August 12, 2025 • 42 mins
CBS Radio Mystery Theater was a noteworthy attempt to revive in American radio dramas like Inner Sanctum (1941-1952) and Suspense (1942-1962). Radio dramas were widely considered "dead" 12 years prior to this series. CBS Radio Mystery Theater, or simply Mystery Theater, was created by Inner Sanctum creator Himan Brown and ran on CBS from 1974-1982. The show, much like older radio dramas, was introduced by a host (E.G. Marshall in this program), who steers us through the creaking door to start the episode. Many voices from the golden age of radio were featured, including Richard Widmark, Bret Morrison, Agnes Moorehead and many more.
Hope you enjoy this episode of Mystery Theater! Find all our OTR radio stations and podcasts at theaterofthemind-otr.com - Audio Credit: The Old Time Radio Researchers Group. - All Podcasts @ Spreaker | Apple | YouTube | Spotify | iHeart | Amazon
Hope you enjoy this episode of Mystery Theater! Find all our OTR radio stations and podcasts at theaterofthemind-otr.com - Audio Credit: The Old Time Radio Researchers Group. - All Podcasts @ Spreaker | Apple | YouTube | Spotify | iHeart | Amazon
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Remember fifty I see you where your money rose like magic.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Come in Welcome. I'm a g Marshall. Over two thirds
of the globe on which we live is water, the oceans,
the sea. From the beginning of time, Let's sea around
us has been a source of mystery, an enormous, watery
(00:43):
world of fear of the unknown. To some, like the
great American poet Walt Whitman, it was also a place
of miracles. To me, he said, the sea is a
continuous miracle. The fishes that swim, the rocks, the motion
of the waves, the ships with men in them. What
stranger miracles are there? Our mystery drama City of the
(01:17):
Dead was adapted from the HG. Wells short story in
The Abyss, especially for the Mystery Theater by Arnold Moss.
It stars Christopher Tabori and Earl Hammond. It is sponsored
in part by Anhuser Busch Incorporated, brewers of Budweiser and
Certaintyed Fiberglass attic Insulation. I'll be back shortly with that
(01:40):
wandless nat. Remember the year is eighteen ninety six, more
than eighty years ago. In a marine biological laboratory in
(02:00):
New England, a little group of scientists and technicians are
gathered before doctor Stanley Weybridge, director of the Institute and
chief of a newly developing science called Ocean of Graphic Studies.
He stands pointer in hand before an enlarged wall map
of the Caribbean Sea as he concludes a briefing on
(02:22):
the most adventurous, the most perilous project ever undertaken by
the Institute. I cannot say, gentlemen, that the plan is
without danger. I wish I could. Indeed, there is every
risk imaginable, but I assure you that no precaution, even
the most minute, will be overlooked. Every safety device we
(02:42):
know of will be used. Are there any questions? Yes,
and doctor Weybridge, will you tell us a little more
about the place we're going to? The Cabridge Trough. Well,
it starts about here on the map, deep off the
coast Haiti. Here you see how it follows a southwesterly
(03:02):
course for almost one thousand miles to the Pacific coast
of Guatemala. Yes, sir, that big crack on the map there, well,
that huge crack in the surface of the Earth was
produced by movements within the Earth, movements which have never
really stopped, which accounts for the frequent earthquakes in that
part of the world. So far as we know, the
(03:23):
trough is the deepest point of the sea on the
entire face of the globe. Do we know how deep
the trough is now? We've taken soundings in some places
over twenty two thousand feet.
Speaker 3 (03:36):
It's more than.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
Four miles, And in six months from.
Speaker 3 (03:39):
Now that's where Star.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
And I will be making the dive. Correct. The mother
ship the Captain Nemo will be stationed right about here,
not far off the coast of Grand Cayman Island itself,
and the Poseidon our little home away from home. The
steel globe that will be our transportation.
Speaker 3 (03:58):
To the bottom of nowhere will.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
Be detached and dropped from the stern of a Nemo
from this scaffolding here on the drawing. It's constructed a
three inch steel eight feet in diameter, with all the
comforts of home right special air cushions padding the inside.
Two portholes near the bottom of the craft so we
can play peekaboo with the Barracuda. The windows of the
(04:20):
portholes are made of a special variety of glass three
inches thick to withstand the pressures you'll meet at that debt,
Doctor Weybridge. We have volunteered for what I'm sure will
turn out to be a huge barrel of fun. A
little dangerous maybe, but fun. Sam, be serious for a moment.
I give you my word that everything will be minutely inspected.
(04:43):
The barrel's device for submerging and getting back up again,
the pressure mechanisms, the depth indicator, the oxygen supply, the
Myers apparatus for purging the carbon dioxide you'll be exhaling.
We thought of everything, everything except that we won't be
able to communicate with you on the surface in case
of trouble. Well, that is true.
Speaker 3 (05:04):
It's the one thing we'd.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
Like to do, but we can't. I understand. Once we
start down, we'll be free floating entirely on our own.
For the next six months, you two will go through
the most intensive training possible in handling the sphere. I
wish I were young enough to see for myself firsthand
the things you're going to see.
Speaker 3 (05:25):
Have you any idea like what?
Speaker 2 (05:28):
No, not exactly, but there have to be things down
there that no living man has ever experienced, Things that
go beyond the wildest dreams of our imagination, Sam Star,
the day has come when man through you is about
to prove some of the darkest mysteries of the universe.
(05:58):
Thank you, doctor Weybridge for me getting my wife to
come afore. Dorris is one of the best research assistants
the Institute's ever had.
Speaker 3 (06:06):
She's more than welcome.
Speaker 4 (06:07):
Thank you, doctor way Pitch.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
I end the famine Star.
Speaker 4 (06:10):
I wish I were going with them.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
You picked a perfect day for this Caribbean holiday, didn't
you die here? Yes, clear sky, blazing sun and a
gentle swell. Water temperature is nearly eighty an ideal day
for swinging this twenty tons of iron out into the briny.
Say nothing of the two utterly defenseless young men inside
that I you know, doctor, last night Doris and I
(06:34):
were making some quick calculations. At the surface, the pressure
is of fourteen pounds for square inch. I'm thirty feet down.
At double that, right, and at a mile that's five
two hundred and eighty feet.
Speaker 4 (06:45):
The pressure becomes something like a ton and a half
per square.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
Inch, and at five miles Yes, I know, I know,
but you've got the steel walls of the globe to
protect you, and the globe is pressurized.
Speaker 3 (06:58):
We put that sphere through every test we could think of.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
The margin fererra has been reduced to the absolute minimum.
Then it's eleven fifty six boys, four minutes to noon
and the descent of the poseidon for beare to climb
the scaffolding for boarding, Yes, sir, ready, sir. At one
final review of the procedure. Now the two of you
will let yourselves into the open porthole. It will lend
(07:23):
me stood into place from the outside. The sphere will
be hoisted over the side the line's cut and the
sphere dropped.
Speaker 3 (07:30):
Into the sea.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
You understand, Oh, yes, we understand, sir. And once in
the water only we have control of the ballast right,
and you will regulate ballast so as to let yourselves
down gently. Thirty five minutes for the descent and then
an hour for observation and two hours for coming up,
total little over three and a half hours. Your oxygen
(07:52):
supplies good for five hours for each of you. We'll
watch it like hawks and the pressure indicators. We'll be
lying off a couple of miles to the southeast and
so you don't collide with us. Is your service any questions?
One last request, sir, if there's time, I like to
kiss my wife.
Speaker 4 (08:12):
I love you, Sam.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
Oh, don't worry, dear, I think everything's going to be fine,
just one hundred percent fine. Oh, and remember we've got
a big date for a turtle steak when I get
back up. At exactly twelve noon, they swung us overboard.
My heart nearly burst with excitement as they let us
down foot by foot to the surface of the water,
(08:35):
and then they cut the line that attached us to
the tackle above us. For a moment, we seemed to
be stationary, and then with a gigantic splash, the sea
closed over us and we started our journey. Well this
is it, Star, What are you thinking? How my mother
always hoped I'd grow up to be a brilliant criminal
(08:56):
lawyer instead of a marine biologist. That's very funny, So
did my mother, only she wanted me to be a doctor.
Look above you, Star, I'm trying to, but that huge
burst of air bubble shooting upward is blocking the view.
Just about gone by. Now quickly the color of the
sea changes from light greenish blue, darker and darker to
(09:18):
that rich blue of stained glass windows. Yes, and now
it's almost midnight blue. How far down.
Speaker 3 (09:24):
Are we.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
A little over six hundred feet? Could mark that in
your log? Absolutely pitch black already like velvet. I better
turn on the electric spot.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
No, no, not just yet.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
Take a look at those Why it's like a whole
world of tiny blinking lights. What do you suppose they are?
