Will Aliens Want to Eat Us?
The idea that the alien life forms we may someday make contact with will want little more than simply to rip us limb from limb and devour our flesh to satiate their interstellar appetites isn’t new. It’s definitely been one of the most basic notions about extraterrestrial life since the early 20th century and Orson Welles’ War of the Worlds radio broadcast.
However, aliens weren’t always the “bad guys”. In the earliest days of thought regarding potential alien life, after the Copernican Revolution began and the invention of the telescope and proof that there were many other celestial bodies, the idea that some of those places might indeed harbor life of the alien variety began to be taken seriously by the scientific community. These versions of extraterrestrial life were often seen as possibly much like life on Earth: living in a natural order of their own and created by the same God (for those who believed). The very notion that they were so distant wasn’t quite developed by that point — we could hardly conceive of interstellar distances at that point — but this new knowledge definitely kindled the imaginations of centuries’ worth of scientists, philosophers and writers.
Much of the focus early on was on the planets in our own Solar System, particularly Mars and the gas giants. Giordano Bruno, an Italian philosopher of the 1500s, thought that every single star system was extremely similar to our own, an infinite universe where planets with life abounded. Anton Maria Schyrleus of Rheita, a 17th century Czech astronomer, supposed that Jupiter’s inhabitants, if it had any, would be taller and appear more resplendent than we humans on Earth — because, of course, the inhabitants would reflect the appearance of their planet, would they not?
By the early 1900s, Mars had taken over the popular and scientific imagination when it came to the discussion of alien life, following the telescopic observations that showed “canals” on the Red Planet. H. G. Wells had written his War of the Worlds novel, kicking off what would become a common theme regarding alien life throughout the next 100+ years. Astronomer, businessman and founder of the Lowell Observatory in Arizona believed that the canals were evidence of a long-lost Martian civilization. Before the 1910s, though, improved telescopes and spectroscopic analysis ruled out the canals as being built by some advanced Martian people, as well as the possibility that Mars had a life-sustaining atmosphere.
The hopes for Martian life never died out completely, though, and ideas that Martian civilization had either fled the planet long before or moved into underground cities flourished. Jules Verne, Garrett P. Serviss and Edgar Rice Burroughs wrote about life on Mars and in other seemingly inhospitable places like the “center of the Earth” during this time as well. The mid-20th century became a time of vast potential for life in the cosmos as science fiction grew into a strong genre across all forms of media.
The idea that the alien life forms we may someday make contact with will want little more than simply to rip us limb from limb and devour our flesh to satiate their interstellar appetites isn’t new. It’s definitely been one of the most basic notions about extraterrestrial life since the early 20th century and Orson Welles’ War of the Worlds radio broadcast.
However, aliens weren’t always the “bad guys”. In the earliest days of thought regarding potential alien life, after the Copernican Revolution began and the invention of the telescope and proof that there were many other celestial bodies, the idea that some of those places might indeed harbor life of the alien variety began to be taken seriously by the scientific community. These versions of extraterrestrial life were often seen as possibly much like life on Earth: living in a natural order of their own and created by the same God (for those who believed). The very notion that they were so distant wasn’t quite developed by that point — we could hardly conceive of interstellar distances at that point — but this new knowledge definitely kindled the imaginations of centuries’ worth of scientists, philosophers and writers.
Much of the focus early on was on the planets in our own Solar System, particularly Mars and the gas giants. Giordano Bruno, an Italian philosopher of the 1500s, thought that every single star system was extremely similar to our own, an infinite universe where planets with life abounded. Anton Maria Schyrleus of Rheita, a 17th century Czech astronomer, supposed that Jupiter’s inhabitants, if it had any, would be taller and appear more resplendent than we humans on Earth — because, of course, the inhabitants would reflect the appearance of their planet, would they not?
By the early 1900s, Mars had taken over the popular and scientific imagination when it came to the discussion of alien life, following the telescopic observations that showed “canals” on the Red Planet. H. G. Wells had written his War of the Worlds novel, kicking off what would become a common theme regarding alien life throughout the next 100+ years. Astronomer, businessman and founder of the Lowell Observatory in Arizona believed that the canals were evidence of a long-lost Martian civilization. Before the 1910s, though, improved telescopes and spectroscopic analysis ruled out the canals as being built by some advanced Martian people, as well as the possibility that Mars had a life-sustaining atmosphere.
The hopes for Martian life never died out completely, though, and ideas that Martian civilization had either fled the planet long before or moved into underground cities flourished. Jules Verne, Garrett P. Serviss and Edgar Rice Burroughs wrote about life on Mars and in other seemingly inhospitable places like the “center of the Earth” during this time as well. The mid-20th century became a time of vast potential for life in the cosmos as science fiction grew into a strong genre across all forms of media.
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