This is an optical illusion. The effect almost certainly won't be visible to you in the little preview up there - you'll have to use the ⬉ Full View on the menu to the left to see the full size effect.

So - The Colour Out Of Space is a terrific short story of cosmic strangeness and horror by the grand-daddy of unspeakable tentacled monstrosities - H.P.Lovecraft. It was first published September 1927 and deals with a strange alien lifeform discovered at a Massachusetts farmstead and which has the effect of poisoning and discolouring its surroundings.

The critical feature of Lovecraft's descriptions of the strange materials involved is that they have a colour never before seen on Earth. A colour nobody has even imagined before.

Somebody got me thinking the other day about the Colour and wondering about how to depict it. The idea I eventually came up with was this animation. It's an optical illusion which makes you see a colour that isn't actually there. This, I figure, is about as close as I can get to a colour that doesn't exist at all.

Anyway, this is what to do...

⬉ Load up the Full View version of the animation

It's just a big GIF so it should load right up without needing to do anything special although it'll probably take a few seconds.

While it loads up slowly one frame at a time, see how the yellow candles "flicker" out to reveal just the gray candlestick and ground beneath? Yellow flame, gray candlestick - nothing else.

Righty - once it's loaded the candle flickering should become quite fast. Now just stare at the black symbol right in the middle. Try to concentrate right on that point and don't look at the flickering candles around the outside.

After just a few seconds you should begin to see the mysterious Colour Out Of Space filling the gap in the circle where a candle has flickered out. It's a kinda bluey-pinky shade although the exact colour you see will depend on your eyes and your computer screen. It should be quite distinct though - a weird pink flame taking the place of the empty candle and then looping around the circle.

You may need to be a little closer or a little further from the screen than you normally sit - if it doesn't work right away, try that.

If you can concentrate really hard on that central black symbol you might even see that all the yellow candles disappear completely and all there is is the curious pink flame running laps around the circle. It's very hard to see this and it usually doesn't last long, but it's very freaky

The moment you look at the pink flame directly, it'll disappear. It was never really there at all.

And that's The Colour Out Of Space