Posthuman Blues

The 1980s and 1990s spawned once of the most satisfying mythologies of the 21st century. In essence, it goes like this:

The U.S. government has known that UFOs are alien craft since the late 1940s [actually, not totally impossible]. Formal contact with the aliens was established in the 1950s. Shortly thereafter a deal was struck between the government and the extraterrestrials: the aliens would be allowed to abduct citizens for research and experiments in exchange for technological information.

[Here the line of reasoning suffers a critical fracture: why would a starfaring (or dimension-hopping, depending on who you ask...) alien species need our government's permission to do anything? One would think it could do as it wished with impunity, much how we tag and research ants without bothering to "negotiate" with their representatives. While I don't necessarily preclude the idea of some form of official human-alien contact, the human-alien "deal" recounted in the Silent Invasion Myth strikes me as very questionable -- unless, of course, the ETs were simply staging the whole thing...]

It was supposed to work like this: the aliens would furnish the government with a list of their human abductees, never going over "quota." But soon the horrible truth became apparent: the aliens were abducting more than their legal share of unwitting humans! And to top it off, they were performing grotesque biological experiments with cattle and leaving their handiwork in plain view! How insolent! Moreover, some of the abductees weren't coming back...

[One naturally wonders if the government knew exactly what kind of "research" the aliens were up to when it signed its Faustian pact. Apparently the aliens duped the humans into thinking they were nothing more than benign interstellar anthropologists, free of ulterior motives.]

The brass panic. Although armed with some ET-derived technology (possibly including crashed alien vehicles such as the one allegedly discovered at Roswell, New Mexico), they realize they're no match for the aliens (or, as they are now known, the "Grays"). Pandora's Box has been unleashed.

But that's not all. You know those experiments the Grays have been up to? They're secretly creating a hybrid alien-human species adapted to terrestrial conditions. In other words: pod people! They're going to take over the goddamned planet!

But the Grays are a sympathetic bunch, in a way. They've destroyed their home planet through environmental abuse and direly need a fresh source of DNA to invigorate their gene-pool. That's where we come in.

[The basic idea here (i.e., impoverished aliens seeking to better their condition by invading another planet) is much the same as H.G. Wells' in "The War of the Worlds." Some say the issue is deeper than this, and suggest that the Grays are actually interested in the human spirit, as opposed to our genome. Many writers and close encounter "experiencers" have postulated that the Grays can transfer and manipulate souls about as easily as people change the oil in their cars. Some embrace this quasi-religious interpretation while others vehemently denounce it as "New Age" babble.]

In the meantime, UFOs continue to be seen. Some are human-piloted alien vehicles while others are ET. Abductions continue, as do cattle mutilations (or "mutes"): evidence that the Grays are still perfecting their "master race" of hybrids.

Where is this happening? According to a variety of leaked documents and insider testimony, the Grays have either built or taken over underground bases in the American Southwest, colonized the ocean floor, and constructed bases on the lunar farside in which to further their goals for planetary conquest. Invasion is imminent.

Further complicating things, an unknown government agency appears to be actively assisting the Grays (or is it the other way around?) during horrific kidnappings known as "MILABs" (for "military abductions"). Military personnel -- apparently the same crowd that tools around in unmarked black helicopters -- have supposedly been seen working with Grays in an unknown context. Is there an ultimate common agenda on behalf of the "hidden government" and our ET visitors?

[This is, of course, the "downer" version of the Gray mythos. Other variations exist, and in some of these the Gray aliens are seen as Christly figures helping to prepare the human race for impending ecological catastrophe.]