With the faintest idea, they're flashing by so fast like
streaks of green lightning, some of them strung together like
a train racing barn, a very dark knight. Orright, turn
on the floodlights. Oh no, they all disappeared with the light.
Oh wait, wait, wait a minute, will you take a
(09:58):
look at that? Names reverse snowfall Waybridge and the divers
told us about as if millions and millions of little
snowflakes were falling up as we go plunging down, some
of them living creatures, and the others the remains of
those that have died. Right head of the class, mister Norton,
just keep your fingers crossed that we don't wind up
(10:18):
as part of a reverse snowfall. We kept hard and falling,
falling down down, faster and faster. It was like being
in an elevator in one of those new skyscrapers, and
the cable that holds it in place suddenly breaks, and
you keep going down, waiting for the inevitable crash that
(10:38):
will destroy it. And you.
Speaker 3 (10:41):
Are you all right?
Speaker 2 (10:42):
Star? You look a little uncomfortable. It's got a little warm. Hell,
I guess we underestimated the effect of the friction of
the globe against the water. And we'd better take off
some of these heavy clothes. A careful, don't touch the
glass of the porthole.
Speaker 3 (10:58):
You might burn yourself.
Speaker 2 (11:01):
Where are we over ten thousand feet nearly two miles?
Speaker 3 (11:07):
Hey?
Speaker 2 (11:08):
See how the sides of the trough, the trench walls
keep going straight up and down like the sides of
an underseas mountain, which is what it really is. The
water temperature outside must because of zero at this depth. Yes,
I would think so, and to hope Waybridge was right.
But the windows of the portals will hold up against
the pressure and the end against the contrast and temperatures
inside and outside the sphere. We're past twenty one thousand
(11:33):
feet and still dropping. Oh there has got to be
an end. You are right?
Speaker 5 (11:38):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (11:39):
Yes, uh great? You I'm pretty warm and I'm gonna
take my shirt off me too. I'm bathed in perspiration,
any change in the scenery, Just more slabs of rock,
once in a while, a huge gigantic sponge growing out
of the rock. Then there's some coral you jellyfish? No, no, no, no,
(12:02):
why I think we've gone to the last stop?
Speaker 1 (12:05):
Star, What you're reading.
Speaker 2 (12:07):
So almost twenty six thousand feet? Wow? Can you believe it?
Five miles? I turned the lights on all over the place. Star.
It's beautiful. It's just beautiful.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
Not many fish?
Speaker 2 (12:24):
Well at this depth, what do you expect? Well, there
are a few, and they're so brightly colored. Yes, in
spite of the darkness. There must be some kind of
built in headlights that we can't see that lets them
see one another. I'd say all of them are blind.
And maybe hold it, still, hold it. Look at that
big one coming right at us. The size of him
(12:47):
and how slow he moves. He must be the grandfather
of everything down here. He's pushing his nose right against
the glass. How can he live under this pressure? I
don't know, But the fact is he's very much alive.
And that is what I find so hard to believe.
What are you talking about?
Speaker 3 (13:06):
Look? Star?
Speaker 2 (13:07):
Either I'm dreaming and this is all some kind of
crazy nightmare, or for what Take a very good look
at old Grahampa out there? What about Star? That species
of fish has been dead extinct for over one hundred
million years. Scientists tell us that every form of living
(13:35):
thing had its beginnings in the sea. That the morning
of the world was started in the depths of the oceans,
in the dark, backward and abysm of time, a Shakespeare
put it. Sam Elstead and Star Norton have been startled
by the sight of a living prehistoric fish, a species
(13:56):
that died out long before there ever was a man Earth.
What other wonders will their strange journey to the bottom.
Speaker 1 (14:04):
Of the sea lead them to.
Speaker 2 (14:06):
I shall return shortly with Act two.
Speaker 3 (14:19):
In eighteen ninety six.
Speaker 2 (14:21):
The time of our story, the airplane, the automobile, radio,
all were but a gleam in the brain of geniuses.
Nothing more these discoveries were yet to come. The two
young biologists of our tail I have already accomplished a
miracle never before attempted by man. In their specially constructed
(14:43):
iron globe, equipped with every scientific device known at the time,
they have probed five miles below sea level to the
bottommost part of the oceans, in the interest of enlarging
man's knowledge of the world about him as well as
they were beneath him. They have made their first amazing discovery.
(15:05):
Take a look at that fish star. Do you remember
ever having seen anything like it before? I'm not sure,
but there's something very familiar about it. Back at college
when we were reading about things like dinosaurs and bronosaurs
and all those kind of fantastic animals.
Speaker 3 (15:21):
That lived millions of years ago.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
Yes, what about well, those were the land animals. Do
you remember what was in the sea? Let me see, now,
there was this one fish that was the ancestor of
all the amphibians, and as time went on, of other
vertebrates on land. What was the name of it? Does
the name sela camp ring any kind of a bell?
(15:43):
Of course, sela camp with the overdeveloped fins that grew
strong enough to get it out of the water and.
Speaker 1 (15:48):
Onto the land. Exactly.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
Now, take another look at old Grandpa out there, a
silicmp that's what it is. No, but there isn't any
such thing, not anymore. They've become a distinct They died
out with the dinosaurs. That's exactly the point.
Speaker 3 (16:04):
Those prehistoric monsters.
Speaker 2 (16:05):
Died out over one hundred million years ago. Only nobody
ever told that to our friend out there? What's that
a storm down here?
Speaker 1 (16:15):
Are you out of your mind?
Speaker 2 (16:16):
But then, what is it? The noise seems to have stopped.
Did you feel anything, Sam? It must have been some
sort of a minor tremor. Did you see how old
Grandpa skitered away into a cave when the noise began?
A star?
Speaker 3 (16:34):
Are you finding it hard to breathe? Not?
Speaker 2 (16:39):
Not really?
Speaker 3 (16:40):
Well?
Speaker 2 (16:41):
Maybe, yeah, a little. I had this slight headache. I'll
make a note of it, Carol, Why why don't you
take it easy for a couple of minutes. I'll take
over while you rest. I sat looking through the window
of the porthole, fascinated by what I saw. There were
hundreds of small, large eyed things, all of them certainly blind,
(17:04):
crawling sluggishly like little lobsters, across the track of our lights,
leaning furrowed trails behind them. I made notes of everything.
Suddenly I saw the outlines of the something working its
way slowly threateningly toward the Poseidon. It was upright and
(17:25):
seemed as tall.
Speaker 3 (17:27):
As a man.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
What do you suppose that is out there?
Speaker 1 (17:32):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (17:34):
I can only see them mountlines. But it's coming closer.
It's not swimming, it seems to be walking. Yeah, here,
focus your light onto its head. Okay, yeah, there we are.
Shut its eyes to close out the light. What is it?
An animal of some kind? A high shame that it's
not a fish? Certainly, no kind of fish we've ever seen.
(17:57):
It seems to be standing upright on two strong legs,
is balancing itself on a long thick tail. Look at
its dark purple head like a listener an a guama,
and and too large protruding eyes bulging out of their sockets.
Fuck a grog or toad star where the ears should be.
(18:18):
There are two large gill covers I see, and threads
or filaments flooding out of them like the bunches of
a tree. What can they be?
Speaker 1 (18:27):
I have no idea.
Speaker 2 (18:29):
The light a bit. As long as we keep the
light on it, it stands still. But when we move
the light, it moves. The skin is so loose it's
almost as if it were wearing clothes.
Speaker 3 (18:40):
Look at it.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
It's paws or thin on whatever they are.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
The shape like hands.
Speaker 2 (18:45):
Like hands on man, He's he's holding something in one
of them, A long shed.
Speaker 1 (18:53):
Of ball ticked with copper, like a hammer of some kind.
Speaker 2 (18:56):
A fledge hammer. That thing it's almost human. It's grotesque,
distorted maybe, but those are the features of a living man. Sam.
Look what it's doing now. It's blinking its eyes open,
shading them with its free hand against a light. No,
(19:18):
it's opening its mouth. That's if it were as if
we were trying to say something. I'll turn on the
listening device. Why is it ballowing that way? What does
it mean? What do you suppose you want to? I
don't know, Star, but I think we're about to find
out speaking it's asking who we are.
Speaker 1 (19:48):
It's coming closer, he answered old.
Speaker 2 (20:03):
No, no, no, stay perfectly still, don't care. Look at
him now, moving sideways to get out of the glare
of our light. He's disappeared. I can't see him, neither
can I. He may have moved around to the back
(20:25):
of us. He's around somewhere hiding. What's that The whole
globe swaying? Star. Look look at the glass, peering right
into the porthole. Their noses pressed against the glass. There
popping eyes staring in at us. Now there are two
(20:45):
of them, another couple of coffee missee said, thank you,
doctor wave Vich.
