Quiet, Please - Old Time Radio Horror
Other Side of the Stars - Quiet, Please | 05/08/1949 (Ep099)
Disclaimer - The audio is quite poor on several of these episodes. A lot of crackling Hope you enjoy this episode of Quiet, Please! Find all our OTR radio stations and podcasts at theaterofthemind-otr.com - Audio Credit: The Old Time Radio Researchers Group. - Podcast @ Spreaker | Apple Podcasts | YouTube Music
- Broadcast on:
- 25 Sep 2024
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- other
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We leverage industry focus insights with the collective technical resources of our firm to elevate your performance, uncover opportunity and move upward at MossAtoms.com. Quiet please. Quiet please. [MUSIC PLAYING] The American broadcasting company presents Quiet Please, which is written and directed by Willis Cooper in which features Ernest Chapel. Quiet Please for today is called Other Side of the Stars. [MUSIC PLAYING] I remember Mark Wilson in the 100-inch telescope and I remember the astronomers and dyke in the little house of galvanized iron on the very edge of the summit. That was the house that had nothing inside it. The absence of everything. Now I have no explanation of it, I think perhaps then dyke knew something about it. Up there where you used to be able to look down at night on the lights of six dozen cities and towns. You could look up too with the stars and the planets that seem so tantalizingly close above you. If you wondered about them, maybe then dyke might tell you about them. Maybe. Remember that flying saucer craze about a year ago? Well then dyke could probably tell you something about that too. If you wanted to. I don't know why I'm laughing, I've got plenty of reason not to laugh. Why don't you grin at me, you and I are both in the same boat. You and I and everybody else. Up that old creek without or is friend. Now I'm not a refugee from stupefying stories magazine, my name is in Glaub Glaub, JXV314 and Tarz Tarkus, Dedek of the Tharks, is still at Guraisboro's personal property as far as I'm concerned. I'm not even eagle-eyed needle-nosed mad scientist with the two heads. I'll take that back, maybe I have got two heads. But I know something you don't know, yet. I know what's out there on the other side of the stars. What can I say I know what's out there? Excuse me. What do you want, young man? Excuse me. Oh come barging in here, isn't that on the air sign turned on out there? Huh? Well can't people see we're busy in here, can't you do something about keeping them out of here, I've only got them. All right, all right. Where was I? I said I know what was on the other side of the stars. And I know where it is now. Oh I think I know. That's what I'm here to tell you about. If people will stop bursting in here while I'm talking, get out of here, you! I'm sorry. Well wait a minute, you might as well come in and hear what I've got to say in here. You'll keep opening and shutting that door sit down there. No no there there. Sit down and keep quiet. Yes sir. Who are you anyway? I'm Dorothy's brother. What's your name? I'm her brother Steve. She did have her brother named Steve. Steve, that's me. You know what do you want? I just want to hear this. You know what you're going to say. How did you know I was... I heard of her. Well I've known Dorothy for more than 20 years. Your name is Esau, isn't it? Yes. Esau. Excuse me. I met Dorothy more than 20 years ago. I met her when I was at Pete Springs, Arizona, before I started off by Indian country looking for the well. Before Steve here was born. Pete Springs, 20 years ago. I don't know what it's like now. I haven't been there since 1928, September. Then it was a stop off for the transcontinental buses, such as they were. General Star on the edge of the off of my reservation. They were so proud of their new Brigadier. Then right alongside the General Star, there was a corral, where the Indian cowboy seemed to always tangling with a raw back range cattle. Not very far away from the Grand Canyon, remember it well. Dorothy told me about the well. I was looking for the gold, of course. The old map that showed where the well was, the old map with the Spanish words and the mark like the planet Saturn. Complete with rings. Marked Poso del Cielo. Well of the heavens. Well of the sky. Down the other words, long sighted in the crabbed soldier's handwriting. The Aino de Oro y Plata. Full of gold and silver. When I was the first man who'd seen that map since, I think it was 1542, maybe 1543. Wasn't anybody in the world have seen it for nearly 400 years, so I got hold of it. Went looking for it. For the gold and silver. Was that the well where? Dorothy got off the bus from Los Angeles when I did their repeat springs. I wasn't aboard it when it started off again. And then it was she. Then she went with me looking for the well of the skies. We're just that simple. Dorothy was working for some museum. She was investigating prehistoric Indian dwelling. She was going north and so was I. So all it was all right. We've been walking about an hour through the mesquite and talking. It was a rattlesnake, big sidewalk. Dorothy produced a gun from somewhere and very casually shot his head off at 15 feet. I stopped talking, I remember, and Dorothy put away the gun. I know how to use a gun, she said very quickly. See what I mean? I saw. Well, let's get on. That time's a waste in there. There wasn't any gold and there wasn't any silver. In the well of the stars. You found that out right away. We found