Ah, ah!
There is nothing wrong with your television set.
Do not attempt to adjust the picture.
We are controlling transmission.
We will control the horizontal.
We will control the vertical.
We can change the focus to a soft blur
or sharpen it to crystal clarity.
For the next hour, sit quietly,
and we will control all that you see and hear.
You are about to participate in a great adventure.
You are about to experience the awe and mystery
which reaches from the inner mind to...
The planet Luminous...
A minor planet...
Sultry and simmering...
Incapacitated.
Earth scientists have concluded
that there could be no life on Luminous...
That it is too close to its own sun,
and its inhabitants would be victimized
by their own blighting atmosphere.
But there is life on Luminous.
Life that should resemble ours,
but doesn't.
Desperate life...
Suffering a great and terrible need.
The Luminoids have begun to search the universe
in an effort to gratify that need.
They seek a planet on which life is healthy...
Vibrant...
Strong...
And mobile.
They need such people...
To do their work...
To labor and slave for them...
To manufacture their splendored dreams.
The Luminoids need slaves,
and they have chosen the planet
off which their slaves will be abducted.
Not too many at first...
A neighborhood-full, perhaps...
A neighborhood like mine...
Or yours.
Those who will be abducted sleep in dreamy ignorance,
unaware that they are about to become the subjects
of a grotesque and sophisticated experiment...
A feasibility study.
So what's the catastrophe this morning?
Ralph, is fallout anything like rain?
It's raining?
No. No, it's not raining.
But it's doing something,
and I'll bet it's radioactive.
And there's an uncanny noise, too.
No wonder you're so insecure.
Pretzels for breakfast?
I'm going down to the office.
Ralph, you haven't even had breakfast.
I'm eating a pretzel.
Really, Ralph,
do you have to give in to this thing on Sundays, too?
What thing?
This success compulsion that's making us all widows.
Now, really, Ralph...
I wish you'd stop saying, "Really, Ralph."
It sounds like you're calling me mealy-mouth.
You could at least have a normal breakfast.
Really, Ralph.
Morning, Doc.
Ah, good morning.
You, uh, want to diagnose this weather?
And there's something wrong with my car.
Hey, maybe you're out of gas.
No.
Simon...
We didn't say good-bye.
I'll be gone when you get back.
Look, Doc, I'm driving downtown.
I'll drop you.
Thank you, Mr. Cashman.
I'm going to church.
Ralph!
Ralph, come and eat.
Good morning, Doctor.
Good morning, Mrs. Cashman.
The Doc's car won't start.
Go take a look under the hood, rhea.
She's one of those housewives
who can fix anything.
Oh, really, Ralph.
Go take a look and get out of this rain
or whatever it is, huh?
I'll see you later.
Ooh, really, Ralph.
We've been next-door neighbors for over a year,
but we're not next-door friends yet.
Excuse me?
Uh, never mind.
I... I wish we were friends
so I could ask you what's breaking you up?
How did you know my wife and I were separating?
I didn't.
I meant breaking you up inside.
Just an expression.
Gee, you've been married how long now?
A year and a week.
Long enough to find out we made an honest mistake.
That's the worst kind.
She thinks our marriage is the beginning
of her mental and spiritual deterioration.
Those are her words.
My father used to say,
"Ralphy, marry a dumb girl"
or marry a smart girl,
"but keep away from the intelligent ones."
Oh, there's your church.
Well, thanks for the lift, Mr. Cashman.
Ralph...
Now that we know each other.
Thank you.
Ah, ah!
No, I just haven't been able to get a taxi.
The phone is out of order.
Didn't you believe me?
Please don't go, Andrea.
How would you do it?
Wouldn't it hurt you or make you resentful?
How would you adjust
to such an immoral relationship?
Immoral?
Living with someone you don't love.
Loving with someone you don't... Love.
But we're married!
Marriage is no substitute for love.
I haven't stopped loving you.
I'm just disappointed, that's all.
And I'm angry.
Maybe... just a little frightened.
But, Andrea, I still love you.
No, not if you won't bend just a little...
Not if you can't let me have
some part of my life to live my own way.
Simon, love isn't supposed to weaken,
but it should make you able to understand
another person's heartbeat,
even if the rhythm is different from yours.
I can't live with you if life has to be lived
according to your prescriptions.
I can't! No matter how benevolent
or secure you'd make it,
it's slavery!
It's a kind of slavery.
Rhea!
Andrea, wait!
This morning, I couldn't get it started.
Must have been cold. It's all right now.
Andrea...
I'm not trying to deprive you of your rights.
I just don't want you wandering around the world
with your camera and your typewriter
worrying about everybody else,
when I need you here, always, at home
with some of that crusader instinct
working on our marriage.
Marriage has become insignificant
in this big, troubled world of ours.
Maybe that's one of the reasons
the world is in such big trouble.
I thought marrying you
would be the greatest adventure I'd ever know, but...
