The Outer Limits (1963–1965): Season 2, Episode 17 - The Probe - full transcript

The persistence
of man's curiosity.

Led him into new worlds.

Without conquering his own,

he invaded the sub-world
of the microscope.

And the outer world of space.

It is said,
turn about is fair play.

But is it?

50-50, Jeff.
Looks rough either way.

Uh-huh.

Dexter says it's 6 of one,
half a dozen of the other.

We'll miss the squall by a couple of
hundred miles. Why should we turn back?



Thanks, honey.

No, thank you, fellas.

On to Tokyo.

Look, if any of you are gonna get
in trouble hauling me along...

Go into the teeth of a hurricane
if we have to, Amanda,

to get you married.

We may have to do
just that.

Oh?

Yeah.

All it has to do is keep on
accelerating at this phenomenal rate,

which I don't expect.

Shifts course a bit,
which I don't expect, either.

It's not a squall anymore. This
is a full-fledged hurricane.

We can't outrun it,
and we can't turn back.



Emergency preparations.

Standby. We're going
into the hurricane.

I'm gonna try
to set her down.

Yes, we're going in.

Emergency procedures
in effect.

I said we're going
into the hurricane.

The center! The eye!

Emergency stations.

Life raft. Life vests.

There is nothing
wrong with your television set.

Do not attempt
to adjust the picture.

We are controlling
transmission.

For the next hour we will control
all that you see and hear.

You are about to experience
the awe and mystery.

Which reaches
from the inner mind to...

The outer limits.

Cobe?

Hey, Cobe?

Huh? What is it?

Where are we?

I don't know.

I think we're in the eye
of the hurricane.

It's so calm.

It's miraculous, isn't it?

Yeah.

Where's Beeman?

I don't think he made it.

We all blackout?

Yeah.

What's all this fog?

Spooky, isn't it?

Where's the emergency
radio, Jeff?

It's in the kit, I guess.

Amanda, are you all right?

I'm wet.

What was that?

The signal mirror.
It fell overboard.

Overboard?

Hey, it's solid!

It isn't water at all.

Where are we?

It's some kind of plastic.

What do you
make of it, Cobe?

Well, we should be in
the middle of a hurricane.

Apparently,
in the calm eye of it.

But on water...

I don't understand it.

Jeff?

Can't raise a thing.

Are you receiving?

No.

What's that static?

It's ours.

Some kind of interference.

Maybe it's a whole wall
of the storm around us.

It's so weird
and strange.

Does anybody
feel any movement?

I don't.

Could we be moving along with it?
Inside the hurricane?

We could be,
but what's that?

Jehoshaphat!

Get down! Cover up!
Watch your eyes!

OK, it's gone.

What's gone?

Whatever it was.

It doesn't seem to have
any effect though, does it?

No.

Except, I'm dry.

Isn't that funny?

Yeah. So am I.

Me, too.

What was it?

A fog, a mist of some kind.

With a drying action.

What was it, Jeff?
Where did it come from?

I can't even guess.

But, I think we ought
to investigate.

A plane gone. The ocean gone.
A world gone. Where are we?

Hey, this wall feels like the floor.
Like it's made out of plastic.

We're inside of something.

Hey, look.

It's coming from
where the cloud came from.

What's the matter, Mandy?

Nothing.

Are you cold?

Freezing!

She is. It's cold.

Come on, let's get
out of this light.

Dex!

Hey, look! It's icing up!

It's not cold out here, Dex. Just
in that light! Get out of it!

It's the light
that's making it cold!

Dex!

Get out of there!

He's half-dead!

Do you have
to do that?

It's all my fault!

If it hadn't been for me,
you'd have turned back.

Come on,
Mandy, that's not true.

Yes, it is.

He would have turned back
if David was still...

Who's doing this?
Who's here?

We're lost! We're never going
to get out of here! We're lost!

Now, let's not
get hysterical, huh?

I can't help it!

Take it easy, Jeff.
I'm frightened myself.

It got cold
so fast.

Dex. Dex, can you move
your fingers now?

They're st-st-starting
to tingle.

And my toes.
And my ears hurt!

Another second or 2 in there and you
would have just frozen to death.

What made it do it? What
made it freeze up so fast?

That first light beam.

Cold light?

That wasn't all. You should have
seen that second light beam

come down and slice that
raft in two like a knife.

