And the Scariest Alien is....

Thanks for tuning back into the BeX Files!

Well, it’s finally time: As spooky season reaches its pinnacle, I’m happy to share that the Search for ExtraTERRORestrial Life is OVER. 

During the past month, battles have raged between shape-shifters and body snatchers, predators and invaders, interdimensional entities and murderous space clowns. Now, all the votes have been cast and one extraterrestrial has endured to snatch the mantle of Scariest Alien.

THE BLOB. 

I would coronate this classic carnivorous extraterrestrial, but it would just devour its own crown—along with anything or anyone unlucky enough to venture near it. 

First introduced in the 1958 film starring Steve McQueen, this amoeboid alien is chilling in its pure simplicity. It has no discernable logic or desire for connection. It cannot be reasoned with, bribed, or deceived. It is animated solely by its insatiable appetite, a murderous drive to consume everything and everyone in its path. To add an extra bit of grotesquerie, the victims of the Blob are visibly digested alive as they are trapped within its gelatinous folds, condemned to become part of the entity that killed them. 

The Blob makes a brief appearance in First Contact: The Story of our Obsession with Aliens in my section on the “monster” alien trope in pop culture. Many iconic stories about extraterrestrial monsters are allegorical; for example, H.G. Wells used the Martians in The War of the Worlds as a vehicle to critique the colonial excesses of the British Empire, which was reaching its height as the story was published at the turn of the 20th century.

In contrast, the Blob has always struck me as beautifully basic; a nightmare in distilled goo. I note in the book that you could probably argue that this ravenous alien is some kind of metaphor about consumerism or the creeping inevitability of death if you had to write a term paper about it. But in my view, the Blob doesn't really demand any symbolic resonance. Sometimes, it’s enough for an alien to just be super-duper scary. With that in mind, the Blob is a fitting champion in the Search for ExtraTERRORestrial Life. 

Thank you to everyone who weighed in, including those who suggested scary aliens that didn’t make it into the bracket. I’ve never played Halo, but several people nominated the Flood as a candidate for Scariest Alien, as one example. Perhaps the Blob will have to defend its title in another tournament next Halloween...

And for anyone looking for a Halloween-themed alien tale that won’t give you nightmares, I recommend revisiting Steven Spielberg’s E.T.: The Extraterrestrial. Despite the countless times I’ve seen this 1982 classic, there’s always something new in each viewing and I enjoyed rewatching it this week.

I think it’s especially resonant as a film set around Halloween; a holiday that imagines a lifting of the veil between the living and dead, allowing the denizens of both realms to coexist for a brief window of connection.

The friendship between E.T. and Elliot, strangers from different worlds, embodies this season’s mood of transient spiritual contact and the inevitability of saying goodbye (or, as the movie so movingly puts it: “Ouch”). But though otherworldly souls must eventually go home, they leave us altered forever—and they take part of us with them too.

With that, wishing you all a Happy Halloween! And for revelers who aren’t quite ready to give up the ghosts yet, keep an eye out for my 404 Media newsletter, the Abstract, which will post on Saturday with some seasonally scary science. Otherwise, I’ll meet you back at the cosmic rest stop next Friday.