Little green men
Encyclopedia
Little green men is the stereotypical
portrayal of extraterrestrials
as little humanoid
-like creatures with green skin and sometimes with antennae on their heads. The term is also sometimes used to describe gremlin
s, mythical creatures known for causing problems in airplanes and mechanical devices. Today, these creatures are more commonly associated with an alleged alien species called greys, whose skin color is described as not green, but grey.
During the flying saucer
"sightings" in the 1950s, the term little green men came into popular usage in reference to aliens. In one classic case, the Kelly-Hopkinsville sighting
on August 21, 1955, two rural Kentucky
men described a supposed encounter with 3–4 foot (1 m) tall metallic-silver, somewhat humanoid-looking aliens. Employing journalistic licence and deviating from the witnesses' accounts, many newspaper articles used the term little green men in writing up the story.
referred to the "green men of Mars" and "green Martian women" in his first 1906 science fiction
novel
A Princess of Mars
, though at 10 to 12 feet tall, they were hardly "little."
However the first use of the specific phrase "little green man" in reference to extraterrestrials that Aubeck found dates to 1908 in the Daily Kennebec Journal (Augusta, Maine), in this case the aliens again being Martians.
In 1910 (or 1915), a "little green man" was allegedly captured from his crashed spaceship in Puglia, Italy.
Green aliens soon came to commonly portray extraterrestrials and adorned the covers of many of the 1920s to 1950s science fiction pulp magazine
s with pictures of Buck Rogers
and Flash Gordon
battling green alien
monsters.
The first documented print example specifically linking "little green men" to extraterrestrial spaceship
s is in a newspaper column satirizing the public panic following Orson Welles
' famous War of the Worlds
Halloween
broadcast of October 31, 1938. The column by reporter Bill Barnard in the Corpus Christi Times
the next day begins, "Thirteen little green men from Mercury stepped out of their space ship at Cliff Maus Field [local airport] late yesterday afternoon for a good-will visit to Corpus Christi
" and ends with, "Then the 13 little green men got in their space ship and flew away." The familiarity with which the term was used suggests that this probably wasn't the first instance where it was applied to extraterrestrials in spaceships.
In 1946, Harold M. Sherman published a pulp science fiction book titled "The Green Man: A Visitor From Space". The cover illustration was of a normal-looking and proportioned human being, albeit with a green skin.
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 incident and the 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.
In 1951, a science fiction book titled "The Case of the Little Green Men" was published by Mack Reynolds
, telling of a private detective hired to investigate disguised aliens living among the human population. As he was being hired, the detective referred derisively and familiarly to the aliens in the flying saucers being "little green men". The cover illustration is notable for depicting the LGM with the classic antennae sticking out of the head. Mack Reynolds would go on to write the first Star Trek
novel in 1968 (Mission to Horatius
).
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."
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 Washington Post (in the Post, a book review of a mystery/Sci Fi novel called "The Little Green Man"), and 1952 in the Los Angeles Times
and the Chicago Tribune
(the Tribune mocking flying saucer reports using a "little green man with pink polka dots"). 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."
In a later example, following a nationally publicized flurry of UFO sightings in November 1957, syndicated Washington columnist Frederick Othman wrote: "New Flying Saucer Epidemic On. All over this land again are flying saucers... No little green men have climbed out of these celestial vehicles so far, but in another couple of days I wouldn't be surprised..."
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 camouflage
d Japanese soldiers. The Washington Post in 1942 likewise used the term "little green man" in reference to a camouflaged Japanese sniper
who nearly killed one of their war correspondents.
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 such as goblin
s. 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.
Another example, and the earliest use of little green man in the New York Times and Chicago Tribune, 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.)
In 1923, a serialized romance, "When Hearts Command" by Elizabeth York Miller, which appeared in newspapers such as the Chicago Tribune
and Washington Post, has a former mental patient who still sees "little green men" and who simultaneously comments that a fellow patient "conversed with the inhabitants of Mars."
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 J. 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.
