Clones are the third entry in the Anomalous Beings section of The Alien Archive. The Archive describes them as artificially replicated biological beings, produced by genetic engineering, consciousness duplication or non-human biotechnology. They are outwardly human, but emotionally restrained and subtly "off", and they are said to live concealed within human society as surrogates, operatives or experiments. The Gnostic parallel is the creation of the human body itself. In the Apocryphon of John and related texts, the Archons manufacture Adam as a copy of a heavenly image they glimpsed in the waters, and then mass-produce "the copies of the bodies", animated by a Counterfeit Spirit.
From the Alien Archive
Origin
- Artificially replicated biological beings created through advanced genetic engineering, consciousness duplication or non-human biotechnological processes.
- Originating from covert experimental programs, advanced non-terrestrial civilizations, or hybridized intelligence systems that combine biology and artificial design.
Characteristics
- Biologically human or near-human in appearance, with highly controlled physical symmetry and emotionally restrained behavior.
- Associated with artificial replication, genetic standardization, behavioral conditioning, and reduced emotional variability compared with baseline human behavior.
- Physically indistinguishable from humans at surface level, with only behavioral, energetic or perceptual anomalies revealing their artificial nature.
- They may appear subtly "off" in interpersonal interaction; descriptions emphasize emotional flatness, delayed response patterns or a psychologically detached presence.
- Linked to themes of consciousness duplication, memory imprinting, programmed cognition and identity replication.
Functions and roles
- Replacement organisms, controlled operatives, observational surrogates or experimental biological constructs.
- Associated with infiltration narratives, behavioral monitoring, social-integration experiments, and studies involving consciousness transfer or identity continuity.
- Linked to theories involving hybridization programs, covert genetic experimentation, and advanced bioengineering systems operated by non-human intelligences.
Relationship to Earth
- They operate within human environments while remaining difficult to distinguish from ordinary individuals.
- Occasionally described in conspiracy narratives, abduction accounts, secret-program theories or anomalous identity-related encounters.
- Considered integrated or semi-integrated presences embedded within human civilization for observational, experimental or strategic purposes.
- Their relationship to Earth is typically framed as concealed, controlled or observational, with interactions occurring through normal societal structures rather than overt contact.
In popular culture
- Referenced in science fiction, conspiracy theories, UFO lore, and speculative discussions of cloning and artificial identity creation.
- Associated with duplicate humans, synthetic biological replicas, sleeper-agent narratives and advanced extraterrestrial bioengineering concepts.
- Sometimes blended with simulation theory, AI–human hybridization ideas, secret-government-experimentation myths and identity-replacement paranoia themes.
Gnostic perspective
The ancient texts do not mention genetic engineering, but their account of human origins is a story of replication. In the Sethian Gnostic myths, the human body is not made by the highest God. Lesser powers build it as an imitation of a divine original they could see but not possess. The Archive's Clones restate that ancient worry in modern form: a being that looks human but was made by someone else, for someone else's purposes.
A copy of the image seen in the waters
In the Apocryphon of John, the image of the perfect First Human is revealed from above. The archons see it only as a reflection: "through the light they saw the form of the image in the water." The chief archon, Yaldabaoth, proposes a copy: "'Come, let us create a man according to the image of God and according to our likeness, that his image may become a light for us.'" Each power contributes a part "in correspondence with the characteristics which were given", and "He created a being according to the likeness of the first, perfect Man."[1] The Hypostasis of the Archons says the rulers "modeled their man after their body and after the image of God that had appeared to them in the waters", hoping to use the copy as a lure to "seize it with the form that we have modeled".[2] In On the Origin of the World, the rulers state their aim plainly: "come let us create a man out of earth, according to the image of our body and according to the likeness of this being, to serve us".[3] The Archive's "replacement organisms" and "controlled operatives" describe the same intention: a replica built to serve.