And another light beam,
lifted up that part

and put it up into
that hole, there.

There's got to be some kind of
room in there, or something.

Things don't appear
and disappear into nothing.

There's got to be somebody
in there to operate it.

I'm sure there's something
out there in the distance.

And on the other
side of that wall.

Cobe, let's go
take a look.

Dex. Dex, are you
all right?

Yeah. I think so.

I'll stick around and see if I can
raise something on the radio.

Do you want to
stay here too, Mandy?

Are you kidding?

Come on.

Well, for one thing, if we're
imagining all of this,

we're imagining the
same things together.

We just got to
be inside something.

I know it sounds incredible.

Jeff! Cobe!

Dexter?

Dexter!

Hey, Dex?

Look!

Feels funny.

Yeah.

But, why would he
drop Cobe's jacket?

Where could he have gone?
No place?

In there?

What's it all about?
Are we prisoners?

How did we get here? If we
only understood something!

At least if you're in a plane in
a storm, you know where you are.

If it's frightening, you know
what you're frightened of.

How long
since the crash?

40 minutes ago we inflated
the raft on the plane.

How do you know
exactly?

I've got a date watch.
Same day. Same date.

It was 6 minutes
past 4:00. I looked.

Now, it's 14 minutes
to 5:00.

What's the last
thing you remember, Cobe?

I got the plane
under the water.

There were 50 foot high waves.

How about you, Mandy?

I saw the plane split apart,
and the water spill on to us

and then Cobe helping
me into the raft.

And then we were all
hanging on.

Yeah. All except Beeman.

I remember trying
to grab him.

Then the water...

The light
coming through it.

Then that calm
and quiet.

I thought it was
me just passing out.

We must have been in
the eye of the storm.

There's got to be
some logical explanation.

But what about Dex?

If we can only figure
out where we are?

Yes, but what about Dex?

I don't know about Dex.
Do you?

Hey...

Listen!

You recognize
those sounds, Cobe?

No.

I think I do.

Oh!

Oh!

You both stay here.

OK, come on in.

What is it?

Sounds like an analog
or a computer of some kind.

Like none I've
ever seen or heard of.

It's part of a system.

You know, it's coding
information right now.

What information?

I don't know.

Looks like a...

Like what?

I don't know, I, uh...

I've never seen a telemetry
system before. Have you?

No.

But I've got a good idea
of what it might look like.

And some part of it
might look like this.

What is a telemetry system?

Well, to put it simply
it's, uh...

Telemetry is transmitting information
from one place to another

over great distances.

You mean we're inside a
research project of some kind?

Yeah.

But it doesn't
seem logical, does it,

to go all unattended
like this?

And in the middle
of the pacific ocean?

Hey, look at that.

Greek?

No.

Latin? Hebrew?

No.

Or Assyrian, or Etruscan,
or anything.

I've never seen
a cuneiform like that.

You've seen a lot,
haven't you?

Quite a bit.

In college I majored
in ancient languages.

Hey, Jeff, what kind
of metal is this?

I don't think it's metal.

It's some kind of plastic.

Like this flooring,
and the walls outside there.

Yeah.

Come on,
let's keep on exploring.

Looks like some
kind of a laboratory.

Yeah,
it sure does.

What's that?

A piece of the raft.

Don't touch it!
Don't touch anything.

How'd it get in here?

Maybe through
the center post, there.

Where the machinery is.
And those light beams.

But what for?

I think, maybe,
to test it.

To test it
for what?

Who's doing the testing?
Where is everybody?

The results
of the testing

would be sent back
to where everybody might be.

Jeff, have you got some kind
of a theory about all this?

I'm getting one.

By itself.

Yeah.

It's all programmed.

But for whom?

Now, what is that?

Water, I guess.
Seawater.

Cobe,
look at the salt residue.

You see that meter?

Yeah.

That canister
is being weighed

and the information
is being fed

back to
the analog room, here.

But why seawater?

Because it was available.

I don't understand. Who'd
want to analyze seawater?

Whoever wanted to know
it's chemical composition.

But everybody knows
its chemical composition.

If they don't, all they
have to do is open a book.

Hmm.

No. Jeff means
something else.

He means that this
is an automatic enterprise.

There's no choice involved.

They didn't know what it was
going to analyze, right, Jeff?

