Octopuses Are Totally Aliens!
…But Not the Kind You Were Hoping
The time has come, our society has accepted the reality that aliens are out there, and the search has lead us… here, back to earth. Deep in the ocean lurks a familiar creature, a super weird squishy one with eight legs and a dome just like the one on all those little green men we’ve been seeing pictures of our whole lives. All this time looking up, wasted! We should have been looking down.
Let’s face it, Octopuses are some of the weirdest and most interesting creatures we have discovered (so far) living on this planet. Not only do they look alien, but they have higher intelligence than almost any other creature we have studied. They are able to recognize people they like, and those they don’t, they are able to open jars and perform other such tasks and small puzzles, and they come fully equipped with long and short term memory, they have the ability to reason, and even like to watch TV!
If that’s not odd enough, Octopuses actually have something called distributed intelligence, each of their legs is able to act on its own with NO interaction from the brain. On top of that, their legs can actually taste and sense things on their own, not to mention they come with their own built-in camo. They are crazy creatures!
A Few Words From the True Believers
A recent paper published in Progress in Biophysics and Molecular Biology suggests that these creatures are so weird that they, in fact, must have come from outer space. There are two running theories on the subject.
- That retroviruses came to earth via a comet somewhere in the neighborhood of a half billion years ago, and that these viruses proceed to have a huge impact on the evolution and diversification of life under the sea.
- That frozen Octopus embryos were carried to earth on these comets in effect sprinkling octo-seeds all over the ocean floor. Yes, space eggs.
The first theory says that “the evolution from squid to octopus is compatible with a suite of genes inserted by extraterrestrial viruses” — Cause of Cambrian Explosion — Terrestrial or Cosmic? In other words, a space virus infected the earth squid as we know it and BAM, Octopus! This is only a little far fetched as we do know that the octopus didn’t evolve from squid, but what do I know?!
The second theory leads us into the can of worms that is panspermia, or at least one form of it. The long and short of this theory is that some people believe that life on earth came from the cosmos. That the microorganisms and other building blocks of DNA were sprinkled down over millions of years on comets and other such space debris. It comes from a Greek word meaning “all kinds of seeds” or “hella seeds” if you’re from Northern California. But more on this later.
Scientists have recently discovered a phenomenon called “RNA editing” in most cases, a creature will use its RNA to make copies of DNA and produce proteins. With RNA editing, one might grab a little something different than the exact copy but still come out with the same protein. Octopuses are straight up making new proteins all together which is super weird and for sure an argument towards extraterrestrial origins.
While it’s often argued that octopuses, squid, and cuttlefish evolved from an earlier creature called cephalopods, some scientists argue that there is a missing link when it comes to the octopus (virus insertion?). How for example can you explain their ability to camouflage, and ability of which there is no fossil evidence? I would like to take this opportunity that there is no evidence that dinosaurs didn’t have stylish perms, but that doesn’t make it true.
I’m Pretty Sure They’re Aliens But Do Go On….
Trust me, I want to believe the findings of fringe scientists as much as the next person, but there’s this one little tiny theory that kinda disproves the whole alien thing just a little… Evolution. Unfortunately, as fun as it is to believe that space eggs were planted in the ocean millions of years ago, we have all this lame evidence that proves otherwise. It goes a little something like this:
Somewhere around the Cambrian period:
(The Ordovician era) The first cephalopod was basically a snail, but it developed chambers in its shell which could be filled with gas, turning it into a flying snail! (Ok, technically it was a floating snail, but that doesn’t sound as cool)
- These became one of the first swimmers and they got HUGE!
- We know they likely had tentacles at this time so they could reach down and grab their food off the ocean floor. They weren’t super fast, but nothing could see them coming anyway so in this case, slow and steady grabs your face!
So then in the Carboniferous era fish got wise and learned how to swim, they developed teeth and the cephalopods had to adjust so they put their shell inside and got a lot faster.
- We call these guys Coleoids
- Still had the inner chambered shell
Around the Jurassic, we find the first fossil ink sack.
- It’s also probable that they had developed camouflage so they didn’t get eaten like a bunch of fishy little marshmallows
Enter the Cretaceous — Octopods pop up and their bones begin to disappear as they are trying to squish into tiny hidey holes.
- Octopods still have tiny little bones that look like little elf ears on the top of their balloon heads.
Fast forward to now! The modern Octopus has almost no bones in its squishy little body!
- We can also now begin to measure its intelligence see that camo first hand, and enjoy all the weirdness that is a trip to the aquarium to see these guys.
As my mom always says, “proof is in the pudding” or in this case, the proof is squished into the rocks that we call fossils!
But What About RNA and Whatever You Said About Seeds?
Ok, here’s the deal, the RNA thing is super weird, but progress has to start somewhere. We are finding signs of slight RNA editing in other creatures, so what’s to say that the octopus isn’t the most advanced, or at least the most advanced we’ve discovered so far?
It’s hard to say when we’re talking about a form of science that has recently been discovered. There’s no way we can go back in time and see how long ago they developed this ability, at least not yet.
I for one would like to present this as my main argument for the fact that octopuses are indeed aliens, just not the kind we’re thinking of. They are a totally unique and amazing creature, and maybe one of the most unique on earth.
Peter Godfry-Smith said “they are probably the closest we will come to meeting an intelligent alien” in his article in Scientific American . And while I hope we will someday meet an intelligent alien, this is the closest we’ve come so far.
SEEDS!!! I hear you, I hear you!
Let’s talk about Panspermia. As I said earlier, this is the theory that life was sprinkled onto earth like tiny seeds. While I don’t believe that frozen embryos were showered down from the cosmos filling our oceans with tiny octobabies, I for sure believe that life came from space.
We are all made of magical stardust! For real, think about it. The best theories we have going on the origins of earth are that during the beginning of the universe all the matter that will ever exist was flying around and with it the early elements that built all the other elements that went on to build us. A lot of that matter clumped together and made rocks and then bigger rocks that went on to form planets that orbited around stars just like the one we call the sun.
Since it’s very likely that the early stages of earth included several rocky showers, it’s only logical to think that those rocks brought down with them different chemicals, elements, and yes maybe even microorganisms. These are the building blocks of life.
If all the things that built up earth came from space, it seems quite probable that the things that built up life came from space as well. And in this way, octopuses are for sure aliens, but at the same time doesn’t that make us aliens? Aren’t we all aliens depending on where you’re standing while you point the telescope?
So Are Octopuses Aliens?
I like to think so, but not in a “space eggs” sort of way. More in the way that they are a really interesting, intelligent creature. They all have unique personalities, memories, and brains that work in a totally different way than our own.
If we’re going to learn anything here, I think it’s that there is a lot of really cool stuff we’ve yet to discover here on earth. There is still so much of the seafloor that has yet to be explored, and who’s to say, there could be merpeople down there, and there probably are!
Maybe the octopus doesn’t mark our first chance to talk to aliens, but as they continue to evolve, maybe it’s our first chance to learn to communicate with another species, which is pretty damn cool.
I am not an expert, nor do I claim to be. We’re all just here learning together! If you know some super interesting facts about octopuses that I left out, want to school me on something I totally got wrong, or just want to chat about some other out-there theories, hit me up in the comments, I’d love to hear from you!
If you’re totally into the octopus timeline and want more of it, and maybe you want this whole “not aliens” deal explained by a real scientist, check out Danna Staaf in this amazing video that inspired me to write this.
Originally published at https://dottievision.com.