The copies of the bodies
The Apocryphon then moves from one copy to many. After Adam and Eve, the chief archon "planted sexual desire in her who belongs to Adam. And he produced through intercourse the copies of the bodies, and he inspired them with his counterfeit spirit."[1] The body in this picture is a standardized product. The text calls it "the tomb of the newly-formed body with which the robbers had clothed the man, the bond of forgetfulness".[1] In the Pistis Sophia, the rulers' servitors build each body to a schedule, "the whole body and all its members in seventy days". They seal it with marks of the rulers and install, in order, "the counterfeiting spirit", "the soul" and "the compound of the power".[4] "New souls" are said to be made "out of the sweat of the rulers and out of the tears of their eyes, or far rather out of the breath of their mouths".[5] The Archive's "genetic standardization", "programmed cognition" and "memory imprinting" have a mythic ancestor in this production line of bodies and souls.
Emotional flatness and the missing spark
The Archive says clones reveal themselves through "emotional flatness" and a "psychologically detached presence". The Gnostic texts make a similar distinction between beings that merely "possess a soul" and those that "possess a spirit" (see Pneumatics, Psychics and Hylics).[2] What makes a person fully alive is the light breathed in from above, which the copiers cannot produce. When Sophia's power enters Adam, "The body moved and gained strength, and it was luminous", and the archons "recognized that he was luminous, and that he could think better than they".[1] On this reading the fear behind clone stories, that someone may look human but be hollow inside, is an old Gnostic fear. The Gnostic hope is the reverse: every copied body may still hold the spark that no copier can make.
Hybrids and fallen angels
The Apocryphon also tells of rulers who "sent his angels to the daughters of men, that they might take some of them for themselves and raise offspring for their enjoyment". The angels "changed themselves in their likeness into the likeness of their mates" and "took women and begot children out of the darkness according to the likeness of their spirit."[1] Scholars note that some Sethian texts explicitly identify the archons with the fallen angels (Watchers) of the Book of Enoch.[6] This mythic "hybridization program" is the ancient precursor of the Archive's Hybrids and of its clone "infiltration narratives".
Background and history
Real-world cloning became a public reality with Dolly the sheep (5 July 1996 – 14 February 2003), "the first mammal that was cloned from an adult somatic cell". She was created by associates of the Roslin Institute in Scotland through somatic cell nuclear transfer.[7] Contrary to popular belief she was not the first cloned animal; John Gurdon had cloned frogs in 1958.[7]
The "duplicate human" fear is much older than the technology. Jack Finney's 1954 novel The Body Snatchers, filmed in 1956 as Invasion of the Body Snatchers, imagined alien seed pods that produce "a visually identical copy of a human", replacing each sleeping person with a duplicate "devoid of all human emotion".[8] That emotional flatness is the same marker the Archive lists. In psychiatry, the Capgras delusion is the belief that a loved one "has been replaced by an identical impostor".[9] These sources help explain why "identity replacement" stories take such a strong hold on the imagination.
Reflection
- If you met a perfect copy of yourself, how would you know which one was you?
- What in you feels "standardized", and what feels unrepeatable?
- The Gnostics believed the copy could still carry the light. Where might the spark be hiding in things that look mass-produced?
See also
- Anomalous Beings
- Hybrids
- Mimic Entities
- Artificial Probes
- Greys
- Archons
- Counterfeit Spirit
- Yaldabaoth
- Apocryphon of John
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 The Apocryphon of John, trans. Frederik Wisse — The Gnostic Society Library (gnosis.org). Accessed 2026-09-19.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 The Hypostasis of the Archons, trans. Bentley Layton — The Gnostic Society Library (gnosis.org). Accessed 2026-09-19.
- ↑ On the Origin of the World, trans. Bethge and Layton — The Gnostic Society Library (gnosis.org). Accessed 2026-09-19.
- ↑ Pistis Sophia, Book 4, Chapter 132, trans. G. R. S. Mead — The Gnostic Society Library (gnosis.org). Accessed 2026-09-19.
- ↑ Pistis Sophia, Book 4, Chapter 131, trans. G. R. S. Mead — The Gnostic Society Library (gnosis.org). Accessed 2026-09-19.
- ↑ Sethianism — Wikipedia. Accessed 2026-09-19.
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 Dolly (sheep) — Wikipedia. Accessed 2026-09-19.
- ↑ Invasion of the Body Snatchers — Wikipedia. Accessed 2026-09-19.
- ↑ Capgras delusion — Wikipedia. Accessed 2026-09-19.