Often enough there have been a slew of monsters coming from other planets bent on destroying the earth as if we are not busy doing that ourselves. One classic, which was to lay the foundation for other novels on the subject of being visited from afar, is War of the Worlds. When I look back on having read the book decades ago, the attitude of the people who observed the monster machines looks more than ridiculous than ever.
We seem to be depicted as idiots trying to purposely confront the intruder as if he would accept us or we would naively think that extraterrestrials are in human form at least. Such is the case for the opening of War of the Worlds. The piece however is timeless in that we would still be awestruck and dumbfounded if such an event were to occur. If there would be no white flag raised in the face of danger as had been raised to greet the threat then we would deploy another means and that to would probably be just as inefficient.
Working is now an integrated part of greater London but that was the stage for a meteorite hit that proved to be more of a flying saucer crash landing, in the late 18 hundreds. One can appreciate the slow detailed effort at the unraveling of the mystery landing and the coming alive of whoever inhabited the ship. One can appreciate the obscure point of view detail of the heat ray being deployed against the crowd of curious observers. It all tells us of what would actually happen were there ever an accident of that magnitude somewhere on the planet. Then again there are avid readers who believe we have already been visited.