Speaker 4 (20:56):
We'll make this the last one. What time is it now, you.
Speaker 3 (21:01):
Just asked, did I? There's almost two o'clock. The boys
have surely.
Speaker 2 (21:06):
Started up on their way back now, I hope, so
they can only get through to.
Speaker 3 (21:11):
Us some way.
Speaker 2 (21:12):
All I have to do is put the clockwork mechanism
in action.
Speaker 3 (21:15):
And up they go.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
And that's foolproof. Nothing is absolutely foolproof, my dear. But
there's nothing to be concerned about. It's also simple. The
mechanism outside the globe releases a spring knife.
Speaker 4 (21:28):
The knife cuts the cord that holds.
Speaker 2 (21:30):
The ballot exactly, and then they just get rid of
enough ballast for them to float upward to the surface.
Matter of a couple of hours more or less another
hour and a half been very three point thirty. You
should have your husband right back here on the deck
of the Nemo. What on earth of us monkey is
(21:57):
trying to do banging on the outside of the sphere
with the sledge.
Speaker 3 (22:00):
Every once in a while they stop and then then
peer in through the portholes.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
They're away from there. Stop that bagging. They're looking at them,
just to see what effect their hammering is having on us.
Speaker 3 (22:11):
Star what's our death.
Speaker 2 (22:13):
It's still twenty six thousand pressure satisfactory actygen and I
have to stay submerged for at least another hour if
we have to, before surfacing and the mechanism for the
release of the ballast ready anytime, you say, Sam, I
took a particular care of that one myself before we
came down here. Don't get anywhere near the ballust released
(22:36):
or the glades of the porthole windows.
Speaker 3 (22:37):
We're in real trouble.
Speaker 2 (22:39):
I'm going to turn on the listening device. Hear what
they're saying. I'm finding it a little hard to breathe.
Speaker 3 (22:49):
I don't find breathing any easier than you do.
Speaker 2 (22:52):
Then, what is it? I don't know? All right, turn
out in the place.
Speaker 3 (22:57):
What do you hear?
Speaker 2 (22:59):
What are they let me listen?
Speaker 6 (23:18):
Hellas getting screw.
Speaker 2 (23:24):
Turned off?
Speaker 3 (23:25):
You hear what he said?
Speaker 2 (23:27):
I heard they declared war on a star and we
haven't a single weapon to fight back with except one.
It's the only thing we can do. We've got to
cut our ballast lines and get out of here as
fast as our ship will take us.
Speaker 1 (23:41):
Yes, there's no choice.
Speaker 2 (23:43):
What why are happening?
Speaker 1 (23:45):
What's happening?
Speaker 2 (23:47):
Starm sorry, I think we're moving. Oh, shut me up.
Yet it not up. There's much of sidewise. How could
that be?
Speaker 1 (23:55):
I don't know. But the spear is beginning to spin.
I think we're being drunk through the Do you see anything?
Speaker 2 (24:01):
No, nothing, nothing, there's nobody out there. We've got to
get out of here just as fast as we can
as monsters out there, puppy pas the line of some
kinds of sphere. Well, if they have, once we cut
the ballast lines and start shooting up to the surface,
blode back the wine right out of there.
Speaker 1 (24:16):
Round the little hands like, why do you suppose they're
telling you so?
Speaker 2 (24:20):
Well? I wouldn't know. You look at them, can you
see them?
Speaker 3 (24:23):
Star?
Speaker 2 (24:24):
There must be at least five hundred of them, jumping
around like a pack of crazy kangaroos, and they are
pulling us. Well, let them and let us keep our
minds on getting up to the Nemo. Waverridge calculated about
two hours of me said, could we drop more ballast
than we've planned and get up any sooner?
Speaker 7 (24:41):
No?
Speaker 2 (24:41):
No, no, I wouldn't there if the slightest thing went wrong.
We both get to the surface.
Speaker 3 (24:46):
All right. But there's a couple of corpses. Hey, how
you feel?
Speaker 2 (24:51):
It's not too well sent? The headache has tightened around
my head like an iron band. Oh no, no, not
another earthquake. But here, take this hand to your Star.
Speaker 3 (25:04):
You've got a bit of a nosebleed.
Speaker 1 (25:06):
I don't feel too well.
Speaker 2 (25:08):
At all, Sam.
Speaker 5 (25:11):
I think I'm gonna pass out of it, not before
we put the clockwork into action and get rid of
some of this ballast that he Stars that while I
regulate the pressure gage and the oxygen control.
Speaker 2 (25:24):
You you cut half the ballast now, now, Star, Now
what are you waiting for?
Speaker 1 (25:30):
Stock?
Speaker 2 (25:31):
Sam? It's not working.
Speaker 1 (25:34):
The mechanisms come down.
Speaker 3 (25:35):
Are you out of your mind?
Speaker 1 (25:37):
It's deck to.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
Work, and you make it. See for yourself. Nothing's happening.
May be a piece of seaweader, or something is temporarily jammed.
Speaker 3 (25:46):
I said, what friends out there?
Speaker 2 (25:49):
Yeah? Is it possible? Then you are lot depended on
the ballast mechanism, and that they have destroyed it by
knocking it out with it, but they sledge hammers here.
You may be right, but we've got to keep trying.
Speaker 3 (26:03):
Star.
Speaker 2 (26:03):
We have got to between those crazy devils.
Speaker 1 (26:07):
Out there and what may be an earthquake We're.
Speaker 2 (26:11):
In trouble, very serious trouble. In this strange world of
heavy blackness. A swarm of luminous, man sized creatures, looking
(26:33):
almost human have appeared outside the iron globe Poseidon. They
have lifted it off the bottom of the sea. The
attempts of young Elstad and Norton to break away, to
rise to the surface and the safety of the mothership
seemed to be thwarted by these weird sea animals, or
(26:53):
are dragging them off to where two Act three. Of
course I shall return shortly.
Speaker 3 (27:11):
The sea, we have been told, is the.
Speaker 2 (27:14):
Right hand man of time. Every secret since the beginning
of time lies hidden somewhere in the water's depths. The
time in this instance is eighteen ninety six. Outside the
underwater globe Poseidon, a funnel of pale light pierces the
darkness for a few yards, disclosing the peaceful, undulating expanses
(27:39):
of graying white ooze. Broken here and there by the
tangled thickets of a growth of sea lilies waving their
hungry tentacles. Inside the metal globe, two men scrambled desperately
to free themselves from what seems to be the inevitable
to escape from them apparels of the unknown to the
(28:02):
safety of the dome far you've cut the lines on
that ballast. Every extra minute we stay down here is
another minute off our lives. Telling the best I can, Sam,
cutting mechanism. It just isn't working. I'm almost sure those.
Speaker 1 (28:22):
Devils smashed the cockwood mechanism.
Speaker 2 (28:24):
We have got to go on hoping that they didn't,
that it's only being blocked by something. I hope you're right.
Speaker 3 (28:31):
Well, I'm turning the oxygen.
Speaker 2 (28:33):
Supply down a bit, and the apparatus for purging what
we breathe out up and now not too much, Sam.
I'm having trouble enough breathing as it is.
Speaker 3 (28:44):
And so are you.
Speaker 2 (28:46):
I'm going to crouch down low, close to the lower porthole.
Speaker 3 (28:50):
I'm going to throw my way to that side.
Speaker 2 (28:52):
Maybe I can get a look at what's happening below.
Speaker 1 (28:55):
It's a good idea. Do you see anything now?
Speaker 2 (29:00):
It's just some huge, huge cracks in the sea bottom.
I can just barely make them out anything else.
Speaker 3 (29:08):
Our friends have some kind of cable on us. He's
still very much with us.
Speaker 2 (29:13):
I get anything to know where they're taking us, Yes,
wherever it is staring, But I hope it's soon, because
the way things are going, you don't have to say
it sooner or later that oxygen engage can read it perfectly.
Speaker 1 (29:27):
Round Zera.
Speaker 2 (29:28):
I wish we will never see then it will matter
where those monkeys have taken us, will it? Oh?
Speaker 3 (29:35):
Any look in the balance lines?
Speaker 2 (29:36):
No? Nothing, you know, I've heard of dead men being
buried at sea. This may be the first time it's
going to happen to two men we're still alive.
Speaker 3 (29:48):
What time is it story?
Speaker 2 (29:50):
Nearly four o'clock now. I hope my wife won't be
too disappointed. She doesn't have turtle steak for dinner tonight.
Speaker 4 (30:06):
Isn't there anything we can do, doctor Waybridge?
Speaker 2 (30:09):
Look for the past. Oh, we've been sweeping slowly in
a spiral around the spot where the Poseidon submerged, with.
Speaker 1 (30:14):
No sign of it.
