Alan Mays' photos with the keyword: moon

"Meeting of Ye Hallowe'en Spirits. This way! OWL." In this unusual Art Deco postcard from the 1920s, pointy-eared Smurf-like creatures ride a turtle through the woods on their way to a meeting of Halloween spirits.

"Hallowe'en. Friendly fairy, witch, or fay, fulfill the wish you wish to-day. Ellen H. Clapsaddle."

Or at least it was live back on July 20 and 21, 1969, when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were the first astronauts to walk on the moon. The TV screen on the left (above) is an enlargement from a photo ( Don't Give Your Television the Boot --see below) that initially attracted my attention because of the distinctive boot-shaped vase that was on top of it. I couldn't determine what was on the screen, however, and didn't give it a second thought. Thankfully, though, when I posted the original photo, Angelica Paez noticed the date printed on the photo (August 1969, reflecting when the photo was developed) and suggested that those might be astronauts walking across the screen. After searching on YouTube, I located a video, CBS News Coverage of Apollo 11 - Moon Walk 06 , which shows the scene on the right (above) at 6 minutes and 57 seconds. Although the image on the left is faint, the white areas where sunlight is striking the lunar lander, flag, and astronaut seem to match up nicely with the corresponding parts of the image on the right. I'd like to thank Angelica for spotting this!

Because it just doesn't look right sitting there on top of it. -------- Thanks to Angelica's sharp eye (see her comment below), I've confirmed that the image on the television shows the first moonwalk in July 1969. For more info, see Live Coverage of the Moonwalk! (below).

Cover of the booklet Men from the Moon in America: Did They Come in a Russian Satellite? , by the evangelist Walter V. Grant, first published sometime in the 1950s. For another out-of-this-world booklet from the 1950s, see We Met the Space People: The Story of the Mitchell Sisters :

Postmark on the back of this postcard: Worcester, Mass., Oct. 30, 1909. Addressed to: Miss Ora Bickford, New Gloucester, Maine, R.F.D. no. 1. Message: "With best wishes for a happy Hallowe'en. Love, Elva." "A formerly widespread tradition held that young women gazing into a mirror in a darkened room (often on Halloween) could catch a glimpse of their future husband's face in the mirror--or a skull personifying Death if their fate was to die before they married." This explanation of what the women in this postcard is doing appears in Wikipedia's article on scrying , which is defined as "the practice of looking into a translucent ball or other material with the belief that things can be seen, such as spiritual visions, and less often for purposes of divination or fortune-telling." Cupid's presence in this postcard is somewhat puzzling, but the publisher, L. R. Conwell, also included Cupid in at least one other Halloween postcard. See The Joys of Halloween Be Yours . See below for additional examples of early twentieth-century postcards that depict mirror-gazing and other Halloween fortune-telling activities.

An owl and a bat flap their wings through the nighttime sky as Cupid stands on a cloud and contemplates whether to shoot an arrow at the full moon, where a witch has replaced the Man in the Moon. I can't help but wonder whether L. R. Conwell, the publisher of this 1909 postcard, recycled a Valentine's Day card to compose this perplexing scene, but a search for other Cupid cards didn't uncover any similar postcards. Conwell also featured Cupid in at least one other Halloween postcard. See Wishing You a Lucky Halloween :

"Leave It to Beaver Rocket to the Moon Space Game. Thrills with Beaver on a race to the moon. As seen on A.B.C. television coast-to-coast." The disembodied head of Beaver Cleaver floats in space somewhere between the earth and moon on the lid of this 1958 board game tie-in with the TV show Leave It to Beaver .