THE PUPPET MASTERS

BACK TO THE (ALTERNATIVE) FUTURE

If there's one theme that is irresistible to Hollywood filmmakers and myself, it's parasites. You might counter this assertion by asking, "What about mutant viral epidemics? They are very popular, you know." That's true, but I think that nothing says science fiction like a parasitic infection, usually because mind control is part of the mix. We should also keep in mind that microorganisms like viruses, bacteria, and protozoa are technically parasites too, and that many of those microbes assert control over their victims, both in the movies and in real life(1). Therefore, it all boils down to parasites. They're everywhere!

The Puppet Masters book by Robert Heinlein was one of my favorites when I was a kid. To my delight, it was turned into a movie in 1994. What, exactly are Puppet Masters? They are alien hive-mind creatures, consisting of many individual slug-like organisms creating a collective consciousness. For you (movie) trivia buffs, these parasites are 60% brain tissue, according to government experts.

A "slug" resting quietly on a window pane. All brain, no brawn.

The individual organism appears to be something like a cross between a manta ray and a slug. It has a powerful tentacle so strong it can punch through wood. The tentacle disturbingly, resembles a (huge) erect male dog phallus.

Recruitment of a new host. Ouch!

It inserts this appendage through the host's tissues, insinuating an extension of itself into the right and left hemispheres of the cerebrum, to the cerebral cortex.

Here is a picture of the cortex.

The superficial (outer) part of the cerebrum is called the cerebral cortex. It's the area of the brain controlling memory, interpretation of sensory input, cognition, language, and willed movement. So it makes sense that this is the part of the brain the creature would want to interface with.

A puppet master insinuating itself into a victim's cerebrum.

Once ensconced in the host, the creature can access the person’s entire history and psyche, it knows the host intimately and communicates this information to it’s fellow parasites via an intertwining tendril system. This communication feature causes me to wonder if this movie may have inspired the inter-tendrilly communication of the Navi in Avatar. But I digress.

NO SECRETS!

The human hosts are cognizant of this group-mind-knowledge, so everyone knows everybody else’s closest secrets. All dirty laundry is aired in the onslaught of the alien invasion. I’m not sure why government agencies want to save the people infected by the slugs. They now know all the state secrets, held in the minds of hapless government agents hosting the parasites. It seems that the FBI would want to kill all the people hosting slugs, for knowing too much. It's like a giant, psychic Wikileaks(2)!

Julian Assange: the real-world equivalent of a hive-mind parasitic space alien?

PARASITIC INFECTIONS ARE STRESSFUL

The parasite controls its host’s speech and movements. It also apparently increases the host body’s output of adrenaline (the hormones epinephrine and norepinephrine). Since the creature controls the brain, this could be done by causing a part of the brain called the hypothalamus to stimulate the adrenal medulla(3), via nerve impulses, creating a sympathetic nervous response in the body. This sympathetic system is often called the stress response or the fight-or-flight response because it pumps you up and gets your ready to kill, be killed, or run for your life.

How this sympathetic nervous system stimulation assists the alien creatures in over-riding the conscious control of its host is beyond me.

The fight-or-flight response prepares your body for immediate physical activity and the possibility of mortal injury. Respiration increases. Blood gets directed towards your brain (more for the slug!) and muscles. Blood is directed away from digestive and sexual organs. There will be plenty of time for eating and fornicating if you live through the immediate crisis. Blood volume goes up and the blood is altered so that it will clot more easily. Your heart rate increases, pupils dilate, and you sweat from all this increased metabolic activity.

However, in the movie, every parasitized human has no armpit stains and is breathing quite normally. They look quite calm, which doesn’t quite coordinate with the image of a person with a bunch of adrenaline pumping around in their bloodstream.

How can this be the look of a child ready to kill or be killed?

1. For more on microbial mind control, see the toxoplasma gondii references in my October 7, 2010 post.

2. It is impossible to know whether or not Julian Assange gets his information from infection with psychic alien invaders or a collection of uninfected humans, but the results do demonstrate some interesting parallels...

3. The adrenal medulla is a part of the adrenal gland, an organ that secretes hormones, sitting on top of your kidneys.

STAR TREK, WRATH OF KHAN

Khan (Ricardo Montalban), professional Ceti Eel handler.