Speaker 4 (30:16):
I don't think I can stand it any longer, Doctor Waybrier.
Speaker 3 (30:19):
You've got to get hold of yourself.
Speaker 2 (30:21):
Doris, What possibly could have happened? I couldn't say.
Speaker 4 (30:25):
Maybe the windows burst in on them and mashed them
to pieces.
Speaker 2 (30:28):
Oh, I doubt that very much.
Speaker 4 (30:29):
Maybe the clockwork's gone wrong.
Speaker 3 (30:31):
Well that's not very likely either, But if.
Speaker 4 (30:33):
It has, Sam and star are down there, five miles
under our feet, and the cold and the dark, anchored
in that little bubble of yours, counting off the minutes
of life there is still left.
Speaker 2 (30:45):
Harways, stop that, stop it and listen to me. If
anything serious has gone wrong, and I'm sure it hasn't,
remember they have enough oxygen for another good hour. At least,
it's too soon to start worrying. You've got to be patient.
Speaker 4 (31:01):
If there were only something we could.
Speaker 2 (31:03):
Do, no shop that doors, stop it.
Speaker 1 (31:07):
I can't help it. It's so funny.
Speaker 4 (31:10):
What pitiful, arrogant little creatures, we humans are down there,
miles and miles of water, reaching to Lord knows where,
and this beautiful blue sky stretching out over us with
no end, and we proud, insignificant little pygmies feel we
(31:30):
have to conquer it all. Why do we have to
stick our big noses into every unknown secret of the universe?
Speaker 2 (31:38):
Why can't we let things alone? Do you see anything now?
Speaker 1 (31:49):
You stop on the spinning?
Speaker 2 (31:51):
Stopped? So it's the rocking.
Speaker 3 (31:53):
Some funny is happening out there. It seems who got lighter?
Speaker 2 (31:58):
As if there were a broad horizon and tale luminous
sky and our friends They've got a suspended like a
balloon some hundred or so feet above the bottom. Seem
to be thousands of them. O, what is it? Star?
(32:19):
There's a whole city down there, streets and houses and
weaving trees spread all over the place. There's a building
much taller than the rest. It looks like a ruined
abbey or a cathedral of some kind. Take a look
for yourself. You're absolutely right. It's all laid out like
(32:43):
a big map. But none of the houses have a roof.
Look you can see and sign every one of them, dreaming.
Speaker 5 (32:50):
So so white, Sam, Where are we?
Speaker 2 (32:56):
Where have they taken us? They've got us inside the
walls now they're made a water logged wooden twisted top
of wire rope and iron spars, and and what the
dead white bones and skulls of human beings all over
(33:19):
the place, even zigzaglines and spirals, heavy curves. Let me
take a look, a wusness of silvery little fish darting
in and out of the eye sockets. Are those devils? Now?
Speaker 3 (33:34):
What are they up to?
Speaker 2 (33:36):
Lying down flat on their bellies prostrating themselves in front
of her globe? All except I'm very joy and standing
in front of them, gas on top of a platform
and crusted with more skulls and bones on it's it's
a woman, her scales or whatever they are. It looks
(33:56):
like a shining room of some kind, and she's got
a crown on the head. She just stands there above
the rest of them, opening and shutting that sneak mount
of hers, as if she were leading the others in
some kind of prayer. I'm turning on the listening device.
Speaker 6 (34:12):
Ah, beloved peopul of perfectual night, blend ear to what
I say.
Speaker 8 (34:23):
It has been told that there.
Speaker 6 (34:26):
Exists another world above us, a strange heaven of the
light of the sun, the moon, the stars.
Speaker 2 (34:40):
Seems she's the high priestess of this place.
Speaker 6 (34:43):
The ancient scroll hell of fantastic creatures who inhabit this
unknown world, creatures who breathe air.
Speaker 2 (34:58):
Who know a.
Speaker 8 (35:00):
Thing called fire, whose blood is warm. We know them
from the bone and from the skulls we have.
Speaker 6 (35:13):
Collected, and you're two of these shining creatures have rained
down upon us like a bleected meteor out of the
mysterious blackness of our watery styles.
Speaker 7 (35:34):
We must show them our.
Speaker 1 (35:37):
Reverence and our love.
Speaker 7 (35:42):
These are the gods that we're described in our ancient writings.
These are the gods to whom we must do honor.
Speaker 2 (35:57):
She's talking about us, Sam, I.
Speaker 7 (36:00):
Know we must now release them.
Speaker 6 (36:04):
From the star that brought them to us, so.
Speaker 7 (36:09):
We may worship them with bolness. Oh, you may throw seeds.
Speaker 2 (36:18):
What are they gonna do?
Speaker 3 (36:20):
You hear they're going to release us from our star.
They're going to open this thing and let us out.
Speaker 2 (36:27):
But that's a certain death set in sex. That's the choice,
suffocation from lack of oxygen or drowning. They they're back
at the windows.
Speaker 1 (36:38):
If they managed to crack one of them, w it's
not likely.
Speaker 3 (36:41):
The glass is three inches thick.
Speaker 2 (36:47):
We can hear the band, but it's been cut by
the rocks. We're going on Star.
Speaker 3 (36:57):
I can't believe it.
Speaker 2 (36:58):
We're rising up. Oh, we could feel the impacted. The
glowed shooting up to the surface, slowed only by some
of the lead ballast that was still attached to it.
Star had already passed out. Then something like a huge
wheel was suddenly released in my head, spinning around and around.
(37:19):
I flung with every ounce of sprite left in my
body to hold on, but in seconds I two collapsed
and lost consciousness completely. The next thing I saw was
the face of my wife looking anxiously into mine.
Speaker 1 (37:38):
Are you all right, darling?
Speaker 2 (37:40):
I suppose so, Queer Star still with the ship's doctor.
He'll be all right. So right there for a while, Sam,
But I led your back. You have no idea how
glad I am to be back, doctor Waybridge. For what happened,
Let's say, let's say we had a couple of anxious moments.
(38:02):
The main thing is you're here. Whatever it was, you're
very lucky. And doctor says that you'll both be back
to your normal selves in a couple of days. Where
did we surface that I blacked out Before I could
tell the Poseadon shot up out of the water, not
more than a quarter of a.
Speaker 3 (38:17):
Mile from where we were waiting.
Speaker 2 (38:19):
We unscrewed the hatch and found the two of you
lying crumpled up on the bottom.
Speaker 4 (38:23):
They couldn't tell whether you were dead or alive.
Speaker 1 (38:26):
What really made.
Speaker 2 (38:27):
Us swallow hard was the fact that you.
Speaker 4 (38:28):
Had only six minutes of oxygen left.
Speaker 3 (38:32):
Six minutes.
Speaker 2 (38:32):
That's all I want.
Speaker 3 (38:36):
Let you hold in your hand.
Speaker 2 (38:37):
Doctor. Well, I thought after you arrested, you might be
able to tell me for what is it well. In
going over the outside of the sphere, one of the
boys found these two little things jammed into the clockwork mechanism.
Speaker 3 (38:51):
May I see them?
Speaker 2 (38:52):
Please handle them carefully, Doris. A specimen of sea animal
I've never seen in my entire professional spaceperience.
Speaker 4 (39:01):
About five inches long, heads like a lizard of some kind,
strong legs, wide, flat tail.
Speaker 2 (39:09):
Look at the petrol fins, if you can call them that,
like little human hands.
Speaker 1 (39:15):
Their faces, in some.
Speaker 4 (39:17):
Peculiar well look pretty human too.
Speaker 2 (39:20):
Did you come across any of them down there, Sam,
We saw something like them, but what we saw is
longer than five inches. I remind you that seen through
the three inch thick glass of your portholes, they would
have been magnified. Magnified of course, at least twelve or
fifteen times from where you sat. One of these fellows,
(39:43):
if you had seen them, would have appeared to have
been almost as big as a man, as big as
a man. What are you thinking, is doctor? I can't
be sure, but what you brought up may will be
a kind of prehistoric cross between some kind of fish
I hang over from a long forgotten past and what
(40:06):
millions of years later was to evolve into a man.
If I told you we've seen thousands of them, that
they attacked us, and that their top lady tried to
make gods of us, would you say that we had
gone out of our minds? No, not out of your minds,
(40:27):
but definitely out of this world. Some scientists have stated
without equivocation that they see no reason why, under certain conditions,
intelligent water breathing vertebrates could not live at the bottom
(40:51):
of the deepest sea. Of course, you're entirely free to
disagree with the scientists and say that Elstead in Norton,
suffering from a lack of oxygen, may have dreamed the
whole thing up. The choice is entirely yours. I shall
be back shortly out. In February nineteen seventy six, three
(41:12):
men in a craft called the Alvin actually made a
journey two miles deep into the waters of the Caribbean
off Grand Cayman Island. Their findings were a little short
of astonishing. What is most remarkable is that so many
of the things they saw were identical to what H. G.
