In 'The Colour Out of Space,' a meteorite crashes onto whose farm?

The story behind the answer

In The Colour Out of Space, the meteorite crashes onto Nahum Gardner's farm.

The story begins with an unnamed narrator investigating a desolate area west of Arkham called the blasted heath. An old man, Ammi Pierce, explains that a meteorite fell onto the Gardner property in June 1882. Scientists examine the strange stone and discover an inexplicable glowing substance inside it, but the meteorite and its fragments eventually vanish.

After the impact, the Gardner farm becomes increasingly abnormal. Crops grow huge but taste foul, livestock become deformed, and the family suffers madness, illness, and death. The mysterious entity associated with the meteorite drains vitality from the land, leaving behind grey dust and a spreading sense of contamination.

Readers sometimes remember Ammi Pierce as the farm owner because he is the story's principal surviving witness, but he is actually Gardner's friend and neighbor. Nahum is the farmer whose family and property bear the meteorite's effects. Lovecraft wrote the story in March 1927, and it first appeared in Amazing Stories in September 1927.

Source: Wikipedia · fact-checked Sept. 2026

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