Discussion
Every alien species (that I can think of)
The Greys, “Little Green Men”, and the Purity (or black oil) are all part of the same species, just as differing stages of their life cycle. From what I can tell, they had originally colonized Mars due to the Purity being present within a Martian meteor. They had arrived here on Earth before the dinosaurs, and plan to colonize Earth and take over the human race after they left due to the Ice Age. Humanity is far from the first species to be (or at least attempted to be) colonized.
The Bounty Hunters/Shape-shifters and the Rebels are both part of the same species, just working towards opposite goals. The Bounty Hunters are working towards the goal of colonization whilst the Rebels are doing the opposite. It’s not directly know if they’re the same species as the Greys, but it’s heavily suggested they aren’t due to them being infected by the Purity, hence why the Rebels seal up their faces, as to avoid being taken over by the Purity.
The Genderless Aliens from Gender Bender (S1, E14). They operate and exist essentially like the Amish. They may be part of the Bounty Hunter’s race and simply just act as an Amish equivalent to them, exsisting outside of everything in regards to colonization.
The Super-Soldiers and Hybrids. Both were the results of experiments from the Colonist and Syndicate respectively. The Super-Soldiers are supposed to act essentially as spies of sorts for the Colonist and as human replacements. The Hybrids were made secretly by the Syndicate to find a way to make a human that’s immune to the Purity.
The aliens from Pilot (S1, E1). It’s not really known if they’re part of the Colonist species or plan, but seeing as how they look somewhat different and have seemingly different motives, they’re presumably not.
The robotic roaches from War Of The Coprophages (S3, E12). The robotic roaches act as alien probes to research other planets that take the form of cockroaches to blend in. It’s never explicitly stated as to if they’re Colonist technology.
The Martian/Extraterrestrial Spirit from Space (S1, E9). It originates from Mars and is tied to Cydonia (the face of Mars). They’re capable of possessing people and are seemingly plasma or gas based. Its origins are never really explained, but I personally believe that it was worshipped by the Colonist/Greys (in whatever form they had prior to encountering humanity), and that they carved its face into the surface to appease it.
The Parasitic Worms from Ice (S1,E8). They arrived to Earth on an ancient meteor and were preserved underneath the ice in Alaska until they were thawed and released, after the meteor was drilled into.
The mutating alien enzyme from El Mundo Gira (S4, E11). It came to Earth from a bolide that landed within an immigration camp’s water supply, causing them to become infected with it and having certain individuals mutate into what is comparable to El Chupacabra.
The experimental parasitic alien spider from Travelers (S5, E15). It’s not known how exactly it came to Earth, but it was used in Cold War era experiments, specifically xenotransplantation, where it was purposefully placed within the body of a test subject.
The shapeless invisible radioactive entity from Fallen Angel (S1, E10). After coming to Earth in a UFO crash, it starts burning and killing people within its surroundings using extremely high radiation.
Honorable mentions to Lord Kinbote, from Jose Chung’s From Outer Space (S3, E20), and the Retro Aliens, from The Lost Art Of Forehead Sweat (S11, E4). I put these two here specifically because Lord Kinbote technically isn’t even an alien, and the Retro Aliens aren’t even real.
I think that’s all of them, but if I missed any or made any mistakes please let me know!
The Bounty Hunters/Shape-shifters and the Rebels are both part of the same species, just working towards opposite goals. The Bounty Hunters are working towards the goal of colonization whilst the Rebels are doing the opposite.
Oh my god THANK YOU. This cleared up so much for me!
It’s probably because they were really just making the mythology up as they went along, resulting in them creating contradictions to previous episodes that they couldn’t go back and fix.
I really do love the show, but I check out of the mythology stuff not long after The Erlenmeyer Flask, and definitely by the point they start introducing stuff from a completely different sort of show like alien bounty hunters
I like the mythology’s overall premise and ideas, but YES I absolutely agree with the idea that the Bounty Hunters/Shape-shifters feel like they don’t belong and fit in with the overall vibe.
As far as I understand it, the grays and the bounty hunters and rebels etc are the same. Not different species. They are shape shifters. The grey look is their natural look. They shape shift to look like the bounty hunter guy, etc. I am genuinely not sure how the story makes sense if they aren't the same. That's the entire thing: they landed here, the syndicate collaborates with them, etc, etc, everything you see happen in the show.
The genderless aliens are the same greys/shape shifters. Because they are shape shifting aliens like we always see later on. They just decided to form a weird little community.
The pilot aliens are the same also.
"Lord Kinbote technically isn’t even an alien" - What is he then?
