Mankind has always wondered what exists beyond the stars, and searched for signs of intelligent life ‘out there’. It is interesting that when examining new phenomena, we interpret the evidence of our eyes through our previous experiences. Whenever we look at an object, our brains rapidly assess visual clues to make a determination of what we are seeing. Some of these processes will involve ‘implicit cognition’, where our unconscious memory, experience and perception will determine how the brain decides what it is seeing. So that, for example, if we look at a dog, we can recognize it as a dog, even if we have never seen that breed of dog before.^[1]

See Also: 10 Signs That Aliens Could Be Contributing To Our World

However, when the object we see is unlike anything we have encountered before—an alien perhaps, or a UFO—the brain has less data to work with, and so, more of these unconscious cognitive processes will need to be used in order to decode what we are looking at. All the conscious entity of our brain can do, is theorize within its current knowledge base. In order for our brain to put itself to its fullest use, it must rely on these intuitive, and not always reliable, assumptions.

This may be one explanation of why reported alien phenomena often closely corresponds with current beliefs about the world and our place in it.

That’s one explanation. There are, of course, others.

Here are 10 different ‘looks’ that alien-lifeforms have adopted.

10Classical Aliens

The Greek historian, Plutarch gave a written account of an extra-terrestrial sighting on a battlefield during the third Mithidratic war, sometime between 75 and 63 BC. He wrote, “the air opened and appeared a rapidly descending object resembling a flame, which appeared like a vase in shape and like a glowing annealed metal in color. Both armies, frightened by the sighting, withdrew.”

The alien ship seemed, in fact, to resemble a Greek urn.

The Roman historian, Livy, recorded in The History of Rome, written around 27 BC “phantom ships had been seen gleaming in the sky”. Although these ships may have been alien craft, they looked like entirely conventional ships. It is also possible that this sighting was an example of a Fata Morgana optical illusion, where light is refracted through air of different densities, and bends upwards.

Because our eyes view things in a straight line, it can appear that objects, such as a ship, sitting in the sea, can appear to be floating above it.^[2]

9 A War Between Heaven and Hell

In April 1561, the skies over Nuremberg were filled with strange objects, and smoke could be seen rising from the ground, as if some of the objects had crashed.

The scene was captured by Hans Glaser, wood-cutter, which was the medieval equivalent of a photo-journalist. He depicted a variety of shapes, including blood-red crosses, lead-black orbs and a long spear.

The scene was said to have been witnessed by a number of Nuremberg residents, who saw it, naturally enough, as a sign from God. Glaser wrote, “At first there appeared in the middle of the sun two blood-red semi-circular arcs, just like the moon in its last quarter. And in the sun, above and below and on both sides, the color was blood, there stood a round ball of partly dull, partly black ferrous color. Likewise, there stood on both sides and as a torus about the sun such blood-red ones and other balls in large number, about three in a line and four in a square, also some alone. In between these globes there were visible a few blood-red crosses, between which there were blood-red strips…”

Which certainly sounds alarming.

He claimed that these objects then began to fight with the sun for more than an hour, each eventually falling burned to the ground. Glazer viewed the phenomenon as a sign that Nurembergians should “mend their lives and faithfully beg God, that He may avert His wrath.”

Germany had been in the midst of the Protestant Reformation since Martin Luther pinned his 95 Theses to the door of a church in 1517, and God, and the possibility of eternal damnation was never very far from anyone’s mind.^[3]

8Aliens in a Zeppelin 1897

The first airship was built in France in 1852, and the first Zeppelin was built in Germany in 1893, changing aviation’s future from single operator vehicles to a passenger aircraft. The distinctive cigar-shaped body of the Zeppelin was instantly recognizable and the public interest in this revolutionary mode of travel spread around the world.

Beginning in November 1876, and continuing for 20 years, mysterious sightings of cigar-shaped craft were reported across California, Texas and the Great Lakes. In 1897, one of these craft were witnessed by the occupants of a courthouse in Nebraska, including the jury, lawyers and even the judge. It was recorded as having “bright white light and colored lights around it, and was oval shaped with a box-like structure hanging from it and a propeller at the stern”, which sounds rather like a cross between a zeppelin and a hot air balloon. And the judiciary of Harrison, Nebraska, were not alone. Dozens of other sightings were reported, not all of them quite so credible.

