All the Secrets of the Universe and Some Really Important Stuff Too!
Leveling off at 42,000 feet, I had thirty percent of my fuel, so I turned on rocket chamber three and immediately reached .96 Mach. I noticed that the faster I got, the smoother the ride. Suddenly the Mach needle began to fluctuate. It went up to .965 Mach – then tipped right off the scale … We were flying supersonic. And it was a smooth as a baby’s bottom; Grandma could be sitting up there sipping lemonade.
Chuck Yeager
Maple Street is Anytown USA on a late summer afternoon when an object like a meteor streaks across the sky emitting a loud roar. The local residents talk about the event a little bit but nothing seems to come of it until it is noticed that the electric power and telephones are out. When they also determine that battery powered radios are no longer picking up radio transmissions and automobiles won’t start, one of the men, Pete, decides to walk over to one of the other blocks to see if the problem is local or general. Two of the other men, Steve and Charlie, decide to head downtown to speak to the police. But an adolescent boy Tommy warns them that he read a science fiction story about outer space invaders turning off the power and other things, and in the story, people weren’t allowed to leave the area. Several people scoff but Steve and Charlie don’t leave and pretty soon everyone seems to be getting pretty nervous. Tommy elaborates on the story explaining that the story included aliens hidden among the real humans who were directing the attack. When Les (another neighbor) suddenly finds his car starting up on its own, he becomes the center of suspicion. Charlie becomes the chief inquisitor questioning people about what suspicious things they’ve seen or heard. When Steve tries to defuse the hysteria, Charlie starts questioning his loyalty and stories about Steve’s” ham radio” hobby become another source of suspicion.
At this point the neighborhood is in a panic when they hear a lone individual walking toward them down the darkened street. Some of the neighbors say it must be the monster. Charlie takes a shotgun and fires on the walker who drops to the ground. When they reach the body, they find it is Pete returning from his investigation off the block. He’s dead. Now everyone turns on Charlie and accuses him of instigating the whole mess. He deflects the blame by accusing Tommy and his family of being the invaders. Just then lights start going on and cars start up at random locations on the block and the panic turns into mob violence with stones hurled through windows and sporadic gun fire heard.
The scene shifts to a hill above the town where two human appearing aliens are discussing the effect of cutting off power and other utilities to the residents of Maple Street. They decide that this strategy will consistently force the humans to attack each other in fear and allow the aliens to conquer Earth without firing a shot. Serling has an epilogue where he says that prejudice is a weapon that can kill and scapegoating has consequences.
This is a fairly well-known episode. It seems to be directly targeting the McCarthy anti-communist events. Despite the fairly far-fetched results of the action it is a lively story with plenty of villains and even a hero (Steve). It’s an effective bit of propaganda and based on Serling’s politics makes his point. And even though I am on the other side of the fence I’ll give it a B+. But honestly, that Tommy kid really should be drawn and quartered for causing the whole stupid thing.
“If not us, who? And if not now, when?”
Ronald Reagan
Vera Miles is Millicent Barnes a young woman waiting in a bus station. Her bus is late but when she goes up to the dispatcher to ask when the bus would arrive he criticizes her for repeatedly bothering him about the bus. Additionally, her suitcase keeps moving back and forth from her possession to the checked in area. Then she catches sight of herself across the room in a mirror and has a minor breakdown.
A young man named Paul tries to calm her down and agrees to keep her company on her trip but when she looks into the bus, she sees herself sitting on the bus. She faints and Paul carries her back to the bench. When she comes to, she tells Paul that she thinks that she has a doppelganger that has crossed over from a parallel dimension and is trying to replace her. He tries to convince her that there must have been some reasonable explanation for what she saw but she is convinced of her explanation. Paul calls the police and tells them there is a woman who is having delusions. He steers her outside and the police pick her up.
But pretty soon Paul sees a man who looks and is dressed just like him. He chases the doppelganger and we are told that the alternate universe is out there somewhere waiting to displace us.
So this is another episode with people yelling hysterically. For me that’s a bad sign. It must be the cold war hysteria thing that made these things popular. But I didn’t buy into it. C+
“Now back in 1927 an American socialist, Norman Thomas, six times candidate for president on the Socialist Party ticket, said the American people would never vote for socialism. But he said under the name of liberalism the American people will adopt every fragment of the socialist program.”
Ronald Reagan
These stories were comments that were sparked by an episode of the Twilight Zone called “The Purple Testament” about a soldier in WW II experiencing an uncanny phenomenon. (photog).
