SOURCES:
THE FIRST MEN IN THE MOON by H. G. Wells

DESCRIPTION: “By contrast with the mooncalves he seemed a trivial being, a mere ant, scarcely five feet high. He was wearing garments of some leathery substance so that no portion of his actual body appeared...He presented himself...as a compacted bristling creature, having much of the quality of a complicated insect, with whip-like tentacles, and a clanging arm projecting from his shining cylindrical body-case. The form of his head was hidden by his enormous, many-spiked helmet...and a pair of goggles of darkened glass set very much at the side gave a bud-like quality to the metallic apparatus that covered his face. His arms did not project beyond his body-case, and he carried himself upon short legs that wrapped though they were in warm coverings, seemed to our terrestrial eyes inordinately flimsy. They had very short thighs, very long shanks, and little feet.” (The First Men in the Moon by H. G. Wells)

NOTES: The Selenites live in a vast city beneath the Moon. They raise moon-calf herds on the Moon's surface.

HISTORY: The Selenites were Wells' chance to describe a Communistic society. As a Socialist, his political beliefs infused al of his monster creations. Ray Harryhausen did some great work creating the Selenites and their city for the 1963 film.
 
 

Ray Harryhausen's set sketches of Selenite caverns

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