Grey aliens, also referred to as Zeta Reticulans, Roswell Greys, or Grays, are purported extraterrestrial beings. They are frequent subjects of close encounters and

alien abduction Alien abduction (also called abduction phenomenon, alien abduction syndrome, or UFO abduction) refers to the phenomenon of people reporting their experience of being kidnapped by extraterrestrial beings and subjected to physical and psychologica ...

claims. The details of such claims vary widely, but typically Greys are described as being human-like with small bodies with smooth, grey-colored skin; enlarged, hairless heads; and large, black eyes. The

Barney and Betty Hill Barney and Betty Hill were an American couple who claimed they were abducted by extraterrestrials in a rural portion of the state of New Hampshire from September 19 to 20, 1961. It was the first widely publicized report of an alien abduction in ...

abduction claim, which purportedly took place in

New Hampshire New Hampshire is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Gulf of Maine to the east, and the Canadian province of Quebec to the nor ...

in 1961, popularized Grey aliens. Precursor figures have been described in

science fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel uni ...

and similar descriptions appeared in early accounts of the 1948 Aztec UFO Hoax and later accounts of the 1947

Roswell UFO incident The Roswell incident was an event that occurred in 1947, pertaining to the recovery of mundane metallic and rubber debris from a military balloon that crashed near Corona, New Mexico by United States Army Air Forces officers from Roswell Army ...

. The Grey alien has emerged as an archetypal image of an intelligent non-human creature and extraterrestrial life in general, as well as an iconic trope of popular culture in the age of space exploration.

Description

Appearance

Greys are typically depicted as grey-skinned, diminutive humanoid beings that possess reduced forms of, or completely lack, external human body parts such as noses, ears, or

sex organ A sex organ (or reproductive organ) is any part of an animal or plant that is involved in sexual reproduction. The reproductive organs together constitute the reproductive system. In animals, the testis in the male, and the ovary in the female, a ...

s.Jacobs, David M. "Aliens and Hybrids." In: Pritchard, Andrea & Pritchard, David E. & Mack, John E. & Kasey, Pam & Yapp, Claudia. ''Alien Discussions: Proceedings of the Abduction Study Conference''. Cambridge: North Cambridge Press. Pp. 86–90. Their bodies are usually depicted as being elongated, having a small chest, and lacking in muscular definition and visible skeletal structure. Their legs are depicted as being shorter and jointed differently from humans with limbs proportionally different from a human. Greys are depicted as having unusually large heads in proportion to their bodies with no hair on the body, and no noticeable

outer ear The outer ear, external ear, or auris externa is the external part of the ear, which consists of the auricle (also pinna) and the ear canal. It gathers sound energy and focuses it on the eardrum (tympanic membrane). Structure Auricle Th ...

s or noses, sometimes with small openings or orifices for ears, nostrils, and mouths. In drawings, Greys are almost always shown with very large, opaque, black eyes. They are frequently described as shorter than average adult humans.

Association with Zeta Reticuli

The association between Grey aliens and Zeta Reticuli originated with the interpretation of a map drawn by Betty Hill by a schoolteacher named Marjorie Fish sometime in 1969. Betty Hill, under hypnosis, had claimed to have been shown a map that displayed the aliens' home system and nearby stars. Upon learning of this, Fish attempted to create a model from a drawing produced by Hill, eventually determining that the stars marked as the aliens' home were Zeta Reticuli, a binary star system.

History

Origins

The origins of the Grey alien may go back to the late 19th century. In 1891, the novel ''Meda: A Tale of the Future'' was published by Kenneth Folingsby, in which the narrator encountered small, grey-skinned aliens with balloon-shaped heads. In 1893,

H. G. Wells Herbert George Wells"Wells, H. G."
Revised 18 May 2015. ''

Eloi The Eloi are one of the two fictional post-human races, along with the Morlocks, in H. G. Wells' 1895 novel ''The Time Machine''. In H. G. Wells' ''The Time Machine'' By the year AD 802,701, humanity has evolved into two separate species: t ...

, a successor species to humanity, in similar terms in the novel ''

The Time Machine ''The Time Machine'' is a science fiction novella by H. G. Wells, published in 1895. The work is generally credited with the popularization of the concept of time travel by using a vehicle or device to travel purposely and selectively for ...

''.

