Colour out of space (species)

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Colour out of space
Colour out of Space by Ludvik Skopalik.png
First appearance"The Colour Out of Space"
Created by H. P. Lovecraft
Information
Type Extraterrestrial

A colour out of space is a fictional extraterrestrial in the writings of the horror fiction author H. P. Lovecraft. It appeared in Lovecraft's short story "The Colour Out of Space" (1927).

Extraterrestrial life Hypothetical life which may occur outside of Earth and which did not originate on Earth

Extraterrestrial life is hypothetical life which may occur outside of Earth and which did not originate on Earth. Such life might range from simple prokaryotes to beings with civilizations far more advanced than humanity. The Drake equation speculates about the existence of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe. The science of extraterrestrial life in all its forms is known as astrobiology.

Horror fiction genre of fiction

Horror is a genre of speculative fiction which is intended to frighten, scare, disgust, or startle its readers by inducing feelings of horror and terror. Literary historian J. A. Cuddon defined the horror story as "a piece of fiction in prose of variable length... which shocks, or even frightens the reader, or perhaps induces a feeling of repulsion or loathing". It creates an eerie and frightening atmosphere. Horror is frequently supernatural, though it might be also non-supernatural. Often the central menace of a work of horror fiction can be interpreted as a metaphor for the larger fears of a society.

H. P. Lovecraft American author

Howard Phillips Lovecraft was an American writer of weird fiction and horror fiction. Born in Providence, Rhode Island, he spent most of his life there, and his fiction was primarily set against a New England backdrop. Lovecraft was never able to support himself from earnings as an author and editor, and he subsisted in progressively strained circumstances in his last years. He died of cancer at the age of 46.

Description

In Lovecraft's story, the "colours out of space" are unknowable, non-humanoid and non-corporeal extraterrestrial creatures who suck life out of all living things in the area. They arrived in a meteorite that fell in a rural area west of the fictional town of Arkham, Massachusetts, landing next to a well, on farmland belonging to Nahum Gardner. The closest description given of it is that it is a living "colour" or perhaps energy-based life form, more of a presence that can affect a wide area than a physical creature.

Humanoid Something that has an appearance resembling a human without actually being one

A humanoid is something that has an appearance resembling a human without actually being one. The earliest recorded use of the term, in 1870, referred to indigenous peoples in areas colonized by Europeans. By the 20th century, the term came to describe fossils which were morphologically similar, but not identical, to those of the human skeleton.

Meteorite piece of solid matter from outer space that has hit the earth

A meteorite is a solid piece of debris from an object, such as a comet, asteroid, or meteoroid, that originates in outer space and survives its passage through the atmosphere to reach the surface of a planet or moon. When the object enters the atmosphere, various factors such as friction, pressure, and chemical interactions with the atmospheric gases cause it to heat up and radiate energy. It then becomes a meteor and forms a fireball, also known as a shooting star or falling star; astronomers call the brightest examples "bolides". Meteorites vary greatly in size. For geologists, a bolide is a meteorite large enough to create an impact crater.

Arkham fictional city in Massachusetts

Arkham is a fictional town situated in Massachusetts. It is a dark city and an integral part of the Lovecraft Country setting created by H. P. Lovecraft. It is featured in many of his stories and those of other Cthulhu Mythos writers.

Meteorite properties

The meteorite possesses odd properties:

Chemical reaction Process that results in the interconversion of chemical species

A chemical reaction is a process that leads to the chemical transformation of one set of chemical substances to another. Classically, chemical reactions encompass changes that only involve the positions of electrons in the forming and breaking of chemical bonds between atoms, with no change to the nuclei, and can often be described by a chemical equation. Nuclear chemistry is a sub-discipline of chemistry that involves the chemical reactions of unstable and radioactive elements where both electronic and nuclear changes can occur.

Oxygen Chemical element with atomic number 8

Oxygen is the chemical element with the symbol O and atomic number 8. It is a member of the chalcogen group in the periodic table, a highly reactive nonmetal, and an oxidizing agent that readily forms oxides with most elements as well as with other compounds. By mass, oxygen is the third-most abundant element in the universe, after hydrogen and helium. At standard temperature and pressure, two atoms of the element bind to form dioxygen, a colorless and odorless diatomic gas with the formula O
2. Diatomic oxygen gas constitutes 20.8% of the Earth's atmosphere. As compounds including oxides, the element makes up almost half of the Earth's crust.

