In popular cultures, "extraterrestrials" are life forms — especially intelligent life forms— that are of extraterrestrial origin (often also called "aliens").
Cosmic pluralism, the assumption that there are many inhabited worlds beyond the human sphere predates modernity and the development of the heliocentric model and is common in mythologies worldwide. The 1st century writer of satires Lucian in his True History claims to have visited the moon...
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In popular cultures, "extraterrestrials" are life forms — especially intelligent life forms— that are of extraterrestrial origin (often also called "aliens").
Cosmic pluralism, the assumption that there are many inhabited worlds beyond the human sphere predates modernity and the development of the heliocentric model and is common in mythologies worldwide. The 1st century writer of satires Lucian in his True History claims to have visited the moon when his ship was sent up by a fountain, which was peopled and at war with the people of the Sun over colonisation of the Morning Star. Other worlds are depicted in such early works as the 10th-century Japanese narrative, The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter, and the medieval Arabic The Adventures of Bulukiya (from the One Thousand and One Nights).
The assumption of extraterrestrial life in the narrow sense (as opposed to generic cosmic pluralism) becomes possible with the development of the heliocentric understanding of the solar system, and later...
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