It isn't.
It's a dead-end world...
Walled in by curtains that don't even get dirty.
Why must that be?
Why can't I go on being part of everything?
I wanna worry.
I want to care about making the world a better place.
Why is that wrong now just because I'm married?
But it isn't wrong.
I work here, in one place, in one hospital.
20 hours a day.
Well, I want the other 4 with you.
I don't want you running errands for some newspaper.
Why can't they get someone else who has the time?
All I have is time.
Look, darling, when you have a child...
I don't want to just have a child.
I wanna plan for it. I wanna be ready for it.
I want to at least try to better the world
I'm going to bring it into.
Don't touch me.
Call the hospital.
Ralph?
Is that my Ralph?!
Don't touch him.
Well, what's the matter?
We're not... On Earth.
That's the same sound I've been getting all morning.
Shall I try one of the other neighbors?
Yes, yes, perhaps you'd better.
He disappeared.
It's impossible.
It has to be.
Where's...
She says he disappeared.
Well, did you see where he went?
Yes.
Well, where?
Thin air.
No! No! Let me go to him!
Please, Mrs. Cashman.
Let me go!
Mrs. Cashman, it wasn't your husband!
I saw it! It wasn't your husband!
It wasn't even a man!
Get the car. We'll take him to the hospital.
And you stay here.
Don't come in!
I'll go away if you will.
Do you need help?
Is it Mr. Cashman?
Ralph?
No!
Please go away!
Stay there!
I'm a Doctor. Are you hurt?
No!
Yes.
Being afraid hurts.
Well, what are you afraid of?
I came through the shield.
I'll be punished if I spoil the experiment.
Stay out!
Well...
Can't I come in and just talk to you?
I'd like to hear about that experiment.
No.
You wouldn't understand, anyway.
Sometimes Doctors understand children
better than their parents do.
I'm not a child!
I'm 16.
I'm almost an old man.
Please, can I come in?
I promise I won't...
Your kind doesn't keep promises.
My kind?
Doctors?
All of you.
You're untrustworthy,
below-normal intelligence,
undependable,
and generally inferior,
except physically.
Well, it isn't very manly
to hide your face when you're trying
to give someone an inferiority complex.
Now please come out.
I will.
I'll go back where I came from,
but I can't let any of you see me.
You're not supposed to.
All right.
I'll go and tell the others
to go indoors.
Go indoors quickly.
But I...
Just go at once!
Drive down the street a few yards and wait.
Keep the motor running.
Take me back...
Or I'll touch you!
No, Andrea, no!
Andrea, no!
Andrea!
God help us.
Aah!
Stop.
Stop!
Do you know where you are?
Nowhere on Earth.
You're on the hot, greedy planet
which we call Luminous.
It sweats just outside your admirable galaxy.
How did we get here?
Teleportation.
Teleportation?
As your television cameras transmit images,
so ours... refined and advanced, of course...
Transmit root matter.
While you and your neighbors slept,
we borrowed, so to speak,
6 square city blocks of Earth.
Disassembling the atoms there,
reassembling them here.
Naturally, we did not intend that you become aware
of our experiment until it was concluded.
Experiments are best conducted
upon the blithely ignorant.
What kind of experiment?
Watch.
We shall exhibit the full extent
of our physical mobility.
We do not begin life as we end it.
Luminoid children at birth are as yours:
Sweet, golden nuggets
in the palm of fate's hand.
But the hot organism is in the genes,
and soon,
all too soon,
while still in the cock-a-hoop dawn
of their maturity,
the eruptions begin.
And all luminoids celebrate their majority
in places like this.
Like this?
We call these places "contemplative energy plants."
We elders sit here,
doomed, immobile,
unable to do anything but think.
And there is our compensation.
Since no single fraction of life energy
is wasted on meaningless movement,
all energy...
All the mad, monstrous force of it...
Is made available to the mind.
Can you comprehend the scope and skill of minds
that are never drained,
never dulled?
Minds like nuclear birds,
soaring to the most splendid dreamings of the universe?
I cannot conceive of such minds
sanctioning the abduction of innocent people.
Nothing is so modifiable as morality.
Until recently,
our youngsters produced the end products of our dreams.
But now they rebel.
And we are helpless.
And there is so much work to be done.
You've brought us here to do your work for you?
We're studying the feasibility of it...
If your small test group survives this sultry clime.
But you've already failed!
My next-door neighbor...
Yes. He wouldn't listen to us.
We were only trying to keep him from going back
and betraying everything too prematurely.
And we saw that contagion does occur
when one of us touches one of you.
I doubt if there will be much of that.
And, barring any other built-in infeasibles,
we will soon abduct the rest of you.
All of you.
All of the brutes
that plow that brutal star called Earth.
We can rebel, too.
You?
Vain, Fleshmen
who love their bodies above all else
that nature has given to them?
No.
You will obey.
At the threat of our touch,
you will obey.
