It wraps its scaly, black body along the pipes and walls and drips lethal acid from its wounds. It has bionic hearing, a long slash of a tail, and hunts its victims like prey. When it finds them, it opens its mouth in a malevolentShowing a wish to do evil to others.  grin, to reveal rows of sharp, terrible teeth.

This is the xenomorph, the antagonistA character in a story who is presented as the main enemy or threat. of the Alien franchise. It returned to screens this summer with the requel Alien: Romulus, a film about a band of cosmic adventurers who stumble upon an abandoned spaceship.

The Alien franchise contains nine feature-length films dating from 1979 to today. But what makes this series about evil aliens hunting humans, seemingly for no reason, so compelling?

Some call it our oldest conspiracy theory - the idea that there are extraterrestrial beings, and we may even have already encountered them. As far back as antiquity, the Epicurean philosophers considered it likely that aliens existed.

And now the alien conspiracists have a powerful new ally in the form of Donald Trump. The presidential hopeful revealed that, if elected, he will release confidential footage of UFOs.

Some say it is hardly a surprise: alien conspiracies are a shorthand for the same anti-establishment views that have become Trump's political trademark. It is likely to be a hit policy among his target audience.

For those who agree with his forceful diatribes about the "corrupt government cartel" and the "Fake News media", it is not hard to believe in an alien cover-up by the powers that be.¹

Some think we cannot afford to write it off. Aliens, they say, are an expression of our alienation - from government, politics, and the democratic process. We cannot afford to let our faith in a better world crumble as we reach for the stars.

Is belief in aliens actively dangerous?

Yes: As belief in aliens rises, people feel entitled to ask the government to address this non-issue. We should be focusing on the important issues of the climate crisis, war and the rise of the far-right, not fabricated nonsense about little green men.

No: Certainly, it is not promising that so many are willing to accept that the government could be engaged in a cover-up to hide the existence of aliens. But there is nothing wrong with an innocent belief in there being something more in the stars.

Or... Believing in aliens is not "dangerous", nor even a conspiracy theory. It is incredibly unlikely that the universe is infinite and yet has not spawned any other life forms at all. We have simply not invested enough in finding them.