Supposed channeled entity by occultist crowley

As early as 1917, the occultist

Aleister Crowley Aleister Crowley (; born Edward Alexander Crowley; 12 October 1875 – 1 December 1947) was an English occultist, ceremonial magician, poet, painter, novelist, and mountaineer. He founded the religion of Thelema, identifying himself as the pr ...

described a meeting with a "preternatural entity" named Lam that was similar in appearance to a modern Grey. Crowley believed he had contacted the entity through a process that he called the "Amalantrah Workings," which he thought allowed humans to contact beings from outer space and across dimensions. Other occultists and ufologists, many of whom have retroactively linked Lam to later Grey encounters, have since described their own visitations from him, with one describing the being as a "cold, computer-like intelligence," and utterly beyond human comprehension. In 1933, the

Swedish Swedish or ' may refer to: Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically: * Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland ** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...

novelist

Gustav Sandgren Gustav Sandgren (20 August 1904 – 11 August 1983) was a Swedish writer. Early life and writing Sandgren's parents were O.J. Sandgren and Karolina Adolfsson, who gave their son a poor but happy childhood. The father was, in addition to his wo ...

, 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 who wore clothes made of soft grey fabric and were short, with big bald heads, and large, dark, gleaming eyes. The novel, aimed at young readers, included illustrations of the imagined aliens. This description would become the template upon which the popular image of grey aliens is based.

Barney and Betty Hill abduction

The conception remained a niche one until 1965, when newspaper reports of the Betty and Barney Hill abduction made the archetype famous. The alleged abductees, Betty and Barney Hill, claimed that in 1961, humanoid alien beings with grayish skin had abducted them and taken them to a

flying saucer A flying saucer (also referred to as "a flying disc") is a descriptive term for a type of flying craft having a disc or saucer-shaped body, commonly used generically to refer to an anomalous flying object. The term was coined in 1947 but has g ...

. In his 1990 article "Entirely Unpredisposed", Martin Kottmeyer suggested that Barney's memories revealed under hypnosis might have been influenced by an episode of the science-fiction television show '' The Outer Limits'' titled " The Bellero Shield", which was broadcast 12 days before Barney's first hypnotic session. The episode featured an extraterrestrial with large eyes, who says, "In all the universes, in all the unities beyond the universes, all who have eyes have eyes that speak." The report from the regression featured a scenario that was in some respects similar to the television show. In part, Kottmeyer wrote: Carl Sagan echoed Kottmeyer's suspicions in his 1997 book, ''The Demon Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark'', where '' Invaders from Mars'' was cited as another potential inspiration.

Diffusion into folklore

After the Hills' encounter, Greys would go on to become an integral part of

ufology Ufology ( ) is the investigation of unidentified flying objects (UFOs) by people who believe that they may be of extraordinary origins (most frequently of extraterrestrial alien visitors). While there are instances of government, private, and ...

and other extraterrestrial-related folklore. This is particularly true in the case of the United States: according to journalist C. D. B. Bryan, 73% of all reported alien encounters in the United States describe Grey aliens, a significantly higher proportion than other countries. During the early 1980s, Greys were linked 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, during and after the incident, that the beings had oversized heads and slanted eyes, but scant other distinguishable facial features. In 1987, novelist

Whitley Strieber Louis Whitley Strieber (; born June 13, 1945) is an American writer best known for his horror novels '' The Wolfen'' and '' The Hunger'' and for '' Communion'', a non-fiction account of his alleged experiences with non-human entities. He has mai ...

published the book '' Communion'', which, unlike his previous works, was categorized as non-fiction, and in which he describes a number of close encounters he alleges to have experienced with Greys and other extraterrestrial beings. The book became a ''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' bestseller, and

New Line Cinema New Line Cinema is an American film production studio owned by Warner Bros. Discovery and is a film label of Warner Bros. It was founded in 1967 by Robert Shaye as an independent film distribution company; later becoming a film studio after ...

released a 1989 film adaption that starred Christopher Walken as Strieber. In 1988,

Christophe Dechavanne Christophe Dechavanne (; born 23 January 1958), is a French television and radio host and program producer. Biography Dechavanne attended the Cours Hattemer, a private school. He started working as a radio host in the early 1980s. In 1985, he p ...

interviewed the French science-fiction writer and ufologist Jimmy Guieu on TF1's ''

Ciel, mon mardi ! ''Ciel, mon mardi !'' was a television talk show hosted by Christophe Dechavanne, which ran on French television TF1 every Tuesday at the beginning of the 1990s. The title literally means "Heavens, it's my Tuesday!" but is also a wordplay on th ...

''. Besides mentioning Majestic 12, Guieu described the existence of what he called "the little greys", which later on became better known in French under the name: ''les Petits-Gris''. L'émission se déroule dans le contexte de l'époque, en 1998. Si, aujourd'hui, parler de conspirations et d'OVNI, du MJ-12, des "Petits-Gris" et de bases souterraines ou même d'incriminer la famille Bush semble (relativement) familier, l'enregistrement de cette séquence se déroule en 1988, soit bien avant Internet et même bien avant " X-Files ", l'affaire de la créature de Roswell, etc. Avec ces déclarations de Jimmy Guieu lors de la diffusion en direct de cette émission "Ciel, mon mardi!" par la chaîne de télévision TF1 avec Christophe Dechavanne comme animateur, c'était la toute première fois que le grand public français – voire européen – entendait parler de ce dossier. Jimmy Guieu emploie d'ailleurs le terme "Little Greys" pour désigner les "Petits-Gris" qui, par la suite, deviendront rapidement plus connus sous l'appellation de " Short Greys ". Guieu later wrote two docudramas, using as a plot the Grey aliens / Majestic-12 conspiracy theory as described by John Lear and

Milton William Cooper Milton William "Bill" Cooper (May 6, 1943 – November 5, 2001) was an American conspiracy theorist, radio broadcaster, and author known for his 1991 book ''Behold a Pale Horse'', in which he warned of multiple global conspiracies, some i ...

: the series "E.B.E." (for "Extraterrestrial Biological Entity"): ''E.B.E.: Alerte rouge'' (first part) (1990) and ''E.B.E.: L'entité noire d'Andamooka'' (second part) (1991). Greys have since become the subject of many

conspiracy theories A conspiracy theory is an explanation for an event or situation that invokes a conspiracy by sinister and powerful groups, often political in motivation, when other explanations are more probable.Additional sources: * * * * The term has a nega ...

. Many conspiracy theorists believe that Greys represent part of a government-led

disinformation Disinformation is false information deliberately spread to deceive people. It is sometimes confused with misinformation, which is false information but is not deliberate. The English word ''disinformation'' comes from the application of the L ...

or plausible deniability campaign, or that they are a product of government mind-control experiments. During the 1990s, popular culture also began to increasingly link Greys to a number of military-industrial complex and New World Order conspiracy theories. In 1995, filmmaker Ray Santilli claimed to have obtained 22 reels of 16 mm film that depicted the autopsy of a "real" Grey supposedly recovered from the site of the 1947 incident in Roswell. In 2006, though, 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.''Eamonn Investigates: Alien Autopsy'',

British Sky Broadcasting Sky UK Limited is a British broadcaster and telecommunications company that provides television and broadband Internet services, fixed line and mobile telephone services to consumers and businesses in the United Kingdom. It is a subsidiary of ...

. First shown on Sky One, April 4, 2006.

Analysis

In close encounter claims and ufology

Greys are often involved in alien abduction claims. Among reports of alien encounters, Greys make up about 50% in Australia, 73% in the United States, 48% in continental Europe, and around 12% in the United Kingdom. These reports include two distinct groups of Greys that differ in height. 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. The emotional impact of perceived abductions can be as great as that of combat,

sexual abuse Sexual abuse or sex abuse, also referred to as molestation, is abusive sexual behavior by one person upon another. It is often perpetrated using force or by taking advantage of another. Molestation often refers to an instance of sexual assa ...

, and other traumatic events. The eyes are often a focus of abduction claims, which often describe a Grey staring into the eyes of an abductee when conducting mental procedures. This staring is claimed to induce

hallucinogenic Hallucinogens are a large, diverse class of psychoactive drugs that can produce altered states of consciousness characterized by major alterations in thought, mood, and perception as well as other changes. Most hallucinogens can be categorized ...

states or directly provoke different emotions.Jacobs, David M. "Subsequent Procedures." In: Pritchard, Andrea & Pritchard, David E. & Mack, John E. & Kasey, Pam & Yapp, Claudia. ''Alien Discussions: Proceedings of the Abduction Study Conference''. Cambridge: North Cambridge Press. pp. 64–68.

