An Arkham university professor is contacted by a farmer living in a remote part of Vermont, who claims to have evidence of aliens living in the hills and mining a mysterious metal. After visiting, the professor becomes alarmed at the mysterious change in the behavior of the farmer, including his assertion that the aliens can extract a human brain and keep it alive in jar for eternity.

Howard Phillips Lovecraft (1890-1937) was an American author of horror, fantasy and science fiction, especially the subgenre known as weird fiction. As early as the 1940s, Lovecraft's work had developed a cult following for his Cthulhu Mythos, a series of loosely interconnected fiction featuring a pantheon of humanity-nullifying entities, as well as the Necronomicon, a fictional grimoire of magical rites and forbidden lore. Stephen King called Lovecraft "the twentieth century's greatest practitioner of the classic horror tale."