Please Stop Using the Term ‘Grey’
Extraterrestrial beings are not a tint, shade, or tone.
By Richard Smith ILLUMINATION Staff Writer
RIO RANCHO, New Mexico — I bet you weren’t expecting to read an article titled as such. Neither was I until my wife, Linda, started posting about this subject on Facebook. Then it dawned on me how prevalent the word Grey/Gray is in our extraterrestrial community and UFO dialogues— and how outdated it has become over the last twenty years.
Think about it. Here we are in 2022, in a Jetsons-fueled 21st Century, and we are still categorizing most of our extraterrestrial contacts as Greys. This is no different than immediately broad-stroking all people of color as African, or thinking that anyone who speaks a Spanish dialect is automatically Hispanic. We go on to perceive all Hispanics as speaking a European language called Spanish when, in fact, the multitude of divergent dialects in North, Central, and South America have taken on a life of their own. And, we assume that the citizens of China are speaking something vaguely referred to as Chinese when, in fact, there is no such thing as the Chinese language.
To this day, we erroneously refer to Africa as a country instead of a continent; there are many countries within Africa’s continental girth, all of which are as different from each other as night and day. This same mentality is often applied to South America, Central America, Asia, and that imaginary region we blindly refer to as the Middle East. This type of generalization has now evolved into categorizing the inhabitants of the entire galactic community as Greys which, in my assessment over the last two decades, has become more and more akin to the general slander and libel of toxic racist, sexist, homophobic, and ableist terms, which are still spoken prevalently today in America’s back alley banter.
As such, we have come to a state of critical mass where we are forced to realize the damage that has been manifesting all these years with the term Grey. Remember, it is one thing to obnoxiously and arbitrarily say that this word or that word is bad. This is when we make ourselves sound provincial and cloistered as if speaking within the confirms of a sterile vacuum with no real-world experience. However, it is quite another to understand the company that a particular word keeps historically. The term ‘Grey’ is just such a word, cavorting in the bad company of our society’s privileged underbelly:
“Tell me what company you keep and I’ll tell you what you are.” — Miguel de Cervantes
“Show me who your friends are and I’ll tell you who you are.” — Vladimir Lenin
“A man is known by the company he keeps.” — Aesop
Adding insult to injury, we seem to think that all non-terrestrial beings who are merely perceived as Greys in political, social, and commercial circles are hailing from the bowels of Hell like interstellar rapists and terrorists while anyone perceived as a Star Nation member must be Heaven sent, gracing us with their holier than thou insight. As a systemic, entrenched, and highly eurocentric form of marginalization (aka. social deviance labels, them vs. us mentality, homogenization, xenophobia, homophobia), this could not be further from the truth. The phrase Star Nation does not in any way imply ‘good guys’ visiting from some ancient Andromedan region of the cosmos; some nations are here on our behalf for humanitarian and ecological reasons, some are definitely not, and still, others wouldn’t want to ever have anything to do with us at all for obvious reasons (e.g., voter suppression, segregation, genocide, misogyny, white nationalism, extremism, aversive racism, systemic racism, toxic dumping). On the flip side of that same coin, the term Grey is hardly exclusive to the mythological fire and brimstone associated with the concept of villains or ‘bad guys’.
Taking into account both the good guy and bad guy misconceptions, it is this kind of racist, sexist, and xenophobic egotism that euthanizes a human being’s knowledge, wisdom, reasoning, and social skills. This has been explored at length in the epic graphic novels, cinematic universes, and animated series of DC, Marvel, and Dark Horse Comics. Ultimately, we reduce ourselves to the self-centered mentality of paranoia, fear, and collective Jim Jones propaganda, leaving no room whatsoever to evolve out of our own self-inflicted, bottom-feeder, geocentric, Jim Crow mythology. Think Enemy Mine (1985), Alien Nation (1988), and District 9 (2009) and you will get the point. Throw in The Abyss (1989), Alien Visitor (1997), The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951/2008), Knowing (2009), and Arrival (2016), and a more complete understanding presents itself of where we are globally at this point in our economic, social, and political dramas from the perspective of the galactic community.
