You know what really grinds my gears after forty years in aerospace engineering? How Hollywood aliens never make good tactical decisions. I spend my days literally designing spacecraft – satellite propulsion systems that will actually work in space – and I'm watching aliens with far more advanced technology decide that Earth is worth invading. Look, I love sci-fi as much as the next aerospace engineer – okay way more than the next aerospace engineer – but even I know you don't build a capital ship capable of FTL travel and then use it to vacation in Vegas.
I was sitting on a panel at DragonCon once. The panel was about alien invasion films and the moderator was asking the audience why the aliens always wanted Earth. This kid raises his hand – must have been 19 or 20 at most – and said "because we're special." We are special? Don't make me laugh. I've read the astronomy journals. There are billions of potentially habitable planets out there – many of them not cluttered with seven billion annoying humans who can't agree on things like organic food.
I was ready to popcorn-mouth slit my wrists when Independence Day came out (and yes, I saw it in theatres). It's just so silly. Our aliens contact vector rides on a satellite that Jeff Goldblum hacks using his freaking PowerBook. Come on. I work with spacecraft computer systems daily – if we can't get two terrestrial systems to communicate, you don't think intergalactic types have encryption schemes we couldn't begin to comprehend? I get it, tell Goldblum to plug into whatever the aliens use and he finds a vulnerability. But a USB connection? Please.
What really gets me is they travel all this way because they want our resources. OUR RESOURCES! Why would an alien civilization care about mining Earth when every asteroid out there is basically a patently walking supply depot waiting to be tapped? I don't care how far they've traveled – if they needed resources they'd just send a ship to the asteroid belt. Hell, settle Saturn's rings. There's enough ice on Enceladus to supply fresh water for the rest of human history and we haven't even started mining it.
I did some math once – I know, I'm an engineer what did you expect. But seriously, if you just scratch the surface of Pluto you'd find more fuel and raw materials than we could ever hope to use. And I'm just talking in our own solar system. These aliens traveled who knows how long to get here – assuming they came from another solar system they passed tens, likely hundreds, of systems full of billions of planets each. And they choose THIS planet. Why?
I used to joke about this with my co-workers at Lockheed back in the day. We were literally building real spacecraft. Systems that had to work in zero-G, didn't have static lines tethering us to anything, and faced the harsh reality of space – from radiation to orbital debris. Then we'd come home and watch sci-fi flicks where they blast away from planets at ten times the speed of light to have "misunderstandings" about totally obvious things. Science fiction, yes. But someone should have told Hollywood that fiction doesn't necessarily have to be bad science.
The War of the Worlds might be the most honest film about why aliens would come here. Sure, his aliens got picked up by microbes when they landed but hear me out. At least Wells had the decency to give his aliens a believable reason to leave Mars in the first place. Every. Single. Other alien invasion movie just dumps them here with no explanation. It's like NASA landing on the Moon but not bothering to see if the natives can breathe the air.
I actually got into an argument with a film critic years ago about this. We were on a panel together (funny story – he asked me to be on his after hearing me rant about this exact topic at DragonCon years earlier) and I got frustrated because the guy kept saying that aliens didn't need to make sense. They weren't there to be realistic, they were there to incite human drama. Look, I don't care if you want to make social commentary with your alien blockbuster but you can do it without insulting my Ph.D.-level science knowledge. Klaatu from the original The Day the Earth Stood Still actually had a good reason to come. He wasn't invading – he was visiting and wanted to stop us from spreading to other worlds before we became a threat.
I can't even with the whole humanoid business either. I used to think about what REAL alien biology would be like on my commutes into work all those years. It boggles the mind that Hollywood thinks every species in the galaxy just ends up with two arms, two legs, humanoid torsos, and faces with personalities we can understand. Look at us – every single animal on this planet shares the same genetic makeup (roughly) but look how diverse life is. If aliens evolved under conditions thousands to millions of miles above sea level, with different gravity, atmospheric pressures, solar outputs….what do you think they look like?
I didn't even realise how angry I was about A Quiet Place until last month when I rewatched it. You don't program an entire species to visit a planet full of creatures that rely solely on sound to survive. I know we live on Earth, but come on! There are dead worlds out there. Quiet worlds. Alien worlds who's plant life doesn't sweep across beaches in seen-but-not-heard masses. Those are the planets you send reconnaissance to when you want to explore. Hell, we had deserts on Earth and the aliens decide to come here?
Battle: Los Angeles made me particularly angry because I had just finished reading about Saturn's moons when it came out. Europa, Enceladus, and Ganymede all have more water than Earth. CLEAN water too. Water unsullied by millennia of human pollution, water without all the microscopic life forms that would kill your scientists the second they stepped out of their descending plunge. Yet here we are, pumping out movies where aliens come to Earth because they need water. I swear it wouldn't take much to look beyond our own planet if you didn't have the mentality of a conquistador.
I tell my wife this all the time – she thinks I care too much. Maybe she's right. But humans have been wondering about aliens for as long as we've been smart enough to look up at the stars. Should we find evidence of life out there, I hope they're better than this. Hell, based on these films, I hope we never find any life at all. An alien race that comes here to invade because they need more minerals than their home planet can provide isn't smart. An alien race that travels between stars as though they can pop over on a Sunday drive isn't technically proficient.
The truth is, we would terrify aliens. Yeah, I said it. We spent centuries blowing up our own planet with nuclear weapons, only to argue about imaginary physics behind newsrooms and keyboard likes. We devastated our oceans so much that we can barely grow seafood anymore without farming it in ponds. We clearly don't know how to take care of our own planet so what makes any alien society think we could manage resources on a cosmic scale?
I don't know. I really don't. All I know is that if aliens DID come here to invade, we'd show them why Earth is special. We'd slaughter them with our drones and fighter jets, submarines, and NSA hacking prowess. We would vaporize them from orbit. THEN bring out bombs. Real aliens would terraform Earth to look like THEIR home planet, killing countless millions (maybe BILLIONS) in the process. Because while we may be unique in our loving pride of ourselves – we are NOT that unique.
John spent forty years designing real spacecraft before turning his attention to fictional ones. Writing from Oregon, he brings a scientist’s curiosity to sci-fi—separating good speculation from bad physics while keeping his sense of wonder firmly intact.