Further electronic searches suggest that the term became increasingly more common in the 1960s and always used in a derisive or humorous way. The Chicago Tribune in 1960 carried a front page story on the speculations of a Harvard anthropologist about how aliens might look and alien sex. The article opens with the comment, "If there really are 'little green men' out there in space, there are probably also little green women--and sex." A cartoon was attached showing two amorous centaur
-like male and female aliens with antennae sticking out of their heads. The article also enigmatically states, "The 'little green men' designation came from Dr. Otto Struve
, director of the national radio astronomy observatory, Green Bank, W. Va. He said that's what the possible outerspacers are called 'among themselves.'"
The term even penetrated into the commentary of the 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 antennae. 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.
The term "Little Green Men" was also the title of an X-Files episode (Season 2, Episode 1), as well as an episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
.
in the Star Wars
movie saga. Another example was in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
's fourth season, episode number eight, which was titled Little Green Men. Due to an accidental time displacement, Quark
, Nog, Rom
and Odo were transported back in time on a trip to Earth and became the subjects of the 1947 Roswell UFO incident
(The title belies the fact that the characters involved were brown, not green; however, all four were aliens and the title plays on the 1940s use of the term). A similar derisive usage can be seen in the original Star Trek
episode "Tomorrow Is Yesterday", set in 1969, as Captain Kirk
, captured by the US Air Force while attempting to steal film showing the Enterprise in Earth's atmosphere, calls himself a "little green man from Alpha Centauri
" when interrogated by the base commander. Earlier in the same episode, a rescued Air Force captain brought aboard the Enterprise tells Kirk he's never believed in little green men, immediately before meeting the greenish-tinged Mr. Spock (who replies, "Neither have I"). Similarly, in the first episode of the 1970 Doctor Who
serial Spearhead from Space
, Liz Shaw dismissively describes UNIT
's work as investigating "little blue men with three heads".
Instead, the little green alien image seems to have migrated mainly to the world of children's media where it can still be found in abundance (for example, see Little Green Men in Toy Story; Coloring Fun: Aliens in Space; Hazel Nutt, Alien-Hunter and Aliens Don't Carve Jack -o- Lanterns).
The abbreviation for "Little Green Men" (LGM) is the basis of the name of the Pokémon
Elgyem.
and Antony Hewish
of the University of Cambridge
, UK
dubbed the first discovered pulsar
LGM-1
for "little green men" because the regular oscillations of its signal suggested a possible intelligent origin. Its designation was later changed to CP 1919, and is now known as PSR B1919+21.
Stereotype
A stereotype is a popular belief about specific social groups or types of individuals. The concepts of "stereotype" and "prejudice" are often confused with many other different meanings...
portrayal of extraterrestrials
Extraterrestrial life
Extraterrestrial life is defined as life that does not originate from Earth...
as little humanoid
Humanoid
A humanoid is something that has an appearance resembling a human being. The term first appeared in 1912 to refer to fossils which were morphologically similar to, but not identical with, those of the human skeleton. Although this usage was common in the sciences for much of the 20th century, it...
-like creatures with green skin and sometimes with antennae on their heads. The term is also sometimes used to describe gremlin
Gremlin
A gremlin is an imaginary creature commonly depicted as mischievous and mechanically oriented, with a specific interest in aircraft. Gremlins' mischievous natures are similar to those of English folkloric imps, while their inclination to damage or dismantle machinery is more...
s, mythical creatures known for causing problems in airplanes and mechanical devices. Today, these creatures are more commonly associated with an alleged alien species called greys, whose skin color is described as not green, but grey.
During the flying saucer
Flying saucer
A flying saucer is a type of unidentified flying object sometimes believed to be of alien origin with a disc or saucer-shaped body, usually described as silver or metallic, occasionally reported as covered with running lights or surrounded with a glowing light, hovering or moving rapidly either...