Circling back to our original theme, extraterrestrial beings aren’t tints, shades, or tones. Such references to ‘the Greys’ carries strong racist, nationalistic, and xenophobic connotations stemming from our privileged and self-entitled hang-ups with the dementia of the Jim Crow mythos and the Jim Jones rhetoric. I have often argued this same point in reference to that other highly reductive eurocentric term — Bigfoot — as opposed to using the proper cultural phrases like Sasquatch, Yawee, Yeti, Orang Hutan, or the proper names of their different and varied tribal Star Nation designations. ‘Bigfoot’ may have been great for the sensational headlines of the Sixties and Seventies when fear of the unknown controlled the narrative, but it has no valid place in our evolving cultural vernacular of the 21st Century.
This leaves us with a key question. Like ‘Bigfoot’, is the term ‘Grey’ no longer valid? Yes and no. This will depend on a more evolved understanding of the delineation between a yes or no answer. With that being said, if I was to say no to this question, it would be because I make a special point of describing exactly who and what I am referring to as the Greys in the book series The Moor, the Mason, and the Alien:
“the walking dead, cybernetic lifeforms that operated solely on behalf of the Cia-Kar as remote mechanisms” — The Moor, the Mason, and the Alien: A Call to Action, p150
“They may be cybernetic organisms, callous as they are, but they are not stupid by any stretch of the imagination. They are walking super computers…” — The Moor, the Mason, and the Alien: A Call to Action, p178
“no thanks to the obtuse cybernetic belligerence of the Greys” — The Moor, the Mason, and the Alien Part II: A Vril Manifesto, p89
“the Greys and their Borg collective” — The Moor, the Mason, and the Alien Part II: A Vril Manifesto, p188
As you can see, the term ‘Grey’ is still quite valid in reference to a specific group of biomechanically and cybernetically enhanced entities. However, the Greys per se are not to be confused with our living, breathing, extraterrestrial, biological counterparts like the Zeta Reticulans, the P’nti, the Plejaren (Pleiadeans), or the Tall Whites, to name a few. From this perspective, the term ‘Grey’ becomes highly invalid as a racist and xenophobic form of Geocentric Reductive Interstellar Marginalization (GRIM). And yes, it is quite a grim outlook for the human race currently, especially with the Alt-Right, white supremacy, white nationalism, and Christo-fascism waging war on our democracy, our civil rights, our government representation, our constitution, and our humanity. Russia’s irrational invasion of Ukraine is only adding fuel to the fire. Let’s not forget the same-old-same-old going on between Israel, Palestine, India, and Pakistan, as well as the malignant, misogynistic war on women codified in Roe v. Wade. Our misguided notion about saving the so-called unborn seems to have no fail-safe mechanism in place for our humanity when our allegedly saved children grow up to be proud members of the LGBTQ+ community or, Heaven forbid, they openly identify with being seeded extraterrestrial hybrids that are half-human and half-alien. Maybe we should just satisfy our own xenophobic elitism by labeling them all as ‘Greys’ in the same way that we canvas women and people of color with convenient and devious broad strokes.
None of these deranged initiatives speak well of the human race in the eyes of the altruistic Star Nations or the benevolent factions of the galactic community. Neither do the agendas of voter suppression, segregation, religious extremism, misanthropy, cult brainwashing, aversive and systemic racism, conspiracy fearmongering, elitist propaganda, or the environmental disasters that flash through a 24-hour news cycle before disappearing into the void of our cognitive dissonance. The bottom line is that we are going to have to put away our privileged and self-entitled GRIM notions of paranoid supremacy in a fictional geopolitical food chain and come to terms with the fact that we, as a human race in full, are very small fish and an infinite interstellar pond of life, liberty, and the pursuit of wisdom. As a great Jedi Master once said:
“There’s always a bigger fish.” — Qui-Gon Jinn, Star Wars: Episode I: The Phantom Menace, 1999
It is time to pull our collective heads out of our collective asses and stop hammering a square into a round hole with our xenophobic reductive marginalization. Otherwise, we are setting ourselves up for failure when that ‘bigger fish’ comes to Earth in an open and public manner, seeing what we have become. Yes, that would be a very GRIM day indeed.
