Our Enemies: The Grey Aliens

Who is out there among the stars? Are there aliens looking out there at our little point of light with weapons at the ready? In the realm of science fiction, aliens have long been the enemies of spacefaring man, and in this blog series, FWS is exploring the varying types of enemies that sci-fi has created. Unlike the previous Space Tigers Our Enemies blogpost, this is not going to be a normal alien foe, because of the subject matter: the Grey aliens. Some believe they are fantasy concocted by fever-dreams of UFO theorists and barely sane fiction writers, other believe that the Grey are one of several intelligence alien species that have been visiting Earth for centuries. Unlike killer space tigers from outer space or other science fictional hostile alien species, the Greys could be real, and they could be reading this blogpost...please don't abduct me and probe my ass!

Who the are these "Grey" Aliens?

One of the biggest mysteries of these supposed alien visitors is who they are. Of course, the internet's various UFO/alien websites have a vast arsenal of theories on who these beings are. When it comes to the Greys physical appearance, the UFO community is mostly unified. Ranging from 3-6 to feet in height, (mostly seen in the 4-5 foot range), weighting in at less than 100lbs, their demure appearance is dominated by those over-sized black inky eyes that appear cool and forbidding (remembers me of an ex-girlfriend of mine). Their heads are triangle shaped with a rudimentary nose and mouth, and are the largest portions of their slim hairless bodies. Speaking of their bodies, they are very small, lacking any clear muscle tone and/or sexual organs, and mostly are seen naked. Their skins has been described as "dolphin-like", and comes in a various amount of shades, ranging from blue to a grey to an orange-tan. Most reports state that these aliens do not communicate orally, but via telepathy, making them just that more alien. When it comes to where they are from in the Milky Way, it was the abduction of Betty and Barney Hill that shed light on their homeworld's location: the fourth planet of the Zeta Reticuli (39 LYs away from Sol), called Serpo by some reports.

• The Slave-Greys= Some UFO sites contend that the Grey aliens are actually an slave race of the more powerful and sinister Reptilian species from the Draco star system. The Greys were created for the purposes of harvesting other species for their "negative energy" and have been called an "worker bee" to the Reptilians Some sources say that the Greys revolted and have forged an exchange program with human governments. They give us technology and we give them access to our population to extend the lives of the Greys. This slave grey race is dying...and they need to hybrid themselves with Terran DNA to forge a new species. Some point to the story of helpers to the gods of the ancient Sumerians as proof. 
• The Good-Greys= these are the Grey aliens that have involved themselves into human affairs for thousands of years, and helped established human civilizations. Some have compared these good Greys to interstellar hippies that make crop circles and give visions to human, not anal probes. Some stories point to the Greys protecting Terra from an full-scale Reptilian race. 
• The Eben Greys=In another version of the Roswell story, the US government made contact with the Greys via a reverse engineered alien device, and returned the lone survivor of the crash. It is these aliens that the American government made contact with, and forged an exchange program with that humans now called "Eben", after EBE. According to UFO lore, in April of 1964 at Holloman Air Force, an UFO landed, and 12 humans (10 men and 2 women) boarded the alien craft bound for their homeworld. This was called "Operation: Crystal Knight" or " Project Serpo". 13 years, eight out of 12 returned home to Earth. 
• The Robot Greys=Given their lack of realistic appearance with no sexual organs, nonworking mouths, no ears, and being naked; that the Grey aliens are an robotic species. This is linked to the rumor that the Greys are an worker race to another species.

Why Are Grey Aliens Popular Foe?

Since the 1961 abduction of Betty and Barney Hill, the Grey aliens have been the face of the fearful phenomenon of alien abduction and the resulting terrifying practice of medical examinations conducted onboard their saucer ships. Abductees speak of brutal sexual trauma and their lack of compassion by these beings all adding up to a race that doesn't give shit one about the human race. This alone is terrifying, and speaks to humanity's deep fears of being treated like a lab animal.
These abductions sounds like grounds for these Greys being viewed as hostile and worthy of the label of a foe to humanity. We have to also examine their appearance as another a reason for the Greys being viewed as hostile. Larger heads communicate the superior intelligence, overshadowing humanity's belief of being the most intelligence species. Couple this with the Greys psychic abilities and communication with telepathy that are completely "alien" to normal human behaviors. While the Grey aliens may have some similar physical features to humans, it is the eyes that also communicate an inhuman and sinister nature. Those almond-shaped black-within-black eyes that greatly oversized are wells of darkness, and we humans often uses blacks eyes in horror movies to show a body possessed by evil. All of these factors equal to a design of alien species that is easy to fear and hate.