Absolutely right.

That piece of raft out there

is being examined
in bits and pieces.

It's being subjected
to a variety of tests.

And that information is sent
here, to this analog room.

And here it's coded
and classified,

and sent back
to its destination.

What destination?
And by whom?

I don't know who.

But once we use this cuneiform
alphabet, you never saw before...

Jeff...

How'd we get here?

Cobe.

Cobe, listen.

You know we've
got a space project.

It's called surveyor.

An unmanned capsule,
an automated device

that will be
sent out into space.

And land, say, on Mars,
or Venus, or Jupiter.

And once it gets there, it will
perform a variety of experiments.

Like testing the soil.
The atmosphere.

Plant life, animal life,
if there is any.

Testing for chemicals.

Soil conditions.
Living conditions.

Free ion belts.
Cosmic rays. Radio activity.

A probe?

A probe. This?

Yeah.

But this one isn't ours.

You mean from outer space?

That's exactly what I mean.

You know, they landed
this thing on earth

just by chance in
the eye of a hurricane.

They scooped us up,
and they deposited us.

Where did they deposit us?

Under a microscope.

Outside there, on the other side
of this hollow center shaft...

Those light beams, that operate
and activate all these tests,

are used to examine
and to scrutinize us.

To probe our world.

Now, I think that...

And this may sound
ridiculous.

But I think we're inside
some gigantic space probe

of an alien civilization.

That plastic flooring that
you're standing on right now

is the base
of a giant microscope.

Inside...

Inside this whole hunk
of space machinery.

It all fits, doesn't it?

And that mist?

A staining process.

The way we'd stain a glass slide
and put it under a microscope.

And another thing...
About that freezing?

To immobilize what
they're inspecting.

They slice a cross
section, photograph it,

and send it back by way their
advanced telemetry system

so they can study it.

Another world.
Another planet somewhere.

We're inside
their space probe.

Yeah.

A race of giants,
if that's what this is.

Hey...

Is that the life form
from outer space?

I don't know.
I don't think so.

A form like that doesn't
have the manual dexterity

to get very far on
the evolutionary scale.

And the one's who built this
probe are pretty far advanced.

It's really something.

It's certainly not
from our world.

It's unearthly.

Jeff?

You don't suppose that thing
got a hold of Dex?

Look.

It's activated
the cold light again.

This whole place
is automated.

It duplicated itself.

Yeah.

Under that extreme cold, too.

It's fantastic.

I want to get
a closer look.

Hey, it's gone.

Must have adapted
to it so quickly.

Or it's naturally
adapted to cold.

For this, uh, for this ability
to divide and multiply.

It's fantastic!

But what's our defense
against them?

Certainly not the guns
in the survival kit.

What about the radio?

Have we given up hope of
trying to contact our world?

What about Dex?
What's happened to him?

And what's going
to happen to us?

How are we going
to get out of here?

How can it see
without any eyes?

It can't get closer.

It won't.

If I wasn't sure that this isn't the
alien who built this space probe,

I'm sure now.

Why?

Well, just look around. You
see how clean everything is.

That's right.
Antiseptic clean.

As though it was sterilized before
it was sent out into space,

so it wouldn't contaminate
wherever it was going.

Like a...
Like another civilization.

But what about
our friend, here?

A mutant.

A strain of germ that
grew, and grew, and grew.

That's a germ?

Yes.

A microbe.

Resistant to whatever
sterilization process was used.

Like a, like a fly can be
resistant to D.D.T.

Your Mikie might have been
picked up some other place.

What do you mean?

That's what I must have
seen in the telemetry room. A map.

A rough scale of
the solar system.

With lights representing
other planets.

Why didn't you tell me
about the map before?

I didn't know
what it meant before.

Can you make it, Jeff?

I don't know.

It isn't
particularly fast.

Yeah, but what if the door
doesn't open automatically?

I may face a rather
unpleasant situation.

Look, Cobe,

you attract it to that side. I
may have a little more leeway.

I'm going with you!

Now, you stay here!

I told you
to stay out there!

I told you
I may be able to help.

Where's the map?

That's the solar
system in there, isn't it?

The planets. The sun.

And the lights on
the other planets.

Maybe that means that this
probe has already been there.

And might be leaving
here to go to Venus,

the next planet closer
to the sun.

