From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| (Roswell Greys) | |
|---|---|
typical graphical depiction of a grey.
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| Creature | |
| Grouping | Alleged extraterrestrials |
| Similar creatures | Bug-eyed monster Reptilians Extraterrestrials in fiction |
| Data | |
| Country | Varies |
Grey aliens (also referred to as "Roswell Greys", "Greys" or "Grays") 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. The origin of the idea of the Grey is commonly associated with the Betty and Barney Hill abduction claim, although skeptics see precursors in science fiction and earlier paranormal claims.
Appearance
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
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This section requires expansion. (April 2009) |
History
An article published in 1893, "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 hirsute.) 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.
The Greys also appear as the (benevolent) aliens in the 1977 movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
1980–1991
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]In 1987, popular novelist Whitley Strieber published the book Communion, in which he describes a number of close encounters he purports to have experienced with Greys and other extraterrestrial beings. The book became a New York Times bestseller, and New Line Cinema released a film adaption starring Christopher Walken in 1989.
In 1988 Christophe Dechavanne interviewed the French science-fiction writer and ufologist Jimmy Guieu during a weekly French TV Live Show which, at the time, was entitled “Ciel, mon mardi !”. It was broadcast by TF1, one of the three national TV channels in France. Besides mentioning Majestic 12, Jimmy Guieu described the existence of what he called “the little greys” which, later on, became better known in French under the following name: les petits gris.[3]
1992–present day
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" Grey said[by whom?] to have been 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.
Analysis
In close encounter claims and ufology
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 from 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 do not subsequently claim feeling breath or seeing the Grey's chest move from breathing.[1]
Psychocultural expression of intelligence
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"
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
One theory that could explain such seemingly impossible coincidences is the idea 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, then it would be logical, and perhaps almost expected, 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 there is no evidence of what types of life or physiology might evolve on other habitable planets, no way to gauge accurately the likelihood or unlikelihood of coincidences in evolution on two separate planets, and no conclusive evidence of any alleged past extraterrestrial genetic manipulation in our own evolution, the debate over the evolutionary feasibility of the Greys (or any other bipedal, humanoid extraterrestrial species) is ultimately nothing more than speculation on both sides.[citation needed]
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