quick when i ask what an alien looks
like what's the first thing that pops
into your head is it a deadly
endoparasitoid with two sets of sharp
teeth or perhaps a small green bipedal
creature with large eyes
regardless of whatever you just pictured
you've seen these gray alien
extraterrestrials somewhere before
called zeta reticulins roswell grays or
simply grays these extraterrestrials are
defined by their humanoid forms
exaggerated long limbs large black eyes
small noses thin mouths and of course
gray skin or gray clothing there are
mostly two types of greys the smaller
drone or lackey type and the more
powerful and intelligent tall grays
grays are some of pop culture's most
recognizable representations of
extraterrestrial life but where did this
depiction of extraterrestrials come from
and why are grey's the ones mostly
responsible for all the abductions
i'm dr emily zarka and this
is monstrum let's keep in mind that
supernatural abductions have long had a
place in folklore mythology and culture
from religious rights to fairies deities
to aliens history is filled with stories
of humans being kidnapped manipulated
and sometimes returned to their homes
that's partially why it's hard to say
when the first so-called alien encounter
took place
though one of the first on record
emerged in 1638 the journals of governor
john winthrop of the massachusetts bay
colony report the spottings of various
light apparitions in the area some
accompanied by disembodied voices this
rash of sightings started a trend that
has continued into the present day
most extraterrestrial encounters appear
in the english-speaking world
the 19th century is full of reports
originating in the united states like on
january 22nd 1878 when texas farmer john
martin claimed he saw a flying disc that
appeared to be the size of a saucer in
the sky
a local newspaper immortalized the story
the next day at the end of the 19th
century residents across california
reported incredibly fast-moving mystery
airships about 45 to 60 meters in size
beginning in sacramento in november 1896
hundreds of witnesses reported lighted
aircraft in the sky
many heard voices or singing emanating
from the objects
one witness described it as cigar shaped
with wheels piloted by two men
similar sightings moved eastward across
20 states over the following six months
one witness claimed he narrowly avoided
abduction while out driving his buggy
some 80 kilometers north of stockton
california
he discovered what he determined was a
crashed ship a metallic smooth object
roughly 45 meters long inside were three
pale thin seven feet tall warbling
creatures who tried to force him aboard
but he resisted and fled the shift from
fairy abduction motifs and supernatural
encounters to more technology-based
extraterrestrial reports could be
attributed to emerging technologies and
a cultural movement away from
superstition
and let's not forget that the 19th
century marked the first successful
non-balloon powered flight crafts in
human history
gliders and controlled aircraft powered
by steam engines compressed air
mechanisms and eventually
battery-powered crafts were tested by
governments scientists and hobbyists
many of these attempts were well
publicized just saying still all was
relatively quiet on the alien encounter
front until the 1940s 1946 to 1960
brought another wave of sightings this
time across the western world earning
the period the moniker the flying saucer
era the united states germany norway
france italy and finland saw spikes in
unusual aerial phenomena
most reports indicated the appearance of
either a cigar or circular shaped
wingless aerial craft accompanied by
bright lights the press labeled these
first european sightings as the ghost
rocket scare of 1946
the public and intelligence
organizations alike nervously wondered
if these flying objects weren't alien
craft but real missiles originating from
the soviet union cold war anxieties have
long been proposed by historians as one
explanation for increases in sightings
other considerations the blossoming
movie and television industries
embracing alien mythology and the
growing popularity of the science
fiction genre across all forms of media
1947 was quite the year for alien
activity that year u.s pilot kenneth
arnold observed nine objects he said
moved like a saucer being thrown across
water
a newspaper reporter misunderstood and
published arnold's description as a
flying saucer
as news of the encounter and the term
spread so many sightings were reported
that the air force opened an