In 1897, Alexander Hamilton told how he saw a zeppelin-esque craft with “6 of the strangest beings I ever saw” standing in the basket, winching up one of his cows into the craft and sweeping it from existence. The craft apparently then rose out of sight. Hamilton went so far as to get sworn affidavits of his honesty from his neighbors, and the story spread as quickly as the common cold.

Eventually, however, it was revealed that Hamilton belonged to a liars club, where he was known to be an avid storyteller and his credibility was irrevocably doomed.^[4]

7 Fiery Foo Fighter Nazi Aliens

During World War 2, Germany was rumored to have developed unusual prototype aircraft, and was known to have been experimenting with propulsion technology and rockets. There were several sightings of these fighter air craft, dubbed foo fighters because ‘foo’ meant something ridiculous or strange.

It is certainly true that the Germans have built some strange machines, but these new machines were unlike any other aircraft of the time. They were also made of fire.

Witnesses said the machines were said to be able to rise and hover like a helicopter, with ‘a great power’ used to launch them, and they moved with a speed that was almost as surprising as its combustibility. No other terrestrial machine could match it.

Despite this obvious advantage, the Germans did not seem to capitalise on their invention, and after the war was over, the machines disappeared from sight, said to have been smuggled from their ‘secret underground bases in Antarctica’, where they had been built. This prompted sightings across America.

Whether the Germans had managed to create a technology far in advance of any then known, or whether, as some proposed, they somehow acquired alien technology is unknown.^[5]

6The Original Flying Saucer Aliens

In 1947, flying saucers (and a crescent shaped craft) were spotted over Mount Rainier in Washington. The report was regarded as credible because the witness were two airline pilots, with experience in recognizing aircraft. One of the pilots maintained that, although he had never seen anything like it, he was sure that it must have been an experimental craft built by the government in some top-secret facility. The other was not so sure.

The two airmen, who were pilot and co-pilot on a commercial flight, maintained that the disc-shaped craft were traveling at high speeds. They saw one very large saucer, leading four others. As the first group disappeared over the horizon, another group appeared. They managed to follow the strange ships for 15 minutes, and noticed that they left no vapor trails in their wake.

Luckily, the aliens seemed to have come in peace. The pilot said, ‘Whoever controlled them wasn’t trying to hurt anyone.’

Which makes sense, because advanced civilizations are seldom barbaric, apparently. The descriptions that they gave of the flying saucers were so detailed they have remained in the public consciousness ever since.^[6]

5 The Bright Aliens of Salem

In 1952, America underwent its own alien invasion. There was a wave of sightings, including over the White House itself, and many Americans began to wonder whether judgement day had arrived. For two weeks in July 1952, objects were sighted by pilots, and by radar operators. Fighter jets were even sent to intercept craft, which disappeared as soon as they were approached.

The objects were described as orange balls of fire. President Truman was even said to have asked the Air Force for an explanation. They maintained that the phenomena were caused by mirages due to temperature variations, creating the same Fata Morgana illusions that had been seen in Ancient Rome, mixed with a large dollop of mass hysteria.

A photograph of the mysterious objects was taken in Salem, Mass by a Coast Guard who took the picture through a window. The four craft were also seen by another coastguard.

It has been alleged that the bright elliptical images seen in the picture may be either the result of a deliberate hoax through a double exposure of the negative, or it may simply be the reflection of some rather more home-grown street lights in the glass.^[7]

4 The Original Alien Kidnappers

Up until 1953, alien invaders appear to have been entirely peaceful tourists, just passing through. However, when they, allegedly, kidnapped a US airplane, they seemed to be more predator than hitchhiker.

In November 1953, radio operators in Michigan reported an unidentified target in the restricted airspace of the Great Lakes, which marks the border between America and Canada, and a fighter jet was scrambled from Kinross Air Force Base to investigate.

The pilot and his radar operator reported that they were having problems tracking ‘the bogey’, and air traffic controllers on the ground watched the two blips on the screen, as the fighter plane closed in on its target. The blips grew closer together, and then appeared to merge into each other. It was feared that the two craft had crashed, but they had not.