that out right away. There wasn't anything except a skeleton. And some very well preserved pieces of 16th century armor, including a beautifully engraved steel cap. Mario and I, I think they call them. Mario and the sword. Rafe, you're sort of with a basket hill to see them in pictures. Why don't you tell it all? I'm going to. I think it would be bitter if you don't mind. I don't tell it all. I'll tell it all. I'll tell it all. About the music. I've got to tell about the music. Dorothy said once she came up. They were pretty cut to the sides of the well. She went down first because she said she wasn't as heavy as I, and I could hold her up better in case she fell. She went down as far as the rope would reach about 15 feet from the bottom. She stayed down quite a while. Finally, when she came up, she said she heard music down there. Didn't you? I wish you'd stop prompting me. Excuse me? That was all. Just music. In a hole in the ground that was at least 400 years old, nobody had seen since 1542 or 3. Nearly 100 feet deep. Music. That's all. Just music. You know how far away the stars are? The stars, not the planets. The planets are close. The planets of our son, I mean. The stars and their father. They're so far away that astronomers measure the distance to them and what they call light years just to make it simpler. The light year? Well, light travels 186,000 miles a second. 186,000 miles. There isn't any such distance. Not on this Earth anyway. Around 25,000 miles around the Earth at the equator. That's the farthest you can go. It's your human being. Anyway, try and think of 186,000 miles. Then you multiply that by 60 for the distance light travels in a minute. And by 60 again, that's how far it travels in an hour. Just light, see. Then if you can still figure, multiply that by 24. That's the distance light travels in one day. And 365 times that is how far it travels in a year. That's a light year. In round numbers, 5,829,196,000,000 miles. And the nearest star is more than four times that far away. Alpha Centauri is its name. You can look at it some night, maybe. And the light you see started from there more than four years ago. Alpha might be bright purple now. You wouldn't know it. Not for four years. That's what Van Dyck, the astronomer, told me, and Van Dyck, the astronomer, known just about everything. The will. You were talking about the will. What? And Dorothy. And I have to tell the whole story, don't I? Pardon me, I... I mean, pardon me. You just shut up, Dorothy's brother. You just keep still and don't say anything. The hand on that clock just keeps going around the first thing I want. I'm sorry. It was dark night when I finally climbed up out of the well. It was just like Dorothy said it was. The rope was too short to get all the way to the bottom. And when I came up, it was dark. And there wasn't a sound to be heard. Except once in a while, a coyote howling somewhere way off in the distance. The music. Tell about the music. I heard the music too. While I was down in the well. I didn't say anything for a couple of minutes after I climbed out over the rim. Finally Dorothy said in the dark, did you hear it? I thought for a minute. I wondered if I had heard it or... You see, there wasn't a sound up there on the ground like I said. And I thought for a minute and finally I said yes. Yes, I said I heard it too. I don't hear it now though, I said. Listen. Do you? No. I don't hear anything. What are you supposed to do? I don't know. I never heard anything like it before. Echo maybe? No, it wasn't an echo. It came from... Where? Up above. Nothing here to make any music go. Indians. Not like that. Esau. What? Build a fire. Yeah, I guess I better. Go ahead. All right. Well? Listen. What? Well listen, I'm... I'm just not scared. Come on. So am I. You got that gun. I don't... I'm not sure that gun would be much useful. Do you think there's something down there? I don't know. Maybe we ought to go back to Peach Springs. We ain't breaking our mix in the dark. I don't know which way it is either. Go by the star. No. I'm cold. Thank you. You got blankets too? Yeah. Esau. What? What do you think of it? Oh. Not what? Look there at the mouth of the well. What? You see a kind of light? No. Don't look right at it. Look kind of to one side. I don't see anything. Do you hear anything? Do you? Do you? Nothing. Listen. I hear something. Something. In but well. Nothing down there. Nothing but that skeleton and the armor. Beep-boom! Then when the ice had finally melted away from my heart and I could move at last, I ate my flashlight toward the well's mouth and in the bright beam. I saw a poor, harmless lizard choking his little life away half a foot from the lip of the well. And Dorothy and I looked at each other in the dark. I guess she laughed first. In a minute we were both practically in the sterics of the senseless fright that had gripped us the moment before. I only Dorothy said I'm going to sleep. She pulled her blanket up overhead, leaned back against a rock. After a while I did too, I'm still chuckling to myself. But just before I lifted off to sleep, I looked up at the stars and they seemed so horribly close to us. And then I was asleep and I dreamed of music that came either from them or from the well that yawned there beside us. And when I woke up, I was all alone. There wasn't a sign of anybody as far as I could see. Then I'd never seen Dorothy from that page of this. But you talked to her. What? If you said talk to her. If you said talk to her, that's what I wanted to tell about. Sounds like the astronomer told me a lot of things when I talked to him. Owning a rental property sounds like a dream. Collect a rent and relax. That is, until you realize how much work goes into getting it ready. 