The Society of the Grey Aliens

Within the UFO community, there is some, all be it, limited information on the society of the Grey aliens. They often appear in groups, and since the Betty and Barney Hill abduction, there is known to be a "leader" figure within the group. Since they are naked most of the time in these reports, there is no ranking pins or uniforms, also Grey ships appear to be sparsely populated. With the rumors within UFO communities of the Greys being cloned or manufactured, it may be that they are void of any society as we humans understand it. The human military astronauts that went to the Grey homeworld Serpo in 1965 and returned back to Terra in 1978 under Operation: CRYSTAL KNIGHT, told of a aerid world with no money, a council of rulers, and every adult member of the world has a job. All needs are met for the individual by the society...so, the Grey are space socialists? While this is just one story, most lore on the Grey speaks of a lack of individuality, and that the Grey are a hive mind, and they are linked into a common consciences, like the Borg.  

The Military of the Grey Aliens?

When it comes to an alien species that is bent on taking over the world, we think of aliens with fleets of warships and armies armed with ray-guns...but in all of the stories of the Grey, the is nothing resembling a military organization or even a ray-gun. Is there an military organization protecting the Grey and their society? Certainly, there has been an attempt by video games, tabletop war simulations and books to conceptualize an Grey military, but it seems that is a work of fiction when compared to accounts in UFO lore. If the Grey are after something here on Terra, they are not sending down shocktroopers with ray-guns and armed flying saucers. Instead, they come into the night, and abduct humans for invasive tests and sexual trauma. Even in The X-Files, they use proxy forces to do their dirty work. One of the rumors in the UFO community is that Greys once waged a war with another alien species for 100 years, and by the use of particle beam technology, the Greys won the war, but lost their original homeworld. Today, they avoid contact with the other hostile alien races out there.

If They Existed...Would We Fight the Grey Aliens?

 If we are to believe the more sinister stories about the Grey alien species, than one day, if not already, war will result. Any race that would do such hideous experiments to intelligence creatures has a dark core and that alone would spell future off-world military conflict. However, given some of the abilities of the Grey aliens reported by abductees, like disabling firearms and altering time, they could be simply beyond us, and perhaps even beyond waging wars.

Grey Aliens and Popular Culture
Today, the Grey type alien is the archetype alien species in popular culture, and even people that are not interested in UFOs know about the Greys. I was surprised to learn that elements of the modern Grey alien can be traced back to the very beginnings of science fiction with H.G. Wells' War of the Worlds, when he discussed an food alien species, similar in description to the Greys. The trend would continue with an 1933 sci-fi novel called The Unknown Danger by Gustav Sandgren that also described an Grey alien like species. By the 1960's, there were aliens matching the Grey species profile appeared in pulp-era comics.
While Betty and Barney Hill's abduction case is the first with typical Grey aliens, it would take until the 1970's before it would enter into the common conscience after the Travis Walton Abduction and Close Encounters of the 3rd Kind, and be propelled even further with E.T. and Communion by Whitley Strieber. By the mid-1980's, the Greys were solidified in the public's mind as the face of possible alien life, and the Greys became the species that crash landed in Roswell, New Mexico.

However, it would take the adventures of Mulder and Scully to push the Grey aliens into the realm of pop culture celebrity. By the time of the summer of 1996, the Grey aliens were on t-shirts, on the air waves, in the bookstores, and Will Smith was punching them in the face at the cinema. You could go to the mall and see "believe" merchandise everywhere. Yet, like many trends, this one died off. However, this trend did planted a seed into the common cultural consciences that allowed the Grey aliens to become an enduring culture touchstone, and the face of life out there to millions of Terrans. Another element of the Greys featured in popular media is alien abduction. This common fear of things that go bump in the night, has allowed the Greys to be some sort of New Age boogie man that take you and do unspeakable medical procedures on humans being treated like animals. This idea has propagated into films like Dark Skies and the Fourth Kind, that are all designed to scare the living shit out of you...and it works.
 
Science Fiction and the Greys
Long before the Greys became the face of the UFO community, a form of these iconic aliens were featured in early science fiction, dating back to the origins of the genre with the stories by H.G. Wells, who envisioned Grey-like aliens that were enslaved by the Martians food. Grey alien-like beings have been seen since, including in pulp-ism comic books of the 1960's. However, some believe that the Grey Aliens of UFO lore are actually connected to the 1961 "Bellero Shield" episode that Betty and Barney Hill admitted to watching before their abduction.

After the Greys became more common in UFO lore and terrifying abduction stories, science fiction took notice, and soon Close Encounters of the 3rd Kind became on of the harbinger of the modern era of alien stories featuring the Greys. While science fiction and the Greys were at a slow boil throughout the 1980's, it would take The X-Files to propel the image of the Greys into massive white-hot popularity. Capitalizing on this, sci-fi creators turned out books, movies, and video games all with the Greys being featured. For a time, the world of science fiction would fully embrace the Greys and place them in a variety of works, most notably, 1996's Independence Day. Some works were genuine in placement of the Greys, others cashed in on the crazy, cheaping the presence of the Greys. Often, the Greys behavior and abilities were drawn from common UFO lore, and given a twisted by the creators. Soon, the Grey alien crazy was over, and popular culture moved to other things, and the appearance of the Greys would reached a normal level.

