Bug-eyed monster

The bug-eyed monster (BEM) is an early convention of the science fiction genre. Extraterrestrials in science fiction of the 1920s through to the 1960s were often described (or depicted on covers of pulp magazines and in films) as grotesque creatures with huge, oversized or compound eyes and a lust for women, blood, or general destruction. Their ubiquity was such that authors and readers alike began referring to them as "bug-eyed monsters", "BEMs", or "bemmies". The biology of a typical bug-eyed monster (both in general terms and in terms of their invariable attraction to human women) was questionable, particularly in visual depictions.

In the contactee/abductee mythology, which grew up quickly beginning in 1952, the blond, blue-eyed, and friendly Nordic aliens of the 1950s were quickly replaced by small, unfriendly bug-eyed creatures, closely matching in many respects the pulp cover clichés of the 1930s which have remained the abductor norm since the 1960s.