Fairy Tale Spotlight: What is an Alien?

My dictionary of choice is the 1928 Webster's American Dictionary of the English Language. It is my go-to dictionary whenever I am trying to get the definition to a word without the cloud of modern political correctness. I agree with about 95% of what I see there. Recently, I wanted to write a spotlight about aliens and I figured I'd stop by the book and see what it had to say on the matter. What I found was a lot of repetition of the words "Foreign" and "Estranged." It also described an alien as "not belonging to the same country, land or government." Another way to describe an alien is as "a foreigner." In religious context, an alien would be "one who is a stranger to the church of Christ, or to the covenant of grace." All very interesting.

There is no reference to space aliens. This is likely because the book came before the popularized space alien tropes really got rolling in literature. Nevertheless, they were still there and people did always wonder. Much of the alien references simply applied to anybody who did not belong. Space aliens are named as such because they do not belong on Earth. They come from elsewhere and are here either as visitors or invaders. An alien, as a mere word, does not really explain what the alien is but only suggests that they are from elsewhere. Simply being an alien does not mean you are from another planet. It can just as easily mean you are from Mexico or Canada. The word is extremely generalized.

A space alien is assumed to come from somewhere in the depth of outer space. The word "space" rather denotes this. But we often just call anything strange or otherworldly an alien. We expect certain things from this--namely that they don't look human. Aliens can just as easily come from different planes of existence. They can be from Earth but a different plane of earth--alternate dimensions to our own. We may sometimes see them in mirrors or on photographs. These creatures are, by the very definition of the word, aliens. They are creatures that are not of our world.

It is believed that these otherworldly beings can breach into our own dimension. They can communicate with us and even help us out in ways. We tend to call them different things, but that doesn't make them any less alien. They are from somewhere foreign. They do not actually belong here. They're assistance is probably not in our best interest.

Throughout history we have encountered these aliens. They were given interesting names such as fairies, trolls, spirit guides, manikins, angels, and demons. We interacted with them without understanding that they were not human and did not belong here at all. Sometimes they were even worshiped. Deals were made. Slaves were took. Stories were written to document these incidents and we now call them fairy tales.

Today we still entertain these aliens. We see them all the time but in different ways than our ancestors did. They are still here. They still have the same agendas. And as long as we continue to tolerate them, inhuman practices will still invade our lifestyles. These otherworldly aliens are not human. They do not understand humans and they never will. Why? Because they are alien, foreign, estranged. They do not belong here. Stop... inviting... them... in.

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