History Main / Ultraterrestrials

* The Atlanteans in ''Anime/NadiaTheSecretOfBlueWater''.

* The antagonists in the ''Series/UltraSeven'' episode "Envoy from Nonmalto".

-->'''"Taste like crab, talk like people..."'''

The ultraterrestrials often reside inside the HollowEarth. Still others hang out in {{Atlantis}}, or a place that's said to be the inspiration for it. Compare/contrast TranshumanAliens and TransplantedHumans. Often a form of {{Precursor}}. Inverse of HumanityCameFromSpace.

* The [[BeneathTheEarth Subterrans]] and [[{{Atlantis}} Tritons]] in ''{{TabletopGame/Monsterpocalypse}}''.
* The [[TheReptilians Saurians]] in ''TabletopGame/ConspiracyX''.

* ''Literature/SolarWarden'': The secret government program is aware of hundreds of alien races but has had contact with only three, which they call the [[HumanAliens Nordics]], [[TheGrey Greys]], and [[TheReptilians Saurians]]. Except the Nordics are actually humans from about 11,000 years in the future. And so are the Greys, except they're from about a million years in the future. [[spoiler:Even the Saurians turn out to be from Earth, as they have evolved from dinosaurs.]]

[[folder:LiveActionTV]]

* An inversion terms of [[TheTropeHistoryOfTheUniverse the Trope History]] occurs in Creator/DougalDixon's ''Literature/ManAfterManAnAnthropologyOfTheFuture'' [[spoiler: where the descendants of those Humans sent off to colonise distant starts while Earth's ecology recovers return after 5 million years, exploit and alter the planet more than Humanity did the first time, and then leave for some [[AllThereInTheManual alien-rationalised reason]].]]

* In Creator/BruceCoville's novel ''Literature/TheSearchForSnout'', a boy believed his DisappearedDad was an alien, but upon meeting him in space, finds out that he's a scientist from {{Atlantis}} who traveled into space before it fell, became immortal, and had adventures on alien worlds before returning to live on Earth (and then he disappeared because an alien he'd ticked off on his adventures found him and wanted to harm his family).

The ultraterrestrials are an alien race that, well, isn't really alien. In fact, they originate from Earth, just like us humans, but their civilization is so much older and more advanced than ours that they have no trouble hiding from us ([[TheWorldIsNotReady for whatever reason]]). The term was coined by the ufologist John Keel in his book, ''Operation Trojan Horse'', in 1970, wherein he claims that the [=UFO=]s, various supernatural phenomena (like TheMothman), and [[AllMythsAreTrue religious myths]] imply the activity of an almighty High EnergyBeing co-existing with humans on Earth.

* A staple of Creator/HPLovecraft's Franchise/CthulhuMythos. [[FishPeople Deep Ones]], [[OurGhoulsAreDifferent Ghouls]], [[ReptilesAreAbhorrent Serpentfolk]], [[MyFriendsAndZoidberg and Sand Dwellers]] are all roughly humanoid and presumably originated on Earth; the Cthonians could also possibly be of terrestrial origins, but their being full-fledged {{Eldritch Abomination}}s makes this hard to determine. The [[StarfishAlien Great Race]] is actually a subversion, as while their ''[[StarfishAliens host bodies]]'' originated on Earth, the ''[[BodySurf possessing intelligences]]'' that are the actual Great Race projected themselves through time and space from elsewhere and -when.

* DarwinsGame plays with this: [[spoiler:Greed creatures are thought by Game Master to originate from a very divergent timeline of the Earth, though technically they're still aliens to the timeline the manga takes place in.]]

* In ''[[Literature/TheSpaceOdysseySeries 2001: A Space Odyssey]]'', Floyd speculated one of these to be the ones who buried the Monolith in the moon. But then debunk this when he realized humanity would have found evidence of their existence already.