Yeah. With us on it.
That's just great.

Unless we can get off.

We've got to reach them and
tell them we can't go along!

We've got to try
to reach them!

Yeah, thanks.

But how do I begin?

Maybe they found a way to
transcend the speed of light.

Like with the application
of a laser principle?

A time warp or space warp?

You understood all along?

As much as I know
what those things are.

To compress time,

the past,

the future,

into now.

To change
space relationships.

To be in 2 places
at one time,

or 2 things,

or 2 people...

To be in one place.

Ah!

"Understood all along"?
No.

I'm just beginning
to understand

that there are a lot of things
I don't understand.

It's like a telegraph.

Yeah.

But in 4
or 5 dimensions.

What?

Well, look.

I can control not only
the length of the signal

but the strength of it.
Even the shape of it.

Just by how long
I hold down the key,

and where I apply
the pressure.

Look at that!

Yeah.

Well, what's doing it?

I don't know.
I'm not touching it, now.

It's incredible!

We've just communicated
with something.

Another intelligent life
of some kind.

Somewhere out in space.

Somewhere out there among the
millions and millions of stars.

We've only
established contact.

We haven't communicated.

No.

And we've got
to communicate.

They have to know
the position we're in.

And about those microbes out there.
And what we're like.

That we're
an intelligent life form.

They've got to know
that the plankton and microbes

they're finding in seawater
aren't dominant in this world.

Anymore than those creatures out
there, which may be their microbes

aren't dominant
in their world.

Maybe they've
seen us already.

You said something
about a photometry system.

How are we going to
communicate with them?

I don't know.

Maybe, uh...
Maybe just, uh...

S.O.S. or help

over and over again.
Repeating the pattern.

Jeff! Mandy!

Mandy!

Cobe! Cobe!

I felt as though I was being
pulled up like a vacuum.

Cobe, if Dex was
pulled up like that...

Hey.

How long has it
been doing that?

Not long.

1, 2, 3.

What is it?

1, 2.

1, 2.

Dex, get back in.
Get back in.

1, 2.

1, 2.

Mandy,
how about you?

One...

One...

One...

That's pretty obvious,
isn't it?

Hey!

Hey, take a whiff.

Not bad.

Not a famous French
perfume, but not bad.

Look, my blouse
isn't wet anymore.

Cobe?

Yeah?

Take a step
toward that thing.

What?

Go ahead.

Hey,

that bath must have doused us
with some kind of repellent.

Yeah, deliberately, too.

Cobe, we've got some
fantastic experimenting to do.

In that telemetry
room they've discovered

a way of
instant communication.

Those outer space people,
life forms,

or whatever you
want to call them,

can be a fantastic
boon to our science.

Can you imagine when we've learned
to communicate with them.

What secrets they can tell us. What
scientific mysteries they can solve.

Hear anything?

What is it?

Feel anything?

Yeah.

The whole place is
beginning to shake.

Sounds like motors.

Heavy motors.

Atomic motors?

Taking us away? Taking
this whole probe away?

What's the next stop?

Venus?

What's the surface
temperature of Venus?

800 degrees.

That's 6 times we've gone
through the code alphabet.

Why don't they respond?

What else can we do?

We just can't
keep on doing this.

What if it doesn't work? How are
we going to get out of here?

I don't know, Cobe.

We've got to get
out of this thing!

Just show me how.

I'm going to get the shortwave
radio from the survival kit.

Maybe it will work this time.
It's worth another try.

Good idea.

If only we can raise some
response from the mainland.

The hurricane was moving in on
Japan the last coordinates we got.

Try it.

Be careful, Cobe.

Stop. Halt. Danger.

Great words,
if by some incredible miracle

they understood
that you were sending

a 26-letter alphabet,

what would it mean
to them? Nothing!

It's an impossible code
to break.

It's impossible
for our minds.

All I want to do right
now is make contact,

just to get them
to acknowledge.

What are you doing?

This panel is vibrating. There's
a humming sound coming from it.

Hey, you're right.

The humming is getting
louder and louder.

If this sound continues getting
louder it might break our eardrums.

But then again, if it stops, it might
mean they're ready to take off.

I wonder if this is
a sound transmitter.

I don't know what
a sound transmitter's like.

Look, a signal!
What does it mean?

1, 2. 1, 2.

1, 2. 1, 2.

