theres also a progression in terms of where the aliens say theyre from, way back in the day theyd tell people they were from mars or closer planets but as we could observe those planets more easily the story changed and they were suddenly from extremely distant star clusters.
lots of overlap between “new cosmic religion” + aliens if anyone is looking to make the connection, for example “the pleiadians” are basically exactly that, many (at the time branded as) new age style channelings like this were popular not that long ago (bringers of the dawn etc)
barbara marciniak was the main “the pleiadians” channeler imo. in some versions of “bringers of the dawn” the intro describes her process of starting to channel these beings. like the ayahuasca body builder videos mentioned yesterday another good case study of “the rhetoric”
do people even know about this stuff. not that long ago this was like “the thing” in “new cosmic religion” circles, people would “channel” these beings (not saying its all real) and write books and give seminars as them. this was common and popular (in that sphere). many cases: 