(41:33):
Wells created out of his imagination over eighty years ago.
In the story you have just heard. Our cast included
Christopher Tabori, Earl Hammond, Court Benson and Katherine Byers. The
entire production was under the direction of Hymon Brown Radio.
Mystery Theater was sponsored in part by Contact, the twelve
(41:54):
Hour Cold Capsule and Buick Motor Division. Missus E. G.
Marshall inviting you to return to our Mystery Theater for
another adventure in the macabre. Until next time, pleasant dreams.
Remember fifty I see you where your money rose like magic.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Come in Welcome. I'm a g Marshall. Over two thirds
of the globe on which we live is water, the oceans,
the sea. From the beginning of time, Let's sea around
us has been a source of mystery, an enormous, watery
(00:43):
world of fear of the unknown. To some, like the
great American poet Walt Whitman, it was also a place
of miracles. To me, he said, the sea is a
continuous miracle. The fishes that swim, the rocks, the motion
of the waves, the ships with men in them. What
stranger miracles are there? Our mystery drama City of the
(01:17):
Dead was adapted from the HG. Wells short story in
The Abyss, especially for the Mystery Theater by Arnold Moss.
It stars Christopher Tabori and Earl Hammond. It is sponsored
in part by Anhuser Busch Incorporated, brewers of Budweiser and
Certaintyed Fiberglass attic Insulation. I'll be back shortly with that
(01:40):
wandless nat. Remember the year is eighteen ninety six, more
than eighty years ago. In a marine biological laboratory in
(02:00):
New England, a little group of scientists and technicians are
gathered before doctor Stanley Weybridge, director of the Institute and
chief of a newly developing science called Ocean of Graphic Studies.
He stands pointer in hand before an enlarged wall map
of the Caribbean Sea as he concludes a briefing on
(02:22):
the most adventurous, the most perilous project ever undertaken by
the Institute. I cannot say, gentlemen, that the plan is
without danger. I wish I could. Indeed, there is every
risk imaginable, but I assure you that no precaution, even
the most minute, will be overlooked. Every safety device we
(02:42):
know of will be used. Are there any questions? Yes,
and doctor Weybridge, will you tell us a little more
about the place we're going to? The Cabridge Trough. Well,
it starts about here on the map, deep off the
coast Haiti. Here you see how it follows a southwesterly
(03:02):
course for almost one thousand miles to the Pacific coast
of Guatemala. Yes, sir, that big crack on the map there, well,
that huge crack in the surface of the Earth was
produced by movements within the Earth, movements which have never
really stopped, which accounts for the frequent earthquakes in that
part of the world. So far as we know, the
(03:23):
trough is the deepest point of the sea on the
entire face of the globe. Do we know how deep
the trough is now? We've taken soundings in some places
over twenty two thousand feet.
Speaker 3 (03:36):
It's more than.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
Four miles, And in six months from.
Speaker 3 (03:39):
Now that's where Star.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
And I will be making the dive. Correct. The mother
ship the Captain Nemo will be stationed right about here,
not far off the coast of Grand Cayman Island itself,
and the Poseidon our little home away from home. The
steel globe that will be our transportation.
Speaker 3 (03:58):
To the bottom of nowhere will.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
Be detached and dropped from the stern of a Nemo
from this scaffolding here on the drawing. It's constructed a
three inch steel eight feet in diameter, with all the
comforts of home right special air cushions padding the inside.
Two portholes near the bottom of the craft so we
can play peekaboo with the Barracuda. The windows of the
(04:20):
portholes are made of a special variety of glass three
inches thick to withstand the pressures you'll meet at that debt,
Doctor Weybridge. We have volunteered for what I'm sure will
turn out to be a huge barrel of fun. A
little dangerous maybe, but fun. Sam, be serious for a moment.
I give you my word that everything will be minutely inspected.
(04:43):
The barrel's device for submerging and getting back up again,
the pressure mechanisms, the depth indicator, the oxygen supply, the
Myers apparatus for purging the carbon dioxide you'll be exhaling.
We thought of everything, everything except that we won't be
able to communicate with you on the surface in case
of trouble. Well, that is true.
Speaker 3 (05:04):
It's the one thing we'd.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
Like to do, but we can't. I understand. Once we
start down, we'll be free floating entirely on our own.
For the next six months, you two will go through
the most intensive training possible in handling the sphere. I
wish I were young enough to see for myself firsthand
the things you're going to see.
Speaker 3 (05:25):
Have you any idea like what?
Speaker 2 (05:28):
No, not exactly, but there have to be things down
there that no living man has ever experienced, Things that
go beyond the wildest dreams of our imagination, Sam Star,
the day has come when man through you is about
to prove some of the darkest mysteries of the universe.
(05:58):
Thank you, doctor Weybridge for me getting my wife to
come afore. Dorris is one of the best research assistants
the Institute's ever had.
Speaker 3 (06:06):
She's more than welcome.
Speaker 4 (06:07):
Thank you, doctor way Pitch.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
I end the famine Star.
Speaker 4 (06:10):
I wish I were going with them.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
You picked a perfect day for this Caribbean holiday, didn't
you die here? Yes, clear sky, blazing sun and a
gentle swell. Water temperature is nearly eighty an ideal day
for swinging this twenty tons of iron out into the briny.
Say nothing of the two utterly defenseless young men inside
that I you know, doctor, last night Doris and I
(06:34):
were making some quick calculations. At the surface, the pressure
is of fourteen pounds for square inch. I'm thirty feet down.
At double that, right, and at a mile that's five
two hundred and eighty feet.
Speaker 4 (06:45):
The pressure becomes something like a ton and a half
per square.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
Inch, and at five miles Yes, I know, I know,
but you've got the steel walls of the globe to
protect you, and the globe is pressurized.
Speaker 3 (06:58):
We put that sphere through every test we could think of.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
The margin fererra has been reduced to the absolute minimum.
Then it's eleven fifty six boys, four minutes to noon
and the descent of the poseidon for beare to climb
the scaffolding for boarding, Yes, sir, ready, sir. At one
final review of the procedure. Now the two of you
will let yourselves into the open porthole. It will lend
(07:23):
me stood into place from the outside. The sphere will
be hoisted over the side the line's cut and the
sphere dropped.
Speaker 3 (07:30):
Into the sea.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
You understand, Oh, yes, we understand, sir. And once in
the water only we have control of the ballast right,
and you will regulate ballast so as to let yourselves
down gently. Thirty five minutes for the descent and then
an hour for observation and two hours for coming up,
total little over three and a half hours. Your oxygen
(07:52):
supplies good for five hours for each of you. We'll
watch it like hawks and the pressure indicators. We'll be
lying off a couple of miles to the southeast and
so you don't collide with us. Is your service any questions?
One last request, sir, if there's time, I like to
kiss my wife.
Speaker 4 (08:12):
I love you, Sam.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
Oh, don't worry, dear, I think everything's going to be fine,
just one hundred percent fine. Oh, and remember we've got
a big date for a turtle steak when I get
back up. At exactly twelve noon, they swung us overboard.
My heart nearly burst with excitement as they let us
down foot by foot to the surface of the water,
(08:35):
and then they cut the line that attached us to
the tackle above us. For a moment, we seemed to
be stationary, and then with a gigantic splash, the sea
closed over us and we started our journey. Well this
is it, Star, What are you thinking? How my mother
always hoped I'd grow up to be a brilliant criminal
(08:56):
lawyer instead of a marine biologist. That's very funny, So
did my mother, only she wanted me to be a doctor.
Look above you, Star, I'm trying to, but that huge
burst of air bubble shooting upward is blocking the view.
Just about gone by. Now quickly the color of the
sea changes from light greenish blue, darker and darker to
(09:18):
that rich blue of stained glass windows. Yes, and now
it's almost midnight blue. How far down.
Speaker 3 (09:24):
Are we.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
A little over six hundred feet? Could mark that in
your log? Absolutely pitch black already like velvet. I better
turn on the electric spot.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
No, no, not just yet.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
Take a look at those Why it's like a whole
world of tiny blinking lights. What do you suppose they are?
With the faintest idea, they're flashing by so fast like
streaks of green lightning, some of them strung together like
a train racing barn, a very dark knight. Orright, turn
on the floodlights. Oh no, they all disappeared with the light.
Oh wait, wait, wait a minute, will you take a
(09:58):
look at that? Names reverse snowfall Waybridge and the divers
told us about as if millions and millions of little
snowflakes were falling up as we go plunging down, some
of them living creatures, and the others the remains of
those that have died. Right head of the class, mister Norton,
just keep your fingers crossed that we don't wind up
(10:18):
as part of a reverse snowfall. We kept hard and falling,
falling down down, faster and faster. It was like being
in an elevator in one of those new skyscrapers, and
the cable that holds it in place suddenly breaks, and
you keep going down, waiting for the inevitable crash that
(10:38):
will destroy it. And you.
