Timothy > Recent Status Updates

The earliest appearance of a “Grey” alien, that I am aware of, is in a 1951 science fiction story by J. T. McIntosh, “Venus Mission.” The story can be found in a Donald Wollheim collection HIDDEN PLANET (Ace, 1951).

If you can find an earlier depiction of what is now the standard alien in UFO lore, please advise.

“There is no glory in the successful prediction of evil.”

Z’linn Ton Drull in ENIGMA (1986; 2004), Michael P. Kube-McDowell, p. 264.

The five stories in this anthology all deal with Venus — not of contemporary astronomy but as imagined by sf writers over six decades ago.

The first story is Chad Oliver’s “Field Expedient.” It is an elegantly told tale of establishing colonies on the Second Planet in secret, under a plan to ensure that the Venusian cultures will emerge a century later as a dynamic space-faring people. Foundation lite, say.