"sightings" in the 1950s, the term little green men came into popular usage in reference to aliens. In one classic case, the Kelly-Hopkinsville sighting
Kelly-Hopkinsville encounter
The Kelly–Hopkinsville encounter, also known as the Hopkinsville Goblins Case, and to a lesser extent the Kelly Green Men Case, is the name given to a series of presumably connected incidents of alleged close encounters with supposed extraterrestrial beings...
on August 21, 1955, two rural Kentucky
Kentucky
The Commonwealth of Kentucky is a state located in the East Central United States of America. As classified by the United States Census Bureau, Kentucky is a Southern state, more specifically in the East South Central region. Kentucky is one of four U.S. states constituted as a commonwealth...
men described a supposed encounter with 3–4 foot (1 m) tall metallic-silver, somewhat humanoid-looking aliens. Employing journalistic licence and deviating from the witnesses' accounts, many newspaper articles used the term little green men in writing up the story.
Extraterrestrial definition
Usage of the term clearly predates the 1955 incident, though exactly when it first got applied to aliens in flying saucers or aliens in general has been difficult to pin down. Folklore researcher Chris Aubeck has used electronic searches of old newspapers and found a number of instances dating from around the turn of the 20th Century referring to green aliens. Aubeck found one story from 1899 in the Atlanta Constitution about a little, green-skinned alien, in a tale called Green Boy From Hurrah, "Hurrah" being another planet, perhaps Mars. Edgar Rice BurroughsEdgar Rice Burroughs
Edgar Rice Burroughs was an American author, best known for his creation of the jungle hero Tarzan and the heroic Mars adventurer John Carter, although he produced works in many genres.-Biography:...
referred to the "green men of Mars" and "green Martian women" in his first 1906 science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
novel
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
A Princess of Mars
A Princess of Mars
A Princess of Mars is a science fiction novel by Edgar Rice Burroughs, the first of his Barsoom series. It is also Burroughs' first novel, predating his famous Tarzan series. Full of swordplay and daring feats, the novel is considered a classic example of 20th century pulp fiction...
, though at 10 to 12 feet tall, they were hardly "little."
However the first use of the specific phrase "little green man" in reference to extraterrestrials that Aubeck found dates to 1908 in the Daily Kennebec Journal (Augusta, Maine), in this case the aliens again being Martians.
In 1910 (or 1915), a "little green man" was allegedly captured from his crashed spaceship in Puglia, Italy.
Green aliens soon came to commonly portray extraterrestrials and adorned the covers of many of the 1920s to 1950s science fiction pulp magazine
Pulp magazine
Pulp magazines , also collectively known as pulp fiction, refers to inexpensive fiction magazines published from 1896 through the 1950s. The typical pulp magazine was seven inches wide by ten inches high, half an inch thick, and 128 pages long...
s with pictures of Buck Rogers
Buck Rogers
Anthony Rogers is a fictional character that first appeared in Armageddon 2419 A.D. by Philip Francis Nowlan in the August 1928 issue of the pulp magazine Amazing Stories. A sequel, The Airlords of Han, was published in the March 1929 issue....
and Flash Gordon
Flash Gordon
Flash Gordon is the hero of a science fiction adventure comic strip originally drawn by Alex Raymond. First published January 7, 1934, the strip was inspired by and created to compete with the already established Buck Rogers adventure strip. Also inspired by these series were comics such as Dash...
battling green alien
Extraterrestrial life
Extraterrestrial life is defined as life that does not originate from Earth...
monsters.
The first documented print example specifically linking "little green men" to extraterrestrial spaceship
Spacecraft
A spacecraft or spaceship is a craft or machine designed for spaceflight. Spacecraft are used for a variety of purposes, including communications, earth observation, meteorology, navigation, planetary exploration and transportation of humans and cargo....
s is in a newspaper column satirizing the public panic following Orson Welles
Orson Welles
George Orson Welles , best known as Orson Welles, was an American film director, actor, theatre director, screenwriter, and producer, who worked extensively in film, theatre, television and radio...
' famous War of the Worlds
The War of the Worlds (radio)
The War of the Worlds was an episode of the American radio drama anthology series Mercury Theatre on the Air. It was performed as a Halloween episode of the series on October 30, 1938, and aired over the Columbia Broadcasting System radio network. Directed and narrated by actor and future filmmaker...