BE PREPARED!

Planning a vacation? Let me urge you to be an Informed Tourist and educate yourself about the types of parasites travelers to foreign planets may encounter. Picking up a brochure from the Federation of Planets' Health Department can help you avoid annoying diarrheal disease or parasitic mind control.

Vulcans and humans alike are subject to infestation of Ceti Eel larvae. Although this infestation is rare, emergence of the larva from under the armored scale of the reptile-like Eel adult, and subsequent migration to a human host has been known to occur.

If you encounter a Ceti Eel while on vacation, do not attempt to feed or touch it. Eels have been known to bite.

The larva enters the cranium via the auditory canal (ear hole), penetrating through bone and soft tissues alike to “wrap itself around the cerebral cortex.”

Eel entering auditory canal of non-consenting study subject. Eel size, approximately 3.5 cm.

Pathways utilized by the Ceti Eel.

How can an organism, only a few centimeters in length, wrap itself around a humanoid cerebral cortex? I have yet to find published research describing this phenomenon. Ceti Eel larvae are only a few centimeters in length when they enter the ear and (occasionally) exit it, with no measurable change in size or mass.

Diagram of cerebral cortex. It's big.

However, once ensconced around the cerebral cortex, the larval Eel can control the behavior of its host, compelling him to perform activities he (or she) would not otherwise engage in. The effect of the Ceti Eel on behavior is somewhat similar to the way in which the protozoa Toxoplasma gondii alters the behavior of the rodent it infects.

Chekov (Walter Koenig) doesn't want to help Khan. The Eel makes him behave like a rat on Toxo!

A MOMENT FOR EARTHLY MIND CONTROL

Just as Chekov wants to avoid Khan, rodents want to avoid cats. But rats infected by Toxplasma gondii demonstrate a distinct affinity to cat urine(1)! It is hypothesized that the protozoan influences rat behavior, for this particular parasite needs the rat to be eaten by the cat in order to complete its life cycle.

Mmm... what a lovely fragrance you have! Too bad this rat is under parasitic mind control!

In order to reduce your chances of Toxoplasma gondii infection(2) avoid eating or huffing cat poop, and don't vacation in France (or maybe you could just avoid French cats that eat a lot of raw game.)

BUT BACK TO THE EELS!

How does one detect Eel infestation? Signs and symptoms of Ceti Eel infestation include: headache, screaming, mild fever, behavioral and personality changes (compliance leading to dementia), slight bleeding from the ear, possibly death.

Bleeding from the ear, a common sign of Eel infestation.

There is no known treatment for Ceti Eel infestation. Tylenol or other analgesic medications may reduce headache and fever. Ceti Eel larvae do not seem to parasitize humans for any essential metabolic purpose, and occasionally will spontaneously re-emerge from their host’s ear with no perceptible alteration in size or shape.

Miraculously, infestation with Ceti Eel seems to have no detrimental effect on hearing.

If the infestation does not spontaneously resolve, death results.

Enjoy your trip!

1. Does this mean incontinent cats make better mousers?

2. In most people, presence of the protozoan is well tolerated, but avoid changing that litter box if you're pregnant.

HUMAN HOST AND PLANT PARASITES- Invasion of the Body Snatchers

SEND ME NO FLOWERS(1)

Exclusive of the occasional pine tree seed taking root in human lung tissue, there are very few instances of plant life living on or in human tissue.... on this planet.

Xray of pine sprout growing in lung tissue. Is it real? A hoax? Does it really matter?

Plant life is not to be confused with fungi that parasitize human bodies, producing pathologies such as athletes foot (tinea pedis), ringworm (tinea corporis), and jock itch.

This was the most benign athlete's foot picture I could find. The link is above.

Most plants leave humans alone, seeking fertile soil elsewhere. But this is not so for the plant-like creatures in the 1978 remake of Invasion Of The Body Snatchers. These vaguely hibiscus looking flowers(2), use tendril-like shoots to contact and assimilate the bodies of the host human, who is slowly, over the course of hours reduced to a fibrous ash.

As you sleep, these alien plants parasitize you...

creating a replica of you by using your original proteins and enzymes, I assume.