1, 2.

3. 3.

3. 3.

3...

I don't get it.
It's senseless.

Just automatic programming.

What's taking Coberly so long?

If I'm any judge, we don't
have much time left.

Can you hear me? Is my voice
getting through to you?

That did it!

Maybe that's it!
Maybe it's the voice!

Hey, try a...
Try a mathematical code.

What about
Einstein's equation?

It's, uh,
"E equals MC squared."

That did it.

Now, why should that do it?

I don't know.
Probably just coincidence.

There's no meaning
or pattern to this.

No, it can't be coincidence!

They're aware of us.

All right.

So, we made contact with it.

But what good is it?

We've got to communicate.

We've got to make
ourselves understood!

Now, try talking
to that thing again.

What will I say?

"E equals MC squared,"
over and over?

Why not?

That equation's
a universal law.

It's a constant
in the universe.

Just keep talking.
Anything!

I'm going to see
what's doing with Coberly.

I think you'll
be all right here.

I'll, uh,
I'll be right back.

Coberly?

Coberly?

Cobe?

Hey, Coberly!

I don't know if I'm
whistling in the dark.

I feel silly.

But I'm... I'm talking to you
because we're desperate.

If this probe takes off
from earth, we'll die!

Because we can't
live in outer space.

And... and if this probe
lands on Venus,

we'll die there, too, because
we can't live in such heat!

There are other dangers here.

What about Dexter?

Where did he go?
He just disappeared!

How?

Did that... did that creature
do anything to him?

And how can... can it multiply?

You... you must have taken
photographs of that creature.

A- and you must be aware of us.

You must be aware of us,

because... because you gave us
protection against those creatures.

And you must be aware because,

because you took the trouble to
make this whole probe antiseptic.

Y- y-you must be aware
that those creatures

can... can multiply and
infest our world.

Or another world, if this probe
should land somewhere else.

Can you hear me?

Am I getting through?

A- are you all machine,
no humanity?

No response?

Don't you understand me?

Cobe? Jeff?

Cobe? Jeff?

Jeff! Cobe!

Cobe?

Jeff?

Jeff?

Cobe?

Jeff! Cobe!

Where are you?

Help! Jeff!

Where are you? Help!

Help!

I'm glad to see you.
We couldn't get back in there.

Hey, now that
she's showed, let's go.

What is it?

It's all right, Amanda.

Where are we?
I was all alone.

This is the deck edge of
the floor of the probe.

Come on, come on.

Lay her down carefully.

Easy does it.
Atta girl.

Here, now
put these on.

We finally reached a search plane.
It's out there in the fog.

You know that light beam showed
us the way out here? You, too?

Uh-huh.

We couldn't get back
in there,

so I started sending out
S.O.S's on the transmitter.

Come on,
get that on.

OK. I still can't
believe it.

You know if Dexter were here,
Cobe, I'd say it never happened.

You're lucky
you reached us.

Amen to that.

Though, how you
ever figured

your position inside
a hurricane,

and out here in all this soup...
Miraculous!

Yeah, was I accurate?

Did I figure it?

How do you think we
found you flying blind?

Well, I won't say we were lucky
getting into that thing,

but we sure were
lucky to get out of it.

Now, on to the wedding.

There it goes.

I guess we did communicate,
didn't we, Jeff?

We had to.

But I never sent them
our position.

How could I?

I didn't even know it.

No. This plane
never did receive me?

But how?

I told it.

I told them about
those creatures

and how they could
destroy our world.

What was that?

Self-destruct.

They destroyed the probe so
it wouldn't hurt any people.

Any planet.

Mandy, they must have
figured out our alphabet.

They must have
broken it down.

The meaning of what
we were trying to say.

They'll be back.

Yeah, I think they will.

I wonder what would happen
if it was turnabout?

I mean, suppose one
of our space probes,

the surveyor,

came up against this kind of a
problem in Jupiter or Mars?

I'd like to think we'd be
as smart, compassionate,

human.

A few days,
a week, a month,

will the Earth be visited,

by a stranger
from the universe?

A warm, compassionate stranger.

To tell us of wonders
beyond imagination,

of life beyond comprehension,

of secrets from
the treasure house of stars?

We now return control
of your television set to you.

Until next week,
at this same time,

when the control voice
will take you to...

The outer limits.