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What's next? At Moss Adams, that question inspires us to help people and their businesses strategically define and claim their future. As one of America's leading accounting, consulting, and wealth management firms, our collaborative approach creates solutions for your unique business needs. We leverage industry-focused insights with the collective technical resources of our firm to elevate your performance. Uncover opportunity and move upward at MossAdams.com. The night knew what that well was, and he knew about the music. He knew where that came from too. Music. Yeah, I better tell you about it. I never heard music, quite like it before. I couldn't place it. It sounded like something like, well, like somebody talking on the river, it was used music instead of words. You almost understand it. After a while, I did understand it. Tell about trying to find out. The first thing I thought about, of course, was she'd fall in. I wasn't very enthusiastic about climbing down on that well, naturally. But there wasn't anything else to do. She wasn't down there. The skeleton was still there on the bottom of the well, and when I got to the end of the rope, I jumped on down. There wasn't anything at all except those old bones and the pieces of arm-read worn when he was alive. And at last, in the light of my flashlight, weighed on there. A hammered silver bracelet. A hammered silver bracelet. I'd seen a day before. I thought he's left-raced. But there was something else down there. What? What did you say? Something else. How did you know? I know. Yes. There was something else. I didn't know it at the time if I'd know it was there. But I didn't. I didn't know about it till after I dropped to Van Dyken, and it was too late. I should have known it all falls into place. Now, the name of the place posted downCl are well at the skies. A music that came from nowhere. I know what you mean, but I don't think they do. Excuse me. We think about this Earth. We think it's the most important place in the solar system. It isn't. The solar system is not very important either. Well, you keep quiet. I'm sorry. Now, the solar system isn't very important either. It's only a tiny little bit of a universe. Now, universe, it's pearl. We're all cargent, what we call a milky way, billions and billions of universes. As far as anybody could see, with the biggest telescope ever invented, and the people in the other universes are just as big universes as we are of them, just as uninterested. Except a few of the scientists. Now, let's not talk like one of those magazines, young man. Uh, Steve. The chances of an intelligent being from another universe, even seeing this one of ours, is pretty remote. Huh? Certainly there are intelligent beings in the other universes. Don't be so self-important. And are they not necessarily like us? They aren't like us, as a matter of fact. Why should they be? Who are we? Just leave it like that. There are intelligences other than the so-called human race. Hey, this? Don't be silly, most of them don't know we exist. Afraid of us. It's silly, are you? The will. Oh, that's right. The will. You don't think the so-called human race dug that well, do you? You don't flutter yourself that that music was produced by human beings, do you? You don't think Dorothy disappeared through any human beings, do you? Hell, the answer in each case is no, the human race didn't have anything to do with it. Why? Nothing told me. The thing, with the bottom of the well, the intelligence from the other side of the star's friend, Van Dyke told me all about it. Van Dyke knows an awful lot. Sometimes I think Van Dyke is... Not human? How would any human being figure it all out and be so right? Because he's right all right. Tell it? The well, Van Dyke said, was a kind of telescope. Telescope isn't the right word, but it was the same thing as a telescope. You know astronomers just look at the stars, the silent stars, the stars that never make any sound. You just see them, you don't hear them. What? If you had a telescope for sound? I should be silent. I'll tell you something. They're not. They're just so far away we can't hear them. Talk what you want about having to have atmosphere and stuff to be able to hear sound. That's human reasoning. And these people, the stars, they don't wonder two things we don't know. Stars? Certainly the stars are alive. Certainly what's on the other side of them is alive. Go out ahead and laugh. I don't care what you think. You'll find out different. Only it'll be too late, see? I have a couple of other things to say first, Steve, then Dorothy. It was 20 years ago that I first saw the well of the skies and heard the music. It took me 16 years nearly to get the story all wrapped up from Van Dyke and from my own researchers. I even took Van Dyke to see the well. He listened to the music and he laughed. You don't know Van Dyke, you never heard him laugh. Here's me to creeps. A little more than six years ago they gave me the machine. You've heard of the electro-celegraph machine that does something about recording thought waves, brain waves, works, purely scientific, hard facts, all that. This thing is something like an electro-celegraph Van Dyke said. Put on these earphones, turn it on, watch the dials. That's all. What's in the music? That's