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Originally Posted by Ant10708
"The popluar concept of aliens is a modernization of the belief in elves. "
Really?
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Fantastical creatures are always just beyond our horizon, and as we expand our horizon they get wiped out. We've sailed around the world and searched lakes without finding sea monsters, we've gone through jungles without finding satyrs, we've found scientific explanations for stuff that was attributed to elves, brownies and witches. But we will always have folklore, so the properties of these creatures are assigned to new ones that are just out of reach geographically or scientifically. Right now these are in space, some really dense jungles in remote places and really deep oceans. Which is why there are dinosaurs in New Guinea and aliens cruising through the solar system.
Once we go there and find scientific reasons to assume they're not real (which we really have already), they'll fade away like Bigfoot and Nessie almost have. And they'll probably turn into interdimensional visitors, since stuff like string theory is easily accepted by many out of the know as strongly indicative of parallel universes.
I'm not saying we won't keep finding weird creatures in jungles and ocean depths, we're discovering the suckers like it's 1999, and they're AWESOME. But it's important to be aware of the distinction between the existence of creatures unknown to us and the mythological concept of them.
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