Oh, I hope they're not religious fanatics! We've got enough of those in the here and now.

What I visualize is them keeping an eye on us like humans with stick bugs in an aquarium, except we're meaner.

Sue

This can be generalized to our entire culture. The way we imagine aliens has a lot more to do with us than with "actual aliens." Look at the Alien movie series. Each one is really more about some deep anxiety of our society. The first one addresses our worries about the unholy alliance between the corporate sector and the military-industrial complex. The second one is about single motherhood. The third one is about the penal system. The final one is about Walmart (or rather, the takeover of our lives by multinational corporations). Others like Predator seem more primal, speaking to our ancestral fears as prey animals on the plains of Africa. Men in Black is about illegal immigration and the changing demography of the United States (remember the start of the movie, where the MIBs take over an INS operation, let go the (presumably) illegal immigrants, and bust a space alien disguised as a Latin American man.

Nothing wrong with any of this. Besides, the only ones concerned with green paint that causes alien cancer will be... you guessed it, kids, the aliens. It won't be us.

Da Bing

"Hey, Zorg, 100 denuks says you don't dare shove the probe up there!"

"Go! Go! Go! Go! Go! Go! Go!"

If they've got ion power, we're probably just a hop-skip-jump from anywhere (if they've got Scotty).

Earth is probably the poster child of the universe. Since we can't set a good example, we might as well serve as a horrible warning.

Sue

If aliens are visiting us, it is probably just to observe our bizarre behavior - somewhat in the manner in which we gather in crowds to watch the bad flights at night from the mouth of Carlsbad Caverns.

The aliens hover above us at sunrise and sunset to watch our behavior as we swarm onto the freeways at morning and evening rush hours. Maybe we are part of an Intergalactic Nature Preserve.....