Why did the aliens return Kyle and April?
Was it because they knew the government would kill them? Was it out of respect for their love, or bravery? It just doesn't make sense to me.
shareConsidering that you probably watched the entire movie, I find it a little sad that this is the part that didn't make sense to you. Because there were dozens of moments that made a lot less sense.
The short explanation:
To answer your question, there is no specific reason that we could know of. The movie lets us know relatively early on that the aliens sometimes release humans from captivity. The woman, who was abducted together with her husband and little son, tells the sheriff about it, when he finds her inside the trailer.
Her exact words were: "They bring most people back. Like they did with me."
She also says that "hundreds of people [are] still alive up there.", but no one would know why they keep some and release others.
Here are my thoughts:
Since they do perform experiments on humans, there are several more or less logical theories available. What the movie may have suggested is that the aliens conceivably have the ability to figure out what is going on in the minds/psyches of their victims, by technological or telepathical means. Eventually, an extensive study of the minds of Kyle and April has shown the aliens that their initial aggressive reaction (shooting an alien with a shotgun) was just caused by panic and that they are truly kind and goodhearted people who deeply love each other. Thus the aliens could hardly hold back their tears and had to return the two immediately.
More logical, though, is that the aliens picked their research victims based on physical properties (e.g. genes, gender, size, weight, blood type, anti-bodies, health, etc.) and simply had no more use for the bodies of Kyle and April. After all, the aliens were already collecting people for over 50 years. You might question why they would return people at all. But even that could be part of the experiments.
I guess the reason for Kyle's and April's release might be a combination of the things I mentioned. Maybe the aliens liked some of their victims, like humans might end up liking an animal they experiment on.
A more cruel theory might even be that the aliens already performed the insertion of maggots and anal probing on Kyle and April and that those two had the misfortune of surviving the process. Maybe the aliens sometimes release victims with dangerous worms inside their bodies and the government always ends up burning those. Make of that idea what you will.
But I can assure you that they didn't return them because they knew the government would kill them. That wouldn't make any sense at all, since it's a lot easier to kill them on the spot, like they did with Seth. It would be simple to just dump them in space.
[spoilers]
The woman, who was abducted together with her husband and little son, tells the sheriff about it, when he finds her inside the trailer.
Her exact words were: "They bring most people back. Like they did with me."
How would the released woman know about the long term alien release policy? She couldn't have been held too long by them.
Can we assume that the government killed her and all those who are released by the aliens? Otherwise that would create a huge leak in the rules of engagement pact. share
I would think after 67 years (going by the year the film was released and the Roswell incident that started the treaty as Ironsides character explains) they'd have no more research to do on humans. We are not that complex, aside from our minds, but even they work on the same basic principals.
On the ship it looked like there was an attempt to an alien human hybrid so maybe they keep looking for that perfect human who can breed with them.
The saddest thing of all was the couple being shot at the end. Then again if they had been allowed to live the rest of their lives would be spent in a gov facility or an asylum. So maybe death was best.