Alien Worlds

What color would plants and other photosynthetic life be on a world circling a star different from our sun, such as the hypothetical SuperEarth circling a nearby small, dim M-dwarf star?

This is a subject currently under investigation by the Virtual Planetary Laboratory at my university (University of Washington) who have examine what forms photosynthesis would take around stars spectrally different from our own. You can read abut their preliminary findings in this excerpt of a story here: For plants on alien worlds, it isn't easy being green - New Scientist (18)

Here's an excerpt:

A star slightly dimmer than the Sun would deliver a solar-like spectrum to the surface of a terrestrial planet, so its foliage would look much like the Earth's.

But plants would be different on planets orbiting small M-type stars, or red dwarfs, which are between 10% and 50% the mass of the Sun. Red dwarfs, which comprise 85% of the galaxy's stars, emit strongly at invisible infrared wavelengths but produce little blue light.

"They'll definitely be absorbing in the infrared," unlike terrestrial plants, Kiang told New Scientist. Because they would benefit by absorbing visible light, she says they might look black, although she admits that any colour might be possible. Whatever their colour, the plants would likely look dark to humans because little visible light would reach the ground.

Heart, Lung, Blood:

Combined heart/lung organ - This was described in various documents of questionable repute. But if true, it might also seem to indicate an amphibian species.

Clear liquid instead of blood - This too has been reported in dubious documents but if true it sounds like could be some form of highly oxygenated glycerine substance which might be expected to move oxygen around a body under higher atmospheric pressures than our Earth.

Reproduction:

Lack of anything resembling reproductive organs - This might indicate reproduction through cloning. Sexual organs may have atrophied or disappeared all together over many generations. This might also indicate something like a biological robot which is either not set up to breed or has such a long lifespan as to make breeding irrelevant.

Mentality and Society

Mentality - Evolving on a "water world" with few land masses may have meant fierce competition for the available land and land-based resources. Likewise if they evolved on an "Eyeball Earth" there would only be a narrow band of habitability and the creatures with that band would be highly competitive for resources. This drive for resources eventually may have led them to explore space to conduct things like asteroid mining. Their drive to explore space might have been higher than ours since 1) The gravity well of their planet may have been much harder to escape and 2) Perhaps as soon as they had satellites to observe their planet they might quickly realize what little land existed could at some point be engulfed by a rising ocean if their planet was warming due to waste heat from technology (such as ours slowly is).

Their planet itself may have facilitated a path to nuclear rockets if it were higher in the element of thorium (as we've seen many stars are higher in this element than our Sun). Thorum would be the ideal fuel for nuclear thermal rockets.

M-dwarf stars are among the oldest in the Galaxy and many have ages twice those of the Sun and Earth. They are fairly stable over this entire time which is one reason why they are being closely examined as for habitable planets. Any life which evolved on a planet 8 billion years old would have had a lot more time to develop compared to our 4.5 billion year old Earth. Its society and culture could be as different from us as ours is from that of an ant hill.



Another reason the search for life is interested in these small worlds around small stars is because there are so many of them. Around 76-80% of the stars in our Milky Way Galaxy are these small M-dwarfs. Roughly half of these (48%) are thought to posses a planet in the Habitable Zone of its star. This is remarkable compared to the 22% figure for such planets orbiting G-dwarf stars like our Sun.

Additionally, we've already found the first Earth sized planet in the habitable zone of a star. Kepler 186f orbits a small M-dwarf star around 500 light years away.








So the chances are if we meet anyone out there they might very well have evolved on a planet circling a small red dwarf rather than a star as massive and bright as our Sun.

POSSIBLE WORLDS:


Artist Rendition of the nearby and potentially habitable world of Gliese 667 C c - A possible home world of "The Greys"

So if these creatures existed, where in our neck of the woods in the Milky Way would they call home? There seem to be planets in all directions and almost half of M-dwarfs are expected to have a planet in the star's habitable or "Goldilocks" zone.

