Original subtitles

There is a fifth dimension beyond that which is known to man.

It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity.

It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and

superstition, and it lies between the pit of man's fears and the summit of his

knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination.

It is an area which we call the twilight zone.

Maple Street, USA.

Late summer.

A tree-lined little world of front porch gliders, barbecues, the laughter of

children, and the bell of an ice cream vendor.

At the sound of the roar and the flash of light, it will be precisely 643 p.m.

on Maple Street.

What was that, a meteor?

Yeah, that's what it looked like.

I didn't hear any crash, though, did you?

No, I didn't hear anything except a roar.

Steve, what was that?

I guess it was a meteor, honey.

Came awful close, didn't it?

Too close for my money.

Much too close.

This is Maple Street on a late Saturday afternoon.

Maple Street.

In the last calm and reflective moment before the monsters came.

Operator. Operator.

Operator.

Steve, the power's off.

I had the soup on the stove and the stove just stopped working.

Is your phone all right?

I can't get anybody on mine.

Our electricity isn't working. Is the power off?

I'll cut across the backyard, see if the power is still on on Floral Street.

Doesn't make sense.

Why should the power go off all of a sudden and the phone line?

Maybe some kind of an electrical storm or something.

Now, that don't seem likely.

The sky's just as blue as anything. Not a cloud, no lightning, no thunder, no

nothing. How could it be a storm?

Can't get a thing on the radio, not even on the portable.

Why don't we go downtown and check with the police?

They'll probably think we're crazy or something.

A little power failure and everybody gets flustered and everything.

It isn't just a power failure, Charlie. If it were, we'd still be able to get a

broadcast on the portable.

I'll take a run downtown.

Maybe I can get it straightened out. All right.

I don't understand it. It was working fine before.

Well, you out of gas?

I just filled it up.

Well, what does it mean?

It's as if everything stopped.

Maybe we'd better walk downtown.

Let's both go, Charlie. Yeah.

Mr. Brand, you better not.

Why not?

They don't want you to.

Who doesn't want us to?

Them.

Them?

Who are them?

Whoever was in that thing that came by overhead.

What? Whoever was in the thing that came over. I don't think they want us to

leave here.

What do you mean, Tommy? What are you talking about?

They don't want us to leave. That's why they shut everything off.

What makes you say that? Where'd you get that idea?

Isn't that the craziest thing you've ever heard? It's always that way in

every story I've ever read about a ship landing from outer space.

From outer space yet?

Sally, you better take him upstairs, put him to bed.

He's been reading too many comic books or seeing too many movies or something.

Now, Tommy, you stop that kind of talk. Come on, let's go.

Go ahead, Tommy.

We'll be right back, and then you'll see.

It wasn't a ship. It was a meteor or something.

Likely as not, that's the cause of the power failure and all the rest of it.

Medias can do crazy things like... like sunspots.

Sure, that's the kind of thing, like sunspots. They raise cane with radio

reception all over the world.

This thing being so close, there's no telling the sort of stuff it can do.

You go ahead, Steve. You and Charlie go into town, see if that isn't what's

causing it all.

Mr. Brand?

Mr. Brand, please don't leave here.

You might not even be able to get to town.

It was that way in the story. Nobody could leave.

Nobody except... Except who?

Except the people they'd sent down ahead of them.

They looked just like humans, and it wasn't until the ship landed that...

Tommy, please, son.

Honey, don't talk like that.

Isn't this the craziest thing you ever heard of? The kid tells us a comic book

plot, and we stand here listening.

Wait a minute, wait a minute.

Go ahead, tell me, what kind of a story was it? What about the people they sent

ahead? That was the way they prepared things for the landing.

They sent four people, a mother and a father and two kids who looked just like

humans. But they weren't.

Well, I guess what we need to do is run a check of the neighborhood and find out

which ones of us are really human.

I know you stand around making bum jokes about it.

There.

I wonder if Floral Street's got the same kind of deal we have.

Say, where's Pete Van Horn? Has he come back yet?

Does your car start, Les?

No dice.

Well,

I don't know what's wrong.

Nothing seems to be working.

Can't even get the car started.

Car started somehow.

He got his car started.

How come his car just up and started like that? All by itself.

He wasn't anywhere near it. It just started all by itself.

He never did come out to look at that thing that flew overhead.

He wasn't even interested.

