Project Gutenberg 2016-02-12 Public domain in the USA. 229 MacLean, Katherine 1925 2019 Morris, G. A. MacLean, Katherine Anne Dye, Charles Schneider, Martin Pictures Don't Lie Produced from Galaxy Science Fiction August 1951 Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net "Pictures Don't Lie" by Katherine MacLean is a science fiction novella that was likely written in the early 1950s. The story explores the themes of communication and understanding between humans and extraterrestrial beings. It centers around a young decoder, Joseph R. Nathen, who discovers that static noise from stars may be signs of intelligent life, leading to the first contact with aliens. The narrative follows Nathen as he decodes signals from space, eventually establishing a form of communication with a spaceship and encountering the alien beings. As he prepares for their landing on Earth amidst a flurry of military and media excitement, unexpected complications arise. Nathen grapples with the realization that the aliens may not be arriving in the physical sense humans anticipate. Instead, their strange movements and the nature of their environment hint at a different spatial or temporal dimension, culminating in a gripping tension that poses fundamental questions about perception and reality. The story ultimately reflects on the limitations of human understanding when confronted with the unknown. (This is an automatically generated summary.) Reading ease score: 74.5 (7th grade). Fairly easy to read. en Science fiction Short stories Extraterrestrial beings -- Fiction Human-alien encounters -- Fiction PS Text Science Fiction Category: Science-Fiction & Fantasy 68447 2025-07-20T12:56:11.725630 text/html 44704 2024-10-23T00:02:36 text/html 334141 2025-07-20T12:56:13.866606 application/epub+zip 332986 2025-07-20T12:56:12.312585 application/epub+zip 82050 2025-07-20T12:56:11.899597 application/epub+zip 373543 2025-07-20T12:56:15.112590 application/x-mobipocket-ebook 365622 2025-07-20T12:56:13.586593 application/x-mobipocket-ebook 114924 2022-09-23T09:59:34.619895 application/x-mobipocket-ebook 60807 2025-07-20T12:56:11.582625 text/plain; charset=us-ascii 41044 2024-10-23T00:02:36 text/plain; charset=us-ascii 17754 2025-07-20T12:56:15.239573 application/rdf+xml 31988 2025-07-20T12:56:11.969601 image/jpeg 4864 2025-07-20T12:56:11.934614 image/jpeg 304788 2025-07-20T12:56:11.740617 application/octet-stream application/zip Archives containing the RDF files for *all* our books can be downloaded at https://book.klll.cc/wiki/Gutenberg:Feeds#The_Complete_Project_Gutenberg_Catalog en.wikipedia