Sandkings are also aliens from several episodes of
The Outer Limits (and possibly originally from these stories-- I've never read them, so I don't know). Basically, the sandkings are
extraterrestrial insects similar to
ants or
termites.
A
human scientist tries to study them by keeping a
colony in a sand-filled tank in his garage. They seem only slightly
intelligent at first, with a
hive-mind something like ants. But the
structures they build become more and more
complex, until they build a
larger-than-life model of his head.
At this point, he begins thinking of them as
intelligent. He learns that if he
destroys their buildings, they reconstruct them in amazingly short time. Their ranks even
part almost respectively when he steps into the tank. He begins to think they may even
worship him (the attention they pay him, and the
monuments, would lead one to think that).
Their true intelligence is known at the end, however. Working together, the
colony escapes. An entire
swarm of
aliens is unleashed on an environment with no defenses against their intelligence and
efficiency. And who's going to believe a
crazy scientists who claims to have found alien intelligence, and has no more proof than a few
models in a
sandbox?
Apparently this episode was based on George Martins's story. Thanks, aznin.