Addendum May 8, 2022
For those who have been engaging with the article online or through social media posts, thank you for reading it. I don’t have any allusions to my article changing hearts and minds in the next 24 hours. Things like this take a few generations to turn around and we definitely have more important social and political issues to focus on in the immediate present.
The article was mainly written to evoke a response or a reaction so that we could at least start thinking about this in the back of our minds in the here and now. As an example, Zeta Reticulans are biological entities, Greys are not, and this is where most people tend to make the mistake.
Terms like EBE (extraterrestrial biological entity) are fine in reference to actual living things like Zeta Reticulans or Tall Whites, but not the Greys themselves. As time went on, EBAN (extraterrestrial biological android) came to the surface in reference to the Greys specifically. But a mistake was made along the way where EBE and EBAN merged in the UFO dialogue as EBEN — extraterrestrial biological entity — in reference to a flesh and bone entity just like EBE.
Unfortunately, EBE (EBEN) is on one side, EBAN is on the other, and never shall the two meet. Bottom line: the Greys are like memory sticks, jump drives, and VeriChip’s on two legs, representing something altogether different.
The last thing I would want future generations to run into is a situation similar to what was presented in Tim Burton’s “Mars Attacks!”. As comical as the film is, there is a key scene where some naive twit releases a preconceived symbol of peace — a white dove — but the aliens take it as both an egregious insult and a sign of war. Henceforth, all Hell breaks loose on Earth. Yes, it’s laughable to think of this. However, it’s ultimately true as an allegory for official first contact.
UFO UFO Study Ufo Sightings Footage ufo project news Alien Worlds Alien Founder Alien Aliens Are Among Us The Girl Who believed in Aliens Gay Aliens Society Aliens on Earth United Aliens NFT Resort Aliens ExtraTerrestrials extraterrestrial Record Extraterrestrial Explorers extraterrestre The Extraterrestrial SECRET SPACE PROGRAM ALIEN EXTRATERRESTRIAL The Cosmic Companion Cosmic Universe Cosmic Warrior. 🔮✨ cosmic database Cosmic Surfer Cosmic NASA Glenn Research NASA Solar System Nasa Vishal SpaceTraveler
Key Sources:
Books by Richard and Linda Smith
Inviting ET, CreateSpace, August 28, 2018
UMMO Last Message 2016–2019, ET Publications, June 20, 2021
UMMO: A Closer Look, ET Publications, November 11, 2021
The Star Nation Messages: An Invitation for Humanity to Evolve, GracePoint Matrix LLC, May 14, 2020
Jim Crow laws, A&E Television Networks, last updated January 11, 2022; original published date, February 28, 2018
Truth and Lies: Jonestown, Paradise Lost, Hulu, United States, 2018
Resource Links:
Grey alien, Wikipedia, last edited on April 25, 2022
Bigfoot, Wikipedia, last edited on April 23, 2022
Names for Sasquatch in Native American languages, SCENIC Sasquatch, April 7, 2018
Lists of names of hairy humanoids in languages from around the world, SCENIC Sasquatch, March 14, 2018
Enemy Mine, United States, 1985
Alien Nation, United States, 1988
District 9, United States, 2009
The Abyss, United States, 1989
Alien Visitor, Australia, 1997
The Day the Earth Stood Still, United States, (1951)
The Day the Earth Stood Still, United States, (2008)
Knowing, United States, (2009)
Arrival, United States, (2016)
Mars Attacks!, United States (1996)
Your Government Links:
Find your Representative United States House of Representatives
Find your Senator United States Senate
Congress.gov | Library of Congress
The White House Administration
About the author
Richard is an elected member of the Arts Commission for the City of Rio Rancho (District 2) and the owner of 11:22 Creative. As the author of a thought-provoking book series, he talks about ancient, historical, and extraterrestrial narratives influencing our society and culture. Earning his degree in Visual Communications, he received high honors for his work with social and extraterrestrial narratives. As the co-founder and CEO of an educational nonprofit, Richard has spent the last ten years speaking at forums, seminars, and conference venues with engaging talks and life-changing perspectives. He currently resides in Rio Rancho, New Mexico, with his wife Linda, and serves with her on the executive committee for New Mexico’s UFO and paranormal forum.
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