This article is about alleged alien race. For topics associated with the colour, see
Grey (disambiguation).
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Grey aliens, also referred to as "
Alien Greys", "
Greys", "
Grays",
"Roswell Greys", and
"Zeta Reticulans", are alleged
extraterrestrial beings whose existence is promoted in
ufological,
paranormal, and
New Age communities, and who are named for their
skin color. Around half of all reported alien encounters in the
United States describe Grey aliens. Such claims vary in every respect including their nature (ETs, extradimensionals,
demons, or machines), origins, moral dispositions, intentions, and physical appearances (even varying in their eponymous skin color). A composite description derived from overlap in claims would have Greys as small-
bodied sexless beings with smooth
grey-colored skin, enlarged
head and large
black eyes.
Appearance[edit]
Greys are typically depicted as dark grey-skinned diminutive
humanoid beings that possess reduced forms of, or completely lack, external
human organs such as
noses,
ears or
sex organs.
[1] Their bodies are usually depicted as being elongated, having a small
chest, and lacking in
muscular definition and visible
skeletal structure. Their
legs are shorter and jointed differently from what one would expect in a human. Their limbs are often depicted as proportionally different from a human's; their
humerus and
thighs are the same lengths as their
forearms and
shins, respectively.
[1]
Greys are depicted as having unusually large heads in proportion to their bodies. They are depicted as having no
hair anywhere on the body, including the
face, and no noticeable
outer ears or noses, but only small openings or orifices for ears and nostrils. They are depicted as having very small
mouths, and very large opaque black eyes with no discernible
iris or
pupil. Sometimes Greys are depicted as having no noticeable nostrils or mouths. Also reports of alleged encounters state their height to be 2–4 ft tall.
[citation needed]
In popular culture[edit]
History[edit]
In the 1893 article "
Man of the Year Million",
H. G. Wells envisaged humanity transformed into a race of grey-skinned beings, stunted and with big heads. (Compare the
Morlocks of Wells's 1895 novel,
The Time Machine, who appear greyish-white and large-eyed, but hairy.) In his 1901 book
The First Men in the Moon, Wells described Selenites (natives of the Moon) as having grey skin, big heads, large black eyes and wasp-stings. He also briefly describes aliens resembling Greys brought down to Earth as food by the Martian
antagonists of his 1898 novel
The War of the Worlds.
In 1933, the
Swedish novelist
Gustav Sandgren, using the pen name Gabriel Linde, published a science-fiction novel called
Den okända faran (The Unknown Danger), in which he describes a race of extraterrestrials: "[...] the creatures did not resemble any race of humans. They were short, shorter than the average
Japanese, and their heads were big and bald, with strong, square foreheads, and very small noses and mouths, and weak chins. What was most extraordinary about them were the eyes – large, dark, gleaming, with a sharp gaze. They wore clothes made of soft grey fabric, and their limbs seemed to be similar to those of humans." The novel, aimed at young readers, included illustrations of the imagined aliens.
In 1965 newspaper reports of the
Betty and Barney Hill abduction brought Greys to international attention. The alleged abductees, Betty and Barney Hill, claimed that in 1961 alien beings had abducted them and taken them to a
saucer-shaped spaceship. (The term "Greys" did not come into usage until many years later, but the alleged beings described by Betty and Barney Hill generally fit many of the common traits of the so-called Greys.) From a star chart reported by Betty Hill, Marjorie Fish, an elementary-school teacher and amateur
astronomer, located the home planet of these beings in the
Zeta Reticuli star-system (allegedly the fourth planet of one of the stars of the Zeta Reticuli binary system). The Greys therefore sometimes became known as
Zeta Reticulans.
1980–1991[edit]
A Grey popularized from the cover of
Communion by
Whitley Strieber. The portrait was painted by Ted Seth Jacobs to Strieber's description and approval.
During the early 1980s popular culture linked Greys to the
alleged crash-landing of a flying saucer in
Roswell, New Mexico in 1947. A number of publications contained statements from individuals who claimed to have seen the U.S. military handling a number of unusually proportioned, bald, child-sized beings. These individuals claimed that the beings had over-sized heads and slanted eyes—but scant other facial features—during and after the incident.
[2]
1992–present day[edit]
A
CGI generated rendering of two Greys.
During the 1990s, popular culture began to increasingly link Greys to a number of
military-industrial complex/
New World Order conspiracy theories.
[4] A well-known example of this was the
FOX television series
The X-Files, which first aired in 1993. It combined the quest to find proof of the existence of
Grey-like extraterrestrials with a number of
UFO conspiracy theory subplots, in order to form its primary story arc. Other notable examples include
Dark Skies, first broadcast in 1996, which expanded upon the
MJ-12 conspiracy, and
Stargate SG-1, which in the 1998 episode "
Thor's Chariot" introduced the
Asgard, a race of benevolent Greys who visited ancient Earth masquerading as characters from
Norse Mythology. Greys, referred to as 'visitors', appear in two episodes of
South Park, and
Roger Smith, a regular character on the animated comedy series
American Dad! since its debut in 2005, is a Grey-like alien. On
Babylon 5, the Greys were referred to as the
Vree, and depicted as being allies and trade partners of 23rd Century Earth.
In 1995 filmmaker
Ray Santilli claimed to have obtained 22 reels of 16 mm film that depicted the
autopsy of a "real" Greysupposedly recovered from the site of the
1947 incident in Roswell, New Mexico.
[5][6] However, in 2006 Santilli announced that the film was not original, but was instead a "reconstruction" created after the original film was found to have degraded. He maintained that a real Grey had been found and autopsied on camera in 1947, and that the footage released to the public contained a percentage of that original footage, but he was unable to say what that percentage was. This incident became the subject of the British comedy film
Alien Autopsy, starring television presenters
Ant & Dec.
