Viewer

This unnamed shapeshifting flying predatory species was seen on Earth in the 21st century, dubbed "Viewers" (Latin: Occulonimbus edoequus) by a Human who assumed they were actual spaceships carrying smaller pilots. A member of this species, nicknamed "Jean Jacket," terrorized the area around a ranch in Agua Dulce, California.

Biology
Viewers are large, flying creatures that bear grey skin with a metallic texture. In their default form, they resemble typical flying saucers almost 110 meters in diameter, with a tiny dark slit on its rim that appears to be an eye. They bear no other visible features aside from a large, gaping, circular mouth about two school buses wide, which leads to a fleshy gullet. Viewers can also generate cyclones from their mouth orifice, which are used to suck up prey from the ground. Viewers can hold their prey in their gullets for several hours before digesting them, although they can sometimes digest prey almost immediately after consuming them, and the screams of their victims can be heard outside their bodies. While having no wings and no biomechanical engines, Viewers in saucer form can fly nearly silently and with incredible speed, and can presumably survive in space. Viewers are also capable of unfolding their bodies into a strange, somewhat amorphous kite-like form, which drastically lowers their speed and mobility. In their kite forms, Viewers somewhat resemble jellyfish or thrones, and appear to be trailing at least four large, flat tendrils, connected to their central bodies.

Viewers have an organ that appears to be a pitch-black square, presumably a sensory organ or a part of their stomach, which are strangely connected to a series of larger green squares with tassel-like edges, possibly other sensory appendages, which can unfold and stick their pitch-black organ outside their main body while in kite form. The tassel appendages can be used to grab prey and haul into the body of Viewers in kite form, which then closes in around it as it reverts to saucer form. Viewers are carnivorous, capable of eating large groups of prey at once, but can only digest organic substances, regurgitating all inorganic matter, such as plastic and metal, with small solid objects they regurgitate, such as keys and coins, being spat out with enough speed to pierce through the bodies of Humans and horses. Viewers are also able to regurgitate liquids, such as blood, but do not always do so when they regurgitate solids. Notably, Viewers can create smokescreens shaped like clouds to hide themselves, and generate an invisible energy field that disables electronics in a certain radius around them, which fades if the Viewer generating it is killed.

Behavior
Viewers appear non-sapient, but are incredibly dangerous, as they are extremely territorial. They find regions of planets to live on, and claim a certain piece of land as their territory, where they hover over the surface in one spot when not hunting, cloaked by a cloud smokescreen. They target any living beings that make direct eye contact with them, and tend to ignore any who do not, although they can be fooled by the eye-like images or markings on even non-living objects, targeting them as well. Viewers attack all targets they notice looking right at them, even those that match them in size. The amorphous form of the Viewers appears to be a defense mechanism, as Jean Jacket only entered that form after unintentionally sucking up barbed wire, and their ability to extend their black square organ and the tassel-like apparatuses around it in kite form could be for additional intimidation, supported by Jean Jacket unfurling the tassels fast enough to make snapping sounds and seemingly hesitating before attacking OJ or the Jupe balloon. Additionally, Viewers regurgitating liquids may be selective, possibly a method of establishing territory, dominance, or instilling fear in possible competition or perceived threats, akin to an animal urinating to mark its territory.

History
At some point in 2022, a Viewer arrived on Earth, over Agua Dulce, California. The Viewer chose a patch of hilly desert over a horse ranch belonging to the Haywood family as its territory, generating a cloud around itself for cover, but never changed position while idle, making the cloud appear to always stay in place while the Viewer was in it. Unknown to the Haywood family, the Viewer began to consume Human hikers from the hills, but the first sign of its presence to the Haywoods came when it regurgitated a number of small inorganic objects from the hikers over the ranch, one of which, a nickel, shot through the eye of Otis Haywood Sr., killing him, while another object, a key, got lodged in the leg of Otis' horse. Over the next six months, the Viewer remained in the sky over the ranch, its cloud never noticed by Otis' children, Otis "OJ" Haywood Jr. and Emerald "Em" Haywood, as it kept eating more hikers. However, Ricky "Jupe" Park, proprietor of the small nearby theme park Jupiter's Claim, saw the Viewer sometime around the incident with Otis Sr., during a very foggy Friday. Shortly after 6 PM that day, Jupe saw the Viewer eat a horse named Trigger. Jupe, thinking that the Viewer was actually a ship, made images of the supposed pilots, dubbing them "Viewers," and soon found out that the Viewer was regularly consuming living beings, thinking it was abducting them for study. Assuming that he could find some way of making the alien into a spectacle, Jupe began buying horses from the Haywood ranch, which was experiencing financial difficulties, and fed them to the Viewer every Friday around the same time over the six months. Jupe himself was never targeted by the Viewer, presumably never noticed by it, making him believe it trusted him, still not realizing the Viewer's true nature.

