I’m wondering if it’s pseudo religious with humans being created in God’s image (Ancient Aliens stuff), the human-centric idea that intelligent life must resemble us, it being easy to make costumes for movies and TV when all you need to do is paint someone’s skin, or if SciFi writers were going for the uncanny valley effect for example.
Lack of creativity from the first people claiming to have seen one. The rest just piled on.
I don’t think it’s a lack of creativity - our brains try to turn all sorts into faces and monsters and whatever else as it’s evolutionary beneficial to turn that shadow into a lion because there’s a small chance it could be, or that rock into a face because it could be a friend or foe, even down to looking at a mouse gripping something while eating and thinking “it’s like us”… When you consider that, of course aliens are going to look somewhat familiar as we’ve learnt to identify human traits better than nonhuman traits
Considering that no one has ever factually seen an alien, we’re left with nothing but our ability to imagine them. And in times past, we didn’t have big budget imaginations like we have now. So like all things from the past, even our fantasies were basic in comparison.
Ever wonder why no one claims to have seen little grey men anymore? Or for that matter- when was the last claim of alien abduction?
It’s because it’s all bullshit.
Exactly. The thought that extra terrestrial life we’d come in contact with would be in the form of one life from piloting a spacecraft is, in and of itself, such a human concept.
Let alone a humanoid life form.