Skip to content
Search AI Powered

Latest Stories

People Debate Which 'Normal' Human Things Would Seem Bizarre To Aliens

man in green mask inside car
Brooke Denevan on Unsplash

Reddit user 2drums1cymbal asked: 'What are some “normal” things humans do that an intelligent alien species might find weird, gross or confusing?'

Make us preferred on Google

Are we alone in the universe? It's highly unlikely given the number of stars and potential planets.

But are we actively encountering extraterrestrial life? That ones a little harder to discern.


And what do/would they think if they are visiting us? Are we a fascinating primitive culture? Or are we more "lock the doors, roll up the windows, we're in the bad part of the galaxy" neighborhood?

Admittedly, we are kind of strange.

Reddit user 2drums1cymbal asked:

"What are some 'normal' things humans do that an intelligent alien species might find weird, gross or confusing?"

Substances

"Intentionally poisoning ourselves to make our tedious lives more bearable."

"Nicotine, Valium, Vicodin, marijuana, Ecstasy, alcohol, etc..."

~ Snark_Life

"And many other mind-altering substances, like caffeine, and things that evolved to be unpleasant or unpalatable, like capsaicin."

~ -King_Slacker

Mini-Humans Are Useless

"Human babies are useless because hip bone sizes limit how much they can develop before birth. That's why a calf or foal can walk in hours, but a human baby takes a year."

"If aliens reproduce differently enough, they might be confused both as to why our offspring are messy little blobs and as to why we're all so comparatively clingy—because if they don't rely on their parents for survival as much their social structure would probably be wildly different."

~ shyishguyish

Likes

"Exchanging saliva because we like someone."

"Slapping our hands together rapidly because we like something."

"Keep animals captive because we like them."

~ _forum_mod

Taste Is Subjective

"We will put each other's genitalia in our mouth, but we won't eat the overripe black part on the banana."

~ Snoo_63187

Close Shave

"Do we really let someone pass the sharpest blade our species could create near our largest artery only to remove our head/neck hair?"

~ tbfoot

Lacto Tolerance

"'You do WHAT with the lactic fluids of animals? Wait, wait, wait, you're saying you don't just drink it, but you also carefully rot it until it congeals into fatty, solid blocks and then you eat THAT too‽‽'."

"I love cheese, don't get me wrong, but it's hard to think about sometimes."

~ Chairboy

Carne Humana

"We're all made of meat!"

~ imn0tafurry

O Tannenbaum

"Decorate the corpse of a conifer every winter solstice."

~ Mumbles_Stiltskin

Bless You v. Excuse Me

"Others call on the intercession of a deity when someone else expels from the nose, but the bodily function wielder begs for forgiveness when expelling gas from the anus or mouth."

~ prodigy1367

Sports

"Bowling. I always thought an alien or very different culture would be shocked by how many people around me are surprisingly good at accurately rolling a heavy ball 30 feet."

~ NigilQuid

"Some games we play, like bowling, golf, do look a little pointless to an outsider."

~ GaiaSagrada909

Face Leakage

"Crying. Shedding tears as a response to emotions might be confusing or seen as a bizarre leakage of body fluids if emotional expressions manifest differently for them."

~ Fit_Journalist_533

Reproduction

"Having hot sweaty smelly messy sex instead of neatly depositing eggs in a proper incubator and neatly fertilizing them."

"If it's good enough for the salmons, it's good enough for our new fishy masters."

~ fogobum

"Take it a step further. What if they don't reproduce sexually at all?"

"That'd be a huge divide to overcome."

~ 250HardKnocksCaps

"Mitosis is indeed a huge divide."

~ PirateNinjasReddit

Efficiency Ick

"That our reproductive system and waste disposal system are interconnected with each other."

~ soccerdevil22

"Hell, the reproductive, food intake, and waste disposal systems of some invertebrates are all interconnected and enter/exit from the same hole."

~ Peptuck

💩🚽

"Pooping in water."

"With water being one of the most fundamental resources to human life and health I feel like an alien species would question why we just expel waste into it and flush it away."

~ CaptainCreepwork

What would you add to the list?

More from News/science

Gillian Anderson on a red carpet premier.
Maya Dehlin / Stringer/Getty Images

Gillian Anderson Reveals Bizarre Rule 'X-Files' Creator Made Her Dialogue Follow For Nine Years—And Whoa

Gillian Anderson has amassed a distinguished career on stage and screen, from her Emmy award-winning performance as former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher on The Crown to earning rave reviews as Martha in a London revival of Edward Albee's Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf?

But if there is one role for which the award-winning actress is recognized more than any other, it has to be her portrayal of the extraterrestrial-skeptical FBI agent Dana Scully on the hit series The X-Files.

Keep ReadingShow less
Paul Rudd
Valerie Terranova/Getty Images for Cunard

Paul Rudd Was Just Spotted Peering Into The Brooklyn Store That's Feuding With Kelly Clarkson—And The Jokes Are On Point

Celebrities: They're just like us!

They get annoyed when they get bad customer service, like Kelly Clarkson, and they get hella nosey when the drama goes viral on the internet—like, it turns out, Paul Rudd.

Keep ReadingShow less
screenshot of Lisa Kearns' vandalized mayoral campaign sign
Lisa Kearns/Facebook

Canadian Candidate Goes Viral After Turning Defaced Campaign Signs Into Hilarious Viral Video

After pouring time and effort into a project, seeing all your hard work disrespected can draw justified anger. But a Canadian woman running for political office decided to turn the lemons life—or, more specifically, vandals—handed her into pitch perfect lemonade.

Lisa Kearns is a former city councilor who vacated her Ward 2 seat to run for mayor of Burlington, Ontario, Canada—a city of about 187,000 people on the western shore of Lake Ontario. Kearns discovered several of her campaign signs featuring her photo had been vandalized over the Canadian Thanksgiving (observed the second Monday of October) long weekend.

Keep ReadingShow less
Christina Ricci; Donald Trump
Gilbert Flores/Deadline via Getty Images; Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

Christina Ricci Just Dropped A Brutal Truth Bomb On A 71-Year-Old MAGA Voter—And Fans Are Applauding

Yellowjackets star Christina Ricci did not mince words after a 71-year-old MAGA voter on Threads vowed to "vote straight Red" in the upcoming midterm elections.

Threads user @janhunterlan, with the midterms just under two weeks away, identified herself as a 71-year-old with an entire family "in California, Texas, Arizona, and Michigan, plus Pensilvania [sic]" that "will be voting straight Red" on November 3.

Keep ReadingShow less
LaMelo Ball #1 of the Minnesota Timberwolves celebrates a three-point basket against the Detroit Pistons.
David Berding/Getty Images

NBA Star Sparks Backlash After Saying That Changing His Infant Son's Diapers Is 'Not My Job'

It's 2026, but NBA star LaMelo Ball apparently hasn't gotten the memo that fatherhood has moved beyond the 1950s. The Minnesota Timberwolves point guard is catching heat after declaring that changing his infant son's diapers is "not my job."

The 25-year-old made the eyebrow-raising admission during an Inside the NBA interview with Ernie Johnson Jr. ahead of his October 21 debut with Minnesota.

Keep ReadingShow less