After the six months, OJ noticed the Viewer while chasing an escaped horse named Ghost in the middle of the night. The Viewer disabled lights in the nearby Jupiter's Claim and around the ranch's property as it flew by, and sucked up Ghost in clear view of OJ, although the clouds obscured the Viewer's body. Then, OJ briefly saw the Viewer when it flew away. The next night, Jupe's sons let a Haywood ranch horse named Clover out of its pen, where the Viewer targeted it shortly after sucking up a plastic horse with distinctive eye-like components, fooling the Viewer into thinking that it was a real animal looking at it. OJ tried to get Clover back to the stables, but the Viewer, with the plastic horse and the flags it was trailing still lodged in its gullet, came in to attack, forcing OJ to hide in a small barn while Clover was sucked up and eaten, the Viewer vanishing into the clouds again. While the Viewer's presence disabled a camera set up by the Haywoods, and their other camera was blocked by a praying mantis, a Fry's Electronics employee named Angel Torres, who helped set up the cameras, noticed the Viewer's immobile cloud in the footage. Soon, around 5 PM on Friday, Jupe opened a live show known as the Star Lasso Experience, where he planned to showcase the Viewer to the world, using a horse bought from the Haywood Ranch, named Lucky, as bait. The Viewer arrived earlier than expected, and Jupe tried to have the horse go out to be eaten, but Lucky refused to move from the cage. Seeing all the Humans in the audience, including Jupe, looking up at it, the Viewer quickly sucked up the audience, Jupe, and his family, only leaving behind Lucky. The Viewer lingered in the area, its victims still alive, until OJ arrived to retrieve Lucky, as he realized what Jupe was doing.

Entering the empty stadium, OJ tried to get Lucky to come over to him, but the Viewer saw him, and went in to attack when OJ looked back at it. OJ managed to hide within the arena entrance hall under the stadium seating, although the cyclone generated by the Viewer still knocked him out by slamming him against the roof of the hall. Hours later, when OJ awoke, the Viewer returned to the Haywood ranch, disabling Angel's van as he was starting to leave, prompting Angel to take refuge in the Haywood house with Em. The Viewer then hovered over the house, as if it recognized that there were Humans within, and then quickly digested the Humans still within it, regurgitating both their blood and the inorganic objects they carried directly over the house. OJ arrived soon afterwards in a truck, with Lucky in the truck's trailer. The Viewer, seeing them arrive, then hovered over the truck, disabling it, and when OJ peeked out at it, the Viewer regurgitated the plastic horse right onto the truck, prompting OJ to lock himself in the vehicle for the rest of the night. The Viewer, presumably recognizing that the van was an inorganic object and not seeing any eye-like markings looking at it, left back to its usual hiding spot. When morning came, OJ managed to get Angel and Em out of the house and towards Angel's van, just as the Viewer came back into view and hovered near them, beginning to disable the van again. However, OJ realized that the Viewer's actions resembled that of a wild animal, and remembering his own experiences of training horses, lowered his gaze away from the Viewer, causing the Viewer to leave and allowing the Humans to escape.

Afterwards, the Viewer lingered in its usual hiding spot, allowing Angel and the Haywoods to return to the ranch and meet with Antlers Holst, a renowned cinematographer who brought a hand-cranked camera. Dubbing the Viewer "Jean Jacket," the Humans stole car batteries from the Jupiter's Claim victims and hooked them up to tube man props set up around the ranch, which began to lure out Jean Jacket due to their eye markings. Then, an oblivious TMZ reporter entered the ranch in an attempt to figure out what happened at Jupiter's Claim, attracting Jean Jacket out and driving right into the Viewer's anti-electric field, disabling the reporter's electric motorcycle and throwing him from it, critically wounding him. OJ, riding Lucky, attempted to save the reporter, but Jean Jacket went in to attack, presumably due to either an eye-like circular marking on the reporter's visor or the reporter's reflective helmet making Jean Jacket see itself. OJ was forced to leave the reporter, who was quickly sucked up and digested while begging OJ to get his camera and start filming. Jean Jacket then began to chase OJ, seeing two eye-like markings on the back of OJ's hood, but OJ activated a line of flags on a parachute, which Jean Jacket recognized as inorganic, making it veer off, passing over Em and nearly consuming her before flying over Angel and Holst's location. However, despite getting a shot of Jean Jacket with the non-electric camera, Holst saw the sun about to be in the "magic" position, and after cryptically telling Angel that they don't deserve the impossible, he left their camouflaged position and began filming Jean Jacket out in the open, allowing himself to be consumed by it.

Angel attempted to run from Jean Jacket, but the cyclone created by the Viewer consuming Holst had thrown him into barbed wire. Angel tried to get himself out of the wires, but Jean Jacket saw the eye-like markings on a deflated tube man next to him. Jean Jacket sucked it up, then went to suck up Angel when he looked back at it, but instead ended up consuming the barbed wire that was around Angel, causing it to stop its cyclone and release the Human as Jean Jacket instinctively unfurled into its amorphous form. Jean Jacket approached Em as she tried to get to the TMZ reporter's bike, which was still disabled, but OJ and Lucky distracted Jean Jacket and drew it away from Em, as Jean Jacket extended its square organ and tassels in what appeared to be a show of intimidation. Once Jean Jacket was far enough, the bike reactivated, allowing Em to ride away while getting Jean Jacket's attention before it could consume OJ. Jean Jacket chased Em out of the Haywood ranch and to the closed-off Jupiter's Claim, where Em quickly released a giant helium balloon shaped like a caricature of Jupe, which bore a winking expression, its large eye attracting Jean Jacket. Jean Jacket, mistaking the balloon for a living being, began its show of intimidation again, and then grabbed the balloon with its tassel appendages, closing around it as it reverted to saucer form, Em managing to get a clear picture of Jean Jacket mid-grab with an analog camera in an attraction. Jean Jacket's body closing around the balloon then caused it to explode, and the sheer force of the helium being released blew Jean Jacket apart, killing it, with the Viewer's pieces floating through the sky in clear view of Angel and newly-arrived Human reporters.

Appearances

 * Nope (2022)