The Twilight Zone Radio Show "The Invaders." Episode



An old woman (Agnes Moorehead) lives alone in a remote cabin. She is dressed shabbily, and there are no modern conveniences in evidence. After hearing a strange deafening noise above her kitchen roof, she is accosted by small intruders that come from a miniature flying saucer that has landed on her rooftop. Two tiny figures, apparently about six inches high, which appear to be robots or beings wearing pressure suits, emerge from the craft.

The small figures attack the woman, using small, pistol-like weapons that leave radiation burns on her skin, and, after following her into her cabin, slashing her ankle and hand with her own kitchen knife. The suspense builds as the woman searches for the invaders. She eventually destroys one, wrapping it in a blanket and beating it until it is still, then throwing it into the burning fireplace. She follows the other to the saucer-ship on her roof, which she proceeds to attack with a hatchet.

All this has taken place with no words being spoken, but now a voice (director Douglas Heyes) is heard speaking in English from within the craft. The intruder frantically warns that his partner, "Gresham", is dead; and that the planet is inhabited by a "race of giants" and impossible to defeat. The camera pans to the markings on the side of the ship, which reads U.S. Air Force Space Probe No. 1. The "tiny" invaders were human astronauts from Earth; the woman in the small farmhouse belongs to a race of giant humanoids native to another planet. She finishes destroying the ship and then climbs back down from the roof into the house, exhausted.

Air date: January 27, 1961

A woman (Agnes Moorehead) living in an old shack with no modern appliances is cleaning up her house for the night. Suddenly, she hears a loud noise coming from above her and after it drones on for a little while, it stops.

The woman goes up to her bedroom and hears something on the roof. On the top she finds a small UFO that drops down a stairwell and a tiny alien in a spacesuit emerges. Terrified, the woman goes back into her shack and starts hiding.

She hides in behind the hatch only for the alien to follow her into there. She opens a hatch which it falls down and she closes it.

After some time she goes back down terrified that there is another alien there shooting at her. And when she gets back to the inside she finds a small instrument running on electricity and both bruises and welts on her arm, face and chest from where she was shot.

She finds one alien back in her bedroom so she tries to hide from it until she gets a broom to hunt it down. After prodding around, she finds an alien behind her door.

The woman continues to hide until she finds a knife. Once again said alien has followed her and hid in a cabinet, which she promptly closes, but she hears it break out.

As she's retreating, one alien attacks her foot with a knife. Screaming in pain, she now realizes these aliens intend harm on her.

She decides to end it by capturing one of the aliens firing at her in her bed sheet and beating it on her dresser till it dies.

She finds the other alien who blew a hole through her wall prompting her to follow it to the roof.

The woman goes to the roof with a hatchet and starts beating the UFO to scrap metal. After no dialogue the whole episode, we hear the commander of the spaceship notifying central control that the planet is inhabited by giants and this makes the woman beat it harder despite them saying they have no counter attack. After a few final swings, the UFO has been destroyed.

As the woman sags in relief, the audience finally gets a clear look at the damaged ship, and the alien writing on it: U.S Air Force Space Probe No. 1. The space suited aliens were humans, and the woman a giantess.

Radio drama is a dramatized, purely acoustic performance. With no visual component, radio drama depends on dialogue, music and sound effects to help the listener imagine the characters and story: "It is auditory in the physical dimension but equally powerful as a visual force in the psychological dimension."

Radio drama or audio drama, audio play, radio play, radio theatre, or audio theatre is a dramatized, purely acoustic performance.