Radio, Television & The Outer Limit Legacy (Part 3 of 5)

Flying Saucers, the Atomic Bomb and Doomsday: The Outer Limit (Part 1 of 5)
The Outer Limit by Graham Doar: The UFO Parable (Part 2 of 5)

In our previous installment, we looked at the original story of "The Outer Limit" by Graham Doar, and how it presented the arrival of flying saucers, as a turning point in mankind's future. Shortly after the story saw print it was adapted for broadcast, first on radio.

The Many Lives of The Outer Limit: Radio and Television

Radio once served the same purpose that television later would, to electronically deliver broadcasts of news and entertainment to millions of people's homes. Many radio producers were able to make their shows more attractive to audiences by featuring movie stars in the cast of their shows. Between 1950 and 57, there were two different scripts adapted from "The Outer Limit," with at least five different productions of it for radio, most of them in popular dramatic programs aimed at a general audience. 

Escape, February 7, 1950 was produced and directed by William N. Robson, adapted for radio by Morton Fine and David Friedkin. Frank Lovejoy starred as Major Bill Westphal (usually transcribed as Westfall). The story begins with a briefing in preparation for of the test flight of the RJX1, with Hank, the Colonel, stressing the potential danger to the pilot's life. The stakes are high, and Bill's a family man with a wife and twin boys at home. The military and technical details add to the story's credibility and tension.

Westphal's ship is launched and all goes well until he sees something, "maybe a flying disc, a big one, and it's spinning like a top!" His ship loses pressure, and is being pulled towards the disc when he blacks out. When he awakens he hears two voices of his two alien captors, Captain Xeglon and the Commander (name Zzyl used only in the credits).

 Xeglon asks Bill, "Can you understand me? Are we in contact?" They tell him their space ship is powered by the harnessed power of a thousand suns, and in order to demonstrate their advanced technology, take him far out into space and temporarily paralyze their captive with "a screen of force." Xeglon tells him, "You are aboard Space Patrol ship SJ23. I am Captain Xeglon of the Galactic Guard... the guardian of the galaxy, the guardian of the universes, the instrument of the Brotherhood of Worlds has set up in defense against civilizations such as yours." 

Bill is unable to see the aliens, and comes to understand that the communication is with telepathy. Xeglon tells him that their ship's ray had stopped his flight, and that his plane had been repaired and would be returned to him. He explains they detected residue from atomic bombs and traced it to the Earth, and the Galactic Council has quarantined the planet. They sealed it of with a force screen that would explode when it accumulated enough atomic bomb particles. "The Commander tells him that "We have finally outlawed war throughout space, including the Earth. ... If you continue to make atomic bombs... making war with them, exploding them, it would upset the balance of the entire universe, throwing all space into chaos." He tells Bill it is his duty to warn the Earth that "If you start an atomic war, the Earth will be completely destroyed." 

Their huge ship contains Bill's plane, and they launch it back into Earth's atmosphere.

Upon his return, Bill asks for the crew to check plane with a Geiger counter for radiation. Hank orders Bill to talk to Major Donaldson, the psychologist. Returning from a commercial break, we hear Bill wrapping up his story to Donaldson, who does not seem to believe the story of "men from Mars."
Bill becomes agitated and tells them that "one more bomb" will cause destruction of the Earth. Hank orders Bill to settle down and has the psychiatrist give him a sedative to allow him to sleep.
They leave him and Donaldson discusses how he will treat Bill's delusions, but in this version it is Hank that delivers the zinger. "When you treat him... consider this: How did he keep that plane in the air for ten hours – for ten hours, Major, when he had fuel to last him only ten minutes?”

After the story, the announcer says that, "Actual flight details were authenticated by rocket test pilot, Gene May, Sgt. Hartley Caldwell of the Air Force section of Armed Forces Information Office, and the Douglas Aircraft Corporation."

Comments:
The Escape story adds some details to the story:
The UFO uses a ray to disable Bill's plane, and apparently draw it inside.
During his abduction, the aliens uses a screen of force to paralyze Bill. 
Telepathy is named as the method of mental communication.
Earth is a danger to the universe. A-bombs will "upset the balance of the entire universe."
"The Brotherhood of Worlds" sounds a bit like the space version of the United Nations.
The aliens voices, Xeglon and Zzyl, have an imperious tone, and sound a bit like snobs from space. 

The Fine-Friedkins script for Escape was used for several other versions:

Beyond Tomorrow, April 13, 1950 Once again, William N. Robson produced and directed, and Frank Lovejoy starred as Major Bill Westphal.