[7][8]
The 2011 film
Paul tells the story of a Grey who attributes the Greys' frequent presence in science-fiction
pop-culture to the US government deliberately inserting the stereotypical Grey alien image into mainstream media so that if humanity came into contact with Paul's species, there would be no immediate shock as to their appearance.
The 2012 video game
XCOM: Enemy Unknown uses grey aliens (called Sectoids) as a main enemy type.
Analysis[edit]
In close encounter claims and ufology[edit]
Greys are commonly included in
alien abduction claims. Among reports of supposed alien encounters, Greys make up approximately 50 percent in
Australia, 43 percent in the
United States, 90 percent in
Canada, 67 percent in
Brazil, 20 percent in
Continental Europe, and around 12 percent in the
United Kingdom.
[9]These reports include two distinct groups of Greys that differ in height.
[1] Abductees say that they recognize the leader of their abductors by its "demeanor."
[1]Some ufologists and abduction researchers believe that taller Greys, with their reported increased authority and apparently more complex psychology, may be the only Grey type to be biologically alive and that the shorter form could be their artificially constructed
robot or
cyborg servants.
[1]
Some alien abduction reports have depicted variant skin colors such as blue-grey, green-grey, or purple-grey and sometimes not grey at all. The skin is typically described as being extremely smooth, almost as if made of an artificial material like rubber or plastic.
[1]
Abduction claims are often described as extremely
traumatic, similar to an abduction by humans or even a
sexual assault in the level of trauma and distress. (Research has shown that emotional impact of perceived abduction can be as great as or even greater than that of combat,
sexual abuse, and other traumatic events.)
[10]
The eyes are often a focus of abduction claims. They are said to not move or focus in any observable way to the naked eye. Claims often describe a Grey staring into the eyes of an abductee when conducting mental procedures.
[1] This staring is claimed to induce
hallucinogenic states or directly provoke different emotions.
[11] Although abduction claimants often say that the Grey was only inches from their face during the staring mindscan procedure, they often subsequently claim to not feeling breath or seeing the Grey's chest move from breathing.
[1]
Psychocultural expression of intelligence[edit]
Neurologist Dr.
Steven Novella argues that the idea is a byproduct of the human imagination, with the Greys' most distinctive features representing everything that modern humans traditionally link with intelligence. "The aliens, however, do not just appear as humans, they appear like humans with those traits we psychologically associate with intelligence."
[12]
The "Mother Hypothesis"[edit]
In 2005, Frederick V. Malmstrom, writing in
Skeptic magazine, vol. 11 issue 4, presents his hypothesis that Greys are actually residual memories of early childhood development. Malmstrom reconstructs the face of a Grey through transformation of a mother's face based on our best understanding of early childhood sensation and perception. Malmstrom's study offers a possible alternative to the existence of Greys, the intense instinctive response many people experience when presented an image of a Grey, and the ease of regression
hypnosis and
recovered-memory therapy in "recovering" memories of alien abduction experiences, along with their common themes.
[13]
Evolutionary feasibility debate[edit]
A rendering of a grey (left) and a male human being (right) bearing similarities to each other.
According to English reproductive biologist
Jack Cohen, the typical image of a Grey, given that it would have evolved into a world with different environmental and ecological conditions from Earth, is too physiologically similar to a human to be credible as a representation of an alien. Their physical structure has been sometimes viewed as supporting the
Panspermia theory of origins, although the level "parallel evolution" (using the term in as it is used in Sci-Fi, distinct from the
real thing and the related
Convergent Evolution) required is statistically next to nil. The "parallel evolution" concept is utilized as a
plot device by
Star Trek writers
Gene Roddenberry and
Gene Coon and referred to as "Hodgkins Law of Parallel Planet Development". However, even this fictional theory does not explain such remarkable Grey-human similarities as the facial geometry
[which?], the apparent sternal-xiphoidal process
[clarification needed], the evident pectoral-trapezial architecture
[clarification needed], and the number of toes per foot
[dubious – discuss].
[14]
Some Ufologists
[who?] say such seemingly impossible coincidences
[which?] show that extraterrestrial beings had some influence on the evolution of life on Earth in the distant past (the theory of "
ancient astronauts"), specifically that extraterrestrials were directly involved in the evolution of
primates, including
humans. This was supposedly done by
genetic engineering,
cross-breeding, or a combination of both. This idea may have first gained widespread exposure with the 1968 publication of
Chariots of the Gods? by
Erich von Däniken and has since been the source of much controversy, inspiring numerous other books with various related theories.
[citation needed]
Proponents of this theory of alien
genetic/
evolutionary intervention on Earth argue that if the Greys (or similar beings) were performing genetic manipulations and/or experiments with pre-human life forms on Earth (and could somehow overcome the vast genetic and biochemical differences involved in the completely separate evolutionary histories) that these alleged aliens may have attempted to influence the evolution of life forms here in a direction consistent with their own genetic makeup, and similar to their own
physiology and general physical structure, since
genetically that is what they would presumably be most familiar with.
[citation needed]
Since the history of life on Earth gives some idea of what is and is not feasible on other worlds, and there is no conclusive evidence of any alleged past extraterrestrial genetic manipulation in our own evolution, some Ufologists have offered alternative explanations to accommodate for the evolutionary improbability of Greys (or any other bipedal,
humanoid "
extraterrestrial" species) by explaining them as being native hominids to Earth either having left or living in hiding, as Mac Tonnies proposed in his book
The Cryptoterrestrials, or from another dimension, as proposed by
John A. Keel and
J. Allen Hynek.
[citation needed]
Conspiracy theories[edit]
See also[edit]
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