Zeta Reticuli

1991-present day

During the 1990s, popular culture began to increasingly link Greys to a number of military-industrial complex/New World Order conspiracy theories.[5]

A well known example of this was the FOX television series The X-Files, which first aired in 1993. It combined the quest to find proof of the existence of Grey-like extraterrestrials with a number of UFO conspiracy theory subplots, in order to form its primary story arc. Other notable examples include Dark Skies, first broadcast in 1996, which expanded upon the MJ-12 conspiracy, and Stargate SG-1 which in the 1998 episode "Thor's Chariot" introduced the Asgard, a race of beneficent Greys who visited ancient Earth masquerading as characters from Norse Mythology.

In 1995 film maker Ray Santilli claimed to have obtained 22 reels of 16 mm film that depicted the autopsy of a "real" Grey that was said to have been recovered from the site of the 1947 incident in Roswell, New Mexico.[6][7] However, in 2006 Santilli announced that the film was not original, but was instead a "reconstruction" created after the original film was found to have degraded. He maintained that a real Grey had been found and autopsied on camera in 1947, and that the footage released to the public contained a percentage of that original footage, but he was unable to say what that percentage was. This incident became the subject of the British comedy film Alien Autopsy, starring television presenters Ant & Dec.[8][9]

Greys, referred to as 'visitors', also appear in South Park as important characters in the first and the hundredth episode, as well as many cameos throughout the series, mostly in the backgrounds of scenes. The comedy film Scary Movie 3 also includes Greys as the main extraterrestrials. They are also frequently depicted on the TV series Robot Chicken.

Roger Smith, a regular character on the animated comedy series American Dad! since its debut in 2005, is a Grey-like alien.

Paul, from the 2011 film Paul, is a Grey, and attributes their frequent presence in science-fiction pop culture to his secretive influence while being held captive by the US government.