Guest Author - Alegra Bartzat

Archaeologists have found engravings from the Tiwanaku civilization in Bolivia; some argue that those engravings are depicting an aquatic alien in helmeted spacesuit, inclusive of unusual aquatic tail.

In this sponsored review of the Tiwanaku Engravings, I will discuss the engravings from a biological perspective, commenting on whether or not it would be feasible for intelligent life to evolve in such a form.

The engravings of Tiwanaku (Tiahuanaco) are from ancient Bolivia. On the CrypticThinking website, the author describes these engravings and makes an argument that these engravings imply that the ancient Tiwanaku people had encounters with alien life forms, and this is their account of it. I have not been requested to discuss or comment on whether the engraving do or don't symbolize and encounter with an alien.

The question at hand is whether it would be feasible for life to evolve as somewhat human in shape, but with an aquatic tale, as the engravings imply. It is not impossible to imagine such a form (it has been imagined many times before in history, including the lasting myth of mermaids). However, it is unlikely that any alien life form would evolve into something resembling humans to such a strong degree.

We know of no other planet in the universe that has a climate that parallels that of Earth. This is and of itself is a problem to any encounter with alien life form: it is likely that we wouldn't even recognize life from another planet. Our definitions of life, or at least our expectations, include being water and carbon based. There is a large possibility that life from another planet isn't even based on what we consider these key components!

So, what are some other ways that life can be defined? Our current definitions includes: Homeostasis, Organization, Metabolism, Growth, Adaptation, Response to stimuli, Reproduction. None of these requirements are ruled out by the idea of a human-like tailed aquatic being. Is it possible? Yes. Is it likely? No.