Where are They?

Episode 73; originally aired on December 13, 1960.

This episode actually has two stories in it. The first one deals with strange events in the town of Chico, California, where rocks are falling from the sky. A local newspaper reporter calls in some other reporters (from bigger papers) and they are totally skeptical until they see the event themselves. One had remained on the ground where the rocks were to fall (they even would appear at a certain time), and found himself having to get out of the way to avoid being hit.

The other reporter stationed himself on the roof of a building that had a clear view of the other buildings in the area to see if he could spot someone throwing the stones either by hand or with some machine, but the stones just seemed to appear out of thin air.

The town reporter had received a letter from someone claiming to be the cause of the stones falling, and that he could even slow their rate of fall, but the person who sent the letter was never actually officially identified or found.

If you check the net you will see various items on the event which definitely happened.

The second story is about a guy who claims he has a pill that he can put into water and turn it into gasoline. He demonstrates it to a Congressman who then arranges a scientific test. Three scientific experts arrange the test, using a brand new car motor that has not had any fuel put into it at all. The Congressman takes water from the tap and has two of the scientists taste it and they admit it's plain water. The third scientist runs tests on the water to verify that it's just plain water and it is.

Once it's established that the motor has no fuel at all, and that the water is water, the one guy puts his pill into the water where it fizzes. He pours most of the mixture out (so it can't be analyzed and duplicated for free) and puts a tiny bit into the engine. It ends up actually running for a short time. The guy waits outside while the Congressmen talks it over with the scientists who all say what happened was not possible, but yet it actually happened and under well controlled conditions.

The problem is that, when the Congressman goes to talk to the man and tell them they will buy his secret, the man has disappeared. The narrator adds that despite a search for him, the guy was never found.

The guy had claimed that the materials in his pill were all common to the planet and would cost very, very little to produce. You can imagine what effect this would have on the powerful gasoline industry if gas could be produced for perhaps a tenth of the cost it currently is or even less. It's also an invention that could help a lot of people, though, as the environment damage caused by the drilling and processing of the petroleum would no longer be necessary.

I actually recall reading about this years ago and, again, each episode is supposedly based on real happenings. If this actually happened, then where did the inventor of the pill go? It would be interesting to see a more in-depth investigation of this done in today's world and see what the investigators could come up with. If the show depicts what really happened, than the Congressman and the scientists did as carefully controlled experiment as they could, totally eliminating any possibility of chicanery. The motor had no fuel; the water was plain water; the only variable was the substance that the inventor added to the water.

Both parts of the episode were quite interesting.

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