Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with alien

Possibly a dumb question about Alien/Aliens.

orrnyereg — Sat, 23 Feb 2013 04:44:08 -0800

On a recent rewatch of the original Alien and Aliens films, I realized something puzzling. In Alien, Ash confesses to Ripley that his actions to bring a xenomorph on board were the result of explicit instructions from Weyland-Yutani. That being the case, why would Ripley trust the company (in general, not just Burke) in Aliens? Shouldn't she have smelled a rat from the get-go?

Interesting scifi / glam rock makeup looks?

lemoncakeisalie — Tue, 01 Jan 2013 20:55:32 -0800

Can you point me to some (non-prosthetic) scifi/fantasy makeup looks? I've landed a volunteer position as a makeup designer for a production of a beautifully campy show. For a few of the characters, who are aliens, the director wants a glam rock look, something like Alice Cooper meets Ziggy Stardust.

I'd like to mix it up a bit further by looking at designs from science fiction / fantasy TV and film, glam rock, fashion / modeling / photo shoots, and theatre of all sorts.

I'd especially like to see campy designs for aliens, like from Star Trek: The Original Series or from old scifi films. I don't have access to prosthetics, and I don't want to, say, paint someone completely green or something.

I've already looked through all of www.themakeupgallery.info and gathered some inspiration from the scifi series Farscape. Can people offer further resources, photos, links, or suggestions?

Thank you!

Help me find my long lost book.

trogdole — Thu, 27 Dec 2012 09:42:35 -0800

Finding a long lost book with a grey cover and very sparse details. This is my first "find this book!" question. I don't have any hope that we'll actually find it, but I want to give it a shot.

I read this book in around '00 or '01. Fourth or fifth grade for me. But I was reading at a higher level than average, so keep that in mind as well.

The book was, from what I remember, based after an end of the world type scenario. I believe there were aliens that caused it, but I don't know if you find that out til the end. I believe it all took place in winter, possibly an abnormally long winter due to the 'apocalypse'. There were a few survivors that banded together, to try and survive/figure out what happened. I know technology was at a low level, think horses, leather boots, lanterns.

I think the main character was a woman who starts out alone, and finds this group of survivors. They take her in and stuff is normalesque for a while. I honestly don't remember much of the middle of the book. I think something happens though, and the group splits up and some people are killed. It ends up with just the girl and another person are the only ones left, and they're going North, to what they think the source of the problems is. They get there and I think they find aliens, and something with using people's DNA.

I think the cover is grey, maybe a picture of snow or something. I think the title has something to do with snow, or winter, or something but I can't remember for sure. If I remember correctly, the author was related to my teacher. Which leads me to believe that this is not a well known book, making it even harder to find.

Sorry it's so jumbled, it's been so long since I read it, and I only read it once. I'm considering emailing my teacher to ask, if I can find her email. But I'm hesitant to do that because I didn't like her, and she doesn't know me as my current name/etc. So I turn to metafilter first.

Looking for a keychain with an floating alien

robverb — Mon, 10 Dec 2012 19:45:54 -0800

Looking for a keychain with a floating alien. Can't do much better than that. Any ideas? My son's gf asked him to help her replace a keychain that she once owned that had an alien floating in some kind of liquid. That's all she gave him to go on, so that's as much as we know. A few google searches have turned up nothing that seems right. Does this description sound like anything any of you have ever seen?

Name a celebrity that actually is an Alien from Omicron Persei

elpapacito — Fri, 26 Oct 2012 06:26:52 -0800

Hi! We're preparing an Hallowen party and we would like to make a series of posters stating that *celebrityname* actually is an Alien! Ziggy Stardust, Michael Jackson, Amélie Nothomb come to my mind..any other suggestion :) ?

What's the deal with the alien sitting on a rock?

mqk — Thu, 13 Sep 2012 13:17:54 -0800

What is meaning of the cartoon logo of an alien sitting on a rock in the MAHLI calibration image on the mast of NASA's Curiosity rover?

What was the EC Comic with this alien story?