From what I outlined above, believers in "The Greys" should probably be looking for a nearby planet like this:




Below is a map of all known exoplanets to date:



There is good news for those who believe such a species exists. Believers would want to look for habitable planets around red dwarf or M-stars nearby (under 200 light years away). As you can see, perhaps surprisingly, we've already found a few.

NASA's Kepler mission which searches for the dip in the light of a star as a planet passes between it and us has found over 1,000 planets and almost 4,000 planet candidates (the majority of which will be confirmed as real planets). However, Kepler looked at a relatively small patch of sky containing mostly distant stars with only a handful of planets and candidates within my arbitrary distance limit of > 200 light years. Other surveys using a different technique called radial-velocity which looks for a star's wobble to detect planets have found some candidate worlds nearby. There are a plethora of ground based planet searches, with new ones beginning every year, some of which have detected a number of nearby planets, some of which could be possible worlds for "The Greys" based on my analysis above.


Given my simplistic criteria of a SuperEarth type planet around an older (4.8 billion or more years old) M-dwarf star, here is a short list of 5 possible worlds "The Greys" might call home:


Name: Kapteyn b
Distance: 13 Light Years Away
Age: 11.5 Billion Years Old
Mass: 4.8 times Earth
Radius: between 1.2 and 2.1 the size of Earth


Orbit:


Excerpt from Space.com(20)

The oldest potentially habitable alien planet

Also this year, astronomers announced the discovery of Kapteyn b, a super Earth that orbits in the habitable zone of a red dwarf located just 13 light-years away from our solar system.

Kapteyn b is 11.5 billion years old, making it the most ancient known planet that may be capable of supporting life. To put that age into perspective: Earth is less than 4.6 billion years old, while the universe itself was born 13.8 billion years ago. So if life took root early in Kapteyn
b's history, it has had a very long time to evolve.

Name: Gliese 832 c
Distance: 16 Light Years Away
Mass: 5.4 times Earth
Radius: between1.2 and 2.2 the size of Earth
Age: unknown


Orbit:


Excerpt: Nearby Alien Planet May Be Capable of Supporting Life (21)

A newfound alien world might be able to support life — and it's just a stone's throw from Earth in the cosmic scheme of things.

An international team of astronomers has discovered an exoplanet in the star Gliese 832's "habitable zone" — the just-right range of distances that could allow liquid water to exist on a world's surface. The planet, known as Gliese 832c, lies just 16 light-years from Earth. (For perspective, the Milky Way galaxy is about 100,000 light-years wide; the closest star to Earth, Proxima Centauri, is 4.2 light-years away.)

Name: Gliese 682 b
Distance: 17 Light Years Away
Mass: 8.7 times Earth
Radius: between 1.4 and 1.8 the size of Earth
Age: unknown


Orbit:


Name: Gliese 667 C c
Distance: 24 Light Years Away
Mass: 6.30 times Earth
Radius: Between 1.1 and 2.0 the size of the Earth
Age: 6 Billion Years Old


Orbit:


Excerpt:

It is a "super-Earth", meaning, as you might expect, bigger than Earth: estimated at 4.8 times the mass of Earth. Depending on its diameter, that could mean surface gravity notably greater than what we're used to: things weigh more, rain falls faster, landscapes are sculpted with a heavier hand.

It orbits within its star's habitable zone—the proper distance so that water can be in liquid form—but since that star is a red dwarf, and much fainter than the Sun, that proper distance is much closer, about a tenth the Earth-Sun distance. Being so close to its star, Gliese 667 Cc only takes about 28 days to complete an orbit and mark its own year. Imagine a birthday party every month!

(22)

Name: Gliese 180 c
Distance: 38 Light Years Away
Mass: 2.3 times Earth
Radius between 1.3 and 2.3 the size of Earth
Age: unknown


Orbit:


Out of those choices Gliese 667 C c seems to my eye to be the best home of the alleged Grey aliens.

