EARTH Seems to Confirm Xenomorphs Have a Language

One of the questions fans have asked about the Xenomorphs since 1979’s original Alien is “just how smart is the alien?” The creature definitely had problem-solving skills of a sort. But as far as we know, it couldn’t do anything complex, like fly a spaceship for example. Or, as far as we knew, speak in any kind of language. However, Alien: Earth just revealed that the noises the Xeno makes actually do form a kind of communication system, one that possibly counts as language. The hybrid synthetic Wendy, played by Sydney Chandler, is the character who discovers it.

At the end of episode three, “Metamorphosis,” we see the Prodigy scientists in Neverland do experiments on their captured Xenomorph eggs. These eggs originated in the crashed Weyland-Yutani ship, the Maginot. After Kirsh (Timothy Olyphant) cuts into the egg, he starts to dissect a living facehugger. This causes intense and unexplained pain in the hybrid Wendy, who can hear the alien cries of pain in her head far away, and which makes her double over in pain and collapse on the floor. This occurs after she saved her brother from a Xenomorph earlier in the episode.

In episode four, “Observation,” Boy Kavalier and his scientists at Prodigy take notice of Wendy’s unique connection to the Xenomorph. They conduct intense experiments to see if she can reproduce the complex sounds the creatures make and communicate with them. Not only can she hear the sounds clearly, using her artificial vocal chords, but she can literally replicate them. Wendy can seemingly talk to the creatures, confirming they have a form of vocal communication that qualifies as language. We are unaware by episode’s end just what the aliens are saying, however. That remains a mystery. Wendy doesn’t even seem to know what she’s saying, doing it all by instinct.

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Prodigy (and by extension, Weyland-Yutani) want to take control of the Xenomorphs as some kind of weapon. One that the Colonial Marines can presumably use off-world. We’ve known that since the very start of this franchise. But a weapon like the Xenomorphs is only really useful if one can control it, and if they have a language, and it’s one the corporations can replicate, then they have an undefeatable weapon of mass destruction at their disposal.

Of course, we know what happens in the timeline after Alien: Earth, starting with Ridley Scott’s original film and then James Cameron’s Aliens. So it’s safe to say that the human corporations never fully grasp the Xenomorph language. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have had literally the whole rest of the franchise play out the way it did. But knowing that the Xenomorphs have a language really changes what we knew about their levels of intelligence. While we still wouldn’t go as far as saying they are sentient beings. But they definitely have more going on than just “kill and have babies.” It remains to be seen whether Noah Hawley is willing to reveal just how much the aliens can really talk. Or reveal what they are saying.

Alien: Earth drops new episodes every Tuesday on FX and FX on Hulu.