Hydrogen Chemical element with atomic number 1

Hydrogen is the chemical element with the symbol H and atomic number 1. With a standard atomic weight of 1.008, hydrogen is the lightest element in the periodic table. Hydrogen is the most abundant chemical substance in the Universe, constituting roughly 75% of all baryonic mass. Non-remnant stars are mainly composed of hydrogen in the plasma state. The most common isotope of hydrogen, termed protium, has one proton and no neutrons.

The colours inhabit small colored, fragile globules within such meteors, exhibiting the odd band of colors described above.[ where? ] A simple hammer tap is sufficient to break one open, resulting in no noticeable release of anything at all.[ citation needed ]

Environmental impact

They possess mutagenic properties. The crops on the farm near the impact site grew to great size and unnatural gloss, but this was useless as their taste was bitter, sour and unlikeable in the extreme. Animals in the area were also affected, their bodies, behavior and activity showing hints of alteration, such as leaping distances well above their normal capability, malformed body proportions, appearances, and footprints in the snow of unnatural configuration.

Snow around the house melted faster than anywhere else nearby, and skunk cabbages of prodigious size and unusual color sprouted out of the soil. The trees budded early and were observed to be moving even with no wind of any sort. Sprouting saxifrage bore the same unnatural hues as the cabbages. Within a few months, all plant life near the site took on unnatural properties and odd hues to the point where the road running near it fell into disuse, owing to people fearful of seeing such a sight.

Insects were also affected in a similar manner. Their bodies and movement pattern noticeably altered from what was known through past experience, and behaving in a manner contradictory as such. It is probably safe to assume that they are affected to a similar degree as other animals.

Effects on mammals

Later on in the story, cows grazing on grass near the site produced milk of worthless quality. The cows were moved away, a solution that worked as the milk returned to normal thereafter. The grass near the site, the same general area the cows fed in, started taking gray colours, and became strangely brittle. Horses in the stable one night were driven violently mad by it, and had to be shot for their own good when found a week later after they were released from the stables during their bout of madness. Woodchucks populating the area have also been affected; at one point, two villagers find and shoot one specimen described as strangely deformed, with "an expression which no one ever saw in a woodchuck before".

Effects on plant life

The plant life in the area, even the mutated ones, started taking after the fate of the grass, turning brittle, growing smaller than normal, growing increasingly more hideous-looking, gray, and in the case of the crops, tasteless. The insects followed suit, dropping dead rapidly.

The vegetation thereafter began crumbling like dust into grayish powder, and it was soon discovered afterwards that the well water was of undrinkable quality. The rest of the farm animals also fell to the same fate. The poultry turned gray, rapidly died, and their meat found useless as food, being dry and of disgusting taste. Hogs grew massively fat, developed isolated mutations on their bodies here and there, and then soon after turned gray and collapsed like the rest of them, their meat found inedible for the same reasons as the poultry. Cows were next, portions of their bodies, or even the entire thing, shrank incredibly. The result was the same. They turned gray and died.

Although all plant life in the area tended to die away, some, most notably trees, reacted in an unusual way - one member of the family claimed that the branches of some trees "swayed also when there was no wind," although it is never established if this swaying was the result of specific manipulation from the alien species, or was merely another example of the unusual growths.

Aftermath

The majority of the colours eventually returned to space in a dramatic fashion, with everything it had ever touched glowing with its unnatural colours, and the trees pointing their branches up towards the sky. It then rapidly shot itself up into space, leaving a hole in a cloud as the only sign of its departure. All things organic that it had associated itself with crumpled into dust. A small portion remained in the well where it had originally taken up residence. The farm which had been invaded was located near one of four towns later flooded to form a reservoir.

Other appearances

Danforth mentions the name "colour out of space" in At the Mountains of Madness . They are also mentioned in the adaptation, Dark Adventure Radio Theatre: At the Mountains of Madness as well as the movie The Last Lovecraft: Relic of Cthulhu .

The colours are included in Lovecraft-inspired role playing games, such as in the Call of Cthulhu game, where a colour out of space is a monster that the player characters may encounter.

A colour out of space appears to Lovecraft in the story "To Mars and Providence".

The 2018 film, Annihilation has similarities to the Colour Out of Space, featuring many creatures being altered by a similar anomaly.

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References

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