“You can see some very strange and inexplicable things in a combat zone. Most of my senior male relatives have seen strange things and so have I. Maybe it’s all the physical and psychic stress that causes a tear in space-time and it allows “leakage” between realms? Who knows?”
“I can relate a few if anyone wants.”
(First Story)
“I was point on patrol in Vietnam. Going quietly and as safely as possible. All of a sudden, my tribal spirit twin appeared before my eyes, in full ceremonial dress. She put her finger before her lips in the universal “hush” symbol, then pointed out a VERY cleverly concealed tripwire. She then vanished. Saved my life.
When the patrol ended I wrote her and told her what happened, and described the dress down to a “T”. I may as well say that she is also an absolutely raving beauty. She had done the same thing and wrote me the day after it happened. Our letters crossed in the mail. She had suddenly swooned and when she revived she told her family that I had been in danger of some sort but that I was okay. She could not recall what kind of danger.
She had started that ceremonial, doeskin dress with the fancy bead work and dyed porcupine quills after I had left for Vietnam. She had never mentioned it in a letter nor in person to me. I was able to describe it down to individual colors and designs, and the fact that she wore a beaded headband to keep her long hair in place. I described the colors and patterns on the headband as well.
So tell me, how could I describe a fancy ceremonial dress in great detail without ever having seen or heard about it? Why did she swoon at the exact time and date she appeared before me in a vision? How did she know she had swooned as I had been in danger? Since our letters crossed in the mail, the letters could not have tainted our recollections.”
(Second Story)
“We were in our trench on the perimeter when we were mortared, then attacked. Charlie in the wire. Right in front of out trench was an observation tower/platform. It was put in after the trenches were dug or it would have been placed right behind us. It was a night attack and our guys were firing flares so we could see Charlie.
The firefight was pretty lively when the tower was hit by a mortar round. The tower was about fifteen feet tall to the floor of the platform with one ladder up. We were directly behind the ladder. The legs of the tower were wrapped in razor wire to prevent climbing up except by the ladder. The “room” was two sheets of plywood large. Eight by eight. It had a corrugated tin roof which was covered with sandbags. Sandbags also inside the inside of the corrugated tin walls to stop bullets. A guy was in the tower to call in our own mortars on Charlie in the wire and on into the edge of the woods 300 meters back. He could also call in artillery from the nearby firebase. He had a field phone and a Prick-25 radio in case the phone wires were cut by shrapnel or bullets.
When the tower was hit, we just knew he was dead. Me and one other guy climbed up to get his body down or to save him on the slight chance he survived. There was no body in the tower. It was only 8X8, less that that, really because of the sandbag armor. Nowhere for him to hide. I climbed upon the roof and he was not there, either. A hole in the roof where the mortar had hit and just a few scattered sandbags inside. We looked under them just in case but you can’t hide a full grown man under few sandbags a couple feet or so long. And the radio was missing. The field phone was junked so we got back down as there was nothing we could do without a phone or radio to call the mortar pit, and Charlie was consecrating fire on the tower, anyhow.
The firefight went on for another half hour, when all of a sudden, we heard the tower guy calling in mortar fire. We looked up and there he was with the Prick-25, calling in very accurate mortar fire. We were spooked but Charlie was keeping the dull times off so we didn’t have time to wonder – then. After the fight was over, we asked him what had happened. He said he was doing his job when all of a sudden he heard a huge noise and saw a blinding white flash. He thought he was dead as he couldn’t move, but after a while he could move again and he got up off the floor, grabbed the radio and started calling in fire again.
“Oh, by the way, I wanna thank you bastards for coming up and checking on me.” he said, sarcastically.
“Dude, we did!” and we told him what had happened. There was barely room for the two of us up there, there was no frigging way he was still in that tower, even under a sandbag. Nor on top of it. He and the radio had just flat disappeared. He then wanted us to explain how he was there with the radio, then. Ten guys witnessed it all, ten guys will swear that he disappeared and then reappeared. One guy says differently. There is no way he could have been blown out of the tower then climbed back up the ladder as the ladder was between us and Sir Charles and our entire attention was fastened on that direction. Let alone considerable lead passing back and forth. Until the day he rotated back to the world he would not believe us.
Twilight Zone? Did he phase out and back into space/time? I sure as heck do not know. Nor do the other guys if they still live.
Strange things in a war zone.”