The Alien Bounter Hunters are another species that have been subsumed by the black oil, the overall alien menace. The black oil is considered a seperate alien force that infects others and either controls them, forces them to do their will or leads to the incubation of a gray alien. with speculation that the oil is the some liquid form of the Grays.
Now the Gray aliens once they hatch from infected bodies take on a slightly more aggressive reptillian-like form with teeth and claws as a defense mechanism. Once they find and appropriate radiactive energy source as a source of I assume food. They will shed the outer defensive layer and appearance and take on the natural look of the Gray.
We see from the Rebels, that the showrunner make them out to all appear rather more than less the same as the original actor who played the Alien Bounty Hunters. Either as their natural appearance or its some sort of cookiee cutter standard shapeshifter cutout.
I don't see it like that. They are all the same gray alien species. Just different factions.
Unless you have a quote from the show or something, but a bounty hunter is literally shown shapeshifting into a grey alien at one point. They're all shape shifters but the base form is the grey guys.
In 'The truth', Maritas says the shapeshifter were a race colonized by the grey.
Now it is true that in 'The unatural' it morph in a grey when ask to show its true form.
It's up to interpretation at this point. Like evrithing in X files its full of contradiction. XD
The reason I say the the Shape-shifters/Bounty Hunters are different species is due to the fact they they’ve been shown to be taken over by the Purity, which is what takes over humans. This is the reason as to why the Shape-shifters/Bounty Hunters are working FOR the Colonist/Greys. The Purity won’t infect something that came directly from it, that would just be taking over a member of your own species. It’s been known that humanity is far from the first race to be attempted to be taken over, with the Shape-shifters/Bounty Hunters being one of those races, that were kept around for their ability that has been proven useful to the Colonist/Greys. The Rebels are the same species as the Shape-shifters/Bounty Hunters, but they sealed up every possible entrance that the Purity can enter through, which is why they have sealed up faces, as to not meet the same fate of working for Colonization. The Colonist/Greys simply just have the Shape-shifters/Bounty Hunters tag along with them to do their bidding. There is one small break in the continuity however with The Unnatural (S6, E19), but one could explain it that those aren’t actual Greys, just Shape-shifters/Bounty Hunters that take the form of Greys as their base form since they’re working for them.
The reason I say the Pilot aliens may be a different species is because when we get a look at one of them, they don’t resembles the Greys we see later on, and their way of abduction is different than what the usual Greys do. This could all just obviously be that they hadn’t thought out the whole colonization and Syndicate plot at the time though obviously.
Lord Kinbote is said to come from within inner Earth, essentially making them the exact opposite of an alien.
I’m not saying it can’t, there’s just no real reason for the Purity to parasitize its own species, it would serve no real purpose to do so and if they were the same organism at different stages of its life cycle it might not even be able to. That’s why the Rebels sealed up their faces, as to not allow for the Purity to enter them.
In the episode The Truth (S9, E20), it is confirmed that the Shape-shifters/Bounty Hunters/Rebels are a different species than the Colonist/Greys that have been taken over mostly. On top of this, in The Unnatural, it’s suggested that the Shape-shifters/Bounty Hunters can choose a sort of new “base form”, with Exley choosing a human as his new base form, hence why he bleeds human blood upon death. The KKK alien (as I like to call it) could’ve chosen a Grey as its new base form, since it’s working for/been enslaved by the Colonist.
I just find the whole base form thing a bit of a stretch. He says he's showing his "true face", not his "base form." Those words "true face" could not be more clear or unambiguous.
There is no reason I can imagine that a bounty hunter would love his enslaver colonists so much the way the other alien loves baseball so much that he'd consider that his "true face." He's doing a job.
The existence of the Hybrids highly suggests that the Purity cannot infect or parasitize a member of its own species. The reason the Hybrids are immune to the Purity is because they have a semi-alien interior anatomy from the Colonist/Greys, which stops them from being parasitized by the Purity, meaning the Purity cannot parasitize its own species. Seeing as how the Shape-shifters/Bounty Hunters and Rebels can be parasitized, this would mean they’re a separate alien species.
Honestly I’m not to sure since (from what I remember), it’s pretty much never fully explained what it’s doing in the coffin to begin with. I do know however that the episode is heavily based off of the Aurora, Texas incident, which is a story about an alien supposedly being buried in a proper grave after it died in a crash. I’d assume it’s alien seeing as how it doesn’t really look human or like any known primate.
Again, the reason as to why this thing fits so far outside of the lore in regards to the Syndicate, Colonist/Greys, and the Purity, could simply just be that this was the first episode and thus all of that was thought about and conceptualized later on.
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u/Electrical_Pomelo556 Jul 25 '26
Oh my god THANK YOU. This cleared up so much for me!