Little green men

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Little green men is a popular expression used to describe extraterrestrial life. In astronomy it is also the name of the first signal, LGM-1, to be received from a pulsar.

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Extraterrestrials

stereotypical portrayal of extraterrestrials as little humanoid-like creatures with green skin and antennae on their heads. Originally they referred to Martians after Edgar Rice Burroughs spoke of "green men of Mars" in his first 1912 science fiction novel A Princess on Mars. But they soon came to portray extraterrestrials in general and adorned the covers of many of the 1920s to 1950s science fiction pulp magazines with pictures of Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon battling green alien monsters. The term is also sometimes used to describe gremlins, mythical creatures known for causing problems in airplanes and mechanical devices.

During the flying saucer sightings of the 1950s, the term little green men came into popular usage. In one classic case, the Kelly-Hopkinsville sighting on August 21, 1955, two rural Kentucky men described a supposed encounter with a 3-4 foot tall greenish, somewhat humanoid-looking alien. Many newspaper articles used the term little green men in writing up the story. But as Loren Coleman demonstrates in his examination of the Kelly sightings in his book, "Mysterious America" (NY: Simon and Schuster, 2006), the little beings encountered in the 1955 Kentucky case were silverish, not green.

However, usage of the term clearly predates this incident, though exactly when it first got applied to aliens in flying saucers or aliens in general has been difficult to pin down. In 1910 (or 1915), a "little green man" was allegedly captured from his crashed spaceship in Puglia, Italy [1]. Nationally syndicated columns by humorist Hal Boyle spoke of a green man from Mars in his flying saucer in early July 1947 during the height of the brand new flying saucer phenomenon in the U.S. that started June 24 (see Kenneth Arnold and Roswell UFO incident). However, Boyle did not describe his green Martian as small.

Marvin the Martian was a Warner Brothers cartoon character dating from 1948. Marvin was a small humanoid character with big eyes and usually dressed in a mostly green uniform. Millions of movie-goers of that period would have been familiar with the small, green-suited cartoon Martian.

By early 1950, stories began circulating in newspapers about little beings being recovered from flying saucer crashes. Though largely considered to be hoaxes, some of the stories from the sources about little aliens eventually made it into the popular 1950 book, Behind the Flying Saucers by Variety magazine columnist Frank Scully.

A witness reporting a flying saucer sighting to a Wichita, Kansas newspaper in June 1950 stated that he saw "absolutely no little green men with egg on their whiskers." [2]

Similarly, electronic searches show that "little green men" was specifically used in reference to science fiction and flying saucers by at least 1951 in the New York Times and 1952 in the Los Angeles Times. The familiarity with which the term was used suggests that these weren't the first instances where it was applied to extraterrestrials. The next example of the New York Times using the term dates from 1955 in a book review of a sci-fi satire called Martians, Go Home. The Martians were obnoxious "little green men" whose appearance was "true to prophecy."

The term also shows up much earlier in rather surprising ways in other contexts. Movie gossip columnist Hedda Hopper used it in 1939 referring to small cast members of the Wizard of Oz, and admonished against drinking on the set. In 1942, the Los Angeles Times used the term in a pictorial on Marines training for jungle combat. In this case, "little green men" referred to camouflaged Japanese soldiers.

Before its more modern application to aliens, little green men was commonly used to describe various supernatural beings in old legends and folklore and in later fairy tales and children's books. Folklore researcher Chris Aubeck noted several examples of the latter in 19th and early 20th century literature. As an example, Rudyard Kipling had a "little green man" in Puck of Pook's Hill from 1906.

Aubeck also found one story from 1899 in the Atlanta Constitution of a short, green-skinned alien, in a tale called Green Boy From Hurrah, "Hurrah" being another planet.

Another example, and the earliest use of little green man in the New York Times, dates from 1902, in a review of a child's book called The Gift of the Magic Staff, where a supernatural "Little Green Man" is a boy's friend and helps him visit the cloudland fairies. The next use in the Times was in 1950, and references a planned movie by Walt Disney Corporation of a 1927 novel by poet/novelist Robert Nathan called The Woodcutter's House. The only animated character in the picture was to be Nathan's "Little Green Man," a confidant of the woodland animals. (The movie was never made.)