Examples:

The Colonists from the X-Files Universe

The X-Files is mostly likely the best television show that will ever be done about alien UFO culture and lore, and their treatment of the Grey aliens is one of the better sci-fi stories of these EBEs, even though it is a mess. Unlike many other Grey alien stories, the X-Files told a story of alien beings that wanted our world, and worked along side a group of powerful humans, the Syndicate, to pave the way for alien invasion and subjugation. This was partly due to the complexity of invading an world the size of Earth, and the fear of nuclear weaponry on the part of the aliens.

While these humans were called collaborators, the Syndicate was actually buying time for the human race to develop a plan of resistance, namely in the form of a cure for the alien plague that was designed weaken the human race for colonization (or inflecting them with alien DNA). Part of the plan was develop an alien-human hybrid that could be a workforce for the Colonists, but in reality the Syndicate was using their time to develop an alien-human hybrid that could resist the virus and be the survivors of colonization. The actually Grey aliens of these series are rarely seen, and this is for the best, giving the X-Files a creepy air. Only proxy forces were mostly seen, like the alien bounty hunters and the successful hybrids. By the time David Duchovny left the show, the basic concepts of the Black Oil, the Colonists, the Project had collapsed under their own weight and the show never did show the exposure of the existence of EBEs to the public.

The Taar from Dark Colony 

Dark Colony is an military science fiction real-time strategy PC game from 1997 that has the player taking control of humans or the Grey aliens, called the Taar. According to the game, in the 22nd century humans have colonized Mars, and found a new energy source. With the new interest and upscaled development of the red planet, it is terraformed. During this, an dying alien race, the Taar, view Mars as a good homeworld site, and engage the human colonists in a desperate war for control. The Taar are one of the few video games to feature the Greys as an fighting force complete with warriors and weaponry, and not just mental powers. The few cutscenes that were available online give the Taar a creepy language and some cool designs. This game embraced two trends of the late 90's: Grey aliens and RTS games, but managed to secure a place in the hearts of some gamers. There are two endings. If the Terrans win, the Taar portal system awakes an underwater city. If the Taar win, they open a portal between their world and Earth, sending a massive invasion force. Thanks to Sefert for the tip on including this 1990's computer game to the examples!

The Sectoids from the X-Com Universe

In another entry in the RTS category that involves the Greys is the much celebrated X-Com games. Throughout the games, their Grey aliens are called Sectoids, and use psionic abilities to wage war along with some plasma DE weaponry. Drawing on some UFO lore, the X-Com Sectoids were a hive species that desired an human-sectoid hybrid for military purposes along with boosting efficiency of their own race. The species survives by cloning, and lacks sexual organs. While physically weaker than other races encounter by X-Com soldiers, the Sectoids have deadly psionic abilities and can mind merge to create a deadly blast. From the 1994 game to the most recent release, the Sectoids have been a mainstay of the series, but have been altered to fit the time.

The Maraduaring Greys from ID4

When released in summer of 1996, Independence Day, it was a massive success with a Grey alien like species at the heart of the story. I can still clearly remember seeing the biggest movie of that summer in Wichita with my-then-girlfriend Becky. ID4's warring aliens where an slime Grey alien type species hell bent on conquering the Earth. In the film, these Greys are an maraduring species that subdue worlds to harvest the natural resources before moving onto another world and more victims. These Maraduaring Greys were based out of an 500 kilometer wide alien mother ship that deploys a number of smaller ships to take position around the globe. When the time came, these Greys attacked the cities with massive laser beams of death, and sent out alien fighters with pilots in organic exo-suits. As we all know, an Apple Macintosh laptop saves the day, bring down the shields of the Mothership, and allowing the nearly pornographic orgy of fighters and over-the-top music. Cheepy toys of the organic exo-suit wearing Greys were seemly everywhere in summer of 1996.

The Grey Aliens from the Area-51 Game

In the lore of the is 2005 game, the Greys are from the familiar Zeta Reticuli star system, and were first introduced to humanity via the 1947 Roswell crash. It is during this that the Greys make a deal with the Illuminati. In exchange for an terrestrial base and access to humanity, the Greys gave humanity access to their technology. The Greys themselves were enlisting the help of mankind to develop a biologically weapon to end the war on their own homeworld. This virus research breeds the Thetas, an badass alien species designed for spreading the virus. While some elements of these Greys was original for the game, most is mined from familiar UFO lore, but the game was quite was fun back in the day.   
The Furons from the Destroy All Humans! Video Game Series

While this game series plays up the comedy aspect of the Greys with healthy doses of Pulp-era science fiction, it is a solid fun shooter with elements lifted from UFO lore. In the game series, the Greys, known as the Furons, use cloning to reproduce and things are desperate. The cloning material is running low and it could be that Furons will no longer be able maintain their superior nature. Your Furon character, Crypto-137 goes to the planet Earth to rescue captured Crypto-136 in the year of 1957. His other mission is to harvest human DNA that has been seeded with Furon DNA, ordered by his commander Pox. The series ran from 2005 to 2008, and garnered positive reviews, but it seems to have ran its course.

