For me, it was "The Scent of New Mown Hay" by John Blackburn. I first heard this as a serial play on the BBC when I was an early teen in the mid-sixties. It frightened me then, and it still does. I have the book, but it is not one I can easily read even now, despite the fact that I like military sf as a genre.
The theme music to the radio series was the overture to "The Wasps" by Vaughan-Williams, which I find to be a tense and foreboding piece. It must have been an inspired choice by the producer, since I still shiver when I hear it again, and tend to turn the volume down until it has finished.
So as to why: I think it was because we were in the cold-war period, and I was an impressionable teen at the time, with an interest in the sciences. Along with that theme music...!
Snowman
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