The next day your fibrous, ashy, carcass is disposed of by city sanitation services.

Although the people emulated by the body replicating plantlife will report the “new” life of an outerspace flower human as being preferable to their old purely Earthly human life, this first-hand report of a mutualistic symbiosis comes from an unreliable source, and requires further study.

Signs and symptoms of space flower plant infestation include: drowsiness, flaking skin, dry mouth, coma, dehydration, rebirth as a new life form.

A new you!

Anti-fungal sprays and creams such as Tinactin and Lotrimin are ineffective against plant parasites. They only work against tinea (skin fungus). In the case of Body Snatching, prevention is the best treatment.

Better for jock itch, not useful for Body Snatcher treatment(3).

1. How could I resist a tie-in between a Doris Day/Rock Hudson hypochondriacal comedy, and the 1956 and 1978 horror classics, Invasion Of The Body Snatchers?

2. I am most definitely NOT The Cinemabotanist! The flowers look like little hibiscuses to me, but they also look like primroses, from my ignorant perspective.

3. This would be like using an antibiotic for the flu or common cold.

HUMAN/ALIEN SYMBIOSIS

WHY CAN'T WE ALL JUST GET ALONG?

The complicated relationships of alien to man can be examined on a number of different levels. When we explore human/alien symbiosis, we should understand the basic dynamics of such relationships.

In a nutshell, symbiosis describes the intimate relationship of two dissimilar organisms living in close association to one another. When discussing human/alien symbiosis, I am not describing the cultural intimacies associated with the “prawns” and humans from District 9, nor the sporting relationships of the Predator and his human prey, for these types of relationships are relatively casual without any significant form of biological commerce.

Inter-species sporting activity is not an example of symbiosis

Specifically, I wish to explore many manifestations of alien/human parasitism: a relationship in which a parasite (alien) benefits from this intimacy, while the host (human) is harmed. Other forms of symbiosis such as mutualism(1) and commensalism(2) do not apply here.

HUMAN HOST AND ARTHROPOD PARASITE

Animal/arthropod relationships are exceedingly common. Lice, mites, and fleas are common infesters of humankind. Itchy, embarrassing annoyances at best, and carriers of deadly disease at worst, these critters have sucked human blood, drunk human sebum (skin oil), eaten skin flakes, and burrowed into our skin for thousands of years.

Lice are not aliens, but they are blood-sucking, sebum-drinking parasites.

Most direct harm caused to human hosts by these relationships is minor. However lice and fleas can also be vectors for disease, transmitting microbes responsible for bubonic plague and other nasty illnesses.

ALIEN ARTHROPODS

The Alien relies on a host of any variety of life forms, during an incubatory phase in its life cycle. An Alien larval organism emerges from its egg, possessed of four pairs of legs. These legs enable the organism to spring at the “face” of a host be it dog, human, or predator.

Alien larvae launching at faces.

This larval stage creature, according to the wiki literature, implants what has been referred to as an “embryo” in the chest of the host. Implantation may be through esophageal or tracheal penetration, but no definitive data has been collected as yet on this subject.

Alien incubation has been seen in both the thoracic and abdominal cavities(3). Most symptoms of Alien infestation are symptoms of cardiopulmonary distress, as opposed to digestive disorders, or abdominal complaints. However, it is important to remember that gastrointestinal conditions like heartburn and acid reflux can cause sternal and epigastric pain that mimic angina(4).

Pain from heartburn can mimic angina.

Pain from angina can mimic heartburn.

Nestled within the mediastinum of the chest, between the lungs and the heart, the Alien develops into a nymph that is called a “chestbuster” in wiki speak(5). While ensconced in its host, the human is relatively unharmed. However, when the nymph is ready to re-emerge from its encasement, it punches out of the chest wall, like a baby chick on a cocktail of speed, meth, and steroids. During this process, the nymph destroys the sternum, ribs, adjacent musculature and all associated vascular structures.

The "chestbuster" alien nymph.

Additionally, the vigorous physical activity necessary for breaking through the thorax, will also likely cause lacerations to the lungs, pericardium, and heart. This process usually kills the host organism (providing) they possess a heart and lungs in the thoracic cavity. For this reason, a Vulcan may survive Alien parasitic infestation of the chest, but not of the abdomen.