Halloween
Halloween
Hallowe'en , also known as Halloween or All Hallows' Eve, is a yearly holiday observed around the world on October 31, the night before All Saints' Day...
broadcast of October 31, 1938. The column by reporter Bill Barnard in the Corpus Christi Times
Corpus Christi Caller-Times
The Corpus Christi Caller-Times is the newspaper of record for Corpus Christi, Texas.-Brief history:There has been a newspaper in Corpus Christi for almost as long as there has been a town. In 1883, the Caller was started in a frame building at 310 North Chaparral, now the site of Green's Jewelers....
the next day begins, "Thirteen little green men from Mercury stepped out of their space ship at Cliff Maus Field [local airport] late yesterday afternoon for a good-will visit to Corpus Christi
Corpus Christi, Texas
Corpus Christi is a coastal city in the South Texas region of the U.S. state of Texas. The county seat of Nueces County, it also extends into Aransas, Kleberg, and San Patricio counties. The MSA population in 2008 was 416,376. The population was 305,215 at the 2010 census making it the...
" and ends with, "Then the 13 little green men got in their space ship and flew away." The familiarity with which the term was used suggests that this probably wasn't the first instance where it was applied to extraterrestrials in spaceships.
In 1946, Harold M. Sherman published a pulp science fiction book titled "The Green Man: A Visitor From Space". The cover illustration was of a normal-looking and proportioned human being, albeit with a green skin.
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 incident and the Roswell UFO incident
Roswell UFO incident
The Roswell UFO Incident was the recovery of an object that crashed in the general vicinity of Roswell, New Mexico, in June or July 1947, allegedly an extra-terrestrial spacecraft and its alien occupants. Since the late 1970s the incident has been the subject of intense controversy and of...
). However, Boyle did not describe his green Martian as small.
Marvin the Martian
Marvin the Martian
Marvin the Martian is a fictional character appearing in the Looney Tunes cartoons. Marvin's likeness appears in miniature on the Spirit rover on Mars.-Conception and creation:...
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.
In 1951, a science fiction book titled "The Case of the Little Green Men" was published by Mack Reynolds
Mack Reynolds
Dallas McCord "Mack" Reynolds was an American science fiction writer. His pen names included Clark Collins, Mark Mallory, Guy McCord, Dallas Ross and Maxine Reynolds. Many of his stories were published in Galaxy Magazine and Worlds of If Magazine...
, telling of a private detective hired to investigate disguised aliens living among the human population. As he was being hired, the detective referred derisively and familiarly to the aliens in the flying saucers being "little green men". The cover illustration is notable for depicting the LGM with the classic antennae sticking out of the head. Mack Reynolds would go on to write the first Star Trek
Star Trek
Star Trek is an American science fiction entertainment franchise created by Gene Roddenberry. The core of Star Trek is its six television series: The Original Series, The Animated Series, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Enterprise...
novel in 1968 (Mission to Horatius
Mission to Horatius
Mission to Horatius by Mack Reynolds is the title of a 1968 novel for children based upon the television series Star Trek. It was the first novel of any kind to be based upon the Trek franchise...
).
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
Variety (magazine)
Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...
columnist Frank Scully
Frank Scully
Frank Scully was an author in the 1940s and 1950s and wrote for the show business publication Variety.In October and November 1949, Scully published two columns in Variety, claiming that extraterrestrial beings were recovered from a flying saucer crash, based on what he said was reported to him by...
.
A witness reporting a flying saucer sighting to a Wichita, Kansas
Wichita, Kansas
Wichita is the largest city in the U.S. state of Kansas.As of the 2010 census, the city population was 382,368. Located in south-central Kansas on the Arkansas River, Wichita is the county seat of Sedgwick County and the principal city of the Wichita metropolitan area...
newspaper in June 1950 stated that he saw "absolutely no little green men with egg on their whiskers."
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 Washington Post (in the Post, a book review of a mystery/Sci Fi novel called "The Little Green Man"), and 1952 in the Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
and the Chicago Tribune
Chicago Tribune
The Chicago Tribune is a major daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, and the flagship publication of the Tribune Company. Formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" , it remains the most read daily newspaper of the Chicago metropolitan area and the Great Lakes region and is...