Speaker 3 (10:41):
Are you all right?
Speaker 2 (10:42):
Star? You look a little uncomfortable. It's got a little warm. Hell,
I guess we underestimated the effect of the friction of
the globe against the water. And we'd better take off
some of these heavy clothes. A careful, don't touch the
glass of the porthole.
Speaker 3 (10:58):
You might burn yourself.
Speaker 2 (11:01):
Where are we over ten thousand feet nearly two miles?
Speaker 3 (11:07):
Hey?
Speaker 2 (11:08):
See how the sides of the trough, the trench walls
keep going straight up and down like the sides of
an underseas mountain, which is what it really is. The
water temperature outside must because of zero at this depth. Yes,
I would think so, and to hope Waybridge was right.
But the windows of the portals will hold up against
the pressure and the end against the contrast and temperatures
inside and outside the sphere. We're past twenty one thousand
(11:33):
feet and still dropping. Oh there has got to be
an end. You are right?
Speaker 5 (11:38):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (11:39):
Yes, uh great? You I'm pretty warm and I'm gonna
take my shirt off me too. I'm bathed in perspiration,
any change in the scenery, Just more slabs of rock,
once in a while, a huge gigantic sponge growing out
of the rock. Then there's some coral you jellyfish? No, no, no, no,
(12:02):
why I think we've gone to the last stop?
Speaker 1 (12:05):
Star, What you're reading.
Speaker 2 (12:07):
So almost twenty six thousand feet? Wow? Can you believe it?
Five miles? I turned the lights on all over the place. Star.
It's beautiful. It's just beautiful.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
Not many fish?
Speaker 2 (12:24):
Well at this depth, what do you expect? Well, there
are a few, and they're so brightly colored. Yes, in
spite of the darkness. There must be some kind of
built in headlights that we can't see that lets them
see one another. I'd say all of them are blind.
And maybe hold it, still, hold it. Look at that
big one coming right at us. The size of him
(12:47):
and how slow he moves. He must be the grandfather
of everything down here. He's pushing his nose right against
the glass. How can he live under this pressure? I
don't know, But the fact is he's very much alive.
And that is what I find so hard to believe.
What are you talking about?
Speaker 3 (13:06):
Look? Star?
Speaker 2 (13:07):
Either I'm dreaming and this is all some kind of
crazy nightmare, or for what Take a very good look
at old Grahampa out there? What about Star? That species
of fish has been dead extinct for over one hundred
million years. Scientists tell us that every form of living
(13:35):
thing had its beginnings in the sea. That the morning
of the world was started in the depths of the oceans,
in the dark, backward and abysm of time, a Shakespeare
put it. Sam Elstead and Star Norton have been startled
by the sight of a living prehistoric fish, a species
(13:56):
that died out long before there ever was a man Earth.
What other wonders will their strange journey to the bottom.
Speaker 1 (14:04):
Of the sea lead them to.
Speaker 2 (14:06):
I shall return shortly with Act two.
Speaker 3 (14:19):
In eighteen ninety six.
Speaker 2 (14:21):
The time of our story, the airplane, the automobile, radio,
all were but a gleam in the brain of geniuses.
Nothing more these discoveries were yet to come. The two
young biologists of our tail I have already accomplished a
miracle never before attempted by man. In their specially constructed
(14:43):
iron globe, equipped with every scientific device known at the time,
they have probed five miles below sea level to the
bottommost part of the oceans, in the interest of enlarging
man's knowledge of the world about him as well as
they were beneath him. They have made their first amazing discovery.
(15:05):
Take a look at that fish star. Do you remember
ever having seen anything like it before? I'm not sure,
but there's something very familiar about it. Back at college
when we were reading about things like dinosaurs and bronosaurs
and all those kind of fantastic animals.
Speaker 3 (15:21):
That lived millions of years ago.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
Yes, what about well, those were the land animals. Do
you remember what was in the sea? Let me see, now,
there was this one fish that was the ancestor of
all the amphibians, and as time went on, of other
vertebrates on land. What was the name of it? Does
the name sela camp ring any kind of a bell?
(15:43):
Of course, sela camp with the overdeveloped fins that grew
strong enough to get it out of the water and.
Speaker 1 (15:48):
Onto the land. Exactly.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
Now, take another look at old Grandpa out there, a
silicmp that's what it is. No, but there isn't any
such thing, not anymore. They've become a distinct They died
out with the dinosaurs. That's exactly the point.
Speaker 3 (16:04):
Those prehistoric monsters.
Speaker 2 (16:05):
Died out over one hundred million years ago. Only nobody
ever told that to our friend out there? What's that
a storm down here?
Speaker 1 (16:15):
Are you out of your mind?
Speaker 2 (16:16):
But then, what is it? The noise seems to have stopped.
Did you feel anything, Sam? It must have been some
sort of a minor tremor. Did you see how old
Grandpa skitered away into a cave when the noise began?
A star?
Speaker 3 (16:34):
Are you finding it hard to breathe? Not?
Speaker 2 (16:39):
Not really?
Speaker 3 (16:40):
Well?
Speaker 2 (16:41):
Maybe, yeah, a little. I had this slight headache. I'll
make a note of it, Carol, Why why don't you
take it easy for a couple of minutes. I'll take
over while you rest. I sat looking through the window
of the porthole, fascinated by what I saw. There were
hundreds of small, large eyed things, all of them certainly blind,
(17:04):
crawling sluggishly like little lobsters, across the track of our lights,
leaning furrowed trails behind them. I made notes of everything.
Suddenly I saw the outlines of the something working its
way slowly threateningly toward the Poseidon. It was upright and
(17:25):
seemed as tall.
Speaker 3 (17:27):
As a man.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
What do you suppose that is out there?
Speaker 1 (17:32):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (17:34):
I can only see them mountlines. But it's coming closer.
It's not swimming, it seems to be walking. Yeah, here,
focus your light onto its head. Okay, yeah, there we are.
Shut its eyes to close out the light. What is it?
An animal of some kind? A high shame that it's
not a fish? Certainly, no kind of fish we've ever seen.
(17:57):
It seems to be standing upright on two strong legs,
is balancing itself on a long thick tail. Look at
its dark purple head like a listener an a guama,
and and too large protruding eyes bulging out of their sockets.
Fuck a grog or toad star where the ears should be.
(18:18):
There are two large gill covers I see, and threads
or filaments flooding out of them like the bunches of
a tree. What can they be?
Speaker 1 (18:27):
I have no idea.
Speaker 2 (18:29):
The light a bit. As long as we keep the
light on it, it stands still. But when we move
the light, it moves. The skin is so loose it's
almost as if it were wearing clothes.
Speaker 3 (18:40):
Look at it.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
It's paws or thin on whatever they are.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
The shape like hands.
Speaker 2 (18:45):
Like hands on man, He's he's holding something in one
of them, A long shed.
Speaker 1 (18:53):
Of ball ticked with copper, like a hammer of some kind.
Speaker 2 (18:56):
A fledge hammer. That thing it's almost human. It's grotesque,
distorted maybe, but those are the features of a living man. Sam.
Look what it's doing now. It's blinking its eyes open,
shading them with its free hand against a light. No,
(19:18):
it's opening its mouth. That's if it were as if
we were trying to say something. I'll turn on the
listening device. Why is it ballowing that way? What does
it mean? What do you suppose you want to? I
don't know, Star, but I think we're about to find
out speaking it's asking who we are.
Speaker 1 (19:48):
It's coming closer, he answered old.
Speaker 2 (20:03):
No, no, no, stay perfectly still, don't care. Look at
him now, moving sideways to get out of the glare
of our light. He's disappeared. I can't see him, neither
can I. He may have moved around to the back
(20:25):
of us. He's around somewhere hiding. What's that The whole
globe swaying? Star. Look look at the glass, peering right
into the porthole. Their noses pressed against the glass. There
popping eyes staring in at us. Now there are two
(20:45):
of them, another couple of coffee missee said, thank you,
doctor wave Vich.
Speaker 4 (20:56):
We'll make this the last one. What time is it now, you.
Speaker 3 (21:01):
Just asked, did I? There's almost two o'clock. The boys
have surely.
Speaker 2 (21:06):
Started up on their way back now, I hope, so
they can only get through to.
Speaker 3 (21:11):
Us some way.
Speaker 2 (21:12):
All I have to do is put the clockwork mechanism
in action.
Speaker 3 (21:15):
And up they go.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
And that's foolproof. Nothing is absolutely foolproof, my dear. But
there's nothing to be concerned about. It's also simple. The
mechanism outside the globe releases a spring knife.