Movie actor William Holden starred in the 1954 Suspense adaptation.
Pictured here as his role as a test pilot in the 1956 film, "Toward the Unknown."

Suspense, February 15, 1954, directed by Elliot Lewis. The newspaper description: 

SCIENCE FICTION? William Holden, as jet test pilot Bill Westphal, will take an experimental ship up into "The Outer Limit" and return ten hours later to tell a tale which no one will believe on radio's Suspense program Monday (7 p.m., CBS). The story was adapted by Morton Fine and David Friedkin for radio production from a famous Saturday Evening- Post science fiction story by Graham Doar.

Suspense, March 17, 1957 William N. Robson, again, producing and directing.
(Suspense 1957) Newspaper description:

Lovejoy Plans Trip. Frank Lovejoy, noted radio- screen star, portrays Major Bill Westphal, pilot of a perilous jet flight into "The Outer Limit" on CBS Radio's Suspense Sunday  (3-30 p.m.). When he returns from a test flight with a terrifying warning that demands immediate attention, the Major finds his frantic efforts to report a message of doom blocked by the incredulous earth people he tries to save.

Brand X

The other adaptation of the script was made for as part of a series specialized in science fiction, but strangely, they downplayed the alien encounter in the story.

 Dimension X, April 8, 1950, was part of a science fiction series, so they jazzed things up a bit and moved the story into the future, 1965. Van Woodward produced and Edward King directed Ernest Kinoy's adaptation, which added a few science fiction flourishes, and extra drama, including having the pilot's pregnant wife giving birth to their son while he's missing. The military aspect was downplayed a bit, and the ranks for the two main characters were dropped. The pilot in this version is named Mr. Steve Weston and played by Joseph Julian, and his boss is Mr. Hank Hansen. 

There's no mention of flying saucers; the alien ship is just described as egg-shaped and smooth. Like in the original story, we don't have a scene depicting the alien encounter, and only hear the pilot describe his experience. Hank says, "Steve, this whole thing's been a devil of a strain on you. I'm going to call Major Donaldson from the Army base, ask him to sit in."

Donaldson submits Steve to questioning under "narco-psychometry," saying, "Under proper drugs I can put you back in this, uh, ship - by suggestion. Then we can get a playback record of your memory pattern on the audio circuit... an accurate memory picture of what your mind reports." He has Steve count backwards and the process resembles hypnotic regression.

Steve says the Intergalactic Patrol has outlawed war. Their detector picked up an atomic explosion on Earth, and they've quarantined it. "They've isolated the Earth, 'cause we don't know how to control ourselves yet. Until we learn, we'll be a menace to the whole universe!" Xeglon is not named, and the material from his report is not incorporated. This version adds extra tension of an atomic bomb test scheduled for midnight, which prompts Steve to threaten to blow up the base unless the bomb test is canceled. Hank puts in a frantic call to abort the test, but it was just a ruse on a dead line to pacify Steve. 

The ending is the same, but the destruction of the Earth could be seconds away. Like in the Doar's original, the psychiatrist Donaldson gets the last line, "It's outside my field, but I'm curious. How did he keep that ship in the air for ten hours - with only ten minutes' fuel?

Comments: By removing the report or any mention of Xeglon, there's a stronger shadow of a doubt in the listener whether the alien encounter was real.

A transcript of the radio play by Ernest Kinoy can be found at Generic Radio Workshop Script Library.

(Musical Trivia:  The Theremin is noted for becoming the sound of science fiction in "The Day the Earth Stood Still," but it was being used a year earlier in 1950 "Rocketship X-M," and earlier still by Albert Berman here on the NBC radio show, "Dimension X." )

X-1 (X Minus 1), November 16, 1955 used the Ernest Kinoy script, with Daniel Sutter directing and Steve Weston was again played by Joseph Julian.

Television

Around the same time, the new medium of television was in its infancy, but two teleplay adaptations of the story were also broadcast; on CBS in 1951, and on NBC in 1953:

Donald Davis

Out There was one of the first science fiction TV shows aimed at an adult audience, a half-hour show created by Donald Davis, and its debut episode adapted Doar's story. The teleplay was by Elihu Winer, and it aired on CBS, October 28, 1951. Robert Webber played the pilot, Captain Bill Hurley, and this version includes a scene or two that features the pilot's wife. As with the Escape adaption on radio, the alien encounter was depicted. Commander Xeglon was portrayed by Wesley Addy, who was well versed in classics from Shakespeare and often mistaken for English. With that choice of actor, I'm guessing they went for an imperious tone for Xeglon's warning about Earth's doom from "The Councillors." Sadly, the series only lasted 12 episodes, is not available on video, and not much is known about it.