The unknown craft proceeded on its course into Canadian airspace, and the fighter plane, simply disappeared. No further response was received from the fighter plane, and a search and rescue operation was launched, with Canadian assistance.

No trace was ever found of the plane or its crew, and many theories have been put forward about what happened, including suggestions that the Kinross plane was swallowed up by an alien craft, which then simply flew away.^[8]

3The First Sexual Contact

There are all kinds of encounters with aliens, some of them close, and some very close. Elizabeth Klarer was the first woman to claim to have had an encounter with extra-terrestrials that resulted in the birth of a child.

She had her first alien experience at the age of seven, meeting an alien named Akon, with whom she communicated telepathically. As an adult, living near Johannesburg in South Africa, she witnessed a space ship land on a nearby hilltop (later dubbed Flying Saucer Hill). Her childhood friend Akon was aboard the ship, and waved through a porthole at her, but a ‘barrier of heat’ prevented him leaving the ship.

However, this problem was resolved a few months later when he took her for a tour of his space ship and she was able to see its ‘earth observation lens’, before they were transported to the mothership. When she was returned to the hilltop, Elizabeth and Akon kissed and he revealed that she was, in fact, a reincarnated Venusian and his long-lost soul mate.

The visits continued, and at the age of 49, Elizabeth conceived a child. She apparently delivered the child on the alien’s planet and left him there to be raised by his father (of course). The entire trip, including pregnancy and delivery, took around 4 months. That is, in earth time. In alien time, it was closer to nine years.

However, the time was not wasted, because Elizabeth Klarer came back to earth with a message of ‘cosmic consciousness’, that people should have love, peace and understanding.^[9]

2 The Hitchhiking Aliens

When considering reported sightings, one of the most important factors that investigators consider is the credibility of the eye-witness, so when an Anglican missionary priest reports seeing a UFO, it is worth considering.

In 1959, the Reverend William Booth Gill was working as a missionary in Papua New Guinea when he noticed a ‘sparkling object’ in the sky. For the next four hours the Reverend took notes and watched the light, along with around 30 other witnesses.

After about 45 minutes the light disappeared briefly, then came back, bringing with it 3 smaller objects. The ‘mothership’ then began to emit a blue light, and it came so close to the missionary that he could see 4 alien figures standing on the top of the ship.

They only left when it began to rain. The following night the ships were back, and the 4 figures were again standing on the top of the ship. This time they were waving. Rev Gill waved back. Then they all went to dinner. After all an alien is an alien, but a man has to eat.

The Australian government was so convinced by the missionary’s report and by his credibility as an eye witness, that they ordered an investigation. They concluded that the phenomena probably had a natural cause, and the ‘human shapes’ might be due to variations in ‘cloud density’. Which is a polite way of saying, ‘Cobblers, mate’.

The missionary, however, believed that the aliens may have been stranded and their waving was their way of trying to thumb a lift. Reverend Gill spent much of the rest of his life talking and writing a guide about his experiences.^[10]

1 The First Robotic Alien

Even aliens evolve. While early encounters with aliens seem to have been with exotic but definitely humanoid forms, by 1973 they seem to have morphed into alien-robot type creatures. When police chief Jeff Greenhaw received a call from a woman who said she had seen aliens land in his town, he decided to investigate, sensibly taking his gun and his camera with him.

On his arrival, he found nothing unusual, but as an extra precaution, he searched a dirt road near the site. Then, in his headlights, he noticed a figure walking strangely. Chief Greenhaw was concerned that he was injured. When he drew up alongside him, he realised that the creature was wearing a metallic body-suit that seemed to emit a bright light. The officer asked the stranger if he was ok, but he did not reply. And so, the police officer did what anyone would do, he started taking pictures. However, the flash of the camera seemed to frighten the creature, who ran off into the night with ‘inhuman speed’.

The photographs were examined by experts and were considered legitimate, at least in the sense that they had not been tampered with. They even discovered UFO-like objects on the negatives that could not be seen on the prints.

It does not always pay to be the messenger. Some people felt that he had simply been bored, and he was pranking his community. When the mysterious female caller who had alerted him to the visitor could not be found, he was fired from his job, his wife left him, and his home was mysteriously burned to the ground.

