h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

'No one would have believed in the last years of nineteeth century that human affairs were being watched from the timeless worlds of space.
No one could have dreamed that we were being scrutinised as someone with a microscope studies creatures that swarm and multiply in drop of water.
Few men even considered the possibilty of life on other planets and yet across the gulf of space, minds immeasureably superior to ours regarded this world with envious eyes and slowly and surely...
They drew their plans against us.

At midnight on the twelve of August, a huge mass of luminous gas erupted from Mars and sped towards Earth. Across two hundred million miles invisibly hurtling towards came the first of the missiles that would bring so much calamity to Earth.

And that's how it was for the next ten nights, a flare spurting out from Mars, bright green drawing a green mist behing it. Beautiful but somehow a disturbing sight.

Ogilvy, the astroner assured there was no danger, he was convinced that there could be no living thing on that remote, forbidding planet.

Then came the night, the first missile approached the Earth, it was thought to be an ordinary falling star but the next day there was a huge crater in the middle of the common and Ogilvy came to examine what lay there...

A cylinder, thirty yards across glowing hot with faint sounds of movement coming from within.
Suddenly the top began moving, unscrewing and Ogily feared there was a man inside trying to escape, he rushed to cylinder but the intense heat stopped him before he could burn himself on the metal...

Later that day a crowd gathered on the common hypnotised by the unscrewing of the cylinder, two feet of snining screw projected when, suddenly the lid fell off...'


The War of the Worlds, Chapter One: Eve of the War.
Hope you enjoy classic science fiction?

Indeed Richard!

Although admittedly I only know this from the musical version