(the Tribune mocking flying saucer reports using a "little green man with pink polka dots"). 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
Martians, Go Home
Martians, Go Home is a science fiction novel, written in 1955 by the American author, Fredric Brown. Written in a light-hearted style, it is a parody of the science-fiction genre.-Synopsis:...
. The Martians were obnoxious "little green men" whose appearance was "true to prophecy."
In a later example, following a nationally publicized flurry of UFO sightings in November 1957, syndicated Washington columnist Frederick Othman wrote: "New Flying Saucer Epidemic On. All over this land again are flying saucers... No little green men have climbed out of these celestial vehicles so far, but in another couple of days I wouldn't be surprised..."
Origins and other uses
The term also shows up much earlier in rather surprising ways in other contexts. Movie gossip columnist Hedda HopperHedda Hopper
Hedda Hopper was an American actress and gossip columnist, whose long-running feud with friend turned arch-rival Louella Parsons became at least as notorious as many of Hopper's columns.-Early life:...
used it in 1939 referring to small cast members of the Wizard of Oz
The Wizard of Oz (1939 film)
The Wizard of Oz is a 1939 American musical fantasy film produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. It was directed primarily by Victor Fleming. Noel Langley, Florence Ryerson and Edgar Allan Woolf received credit for the screenplay, but there were uncredited contributions by others. The lyrics for the songs...
, 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 camouflage
Camouflage
Camouflage is a method of concealment that allows an otherwise visible animal, military vehicle, or other object to remain unnoticed, by blending with its environment. Examples include a leopard's spotted coat, the battledress of a modern soldier and a leaf-mimic butterfly...
d Japanese soldiers. The Washington Post in 1942 likewise used the term "little green man" in reference to a camouflaged Japanese sniper
Sniper
A sniper is a marksman who shoots targets from concealed positions or distances exceeding the capabilities of regular personnel. Snipers typically have specialized training and distinct high-precision rifles....
who nearly killed one of their war correspondents.
Before its more modern application to aliens, little green men was commonly used to describe various supernatural
Supernatural
The supernatural or is that which is not subject to the laws of nature, or more figuratively, that which is said to exist above and beyond nature...
beings in old legends and folklore and in later fairy tales and children's books such as goblin
Goblin
A goblin is a legendary evil or mischievous illiterate creature, a grotesquely evil or evil-like phantom.They are attributed with various abilities, temperaments and appearances depending on the story and country of origin. In some cases, goblins have been classified as constantly annoying little...
s. Aubeck noted several examples of the latter in 19th and early 20th century literature. As an example, Rudyard Kipling
Rudyard Kipling
Joseph Rudyard Kipling was an English poet, short-story writer, and novelist chiefly remembered for his celebration of British imperialism, tales and poems of British soldiers in India, and his tales for children. Kipling received the 1907 Nobel Prize for Literature...
had a "little green man" in Puck of Pook's Hill from 1906.
Another example, and the earliest use of little green man in the New York Times and Chicago Tribune, 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
Robert Nathan
Robert Gruntal Nathan was an American novelist and poet.-Biography:Nathan was born into a prominent New York family. He was educated in the United States and Switzerland and attended Harvard University for several years beginning in 1912. It was there that he began writing short fiction and poetry...
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.)
In 1923, a serialized romance, "When Hearts Command" by Elizabeth York Miller, which appeared in newspapers such as the Chicago Tribune
Chicago Tribune
The Chicago Tribune is a major daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, and the flagship publication of the Tribune Company. Formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" , it remains the most read daily newspaper of the Chicago metropolitan area and the Great Lakes region and is...
and Washington Post, has a former mental patient who still sees "little green men" and who simultaneously comments that a fellow patient "conversed with the inhabitants of Mars."
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 J. 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
Bogeyman
A bogeyman is an amorphous imaginary being used by adults to frighten children into compliant behaviour...
".
These examples illustrate that use of little green men was already deeply engrained in English vernacular
Vernacular
A vernacular is the native language or native dialect of a specific population, as opposed to a language of wider communication that is not native to the population, such as a national language or lingua franca.- Etymology :The term is not a recent one...
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.