Which is unfortunate for the officer. But, the truth, it seems, is out there. Jeff Greenhaw stuck by his story, and continued to keep a watch over his neighborhood. Which seems sensible, because you just never know when you will need to prepare for an age of extinction.^[11]

The Victorian age was the birthplace of many things we take for granted today. From refrigeration to wristwatches, many technologies that laid the foundation of modern society were developed over the course of the 1800s. Or at least, that’s what most of us have been taught.

Of course, the 1800s were undoubtedly an age of unprecedented progress and innovation. But many areas of modern life, from the technology we use to the ways we behave, first appeared in Britain in the 1700s.

That century, which laid the groundwork for the global industrial revolution which was to follow, was just as important in the history of the modern world as the Victorian age that followed it. With that in mind, we’ll shed some light on 10 facets of modern life which first developed in Britain in the 1700s.

10 Retail Therapy

In our busy, chaotic modern lives, many of us find solace in spending a day wandering the high street. Even if we don’t buy anything, we find that taking the time to browse the shops relaxes us and makes us feel better about ourselves. You might think that this materialistic way of passing the time must be a modern phenomenon, but it actually has its roots in the 1700s.

Over the course of the 18th century, cities in Britain grew rapidly. This growth was triggered by the flourishing economic wealth of urban areas, which created skilled jobs and helped foster a burgeoning middle class. More people had more money than ever before, and soon, the bustling marketplace was replaced by the flashy high street.^[1]

Shopping became a much more luxurious affair, done for pleasure as much as necessity. In wealthier town centers, it became taboo to even discuss prices or the exchange of money in shops.

The wealthiest were expected to know the prices of most things before they bought or to have so much money that they didn’t care about the price. The details would often be hashed out at a later date to prevent potential embarrassment.

Shopkeepers quickly learned the importance of advertising. Many put a great deal of effort into building elaborate window displays to tempt casual shoppers inside. In a world increasingly dominated by people who could read, they grasped the opportunity presented by the printing revolution and started advertising with fliers, posters, and newspapers. This practice soon spread across the world.

9 Libraries

The Enlightenment led to a shift in European society. People became less interested in an individual’s background and wealth and more interested in their intellectual ability.

Knowledge, learning, and reasoning became highly valued traits, and people became keener to explore history and the sciences. As part of this social shift, libraries became increasingly common.

These libraries were still much different than the ones we are familiar with today. For one thing, they hardly ever contained works of fiction unless the fiction served some kind of moral or intellectual purpose. This was because libraries were still viewed as places of education and learning, the place where people went for reference in the age before the rise of the Internet.

Before the 1700s, most libraries were privately owned and only open to a select few individuals. This changed over the course of the century. Many people of lesser means grouped their money together and bought communal books, which they then circulated among themselves.^[2]

As these private readers’ clubs grew, the biggest began storing their books in central locations and charging new people a membership fee to join. This was how most libraries before the Victorian age operated.

These organizations grew along with the public’s interest in reading, and many, particularly those associated with universities, began offering academics and students free access. These groups became known as subscription libraries—open to all who could afford the admission fee.

By 1850, England and Scotland boasted roughly 500 subscription libraries between them, enough to cover a considerable portion of the population.

8 Office Blocks

Nothing symbolizes modern urban life better than the soaring office blocks which dominate our city skylines. While the modern mazes of cubicles, computers, and wastepaper bins might look incredibly different than any building in the 1700s, the first office block of the modern age was built in London in 1726: The Old Admiralty Office.^[3]

The burgeoning British Empire had become wrapped up in increasingly detailed and complicated bureaucracy, so the government constructed a purpose-built home for the navy to manage its paperwork and organize meetings. More government office buildings appeared across Westminster over the course of the century.

East India House, the central offices of the East India Company, was rebuilt in 1729. Over the course of the century, it grew to become one of the most important centers of administration in the world as the company governed India as one of its possessions.

Charles Lamb, who worked as a clerk at the office for 30 years, described it as “light-exuding, pent-up offices, where candles for one-half the year supplied the place of the Sun’s light.” Not too dissimilar to some offices around the world today.

