Are octopuses aliens from outer space that were brought to Earth by meteors?

Octopuses are aliens. That’s the claim being made by a team of 33 researchers published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal.

They are not referring to aliens in a metaphorical sense, but literal aliens from outer space.

Since the paper was released on Sunday, a trickle of news coverage has turned into a torrent, with increasingly alarming headlines about octopuses and their extra-terrestrial origins.

It will not come as a surprise to many to learn that these claims have been roundly mocked by the scientific community, who have branded the paper – published in Progress in Biophysics and Molecular Biology – as ridiculous and unscientific.

1 What are the claims being made?

They suggest the Cambrian explosion, a sudden burst of life that occurred around 540 million years ago, was the result of extra-terrestrial intervention.

The paper asks whether this event, which saw the rapid emergence of most of the main animal groups that still exist on Earth today, was “terrestrial or cosmic”. Their conclusion is the latter.

2 How do the scientists suggest this would work?

Specifically, the researchers propose the idea that alien viruses crashed to Earth in a meteor, infected a population of primitive squid and caused them to evolve into octopuses.

Another theory they suggest is that fertilised squid or octopus eggs were delivered to Earth by a meteor.

The idea is essentially a reimagining of the “panspermia” hypothesis, which suggests that life on Earth was “seeded” by space dust or asteroids crashing into Earth. One of its first proponents, Chandra Wickramasinghe, is one of the authors of the new paper.

3 Why do the researchers look at the octopus in particular?

Octopuses are weird. They are molluscs, meaning they are closely related to snails, and yet they are incredibly intelligent.

On top of their large brains and sophisticated nervous systems, the authors of the new paper list camera-like eyes, flexible bodies and ability to camouflage themselves by changing colour and shape as evidence of their extra-terrestrial origins.

So suddenly did these features appear in the octopus family tree that “it is plausible then to suggest they seem to be borrowed from a far distant ‘future’ in terms of terrestrial evolution, or more realistically from the cosmos at large,” the authors write.

“Such an extraterrestrial origin as an explanation of emergence of course runs counter to the prevailing dominant paradigm,” they continue. This is a strong contender for understatement of the century.

More on link: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/octopus-aliens-scientists-theory-meteors-space-earth-cambrian-explosion-a8358631.html

Wow, just wow. This team of scientists did nothing more than observe something extraordinary and propose a theory (or in this case, several interrelated theories) as a possible explanation.

There's nothing vaguely unscientific about that. The next step, according to science as every reputable scientist who practices it, is to test the theory -- to see if evidence can be found either to refute it or to support it.

What would be unscientific would be to declare, "We can't explain octopuses, so aliens!" But that's not what they're doing. Besides, plenty of other scientists who study the origins of life have theorized that it may have come from somewhere else in the universe.

Yeah I agree... the naysayers are rigid. Nobody knows anything for sure.

What about squid?

Ben Reilly wrote:Wow, just wow. This team of scientists did nothing more than observe something extraordinary and propose a theory (or in this case, several interrelated theories) as a possible explanation.

There's nothing vaguely unscientific about that. The next step, according to science as every reputable scientist who practices it, is to test the theory -- to see if evidence can be found either to refute it or to support it.

What would be unscientific would be to declare, "We can't explain octopuses, so aliens!" But that's not what they're doing. Besides, plenty of other scientists who study the origins of life have theorized that it may have come from somewhere else in the universe.

I agree. This was two years ago this article, so any progress?

I think many scientists now agree life was seeded on the earth from bacteria from meteorites. So its quite possible this paper could be true also