Kyle Gilmore
Writing Section 9
final revision

The Mirrored Skies

  The night cradles the sky. The sky holds the stars like a black sequined dress.  The stars tempt one's sight like glimmering gold.  The sight dominates one's thoughts.  The thoughts guide one's hands.  One's hands cradle a lime-green three-eyed humanoid plastic alien.  "Made in China. Copyright Disney."

Yes, aliens are among us.  They have infiltrated almost every one of our product markets (I don't believe I've seen them on a cereal box, but I'm sure "alien toast crunch" will be here any day).  They are widely seen in cinema, even Disney movies (what would Walt think?) from which they are eventually turned into plastic key chain flashlights.  Are aliens merely a novelty, though?  No, there is much more to it than this.  If we take a step back, what does this alien and others like it say to us about the state of belief in our society?  Is it possible that people only want a belief÷they could care less about actual alien life?  Is the belief in aliens actually just a veiled belief in humankindās good and evil inclinations?  The answer is yes, for if we look at aliens of the past and present, it is impossible to discern where we end and they begin.

When first surveying our plastic alien one might take for granted the fact that it is essentially human. Productive imaginations led to movies at the turn of the century which popularized aliens as completely human in appearance. Prior to the spark of the "flying saucer craze" by the 1947 Roswell, New Mexico incident, such human aliens were common in movies like Aelita (1924) and Flash Gordon (1938).  After the incident, however, it was as if people suddenly began to believe aliens could actually exist and thus more "alien" aliens appeared in cinema.  These aliens were still, however, shaped like humans, for budget constraints meant that aliens had to be played by actors in low-cost makeup and costumes.  As the movies progressed, however, aliens began to differ, as our plastic Disney "retro" alien does, in number of eyes (three for the one in question), number of limbs/appendages (three fingers per hand for ours) and skin color ( modern aliens tend to be gray, ours is a throwback to the classic green of the fifties).  It is explained by Walter Parkes that another reason aliens look the way they do is because people "want to be able to relate to the creatures, so [they] want some semblance of human form" to be present (Andersen 39).  But were these new, different looking aliens all that they seemed?

In the extraterrestrial films of the fifties, produced in the beginning of the cold war era in the United States,invading aliens were essentially human, but just different enough to be wrong and utterly un-American: a symbol of the enemies of our nation (Kuhn 16). Looking back in history it can easily be seen that humans generally fear things that are different.  Thus, the exact purpose of the original, cold war aliens in cinema was to show the danger of slightā differences (sure the communists are human, but·).  So the alien forefathers of the fifties paved the way for humanoids aliens, and though the movies were not even about aliens, people began adapting them from the screen to their own belief systems, pinning on them the tag of invader or, in the decade to follow, savior.  Consequently, the increase in film portrayals of aliens led to increases in sightings and abduction reports, all of which involved aliens which were as human as possible, for it was harder to attribute human characteristics to things utterly alien (as a life form developing in a completely different environment would undoubtedly be).

Extremely narrow definitions of beauty and aesthetics at work in society further shaped aliens. In regards to our little green man, for example, it should be noted that he is "cute."  What would happen if an alien was repulsive to us?  The answer can be seen in how society treats a person who doesn'tāt fit into itās "norms" and in alien movies of the previous decade or so.  If someone watched such movies religiously, he wouldn'tāt fear an aesthetically pleasing alien, for it is common knowledge in the genre that attractive aliens are benevolent (moist-eyed ET in a bathrobe, anyone?), while their hideous counterparts (all hail, the Aliens queen) are undoubtedly malevolent. In fact, the "rule of thumb" in the industry for creating on-screen aliens is: large eyes and small mouths for benevolent beings, and the converse, small eyes and a large mouths, for malevolent beings (Jackson 11).  Aliens that are benevolent are most often proportioned similar to babies, kittens or puppies: reminiscent of the stuffed animals of our youth (E.T., the Ewoks).  Malevolent aliens are often spawned by a melding of human fears: almost all have many insectile or reptilian characteristics (Andersen 39).

The most popular alien image today, one which appears on bumper stickers, T-shirts, in movies and in nearly all modern abduction reports since the seventies, is the all-to-familiar "savior alien."  He has a white-grey, extremely slender, spindly torso and limbs, and a ample head (somewhat resembling an inverted pear) with large, wrap-around eyes and the smallest of mouths.  In "eye witness accounts" and in movies to come it was noted that the savior alien seems to be an artistās conception of the course of human evolution:  much larger craniums (a necessity for technological advances) and dwindled bodies (a drawback of technologically-induced inactivity) (Nickell 18).  The basic shape of the savior alien was first widely encountered in the Roswell incident.  It then resurfaced in the extensively published 1961 Betty and Barney Hill abduction account.  Shortly after, in the Woodstock era, the notion of the savior alien replaced the previous decadeās idea of evil, scheming aliens with itās peaceful visage (Andersen 38). Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) was the first film to use the modern conception of the savior alien and was followed by an explosion of abduction reports that "mysteriously" described aliens of the filmās type (Anderson 38).  This was the birth of the "Alien Messiah" (Ruppersberg  34).

But does life actually exist elsewhere in the universe?  In all truth, it doesn'tāt matter to those who believe.  The belief exists: yet another installment in the seemingly innate human yearning to believe: to have a faith that will add a new and appealing dimension to the everyday world.  The new belief has spawned a modernization of Christianity, subscribed to by modern people, and governed by a modern, less discerning god. The belief in extraterrestrial life is society's answer to all the rules and regulations of an old belief system.  The Alien Messiah has no church, no Bible.  He asks for very little÷which is exactly what people are willing to give.  It is a new belief that is actually very old.  The Alien Messiah, like God, is a personification of man's possible good÷evolved in a way that can save mankind with higher intellect and technology (something shunned by older religions).  The Alien Messiah is expected to deliver us from our own self destruction, an act paralleled by Godās offering of salvation from manās original sin.  We also look for strength to rival  Satan, or the invader alien, both the embodiments of what we must battle within ourselves.  It appears man can only think in terms of man, so when we look into the night sky and, regardless of our faith, see faces looking back at us, or when we hold a certain plastic key chain before us, we should examine the faces closely, for I'm sure we'll find they are all are own.