Ancient statues actually slow-moving creatures, classroom short story from <= 1980 [duplicate]

Question

There's been a couple of questions lately about different creatures/rocks/trees that are living at a different time-rate than humans, and it got me thinking about a story that I'd read when I was in 6th grade and hoping to find again.

I read the story in English, in the US, in 1980. Here's where it gets tricky... the story was actually on a card, maybe 6" x 8", with a small illustration on each side. It was in a teacher's box with many other cards (different stories) in a classroom. We were assigned to read a story/card once a week or so and there might have been questions about the story on the card itself, or we might have just had to note that we read it. I don't think that all the rest of the stories were necessarily Sci-Fi, just short stories to get the attention of a 6th grader. I do not remember any of the other stories.

The story itself was short, as I said, maybe 2 pages (card sides) long, and illustrated with 1 or 2 drawings of 2 large (maybe 30-50') statues that vaguely resembled Easter Island statues but had arms and legs. One statue was sitting/laying on the ground, and the other was standing nearby. There had been pictures of the statues taken quite a few years previously, and a person was in a small plane taking more pictures now. Comparing the pictures it was noticed that the statues were slightly moved (the standing one's hand had moved closer to what appeared to be a gun on it's hip), and it was determined that they weren't statues but rather creatures who lived at a much slower time rate than humans, and that the standing one was coming to the defense of the fallen one.

Does this sound familiar to anybody?

Answer 1

I think it is "Desert Encounter" by I. Rosokhvatsky, isfdb

Other names: "Aliens from another time", "Newcomers from the next hour", "Meeting in time", "Meeting in the desert".

First published in 1961 (ukrainian version).

Plot

In the middle of the Asian desert, not far from the remains of an ancient city, archaeologists have discovered two strange statues of a man and a woman. The mystery of the statues haunts researchers. According to one of the hypotheses, a spaceship once landed in the desert, and intelligent beings left these statues as a sign of their stay on Earth. The truth is somewhat different...

"Movement" part:

On a photo, the female statue is standing straight with her hands down, and now she changed position: legs slightly bent at the knees, hand extended to the leg where it was sampled. And man is standing half-turned to her, took a step forward, as if protecting the woman. Right hand is extended and clasps some subject.

Full story (russian)

Full story at archive.org, english version

Answer 2

I don't know the particular story or author, but I can identify the story-cards-in-a-box for you: they were probably from an SRA Reading Laboratory Kit, which have been around since 1957. I used to adore SRA cards & stories. :) I found a link where you can preview some of the cards on PDFs, so you can see if those are the correct format for the cards you are remembering. I'm not sure how you would then search for a certain story/author. Hope this helps a bit!

Answer 3

Per PMar's partial answer (and an earlier, now deleted, answer by user67049 turned into a comment), this could be "Adagio" by Barry M. Longyear as collected in It Came from Schenectady:

"Adagio" feels like a Twilight Zone story written by George R.R. Martin. (Why, yes, I am thinking of Sandkings, though there are a number of classic TZ eps that fit the mould as well.) A ship crashes on an alien world, and the survivors are bored stiff waiting for rescue. One crewman discovers that certain rocks in the area are in fact slow moving creatures. The man uses his speed to convince the creatures that he's a supernatural creature and orders them to engage in bloody wars against each other.

Its Omni publication can be found online here. There is an illustration with Easter Island heads, but it's a joke cartoon and no arms or legs:

I don't think this is a match, actually, as it's longer (5-6 pages), the aliens look like rocks, not statues, and it's primarily about a holy war. The only statues that appear are at the very end, and they're static ones of the explorers built by the aliens.