Rash — Sat, 18 Aug 2012 12:57:06 -0800

Please identify this science-fiction EC Comics story involving a mind-controlling alien. I think it begins with kids finding a colorful egg, which hatches a creepy little alien, possibly reptillian. It immediately takes over the kids, and eventually the whole town, everybody becoming its slave. As it eats, it gets bigger, becoming huge, too big to hide in any building. Then the Army or Air Force kills it, but not really. Must have been in Weird Science, Weird Fantasy or a Shock SuspenseStory.

Apretado! Apretado!

hanoixan — Thu, 05 Jul 2012 08:01:11 -0800

Spanish-translation-filter. As part of this month's Mefi music challenge, I'm doing a cover of Radiohead's Subterranean Homesick Alien in Spanish, and need translation help. Here's the English, and there's already a Spanish translation online here, but it's more wordy than I can deal with given the tempo of the song.

1. Is this a good translation?
2. Can the wording be more economical and still get the meaning across? I can speak rapidamente, pero es muy dificil for long stretches of lyrics. It would great if someone could try and make it as terse as possible, but still communicate the semantics.
3. I'd like to give the translation a Mexican feel if at all possible.
4. You'll get to hear me butcher this into carnitas when I post my song this month. :)

How can I find you if I don't even know your name?

byanyothername — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 18:51:11 -0800

Help me remember a pair of sci-fi/drama movies a friend recommended several years ago that I've now forgotten the titles of. Okay, the first one. The premise, as I remember it: a small group of people are having a party and one of them (a college professor?) reveals that he's an alien (or otherwise generally otherworldly) and relates bits and pieces of his double lives over the course of the film. Despite the sci-fi elements, I'm pretty sure it was a straight drama.

Next: a man (college professor? maybe I'm adding this part) lives out parallel lives, making different choices at critical points in his life, forming different relationships, etc. It's not Mr. Nobody (one of my favorite films!), although it seemed similar. It may be this, but I'm not completely sure.

At the time, both of these films sounded like exactly the kind of thing I tend to adore, but I've completely blanked out on their titles now. Please help me remember! Or--just as good!--recommend other movies in a similar vein.

Writing, etc., about gulfs between cultures?

Bufo_periglenes — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 01:15:25 -0800

Looking for good depictions of people or characters with truly foreign, alien, or mutually irreconcilable views of the world. Things which focus not on the possibilities of common humanity (or common sentience, in science fiction, possibly) but on its limitations. This could be fiction or nonfiction, in any medium or genre—books, film, theater, poetry, photography, paintings, performance art, news articles, blogs...

I hope that makes sense, and isn't too vague. Thoughts?

Thank you!

An alien blew up my brain!

CuJoe — Fri, 19 Aug 2011 08:25:40 -0800

Please help me remember the name of an old scifi novel about an alien that sucks knowledge out of other people's brains, killing them. It was an old book when I read it when I was a youth and that was over 25 years ago. So I'm pretty sure that it is at least 30-40 years old. The basic premise as best I can remember is that a man (or a couple) saw a space ship land in his/their field and found the alien pilot still alive. The alien looked like a young man and they took him home to help him heal. He accidentally killed them by removing knowledge from their brains telepathically. When he does this, the person's brain shrinks and head collapses (I think). He continued to do this to others for years. He eventually became a very important person but was killed in the end by a method I can no longer remember. It seems like some people forced him to take in knowledge until his head exploded.

I would like to find and read this book again to see how much my taste and interpretation has changed over the years.

Who was Doofernel?

atlantica — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 13:47:25 -0800

Where or what children's (tv show? classroom teaching guide?) is this song from? Lyrics inside... It's got something to do with an alien called 'Doofernel' (not sure on spelling - it came from 'Do for now', see lyrics) landing on Earth, trying to make friends with humans. I remember singing it in school in England, it would have been around 1989/1990. Google and searching Ask have failed me so far, so I would love any insights. I know the tune if that helps, but not sure how I would post that!

End of verse:
....Doofernel will do for now if you will talk to me

Chorus:
Talk to me, I want to be your friend.
Talk to me, I want to know who you are
And what you're thinking of.
Talk to me, talk to me, talk to me.