right, to understand the music. Translates it into thoughts. Translates it so you can understand it. The music, the conversation that comes from the stars and the other side of the stars. And from the thing in the well. The thing in the well. Van Dyke told me what to look for. Too bad this isn't television, you could see it. Because of me everywhere I go. Well, you can hear it anyway. That's it. That's the first intelligent thing from the stars, the other side of the stars, that anybody on this earth has ever encountered. Just a little sphere, just like a ball. There's like an egg kind of eclipse, it's not hard and brittle like an egg. War into the touch, moves, thinks, does whatever it wants to. Talks by music. You know, I don't know much more about it, except it's alive, very highly alive. It tells me it's closer to class life, you know, our kind of light. Kind of? It's kind of greyish-green. Very undistinguished to look at. Do? Well, it came from the star Alpha Centauri. I told you Alpha Centauri is four light years away. It took four years for this thing to get here at the speed of light, 186,000 miles a second. And? Clear to stay. That's right. It's here to stay. Found this earth by sheer accident. Curious about it. Do anything it wants? It can do anything it wants to. Yes. If you'd like to hear it, hold the microphone over here close to you. You can get closer. Well, that's it. Wait. Yes. And that's about it. No. Unless you hear it through the machines and you can hear it. Well, you can understand what it says. That's the second I'll turn on this. Stay with my microphone over here close to the beautiful. That's all. No. That's the second for the tubes to warm up. Now we adjust this dial. This room. Listen. Lisa, I told you almost enough that there is still more to be told. No, I don't wish for you. I found it very useful to absorb, Dorothy. It is very difficult for me to form impressions of you human beings without much closer contact, without making your physical being a part of my own. There was only one other in all the time since I came to this universe. A Spanish soldier. And then when you and Dorothy came, it was necessary to know more about current conditions. All I knew about human beings was what I found in the mind of the Spanish soldier. You have made a few steps forward since his time. The rest of us will be interested. Move the microphone, Steve. You see? That's what became a Dorothy, Steve. Did? No. Steve, Dorothy isn't dead. Dorothy's a part of that. Just like we're all going to be a part of the others. Excuse me. I mean... I was out in California two weeks ago. Then died. He still left Mount Wilson. He wouldn't go to Panama. There was something about Mount Wilson and the hundred inch telescope and the little house on the mountain top that's got nothing in it. I told you about that. And I don't think it doesn't want to leave. And I showed me a photograph made through the hundred inch on the third of March. Let me show it to you, Steve. Stars. You describe it, Steve. This picture was made toward Alpha Centauri. Yeah, that's... that's Alpha Centauri there. They're there. You describe what you see, Steve. Hi. Oh, no. Go on. Stars. Millions of stars. Hm. And this? Cloud. A cloud. Bliding out the stars from the sixth of the light year away. Two months ago. Sixth of the light year. Now, this photograph made April 7th, Steve. Steve. The cloud. It's bigger. A prop from the light year closer to the Earth, Steve. They're coming. I do not. Put the microphone over here closer. Yeah, by the machine. You listen now. Here is the word from the other side of the stars. Here is the word from the beings, the intelligences. The things from Alpha Centauri. Listen. Welcome. Welcome to this place. Welcome to all of you. This place, they call the Earth, it is not bad. It is an interesting place. I am glad you have come after all this time. The inhabitants will give us no trouble, whatever. They are very inferior grade of intelligence. Is that what can we do, I mean? It's too late now, Steve. Much too late. At the speed of light, they're less than a day away. But they... from the other side of the stars? That's right, Steve. They come to take over the Earth. ♪ The title of today's quiet peace story was "The Other Side of the Stars." It was written and directed by Willis Cooper. And the man was spoke to you as Ernest Chapel. And Jane White played Dorothy. The young man was Mark Ford. There's your new music for quiet places by Albert Berman. Now, for a word about next week, I write a direct to Willis Cooper. Thank you for listening to "Cratch," please. Next week, Albert loves to play it for a change. It's called "The Little Monning." ♪ And so until next week at the same time... And by the Earth's... Ernest Chapel. ♪ Don't take any chances with your family's health. Each year, be certain that you and the others in your family have a chest x-ray to determine whether or not you have TB. Chest x-rays are available at your local tuberculosis clinic. Please take no chances. Have a chest x-ray, help wipe out tuberculosis. This is ABC, the American Broadcasting Company. This is WJZ New York's first station, and WJZFM. For the inside version of the news, the factual highlights that lie behind the headlines, listen for Drew Person coming up next. Stronger, shock-resisting. Yes. 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We leverage industry focus insights with the collective technical resources of our firm to elevate your performance, uncover opportunity and move upward at MossAtoms.com.