IF Science Fiction Nov 1950s Halloween Aliens Trick-or-Treat Cover

Hilariously missing the mark on alien contact, this cover imagined extraterrestrials not arriving via radio signal or spacecraft but blending into suburban Halloween foot traffic. A parade of bug-eyed aliens, a witch, and a cylindrical robot-like creature stroll past a wooden fence while a lanky man peers over the top, a flying saucer hovering behind him. The whimsical gouache illustration captures Cold Era anxieties about infiltration repackaged as deadpan comedy — aliens hiding in plain sight among trick-or-treaters.