Speaker 4 (21:28):
The knife cuts the cord that holds.
Speaker 2 (21:30):
The ballot exactly, and then they just get rid of
enough ballast for them to float upward to the surface.
Matter of a couple of hours more or less another
hour and a half been very three point thirty. You
should have your husband right back here on the deck
of the Nemo. What on earth of us monkey is
(21:57):
trying to do banging on the outside of the sphere
with the sledge.
Speaker 3 (22:00):
Every once in a while they stop and then then
peer in through the portholes.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
They're away from there. Stop that bagging. They're looking at them,
just to see what effect their hammering is having on us.
Speaker 3 (22:11):
Star what's our death.
Speaker 2 (22:13):
It's still twenty six thousand pressure satisfactory actygen and I
have to stay submerged for at least another hour if
we have to, before surfacing and the mechanism for the
release of the ballast ready anytime, you say, Sam, I
took a particular care of that one myself before we
came down here. Don't get anywhere near the ballust released
(22:36):
or the glades of the porthole windows.
Speaker 3 (22:37):
We're in real trouble.
Speaker 2 (22:39):
I'm going to turn on the listening device. Hear what
they're saying. I'm finding it a little hard to breathe.
Speaker 3 (22:49):
I don't find breathing any easier than you do.
Speaker 2 (22:52):
Then, what is it? I don't know? All right, turn
out in the place.
Speaker 3 (22:57):
What do you hear?
Speaker 2 (22:59):
What are they let me listen?
Speaker 6 (23:18):
Hellas getting screw.
Speaker 2 (23:24):
Turned off?
Speaker 3 (23:25):
You hear what he said?
Speaker 2 (23:27):
I heard they declared war on a star and we
haven't a single weapon to fight back with except one.
It's the only thing we can do. We've got to
cut our ballast lines and get out of here as
fast as our ship will take us.
Speaker 1 (23:41):
Yes, there's no choice.
Speaker 2 (23:43):
What why are happening?
Speaker 1 (23:45):
What's happening?
Speaker 2 (23:47):
Starm sorry, I think we're moving. Oh, shut me up.
Yet it not up. There's much of sidewise. How could
that be?
Speaker 1 (23:55):
I don't know. But the spear is beginning to spin.
I think we're being drunk through the Do you see anything?
Speaker 2 (24:01):
No, nothing, nothing, there's nobody out there. We've got to
get out of here just as fast as we can
as monsters out there, puppy pas the line of some
kinds of sphere. Well, if they have, once we cut
the ballast lines and start shooting up to the surface,
blode back the wine right out of there.
Speaker 1 (24:16):
Round the little hands like, why do you suppose they're
telling you so?
Speaker 2 (24:20):
Well? I wouldn't know. You look at them, can you
see them?
Speaker 3 (24:23):
Star?
Speaker 2 (24:24):
There must be at least five hundred of them, jumping
around like a pack of crazy kangaroos, and they are
pulling us. Well, let them and let us keep our
minds on getting up to the Nemo. Waverridge calculated about
two hours of me said, could we drop more ballast
than we've planned and get up any sooner?
Speaker 7 (24:41):
No?
Speaker 2 (24:41):
No, no, I wouldn't there if the slightest thing went wrong.
We both get to the surface.
Speaker 3 (24:46):
All right. But there's a couple of corpses. Hey, how
you feel?
Speaker 2 (24:51):
It's not too well sent? The headache has tightened around
my head like an iron band. Oh no, no, not
another earthquake. But here, take this hand to your Star.
Speaker 3 (25:04):
You've got a bit of a nosebleed.
Speaker 1 (25:06):
I don't feel too well.
Speaker 2 (25:08):
At all, Sam.
Speaker 5 (25:11):
I think I'm gonna pass out of it, not before
we put the clockwork into action and get rid of
some of this ballast that he Stars that while I
regulate the pressure gage and the oxygen control.
Speaker 2 (25:24):
You you cut half the ballast now, now, Star, Now
what are you waiting for?
Speaker 1 (25:30):
Stock?
Speaker 2 (25:31):
Sam? It's not working.
Speaker 1 (25:34):
The mechanisms come down.
Speaker 3 (25:35):
Are you out of your mind?
Speaker 1 (25:37):
It's deck to.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
Work, and you make it. See for yourself. Nothing's happening.
May be a piece of seaweader, or something is temporarily jammed.
Speaker 3 (25:46):
I said, what friends out there?
Speaker 2 (25:49):
Yeah? Is it possible? Then you are lot depended on
the ballast mechanism, and that they have destroyed it by
knocking it out with it, but they sledge hammers here.
You may be right, but we've got to keep trying.
Speaker 3 (26:03):
Star.
Speaker 2 (26:03):
We have got to between those crazy devils.
Speaker 1 (26:07):
Out there and what may be an earthquake We're.
Speaker 2 (26:11):
In trouble, very serious trouble. In this strange world of
heavy blackness. A swarm of luminous, man sized creatures, looking
(26:33):
almost human have appeared outside the iron globe Poseidon. They
have lifted it off the bottom of the sea. The
attempts of young Elstad and Norton to break away, to
rise to the surface and the safety of the mothership
seemed to be thwarted by these weird sea animals, or
(26:53):
are dragging them off to where two Act three. Of
course I shall return shortly.
Speaker 3 (27:11):
The sea, we have been told, is the.
Speaker 2 (27:14):
Right hand man of time. Every secret since the beginning
of time lies hidden somewhere in the water's depths. The
time in this instance is eighteen ninety six. Outside the
underwater globe Poseidon, a funnel of pale light pierces the
darkness for a few yards, disclosing the peaceful, undulating expanses
(27:39):
of graying white ooze. Broken here and there by the
tangled thickets of a growth of sea lilies waving their
hungry tentacles. Inside the metal globe, two men scrambled desperately
to free themselves from what seems to be the inevitable
to escape from them apparels of the unknown to the
(28:02):
safety of the dome far you've cut the lines on
that ballast. Every extra minute we stay down here is
another minute off our lives. Telling the best I can, Sam,
cutting mechanism. It just isn't working. I'm almost sure those.
Speaker 1 (28:22):
Devils smashed the cockwood mechanism.
Speaker 2 (28:24):
We have got to go on hoping that they didn't,
that it's only being blocked by something. I hope you're right.
Speaker 3 (28:31):
Well, I'm turning the oxygen.
Speaker 2 (28:33):
Supply down a bit, and the apparatus for purging what
we breathe out up and now not too much, Sam.
I'm having trouble enough breathing as it is.
Speaker 3 (28:44):
And so are you.
Speaker 2 (28:46):
I'm going to crouch down low, close to the lower porthole.
Speaker 3 (28:50):
I'm going to throw my way to that side.
Speaker 2 (28:52):
Maybe I can get a look at what's happening below.
Speaker 1 (28:55):
It's a good idea. Do you see anything now?
Speaker 2 (29:00):
It's just some huge, huge cracks in the sea bottom.
I can just barely make them out anything else.
Speaker 3 (29:08):
Our friends have some kind of cable on us. He's
still very much with us.
Speaker 2 (29:13):
I get anything to know where they're taking us, Yes,
wherever it is staring, But I hope it's soon, because
the way things are going, you don't have to say
it sooner or later that oxygen engage can read it perfectly.
Speaker 1 (29:27):
Round Zera.
Speaker 2 (29:28):
I wish we will never see then it will matter
where those monkeys have taken us, will it? Oh?
Speaker 3 (29:35):
Any look in the balance lines?
Speaker 2 (29:36):
No? Nothing, you know, I've heard of dead men being
buried at sea. This may be the first time it's
going to happen to two men we're still alive.
Speaker 3 (29:48):
What time is it story?
Speaker 2 (29:50):
Nearly four o'clock now. I hope my wife won't be
too disappointed. She doesn't have turtle steak for dinner tonight.
Speaker 4 (30:06):
Isn't there anything we can do, doctor Waybridge?
Speaker 2 (30:09):
Look for the past. Oh, we've been sweeping slowly in
a spiral around the spot where the Poseidon submerged, with.
Speaker 1 (30:14):
No sign of it.
Speaker 4 (30:16):
I don't think I can stand it any longer, Doctor Waybrier.
Speaker 3 (30:19):
You've got to get hold of yourself.
Speaker 2 (30:21):
Doris, What possibly could have happened? I couldn't say.
Speaker 4 (30:25):
Maybe the windows burst in on them and mashed them
to pieces.
Speaker 2 (30:28):
Oh, I doubt that very much.
Speaker 4 (30:29):
Maybe the clockwork's gone wrong.
Speaker 3 (30:31):
Well that's not very likely either, But if.
Speaker 4 (30:33):
It has, Sam and star are down there, five miles
under our feet, and the cold and the dark, anchored
in that little bubble of yours, counting off the minutes
of life there is still left.