He always was an oddball.

Him and his whole family.

Real oddball.

Yeah, why didn't he come out with the rest of us to look?

What do you say we go ask him?

Wait a minute!

Wait a minute!

Now, let's not be a mob.

I just don't understand it.

I tried to start it, wouldn't start.

You saw me. All of you saw me.

I don't understand.

I swear I just don't understand.

What's happening?

Well, maybe you better tell us.

There's nothing working on this street. Nothing. No lights, no power, no radio.

Nothing except one car.

Yours. How do you figure it started, lass?

Yeah, how do you explain that? Yeah, what's the idea, lass?

Wait a minute now.

Just keep your distance, all of you.

Okay, so I've got a car that starts by itself. Well, it's a freak thing, I

admit it, but what's it make me, a criminal or something?

I don't know why it starts, it just does.

What's this all about, Steve?

We're on a monster kick, Les.

Seems the general impression now holds that maybe there's a family that isn't

what we think they are.

Monsters from outer space or something different than us.

Fifth columnists from the vast beyond.

Do you know anybody that might fit that description around here on Maple Street?

This is a gag or something?

What is this, a practical joke or something?

That's supposed to incriminate me, huh?

The car starts and stops and... That really does it, huh? Really does it.

Well, I don't understand it any more than any of you do.

Look, you all know me.

We've lived here for five years, right in this house.

We aren't any different from you, any different at all.

The whole thing is just... really a...

The whole thing is just weird.

Well, if that's the case, Les Goodman, then explain why you... Explain what?

Look, let's just forget it. Now, wait a minute.

Wait a minute. Let her talk.

Go ahead. Explain what?

Well, sometimes I stay up late at night, and a couple of times... Well, a couple

of times I've come out on my porch, and I've seen Les Goodman here in the wee

hours of the morning, standing in his yard just...

Looking up at the sky.

That's right. Just looking up at the sky as though he were waiting for something.

As though he were looking for something.

You know, really, this is for laughs.

You know what I'm guilty of?

I'm guilty of insomnia.

Now, what's the penalty for that?

Well, you heard what I said. I said it was insomnia.

I said it was insomnia.

You scared, frightened rabbits, you.

You're sick people, do you know that?

You're sick people, all of you.

And you don't even know what you're starting here, because let me tell you.

Let me tell you.

You're starting something here that that's what you should be frightened of.

As God is my witness, you're letting something begin here that's a nightmare.

Thank you.

It doesn't seem right keeping watch on them.

Why, they're our neighbors.

We've known the Goodmans ever since they came here.

We've been good friends.

That don't prove a thing.

Any guy who'd spend his time looking up at the sky early in the morning, there's

something wrong with that kind of a person.

Something that ain't legitimate.

Under normal circumstances, we'd let it go by, but these aren't normal

circumstances.

Look at that street.

Nothing but candles.

It's like going back into the dark ages or something.

Stay right where you are, Steve.

We don't want any trouble.

But this time, anyone who sets foot on my porch, that's what he's gonna get.

Trouble.

Look, Les, I'm sorry. I've already explained to you people.

I don't sleep very well at night sometimes.

So I get up.

I go out. I take a walk. I look up at the sky.

I look at the stars.

That's exactly what he does.

Why, this whole thing is some kind of madness.

That's exactly what it is, Mrs. Goodman.

Some kind of madness.

You best watch who you're seeing with, Steve.

Till we get this all straightened out, you ain't exactly above suspicion

yourself.

Or you, Charlie.

Or any of us, it seems, from age eight on up.

What I want to know is what are we going to do? Just stand around here all night?

There's nothing else we can do.

One of them will tip their hand. They got to.

There's something you can do, Charlie. You can go inside and keep your mouth

shut. You can quit sitting there like a self-appointed hanging judge and just

climb into bed and forget it. You sound pretty anxious to have that happen,

Steve.

I guess we ought to keep an eye on you, too.

Yeah, I think maybe everything might as well come out now.

Your wife's been doing a little talking, Steve, about some of the odd things

you've been doing.

Yeah? Well, go ahead, Don.

Tell us what she said.

Go ahead. What's my wife said? Let's get it all out.

Let's pick out every idiosyncrasy of every man, woman, and child on this

whole street.

And then we might as well set up some kind of a kangaroo court.