Oh dear god - what is that thing??

FlamingBore — Sun, 12 Jun 2011 09:12:35 -0800

OMG - what the hell is that? I appear to have an alien penis (or some sort of very odd plant) growing in my backyard. Please help me identify it. This morning, just now, I went to take the trash out and stopped to pick up what at first glance looked like a bone. On second look I realized it had a burst pod of some sort on the end. And then I got totally creeped out.

It is coming out of the ground. And it *was NOT* there yesterday afternoon. It has the aforementioned burst pod, is pliable enough to bend, but other than nudging it with my toe and the measuring tape I would rather not touch it directly.

The whitish surface appears dry and enough like one to have me mistake it for it initially. The very tip has sand on it, but the rest looks greenish and veiny.

Any help in identifying this this to keep me from freakin the f out would be helpful.

Would Earth plants grow in alien soil?

jacobm — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 19:38:38 -0800

Suppose there were another Earth-like planet with an Earth-like ecosystem, but evolved totally separately from Earth's. Am I right in suspecting that we would almost certainly not be able to digest any of its plants or animals and vice versa? If we were to bring our own plants, could they grow in the soil? This is a question that has been bugging me for a long time. Sadly my biology skills are high-school level at best, so I don't trust my own answers at all. My thinking is that Earth animals couldn't eat alien plants or animals, but that Earth plants could grow in alien soil.

I suspect that we wouldn't be able to eat the plants or animals because there's no reason to think the aliens would use the same set of amino acids we do, right? I am definitely hazy on how things work at that level, but my understanding is that the particular amino acids that humans care about derives at some very low level from the universal genetic code, and that there's no reason to suspect that alien DNA would use the same coding scheme. Thus we couldn't count on our digestive systems being able to use (and/or not be killed by) the acids produced in alien biology.

Plants seem like a different case to me, though. Seems to me that plants wouldn't be counting on particular acids being available in the soil, and they'd be working more directly with minerals in the alien soil, which would presumably be similar to the minerals in Earth soil. So they could grow normally, and then we could eat those plants just as though they'd been grown on Earth.

Does any of that sound plausible?

Horror set in space

slimepuppy — Sun, 06 Feb 2011 13:13:08 -0800

Looking for recommendations of horror stories set in space - movies, TV shows/episodes, books, comics, games etc. Bonus points for 'ghost ship'/'haunted house' story constructions. Primer for the type stories I am looking for: Event Horizon, Alien, Solaris, Jason X, Pandorum, Dead Space (ideally more like the games and comics and not the godawful films), a part of Sunshine etc. The horror can be internal (the existential horror of space) or external (monsters eating your face).

The re-occurring elements are claustrophobia, isolation and distance from help. Similar, non-space related movies I can think of are Cube and Carpenter's The Thing. The horror can be as internal or as external as possible.

Bonus point story construction:

I love the build-up of tense exploration of alien (often literally) places: the alien ship in Aliens, the abandoned colony in Aliens, the ship in Event Horizon, the house on House on Haunted Hill/The Haunting, the abandoned cruise liners in Ghost Ship and Triangle etc. The ultimate reveal does not need to contain aliens, ghosts or anything like that - the sense of atmosphere and place created during the build of the mystery is what I am looking for. This part can take place planetside, as long the majority of the horror takes place in space.

Thanks!

Movie from the '80s with a floating alien brain who lives underground?

qbject — Sat, 15 Jan 2011 16:18:06 -0800

Can you help me find a sci-fi movie from the '80s with a floating brain in it? I only saw bits of it at the video store. I've got a dusty memory of a live-action move (in color so it's not The Brain From Planet Arous) that I saw bits of on the big rear-projection TV at the VHS rental store when I was a kid. I was intensely curious but never actually saw it, and I have no idea what it was called.