7 Tea And Coffee Culture

In medieval times, alcohol was the drink of choice to get people through the working day. Nowadays, however, many of us rely on coffee and tea. This fundamental switch—from a depressant to a stimulant—has often been posited as one of the key factors behind the increase in productivity that occurred in the West during the early modern era.

Although the Portuguese and Dutch were among the first Europeans to trade tea and coffee with the East, these products were usually only available to the wealthy elite. It was in Britain that the now-global coffeehouse culture started. By the time the first coffeehouses opened in Paris (1672) and Boston (1676), there were already around 3,000 coffeehouses across the UK.^[4]

These coffeehouses effectively replaced alehouses as public meeting places. Any man, regardless of wealth, was allowed to attend the coffeehouse if he could pay the one penny entry fee. Coffeehouses were often places of raucous debate, public lectures, and stock market trade, earning them the nickname “penny universities.”

They were a staple of individual liberty. The monarchy tried to stamp them out several times over the course of their history because they had a tendency to encourage free thought. Crucially, however, they also provided a steady supply of ready, hot coffee and tea for any who visited.

As a result, over the course of the 1700s, coffee—and especially tea—replaced alcohol as the drink of choice for the average person. As the British sugar trade was also flourishing at the time, they frequently added sugar and milk to their drinks.

The habit of people from all social classes drinking hot drinks slowly spread across the world, especially in the Victorian era, and is a fundamental part of the culture of many Western countries today.

6 First Newspapers

After the invention of the printing press during the Renaissance, printed broadsheets, pamphlets, and even magazines spread across most of Europe. The proliferation of literature in Germany and Britain inspired the common people to take political stances in the Thirty Years’ War and the English Civil War, respectively. But it was still some time before the first newspaper as we would recognize it appeared.

The press was restricted across Europe in the first few years of its existence. Advertising was forbidden, and publishers who espoused any kind of political stance were at risk of being punished or closed down.

In Britain, the press was strictly limited by the Licensing Act, but newspapers prospered after the act lapsed in 1695. One of the first papers to capitalize on this was The Daily Courant, often considered to be the world’s first successful daily newspaper. It was one of the first newspapers to be supported by advertisements.^[5]

The press expanded rapidly. By 1720, there were dozens of independent, regular newspapers being published across Britain. The common man in Britain had surprisingly easy access to newspapers because many coffeehouses and public houses subscribed to at least one newspaper. This would then be free for guests to read—as long as they didn’t take it away with them.

5 Raw Fruit

While many parts of life in the 1700s seem remarkably similar to modern life, their diet was extremely different. The difficulties of preservation made fresh fruit and vegetables difficult to access for the increasingly large urban population. Fresh meat was also hard to find, so the vast majority of it was either dried or salted.

Most people subsisted on a diet of cheese, bread, pies, and stews. Doctors and generally health-conscious people at the time were actually suspicious of raw vegetables and especially raw fruit, which they believed could cause everything from indigestion to plague.

This changed when James Lind published his A Treatise Of The Scurvy in 1753. It provided the first proof that citrus fruit could prevent and treat scurvy. After trying everything from vegetable soups to vinegar and mustard, the British Royal Navy settled on lemon and lime juice. By 1795, they were frequently using citrus to combat the symptoms of scurvy and were the first nation to do so.^[6]

This helped to dispel the myth that raw fruit and vegetables were unhealthy. Raw fruit gradually came to be accepted by the general population, and before long, experiments began to make the production of fruit more efficient.

Conducted by Thomas Andrew Knight in 1790, the first apple hybridization process was widely thought to be the first example of artificially altering the structure of a plant. The Royal Horticultural Society was established solely for the study and promotion of plants in 1804.

4 Copyright

Copyright is everywhere today. We see dozens, if not hundreds, of copyrighted and trademarked materials each day without thinking about them—everything from logos to fonts to phrases have been claimed by individuals and companies as intellectual property.

If we ask the average person what a copyright or trademark is, they would probably point to something iconic like a famous fast-food logo or a brand of designer clothing. But the history of copyright actually started with publishing long ago.

Traditionally, authors and writers were supported by patronage. Wealthy individuals—and sometimes, the government—would provide money and other services to writers they liked or respected to support their livelihoods.