** "Literature/KidStuff": Accourding to the elf, his race had evolved before even the dinosaurs. For thousands of years, they lived alongside humans as "fairies", but a few centuries ago, when they saw that, despite their telepathic powers, MugglesDoItBetter, they had a bad case of inferiority complex and withdrew to [[Myth/KingArthur Avalon]].

The ultraterrestrials are an alien race that, well, isn't really alien. In fact, they originate from Earth, just like us humans, but their civilization is so much older and more advanced than ours that they have no trouble hiding from us ([[TheWorldIsNotReady for whatever reason]]). The term was coined by the ufologist John Keel in his ''Operation Trojan Horse'' in 1970, wherein he claims that the [=UFO=]s, various supernatural phenomena (like TheMothman), and [[AllMythsAreTrue religious myths]] imply the activity of an almighty High EnergyBeing co-existing with humans on Earth.

The ultraterrestrials are an alien race that, well, isn't really alien. In fact, they originate from Earth, just like us humans, but their civilization is so much older and more advanced than ours that they have no trouble hiding from us ([[TheWorldIsNotReady for whatever reason]]). The term was coined by the ufologist John Keel in his ''Operation Trojan Horse'' in 1970, wherein he claims that the [=UFO=]s, various supernatural phenomena (like Literature/{{the Mothman| prophecies}}), and [[AllMythsAreTrue religious myths]] imply the activity of an almighty High EnergyBeing co-existing with humans on Earth.

Contrast AdvancedAncientHumans, when it's ''humanity itself'' that developed early, got advanced, then for whatever reason disappeared or fell back into primitiveness. Contrast EarthAllAlong, which includes a reversal of this trope: human spacefarers encounter a strange planet with strange lifeforms. It turns out that a lot of time has passed, and this strange planet is actually Earth.

* The Franchise/MonsterVerse series - particularly ''Film/GodzillaKingOfTheMonsters'' - plays the {{kaiju}} this way. Most of them are willing to coexist with humanity so long as we learn our place and [[GreenAesop respect the planet]].

* ''Anime/NeonGenesisEvangelion'': [[AllThereInTheManual Supplementary material]] shows that the Angels (except for Adam and Lilith, which actually are extraterrestrial) are from Earth and have been asleep/dormant for the past several million years and Second Impact woke them up.

* In the ''Roleplay/GlobalGuardiansPBEMUniverse'', shortly after Earth has fought off an invasion by the Xorn, the earth is visited by ''another'' alien race, the Kankiscree, who have been space-faring for some 70 million years and possess [[SufficientlyAdvancedAlien god-like technology]]. Turns out the Kankiscree ''originated'' on earth from one of the dinosaur species. They left due to the dramatic climate change caused by the "dinosaur-killer" asteroid impact and never bothered to come back. They then declared that their mammalian "cousins", the humans, were under their protection.

* The Atlanteans in ''Anime/NadiaTheSecretOfBlueWater.''
* The Olmecs in ''Anime/TheMysteriousCitiesOfGold.''

[[folder:{{Comics}}]]

** According to one story from ''ComicBook/ArionLordOfAtlantis'' at least one alien race is descended from Atlantean space explorers. This ''might'' be an explanation for why there are so many [[HumanAliens human-looking alien races]] in the Franchise/DCUniverse.

* In ''Literature/TheStressOfHerRegard'', the novel's "vampires" are actually a form of silicon-based life that had dominated the Earth in the ''very'' distant past, but had gone dormant when organic life became prevalent. They'd still be little more than inert rock, had a bizarre human experiment not managed to revive them.

-->'''[[EarWorm "Taste like crab, talk like people..."]]'''

** One major example is the planet Jade, a world in AnotherDimension populated by dragons, werebeasts, and numerous other magical fantasy beings. The catch is [[spoiler:that Jade is actually an artificial world constructed by a race of {{Precursors}}, and NONE of the creatures living there now are native to it. Almost all of them originally came from Earth, and migrated to Jade when the AgeOfMagic was coming to an end.]]