# They're aliens. Get over it.
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theyre-aliens-get-over-it/257863
**Category:** The BBQ Pit
**Created:** [August 1, 2004, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theyre-aliens-get-over-it/257863 "2004-08-01T19:58:05Z")
**Posts on this page:** 18
**Page:** 4
### Author:  [@EllisDee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EllisDee)
#### Post date: [August 4, 2004, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theyre-aliens-get-over-it/257863/61 "2004-08-04T03:32:05Z")
> [@JohnT](#):
>
> I’ve always thought that the “aliens” are not real, that they are manifestations sent by God to show Gibson _why_ bad things happen to good people, and how everything (even his kids asthma) has a purpose. The only information about them that we receive is (are?) from the TV set, and the only other on-screen person to claim to have seen them is Shyamalan’s character, who himself is integral to the main plot.
>
> Looking at it this way, the movie makes _a lot_ more sense. Try it and you’ll see. 😃
Mel’s whole family, including his brother, (who kills one), see them. I don’t understand what you mean by “the only other on-screen person”. Considering the entire cast of characters in the film, the only on-screen person _not_ to have a direct, face to face confrontation with an alien is the sheriff.
There are some tangental characters, I suppose. The pharmacy girl. The bookstore couple. Come to think of it, the bookstore guy is watching the same news footage as Mel, and Mel never even enters the bookstore. (Remember him counting the soda commercials?)
So I really think your interpretation needs a little more thought.
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### Author:  [@FriarTed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriarTed)
#### Post date: [August 4, 2004, 3:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theyre-aliens-get-over-it/257863/62 "2004-08-04T03:37:20Z")
They’re not physical ET aliens; they’re interdimensional aliens, aka ethereals aka elementals aka daemons aka… well, you know.
And it’s not just water that kills them- it’s water wielded by people, people of have faith, thereby making it holy water! Yeah! That’s the ticket!
I actually did enjoy the movie, being able to make great suspensions of disbelief & cut all sorts of slack to harvest entertainment value from a film. But the funny thing is- as contrived as I know the above explanation is, thinking it over makes me enjoy the film even more.
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### Author:  [@Tyrrell\_McAllister](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tyrrell_McAllister)
#### Post date: [August 4, 2004, 6:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theyre-aliens-get-over-it/257863/63 "2004-08-04T06:28:38Z")
I like **Miller** ’s idea that the alien’s were chosen for their vulnerability to water so that they wouldn’t be inclined to go native. And I can believe that similarly clever explanations could be given for the other seemingly stupid strategies employed in this “invasion”.
The one thing I’d still like to see explained, though, is why they could jump onto roofs, but couldn’t kick a door down. It doesn’t take any brains to break through a door if you’re sufficiently strong, and the creatures were demonstrated to be plenty strong.
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### Author:  [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)
#### Post date: [August 4, 2004, 7:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theyre-aliens-get-over-it/257863/64 "2004-08-04T07:07:45Z")
I have here in my hand- one each straight razor- previous owner- William of Occam. Weilding this tool I come up with only one conclusion- they were aliens, and the film was stupid.
Note also- there is no way for the ending of the new Planet of the Apes to work- unless it was all a dream or something.
I kinda wish they had made the Unbreakable sequels- with the guy more of a real superhero.
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### Author:  [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)
#### Post date: [August 4, 2004, 1:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theyre-aliens-get-over-it/257863/65 "2004-08-04T13:08:21Z")
> [@Tyrrell McAllister](#):
>
> The one thing I’d still like to see explained, though, is why they could jump onto roofs, but couldn’t kick a door down. It doesn’t take any brains to break through a door if you’re sufficiently strong, and the creatures were demonstrated to be plenty strong.
I’ve seen birds that could “jump” onto a roof, but couldn’t kick a door down. Jumping depends on having high muscle mass relative to your total mass; kicking a door down depends on having high overall muscle mass.
We learn from this that the critters in Signs either have some super-space-age-laser-activated-pogo-stick on the balls of their feet, or they have hollow bones.
