What happens
Joseph Schwartz, a science writer for a New York newspaper, is drawn into a secret project when his acquaintance Joseph Nathan, a military radio decoder, reveals that he has intercepted strange static bursts from the stars. Nathan believes the signals are transmissions from alien life. Schwartz follows the story as Nathan decodes images and sound from an unseen source far beyond the solar system. This is an episode of the radio series X Minus One, adapted from a Galaxy Science Fiction story by Kathryn McLean, and it aired on October 24, 1956 on the National Broadcasting Company. The cast includes Joe DeSantis as Schwartz and John Gibson as Nathan.
A New York newspaper office, a secret military laboratory at Riverhead on Long Island, and later a rocket base at White Sands.
Characters: Schwartz, Joseph Nathan, Max
Listen for: Nathan's account of the alien broadcasts and the strange motion of the actors in the recorded films.
Written from the episode itself; it never gives away the ending. Every recording is remastered for the stream: cleaned of rumble, hiss and mains hum (and the old TV whine where we found it), then levelled in two passes to steady broadcast loudness, so one show is never quieter than the next.