Gray Musings

The evil little aliens in most abduction stories have generally become known as "the Grays." In a way, that's an odd designation. The dominant features of the creatures seem to be the large heards, huge cold eyes, and small bodies; the color would seem the least descriptive characteristic. The Grays, however, definitely has a dramatic ring.

A good question is: Does the color belong to the being, or to what the being is wearing? Most people seem to assume these little guys are buck naked. That's almost certainly wrong. Even if a culture had no tradition of clothing, a civilization capable of interstellar travel would know its biology, including its germs, viruses, etc.; it would understand the need for surface suits on an alien world-- both to protect its explorers from alien bugs, and to protect that world from their bugs.

So, gray is likely simply the perceived color of their surface suits. That possibility was brought out briefly in Fire In The Sky, a movie based on Travis Walton's story, but it's usually, oddly, ignored.

Of course, if the Geays are nonbiological entities....