Further electronic searches suggest that the term became increasingly more common in the 1960s and always used in a derisive or humorous way. The Chicago Tribune in 1960 carried a front page story on the speculations of a Harvard anthropologist about how aliens might look and alien sex. The article opens with the comment, "If there really are 'little green men' out there in space, there are probably also little green women--and sex." A cartoon was attached showing two amorous centaur
Centaur
In Greek mythology, a centaur or hippocentaur is a member of a composite race of creatures, part human and part horse...
-like male and female aliens with antennae sticking out of their heads. The article also enigmatically states, "The 'little green men' designation came from Dr. Otto Struve
Otto Struve
Otto Struve was a Russian astronomer. In Russian, his name is sometimes given as Otto Lyudvigovich Struve ; however, he spent most of his life and his entire scientific career in the United States...
, director of the national radio astronomy observatory, Green Bank, W. Va. He said that's what the possible outerspacers are called 'among themselves.'"
The term even penetrated into the commentary of the Wall Street Journal. First use in the Journal was 1960 in an article on the Brookings Report
Brookings Report
Proposed Studies on the Implications of Peaceful Space Activities for Human Affairs, often referred to as "the Brookings Report", was commissioned by NASA and created by the Brookings Institution in collaboration with NASA's Committee on Long Range Studies in 1960...
commissioned by NASA
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research...
, 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
Subpoena
A subpoena is a writ by a government agency, most often a court, that has authority to compel testimony by a witness or production of evidence under a penalty for failure. There are two common types of subpoena:...
"a little green man." In 1969, they commented that the Condon Committee
Condon Committee
The Condon Committee was the informal name of the University of Colorado UFO Project, a group funded by the United States Air Force from 1966 to 1968 at the University of Colorado to study unidentified flying objects under the direction of physicist Edward Condon...
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
The Flintstones
The Flintstones is an animated, prime-time American television sitcom that screened from September 30, 1960 to April 1, 1966, on ABC. Produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions, The Flintstones was about a working class Stone Age man's life with his family and his next-door neighbor and best friend. It...
as a recurring character. The Great Gazoo
The Great Gazoo
The Great Gazoo is a character from The Flintstones animated series. He first appeared on the show on October 29, 1965. The Great Gazoo was voiced by the late Harvey Korman.-Biography:...
(introduced in Episode 145) typified the representation of a little green man with his short, green stature and helmet with antennae. However, the 1960s also marked a transition in the way people imagined a stereotypical alien. In alien abduction
Abduction phenomenon
The terms alien abduction or abduction phenomenon describe "subjectively real memories of being taken secretly against one’s will by apparently nonhuman entities and subjected to complex physical and psychological procedures." People claiming to have been abducted are usually called "abductees" or...
stories they are often small but grey beings and in Arthur C. Clarke
Arthur C. Clarke
Sir Arthur Charles Clarke, CBE, FRAS was a British science fiction author, inventor, and futurist, famous for his short stories and novels, among them 2001: A Space Odyssey, and as a host and commentator in the British television series Mysterious World. For many years, Robert A. Heinlein,...
's 2001: A Space Odyssey
2001: A Space Odyssey (novel)
2001: A Space Odyssey is a science fiction novel by Arthur C. Clarke. It was developed concurrently with Stanley Kubrick's film version and published after the release of the film...
(1968) they are unseen.
The term "Little Green Men" was also the title of an X-Files episode (Season 2, Episode 1), as well as an episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Little Green Men (DS9 episode)
"Little Green Men" is an episode of the television series Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, the seventh episode of the fourth season. It is rated 4.3/5 on the official Star Trek Website.-Plot:...
.
Current usage
Little green aliens and the term "little green men" have fallen out of general use in serious science fiction circles and are typically only used by the uninformed or to ridicule the notion that aliens may exist, with a few exceptions, such as YodaYoda
Yoda is a fictional character in the Star Wars universe, appearing in the second and third original films, as well as all three prequel trilogy films. A renowned Jedi master, Yoda made his first on-screen appearance in Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back where he is responsible for...
in the Star Wars
Star Wars
Star Wars is an American epic space opera film series created by George Lucas. The first film in the series was originally released on May 25, 1977, under the title Star Wars, by 20th Century Fox, and became a worldwide pop culture phenomenon, followed by two sequels, released at three-year...
movie saga. Another example was in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine is a science fiction television series set in the Star Trek universe...
