Warning: Spoilers for Alien: Paradiso #1THE Foreigner series is finally revealing how Xenomorphs actually see whenever they hunt humans. With a unique defense system made of acidic blood and the ability to crawl undetected, a Xenomorph is a “perfect organism” capable of causing unspeakable destruction. However, it has long been debated how the Xenomorph is able to see without a visible ocular system… until now.
In a preview for Alien: Paradise #1 by Steve Fox and Edgar Salazar, a resort employee is shown hiding for his life as the Xenomorph stalks the people around him. He carefully grabs a knife and flees to the beach, hoping he can escape the creature. However, on the final page, it is revealed that the Xenomorph was on your trail the entire time, smelling you and using the trails to take you straight to it.
This scent-based vision system shows that the Xenomorph relies more on smell than visionto hunt their prey. Furthermore, with the amount of fear it causes in its hunting grounds, it shows that humans are much easier for Xenomorphs to hunt than previously believed.
Xenomorphs track humans by smell, not sight
Alien: Paradise #1 by Steve Foxe, Edgar Salazar, Peter Nguyen and Carlos Lopez
The revelation that a Xenomorph's hunting abilities depend on scent tracking is surprising, but at the same time logical. After all, since the creature first appeared in the classic 1979 horror film, there was no obvious evidence that the Xenomorph was able to see. His skull from the Predator's trophy room showed that there are eyes hidden beneath his domed head, but without them being visible, it's clear that they rely on something else to actually “see.” In this case, it is the scent of their prey that helps guide them through the hunting grounds.
This answer fills in a missing piece about why Xenomorphs can take over a society so quickly in a matter of hours.
What's even more interesting is that this answer fills in a missing piece about why Xenomorphs can take over a society in a matter of hours. By nature, humans tend to secrete scentswhether through sweat, breathing or other means, whenever they are nervous or scared. A Xenomorph attack would undoubtedly cause a lot of mass panic among a crowd, making it incredibly easy for the alien species to track them down and kill them or bring them to their nest to become hosts for more Xenomorphs.
A crucial detail from the Xenomorph's point of view proves that it has an advantage over the predator
Removing the scent does not make the prey invisible
“Seeing” by smell shows that the Xenomorph and its enemy, the Predator, have something in common: they track humans using something other than basic vision. However, one detail Alien: Paradise #1 actually shows that the Xenomorph secretly has an advantage. As the Xenomorph approaches the resort worker, readers can still see the environment and prey from their point of view without the need for a scent line. The worker's scent only helps guide the creature to its exact location.
It is much more dangerous to come face to face with a Xenomorph, because washing away the scent is not enough to prevent one from being seen, unlike the Predator's heat signature tracking, which can be fooled. This new perspective on the Xenomorph's hunting abilities is a huge revelation for Foreigner fans because of how it shows the hopelessness of escaping the creature. It is almost impossible to avoid secreting scents, especially in times of fear. Furthermore, with the Xenomorph still able to see basic shapes and contours as it navigates the terrain, the monstrous creature of Foreigner is even deadlier than fans believed.
Alien: Paradise #1 is now available from Marvel Comics!