Mini aliens

Mary Worrall wonders if “she dreamed” about once seeing a UK TV show involving communication with aliens approaching Earth, neither group realising that the aliens are (in Earth terms) so tiny that their ship, on landing, is drowned in a small puddle [FT385:70].

This is clearly an adaptation of Katherine MacLean’s classic SF short story ‘Pictures Don’t Lie’, first published in the

August 1951 issue of Galaxy Science Fiction, often anthologised, and frequently adapted to other media. Wikipedia notes one such adaptation appeared on 11 August 1962 in the UK on the TV series Out Of This World (though sadly, like virtually all episodes of that series, it hasn’t survived). A 1956 radio adaptation by the US series X Minus One can, however, be heard on various sites on the Internet; there was also an EC comic story version (with some liberties taken) in Weird Science #12 (March/April 1952). Author MacLean, incidentally, died only recently – 1 September 2019 – at the age of 94.

Dennis Lien

Minneapolis, Minnesota

Mary Worrall was right about the “late night TV programme of the 1960s” concerning worms and miniature aliens, landing on a rain soaked runway. It was part of a series of science fiction stories, hosted by Boris Karloff, including this one and a PK Dick story about an alien humanoid bomb, played by John Carson, in which he exploded once he recognised he wasn’t the genuine human. Tony Sandy

Alness, Ross-shire