's fourth season, episode number eight, which was titled Little Green Men. Due to an accidental time displacement, Quark
Quark (Star Trek)
Quark is a fictional character in the American television series Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. The character, which was played by Armin Shimerman, was depicted as a member of an extraterrestrial race known as the Ferengi, who are stereotypically ultra-capitalist and only motivated by...
, Nog, Rom
Rom (Star Trek)
Rom is a recurring character on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. He is played by Max Grodénchik.Rom is a Ferengi, the son of Keldar and Ishka. He is Quark's younger brother, and the father of Nog.-Overview:...
and Odo were transported back in time on a trip to Earth and became the subjects of the 1947 Roswell UFO incident
Roswell UFO incident
The Roswell UFO Incident was the recovery of an object that crashed in the general vicinity of Roswell, New Mexico, in June or July 1947, allegedly an extra-terrestrial spacecraft and its alien occupants. Since the late 1970s the incident has been the subject of intense controversy and of...
(The title belies the fact that the characters involved were brown, not green; however, all four were aliens and the title plays on the 1940s use of the term). A similar derisive usage can be seen in the original Star Trek
Star Trek: The Original Series
Star Trek is an American science fiction television series created by Gene Roddenberry, produced by Desilu Productions . Star Trek was telecast on NBC from September 8, 1966, through June 3, 1969...
episode "Tomorrow Is Yesterday", set in 1969, as Captain Kirk
James T. Kirk
James Tiberius "Jim" Kirk is a character in the Star Trek media franchise. Kirk was first played by William Shatner as the principal lead character in the original Star Trek series. Shatner voiced Kirk in the animated Star Trek series and appeared in the first seven Star Trek movies...
, captured by the US Air Force while attempting to steal film showing the Enterprise in Earth's atmosphere, calls himself a "little green man from Alpha Centauri
Alpha Centauri
Alpha Centauri is the brightest star in the southern constellation of Centaurus...
" when interrogated by the base commander. Earlier in the same episode, a rescued Air Force captain brought aboard the Enterprise tells Kirk he's never believed in little green men, immediately before meeting the greenish-tinged Mr. Spock (who replies, "Neither have I"). Similarly, in the first episode of the 1970 Doctor Who
Doctor Who
Doctor Who is a British science fiction television programme produced by the BBC. The programme depicts the adventures of a time-travelling humanoid alien known as the Doctor who explores the universe in a sentient time machine called the TARDIS that flies through time and space, whose exterior...
serial Spearhead from Space
Spearhead from Space
Spearhead from Space is a serial in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in four weekly parts from 3 January to 24 January 1970. The serial opened Series 7 of the show and was the first to be produced in colour. The serial introduced Jon Pertwee as the...
, Liz Shaw dismissively describes UNIT
UNIT
UNIT is a fictional military organisation from the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures...
's work as investigating "little blue men with three heads".
Instead, the little green alien image seems to have migrated mainly to the world of children's media where it can still be found in abundance (for example, see Little Green Men in Toy Story; Coloring Fun: Aliens in Space; Hazel Nutt, Alien-Hunter and Aliens Don't Carve Jack -o- Lanterns).
The abbreviation for "Little Green Men" (LGM) is the basis of the name of the Pokémon
Pokémon
is a media franchise published and owned by the video game company Nintendo and created by Satoshi Tajiri in 1996. Originally released as a pair of interlinkable Game Boy role-playing video games developed by Game Freak, Pokémon has since become the second most successful and lucrative video...
Elgyem.
Astronomy
In 1967, Jocelyn Bell BurnellJocelyn Bell Burnell
Susan Jocelyn Bell Burnell, DBE, FRS, FRAS , is a British astrophysicist. As a postgraduate student she discovered the first radio pulsars with her thesis supervisor Antony Hewish. She was president of the Institute of Physics from October 2008 until October 2010, and was interim president...
and Antony Hewish
Antony Hewish
Antony Hewish FRS is a British radio astronomer who won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1974 for his work on the development of radio aperture synthesis and its role in the discovery of pulsars...
of the University of Cambridge
University of Cambridge
The University of Cambridge is a public research university located in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest university in both the United Kingdom and the English-speaking world , and the seventh-oldest globally...
