What does ‘Space’ smell like?
In a blog entry on the NASA site, Petit writes:
Each time, when I repressed the airlock, opened the hatch and welcomed two tired workers inside, a peculiar odor tickled my olfactory senses. At first I couldn’t quite place it. It must have come from the air ducts that re-pressed the compartment. Then I noticed that this smell was on their suit, helmet, gloves, and tools. It was more pronounced on fabrics than on metal or plastic surfaces. It is hard to describe this smell; it is definitely not the olfactory equivalent to describing the palette sensations of some new food as “tastes like chicken.” The best description I can come up with is metallic; a rather pleasant sweet metallic sensation. It reminded me of my college summers where I labored for many hours with an arc welding torch repairing heavy equipment for a small logging outfit. It reminded me of pleasant sweet smelling welding fumes. That is the smell of space.
And Aliens Smell Like…
Smell is the most ancient and the most emotionally evocative sense you have. When you sniff an odor, molecules of the scent are absorbed by in the mucous membrane of the fatty, moist, yellow tissue in your nasal cavity, behind the bridge of your nose, and stimulating microscopic cilia on special olfactory nerve cells which are replaced every month or so. The nerve cells send messages to your brain. In fact, the "olfactory bulb" in the brains of fishes is the evolutionary ancestor of your entire cerebrum -- the thinking part of your brain. You have, according to the popular "stereochemical" theory of J. E. Amoore (first suggested by the poet Lucretius in about 60 B.C.!), seven basic smell-receptors (shaped and sensitive molecules) on those nerve-cilia, and therefore everything you smell is a combination of seven basic smells. They are: pepperminty, floral, ethereal (alcohol, or pears), musky, camphoraceous (moth balls), pungent (vinegar) and putrid (rotten eggs). Something smells pepperminty to you if it has wedge-shaped molecules that fit into a V-shaped receptor site on your nerve cilia, and floral if it has a molecule shaped like a disk with a straight handle, which fits into a bowl-and-groove-shaped receptor site. Putrid molecules are negatively charged, and couple to positively charged receptors; while pungent molecules have a positive charge that links to a negatively charged receptor. In all likelihood, the ET will have a completely different set of basic smells. Your receptors are locks, designed to fit particular key molecules. The ET will have different locks and different keys. Still, it might be informative to present a series of smells, which are basic to you, to the ET, and to smell if it replies with any smells that you can recognize. On the down side, you might be poisoning the ET. A specially important type of smell communication is that of "pheromones" -- from the Greek words pherein (to carry), and horman (to excite). Precise scent molecules trigger some creatures to ovulate, to courtship behavior, to taking a dominant or submissive role, to mark territory, to identify family, to designate egg-laying places, or to make a trail back to home. Pheromones are important to insects and to mammals. Martha McClintock demonstrated that a group of women living together synchronize their menstrual cycles because of some pheromone in their sweat. One way of telling if the ET has evolved as a smell-priority creature is where its smell receptors are located. If the ET, for instance, is snake-like, with a head close to the ground, it is more likely to smell odors that cling to the ground. If the ET has feathery antennae, like moths or butterflies, it may have the super-sensitive pheromone receptors on these antennae. If the ET has four or six legs, and a head dropping close to the ground, then it may be somewhat like a bloodhound or truffle-hunting pig. But this is only a hint, not a certainty. After all, how can tell whether or not the ET is smelling with its feet? Well, maybe if it wears no shoes.... The chemistry and biochemistry experts on the Science Team have been running samples of exhaled and secreted gas and liquid from the ET through Mass Spectrometers and other analysis devices. They are coding that data for the computer system, and will now tell you if the molecular output from the ET is varying quickly over time. If the ET is like terrestrial insects in its use of pheromones and other chemicals as a medium of communication, we need to track the changes in smell, and be able to make stinky signals in return. Have the chemical synthesis sub-team make stocks of every chemical that the ET produces, and set up a smell-o-vision gadget that will puff software-controlled coded smells at the the ET. Call in the top perfume designers and "noses" from London, New York, Tokyo, and Paris, just to be sure.(reference) One Person's Experience: October 2002 New Mexico As I lay there, I can not move, I sense this entity, it's about 3.5feet tall and angry that I'm not asleep/ It is pissed off that I'm awake. I dont open my eyes, I am way too scared to. I notice an odor, its unlike anything I have smelled before. It's musty, and slightly metallic(?) - I have not smelled it before and I have not smelled it since.