I just have a few vignettes that I remember:

- Aliens in an underground base on Earth

- A floating brain with a face emerging through a wall made of black tentacles

- A female schoolteacher-type character under control of the floating brain

- The floating brain opening its mouth and eyes widely and something blinking or burning on the back of that character's neck

- Two people in white coveralls searching for something in the desert, then suddenly falling into a hole which opens beneath their feet

Does this ring any bells with anyone?

Please help identify another childhood TV memory from U.K. late 70s / early 80s. Horror/drama elements.

galaksit — Wed, 12 Jan 2011 10:30:46 -0800

Weird alien living-desk-lamp or exotic flower in some suburban British home. Another super-vague childhood TV memory question. U.K. late 70s/early 80s. I have a memory of watching an early evening TV drama aimed at adults. Possibly on ITV, on a weekday, at a time that could have been no more than a couple of years either side of 1980.

In it, an alien or monster was present in someone's home, and it had an appearance similar to a desk lamp or perhaps a large exotic flower. It may even have been thought to be just that by the people who lived there, but as viewers we knew it was something alive and that could move. I vaguely remember people hanging around in the same room as it, possibly a party of some kind, and being completely oblivious to it. Then once they'd left, the thing moved around, though without leaving the spot (on a side table?) it was placed on, and perhaps glowed and pulsed bit in a sort of Cronenbergian body horror way.

I don't remember any more than that, as I recall having to stop watching due to going somewhere or perhaps parents overruling what we were watching on TV. So I have no idea what happened next: whether people discovered it, whether it was friendly or pulled out a ray gun, etc.

It definitely had a tense tone to it. Not a comedy type of situation like Little Shop of Horrors. That said, it may have been intended that we took a sympathetic view of this thing; perhaps it was trying to blend in and hide for its own safety. I think it was before E.T. came out, but maybe it was inspired by it.

These are the things I don't think it is from:

Sapphire and Steel (pretty sure)
Hammer House of Horror (though I wouldn't rule it out)
Tales of the Unexpected
Beasts
Day of the Triffids (definitely not a triffid)
Dr. Who (definitely not)
The Tomorrow People (definitely not)

That's not because I have rewatched every episode of those programmes, but because I've recently watched some of each of them and don't think my memory fits with their style.

Thanks if anyone has any clue!

What to use for firing Alien Bee's B800 + ABR800 simultaneously?

bostonhill — Sun, 09 Jan 2011 14:40:41 -0800

What to use for firing Alien Bee's B800 + ABR800 simultaneously? Hi all,

I am somewhat new to the photography would so I appreciate any advice I may get!

I own a Canon7D with an ABR800 Ringflash (alienbees.com/abr800.html) which I absolutely love and a friend of mine has two B800s ()alienbees.com/b800.htmlfrom Alien Bees as well. I would like to use his two B800s along with my ABR000 Ring simultaneously.

I've used my rinfglash directly from my camera at times but its truly getting a bit too heavy. I'd like to put the ringflash on a lightstand and fire that along with two B800s at the same time.

Would this Pocket Wizard Plus II (lensrentals.com/rent/nikon/lighting/strobe-triggers/pocketwizard-plus-ii) be the only accessory I need atop of my camera to fire all three lights? I am not sure if I need an additional component or how exactly all three lights will be synced. I see the pocket wizard has a slider for 4 different channels so I am assuming in works on that principle but I am unsure if I need something else. Please advise!

Thanks so much!

If I was a Q, I'd probably be a bit of a jerk, too.

Golfhaus — Sat, 01 Jan 2011 14:04:23 -0800

Is there a quote about how a vastly superior creature who isn't a god could appear as if they were one? I'm an agnostic who feels that we can't possibly be the most advanced creatures in the universe. That being said, if there is a more advanced life form than us floating around out there, who chooses to mess with us for the same reason that kids like kicking down anthills and adults like to spray for termites, if they were really that much more powerful than us, I think it would be easy for us to decide that it was God doing whatever it was they were doing.

The phrase that sticks in my head is something along the lines of "The actions of an advanced living being, sufficiently superior, would be indistinguishable from those of a god." As much as I'd love to toot my own horn, I know I can't be the first person to have that idea. So where did I read it?