By the 1700s, however, this practice was dying and authors had to find a new form of protection. To prevent authors and publishers from being taken advantage of, the British Parliament passed the Copyright Act 1709. In the Act’s own words:

Printers, Booksellers, and other Persons, have of late frequently taken the Liberty of Printing, Reprinting, and Publishing . . . Books, and other Writings, without the Consent of the Authors or Proprietors of such Books and Writings, to their very great Detriment, and too often to the Ruin of them and their Families.^[7]

The Act was the very first of its kind, and it preserved the copyright of all books published after 1710 for 14 years. If the author was still alive at the end of the 14 years, the copyright was renewed. If not, the work passed into the public domain.

3 Rise Of Cookbooks

For most of history, cookbooks and recipe books were produced for a very particular demographic: professional cooks. These men and women were employed by the wealthy to cook food for them, their families, and their guests. The oldest cookbooks in existence, dating to the Middle Ages, were nearly all written specifically for cooks in the royal household.

Over the course of the 18th century, however, more and more common people learned how to read. By the end of the century, it is estimated that around 63 percent of the British population was literate. At the same time, printing technology advanced and books became cheaper. This led to the rise of the common cookbook as we know it today.

The first modern cookbook was published in London in 1708 and had the catchy title of England’s Newest Way in all Sorts of Cookery, Pastry, and All Pickles that are fit to be used. It was written by Henry Howard, a professional cook who had worked for nobility.

But it contained guidance on cooking all manner of things—from biscuits to everyday meals—and was clearly aimed at a general audience. In the preface, he wrote that his goal was to help “those that are curious in the necessary and commendable art of cookery.”^[8]

It was exceedingly popular and had four editions in two decades. Over the course of the century, dozens more recipe books were published. They were aimed at everyone from the experienced cook to young virgins who were expected to learn the very basics of housekeeping for their future husbands.

Cookbooks steadily grew in popularity and eventually crossed to America. There, the first cookbook, American Cookery, was published in 1796.

2 Toll Roads

One of our least favorite things about modern life is the existence of toll roads. More common in some countries than others, toll roads often exist in hard-to-reach places where the only alternative to the expensive road is to spend a long time traveling down poorly maintained and sometimes private roads.

Other times, they are a way for those who are willing to pay to dodge congested roads near large population centers. An example is the M6 Toll Road near Birmingham in the UK.

Toll roads may be hated today, but they played an essential role in the birth of modern road infrastructure in early modern England. In medieval times, it was the responsibility of each individual to maintain the road in front of his property.

By the 1600s, however, the country’s roads had fallen into disrepair and were clearly in need of improvement. The government passed the first Turnpike Act in 1707. This allowed a private company to maintain a stretch of road and charge tolls on it as long as they kept the roads in good repair.

By 1750, there were over 100 private road maintenance companies, known as turnpike trusts, across the UK. The government passed laws which the turnpike trusts had to enforce, such as placing road signs showing distances to nearby towns and driving on the left side of the road.

The turnpikes led to a very simple “rules of the road” situation which became the predecessor of our modern laws today. The tolls raised by these turnpike trusts were used to pay people to enforce these rules as well as to compensate contractors for maintaining, planning, and building roads.^[9]

By 1776, there were over 500 turnpike trusts and most of the country’s main roads were looked after by turnpike trusts.

1 Engines

The modern world wouldn’t exist without engines. They drive everything from our power stations to our cars. It’s difficult to imagine how modern life would be the same in any way without engines. Without them, we’d have no way to generate a stable supply of electricity.

Although the ancient Greeks developed mechanical devices that could be considered engines today, they were too weak to serve any practical purpose and were used solely to impress visitors or to teach physics to students. The first engine to be put to practical use was the atmospheric steam engine devised by Thomas Newcomen in 1712.

While rather limited in its practical applications, it was primarily used for assisting with mining work. Hundreds of them were built across Britain and eventually Europe over the course of the 18th century. Most were employed in draining water from mineshafts.^[10]

The engine was further refined by James Watt, whose steam engine was roughly twice as efficient. His design, which he refined over the course of the 1770s, could power industrial machines without reliance on horses or water, as mills were at the time.

This freed British industry from geographical constraints, fostering the manufacturing boom that first spread across Britain and then the world. We now know this as the industrial revolution.