Now, how about a firing squad at dawn, Charlie, to get rid of all the suspects,

narrow them down for you, make it easier?

Huh? Right, Don?

Well, there's no need getting so upset, Steve. It's just that...

Well, Myra's talked about how there's been plenty of nights you spent hours

down in your basement working on some kind of radio or something.

Well, none of us have ever seen that radio.

Go ahead, Steve.

What kind of radio set you working on?

I never seen it.

Neither does anyone else.

Who talks to you on that radio set, and who do you talk to?

Well, I'm surprised at you, Charlie.

How come you're so dense all of a sudden?

Who do I talk to?

I talk to monsters from outer space.

I talk to three-headed green men who fly over here in what look like meteors.

Steve, please.

It's just a ham radio set, that's all.

I bought the book for him myself.

It's just a ham radio set.

A lot of people have them.

I'll show it to you. It's down in the basement.

No. No, we won't show them anything.

If they want to look inside our house, let them get a search warrant. Look,

buddy, you can't afford to... Now, Charlie, don't you tell me what I can

afford.

And stop telling me who's dangerous and who isn't and who's safe and who's a

menace.

And you're with him, too, all of you.

You're all standing out here all set to crucify somebody.

You're all set to find a scapegoat.

You're all desperate to point some kind of a finger at a neighbor.

But believe me, friends, the only thing that's going to happen is that we're

going to eat each other up alive.

monster it's the monster

what

a shotgun would somebody think a thought or any what good is a shotgun you're

gonna talk us right into a grave you'd let whatever's out there walk right over

us would you well some of us won't

It's Pete Van Horn.

Pete Van Horn.

Well, he was just going over to the next block to see if the power was on.

Charlie, you killed him.

He's dead.

I didn't know who he was.

I most certainly didn't know who he was.

Well, he came out of the darkness.

How was I supposed to know who he was?

Steve? You know why I shot him.

How was I supposed to know he wasn't a monster or something?

He was only trying to protect my home.

Didn't know it was somebody we knew.

Didn't know.

Look!

Charlie.

Charlie, the lights just went on in your house.

Why did the lights go on in your house?

What about it, Charlie?

How come you're the only one with lights now?

That's what I'd like to know.

You're so quick to kill, Charlie.

And so quick to tell us who we had to look out for.

Well, maybe you had to kill.

Maybe Pete there was trying to tell us something.

Maybe Pete learned something and came back to tell us who it was amongst us we

had to look out for.

No.

No, it's nothing of the sort.

I didn't know the lights on. I swear I did.

Somebody's pulling a gag or something.

A gag?

A gag?

Charlie, there's a man lying dead in the street and you killed him. Does that

look like a gag to you?

He's the one.

Oh, that's not true.

It isn't so.

He's a little boy.

It was this kid who knew what was going to happen.

He was the one who knew.

How did he know?

How could he have known?

What's the matter with you people now? Stop!

Just stop a few of their machines and radios and telephones and lawnmowers.

Throw them into darkness for a few hours and then sit back and watch the pattern.

And this pattern is always the same?

With few variations.

They pick the most dangerous enemy they can find.

And it's themselves.

All we need to do is sit back and watch.

Then I take it this place, this Maple Street, is not unique.

By no means.

Their world is full of Maple Streets.

And we'll go from one to the other and let them destroy themselves.

One to the other.

One to the other.

One to the other.

The tools of conquest do not necessarily come with bombs and explosions and

fallout.

There are weapons that are simply thoughts, attitudes, prejudices.

To be found only in the minds of men.

For the record, prejudices can kill and suspicion can destroy.

And a thoughtless, frightened search for a scapegoat has a fallout all of its

own.

For the children and the children yet unborn.

And the pity of it is that these things cannot be confined to the Twilight Zone.

Rod Serling, the creator of Twilight Zone, will tell you about next week's

story after this word from our alternate sponsor.

And now, Mr. Serling.

Next week, Mr.

Richard Matheson lends us his fine writing talents when we bring you a

unique and most arresting story of a movie actor who finds himself on that

thin line between what is real and what is a dream.

Mr. Howard Duff stars in World of Difference, which I think you'll

discover is a television play of difference, too.

That's next week, a journey into the Twilight Zone.

Thank you and good night.

Be sure to see the fun-filled family life of one of America's greatest

entertainers, The Danny Thomas Show, Monday nights over most of these

stations.