Worlds of Tomorrow, May, 1966, featuring “The Ultra Man”, by A.E. van Vogt [Gray Morrow]

The May, 1966 issue of Worlds of Tomorrow is notable in featuring stories by Philip K. Dick (“Holy Quarrel”) and A.E. van Vogt (“The Ultra Man”)…

…while the issues’ illustrations are rather straightforward and serviceable, with the exception of Jack Gaughan’s arresting single-page art for C.C. MacApp’s “Trees Like Torches”. It’s only been republished once, and that within an anthology of MacApp’s tales, Somewhere in Space and Other Stories.

However, I experienced an odd sense of familiarity when I first saw Gaughan’s art, and soon remembered why it seemed so familiar: The “creature” (!) has a vague resemblance to the entities described in both the Kelly-Hopkinsville UFO Encounter of August, 1955, and, Axel Juin’s story at Cultea.fr “La rencontre du ranch d’Hopkinsville et le mythe des petits hommes de l’espace” (“The encounter of the Hopkinsville ranch and the myth of the little space men”) which were probably … wait for it … great horned owls.

(Hoot!)

“The forest lived,
and it was the enemy of their enemies,
But it was not their friend!”
(page 123)