Signs and symptoms of alien infestation include: short term memory loss with vague associations of anxiety and terror, palpitations, dyspnea (shortness of breath), and angina.

Endstage signs and symptoms include: excruciating chest pain, collapsed lung, sternal and rib compound fracture, hemorrhage, bleeding, muscle tear, unconsciousness, and death.

Currently there is no known treatment for alien infestation.

1. Mutualism is a relationship in which both organisms benefit from their relationship. The relationship between human beings and the beneficial bacteria living in their guts is considered a mutualistic relationship.

2. Commensal relationships neither benefits nor harms the host supporting an organism. Eyelash mites living (you guessed it!) on your lids and lashes are often used as an example of this form of relationship.

3. Different movies, and scenes within the same Alien movie, will show Aliens emerging from the chest, and/or the abdomen. The films are not clear.

4. Angina is chest pain, usually signifying that the coronary arteries are not supplying the heart with enough blood.

5. I'm assuming a more formal, scientific name would be "chestbuster" in Latin or Greek.

THE CINEMATOLOGIST AT KEVIN GEEKS OUT

ALIEN PARASITES AND HUMAN HYGIENE

I thought it might be fun for everyone to see my contribution to Kevin Geeks Out - About Aliens! May 21st. It was a wonderful show! There was a tinfoil hat contest, alien cupcakes, the works! At the end of the video, you will see Kevin, our host, wearing makeup, disguising himself as an alien. The lights are dim, and the video is grainy, so the dark green skin and yellow zig-zag don't quite register. You will have to take my word that he was quite impressive!

The lecture is about 8 minutes. It covers the main topics of alien parasites that will appear here in future posts. But there is a lot of detail that had to be left out of the live presentation. Future posts regarding alien parasite infestations will have new little gems of information not seen here.

THE HIDDEN

I've been doing some research about aliens parasitizing people for an upcoming presentation at Kevin Geeks Out About... Aliens! this coming Friday, May 21. (Buy your ticket now. Kevin tends to sell out.) Of course, this is my favorite kind of research because I get to watch science fiction movies, and I LOVE science fiction!

After watching eight movies, I realize that I have too much material for a six minute lecture, so I thought I'd start up my parasite-themed explorations here with The Hidden, which isn't making it into my presentation.

HIDDEN CHARMS

These parasitic aliens come in two forms: slug-like organism, or golden vapor. In either case, the parasite enters the host through the mouth and is somehow able to control their body completely. The subjective experience of the host is not known, as no one has lived through an infestation to relate their experience.

How is a five pound(1) tendrilly, slimy slug, entering a hosts body supposed to posses and control someone while sitting in their digestive tract(2)? For that matter, I'm not sure I understand how a golden, sparkly, vapor would be able to control the mind and body of a person, either.

This man's burnt skin doesn't gross me out as much as

the alien coming out of his mouth...

.... and going into his!

Kyle MacLachlan gives Michael Nouri the vapors.

SIGNS AND SYMPTOMS

Signs and symptoms of slug infestation include:

1. Physical activity in spite of life-threatening disease or injury
2. Anti-social behavioral changes including robbery, physical violence, and murder
3. An appreciation of relatively obscure 80's punk music
4. Death

Practice safe oral hygiene! Don't let alien parasites embarrass

you with poseur rock and a boom box!

Signs and symptoms of vapor infestation include:

1. Low tolerance for alcohol
2. A fetching innocence regarding the proper administration of Alka-Seltzer.

Drop it in the water, silly.

TREATMENT

Unfortunately, treatment inevitably kills the host and parasite. The only known therapy for this particular parasitic infection is to kill the human host with a flame-thrower (see photos A and B). This will cause spontaneous migration of the slug from the host body (photo C). One can then terminate the parasitic alien via a space-age weapon that will vaporize the creature, but is ineffective on human tissue (photo D).

Photo A: apply flame thrower

Photo B: death of host is eminent

Photo C: slug leaves host via the mouth

Photo D: slug is vaporized

In this particular case, prevention is the best treatment.

1. Approximate weight.

2. Has anyone noticed that aliens parasitizing humans (Alien, The Hidden, etc.) are never excreted anally?