who are the space jockeys

When the Nostromo crew come across the Delerect ship in the first Alien movie, they find a large remain of an alien lifeform. The crew of the movie, and possibly Giger, called the creature a Space Jockey. There is a lot of mystery surrounding their race, mainly concerning why there was a large amount of alien eggs inside the ship. It could have simply been a random species that an alien had managed to infect, or the actual creator of the aliens. If Alien 5 is ever made they will be explained more. Picture for reference

http://www.the-artfile.com/gallery/artists/giger/pilot.jpg

hey pred428 if you play certain levels on alien trilogy you can kill space jockeys and the history is that on ALIEN the nonstromo crew recived a warning/distress signal from the ship,but the signal took at least a couple of million light years later but the crew did not understand the call and went to investigate.Eventually the crew found the dead pilot in this big huge radio wave sender .....whats strange is that you never see the space jockeys legs when the dead movies and games. ?

...When I said mystery I wasn't talking about the plot of Alien. I was talking about the origins of the race and why the alien eggs were aboard the ship.

sorry i just wanted to give him story info but why can't you see there legs?

I think jockies are just Alien's version of regular aliens... you know... greys, the kind that abduct crazy people in forests with their flying dinner plates and blame it on big foot. And then there's Xenos.

thats strange.

the big dead humaiod thing in alien is space jockey,it is said that they were trying to use xenomorph as bio-weapons .some say the were the ruler of the universe.
they might have carried the aliens when they were killed,or they might had the plane crash and then attacked by the aliens.
man,i really would like to see them fight the aliens,even if they die in the end.i wish the crew will tell us more about it .
the jockeys might also be the first victim of the xenomorphs