investigation and july 8 is an infamous
day in alien encounter history the
roswell incident
following a press release from the
official u.s army air force the
associated press reported to radio shows
and newspapers that the remains of a
flying disc have been found outside
roswell new mexico
the u.s military quickly retracted its
initial report in a statement from the
roswell army airfield claiming the
object was a weather balloon as
unidentified aerial phenomenon sightings
increased in the 40s and 50s so did the
diversity and frequency of aliens in
science fiction texts the 1950 movie the
flying saucer capitalized on the
fascination with spacecraft other movies
like the day the earth stood still
portray aliens as so humanoid they
appear to be humans their technology and
status as extraterrestrials is what
marks them as alien
technology in the real world was
changing as well the first artificial
earth satellite launched on october 4th
1957 that same year the gray alien
legacy begins to appear in reports
brazilian farmer antonio villas boas
claimed he saw a red star that grew
brighter as it approached him in the sky
he testified that short beans from outer
space wearing gray suits took him to the
spacecraft and performed physical and
sexual experiments on him grey
abductions did become a global sensation
four years later in new hampshire on
september 19 1961 as barney and betty
hill were driving down a lone stretch of
dark road on highway 3 in the white
mountains betty noticed strange lights
in the sky that she initially mistook
for a falling star until it moved upward
and increased in intensity
the couple stopped the car to look at
the lights and walk their dog while
barney was with the dog betty looked at
the lights through binoculars and what
she saw shocked them both
betty would later describe a
saucer-shaped craft with flashing
multi-colored lights moving jerkily
through the sky the duo jumped in their
car again to pursue the phenomenon
it suddenly came closer
much closer hovering over them in the
middle of the highway barney emerged gun
and binoculars in hand the pancake-like
craft had a window and barney could see
at least half a dozen figures inside
they began to emerge
gray in color human-like but smaller in
stature and with massive eyes the
creatures were accompanied by a buzzing
sound barney and betty entered a trance
state
when they returned to consciousness
seated in the car two hours later 56
kilometers away neither could remember
where they had been or what had happened
they concluded they had been abducted by
aliens
their experience became the first widely
publicized alien abduction the next
morning a few unusual things seemed to
confirm their suspicion their watches
were stopped a pink powdery substance
stained betty's dress the binocular
straps were broken and circular indents
adorned the trunk of their car days
later betty would report vivid dreams
that filled in the details of their lost
time in the dreams the couple was taken
aboard the craft physically examined in
detail and questioned telepathically by
the extraterrestrials it wasn't until
three years later that they took their
story public first to a ufo study group
and then a month later to seek the help
of a hypnotherapist
he concluded that their experience was a
result of betty sharing her dreams not
an actual alien abduction the hills
eventually reported the incident to the
u.s air force who basically ignored it
the national investigations committee on
aerial phenomenon however found the
story plausible following via boas and
the hills reports human extraterrestrial
encounters took on a rather specific
formula a person is taken usually
against their will onto an alien craft
where they experience a traumatic
physical examination which includes the
reproductive system in what would come
to be known as probing
sexual activity between humans and
non-humans may occur
the person is then returned with only a
fragmented or partial memory of the
events these experiences seemed ripped
from pulp novels and movie screens of
the time and gained more and more
notoriety as they were told and retold
in both fiction and non-fiction
today many scholars have connected the
hills abduction story and its popularity
to racial anxiety betty and barney were
an interracial couple and active members
of the new hampshire civil rights
movement
and by their own account the aliens were
fascinated by their differences in skin
color apparently so was the american
public john g fuller wrote a book about
the hill abduction in 1966.