Robert Montgomery Presents (Your Lucky Strike Theatre) was a popular hour-long live dramatic program featuring original stories and adaptations. "The Outer Limit" adaption was written by Richard Battle and aired on NBC,  January 26, 1953. In this version, the pilot is played by Jackie Cooper and renamed Captain Peter Graves, who serves under Colonel Hank Daggers. The psychiatrist character is named General Klein, but he plays a reduced role in this version.

Reviewer Steven H. Scheuer's "Exciting science fiction yarn given a tinge of authenticity through the testing of a space jet-plane. Lots of technical mumbo-jumbo enhances realistic aspects and suspense."

Jackie Cooper was a real pilot, a Navy Reserve Captain.
Photos from the 1955 film Mister Roberts.

The story is framed with scenes on the observation deck of the RCA building where Peter Graves tells a man and his son his incredible story. "Well, it started when the Air Force picked me to fly their new eight-rocket astro; and my job was to take it up and try to crack the outer limit itself."

Teleplay script excerpts as presented in the 1955 textbook,  Prose and Poetry for Appreciation from the  L.W. Singer Company:

The captain is asked to describes the ship he saw, but is met with disbelief:
SCHILLER.  What was this ship? What did it look like? How was it powered?
PETER.  It was — egg-shaped. Perfectly smooth...
SCHILLER.  Like a — flying saucer?
PETER.  Not — unlike the descriptions we've received of — of — flying saucers.
BALL.  Captain, are you a reader of comic books?
PETER.  No, sir, not regularly.
KLEIN.  Captain, you say these — beings — they put ideas in your head and among those ideas was one concerning the distance they had come? 
PETER.  Yes, sir.

In the show, the extraterrestrial encounter was not directly depicted, we just the the pilot's description of the message they gave:
"PETER.  Atomic power, sir. Atomic bombs — stop making them — and using them. That was the warning. They knew all about atomic power — the utility as well as the danger. They have outlawed the use of atomic energy as bombs and they're on the lookout for explosions. Whenever their detectors pick up a trace of one — they send a patrol. They came here. They found what they were looking for — and they quarantined us.

He describes how the alien's doomsday device for Earth would be activated:
"An envelope, a layer of something — I'm not sure. But it's out there — about a hundred miles out! — and miles thick. It surrounds us and it's there to stay. Whenever an atomic bomb is exploded anywhere on this earth and the mushroom cloud of radioactive particles rises."

In this version the pilot is not believed and is kicked out of the service. Instead of his colonel and the psychiatrist, the closing lines are delivered by the boy and his father who've heard his tale.

PETER.  They discharged me — I don't blame them — what else could they do? I went to the newspapers, and they said I was crazy — nobody would print it. 
BOY.  They said you were crazy, sir? 
PETER.  That's right. Everywhere it was the same story. I went to my Congressman — the United Nations.  Nobody believed me.
JONES.  (laughing). Well— if it happened a few years ago as you say — how come we're still here? 
PETER.  The layer's not full yet. 
JONES.  (smiling). Oh. Well— it sure is a is a good story. 
PETER.  Yes, a good story — and some day I'm hoping somebody will believe it. Before it's too late. 
JONES.  Yes — well, thank the man for the story, Son. It's time to get home for supper. 
BOY.  Thank you — thank you for the story, sir. 
PETER.  Good night, boy. (He leaves.)
BOY.  Was that a true story, Dad? 
JONES.  No, of course not. He just made it up.  
BOY.  Well, if it wasn't true what he said happened to him then where was he for those two hours when he didn't have any fuel or oxygen? 
JONES  (puzzled). Oh — somebody— somebody made a mistake, I guess. Yeah — somebody made a mistake.

Comments: Like the Dimension X radio adaptation, this teleplay does not feature the material dealing with Xeglon, and there are no scenes depicting the alien contact. The audience is left wondering about the reality of the pilot's claims, but apparently some viewers found it convincing. According to the IMDb listing, "In the closing, Robert Montgomery notes that they received some phone calls during the telecast asking if this was a true story. He assured the audience that it was complete fiction." Sadly, this episode, too, is not available on video.

