Mysteron
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In Sylvia Anderson's and Gerry Anderson's science fiction Supermarionation puppet television series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons, the Mysterons are the sworn enemies of Earth.
Hostilities begin when the Zero-X Mission, an expedition from Earth led by Captain Black whose original purpose was to locate the source of radio signals that the Spectrum organization had monitored on Earth, discovers their complex on Mars. Mistaking a camera for a weapon, Captain Black orders his men to open fire on the complex, in violation of orders from his own superiors, destroying it completely. But then a device appears from concealment and emits a beam of green light, and the complex reappears as if the attack had never taken place.
The base's occupants identify themselves as the Mysterons and claim to have discovered the secret of reversing matter. They prove to have the power to re-create an exact likeness of an object or person, which they can exercise only after the original object has been destroyed or after the original person has been killed. Devoting themselves to retaliation for the unprovoked attack on their complex, retaliation they declare "will be slow, but nonetheless effective," they take over Captain Black and send him back to Earth under their control, making him instrumental in avenging the Mysterons by recruiting other persons and objects in a similar fashion. But their attempt to assassinate the World President, for which purpose they re-create Captain Scarlet himself, fails when his likeness is shot, and killed, in a fall during his unsuccessful attempt to kidnap the World President, and regains the normal personality of the original Captain Scarlet--which is possible only because the original Captain Scarlet was duplicated before his brain functions were irreversibly terminated. The Mysterons themselves are never actually seen. They broadcast their threats by radio, often disguising their intentions with word tricks, and they are only represented visually by twin rings of green light, suggestive of eyes, that they project onto the scenes of destructions and killings from which likenesses emerge.
From one logical point of view, the Mysterons's hostility to Earthmen, to the extent of their intending "the ultimate destruction of life on Earth," seems to make no sense. If they were able to re-create their complex, according to this point of view, why were they so upset by its original destruction, and why do they constantly ignore Earth's gestures of reconciliation?
According to Gerry Anderson, the answer is that the Mysterons are actually computers that were left behind on Mars by visiting aliens. This would seem to explain their lack of compassion, but why do they still ignore the logical alternative to conflict? Perhaps their logic circuits were damaged in the initial attack....
Anderson initially intended the Mysterons to be more conventional Martians, then chose to make them invisible aliens during production so the series would not date as badly. The TV Century 21 comic book sometimes depicted the Mysterons as energy beings (more highly evolved forms of an ancient physical species) and sometimes as computers. The computer explanation is normally used nowadays, presumably so it can be claimed that the series does not depict intelligent life on Mars.