From: David Rudiak <drudiak.nul>
Date: Wed, 12 Jan 2005 13:39:13 -0800
Fwd Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2005 08:33:17 -0500
Subject: Re: 'Little Green Men'?


>From: Terry Groff <terry.nul>
>To: "UFO Updates" <ufoupdates.nul>
>Date: Sun, 9 Jan 2005 21:16:39 -0600
>Subject: 'Little Green Men'?

>I was looking at the byline for tonight's rerun of The X-Files
>entitled "Little Green Men" and I was wondering if anyone on the
>list knows who coined the phrase or where it was first used (and
>why?).

I did a review of what I found using an electronic search of the
NY Times and Wall Street Journal a year ago on UpDates.

http://www.virtuallystrange.net/ufo/updates/2004/feb/m29-008.shtml

The earliest use of "little green men" that I found was in a
book review in 1902 in the NY Times of a children's fairy tale.

Just the other day I stumbled across a instance of the use of
"little green men" specifically applied to a flying saucer
sighting from 1950.I was rummaging through the new Project Blue
Book archive (a fantastic research tool -- thanks to all the
people who put this together).  Go to their search page and
punch in key words "June 1950 Kansas."

http://bluebookarchive.org/search.aspx

This was a multi-witness sighting on the night of June 29/30,
1950 of a large saucer hovering over a farmer's field near
Kingman, Kansas.  The Blue Book report is on pp. 1347-1354 of
this scanned roll of microfilm, most of it reprints of articles
from two Witchita newspapers.  The primary witness, a minister
and former WWII pilot, said he saw a dome on top, but then,
saying he feared ridicule, added the following caveat in a
Wichita Eagle story from June 30 (p. 1351):

"Right now, before anyone starts spreading screwy stories about
us," the minister continued, "I want to say that we didn't see
anyting alive on that thing.  There were absolutely no little
green men with egg on their whiskers or any other assorted do-
bobbies."

Obviously "little green men" (not to mention "do-bobbies") was
already firmly established in the vernacular when this witness
used the term.

My suspicion is that "little green men" as a derisive term for
space aliens arose in the 1930's or 1940's as a response to the
Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers comic strips plus other Sci-Fi
comic books.  But it has been damnably hard to pin down just
when the term arose.


David Rudiak