Of course there are likely plenty of other habitable zone planets around nearby M-dwarfs we've yet to discover (we've barely looked at the nearby stars for low-mass planets) so that list is by no means exhaustive. It is quite possible we might find an even better one closer than any of these, perhaps even one next door around Proxima Centauri.

SUMMARY OF A POSSIBLE EVOLUTIONARY & CULTURAL HISTORY OF "THE GREYS"



- The alleged intelligent extraterrestrial species known as "The Greys" likely evolved on a water world larger than Earth with very little landmass compared to Earth.

- Their planet could circle a small, dim M-type Red Dwarf star perhaps nearby.

- Both their planet and star are likely older than the Earth and our Sun, possibly by billions of years.

- They may have evolved from an amphibian species who billions of years ago conquered the few land masses on its planet.

- Their "hands" evolved from webbed claws to opposable digits to climb trees perhaps for food or to escape natural predators, or both.

- They are likely an extremely social species. Not a hive mind. Instead their brains may be technologically connected on a basic evolutionary level or through genetic engineering.

- At some point in "The Greys" distant past, reproduction by some other means than sexual reproduction began to be preferred. Perhaps cloning or some similar process would be at work.

- This alleged species may have taken its first steps into space millions of years ago on nuclear rockets.

- As a species which evolved on a planet around a small M-dwarf star "The Greys" would find the brightness of our Sun on Earth to be extreme, perhaps even uncomfortable for their eyes, thus they would want to filter out much of it. Alternatively they could choose to keep a nocturnal schedule, working only at night.

- The home of this species could be fairly close. Closer than most of the planets we ourselves have already detected with Kepler, which means they could have used telescopes to discover the Earth and life on it perhaps as far back as 2.5 billion years ago.

Perhaps most intriguing is this quote from University of California astrophysicist and sci-fi author Gregory Benford regarding the possible evolution of a space-faring civilization on a SuperEarth:

"One sidelight of super Earths is that beyond 1.5 times our (Earth's) radius, it’s hard to get into orbit with chemical rockets. Using the best chemical rocket payload percentages we’ve managed, it’s impossible to get out of such a deep gravity well. With nuclear thermal, there’s little trouble, as they have specific impulses (Isp) ~ 4 times our best H2-O2 rockets. So smart life on such big worlds will have to get to nuclear to get to space. Not a big limitation–after all, we did both at about the same time.

Such a species if it existed might therefore be interested in both our nuclear programs and our rocketry since they would have combined the two in their first steps into space. Nuclear thermal rockets can also achieve speeds far superior to chemical rockets. Such a species visiting the Earth would perhaps look on in amusement as our little probes slow poke our way around our solar system boosted on chemical rockets and we fiddle with atomic bombs. Perhaps they might conclude that we are on the verge of putting the two technologies together as they were forced to do by the huge escape velocity of their home world.

Of course for such a species to get here in the first place, unless they like long journeys lasting a century or more, even nuclear rockets wouldn't cut it for short term interstellar travel.

Something a bit more high-tech than nuclear rockets, a 1950s-60s technology would probably be used by such a species today. After all they may have had millions or even billions of years to come up with something better.

There is a guy in UFOlogy who used to actually work on a nuclear rocket program as a nuclear physicist with a keen interest in the UFO phenomena who would agree. If any of you would be kind enough to forward him a link to this thread I'd very much appreciate it. ;-)

Scientists who work with data from NASA's Kepler mission have concluded, based upon statistics gathered, that the nearest habitable world to our Earth is within 15 light years distance of the Earth:

To put that in context if our Milky Way Galaxy were the size of the United States then 15 light years would be like the one-kilometer walk across Golden Gate Park.




A trip to a place 15 light years away is nearly within our technological ability, so why would it not be within the grasp of someone else who is far older?

CONCLUSIONS

Those who believe in grey aliens visiting Earth, no doubt will be heartened to know that nothing would seem to rule out such a species existing and perhaps even behaving as it allegedly does. Indeed, I've shown both the type of environment one would evolve in, a possible evolutionary path of such a species as well as possible homes for them in neighboring star systems.