, UK
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
dubbed the first discovered pulsar
Pulsar
A pulsar is a highly magnetized, rotating neutron star that emits a beam of electromagnetic radiation. The radiation can only be observed when the beam of emission is pointing towards the Earth. This is called the lighthouse effect and gives rise to the pulsed nature that gives pulsars their name...
LGM-1
LGM-1
Little green men 1 was the explanation given to a certain astronomical observation. In 1967, a radio signal was detected in a UK observatory by Jocelyn Bell and Antony Hewish. The signal had a 1.3373 second period and 0.04 second pulsewidth. It originated at celestial coordinates 19:19 right...
for "little green men" because the regular oscillations of its signal suggested a possible intelligent origin. Its designation was later changed to CP 1919, and is now known as PSR B1919+21.
See also
- Bug-eyed monsterBug-eyed monsterBug-eyed monster is an early convention of the science fiction genre. Extraterrestrials in science fiction of the 1930s were often described as grotesque creatures with huge, oversized...
- Ethereal creature
- Extraterrestrial lifeExtraterrestrial lifeExtraterrestrial life is defined as life that does not originate from Earth...
- Fairies
- Green ManGreen ManA Green Man is a sculpture, drawing, or other representation of a face surrounded by or made from leaves. Branches or vines may sprout from the nose, mouth, nostrils or other parts of the face and these shoots may bear flowers or fruit...
(folklore and ornamentation) - GremlinGremlinA gremlin is an imaginary creature commonly depicted as mischievous and mechanically oriented, with a specific interest in aircraft. Gremlins' mischievous natures are similar to those of English folkloric imps, while their inclination to damage or dismantle machinery is more...
s - Grey alien
- Irkens
- LeprechaunLeprechaunA leprechaun is a type of fairy in Irish folklore, usually taking the form of an old man, clad in a red or green coat, who enjoys partaking in mischief. Like other fairy creatures, leprechauns have been linked to the Tuatha Dé Danann of Irish mythology...
- List of alleged UFO-related extraterrestrials
- Men in BlackMen in BlackMen in Black , in American popular culture and in UFO conspiracy theories, are men dressed in black suits who claim to be government agents who harass or threaten UFO witnesses to keep them quiet about what they have seen. It is sometimes implied that they may be aliens themselves...
- Nordic aliensNordic aliensNordic aliens are said by self-described contactees and some UFOlogists to be a group of humanoid extraterrestrials who resemble European racial images, or more specifically Nordic-Scandinavians....
- ReptiliansReptiliansReptilians are purported reptilian humanoids that play a prominent role in modern ufology and conspiracy theories.-Alien abduction:...
- The Awful Green Things From Outer SpaceThe Awful Green Things From Outer SpaceThe Awful Green Things from Outer Space is a two-player board game developed and illustrated by Tom Wham inspired by the Kinji Fukasaku motion picture, The Green Slime. It originally appeared as an insert in Dragon Magazine #28 , and subsequently as a boxed game published by TSR in 1980...
Further reading
- Karyl, Anna The Kelly Incident, 20042004 in literatureThe year 2004 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:* Canada Reads selects Guy Vanderhaeghe's The Last Crossing to be read across the nation....
, ISBN 0-9752645-2-4 - Roth, Christopher F. (2005) "Ufology as Anthropology: Race, Extraterrestrials, and the Occult." In E.T. Culture: Anthropology in Outerspaces, ed. by Debbora Battaglia. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press.
- Vallee, Jacques Anatomy of a Phenomenon: Unidentified Objects in Space, 19651965 in literatureThe year 1965 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-New books:*Lloyd Alexander - The Black Cauldron*J. G. Ballard - The Drought*Ray Bradbury - The Vintage Bradbury*John Brunner...
, ISBN 0-8092-9888-0.