the interrupted journey was commercially
successful enough that it inspired a
1975 film adaptation the ufo incident
that same year in arizona travis walton
reported an abduction incident almost
exactly like the one experienced by the
hills
just two weeks after the ufo incident
aired on television
hill would record his experience in the
book fire in the sky which also became a
film
accounts of alien abductions spiked in
conjunction with an increase in
extraterrestrial encounters on screen
continuing a cycle of fiction imitating
life imitating fiction the appearance of
grace was solidified and popularized in
1977 with steven spielberg's close
encounters of the third kind and again
in 1988 with the cover art of whitley
strieber's true life alien encounter
science fiction book communion almost 40
years later in 1980 the roswell incident
was published reigniting the belief that
the 1947 crash was evidence of aliens on
earth and a government cover-up
and in 1989 unsolved mysteries aired a
so-called investigative report into the
rumored extraterrestrial activity in
roswell to 28 million viewers
the 1990s brought a veritable golden age
of alien abductions in popular culture
to better understand the community that
has arisen around the subject of aliens
i asked for some help from subculture's
joseph lorenzo who recently took a deep
dive into the ufo enthusiast community
i've been using the word enthusiast to
describe the community because
not everyone is a believer some people
that are in the community are skeptics
other people are believers and so i've
been using the word enthusiast to kind
of describe the community as a whole
because they do come together on they
have this one
common goal and that goal is that they
want more information there's a big pop
culture element of people's interests in
ufos and uaps and i think a lot of that
goes to the x-files like the x-files
obviously was huge in the 90s everyone
was crushing over scully and mulder and
it was like you know this huge
resurgence and so
there has been this like growing
interest in like aliens as an aesthetic
but i do think that there is this
reality that people are just also
interested in aliens is like a real
thing too not just an aesthetic it's
kind of like an underlying um cause for
that the hill abduction inspired an
episode of the x-files and nbc's dark
skies series carl sagan even discussed
it on his cosmo show
books including academic ones abounded
reputable newspapers wrote stories of
reported abductions tabloid front pages
tv shows radio programs everyone wanted
in on the trend hollywood blockbusters
like independence day fire in the sky
progeny contact mars attacks and men in
black to name a few likewise profited
off our alien obsession since the
mid-20th century there have been four
million reports of alien abductions in
the u.s alone the biggest thing that
kind of happened for the community was
that in 2017 when that new york times
report came out the admitting that the
pet pentagon had a secret program that
uh has been looking into uaps you know
one thing that i think is really
significant about this last like 20
years is that if you you know gallup did
a poll in 2005 they found that 24
of people in the united states believe
that extraterrestrials have visited
earth and when gallup did the same poll
in 2021 they asked people if these ufos
this footage has been released by the
pentagon as evidence of intelligent life
outside of earth 51 of people
uh said that they believed it was this
staggering number could be explained by
the desire for money or fame some people
have used abduction as a justification
for sudden absences at home
covering for an extramarital affair or a
particularly raucous night out
psychologists have debated the influence
of false memories a scientifically
proven occurrence where memories of
incidents that never occurred are
implanted into consciousness with
suggestive questioning and distortion of
real world events sleep paralysis is
another proposed explanation
many people report that their abductions
occurred at night in their bedrooms
where the person is startled awake to
find the aliens at their bedside sleep
paralysis is often accompanied by
auditory or visual hallucinations as
well as temporary body paralysis then
there are comets and asteroids to
consider as well as atmospheric
phenomenon like ball lightning or saint
elmo's fire
hoaxes could be another cause but still
many people swear that real contact
between humans and extraterrestrials has
occurred this is gonna might sound silly
but i i like to say that like the level
that you believe is also a spectrum you
know like we talked about like gender
and sexuality being a spectrum but there
is a huge spectrum of people who believe
things the aliens already hear
they are reptilians um you know they
have all these different depictions and
that goes to just like okay ufos have
been here before and that those are
extraterrestrials no indisputable
evidence has ever been produced from an
alien abduction
no objects hybrid offspring devices or
even photographic evidence but that
doesn't mean people have stopped
believing in extraterrestrial life quite
the opposite then that goes to like
these are ufos maybe they're
extraterrestrials and then it goes to
like the skeptics that are like no this
is all
a sham or this is all just the
government or whatever so there's this
like big spectrum of people that are in
this community that all like believe
different things and it creates a lot of
division a lot of drama people get
really really emotional about you know
where they stand and where other people
stand we've seen more varied
interpretations of extraterrestrial life
in the 21st century
as our knowledge grows we've expanded
the concept of extraterrestrial life
past green martians and greys to
sentient beings that come to earth to
share their knowledge
as science and technology advances in
our understanding of the universe
expands our conception of what
constitutes life does as well science
fiction helps us imagine the
philosophical practical and moral
implications of real encounters between
aliens and humans an intellectual
testing ground cloaked in the trappings
of fantasy to make it more digestible
and in exploring these hypothetical
scenarios we question what it means to
be human
in other words how we conceptualize
aliens in science fiction is often more
about us than it is about them
i keep saying european european
cool
monster metro
you