Speaker 2 (30:45):
Harways, stop that, stop it and listen to me. If
anything serious has gone wrong, and I'm sure it hasn't,
remember they have enough oxygen for another good hour. At least,
it's too soon to start worrying. You've got to be patient.
Speaker 4 (31:01):
If there were only something we could.
Speaker 2 (31:03):
Do, no shop that doors, stop it.
Speaker 1 (31:07):
I can't help it. It's so funny.
Speaker 4 (31:10):
What pitiful, arrogant little creatures, we humans are down there,
miles and miles of water, reaching to Lord knows where,
and this beautiful blue sky stretching out over us with
no end, and we proud, insignificant little pygmies feel we
(31:30):
have to conquer it all. Why do we have to
stick our big noses into every unknown secret of the universe?
Speaker 2 (31:38):
Why can't we let things alone? Do you see anything now?
Speaker 1 (31:49):
You stop on the spinning?
Speaker 2 (31:51):
Stopped? So it's the rocking.
Speaker 3 (31:53):
Some funny is happening out there. It seems who got lighter?
Speaker 2 (31:58):
As if there were a broad horizon and tale luminous
sky and our friends They've got a suspended like a
balloon some hundred or so feet above the bottom. Seem
to be thousands of them. O, what is it? Star?
(32:19):
There's a whole city down there, streets and houses and
weaving trees spread all over the place. There's a building
much taller than the rest. It looks like a ruined
abbey or a cathedral of some kind. Take a look
for yourself. You're absolutely right. It's all laid out like
(32:43):
a big map. But none of the houses have a roof.
Look you can see and sign every one of them, dreaming.
Speaker 5 (32:50):
So so white, Sam, Where are we?
Speaker 2 (32:56):
Where have they taken us? They've got us inside the
walls now they're made a water logged wooden twisted top
of wire rope and iron spars, and and what the
dead white bones and skulls of human beings all over
(33:19):
the place, even zigzaglines and spirals, heavy curves. Let me
take a look, a wusness of silvery little fish darting
in and out of the eye sockets. Are those devils? Now?
Speaker 3 (33:34):
What are they up to?
Speaker 2 (33:36):
Lying down flat on their bellies prostrating themselves in front
of her globe? All except I'm very joy and standing
in front of them, gas on top of a platform
and crusted with more skulls and bones on it's it's
a woman, her scales or whatever they are. It looks
(33:56):
like a shining room of some kind, and she's got
a crown on the head. She just stands there above
the rest of them, opening and shutting that sneak mount
of hers, as if she were leading the others in
some kind of prayer. I'm turning on the listening device.
Speaker 6 (34:12):
Ah, beloved peopul of perfectual night, blend ear to what
I say.
Speaker 8 (34:23):
It has been told that there.
Speaker 6 (34:26):
Exists another world above us, a strange heaven of the
light of the sun, the moon, the stars.
Speaker 2 (34:40):
Seems she's the high priestess of this place.
Speaker 6 (34:43):
The ancient scroll hell of fantastic creatures who inhabit this
unknown world, creatures who breathe air.
Speaker 2 (34:58):
Who know a.
Speaker 8 (35:00):
Thing called fire, whose blood is warm. We know them
from the bone and from the skulls we have.
Speaker 6 (35:13):
Collected, and you're two of these shining creatures have rained
down upon us like a bleected meteor out of the
mysterious blackness of our watery styles.
Speaker 7 (35:34):
We must show them our.
Speaker 1 (35:37):
Reverence and our love.
Speaker 7 (35:42):
These are the gods that we're described in our ancient writings.
These are the gods to whom we must do honor.
Speaker 2 (35:57):
She's talking about us, Sam, I.
Speaker 7 (36:00):
Know we must now release them.
Speaker 6 (36:04):
From the star that brought them to us, so.
Speaker 7 (36:09):
We may worship them with bolness. Oh, you may throw seeds.
Speaker 2 (36:18):
What are they gonna do?
Speaker 3 (36:20):
You hear they're going to release us from our star.
They're going to open this thing and let us out.
Speaker 2 (36:27):
But that's a certain death set in sex. That's the choice,
suffocation from lack of oxygen or drowning. They they're back
at the windows.
Speaker 1 (36:38):
If they managed to crack one of them, w it's
not likely.
Speaker 3 (36:41):
The glass is three inches thick.
Speaker 2 (36:47):
We can hear the band, but it's been cut by
the rocks. We're going on Star.
Speaker 3 (36:57):
I can't believe it.
Speaker 2 (36:58):
We're rising up. Oh, we could feel the impacted. The
glowed shooting up to the surface, slowed only by some
of the lead ballast that was still attached to it.
Star had already passed out. Then something like a huge
wheel was suddenly released in my head, spinning around and around.
(37:19):
I flung with every ounce of sprite left in my
body to hold on, but in seconds I two collapsed
and lost consciousness completely. The next thing I saw was
the face of my wife looking anxiously into mine.
Speaker 1 (37:38):
Are you all right, darling?
Speaker 2 (37:40):
I suppose so, Queer Star still with the ship's doctor.
He'll be all right. So right there for a while, Sam,
But I led your back. You have no idea how
glad I am to be back, doctor Waybridge. For what happened,
Let's say, let's say we had a couple of anxious moments.
(38:02):
The main thing is you're here. Whatever it was, you're
very lucky. And doctor says that you'll both be back
to your normal selves in a couple of days. Where
did we surface that I blacked out Before I could
tell the Poseadon shot up out of the water, not
more than a quarter of a.
Speaker 3 (38:17):
Mile from where we were waiting.
Speaker 2 (38:19):
We unscrewed the hatch and found the two of you
lying crumpled up on the bottom.
Speaker 4 (38:23):
They couldn't tell whether you were dead or alive.
Speaker 1 (38:26):
What really made.
Speaker 2 (38:27):
Us swallow hard was the fact that you.
Speaker 4 (38:28):
Had only six minutes of oxygen left.
Speaker 3 (38:32):
Six minutes.
Speaker 2 (38:32):
That's all I want.
Speaker 3 (38:36):
Let you hold in your hand.
Speaker 2 (38:37):
Doctor. Well, I thought after you arrested, you might be
able to tell me for what is it well. In
going over the outside of the sphere, one of the
boys found these two little things jammed into the clockwork mechanism.
Speaker 3 (38:51):
May I see them?
Speaker 2 (38:52):
Please handle them carefully, Doris. A specimen of sea animal
I've never seen in my entire professional spaceperience.
Speaker 4 (39:01):
About five inches long, heads like a lizard of some kind,
strong legs, wide, flat tail.
Speaker 2 (39:09):
Look at the petrol fins, if you can call them that,
like little human hands.
Speaker 1 (39:15):
Their faces, in some.
Speaker 4 (39:17):
Peculiar well look pretty human too.
Speaker 2 (39:20):
Did you come across any of them down there, Sam,
We saw something like them, but what we saw is
longer than five inches. I remind you that seen through
the three inch thick glass of your portholes, they would
have been magnified. Magnified of course, at least twelve or
fifteen times from where you sat. One of these fellows,
(39:43):
if you had seen them, would have appeared to have
been almost as big as a man, as big as
a man. What are you thinking, is doctor? I can't
be sure, but what you brought up may will be
a kind of prehistoric cross between some kind of fish
I hang over from a long forgotten past and what
(40:06):
millions of years later was to evolve into a man.
If I told you we've seen thousands of them, that
they attacked us, and that their top lady tried to
make gods of us, would you say that we had
gone out of our minds? No, not out of your minds,
(40:27):
but definitely out of this world. Some scientists have stated
without equivocation that they see no reason why, under certain conditions,
intelligent water breathing vertebrates could not live at the bottom
(40:51):
of the deepest sea. Of course, you're entirely free to
disagree with the scientists and say that Elstead in Norton,
suffering from a lack of oxygen, may have dreamed the
whole thing up. The choice is entirely yours. I shall
be back shortly out. In February nineteen seventy six, three
(41:12):
men in a craft called the Alvin actually made a
journey two miles deep into the waters of the Caribbean
off Grand Cayman Island. Their findings were a little short
of astonishing. What is most remarkable is that so many
of the things they saw were identical to what H. G.
(41:33):
Wells created out of his imagination over eighty years ago.
In the story you have just heard. Our cast included
Christopher Tabori, Earl Hammond, Court Benson and Katherine Byers. The
entire production was under the direction of Hymon Brown Radio.
Mystery Theater was sponsored in part by Contact, the twelve
(41:54):
Hour Cold Capsule and Buick Motor Division. Missus E. G.
Marshall inviting you to return to our Mystery Theater for
another adventure in the macabre. Until next time, pleasant dreams.
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