This is the closest thing you'll get as far as disclosure. ;-)

However for skeptics like me, this all amounts to interesting speculation in search of definitive hard evidence which can be tested in a lab to document it's existence. Speculation in and of itself does not constitute proof however it can highlight possible future ways towards answers. While believers will believe, scientists will seek very good evidence which is unassailable because the question of whether or not we are alone in the universe is too big to accept anything less.

In the meantime the interdisciplinary science of Astrobiology will continue to seek life out there, examining some of those nearby planets and planetary systems in ever greater detail hoping to sniff out the chemical signatures of life.


NASA scientists and engineers pose in front of a full scale model of the James Webb Space Telescope

NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (2017) and the James Webb Space Telescope (2018) will locate and study the atmospheres of many nearby worlds. Future space telescopes will look even closer at the most promising ones for "biomarkers" or molecules in certain ratios consistent with life.

Beyond that perhaps an as yet to be funded NASA New Worlds Mission will loft a very large space telescope into orbit which can begin to take images and detailed measurements of these distant worlds.


Artist depiction of the Square Kilometer Array

And a branch of Astrobiology called SETI will continue to devise ever more sensitive equipment to broaden the search for technology on or around nearby planets searching for everything from radio and optical and infrared laser signals to city lights on the night sides of exoplanets to large scale astro engineering transiting nearby stars. SETI plans to use the Square Kilometer Array group of radio telescopes to mount the most sensitive search ever taken. So sensitive that it would be able to detect the alien equivalent of an airport radar on a planet around the nearest stars out to 100 light years (An area encompassing 14,500 star systems.) And it could detect something like our Arecibo planetary radar (which is used to image near earth asteroids) 1,000 light years away (An area encompassing 14 Million star systems)



Whether or not the the supposed extraterrestrial species known as "The Greys" actually exist, the search for life and intelligence in our galaxy and the universe beyond will persist as we seriously begin our study of the living universe.

We are at the dawn of a new age of exploration which promises to be even more exciting than the times of Galileo.

One day, perhaps within the next 20-30 years we may have our first conclusive proof of life and perhaps even civilization beyond Earth because if anyone is home in the neighborhood it will be increasingly difficult for them to escape our notice.

I hope you have enjoyed these posts I put a lot of thought into them for both camps.

And that concludes Part 2 in this series "Origin of the Species". Stay tuned for Part 3 in the months ahead and if any of the things I discussed above interests you in astrobiology please check out the books below and the articles and papers referenced.

FOR FURTHER READING


Beyond UFOs: The Search for Extraterrestrial Life and Its Astonishing Implications for Our Future - Jeffrey Bennett, Princeton University Press; ISBN-13: 978-0691135496


The Science of Interstellar - Kip Thorne & Christopher Nolan, W. W. Norton & Company; ISBN-13: 978-0393351378


Vistas of Many Worlds: A Journey Through Space and Time - Erik Anderson, Ashland Astronomy Studio; ISBN-13: 978-0981986470


Five Billion Years of Solitude: The Search for Life Among the Stars - Lee Billings, Current Trade; ISBN-13: 978-1617230165


The Copernicus Complex: Our Cosmic Significance in a Universe of Planets and Probabilities - Caleb Scharf, Scientific American; ISBN-13: 978-0374129217


The Essential Cosmic Perspective (7th Edition)
- Megan O. Donahue & Nicholas Schneider, Addison-Wesley; ISBN-13: 978-0321928085


The Cosmos: Astronomy in the New Millennium (4th Edition) - Jay M. Pasachoff & Alex Filippenko, Cambridge University Press, ISBN-13: 978-1107687561




REFERENCES:

1. Planet Hunters Plot Course For Habitable Worlds - Nature
2. Physical Evidence Related to UFO Reports - Sturrock Panel - Peter A. Sturrock et. al (1997)
3. Origin of the Species: Rise of the Reptilian Alien Mythos and Its Unlikely Source - AboveTopSecret.com
4. The New "Wow!" Signal - SETI's Recent Close Encounter With An Unidentified Emission
5. Forget Space Travel, Build this Telescope - Seth Shostak, Huffington Post
6. Nearly Every Star Hosts at Least One Alien Planet - Space.com
7. Odds are on oodles of Earths - NASA PlanetQuest
8. What would aliens be able to tell about earth from their home stars?](7) - Phys.org, AboveTopSecret.com
9. Sci Fi Channel / Roper UFOs Poll 2002: Highlights - Sci Fi Channel
10. Super Earth - Super Earth - Wikipedia Entry
11.Exciting Exoplanet News from AAS: How Rocky Worlds are Made; Oceans on Super-Earths - Universe Today
12. Lessons from the First Observations of Super-Earth Atmospheres - Presentation by Eliza Kempton - Search for Life Beyond the Solar System Conference - Vatican Observatory / University of Arizona
13. Encephalization - Encephalization - Wikipedia Entry
14. "The Inevitable Social Brain" - Discover
15. On the Habitability of Planets around M dwarfs - James Davenport - University of Washington.
16. 'Eyeball Earth' Planets Could Harbor Extraterrestrial Life, Scientists say - Huffington Post
17. L Dwarf Flares in Kepler K2 Campaign One John E. Gizis (U. Delaware), Peter K. G. Williams (CfA) - Kepler Science
18. Planets with Odd, Mercury-Like Orbits Could Host Life - Space.com
19. For plants on alien worlds, it isn't easy being green - New Scientist
20. Found! Oldest Known Alien Planet That Might Support Life - Space.com
21. Nearby Alien Planet May Be Capable of Supporting Life - Space.com
22. Gliese 667 Cc: Musing the Possibilities of Another Earth - KQED
23. New Worlds Mission - New Worlds Mission Page University of Colorado

Awesome thread I will read it all when I'm not on an iPad and can do more but, you say at some point grays are smaller than humans Possibly due to they originating from higher gravity planets. How does this works?

Did earth had lower gravity before in the times of the dinosaurs that allowed creatures to grow bigger, or was it just a different atmospheric composition that made this possible?

www.sciencedaily.com...

I would think higher gravity demands more bone density to support the structure, not the other way around, so yeah they would be smaller perhaps, but not fragil.

REFERENCES:

1. Planet Hunters Plot Course For Habitable Worlds - Nature
2. Physical Evidence Related to UFO Reports - Sturrock Panel - Peter A. Sturrock et. al (1997)
3. Origin of the Species: Rise of the Reptilian Alien Mythos and Its Unlikely Source - AboveTopSecret.com
4. The New "Wow!" Signal - SETI's Recent Close Encounter With An Unidentified Emission
5. Forget Space Travel, Build this Telescope - Seth Shostak, Huffington Post
6. Nearly Every Star Hosts at Least One Alien Planet - Space.com
7. Odds are on oodles of Earths - NASA PlanetQuest
8. What would aliens be able to tell about earth from their home stars?](7) - Phys.org, AboveTopSecret.com
9. Sci Fi Channel / Roper UFOs Poll 2002: Highlights - Sci Fi Channel
10. Super Earth - Super Earth - Wikipedia Entry
11.Exciting Exoplanet News from AAS: How Rocky Worlds are Made; Oceans on Super-Earths - Universe Today
12. Lessons from the First Observations of Super-Earth Atmospheres - Presentation by Eliza Kempton - Search for Life Beyond the Solar System Conference - Vatican Observatory / University of Arizona
13. Encephalization - Encephalization - Wikipedia Entry
14. "The Inevitable Social Brain" - Discover
15. On the Habitability of Planets around M dwarfs - James Davenport - University of Washington.
16. 'Eyeball Earth' Planets Could Harbor Extraterrestrial Life, Scientists say - Huffington Post
17. L Dwarf Flares in Kepler K2 Campaign One John E. Gizis (U. Delaware), Peter K. G. Williams (CfA) - Kepler Science
18. Planets with Odd, Mercury-Like Orbits Could Host Life - Space.com
19. For plants on alien worlds, it isn't easy being green - New Scientist
20. Found! Oldest Known Alien Planet That Might Support Life - Space.com
21. Nearby Alien Planet May Be Capable of Supporting Life - Space.com
22. Gliese 667 Cc: Musing the Possibilities of Another Earth - KQED
23. New Worlds Mission - New Worlds Mission Page University of Colorado