This episode of Robert Montgomery Presents was noticed by the US Air Force and mentioned in Project Blue Book's files, in a graph looking a correlation between UFO publicity and sighting reports.

https://www.fold3.com/image/11885063/

The various broadcast adaptations of "The Outer Limit" were surprisingly faithful to the original story, but differed in a few details and narrative choices. In some versions, the alien scenes were portrayed as a flashback, with actors providing the warning of doom, but in others we get merely the pilot's description of what he claimed happened. In all versions the colonel and psychiatrist think the alien ultimatum is a delusion, but the miraculous return of the pilot and plane suggest that it might all be true.

In our next installments, we'll look at
Ufology & The Outer Limit Legacy (Part 4 of 5)
Hollywood & The Outer Limit Legacy (Part 5 of 5)

- - -

The Outer Limit by Graham Doar: The UFO Parable (Part 2 of 5)

In our prologue, Flying Saucers, the Atomic Bomb and Doomsday, we looked at how even prior to the arrival of flying saucers, there was a belief by some that extraterrestrials had an interest in our fate and that they might do what the United Nations could not, stop war and eliminate the threat of the atomic bomb.

The Outer Limit

Graham Doar's story was published in The Saturday Evening Post on December 24, 1949. "The Outer Limit" deals with an interrupted journey, the test flight of an experimental rocket plane, the disappearance and strange, miraculous return of the pilot, and it featured now-familiar elements, put together for the first time:

A UFO encounter, an alien abduction, missing time, contact with an advanced benevolent extraterrestrial race, telepathic communication, and a dire warning to the Earth about the use of atomic weapons. At least one adaptation of the story includes the use of hypnotic regression to recover memories of the encounter, but wait, there's more! Faced with a credible witness of a relatively incredible event, the colonel in charge chooses not to believe, and there's the suggestion that the UFO report will be covered up.

Illustration by Melbourne Brindle

At the time the story was written, there was little serious discussion of flying saucers as coming from outer space. When saucers were discussed as being real, the most popular explanation was that it was some aircraft project that the government was keeping secret as they'd done with the Manhattan Project to develop the atom bomb. About the only saucer space talk outside of was in Raymond Palmer's Amazing Stories and Fate magazines were the early iterations of Silas Newton's hoax about little men that were circulating at the time. Plenty of people were reporting seeing flying saucers, but only a very few beyond the far fringes were discussing contact.

Pioneering pilots were heroes, space was the next frontier, and that's part of the reason for the story's popularity.  In 1948, test pilot Chuck Yeager made headlines for his XS-1 flight breaking the sound barrier, and this story was about pushing farther out. By focusing on the heroic pilot on a dangerous experimental test flight, it grounded the story in reality, and set up a suspenseful situation before introducing into the unearthly elements. However, the story starts with a tease that this will not be a routine mission. What follows is a fairly lengthy summary that strives to include the points and dialogue of UFO interest. It's taut little story with a few twists.

Patrolship, SJ23, Galactic Guard, Sector K, reporting.... Pursuant to instructions, from the Central Council: Planet 3, Star 5, Galaxy C, Sector K has been placed under absolute quarantine. Notification to inhabitants made. Mission accomplished.                                                                               XEGLON, Commanding.

Doar's story then joins Bill in his experimental test flight of the X2JTO, powered with only enough fuel for a ten-minute trip to the edge of space. At the edge of space, he sees sunlight glinting off a distant object above him.

He didn't believe it. He knew all the standard explanations of the great flying-saucer plague – the runaway balloons, the planet Venus, hallucinations bought on by strain and weariness. Whatever this object was, this metallic ellipsoid turning slowly above him, it wasn't a ship. He knew that. But he had six minutes fuel left and with all eight rockets boosting him along, he could run rings around anything. A closer look wouldn't hurt. He pointed the shark's nose at that far-off gleam.

Killers from Space, with a similar scenario.

The story shifts to the colonel, Hank, who after a 9-hour search, had finally given up the pilot and plane for lost. The X2JTO was forty miles up when the radar screens went blank. A call comes in that the ship has returned. Bill greets him, and says, "Sit down Hank, this one will knock you over."

When the colonel asks him where's he's been, Bill says, "What's your idea about the flying saucers, Hank? "The colonel ignores the question saying "First things first. I want to know– I've got to know – how you stretched ten minutes' fuel to keep you in the air over ten hours. "
Bill asks that the ship be checked with a Geiger counter., and when the colonel wonder if Bill should also be checked for radioactivity, Bill says, "No. No, I'll be all right. They told me I'd be all right." 

The colonel thinks, "If he's getting ready to feed me one of those men-from-Mars yarns, I should get the psychos (psychiatrists) in right now."

As Bill describes his encounter, he becomes increasingly agitated. 

