We-e-ell... mayhaps they were seeing stygian blue, or self-luminous red, or hyperbolic green?

The idea that you can see colors outside the normally visible spectrum (I mean, the spectrum perceptible by ordinary visual functioning) is not as crazy as it may seem at first impression. Human color sensation is based on the sensitivity responses of the retina's three types of cone cells, which are later processed at the brain's visual cortex. There are ways to manipulate the signals from the cone cells so that they will be set in the cortex to combinations that the eye normally does not produce. Experimentation has led to very surprising results.

There's a good article about this subject on Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impossible_color

Anyone who wants to know more, by all means take a look. The theoretical framework behind the notion of "impossible colors" is well explained.

last edited at Jan 29, 2020 10:32AM

Didn't know there was a movie of this

There's a movie?

There's more than one. TCOOS was filmed many times.

There's one with Boris Karloff as Nahum. This one has absolutely nothing in common with the original story, except a few characters and the meteorite from outer space, which makes things mutate and turns people into demonic bogeys. The name of this movie is "Die, Monster, Die!" (And you can deduce from this name how little the movie has to do with the original tale, lol.)

There's another one with Nicholas Cage as Nahum (renamed Nathan) which was filmed last year. I've heard it's good, but haven't watched it. The script retells the story in a modern, contemporary setting.

I'm sure there were others, but off the top of my hat I can't remember 'em.

last edited at Jan 28, 2020 6:31PM

Here's the scene, from that movie last year, when the alien color comes out of the well:

The Colour Out of Space... is magenta. XDDD

We-e-ell... mayhaps they were seeing stygian blue, or self-luminous red, or hyperbolic green?

The idea that you can see colors outside the normally visible spectrum (I mean, the spectrum perceptible by ordinary visual functioning) is not as crazy as it may seem at first impression. Human color sensation is based on the sensitivity responses of the retina's three types of cone cells, which are later processed at the brain's visual cortex. There are ways to manipulate the signals from the cone cells so that they will be set in the cortex to combinations that the eye normally does not produce. Experimentation has led to very surprising results.

There's a good article about this subject on Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impossible_color

Anyone who wants to know more, by all means take a look. The theoretical framework behind the notion of "impossible colors" is well explained.

Thanks for the link. I like everything related to physics and physical science, and biological optics is a very interesting field. Who'd have thought that seeing impossible unreal colors is actually possible?
Even more fascinating since the workings haven't been satisfactorily explained yet.

The Colour Out of Space... is magenta. XDDD

Oh I guess Random was right, then! When they said "a color that doesn't exist" they meant "a color we can't name." Because there's no way an uneducated late-1800s hillbilly hick from the New England boondocks would know the word "magenta!" ;-)

I mean... technically, it's not like the human eye and brain even register electromagnetic radiation past a relatively narrow range of wavelengths to begin with, so barring some psychic fuckery acting directly on your mind you wouldn't even as-such see an "impossible" colour anyway.

I'm suspecting the true Colour is seen by those living on the land who've consumed the water containing little bits of alien which become part of them and allow them to see it.

the man with the funny cat.