The Streibs and the Vree from the Babylon 5 Universe

In the B5 universe, there are several species that draw from the Grey: the Vree and the Streibs. The Vree appeared before I really started watching the series, and from the screen captures I've seen, the Vree have some laughable Special Effects on the show. This half-baked race were rarely seen on the show, but during the B5 lead coalition fleet, the Vree saucer warships can be seen. When I started watching B5, the episode "All Alone in the Night" was a standout, featuring the abduction of Captain Sheridan by the Streib. Named for the author Whitley Strieber, the Streib gathered intelligence on alien species for their clients. They were only seen on-screen for a few seconds, it is pretty clear that the B5 costuming department ran down to the local Spencer's Gifts for their Grey aliens. There is debate if the Streib where in the employment of the Shadows (it is heavily hinted), and the Shadows themselves have Grey alien-like workers as well, and could be enslaved Streib.

The Grey Aqua-Aliens from The War of the Worlds (2005)

In 2005, Steven Spielberg and Tom Cruise teamed up to update the grand classic of science fiction: War of the Worlds. Setting the tale in modern day America, outside of New Jersey. it once again shows the deadly tripods rampaging across the globe and spreading the red weed. Spielberg abandon the idea of the cylinders and blowing up iconic building, and instead focused on a more personal story. The Martians this time were similar to the Grey aliens, but were tripods themselves and evolved from an aquatic environment. To help with their invasion, these aliens buried their war machines deep underground, and used lightning to get the crews to their mecha. This means that these aliens were planning the conquest of Terra for a very long time, and they waited until Terran civilization was at a certain level to spring their invasion. Some believe that they waited until we were at a certain population level, to supply enough food. This is contrary to most Grey alien lore, whereas these aliens were interested in humanity as a food source along with the planet as their new home...the red weed was one part of the terraforming process. Everything in these Grey Aqua-aliens world seems to be based on three's.

The Greys from Fire in the Sky

Back in 1993 a long awaited film adaptation the famous Travis Walton 1975 abduction was released and it scared the utter hell out of me. In the film, logger Travis Walton is abducted and taking onboard an Grey vessel. During his time, he is subjected to a variety of cruel medical experiments by this small aliens that say nothing to him. Instead of grey, these aliens area more reddish color with more realistic proportions.

While some of the film is close to the actual events, the filmmakers played up the horror of the alien encounter. However, they included one element that has intrigued me: the alien spacesuits. In the film, Walton discovers that the aliens use spacesuits for EVAs, and the suits resemble the classic Grey aliens. Could the aliens that people around the world have seen are actually aliens in spacesuits?

The Grey Warriors from Signs 

Showing the Grey aliens as more of warriors rather than intruders was the subject of M. Night Shyamalan's last good movie and one of his creepiest. The Earth is invaded by an alien seeking humans as food(?), but normal water is toxic to these Grey warrior aliens (why would they eat a species that is mostly water?). These aliens used crop circles to coordinate their attack, but their attack was repealed only after thousands of humans are taken. These Greys have natural weapons with thorns that expel poison gas and have a natural camouflage ability. These Greys are something very different that what has been previously seen.    

The Hive-Slave Greys from the Dark Skies TV Series
During the 1990's, when the X-Files was white-hot and the whole Grey alien idea was a pop culture item, NBC jumped on the bandwagon with their own X-Files show, Dark Skies. This alien-themed show was set in the 1960's, and ran for one season comprised of 18 episodes. The Grey aliens, or "the hive", of this series were plotting to take over the Earth through careful manipulation of historical events and important people. Unlike many other Grey aliens seen in science fiction, these Greys were enslaved, and hosts for the real enemy, the spider-like Ganglions that invade the brain of the host, controlling them. These creatures used the Greys as shell to further their own plots and plans to take over the Earth. It seems that the 10th planet in our own star system is the home base for the Hive.

Next Time on FWS...

While the oldest profession is prostitution, the second oldest is fighting for money. While the mercenary is an historic figure, it was an distasteful symbol of proxy dirty wars in Latin America and Africa. That idea of white professional soldiers serving the wars of Africa was recently shake off and replaced by the modern mercenary, or the private military contractor that served in the private military company in all manner of off and on the battlefield. Join FWS has we explore the topic of mercenaries and private military contractors.