Why do people claim that space aliens do weird shit instead of the obvious?

Probably because humans do weird things. Like skateboarding on a rail, only to fall and get hit in the nuts. Or thinking that this is a good look. Or pretty much any Japanese phenomena Cracked.com has ever done an article on. If humans do these weird things, it doesn’t seem like that much of a stretch to think aliens would also have some major lapses in judgment.

Alien life is a relatively new idea. Sure, you will find some ideas that date back a few hundred or maybe thousand years, but for the most part, it has only been a popular topic since the late 40’s or so.

I’m guessing, people have not had enough time to ask questions like this. I will need to go off topic now a little, but I am going some place with it.

I am a big fan of nonsense, comedic nonsense. I have spent a long time thinking up strange things, and have got quite good at it. When an amateur tries to create nonsensical words, they usually go for things such as “midgets, donkeys, penguins, koalas, etc”... Likewise, with aliens the first things people came up with was little people with green skin.

As you get better at coming up with nonsensical words, you start going for more mundane every day objects, and start to link them in strange ways. e.g. setting fire to children as they fold linnen. Likewise, I think it is probable that alien mythology has taken a similar path. In a better practiced attempt to come up with alien concepts, people started to take mundane things such as crops, and combining them with strange patterns and things.

As time passes, Ideas about aliens will probably start to shift towards attributing them with technology that would be a push for us to believe. e.g. being able to be in more than one place at once. Anal probes are probably a step between the technological claims and strange claims.

EDIT:

First they were green, now they are said to be grey. Grey is less different to human skin colors than green, it is an attempt to normalize in order to add credability. Limit the strangeness, but keep it a little odd.

Alien mythology is going to get much more interesting as time goes on. Recently, in Hollywood movies, they have started with monster/insect/reptile aliens, this to me would seem an attempt to move away from the humanoid form, again to add credability. Prepare for more “energy orb” claims as time goes by… people will want to move as far from humanoid shape as they can, but will eventually bring it back from non corporeal entities, to non humanoids.

You forgot “run for president”.

@CWOTUS True enough. Obviously, they already succeeded at that.

Just look what scientists do to lab rats.
I guarantee you, saying “Hello” is not among it.

@ragingloli
The fallacy there is the assumption that the space aliens are scientists. In truth, they are more likely to be curious explorers. The question stands.

The exploratory stage would have long since passed. If we take the roswell incident, they would have been here for at least several decades, centuries and millennia even if you consider the ancient alien hypothesis. What would now be here would be the researchers/scientists.
I do not think this is a fallacy at all.
The fallacy I think is to think that an advanced civilisation would let unprofessional explorers roam free on a planet whose dominant species has enough nuclear weapons to blow up the planet several times over.

@josie We’re also assuming they have a human-like intelligence. Who says they aren’t like jellyfish, just floating along? And if they are human-like in their form of intelligence, and they are just curious explorers, take a look at the way human curious explorers (for example the Spanish explorers in the Americas) have behaved towards new peoples they have encountered. I certainly hope that they are not Human-like. Anyway, what IS a scientist if not a curious explorer?

It is exactly that they do not say hello that is why we claim they do all those weird crap, imo.

I find it similar to the belief in deities. Seriously, look at all the crazy stuff these deities can do – all these accounts of their omniscience ..all across the globe varying by culture. If there is a deity, or deities, it would make more sense for them to just say hello already. It would certainly solve a lot of issues. Since that has not happened, humans get creative. Our minds can expand further than our bodies most likely ever will.

Plus, an alien movie wouldn’t be as exciting if they just came for a tour ..then left.

Who are these people you speak of…..oh yeah, fucktards!
I actually think any alien visitor would just move right along, “nothing to see here!”

Maybe a probe up the orifices is how aliens say hello.