And...
You will be happy.
Your life here will be comfortable...
And secure.
And you will be free to worship
and love and think
as haphazardly as usual.
What if some of us do become infected,
even if we aren't touched by one of you?
Then you won't be able to work.
You'll be as we are.
We shall consider the project infeasible
and turn our minds and instruments
on other lively planets.
Go now.
A guide will show you the way through the fog.
And tell your neighbors to fear no fears...
And dream no dreams of escape.
For there is no escape.
Go.
Please...
Where is my wife?
She will be returned to you quite soon.
Where is she?
Go!
Where is my wife?!
Take him back!
Andrea.
Stay away, Simon.
They said this would fade soon.
What is it?
A gas.
A sterilizing gas.
The boy didn't touch me, but...
We were so close in that closed car.
We breathed the same air.
They thought I should be sterilized
as a precautionary measure.
It seems to be fading.
Oh, yes.
It's gone.
They use it to control...
The growth of their population.
Oh, my poor darling.
I wanted our children
to inherit a better Earth, but...
Now there won't be any to...
And no Earth.
Not even a bad one to bring children into.
No Earth?
If we survive here,
they'll take every capable,
able-bodied human being alive.
Perhaps even the old and the useless.
They need millions of us as laborers.
To work for them.
To manufacture their dreams.
We can't let them abduct the whole human race!
What can we do, Simon?
Do? Nothing!
There's nothing that you or I can do.
Not just you and I. Everybody.
All of us together might think of something.
Look, there's only one advantage we have over them.
Mobility.
But there's nowhere we can run!
Not run, fight!
Resist!
Forgive me, Andrea.
Forgive you? Why?
For trying to put out that spirit in you.
I just didn't understand.
Oh...
Simon, I'm awake.
I'm afraid there's no way we can fight them, Andrea.
No.
I love you.
I didn't want to leave you.
I gave you no choice.
That's the whole bright mystique of life,
isn't it?
Choice.
Maybe that's what the soul is.
Choice.
Can we live with the loss of it?
Perhaps.
But I think it would be better to die
trying to win it back.
6 square blocks, he said.
I'll go from door to door.
I'll explain,
if anyone still needs explanations.
We'll meet somewhere.
All of us.
We'll work something out.
Where shall we meet?
Oh...
What's the matter?
Nothing.
What is it? What's the matter?
Uh...
Suddenly I feel bad.
Frightened.
Suddenly it's hitting me.
Now, I'll be all right.
You go on.
Door to door.
But will you come with me?
I'll meet you
wherever all of you will meet.
Church?
Church.
Ohh.
Ohh...
Rhea!
Where's Rhea?
Don't worry.
She'll be here.
No!
We close our doors to no one!
No.
I don't believe you!
Let me go.
Rhea!
Let me go!
Rhea!
Please believe me.
They don't intend to harm us.
Not physically.
They want us strong and well.
They need our strength.
Our father who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come,
thy will be done, on Earth
as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
Forgive us our trespasses
as we forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
Amen.
Open the door.
Please, it's my wife!
Father...
Be careful.
This man who does nothing
and still strikes fear in your hearts...
He's your neighbor.
His name is Ralph Cashman.
Ralph.
Don't touch me.
Andrea.
No! Don't come closer!
Oh, my...
Just...
Just from being in the car
with that boy?
Just from breathing the same air?
Yes.
Tell them not to go through the fog.
It's safe here.
The air's safe here.
Is it?
Mr. Cashman and I...
We'll go back...
To them.
No.
No, we may need your help.
We will need your help.
We can't help you, Simon.
I don't even think you can help yourselves.
Perhaps not.
But maybe we can help the others.
Back on Earth.
There is no escape for us, not for us.
We need not suffer the same fate as Ralph Cashman,
not so long as we stay in our homes
and never wander more than 6 blocks in any direction.
But we will never go back to the world
we've been stolen from.
Understand that.
Never.
It's a lonely feeling, isn't it?
But we won't be lonely very long.
Soon, the entire Earth's population
will be teleported to this place.
We will live in labor camps,
we will toil and sweat
and die in controlled areas.
Some of us may become infected.
Contagion can occur,
even when we breathe the same air
in a confined space.
But enough of us will survive
to make their project feasible.
Out of the whole world of us,
enough will survive.
If we survive.
We are their Guinea pigs.
But we are human Guinea pigs,
which gives us some choice in this experiment...
Human choice.
We can choose to make their enslavement of our Earth
infeasible.
We can choose not to escape infection.
We can deliberately become what they are.
My wife has already been infected.
I'm going to take her hand.
Will someone take mine?
It could have happened to any neighborhood.
Had those who lived in this one been less human, less brave,
it would have happened to all the neighborhoods of the Earth.
Feasibility study ended.
Abduction of human race... Infeasible.
We now return control of your television set to you
until next week at this same time,
when the control voice will take you to...