“Well, Hank, I chased me a flying saucer. And I caught it. Or rather it caught me.”

“There was a humming sound – a kind of gentle vibration... sort of twang, as though I’d run into a harp string, and the – the black came down over me... (he thought he was going to crash into the saucer.) I came to inside their ship!"
At this point, the colonel mentions Bill seeing the psychiatrist, Major Donaldson. Bill would rather put it off until tomorrow and get drunk instead. "...I've just been tipped off to the way the world ends."
Continuing with his story, he says, "Well, I came to, inside the ship, and I was surrounded by – let's call them men. "

"I don't know what they look like. They were just – presences. There were a lot of them – I don't know how many. The inside of the ship was jammed completely full of incredibly intricate-looking machinery, and the noise was utterly deafening."

"I was angry, too – it seemed so – so belittling. But then suddenly I wasn't angry there was nothing to strike at. Anyway, they seemed friendly, even gentle." The colonel asks if they spoke English.

"They didn't speak. They just – planted the ideas in my own head. It was just suddenly – suddenly it was there – in my mind."

With that, Hank stops and brings in Major Donaldson, the psychiatrist, Major Donaldson, and after bringing him up to speed, Bill continues the story, saying his captors said they'd had their own wars but, "Now they have outlawed war throughout the sectors of space they patrol, and everywhere else they can reach. Whenever their detector system picks up traces of an atomic explosion, they send a patrol with certain preventative powers."

That brought them to Earth, where, “They found wars and rumors of war. Factories busily turning out atomic weapons. So they quarantined us. This intergalactic board of health decided we were infected with a communicable disease. They sealed us off from the rest of space until we were well.”

He goes on to describe the quarantine and the method used. "Out there– about a hundred miles out– they've spread a layer... when the radioactivity in this layer of –whatever– rises above the normal level of cosmic activity the particles will begin to fission... this spinning globe will be a roaring ball of flame that will pale the sun." 

As an afterthought, Bill says "We can forget about those atomic-powered spaceships, too, colonel. You can see that don't you? Unless we can figure out some way to shield the exhaust. On second thought, we won't last long enough for that to become a problem. Just forget it. That's best."

"That's the story. The whole thing. They finished with me, I heard the harp twang again – and I was in the plane gliding back down. You saw me land. Now, colonel, with your permission, I'm going over to the club and tie one on."

The colonel orders Bill to get some rest and instructs Donaldson to give him a sedative so he will sleep. Hank orders a sergeant to take Bill to his quarters and guard him all night. "Keep your eye on his pistol. He's been under the hell of a strain."

(The above photos are actually from the 1954 movie starring Peter Graves, Killers from Space, which seems like a bad, unofficial adaptation of "The Outer Limit." The working title for it was "The Man Who Saved the Earth," but Killers goes in a goofier, dumber Bug-Eyed-Monster direction, with an alien invasion using A-bomb-powered giant insects to conquer the Earth.)

There's an interlude, picking up from the intro, Xeglon's report to the Central Council:

Record for file… Record for file. Xeglon, commanding Patrolship S2J3, to Sector Commander Zzyl, Galactic Guard, Sector K.Patrol commander Pgot informed me that you requested this early, informal report on Mission S2K-C5-3 and I prepared it at once.

Several paragraphs of Xeglon's log are presented. There were initially nine ships dispatched to scout Earth, but Xeglon's was assigned to stay behind and complete the mission. He reports the difficulty of establishing meaningful contact, about how they'd tried before. "The creatures employ a method of communication not heretofore found." He goes on to say, "Our earliest attempts at communication resulted in jamming and even destroying the nerve paths of the specimens we selected."

There was a mention of risk versus reward, "Obviously a landing was out of the question. We should have had to destroy thousands of them in order to seize one and might even have suffered some losses ourselves. You know the problem of regeneration with no greater facilities than our patrol ships carry."

Ultimately it was the medical science department that delivered a technological solution. "It was now that our psycho-men really distinguished themselves. With their previous observations added to estimations of brain convolutions and mass, they set up a mechanical hypnotor that established contact on the very first try." There were barriers to communication not understood well by Xeglon, but he described the humans' adrenaline surge and the reaction to disbelieve the unbelievable. "Our team worked patiently at this for some time and were despairing in getting through when to our surprise, the creature broke it down himself." With communication established, they were able to complete the mission and free their captive. "Having made contact, we fixed the creatures mind, implanting the necessary warning as to the nature of the quarantine, the reasons for it, the conditions under which it may be lifted. His grasp of the entire concept at last complete we released him, close to the pick-up point, and traced him to the surface."

