>>10926116While I haven't seen any alien life claims worthy of being taken seriously, real aliens happening to be bi-pedals dosn't seem too improbable.
To travel the stars you need to be very intelligent, able to use tools, and a social structure that can pass scientific discoveries down generations.
central brain/lots of advanced nerve clusters is obvious
An alien would probably have good eyesight, so 2+ front facing eyes positioned higher than the average life form on their planet. If you can see over grass, your eyes will evolve to be able to see things in the distance.
For communication, audio is the only one I see evolving, since its useful in small developmental steps for detecting predators behind rocks and stuff. Some magnetic/light thing is only useful for maybe navigation, but small steps in magnetic sense isn't useful until the big jump to communication.
Grabbing tools needs some kind of hand/tentacle arrangement. It probably wont be near the eyes since making advanced tools needs to have tool-on-tool action. Probably something more like a hand where the fingers can wrap around the appendage, since thinks you need to grab (plant (stationary photosynthesis life) parts, mobile creature appendages) probably will have a similar diameter to the arm the fingers come from.
So something matching these descriptions would probably have to be a human-like bipedal, tall elephant thing with a hand on the end of its trunk, or a centaur.
Scale the entire creature depending on the origin planets gravity, so if they can move comfortable on earth, they probably are 1-10 feet tall.