Aliens hunting you down with nowhere to run?

ofcourseican — Fri, 31 Dec 2010 12:50:01 -0800

Name that book! Trapped in a museum(?). Hunted by aliens(?). Unable to leave due to some type of force field or collars. I read a book a number of years ago with the general plotline of a number of individuals being trapped in a museum (or some large institution, perhaps a library), unable to escape from the aliens (I think) who were hunting them for sport due to some type of force field or perhaps collars that the humans wore.

People on the outside of the museum/structure were unable to get inside, and I think one person may have escaped through an underground tunnel?

It's not "Relic" by Lincoln and Child, though the feel of it is very similar (as I recall, though it's been quite a few years since I read it).

Thanks, Mefi!

Identify a science fiction/fantasy novel from the 1980s, possibly YA, where they lived in the trees and where talk of killing others was taboo?

tomboko — Mon, 27 Dec 2010 20:02:28 -0800

Can you identify this book? I read it in the mid-1980s. It may or may not have been a YA (Young Adult) title. The protagonist was a young girl, and her society lived peacefully up in the trees. She was interested in seeing the world down on the surface. There may have been another society down there. At one point she lost her temper with someone (a pet?) and blurted out something like "I would like to dead you!" at which her family was shocked and horrified at her violent thoughts. I particularly remember being struck by that part, that she understood the concept of killing but didn't know the verb. That's all I can recall. Can anyone help identify this book? I'd like to read it again. I have tried searching Google Books for variants of what I remember her saying, but no luck. Many thanks in advance!

help me find a beloved book from my youth

TLCplz — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 14:39:18 -0800

(book filter) A young boy befriends a tallking dog who is actually an alien from outer space. When I was a wee teenager back in the late 70's I read a book about a boy and his dog. The dog would talk to the boy and it turned out the dog was an alien from outer space and was trying to go back home, somewhere in outer space. In the end the dog left earth and I remember crying over the boy's loss. I could swear the title was "Dog Gone" or something similiar but I have never been able to locate it. Any help would be phenomenal!

What was the show about teens trying to stop an alien that lived inside a volcano from blowing up the Earth?

Kattullus — Wed, 12 May 2010 16:34:26 -0800

Live action teen TV show, pretty sure it was Australian, about a group of youngsters trying to stop an alien that lived inside a volcano from ending life on Earth. I remember the alien being humanoid and vaguely similar to the Predator. I saw it on Icelandic television in the early to mid 90s. It was set in modern times. Does this ring a bell for anyone?

What are the less-obvious ramifications to applying for a gun license?

anonymisc — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 15:50:12 -0800

GunFilter: What, if any, are the less-obvious ramifications of getting both a concealed-carry permit (WA state), and an alien firearms license (which is required in this case to get the permit)? For example, I assume these licenses show up on police computers - might that change the way police interact with you under certain circumstances? Are there other aspects of life where these licenses, or the database entries created by them, might influence situations? The license application process involves submitting fingerprints to the FBI, which I assume (for example) could open the door to a false-positive print match with a crimescene, however my understanding is that the FBI already has the prints of resident aliens, so the fingerprinting would not change the status quo in this case.
What else?

If you have a burning desire to recommend a website for people new to all this, that would also be great!

Help me Obi Wan

duckierose — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 08:36:38 -0800

I need help coming up with a costume for a pre-existing alien (no inventing my own). Stipulations:

-No full face masks
-No major body paint. A mark here or there is fine. Full face or arm make up is out.
-I want to be cute! (no coneheads! I do not look good as a cone head.)
-It need to be able to find an action figure/figurine/plush of the alien
-It needs to have something recognizable (ex: chick from Species doesn't really work, because she looked "normal")
-Not TOO complicated (I don't have much free time right now. I am capable of sewing/modifying things, though)
-Not too bulky. I'll be outside in the summer heat.

It can be from books, movies, tv, comic books, ads, whatever. It can be a little obscure, super geeky, very mainstream.

I'm not allowed to be Slave Leia. My dream would be Audrey II, but I don't have the time or creativity to figure out how to make that work well, and I don't want to have a crummy costume.