He calls the apparatus "Catalyst X," the method to quarantine/destroy the Earth. "We proceeded now to sow the catalyst in the predetermined depth, and mission accomplished, to depart for our station. Two time-periods out from the planet, we switched to space drive. Message ends. XEGLON."

With that, there's a return to the narrative, the finale, with Hank and Donaldson discussing Bill"s problem and his treatment. The psychologist expresses regret that a good man has cracked up. The colonel says, "He's the best, Donaldson. That combination of guts, loyalty and lightning reflexes comes about one in ten million." At this late point in the story we find out that Bill is overdue for a promotion to major, and that he's a family man, "His wife's having another baby, you know. It's his third." They think that Bill is tough and will recover from his episode. 

As they are saying goodnight, the psychiatrist gets the closing line of dialogue.“Oh colonel. There is one thing. It’s outside my field, but I’m curious. How did he keep that plane in the air for ten hours – with only ten minutes’ fuel?”

. . .

Comments:

The danger the Earth poses is to itself, but it's implied that with the emergence of space travel, Earth could contaminate other worlds. The Central Council seems to be the governing body of outer space, a higher authority, and Earth unknowingly is under its jurisdiction. The Galactic Guard is here because Earth has broken the law.

The story leaves no time to dwell on the ethics of the aliens imposing a quarantine on Earth, it moves at such a clip we're focused on the experience of the pilot and his struggle to deliver the message and have it believed. The Central Council couldn't take away Earth's weapons, but they ensured that using them would have severe negative consequences. 

Another alien meddling in Earth's affairs.

The physical nature of the aliens is left a complete mystery, but humans are so unlike them, or anything they've seen, that there is a struggle to establish communication for their message. 

Bill's phrase, "the way the world ends, is a nod to "The Hollow Men," the 1925 is a poem by T. S. Eliot,  "This is the way the world ends, Not with a bang but a whimper."

The author had an awareness of the flying saucer lore of the time, and it can be inferred that the nine Galactic Guard ships were the ones seen in 1947 by Kenneth Arnold and others reporting formations of multiple saucers. It could also be that the previous failed attempts to communicate with humans refers to the death of Captain Thomas Mantell.

The report by Xeglon is the key indication to the reader the experience was real. Bill's narrative is ambiguous and he just has no memory of either entering the spaceship or bring returned to his plane.

It's not directly explained what happened during the other missing hours from Bill's memory, but that seems involve the time it took for Xeglon's men to establish contact with Bill.

Another bit of trivia, the aliens have interstellar drive, called "space drive."

The "Brotherhood of Worlds" may be a lot like the United Nations, but all we can be sure of is that their Galactic Guard is their police force, and that despite their technological advances and "friendly, even gentle" demeanor, there's still a bureaucratic hierarchy and plenty of reports to be filed.

The O. Henry-type surprise "snapper ending," would be incorporated into the structure of EC Comics such as Tales from the Crypt and Weird Science and Rod Serling's television show, The Twilight Zone.

In this story, the disbelief in Bill's tale is disrupted by the facts, the impossibility of his ship's return.

Graham Doar's "The Outer Limit’ also appeared in an anthology edited by Groff Conklin,

Big Book of Science Fiction in 1950, reprinted in 1978 as The Classic Book of Science Fiction.

Joseph Graham Doar, 1912 - 1985, served in the Army as a corporal in the Engineering regiment in the Mediterranean during World War II. Afterward he became a freelance writer and besides "The Outer Limit," went on to write a few other stories, for Bluebook, Collier's Weekly, and science fiction magazines. Doar's name was most often published in ads for the Palmer Institute of Authorship, a correspondence course for writing that seems to have done many aspiring writers some good.

Palmer Institute advertisement from
Astounding Science Fiction, June 1953

In our next installments, we'll look at
Radio, Television & The Outer Limit Legacy (Part 3 of 5)
Ufology & The Outer Limit Legacy (Part 4 of 5)
Hollywood & The Outer Limit Legacy (Part 5 of 5)

- - -

Flying Saucers, the Atomic Bomb and Doomsday: The Outer Limit (Part 1 of 5)

The Outer Limit: A Prelude

The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells was first published in 1897, and it is perhaps the most famous and influential science fiction story of all time. Fantasy stories usually involve regular people facing extraordinary experiences, often in a tale of their journey to a strange land. Wells was one of those authors who flipped the premise, by having the strangeness make the journey, intruding into our everyday world. His story is about an alien landing, the beginning of an invasion by conquerors. The Martians have no interest in communicating with humans, who they see as pests that must be exterminated before they can inhabit the Earth. Without meaning to, the Martians unite mankind.

