First confirmed intelligent aliens will be

Science Aliens Science Fiction

Basic

Ṁ1.0k

2137

ALL

11%

Buoyant (e.g. whales or gas bags)

10%

Carcinoid (e.g. crabs)

Crystalline (e.g. silicon substrate)

Humanoid (e.g. greys, Mexican fakes)

16%

Tentacled (e.g. squid, jellyfish)

Winged (e.g. birds, pterodactyls)

15%

Extinct (e.g. forerunners, ring builders, old ones)

Composite (e.g. hermit crabs, the Borg)

30%

Other

No unicellular algae-like goop 'cuz it's boring, jellyfish is pushing it. Cat people and Star Trek forehead-of-the-week rolled under humanoid.

2023-09-16 added Winged, Extinct, Composite since Other is dominant

Taking fun suggestions in comments.

Get Ṁ600 play money

Related questions

What biological characteristics will the first proven aliens have?

Will the first intelligent extraterrestrial that humanity encounters have what would be commonly described as eyes?

60% chance

If we encounter intelligent aliens, will they turn out to lack self-awareness? [read description]

38% chance

If abiogenetically distinct alien life is discovered in the solar system before 2070, where will it be first discovered?

A Government to confirm the existence of alien 👽 life on earth 🌎 by 2025.

4% chance

Will we detect extraterrestrial intelligent life in the universe by 2124?

31% chance

When will alien life be first discovered?

Will first contact with extraterrestrial life be initiated by Earthlings?

40% chance

In 2100, will there be an expert consensus that aliens have been observed?

28% chance

Will we discover alien life before 2039?

Sort by:

What current water animals would fall under Buoyant? Would Earth whales count?

If it needs to be in air, what counts as air? What about supercritical or nearly supercritical fluids?

@Irigi They count. Intent is to catch anything swimming or floating in (any) liquid or gas.

Possibly of interest to those proposing other types:

http://jbr.me.uk/exo/

The SCI‐FI‐I‐SPY Catalogue of All Known Types of Alien
Welcome to a 100 % exhaustive listing of every type of alien in every system in every multiverse in the genre! It may sound as if there should be more than fifty in the collection, but once you've accounted for minor variants within each archetype (and the bastard offspring of illicit inter‐category hybridisation), it turns out that all apparent leftovers are just cases of inaccurate reporting – a remarkable proportion of SF authors need glasses.

e.g. "floating gas bag with tentacles" corresponds to #16: Hydroids

Definitely needs to have some kind of manipulator limb, right? Or be some kind of post-biological uploaded intelligence.

Oh, wait wait wait wait.

Where do floating gas bags with tentacles go? Under boyuant or under tentacles?

Because there's orders of magnitude more locations for boyuant species

@CromlynGames Multiple choice poll, resolution to all entries that apply.

What about bird-like (two legs and flight), four-legged (like most of our animals), our four-legged with another pair of hands (evolved from six-legged animals presumably)?

@Irigi "Winged (e.g. birds, pterodactyls)" strong contender for new addition.

Limb counting would add too many options. Looking for iconic archetypes rather than taxonomy.

Hive-minds might also be a distinct possibility too

How would you categorize cyborgs? Or AI (super)intelligences?

Or if looking for purely biological species, eusocial intelligences?

@Meta_C Some variation on symbiotes/parasites perhaps? Cybernetic organisms would be a fun category if there's a way to rule out basic medical implants and prosthetics.

@alexkropivny

Cybernetic organisms could possibly take the form of Xenobots. They are machines made from living/organic tissue, and can even reproduce:

https://www.sciencefocus.com/future-technology/ai-xenobots

An AI created robots out of living tissue. Then they started to reproduce…. Meet the xenobots

Scientists are using living materials to make machines that some would regard as alive… and now they’ve started to replicate

@alexkropivny

This video on Xenobots is also good:

https://www.youtube.com/live/FqkfBish_Ic?si=F5pixQiIASCzZhpm

Xenobots 3.0: Living Robots That Can Reproduce

The scientists behind Xenobots participated in a live webinar on December 1, 2021 to discuss their research. Credit: Wyss Institute at Harvard UniversityLear...