Alien: Earth has the potential to redefine the Alien franchise by solving the long-standing mystery of the ‘bugs’ referenced in Aliens.
Alien: Earth May Finally Solve Aliens’ ‘Bug Hunt’ Mystery After 39 Years
Warning! This article contains SPILERS for Alien: Earth season 1, episodes 1 & 2. It’s been almost 40 years since James Cameron’s Aliens was released, and now Alien: Earth finally has a chance to solve one of the legendary sequel’s oldest mysteries. Alien: Earth occupies a unique position in the Alien franchise’s timeline. It’s a prequel to the original Alien, but a sequel to both Prometheus and Alien: Covenant, and it rewrites some Alien lore.
Despite its chronological placement, Alien: Earth has the potential to redefine the entire franchise. Earth has already explored Weyland-Yutani and its competition in much greater depth than any other story, in addition to adding significant lore via Earth‘s human-synthetic hybrids. Now, it can also solve a decades-old mystery from Aliens.
Aliens References “Bugs” Other Than Xenomorphs, But The Franchise Never Explained What They Were
In James Cameron’s Aliens, while the Colonial Marines are being briefed about the Xenomorphs and the situation at Hadley’s Hope, they belittle the situation. None of them take it seriously, and Private Hudson asks if the mission is going to be “another bug hunt.” Hudson’s comment implies that there are other alien lifeforms in the Alien universe besides Xenomorphs, but we never find out what they are.
There is an Alien book titled “Bug Hunt” that describes some of the missions the marines in Aliens undertook prior to the events at Hadley’s Hope. However, the Alien movies have never addressed this line. Like many other sci-fi franchises, Alien is no stranger to overwriting lore established off-screen, so “Bug Hunt”‘s description of other alien lifeforms isn’t a definitive answer to what other aliens exist in this universe.
Based on Hudson’s comment – and Hicks’ confirmation – it seems like alien life is actually fairly common in Alien. Xenomorphs are unheard of, but no one from the Marines or Weyland-Yutani seems particularly surprised that there may be alien life on LV-426. The Marines have also apparently dealt with so many hostile aliens that they consider it mundane grunt work.
Aliens also mentions a race of people known as Arcturians. Published Alien works have explained that Arcturians are a humanoid alien species, but the main movies have never shown Arcturians or given any indication that they are not simply humans colonizing a planet named Arcturia.
As commonplace as other alien lifeforms seem to be in Aliens, we’ve never seen them. None of the subsequent five canon Alien films ever address the notion of a “bug hunt” again, and no one seems to be interested in alien life beyond the Xenomorphs. The concept of “bugs” in Aliens is simply dropped, leaving an unsolved mystery for the franchise.
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Alien: Earth May Have Already Introduced Aliens’ “Bugs”
Aliens‘ “bugs” have been a mystery for nearly 40 years, but Alien: Earth may have already solved it. Alien: Earth introduced five hostile alien lifeforms, including the Xenomorphs. We’ve already seen three in the show’s premiere, including T. Ocellus, which digs out its host’s eye and takes over their brain, as well as a yet-unnamed mosquito-like alien and the plant-like pod Tootles found.
It’s possible that one of the specimens the USCSS Maginot brought back during its mission for Yutani is a member of the same species the Colonial Marines refer to as bugs. The Maginot was presumably searching for any alien lifeforms it could find, and if these bugs are as widespread as Aliens implied they are, there’s a very good chance it’s one of the specimens they found.
Based on the Marines’ comments, the bugs would have to be significantly less imposing than the Xenomorphs. The bugs may be the mosquito-like lifeforms that drained the Prodigy employees of their blood. If the guards weren’t tied down by Morrow, they would have been exceptionally easy to deal with, after all. Easy enough for highly-trained Marines to consider exterminating them a matter of routine.
There’s also a chance that the bugs in question are one of the remaining lifeforms we have yet to get a good look at in Alien: Earth. There were reportedly five specimens on board the Maginot, but we’ve only seen three (at most) so far. Alien: Earth would also need to clarify that one of its new species is the same one mentioned in Aliens to truly put this mystery to rest.