Daniel
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### Author:  [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)
#### Post date: [August 4, 2004, 1:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theyre-aliens-get-over-it/257863/66 "2004-08-04T13:19:13Z")
I admit that the notion they WEREN’T space aliens is kind of silly. They had invisible ships that floated in the air. They weren’t CHUDs. However, it doesn’t really matter if they were space aliens or not.
As to the movie being “stupid,” I am inclined to believe Shyamalan was trying for something other than a science fiction movie here. I’m wholeheartedly in the camp that the B-movie elements - space aliens with silly weaknesses, crop circles, the whole concept - is SUPPOSED to be silly, or if not silly then at most just a device. I am sure Shyamalan knows crop circles are hoaxes and that it’s unlikely an advanced alien race would be stopped by plywood, but that just doesn’t matter; what matters is that it meets all the archetypical thriller requirements, as laid out in a thousand movies from “The Birds” to “Dawn of the Dead” to “Aliens”:
1. Weird-ass supernatural enemies.
2. Some close encounters prior to the Final Battle.
3. A cast of characters trapped in an enclosed space just in time for the Final Battle.
4. Hodgepodge efforts to keep the weird-ass enemies out.
5. The discovery of the enemies’ Fatal Weakness.
6. Exploitation of the Fatal Weakness.
7. Victory over the enemies.
That it was space aliens with curiously strange weaknesses doesn’t matter. It could have been Rabid Killer Dogs With Lasers On Their Heads Escaped From a Secret Government Research Facility. It could have been Zombies, or Vampires, or sharks, or dinosaurs. Doesn’t matter. It was an entire interstellar race of MacGuffins.
It’s similar to The Bride being allowed to carry her sword with her on a plane in “Kill Bill” - it doesn’t matter if it makes sense in our world, it’s a device to get somewhere in the movie’s world.
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### Author:  [@Roland\_Orzabal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roland_Orzabal)
#### Post date: [August 4, 2004, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theyre-aliens-get-over-it/257863/67 "2004-08-04T13:54:22Z")
> [@DrDeth](#):
>
> I have here in my hand- one each straight razor- previous owner- William of Occam. Weilding this tool I come up with only one conclusion- they were aliens, and the film was stupid.
We have a winner! Give the man his cookie. Thanks for playing, and we hope to see you all next week.
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### Author:  [@Baldwin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baldwin)
#### Post date: [August 4, 2004, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theyre-aliens-get-over-it/257863/68 "2004-08-04T14:22:54Z")
> [@](#):
>
> Quote:
> However, people watching Signs tend to make that very assumption, because of a pop-culture context that includes movies.
> I suppose where we disagree is that I believe that the pop-cultural context of the movie is a very sound basis for this assumption. Indeed, I would go so far as to say that the cultural and psychological\* context of the movie should be the basis for all of our beliefs about what is happening in it. For example, if we want to use reasoning based on scientific plausibility to understand what is happening, we must be able to show that the author would have felt sufficiently constrained by scientific plausibility while crafting the plot. Shyamalan might feel a differant amount of constraint than, say, J.R.R. Tolkien, and David Lynch might feel no such constraint at all.
Tyrrell, you argue well, and I’m gonna concede this point – but with the proviso that you should still recognize and acknowledge that you’re _making_ an assumption – a reasonable one given the conventions of fiction. (Of course, in the specific case of _Signs_, Shyamalan has settled the matter, which is kind of a shame. There could have been a brief scene – just a few lines of dialogue – in which the subject was debated.)
This discussion is just getting too darned civil for the Pit.
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### Author:  [@Unauthorized\_Cinnamon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Unauthorized_Cinnamon)
#### Post date: [August 4, 2004, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theyre-aliens-get-over-it/257863/69 "2004-08-04T17:15:51Z")
I saw someone ask this, but I didn’t see a direct answer - if they’re not aliens, what are they?
From the discussion here, it seems that if they’re not aliens, they are, what, visitations from God? And perhaps only Mel and his family see them and the TV reports and so on?
In either case, it still seems incredibly stupid to me.
[ul]Presumably ominpotent omnibenevolent God allows minister’s child to have a life-threatening condition and then lets minister’s wife die horribly.
[li]Minister loses faith.[/li][li]God sends entities (or makes minister and family believe there are such entities), which use poison gas as a weapon, has entities poison child, but smartly has the kid have an asthma attack immediately before, so he can’t breathe in the poison.[/li][li]God makes it so the wife’s last words so long ago are the key to defeating the threatening entity.[/li][li]Minister says to self, “Oh, now I see there is a great purpose in all this, and I pledge myself again to the deity that inflicted this illogical, sadistic, and rococo lesson on me!” [/li][/ul]
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### Author:  [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)
#### Post date: [August 7, 2004, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theyre-aliens-get-over-it/257863/70 "2004-08-07T01:44:09Z")
> [@Ellis Dee](#):
>
> Mel’s whole family, including his brother, (who kills one), see them. I don’t understand what you mean by “the only other on-screen person”. Considering the entire cast of characters in the film, the only on-screen person _not_ to have a direct, face to face confrontation with an alien is the sheriff.
>
> There are some tangental characters, I suppose. The pharmacy girl. The bookstore couple. Come to think of it, the bookstore guy is watching the same news footage as Mel, and Mel never even enters the bookstore. (Remember him counting the soda commercials?)
>
> So I really think your interpretation needs a little more thought.
My apologies… I flubbed my explanation. When I wrote “only other on screen person” I was thinking “other than those in Mels family”… but forgot to mention that little detail. :o
Regardless, my point is that the entire “alien invades Earth” could be explained as a manifestation from God for the purpose of convincing Father Mel to come back into the fold. In the movie, the only people to actually see an alien are those intimately involved in Mel’s life (his family, the guy who killed his wife and is wracked with guilt over it), and the TV broadcasts themselves are fakes, planted by God to add versimillitude (sp?) to the alien invasion story.
Yeah, it’s a stretch… but the movie, taken at face value, is a stretch too. _C’est la vie_.
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### Author:  [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)
#### Post date: [August 7, 2004, 2:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theyre-aliens-get-over-it/257863/71 "2004-08-07T02:15:02Z")
> [@AerynSun](#):
>
> I saw someone ask this, but I didn’t see a direct answer - if they’re not aliens, what are they?
Pretty sure it’s been said about a half-dozen times already in this thread, but here goes again.
They were demons. Yeah, they look like aliens, and they had flying saucers. Why? Because all of the previous times in the last two centuries that people have seen space aliens and flying saucers, they were actually seeing demons.
Again, this is not a new idea. There is a vast resevoir of nutty, nutty people who honestly believe that God and Satan are both sending their emisaries to Earth in the form of ETs and UFOs. Do a Google search. It’s entertaining, if not exactly enlightening.
(Also, some of 'em are white supremacist wackos who believe that the aliens will give every race their own planet in the solar system after armageddon. Not sure where that leaves people of mixed ancestry. Floating in space, I assume. Anyway, might want to be careful about looking at this stuff at work.)
> [@](#):
>
> From the discussion here, it seems that if they’re not aliens, they are, what, visitations from God? And perhaps only Mel and his family see them and the TV reports and so on?
>
> In either case, it still seems incredibly stupid to me.
>
> [ul]Presumably ominpotent omnibenevolent God allows minister’s child to have a life-threatening condition and then lets minister’s wife die horribly.
> [li]Minister loses faith.[/li][li]God sends entities (or makes minister and family believe there are such entities), which use poison gas as a weapon, has entities poison child, but smartly has the kid have an asthma attack immediately before, so he can’t breathe in the poison.[/li][li]God makes it so the wife’s last words so long ago are the key to defeating the threatening entity.[/li][li]Minister says to self, “Oh, now I see there is a great purpose in all this, and I pledge myself again to the deity that inflicted this illogical, sadistic, and rococo lesson on me!” [/li][/ul]
Well, that’s why I’m an atheist. A lot of stuff happens in the real world that is illogical, sadistic, and rococo, and if you ask someone who’s religious why it’s like that, the stock response is, “God works in mysterious ways.” Its not an answer I find very convincing, but it seems to be a basic assumption in the lives of an awful lot of people, which makes me hesitant to call it “incredibly stupid,” although at times the temptation is irresistable. But since I can usually give this attitude a pass in real people I meet in everyday life, I don’t have a problem giving it a pass for this one movie.
