The Falling Star (Original Narration and Acting Parts)

[Narrator: Richard Burton ("The Journalist")]

Then came the night the first missile approached Earth, hundreds saw it but thought it was an ordinary falling star. Some say it travelled with a hissing sound, some that landed with a green flash, but it was morning before Ogilvy was informed that a meteorite lay somewhere between the villages of Horsell, Ottershaw, and Woking, and he eventually found it in a sandpit on the Common. An enormous hole had been made by the impact, and sand and gravel had been flung violently in every direction, forming heaps visible a mile and a half away. The uncovered part of the projectile had the appearance of a huge cylinder with a diameter of about 30 yards, and there were faint sounds of movement from within...

Suddenly, a lump of ashy incrustation fell off the circular top as it began moving, rotating, screwing...

Ogilvy was convinced there was a man inside trying to escape, and he rushed to the Cylinder, but the intense heat stopped him before he could burn himself on the still, glowing metal. People began to draw near, and he told them about the person in the Cylinder. Everyone listened carefully for sounds from within, but since they had apparently ceased, no one would believe his tale.

Then Henderson, the London Journalist, arrived. He was eager to be first with the tidings of whatever was trapped in there, and he wrapped sharply on the Cylinder with a stick; this evoked no response but served to increase Ogilvy's anxiety, and after conferring, the two men hurried away to Woking to fetch help...

It seems totally incredible to me now that everyone spent that evening as though it were just like any other. In the gathering dust were Ottershaw, Woking, and Horsell. Lights were on in the upper windows of the houses as all their hundreds of people were contentedly going to bed. From the railway station came the sound of shunting trains, ringing and rumbling, softened almost into melody by the distance; the red and green, and yellow signal lights hung in a framework against the sky.

It all seemed so safe and tranquil...