ARE THEY REALLY GREEN?
Why is it so many U.F.O. sightseers talk about “little green men” walking about the downed craft?
Green is a perfectly good color and it has the feel of Ole Ireland and Finian lore about that makes it seem natural when you talk of “wee folk” on “little people”, I suppose. A green sprite would be sprightly, too, I
suppose, whereas a brown one or a blue one might not move with such promptness.
From what I hear those UFO riders have to be quick. too. The dish might be gone before they get all the way inside it and I hate to think what a green, blue, yellow breakdown into primary hues, might look like
smeared across the shiny surface of one of those whirling Frisbees from Outer Space.
Green also suggests “ineptness”, too, doesn’t it? We speak with contempt and ridicule concerning someone who doesn’t know how to do a certain thing we can do with ease. He’s a “greenhorn”. He or she is
“green” - not quite ripe - and stands as an example of someone who can not do a certain thing at all, much less well . They can, however, learn if we teach them which we can do if we get the “green light” telling us it’s okay.
Then, “green” means envy in another usage, I think. So-and-so is “green with envy” because you have a new pogo stick you can ride and she has none. Or, a new Audi, or you are because she can wear a bikini well
and you’d rather not think about even trying to do so.
It could be that we seeing little “green” creatures from space may be in the eye of the beholder, too. Maybe they appear to be green because our eyes are inadequate to equate space colors properly which
could be totally different from ours.
Green also means “go ahead”...or “safe”, does it not? We use it generously on our traffic lights. That suggests that the little green men symbolize safety and that we need not be hesitate to meet with them. We
can just sashay right up to them without fear of being turned into spaceburgers as their fast-food snack. The “green-eyed monster” is very real in the lives of many humans.
What else does “green” mean to us? I forget what litmus paper turns to when it is dunked into something strange. We do, or did, care a great deal about chlorophyll in our lives a few years ago but that has now
given way to cholesterol and anti-oxidants to season our daily conversations and to separate program content on TV. To do a line or so about it here would seem old-fashioned and dated, so I won’t mention t at all.
Why can’t we have more variety in our aliens?
Can some of them appear to be red, or - no, not “yellow”, because that suggests cowardice and anyone, alien or not, who would go whizzing around in one of those little Styrofoam sky scooters with all of our
assorted space junk spinning round the planet cannot be sissies, can they? Maybe purple would be proper...as in “purple people eaters”, so essential to our musical achievements some years ago.
One assumes the aliens are “clothed” in green, or whatever. Certainly we can’t have the scurrying around the sky in green buff! Why can’t some Calvin Kline clothing engineer come up with designer garb in
Scottish plaid? A tartan or two would be a real treat now and then.
A.L.M. August 12, 2002 [c598wds]