Other instances of imaginary small green beings have been found in a newspaper column from 1936 sarcastically discussing doctors and their medical advice, saying these are the same people who have breakdowns in middle age and start hallucinating "a little green man with big ears." Syndicated columnist Sydney Harris used "little green man" in 1948 as a child's imaginary friend while condemning the age-old tradition of frightening children with stories of "boogeymen".

These examples illustrate that use of little green men was already deeply engrained in English vernacular long before the flying saucer era, used for a variety of supernatural, imaginary, or mythical beings. It also seems to have easily extended beyond the imaginary to real people, such as the reference to small actors in the Wizard of Oz or camouflaged Japanese soldiers. Similarly, Aubeck and others suspect that when flying saucers came along in 1947, with subsequent speculation about alien origins, the term naturally and quickly attached itself to the modern age equivalent. It is also clear that by the early 1950s, the term was already commonly used as a sarcastic reference to the occupants of flying saucers. By 1954, the image of little green men had become inscribed in the public's collective consciousness. Though not explicitly called little green men, Lucy and Ethel play pointy-nosed, antennaed women from Mars in a promotion for a movie in the episode "Lucy is Envious."

Further electronic searches suggest that the term became increasingly more common in the 1960s and always used in a derisive or humorous way. It even penetrated into the commentary of the highly conservative Wall Street Journal. First use in the Journal was 1960 in an article on the Brookings Report commissioned by NASA, studying the possible social effects of the discovery of extraterrestrial life. The Journal commented that they thought the report overly pessimistic, assuming that "the little green men with the wiggly antennae" would be hostile. Another Journal use of the term occurred in 1968 in an editorial on a planned Congressional investigation of UFOs. The writer sarcastically asked how they planned to subpoena "a little green man." In 1969, they commented that the Condon Committee UFO study commissioned by the Air Force was a waste of money. The editorial stated that even if they did prove that "UFOs were people with little green men," what were we supposed to do about it?

By 1965, a little green man had even appeared in The Flintstones as a recurring character. The Great Gazoo (introduced in Episode 145) typified the representation of a little green man with his short, green stature and helmet with antenna. The Great Gazoo was later parodied in The Simpsons as the alien Ozmodiar, whom only Homer Simpson could see. However, the 1960s also marked a transition in the way people imagined a stereotypical alien. In alien abduction stories they are often small but grey beings and in Arthur C. Clarke's 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) they are unseen. Aside from Yoda in the Star Wars movie saga, little green aliens are seldom seen in science fiction anymore and seem to have migrated to the world of children's media where they can still be found in abundance (for example, see Little Green Men in Toy Story; Baloney (Henry P.); Coloring Fun: Aliens in Space; Hazel Nutt, Alien-Hunter and Aliens Don't Carve Jack -o- Lanterns). However, the term 'little green men' has fallen out of general use in science fiction circles and is typically only used by the uninformed or to ridicule the notion that aliens may exist.


LGM-1

Little green men 1 (LGM-1) was the explanation given to a famous astronomical observation. In 1967, a radio signal was detected in a UK observatory by Jocelyn Bell and Anthony Hewish. The signal had a 1.337 second period and 40 millisecond pulsewidth, and originated at celestial coordinates 19:19 right ascension, 21 degrees declination. It was detected by individual observation of miles of graphical data traces. Due to its almost perfect regularity, it was at first assumed to be spurious noise, but this was promptly discarded. After that, the discoverers half-seriously proposed, as an alternative explanation, that the signal might be a beacon or a communication from an intelligent extraterrestrial civilization and named it LGM-1.

The signal turned out to be radio emissions from the pulsar CP1919 (the first one recognized as such). Bell noted that other scientists could have discovered pulsars before her, but their observations were either ignored or disregarded. She noted that Sir Fred Hoyle identified this astronomical object as a neutron star immediately upon their announcement.

See also

References

Copyright

"Original data received from Wikipedia on April 21, 2006. Credit given to original authors can be seen Here."

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