Encounter in the Dawn

"Encounter in the Dawn"
Author	Arthur C. Clarke
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
Genre(s)	Science fiction
Published in	Amazing Stories
Publication date	June–July 1953

"Encounter in the Dawn" is a short story by Arthur C. Clarke published in 1953 in the magazine Amazing Stories. It was originally collected in the anthology Expedition to Earth, and, in one edition of the book, is titled "Expedition to Earth". In a later collection the title "Encounter at Dawn" is used. The story was later restyled and used as the basis for the first section in Clarke's 2001 A Space Odyssey.

In Clarke's The Lost Worlds of 2001, the author noted:

A star ship with three occupants lands on a planet, much like their own, some 100,000 light years away, on the rim of the Milky Way. On the planet they encounter a race of bipedals much like themselves but on a much lower technological level. We learn that in the future this area will be called Babylon. All through the story there are no definite clues whether visitors or locals are the "real" humans. As they depart, a local muses on being the only one who had met the gods.

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