Trivia: When the alien's hand comes out of the coal grate for Morgan, if you look closely you will see that the hand was already through the grate and the alien was using its colour changing abilities to hide. So if you look very closely you will that that the hand comes UP from the grate and not through it, and if you look VERY carefully you can see the outline of the hand even before Morgen says "What?"
Trivia: Ray Reddy (the man who accidentally killed Graham's wife), is the writer/director/producer of the film, M. Night Shyamalan.
Trivia: Some of the artwork done by Bo in the film was actually done by Shyamalan's daughter, Salek.
Trivia: When Graham Hess is reading the UFO book with his children in the bedroom, on the nearby table next to the lamp is a figurine of a soldier from the American War Of Independence. It is wearing the exact uniform as worn by Mel Gibson (Graham) in his film "The Patriot" (2000).
Trivia: The stories of the children's birth are actually the stories of M. Night Shaymalan's two children.
Trivia: Mark Ruffalo was originally cast as Merrill, but was replaced by Joaquin Phoenix one week before filming began.
Trivia: M. Night Shyamalan originally wrote the characters of Graham Hess and Merrill Hess in their late sixties. The two young children were not Graham's children but his grandchildren. The role of Graham was offered and turned down by both Paul Newman and Clint Eastwood. When Mel Gibson expressed interested in the script, Shyamalan rewrote the Graham and Merrill characters to be younger and the two children were Graham's instead of his grandchildren.
Trivia: M. Night Shyamalan's scene in which he talks to Hess about the death of his wife was shot a day after a member of Shyamalan's family died.
Answer: It's left unclear, though the film proposes several possible theories, and there are other possible explanations as well. One major theory brought up in the film is that the aliens were there to acquire Earth's resources after using up their own. Another theory proposed at the end of the movie is that the aliens wanted humans for whatever reason, as a radio DJ mentions seeing his friend's family being dragged away. There is also a very popular fan theory that the aliens are supposed to represent demons that are merely there to create chaos and test the moral strength of humanity, as the film is ultimately about Graham losing and then regaining his faith, although this is more subtext than anything and may not be literally true.