“Did they grasp that we in our millions were organized, disciplined, working together? Or did they interpret our spurts of fire, the sudden stinging of our shells, our steady investment of their encampment, as we should the furious unanimity of onslaught in a disturbed hive of bees?... Never before in the history of the world had such a mass of human beings moved and suffered together.”

The 1938 CBS broadcast of Orson Welles and the Mercury Theatre's adaptation of The War of the Worlds became the most famous radio drama of all time, and due to its documentary-like presentation some listeners thought a real war had come to the USA. The real thing would come just a few years later with the bombing of Pearl Harbor drawing the States into the Second World War.

The Atom Bomb: A Study of Atom Power, 1945

"Is it a blessing, or will it smash humanity?"

War of the World

The atomic bomb was seen by some people as a tool to bring peace. In the closing days of World War II, shortly after the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, a survey conducted by Gallup Poll in late August 1945, showed that 69% of the US public felt the atomic bomb was a "good thing." However, afterwords there were those with some rising serious concerns about its destructive potential.

"The public, having been warned of the horrible nature of atomic warfare, has done nothing about it, and to a large extent has dismissed the warning... I say that nothing has been done to avert war since the completion of the atomic bomb, despite the proposal for supranational control of atomic energy put forward by the United States in the United Nations." - Albert Einstein,  The Atlantic, November 1947

Before Doar and Saucers

Harold Sherman and his messiah from Mars, Numar, The Green Man.

The Green Man was a 1946 novel by psychic Harold Sherman that introduced Numar, a peaceful messiah-like messenger in a spaceship from another planet with the power to make our technology stand still. In 1979, Sherman described his inspiration: 

"I had a series of visions wherein I saw Space Beings, possessed of high intelligence, visiting our Earth in space ships of different shapes and sizes, for the purpose of exploration and eventually to fill our skies with large space vehicles, coming in force, hopefully on a friendly mission to help Mankind save itself from self-destruction."

In the 1947 sequel, The Green Man Returns, Numar comes back to deliver "A New Plan of Living which will solve our earth’s problems and bring about true brotherhood," which would end war and the associated threat of atomic bombs.

On Oct. 9, 1946, there was a report of Kareeta, a spaceship visiting the Earth, piloted by Etherians, peaceful visitors who didn't land because "they're afraid of the reception they'll get." The Borderland Sciences Research Associates had established telepathic communication and later disclosed that "at every great crisis . . . or just prior to the collapse of civilization, they make an extended survey here for their own information and historical records."

Weeks before the birth of the age of flying saucers, BSRA member and Fortean Vincent Gaddis wrote in the May/June 1947 issue of Round Robin about extraterrestrials, the Shaver Mystery, and how ancient spiritual entities from space might intercede to protect us from World War III: 

"Among those who can think there is a growing sense of worry and fear. That our culture is nearing a breaking point... There is a gathering of Powers, a search for places of safety, the building of two great armed camps. There have been many prophecies... In 1937 a remarkable prophecy was received in America from high spiritual beings and sent to Dr. Alexander Cannon, in London. who reproduced it in his book, The Power of Karma... This revelation tells of a 'great migration of celestial beings' ages ago, who came to this planet from outer space..."

Worries about the A-bomb grew in people's minds, and the best hope for world peace seemed to be the United Nations. When flying discs hit the news in 1947, some people suspected connections between atomic power and the flying saucers. Others thought flying saucers were a sign that the world was ending.

Medford Mail Tribune, June 27, 1947

A musical warning: (When You See) Those Flying Saucers by Cy Coben-Charlie Green, performed by The Buchanan Brothers, Oct. 27, 1947,  RCA Victor 20-2385-A

"...Many people think the saucers might be someone’s foolish dream

Or maybe they were sent down here from Mars

If you’ll just stop and think you’d realize just what it means

They’re more than atom bombs or falling stars

And though the war may be through there’s unrest and trouble brewin’

And those flying saucers may be just a sign

That if peace doesn’t come it will be the end of some

So repent today, you’re running out of time

When you see a saucer fly like a comet through the sky

You should realize the price you’ll have to pay

You’d better pray to the Lord when you see those flying saucers

It may be the coming of the Judgment Day"

At that time, only the mystical fringe that had already believed we were being visited by extraterrestrials gave serious consideration to flying saucers having an outer space origin. Among them, some took it as a sign, that our ancient gods were back, and here to help.

