H.P. Lovecraft and Flying Saucers

Given H.P. Lovecraft's focus on imaging extraterrestrial orders of existence far beyond human comprehension, it's somewhat surprising he doesn't come up more often in the pseudo-science of UFO research. In the instances he does, however, quotes from his fiction and letters provide exceptionally interesting grist for theories supportive or dismissive of real life alien contact. This essay from "Planet Magazine," published in the middle of the 1990s, makes artful use of HPL's commentary in a study on UFOs. While most writings on this subject naturally devolve into mind games on the entirely hypothetical existence of non-human intelligences, it seems that Lovecraft is an excellent source to incorporate into such arguments.

In fact, it becomes obvious from this article that HPL may have unwittingly pioneered one hypothetical model of non-human advanced beings. That is, the model we all know from his literary Cosmicism: the indifferent extraterrestrial gods who only appear monstrous by their extreme apathy to mankind and Earth; symbols of the dark, yawning cosmos itself. So, we find a new lens for examining the Cosmicism of HPL--a scientific (or at least pseudo-scientific) one outside mere literature.

Chalk this up as one more development in the career of H.P. Lovecraft, the intellectual pioneer. While there are many sci-fi writers who have lent their terms and concepts to real life intellectual consideration, Lovecraft is one of the only writers of weird horror to do so.

-Grim Blogger