“Martians Come in Clouds” November 1952

Ted Barnes enters his home shaken. Another cloud of Martians has arrived. When his son Jimmy comes home, Ted decides it’s time to have the Martian talk—the canned ham can wait. Jimmy is excited and frightened by the talk of the Martian “buggies.” If Jimmy sees a buggie, he is to run away and find an adult in order to report it. The next day, Jimmy and his friends survey the Johnson house, where a buggie was taken care of the night before. They engage in boyish banter about what they would do if they found a buggie, mingling fear and excitement as they do so. On the way home, Jimmy sees one. It manages to communicate something of its experience through images that lap at Jimmy’s mind. It suggests that the buggies from dry, cracked Mars just want to live on the surface of the ocean, where they might absorb nutrients peacefully. The buggie seems to politely request permission to do this before releasing Jimmy from its spell. Jimmy runs to an adult (as taught) and informs him about the buggie. The authorities return. The buggie is too high up in the tree for them to use a pole on it. They use gasoline to burn it out of the tree. It tries to crawl upward but catches fire and falls to the ground, where the gathered people viciously stomp it. The description of the assembled crowd combines the spirit of anti-communist hysteria as well as the meanness of cross-burning Klansmen. The buggie is dead and Jimmy returns home. The next day his father Ted tells his co-workers the story in the employee cafeteria. He is very proud of the role his fearless son played in the destruction of the hateful buggie.