Much of the UFO and Aliens research came from
www.ignaciodarnaude.com...

and
www.majesticdocuments.com...

In Dedication to…..Scdfa

originally posted by: Scdfa

Jade, I'm sure you're an adorable little student, and probably well-intentioned too, but I need to address a few errors in your post.

1. You seem to be confusing what you know about aliens with what I know about aliens. This mistake does not serve you well in this discussion. Do you really think everyone, everybody in the world is just like you, having to guess whether or not aliens are here? That no one else is in a position to know more than you do? You realize that is an absurd notion, correct?

I will continue this a little later, but I can tell you that a person such as yourself who has nearly three thousand postings in a year and a half has little time left over to be seriously investigating UFO sightings, or having a sighting of your own. It won't happen through your telescope, either. You don't know much about aliens, but you sure have a lot to say about what you don't know. You might want to address that imbalance.

Perhaps I should cut down on my post count and quality of posts containing cutting edge information from the real science of Astrobiology often before MSM picks up on it. Clearly they have little if any value in an Aliens & UFOs forum according to "Scdfa" who it would seem knows more than astrobiologists about aliens.

Scdfa if that is the case, please don't hesitate to publish your findings, your Nobel Prize is waiting..….

originally posted by: Indigent
Awesome thread I will read it all when I'm not on an iPad and can do more but, you say at some point grays are smaller than humans Possibly due to they originating from higher gravity planets. How does this works?

Well it's all speculation but the higher the gravity the less likely tall spindly creatures would be.

Did earth had lower gravity before in the times of the dinosaurs that allowed creatures to grow bigger, or was it just a different atmospheric composition that made this possible?

Excellent question:

The dinosaurs grew so large, we think because the world the inhabited was very rich in high density nutrients and they had no larger predator. Nothing about the Earths gravity has changed since well before life on Earth existed so in theory given the millions of years of time the dinos had, we humans could evolve to be giants like them given a nutrient rich diet.

www.sciencedaily.com...

I would think higher gravity demands more bone density to support the structure, not the other way around, so yeah they would be smaller perhaps, but not fragil.

Sound reasoning. Of course we don't know what a Grey bone would be made out of. Perhaps they'd have some sort of carbon-carbon nano fiberish internal skeleton? Lightweight and strong. But you're right, for Earth life we'd probably be a little more squat in appearance if we evolved on a world 2.5 times the density of Earth.

It could also be that they were once squat in appearance but having become a space-faring species either naturally or by design became thinner.

a reply to: JadeStar

WOW!!!

Now thats a thread.
Excellent stuff, cant wait to get stuck into it tomorrow (its 2.30 am here in Ireland)

Just one thing i noticed, this here,

Therefore the earliest printed reference I can find to this species is in the Raymond Fowler's 1978 book The Andreasson Affair about the alleged abduction of Betty Andreasson in January of 1967.

Well this guy here, Aleister Crowley, was supposedly in telepathic communication with this alien here who was named 'LAM'. I cant remember what year this was but it was back in the early 20th century. I dont know much about the man but he wrote plenty of books.

a reply to: JadeStar

YAY!!!

Bookmarking for later. Looks awesome JadeStar!!

a reply to: JadeStar
Oh! wow! You really did a long thread on this stuff.

I have yet to read it. I only got about 5 posts down and realized its going to be more. I mean I may read it all at some point, but to many links and vids and dont really have the time now.

But really I wanted to say. Dam. Your really did go all out on this stuff. Coolest thread I seen in a long while.