Bizarre Alien Senses: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

One way to make an alien creature seem bizarre to human audiences is to have it detect the world around it with a different array of biological senses than us. Often they're depicted as using sensory mechanisms found in other Earth species, such as echolocation, thermographic vision, or sensitivity to electrical impulses or vibrations. More rarely, writers will equip aliens with biological versions of radar or other technological sensors, or they'll invent senses that discern esoteric forces such as psychic energy.

 

{{examples}}

* In the "vegetable sex" scene from ''Saga of the [[Swamp Thing]]'', Abigail temporarily experiences Swamp Thing's ability to sense life force, and perceives the wetlands as a shimmering field of glowing vegetation, dotted with bright life-sparks of animals.

 

* In the ''[[Tremors]]'' franchise, Graboids pinpoint their prey using sound and other vibrations, while Shriekers and Ass-Blasters use heat vision that's enhanced by blasts of heat emanating from their mouths.

* In the ''[[Predator]]'' film series, the title aliens have infrared vision. This is depicted onscreen by coloring what they see based on the temperature of objects: black = cold, white = hot, and other colors in between.

* ''[[Wolfen]]'' was probably the first film to incorporate thermographic footage to represent this trope.

 

* The life forms of Darwin IV, from [[Wayne Barlowe]]'s ''Expedition'', lack eyes and rely on a combination of sonar and thermographic senses to discern their environment. Justified as a consequence of Darwin IV's having been extremely foggy in the recent evolutionary past, which made eyesight a liability.

* In [[Piers Anthony]]'s ''Omnivore'', the fungus-derived mantas use biological radar to "see" their surroundings.

* [[Alan Dean Foster]]'s [[Humanx Commonwealth]] setting gives us the insectoid Thranx, who have a "Faz" sense granted by their antennae. Apparently, the antennae are sensitive to air currents.

* The Rigellians in the ''[[Lensman]]'' books use a bizarre sense that gives a worldview much like the best solid-modeling programs. They can even see things like the innermost components of shielded power reactors.

* The extinct aliens in [[John Brunner]]'s ''Total Eclipse'' were able to sense electric fields. A minor plot point is the protagonist reasoning that the aliens must have lived in constant terror of thunderstorms. He is therefore able to deduce that a bizarre bellows-like gizmo the archaeologists found must have been a device for predicting the weather.

 

* The Skitters on ''[[Falling Skies]]'' communicate with radio waves, which both they and the children they've Harnessed can detect.

 

** The Orz don't actually smell as their primary sense, it's just the least-wrong translation possible for the concept of exactly how they are sensing their surroundings. Worth noting, the Orz are heavily implied to be an [[Eldritch Abomination]]. A very friendly one. ''Don't ask them about the Androsynth''.

* In ''[[Knights of the Old Republic (video game)|Knights of the Old Republic II]]'', the team bounty hunter can give a short lecture on the Bith (the bulb-headed aliens that tend to be musicians in most bars). Apparently their aural perception covers a much wider spectrum than humans', including some radio signals. However, this makes them extra vulnerable to noise and a flashbang will kill them messily.

 

* ''[[Homestuck]]'' plays with this. After Terezi lost her normal eyesight, she learned how to taste and smell colors to compensate. But when she contacts the human protagonists, she messes with them by claiming that ''all'' Alternians share her abilities.

* In ''[[Arthur, King of Time and Space]]'', fairies and Olympians can see ultraviolet.

== [[Western Animation]] ==

* As Wildmutt, ''[[Ben 10]]'' [[Eyeless Face|lacks eyes]], yet still experiences "images" of what's around him. This perception is probably scent-based, as the images grow sharper when he takes a breath.

* Non-alien example: When the students from ''[[The Magic School Bus]]'' are turned into bats, they experience what echolocation is like, perceiving strobe-like flashing views of their surroundings each time they emit a sonar-cry.

 

** Subverted with flying foxes and baleen whales, which don't use sonar even though most people assume all bats or whales do.

* Thermographic "vision" is found in pit vipers, many boas and pythons, and vampire bats.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Bizarre Alien Biology]]

[[Category:Pages Needing Wicks]]

[[Category:Alien Tropes]]