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### Author:  [@Unauthorized\_Cinnamon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Unauthorized_Cinnamon)
#### Post date: [August 7, 2004, 12:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theyre-aliens-get-over-it/257863/72 "2004-08-07T12:39:54Z")
Thanks, **Miller**.
FTR, I’m an atheist too, so I’m sure that’s part of why this fell flat for me. However, other movies that use gods or paranormal stuff don’t necessarily seem dumb to me. I also agree that people who have similar beliefs in real life are not necessarily stupid (they are irrational in this one respect, but that doesn’t make them stupid).
I think it must be that Shyamalan’s deliberate clarification of the “works in mysterious ways” argument, using a substantive example, illuminates how ridiculous an argument it is, which seems to be the opposite effect he was going for. And that to me seems stupid.
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### Author:  [@Revtim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revtim)
#### Post date: [August 7, 2004, 12:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theyre-aliens-get-over-it/257863/73 "2004-08-07T12:57:39Z")
If the movie was reality, I’d say the ‘Occam’s Razor’ principle would dictate that the likliest explanation is that they’re aliens. That seems a simpler explanation that demons that don’t look like traditional demons, but look like the traditional movie aliens and use what look spacecraft.
Since it’s not reality, then they are whatever the filmmaker says they are. Since he said they were aliens, they’re aliens.
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### Author:  [@EllisDee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EllisDee)
#### Post date: [August 8, 2004, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theyre-aliens-get-over-it/257863/74 "2004-08-08T02:44:00Z")
> [@JohnT](#):
>
> My apologies… I flubbed my explanation. When I wrote “only other on screen person” I was thinking “other than those in Mels family”… but forgot to mention that little detail. :o
>
> Regardless, my point is that the entire “alien invades Earth” could be explained as a manifestation from God for the purpose of convincing Father Mel to come back into the fold. In the movie, the only people to actually see an alien are those intimately involved in Mel’s life (his family, the guy who killed his wife and is wracked with guilt over it),
Yeah, okay, now I see understand what you meant. It seems much more plausible until:
> [@](#):
>
> and the TV broadcasts themselves are fakes, planted by God to add versimillitude (sp?) to the alien invasion story.
So how would you explain the bookstore guy counting soda commercials?
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### Author:  [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)
#### Post date: [August 8, 2004, 3:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theyre-aliens-get-over-it/257863/75 "2004-08-08T03:37:50Z")
God can broadcast to the whole town… being God, he can do that you know. 😉
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### Author:  [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)
#### Post date: [August 8, 2004, 4:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theyre-aliens-get-over-it/257863/76 "2004-08-08T04:41:59Z")
I for one welcome our new hydrophobic masters…
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### Author:  [@SPOOFE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SPOOFE)
#### Post date: [August 8, 2004, 4:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theyre-aliens-get-over-it/257863/77 "2004-08-08T04:55:08Z")
> [@](#):
>
> They were demons.
Bullshit. You kill demons with shotguns, plasma rifles, and BFG’s. I’ve killed demons. There wasn’t a single glass of water in that whole game.
Look, whatever “they” were, the movie was simply logically inconsistant. The demons/aliens/creatures are trying to take over a world filled with what is most harmful to them. WHY?!? That’s like devoting an entire army solely to take over a mine field.
“He was using pop icons of the day!”
No, he’s a hack.
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### Author:  [@Revtim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revtim)
#### Post date: [August 8, 2004, 12:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theyre-aliens-get-over-it/257863/78 "2004-08-08T12:41:12Z")
> [@SPOOFE](#):
>
> Look, whatever “they” were, the movie was simply logically inconsistant. The demons/aliens/creatures are trying to take over a world filled with what is most harmful to them. WHY?!? That’s like devoting an entire army solely to take over a mine field.
There a great many other interpretations besides them “taking over”. Maybe they just wanted to kill us, and not move here. Maybe they were criminals exiled to here because of its dangerousness. Maybe they were a scientific expedition trying to capture a bunch of humans for study. Maybe they thought we’d be good food, once “jerkified”. Maybe they were stopping by to refuel from a longer trip.
Since the movie wasn’t really about the aliens, it really doesn’t matter much. But there’s plenty of ways to explain why they were here even though they had a problem with water.
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