Psychocultural expression of intelligence

Neurologist Neurology (from el, νεῦρον (neûron), "string, nerve" and the suffix -logia, "study of") is the branch of medicine dealing with the diagnosis and treatment of all categories of conditions and disease involving the brain, the spinal c ...

Steven Novella Steven Paul Novella (born July 29, 1964) is an American clinical neurologist and associate professor at Yale University School of Medicine. Novella is best known for his involvement in the skeptical movement as a host of '' The Skeptics' Guide ...

proposes that Grey aliens are 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."

The "Mother Hypothesis"

In 2005, Frederick V. Malmstrom, writing in ''

Skeptic Skepticism, also spelled scepticism, is a questioning attitude or doubt toward knowledge claims that are seen as mere belief or dogma. For example, if a person is skeptical about claims made by their government about an ongoing war then the ...

'' magazine, volume 11, issue 4, presents his idea 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 another alternative to the existence of Greys, the intense instinctive response many people experience when presented an image of a Grey, and the act of regression

hypnosis Hypnosis is a human condition involving focused attention (the selective attention/selective inattention hypothesis, SASI), reduced peripheral awareness, and an enhanced capacity to respond to suggestion.In 2015, the American Psychologica ...

and recovered-memory therapy in "recovering" memories of alien abduction experiences, along with their common themes.

Evolutionary implausibility

According to biologist Jack Cohen, the typical image of a Grey, assuming that it would have evolved from 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.

In popular culture

Depictions of Grey aliens have gone on to appear in a number of films and television shows, supplanting the previously popular little green men. As early as 1966, for example, the superhero character

Ultraman ''Ultraman'', also known as the , is the collective name for all media produced by Tsuburaya Productions featuring Ultraman, his many brethren, and the myriad monsters. Debuting with ''Ultra Q'' and then ''Ultraman'' in 1966, the series is one ...

was explicitly based on them, and in 1977 they were featured in ''

Close Encounters of the Third Kind ''Close Encounters of the Third Kind'' is a 1977 American science fiction film written and directed by Steven Spielberg, starring Richard Dreyfuss, Melinda Dillon, Teri Garr, Bob Balaban, Cary Guffey, and François Truffaut. It tells the story ...

''. Greys have also been worked into space opera and other interstellar settings: in ''

Babylon 5 ''Babylon 5'' is an American space opera television series created by writer and producer J. Michael Straczynski, under the Babylonian Productions label, in association with Straczynski's Synthetic Worlds Ltd. and Warner Bros. Domestic Tele ...

'', the Greys are referred to as the "Vree", and are depicted as being allies and trade partners of 23rd-century Earth, while in the '' Stargate'' franchise they are called the "

Asgard In Nordic mythology, Asgard (Old Norse: ''Ásgarðr'' ; "enclosure of the Æsir") is a location associated with the gods. It appears in a multitude of Old Norse sagas and mythological texts. It is described as the fortified home of the Æsir ...

" and depicted as ancient astronauts. During the 1990s, plotlines wherein Greys were linked to conspiracy theories became common. and '' American Dad!'', which features a Grey-like alien named

Roger Roger is a given name, usually masculine, and a surname. The given name is derived from the Old French personal names ' and '. These names are of Germanic origin, derived from the elements ', ''χrōþi'' ("fame", "renown", "honour") and ', ' ( ...

, whose backstory draws from both the

Roswell incident The Roswell incident was an event that occurred in 1947, pertaining to the recovery of mundane metallic and rubber debris from a military balloon that crashed near Corona, New Mexico by United States Army Air Forces officers from Roswell Army ...

and Area 51 conspiracy theories. The 2011 film ''

Paul Paul may refer to: *Paul (given name), a given name (includes a list of people with that name) * Paul (surname), a list of people People Christianity *Paul the Apostle (AD c.5–c.64/65), also known as Saul of Tarsus or Saint Paul, early Chri ...

'' tells the story of a Grey named Paul 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; this is done so that if humanity came into contact with Paul's species, no immediate shock would occur as to their appearance. Greys appear in Syfy's 2021 science fiction dramedy series ''

Resident Alien In law, an alien is any person (including an organization) who is not a citizen or a national of a specific country, although definitions and terminology differ to some degree depending upon the continent or region. More generally, however, ...

''.

References

External links

Skeptics Dictionary: Alien abduction
{{Authority control Alleged UFO-related entities Mythic_humanoids Roswell incident Extraterrestrial life in popular culture Reticulum (constellation)