"Will the ancient gods... come back in time to avert an atom war?"
From "Son of the Sun." by Millen Cooke (as Alexander Blade) illustrated by James Settles. 
Fantastic Adventures Vol.9. No.7. November 1947. 

One World or None

The 1948 novel, The Flying Saucer by Bernard Newman was about an alien invasion prompting the United Nations to unite the world against a common outside enemy.  The invasion was a fake, a conspiracy by scientists who were committed to bring peace to the world and remove the threat of atomic war.

Everyone has heard of the UN, United Nations... But what is the UW? 

In Captain Marvel Adventures #98, dated July 1949, the super hero sees a flying saucer and decides to solve the mystery. Following it to its home planet he's surprised to learn, "Holy Moley! Our Galaxy has a government!" The United Worlds "was formed 1000 years ago to eliminate all war, crime and evil in the galaxy." Earth has been denied membership, but the UW eventually has a change of heart after demonstrations of CM's heroics, but he says, no; the Earth has yet to earn its membership.

The United Nations seemed stymied in keeping the peace on Earth, and with the A-bomb in play it it would be terrible. In times of trouble, people often look to help from above, and in the age of flying saucers, there were some new possibilities.

The Twilight Zone between Flying Saucers and Science Fiction

Science fiction magazines had come into bloom in the 1920s, full of visitors from other worlds, spaceships and almost every other concept that later surfaced in connection with UFOs. Not everyone read SF magazines, but almost everyone read the newspaper, listened to the radio and went to the movies. In the 1940s, the best-known science fiction to the average person was from the comic strips, Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon and Superman, but most would also have remembered the notorious Martian invasion from the The War of the Worlds. Those stories introduced the basic science fiction concepts to an audience of millions of all ages. The science fiction magazines reached a much smaller but devoted audience, and one publication was doing something different. 

In 1944, Ray Palmer introduced the Shaver Mystery to the readers of Amazing Stories, presenting it as a genuine case of extraterrestrials having an active presence on Earth. Palmer also encouraged readers to write in with reports of their sightings of strange things seen in the sky. It was the magazine's policy that alien visitors had come here, and that the space ships were real. 

Ad for FATE magazine, Amazing Stories, dated May 1948.

When saucers arrived in 1947, Palmer offered them as evidence that they were connected, proving Shaver's stories were true. Together with publisher Curtis Fuller in 1948, he launched Fate a magazine on the occult, and the the cover feature of the first issue was, "The Truth about Flying Saucers." The notion of ET saucers was being put out, but the mainstream thought of it as kid stuff, that men from Mars belonged in the funny pages with Buck Rogers. Two magazine stories were about to go a long way towards changing that perception.

Graham Doar's short story, "The Outer Limit" debuted in The Saturday Evening Post dated December 24, 1949. It hit the newsstands shortly before the January 1950 issue of True magazine, which carried Major Donald Keyhoe's famous article, "The Flying Saucers Are Real." The following newspaper article discusses both stories.

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Dec. 27, 1949, Page 1

After covering Keyhoe's claims, they turn to Doar's story:

It's probably a coincidence that last week's Saturday Evening Post featured a flying saucer story – indexed as fiction – which indicated that the world would end with a bang. In "The Outer Limit," Graham Doar tells how a pilot flying and experimental rocket at five times the speed of sound encountered and was sucked into a flying saucer manned by intelligent beings who warned him that because of the atomic explosions observed from their world they had surrounded Earth with a force field having the effect of a planetary quarantine. Set off any more atomic bombs, they cautioned him, and Earth would explode like a nova.

What set Doar's story apart was that it took A-bomb fears, science fiction ideas and coupled them together with flying saucers for perhaps the first time, certainly a first for a mainstream magazine. What makes Doar's story notable is not only the content, but also its incredible exposure. Aviation historian Curtis Peebles wrote in a Magonia article:

While The Saturday Evening Post had a massive circulation, ‘The Outer Limit’ reached a much wider audience than just the magazine’s subscribers. ...Doar’s story “may be the most often used science fiction story in radio.” ‘The Outer Limit’ was dramatised five times on radio and twice on television.

The tale would have been perfect for The Twilight Zone, but it hadn't been created yet.  There's a lot more to be said about the story, and we'll take a detailed look at "The Outer Limit" and how it introduced concepts that would come to be central to the public's perceptions of UFOs. The subsequent installments will cover:

The Outer Limit, the original short story
The Outer Limit, as adapted for radio and television
The Outer Limit Legacy, its influence on ufology
The Outer Limit Legacy, its influence on science fiction films

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