(C) Daily Yonder - Keep it Rural This story was originally published by Daily Yonder - Keep it Rural and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Crop Circle Cinema Episode Three: Little ‘Green’ Men? [1] ['Susannah Broun', 'The Daily Yonder', '.Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Coauthors.Is-Layout-Flow', 'Class', 'Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus', 'Display Inline', '.Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Avatar', 'Where Img', 'Height Auto Max-Width', 'Vertical-Align Bottom .Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Coauthors.Is-Layout-Flow .Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Avatar'] Date: 2025-08-28 In college, I studied history, film, and the environment. I don’t think I could have predicted that these three fields would eventually come together in one strange topic: extraterrestrials. I realized this connection while watching an excess of alien movies to prepare for our new podcast, Crop Circle Cinema. It quickly became clear that throughout the history of film, aliens have been intrinsically connected to the environment (see what I did there?). Whether it is the propensity aliens have for destroying our planet, or their uncanny resemblance in looks and habits to some of nature’s most invasive species, aliens are a way for humans to reckon with the power of the natural world. That’s why the third episode of Crop Circle Cinema, “Little ‘Green’ Men?” takes a “rural ecology” approach to alien films. In this episode, we discuss a wide range of movies including both the 1956 and 1978 versions of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, the 1998 small-town horror film The Faculty (did you know this was one of the major influences on Ryan Coogler’s 2025 masterpiece Sinners?), and M. Night Shamalans’s corn-field alien thriller Signs. Aliens vs. Nature There are lots of movies where humans head to space because we have destroyed our planet and need to look for alternatives (think Avatar or WALL-E). In fact, some people, like Elon Musk, even discuss colonizing Mars outside of the cinematic context. But sometimes, the shoe is on the other foot. In a number of rural alien films, extraterrestrials descend on Earth in search of food, water, energy, or other resources. They’re portrayed as extractive, greedy, and monstrous. The irony is that what makes the aliens evil monsters is what humans do every day: We strip-mine, deforest, and drain resources on an industrial scale. In this episode, we explore the mirror that aliens hold up to warn humans of our own environmental degradation. They force us to confront the uncomfortable truth that we’re not so different from the otherworldly invaders we fear. Aliens as Nature Have you ever noticed that aliens tend to look a lot like bugs or other times a lot like plants? Follow-up question: have you ever been a little terrified that all the bugs and plants in the world will turn against us and take over? No? Just me? Well, it seems that many sci-fi filmmakers have actually shared these unsettling thoughts.. Aliens often symbolize those creeping threats already surrounding us: quick spreading diseases, weeds that choke out native growth, and parasites that transform their hosts, becoming indistinguishable from the more threatening parts of our natural world. This plays out in two ways in movies: external invasion and internal invasion. Some films imagine alien forces overwhelming Earth in the same way that invasive species or runaway plagues sweep through ecosystems. Others turn inward, presenting aliens as something that infects us, seeping into and transforming our bodies. Together, these narratives feed on anxieties about contamination, collapse, and our inability to control nature. Many on-screen alien invasions seem to ask: what would happen if the Earth itself fought back? To learn more about how aliens both embody and battle nature. Listen to Crop Circle Cinema – Ep 3: Little ‘Green’ Men? on the Rural Remix feed, wherever you get your podcasts. Related Republish This Story Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license. [END] --- [1] Url: https://dailyyonder.com/crop-circle-cinema-episode-three-little-green-men/2025/08/28/ Published and (C) by Daily Yonder - Keep it Rural Content appears here under this condition or license: Creative Commons CC BY-ND 4.0 International. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailyyonder/