This is Sagan’s critique on the anthropomorphic aliens, or aliens with human appearance, that are made famous by Hollywood filmmakers and contemporary artists.
Strangely enough, we are used to these kinds of familiar images.
To this habit Sagan addresses, “I do not think life anywhere else would look very much like a reptile, or an insect or a human – even with such minor cosmetic adjustments as green skin, pointy ears and antennae. But if you pressed me, I could try to imagine something rather different.”
Sagan and colleague challenged the popular convention and offered an extremely different vision of a whole new ecology never before seen. All this by taking into account scientific facts and playing around with it.
After all, aren’t aliens supposed to look alien to us?
The lonely species
Our fascination with familiar aliens – a funny contradiction – is deeply rooted in the human psyche.
For humans, the only earthlings thought to be conscious amidst the seemingly endless cosmic ocean, life is very lonely.
Imagine waking up and realizing that you are stranded in the dark with no one to share the anxiety with.
Widya Sawitar, a lecturer of Jakarta Planetarium and Observatorium, analogizes that, “if the universe is a house, then we are placed in a secluded corner in one room. There is still much that we don’t know about the front yard of our own home.” (see Puisi Astronomi or the Poetry of Astronomy)
