High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! "The Colour Out of Space" is a short story written by American fantasy author H. P. Lovecraft in March 1927. In the tale, an unnamed narrator pieces together the story of an area known by the locals as the "blasted heath" in the wild hills west of Arkham, Massachusetts. Listening to the experiences of an old man by the name of Ammi Pierce, the narrator discovers that many years ago a meteorite crashed into lands then-owned by a farmer by the name of Nahum Gardner. Scientists were unable to determine its origins and the rock eventually shrank into nothingness, leaving something that is described "only by analogy", as a "colour". This "colour" infects the farmstead and drains the life force from anything living nearby; vegetation grows large, but tasteless, animals are driven mad and deformed into grotesque shapes, and the Gardner family members go insane or die one by one. After two weeks of no contact from the family, Pierce visits the site to find that the horror has destroyed the family and the house. Returning with six men to investigate the remains, Pierce witnesses the "colour" pour out of the well and blight everything that it touches before returning to the sky that spawned it. Turning back, however, he witnesses one small remnant of the creature slink back into the well, and is driven insane by the knowledge that the "colour" still lurks on the land.