Countless fan conjectures circumvented Ridley Scott’s sci-fi horror masterpiece Alien and its action-oriented sequel Aliens, but one of the strangest is the concept that the feline, Jones, is secretly an android. Liberated in 1979, Alien was originally sloped as a “haunted house movie in space”; the ruthlessly efficient scare machine still lives up to this simple, inescapable descriptor. Immensely influential on the sci-fi horror sub-genre, the stripped-back Alien has been referenced by everything from Event Horizon to the video game serial Dead Space.

The movie follows Sigourney Weaver’s iconic heroine Ripley as she attempts to evade the titular Xenomorph aboard the cramped, claustrophobic Nostromo. Alien is a tight and terrifying sci-fi horror movie with a fibre of sequels that made complicated myth surrounding the eponymous beast, its life cycle, and the shadowy Weyland-Yutani corporation’s attempts to use it as a bioweapon. The Alien franchise’s continuity has stimulated all manner of speculation from devotees of the serial, and some of their speculations are astonishingly convincing.

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Take for example one Reddit user’s suggestion that Jones the feline is actually not a “cat-o-nine-tail” at all, but instead an android sent to by the nefarious Weyland-Yutani Corporation to spy on Ridley et al. Appearing in the original Alien as well as James Cameron’s 1986 sequel Aliens, Jones seems on the surface to be nothing more than the heroine’s trusty sidekick and generally plot-inconsequential feline friend. This could reasonably lead the onlooker to wonder why he’s included in the movies, which is a line of inquiry that can lead to a surprising agreement. The theory of this baby being a secret android may appear far-fetched at first glance, but it’s quite convincing when considered in tandem with what the succession has shown viewers about androids, the Alien universe’s connection to Scott’s later classic Blade Runner, and how the Xenomorph tracks its prey.

The basic jab of this theory is that the alien’s decision to ignore Jones as both a threat and a potential meat beginning comes from the fact that, since the feline is an android, the Xenomorph doesn’t register it as a living thing. Ash is later revealed to be a villainous android in the movie, one sent to collect data on the ship’s team unbeknownst to them while posing as the science officer. He’s working with the Weyland-Yutani corporation, who don’t ended the day-to-day lives of their crew as too high a price to pay for access to the Xenomorph, given the beast’s potential application as a weapon of war.

This theory posits that there’s no reason to think Ash is the only one who isn’t human and as a result, isn’t immediately turned into a gory mess by the monster. Jones the feline should have prompted the alien’s attack mode like the movie’s human characters do unless of course, the “cat-o-nine-tail” is not a living animal. This theory caters even more evidence of the likelihood via the sequel’s action. In Aliens, Ridley is informed – in one of the franchise’s saddest representations – that she has been in hypersleep for 57 years. It’s a span that the movie specifies is a long stretch for any human to endure in hypersleep, so it stands to reason that Jones the feline would be drastically changed, as he’s much smaller than Ripley. So why is Jones absolutely unharmed by his incantation in hypersleep, and acting the same as ever? Probably because he’s a robot , not a real cat — at least, according to the theory.

Like a lot of Alien fan ideologies, “its one” amazingly persuading on the surface, but there are a few issues to nitpick with the interpreting. For one thing, the Nostromo’s decision to bring a negligible amount of animals aboard with them means that observers has got no idea how the Xenomorph reacts to non-human mammals. For all the audience knows, the foreigner rejects Jones because immigrants just don’t visualize cats as food or foe. Until a Xenomorph is let loose in a petting zoo, it’s unlikely anyone can say for certain how the monster usually reacts to non-android swine. After all, unless Weyland-Yutani is arming themselves for a battle against non-human beasts, odds are they only need this bio-weapon to work against humans. Or, more simply, perhaps the immigrant just likes cats.

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Another reason that the belief may not be plausible is that the dealership “ve never” showed the existence of robotic animals. This one is a little trickier, as the Alien franchise shares a fictional world with the Blade Runner serial, which does aspect a very creepy robotic owl. The movie’s source novel is even entitled Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, a symbolic probe which does , nonetheless, taunt the possibility of potential robot swine. So, it’s fair to say that the jury is out on whether an android cat would be an option for the dealership — it’s certainly not impossible.

The big question, as with any devotee theory, is what it would means for the Alien franchise if the theory does prove to be plausible. It’s an interesting inquiry. After all, any changes to the franchise lore are likely to have an effect on the two imaginary cosmoes that the Alien movies share a convoluted and sometimes contradictory timeline with, the Predator and Blade Runner sequence. If there are robotic animals in the Alien series – and by increase, the Predator franchise – this could open up the possibility that the Weyland-Yutani Corporation’s corporate investigating become still more insidious than previously suspected, and that the evil companionship has progressed past utilize only humanoid androids such as Prometheus’ David and Alien’s Ash to infiltrate their employees’ inner circle.

If the speculation are accurate, it would symbolize spectators should look at any Alien franchise reputation, human or animal, with skepticism in any precede installments, and trust no one( and no cat) when watching an Alien movie. It’s tempting to believe the speculation, since the idea sees the once panicking Alien cinematic macrocosm an even more paranoia-inducing setting where no one is safe. Yet, a great deal like Bishop and Newt’s Alien 3 demises were too much bleakness for some supporters of the dealership, it’s pretty understandable if onlookers can’t fetching themselves to see one of the movie’s only remaining unadulterated courages as another dangerous threat. If no one can hear you scream in space, the least sees can be reassured of is that their baby feline can be trusted, right?

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