Roswell

Theogony
----------Act Two
_____________

El Capitan mountain, 50 miles west

of Roswell
FADE IN:
EXTERIOR - DAY - EL CAPITAN

Half a dozen APACHES and AMERICAN POLICEMEN, local Sheriffs,

are hiking laboriously through the thick pine woods,
climbing a steep incline. They are of various ages, in 1940s

clothes.

SHERIFF
Are we getting close, Miguel?
MIGUEL (Apache Elder, long gray hair)
Yeah. You saw the lights too, Sheriff, you know where it is
as well as we do.
SHERIFF
It's your Mountain, though.
MIGUEL
Yeah, right. It's the town's territory and you know it.
Private property.
COP
Everybody in Arabela saw the goddamn lights. Dangest thing I
ever -SHERIFF
Hey, what's that?

They all come suddenly on the same spot where the Gods had
their campfire, in a clearing in the forest. It looks off
clearly to the East and the town of Roswell we saw before.
But it is a big circular, burned spot now; perfectly
circular, and the grass is burned bare to the ground.

COP
What the hell?
SHERIFF
Aw, it looks like kids were partying up here, that's all.
MIGUEL
No. We have always seen Spirits on this Sacred Mountain. My

grandmother always said it was a holy place. Apaches.

They all stand there staring at the burnt circle, afraid to

go further.

CUT:

EXTERIOR - NIGHT - ALBUQUERQUE AIRPORT

COLONEL TIBBETS comes out of the Albuquerque Airport, past
its sign, with a number of other Officers and older men in
suits, and they get in two waiting brown AAF Staff Cars and
pull out of the Airport on the highway going north to Santa
Fe.
2 other MEN in black suits watch them go.

CUT:
ON THE HIGHWAY - HIGH REMOTE JEMEZ MOUNTAINS

The 2 AAF cars pull up to a military guard post, a gate that

says: Los Alamos, no unauthorized personnel. It is high in
the New Mexico Mountains - vast sky of stars overhead.

CUT:
DAY - IN THE AIR - FLYING WITH A B-29

Closeup - Lt. SCOTT in the co-pilot's right seat, with

oxygen mask on, intently flying.
BOB LEWIS is in the pilot's left seat, with mask on, and
speaks over the intercom:

BOB

We'll do it by the book. They're all gonna be watching.

Nobody's gonna screw it. right?
SCOTT
Right.
BOB
Equipment secure, navigator?

Capt. DUTCH Van Kirk, the navigator, back in the plane,

settled himself comfortably in his padded seat. They are all
in masks and talking on the intercom.

DUTCH
Secure.
BOB
Bombardier?
FEREBEE (in bomb-bay)
Check.
SCOTT
Pre-flight checks are ended Sir, estimated flying time to
the 'Initial Point' twenty minutes.
DUTCH
From the Ip to AP, the Aiming Point, will be a matter of a
few miles.
BOB
We climb to thirty thousand feet and south to the bombing
range, the man-made lake of the Salton Sea, California.
Bombardier Ferebee, aim and drop a single blockbuster filled
with ballast, into a 700-foot circle on the northern edge of
the lake. Colonel Tibbets has then instructed me, once the
bomb is dropped, to execute a 155-degree diving turn.
Scotty, you yank it hard port and dive the instant Tom
Ferebee calls out "bomb away".

SCOTT
155-degree port dive, yes Sir.
BOB
The rest of you back there, Sergeant Duzenbury, flight
engineer, Staff Sergeant Bob Caron, tail-gunner, 2nd
Lieutenant Morris Jeppson, electronic officer, hold on tight
because she's gonna fall like a rollercoaster when Scotty
yanks it. That'll take us back in the direction we came
from. Scotty, Paul emphasized that we keep our nose down and
get the hell out of the area as fast as you can.
DUTCH
Must be a helluvan explosive.
BOB
No chatter. We have to be at least seven miles away, Paul
said, if we're to survive the blast.
FERREBEE
Jesus.
BOB
This is the first practic drop, boys, and we're in the first
brand-new line of B-29s, so don't screw the pooch.
SCOTT
She's a beauty, Bob. Flies like a dream.
BOB
Yep. Biggest warplane on Earth. Wait'll the Japs get a load
of this baby.
SCOTT
First one delivered to Wendover. Still only two of the 29s
delivered to us so far.
DUTCH
Target approaching.

CUT: LONG SHOT the B-29 flying very high into the Sun.

October 21, 1944 Salton Sea, Southern California Desert

MEN down on the ground are watching the plane with AAF
equipment trucks, radar, etc.; soldiers everywhere with
binoculars watching their approach, so high at 30,000 feet
that they are a white blip with a long elegant contrail.
FEREBEE
Bomb away!

A tiny dot falls out of the plane, and it immediately goes

into an incredible dive to the left and turns 180 degrees
back the way it came.

IN THE PLANE

It is an incredible screaming roar from the agonized

engines, in the radical move. SCOTT and BOB are doing
everything they can to hold the wheels steady, under
unbelievable pressure to function.
BOB
How many Gs!?

In the rest of the plane the CREW are holding on for dear
life, shouting comments but they can't be understood in the
gigantic roar.
SCOTT
Two miles! Five! Seven!
FERREBEE
Boom! There she goes!
DUTCH
God almighty.

ON THE GROUND

A technician watches the Bomb land in the designated target

circle, plopping harmlessly to the ground.

TECHNICIAN
Bull's eye. Those boys can fly.

IN THE PLANE

BOB
Straighten her out Scotty.
FEREBEE
They report on the ground, Captain, a "bull's eye".

The Plane levels off normally, at a far lower altitude, and

heads back north.
BOB
Perfect. I think we have our primary crew. Paul will be glad
to hear it.

CUT:

NIGHT - LOS ALAMOS

TIBBETS not glad to hear what the SCIENTISTS are telling

him, around a coffee table in a tiny Log Cabin: OPPENHEIMER,
etc.

OPPENHEIMER
Seven miles, twenty miles, fifty miles, Colonel. There is no
way of telling what the safe distance is until we drop a

real atomic bomb. You'll just have to trust in God.

TIBBETS
Doctor Oppenheimer, supposing God is on the other side that
day.
OPPENHEIMER
Then let's drop a real one over the Salton Sea.
TIBBETS
Jesus, how many do you have?
OPPENHEIMER
President Roosevelt is building a whole network of factories
to make many more than one or two that we'd need to defeat
Hitler, or Hirohito.
TIBBETS
What?
OPPENHEIMER
How many atomic, nuclear weapons are needed, to incinerate
Berlin and Tokyo? One each. So why are they building more
and more nuclear research facilities at Oak Ridge Tennessee
and Hanford Washington?
TIBBETS
Are you asking me? I'm just an Air Corps jockey. How do you
know all that anyway? It's beyond top secret classified.
OPPENHEIMER
And why is that, as a matter of fact? Hitler and Hirohito
are finished. What's the big secret?

The Men all share worried looks.

CUT:

INTERIOR - NIGHT - WENDOVER

The Barracks, the Men are all playing poker or sleeping.

Smoking. Talking.SCOTT lays on his cot reading, in a t-shirt
and barefeet, relaxing.
DUTCH and CARON are talking nearby.

CARON
I tell ya I was there, Dutch, over Germany in a B-17.
DUTCH
Yeah, so, we all were.
CARON
They're called "Foo Fighters", I don't know why. That's why
the boys called them.
BOB
"Foo Fighters"? You're full of foo, I think.
CARON
They could fly like nothing you ever saw. Like no one ever
saw. The Nazis didn't know what the hell they were either,
was the scuttlebutt. They weren't Luftwaffe. They were
flying all over hell, all over all of us. I saw 'em
goddamnit, I'm telling ya.
DUTCH
Bullshit.
BOB
All pilots see Bogies.
CARON
They could cut back and forth at right angles, go straight
up and down. They were like light-balls, or something.
BOB
Whatcha reading, Scotty, join the card game.
SCOTT

In a minute. H.G. Wells, 'War of the Worlds'.

CARON
Yeah, see, that's what it was! Maybe Martians! Remember that
Orson Welles radio show? Scared the hell out of my mother.
SCOTT
Yeah, H.G. Wells and Orson Welles, great actor.
BOB
Scinece fiction, huh?
SCOTT
Yeah, great stuff. Jules Verne.
Dutch
Nuts.
BOB
Let's play cards.

CUT:

EXTERIOR - NIGHT - CHRISTMAS IN FLAGSTAFF, ARIZONA

Christmas MUSIC on the lovely little streets of the small

town, with lots of 1940s decorations, and lovely strolling
people, shop windows of Santa Claus, etc.
SCOTT and KAY are walking happily, hand in hand, along the
pretty scene, smiling.

SCOTT
Are you sure it's okay? I don't want to impose.
KAY
Oh be quiet, you're serving our Country, far from home on
Christmas. Daddy and Molly are looking forward to meeting

you. They have a big turkey dinner planned.

SCOTT
This is really quite a pretty town.
KAY
I love Flagstaff. Born and bred. I'm so glad you could get a
three-day pass.
SCOTT
And a fast hop on a P-51 of all things. Funny little airport
you have though. Went right over the Grand Canyon. Hey,
maybe I can rent a little piper cub and take you for a
flight over it.
KAY
Oh my, that would be wonderful! Could you really?
SCOTT
If they have any civilian planes for rent, I don't know. I
can't take you up in a military plane though, of course.
It's an idea.
KAY
And is your room okay in the Monte Vista Hotel?
SCOTT
Nicest place I've ever stayed. They put me in the 'Humphrey
Bogart Room', can you believe that? Luxurious.
KAY
Oh, movie stars stay there all the time, making movies all
over Arizona, at the Monument Valley.
SCOTT
John Wayne, oh yes. Great movies. Right around here?
KAY
Yep. We're pretty proud of it, and Sedona over that way, the
Colorado River -SCOTT

I fly over it all the time, but I've never really spent much
time here. Fascinating. Lots of Mexicans and Indians?
KAY
Oh yes, we're in the middle of Reservations all around Hopi, Navajo, Apache. Flagstaff is like an island oasis
surrounded by deserts, on this one big Mountain here - 7,000
feet above sea level - , the Indians all call sacred. It's
like, it's a burial cemetery for the Kachina spirits. Daddy
speaks all their languages and they come to Babbitt's,
where's he's the shipping manager for all the trading posts
on the Reservations, to trade blankets and turquoise. He
really knows their cultures, and we're Hurons from French
Canada too, so they trust us. I know Navajo too.
SCOTT
You are amazing.

They have come up a quieter, more residential street off the

brightly-lit downtown area; to a pretty little house with
big trees and a grassy front yard.

KAY
Here we are. Just a word - Daddy has been sick with some
neuralgia they think, so sometimes he's a little ... I don't
know ... incoherent, or vague.
SCOTT
You're the only child, you said? That's a strange one for
me, one of thirteen kids.

They go in the front door - she's a little nervous.

It's a nice plain little house, with a christmas tree and
piano.
DAVE and MOLLY O'BRIEN, in their 50s, well-dressed, stand up
and greet them graciously.

DAVE

There's my girl.
KAY (hugs him)
Daddy, Molly, this is Jack Scott.
DAVE
Well hello young man, we've been hearing very good things
about you. Very good things.
SCOTT
Pleased to meet you.
MOLLY
Welcome, welcome to our home. Are you on leave for
Christmas?
SCOTT
Yes Ma'am, a three day weekend pass.
DAVE
Great. How about a highball?
SCOTT
Yes, thank you. Scotch?
DAVE
Irish Whisky is all we have here.
SCOTT
Irish is terrific. Thank you.

They've obviously already had a few drinks.

DAVE
Well sit down, sit down, make yourself at home. We don't
stand on ceremony in Flagstaff Arizona. Have you been here
before?
SCOTT

I've flown over it a few times, Sir.

DAVE
Excellent. How do we look from the air? Grand, with great
Canyons, perhaps?
SCOTT
Oh yes. It looks like a different world sometimes.
DAVE
A different planet, maybe? Mars, perhaps?
SCOTT
Well, yes, now that you mention it. Very red.
DAVE
Our most famous resident, Doctor Percival Lowell always used
to say that too - that Arizona is very much like Mars. Very
much like.
KAY
Daddy knew Percival Lowell.
SCOTT
Oh yes?
DAVE
His Observatory is just up the Hill, behind the house.
KAY
Mars Hill.
SCOTT
Yes?
DAVE
He practically lived in that Observatory, a twenty-four inch
Clark Telescope, you know. They still call it Mars Hill.
He'd look at Mars all night, every night, for years. He
didn't do anything else, just Mars.
SCOTT

I've read a lot about him of course. He influenced H.G.

Wells didn't he, and 'The War of the Worlds'? I was just
reading that.
DAVE
Oh,Percy didn't like H.G. Wells, he told me. He made the
Martians something evil or something. Pure poppycock.
MOLLY
Kay, can you help me with dinner? It's almost ready.
KAY
Of course. You fellas can manage without us for a minute?
DAVE
We'll stumble forth somehow. Eh Jack, how's your drink?

KAY and MOLLY exit through a swinging door to the kitchen,

past a dining table already beautifully set.

SCOTT
Perfect. I hope I'm not imposing too much on you?
DAVE
Oh my God, we're proud to have one of our Servicemen for
dinner. How's the damn war going, we about to win it?
SCOTT
Europe is going well, I gather, but the Pacific is really
going to be tough. One lousy island after another.
DAVE
Lousy Japs. Percy Lowell lived in Japan for years, too, did
you know that? He told me. He knew the language, can you
believe that? And French. We often spoke in French.
SCOTT
Is that right? I'm rotten with languages.
DAVE

I pick 'em up easily. My family we're also French Canadien,

did Kay tell you?
DAVE
No.
DAVE
Oh yes, all the way back to France and Ireland, the bloody
Celts, that's us.
SCOTT
We're Celtic too, I suspect, Scotish and Welsh anyway.
DAVE
Damn fine. We should go up to Percy's Observatory tomorrow
night, or even tonight, and look at Mars. We can go up all
the time. I know the boys up there of course, we're all in
the same Church. Catholic, of course. Are you a church-going
man, Jack?
JACK
Yes Sir. My Mama always packed us off to the local Methodist
-DAVE
But not Catholic? Oh well. How's your drink? Time for
another. Shall we go look at the stars after dinner?
SCOTT
That would be fine. I love astronomy.

DAVE is making them more drinks.

DAVE
Maybe we'll see Santa Claus!

The women come out with turkey and fixings.

MOLLY

Christmas Eve dinner is served.

KAY
Come and get it.

They all gather around the table.

DAVE
Jack and I are going up to Lowell's Observatory after
dinner.
KAY
Oh good, great idea.
MOLLY
We have Midnight Mass though.
DAVE
We can do both. Jack, join us for Midnight Mass?
JACK
I'd love to.
KAY
You don't have to. Daddy, don't pressure him.
JACK
No really, I would love too. I'm very interested in Roman
Catholicism, and Roman history in general.
DAVE
Good man.
MOLLY
We'll all go look at the sacred Christmas Eve stars too.
What a great idea.
JACK
You can just go up there anytime?
KAY

Yes. Daddy knows everybody. He helped Dr. Lowell build the

Observatory in fact, when he was a young man. They discussed
astronomy all the time.
DAVE
I love it. Let's all sit. Kay, can you say grace?
KAY
Bless us oh Lord and these thy gifts, through Christ our
Lord.
ALL
Amen.
DAVE
Dig in Jack, we don't stand on ceremony.
SCOTT (taking food)
Thank you. When was that, when you built the Observatory?
DAVE
Percy started it in 1894, when I was only 5 years old still
in Stratford Ontario. But we came out here in the 1890s,
when my grandfather was homesteading out there, before then,
in the 1870s.
MOLYY
Before the railroad. How's the stuffing, Jack?
SCOTT
Outstanding, Mrs. O'Brien.
MOLLY
Oh my goodness, call me Molly.
SCOTT
Molly.
DAVE
By 1900 I was helping haul lumber up the hill, to build the
whole complex Dr. Lowell was doing. He was rich, you know,
from back east.

MOLLY
He was obsessed with Mars. Rather a little crazy about it,
some people thought.
SCOTT
Were you here then too, Molly?
MOLLY
Oh yes, we were kids growing up together.
DAVE
He put everybody to work, it seemed like, along with the
Babbitts and their ranches and trading posts on the Indian
Reservations, and the Riordans' sawmills.
KAY
But Lowell brought us into the intellectual sphere, Jack.
Scientists came from all around. They started the college up
too. We were studying, and not just making money for its own
sake.
MOLLY
It was a very exciting time. But Dr. Lowell died in 1916,
and then the first Great War kind of brought us all back
down.
DAVE
I hated that war.
SCOTT
It was meaningless slaughter. My father always said.
KAY
He's a farmer in Kansas, Daddy.
DAVE
Is that right? Then you didn't go hungry in the Depression?
SCOTT
No, that's one thing we had in the Dust Bowl, was food. No
shoes or coffee or sugar, but pork and vegetables.

DAVE
Duct Bowl. Damn.
SCOTT
The Dirty Thirties.
DAVE
Lots of folks went down.
SCOTT
Yes, but we hung on, thirteen kids to do a lot of work.
DAVE
I have a great admiration for that, Jack. Lieutenant. A
toast, to you, and our brave Servicemen all over the world,
fighting the evil!

They all stand and clink their glasses.

KAY
A toast, to us!
MOLLY
God bless.
JACK
To home, and families.
They all sit and eat again.
DAVE
I didn't go off to the First War, Jack. I didn't know what
my citizenship was, then, at the time. We were Canadians. My
brother Bill went though, and died of his wounds years
later, in the Thirties.
KAY
Uncle Billy was really wonderful, to me.
DAVE (crying suddenly)
My dearest friend. Delicious dinner, Mrs. O'Brien.

MOLLY
Well thank you, Sir.
SCOTT
Yes, really delicious. They were cooking a feast in the mess
hall, I heard, on the Base, but it couldn't possibly touch
this.
MOLLY
Oh it's just plain old turkey and mashed potatoes.
KAY
Oh no, Mom grows her own vegetables and -DAVE
I smell cherry pie too.
KAY
Daddy's favorite.
DAVE (crying, emotional)
I love my family so much. I'll bet you do too, Jack? I
always get a little emotional on Christmas Eve, please
excuse me.

He gets up and goes out a back door.

MOLLY
His headaches are getting worse.
KAY
I'll go see ...
She goes out after him.
MOLLY
Kathleen has been the only one who can console him, since
her mother died, back in '32. She was only seven years old.
Dave had his first two wives die on him.

DAVE and KAY come back in.

DAVE
Pardon me Jack, I just needed a little fresh air. Beautiful
evening, clear sky, perfect for star-watching. Shall we go?
SCOTT (getting up)
Certainly.
MOLLY
I'll stay here and clean up. I'll meet you at the church, at
11:30 if we want good seats. I'll save you our seats.
DAVE
Car's out back.
KAY
Daddy loves his old Ford.
The 3 of them exit out the back door, to the alley.

EXTERIOR - NIGHT
Driving up the little Mars Hill, in the car, Dave driving.

DAVE
Percival Lowell first studied Mars for a whole year, every
night, all night, that first year from May 24, 1894 to April
3, 1895. I memorized it.
KAY
Daddy's an expert on it.
SCOTT
This is Mars Hill?
DAVE
Yep. There's his Observatory, still working in perfect order
fifty years later. They really built 'em in those days.

The car pulls in to a few round buildings next to the big

white Observatory, and they get out.

KAY
Lowell's grave is right over there. And his house.
SCOTT
He lived up here?
DAVE
Yep. And the Rotunda and the other telescopes back in there.
KAY
Pluto was discovered here too, Jack.
SCOTT
I knew that.
KAY
In 1930, by a young astronomy student Clyde Tombaugh. I met
him once.
DAVE
Pluto. God the dead. Tombaugh used Percy's mathematics to
find it. And Hubble was studying here, all the big names.
Let's go and find Doc Slipher, he'll unlock it for us.
SCOTT
We can just go in and use the Telescope?
DAVE
Yep, there he is. Doc! You know, Jack, a lot of people say
Percy was crazy and didn't see any "Canals" on Mars, because
some of them didn't see them. But you have to look at it for
a long time first. You can't just focus in and expect to see
anything in ten minutes. Doc, this is Lieutenant Jack Scott,
Kathleen brought him up here to look at Mars, can you open
up the Clark for us?
DOC
For you Dave, anything. Good evening Kathleen, Lieutenant.

The elderly white-haired man smiles at them and waves. They

follow him up the steep path to the big white Observatory,
and they go in.

INTERIOR - THE OBSERVATORY

A huge gorgeous old Telescope sits quiet in the round empty

building, pointing to the open sky through a slit in the
roof.

DAVE
There she is.
SCOTT
Magnificent. This is very exciting. This is the very
telescope Doctor Lowell used, and influenced H.G. Wells and
everybody else?
DOC
The very one. He sat right here for many hours at a time,
off and on for twenty years.
SCOTT
My God.
DAVE (picking up a book)
Here's one of his books. He wrote three of 'em, and hundreds
of scientific articles.
DOC
I'll line it up for you. See if we can get the Red Planet.

He's adjusting the viewfinders on the Telescope.

SCOTT
God.

DAVE (reading)
... "there is no indication that we are sole denizens of all
we survey, and every inference that we are not ... " Isn't
that great? He was a first-class writer too.
KAY
I love that old style of writing.
SCOTT
Yes.
DAVE (reading)
" ... Before proceeding however, to an account of what in
consequence we have learned about our neighbor ... " He
always called Mars "our neighbor", Jack. " ... a couple of
misapprehensions upon the subject, - not confined, I am
sorry to say, wholly to the lay mind, - must first be
corrected."
DOC
Lowell was a professor of mathematics, you know, at M.I.T.,
and was a Phi Beta Kappa. Ph.D. Harvard graduate.
DAVE (reading)
" ... One of these is that extra-terrestrial life means
extra-terrestrial human life...Under changed conditions,
life itself must take on other forms...All deduction rests
ultimately upon the data derived from experience."
DOC
There. It's ready. Look right there Lieutenant.
SCOTT
Mars?
DOC
Yes, she's beautifully in focus. Percy said it all had to do
with the perfect atmosphere of Flagstaff.

Scott sits in a little chair in front of the viewfinder to

the giant Telescope.

CUT: OVERLAP -- Mars.

SCOTT (voiceover)
My God. Oh my God.
DAVE (voiceover)
Yes indeed. The god of Mars.
SCOTT (voiceover)
That's it, isn't it. I can't believe it.
KAY (voiceover)
Believe it.
DAVE (voiceover)
Just look at it, Jack, and I'll read to you. Focus your
eyes. Let our Arizona atmospherics settle down, and keep
looking. We have plenty of time. It's our own private
telescope. Listen to this: " ... To determine whether a
planet be the abode of life in the least resembling that
with which we are acquainted, two questions about it must be
answered in turn: first, are its physical conditions such as
render it, in our general sense, habitable; and secondly,
are there any signs of its actual habitation?"
SCOTT (voiceover, still looking)
Yes, it's coming in to better and better focus. Oh Jesus.
Look at that - some sort of gigantic rifts, like ... like
the Grand Canyon, as I've seen it from the air.
DOC (v.o.)
Yes indeed, Mars has very similar Earthlike canyons and
features of river valleys.
DAVE (v.o.)
Kathleen, can you read a little of this here, the light in
here isn't too good for my eyes, and we don't want to blind
Jack's view finder. Keep looking Jack, we'll talk in your
ears, a regular Harvard seminar.

KAY (v.o. reading)

" ... cogency ... the radiant point ... to the Egyptians we
owe the first systematic study ... to the Greeks whom they
taught ... planets, merely meaning 'wanderers'. ...
Kepler ... Tycho Brahe ... perihelion ... oppositions, they
are called, because Mars then is in the opposite part of the
sky from the Sun, - the planet appears four and one half
times as bright as at others. Here, then, we have the
explanation of the planet's great changes in appearance ...
"
DOC (v.o.)
And why some astronomers can't see the Canals. They change.
SCOTT (v.o.)
They change?
DAVE (v.o.)
Yes. Celestial mechanics. Keep looking, Jack.
DOC (v.o.)
Knowing his mass, we know the average density of a man. On
earth you would weigh 150 pounds, but on Mars but 55 pounds.
KAY (v.o. reading)
" ... So soon as the planet was scanned telescopically, he
was seen to present a disk, round at times, at other times
lacking somewhat of a perfect circle, showing like the Moon
when two days off from full ... For example, on the
sixteenth of last June the lacking lune amounted to forty
seven degrees, that is, the Earth was then evening star upon
the Martian twilight skies ..."
SCOTT looking up at them)
"The lacking lune?"
DOC
At an angular distance of forty seven degrees from the Sun.
SCOTT
I don't understand?
DOC

About what Venus seems to us at her extreme elongation. In

fact, to Mars we occupy much the same astronomical position
that Venus does to us.
DAVE (reading)
"By drawing lines from his centre to more than one position
occupied by the Earth it will be seen that this lacking lune
reaches a maximum when the Earth as viewed from Mars is at
extreme elongation from the Sun, and that the amount of the
lunar phase for instance at such time exactly equals the
number of degrees of this elongation."
SCOTT
Oh yes, now I see. I thought we did some complicated math
and aeronautics in Flight School, but this -DAVE
Get back on the viewfinder, please, that will explain a lot.
SCOTT (back on the Screen of MARS)
Yes. You're right.
KAY (v.o. reading)
" ... Huygens ... Cassini ... Whatever it may have had in
the past, there is at present no perceptible air upon the
surface of the Moon... With Mars it is otherwise. Over the
surface of that planet changes do occur, changes upon a
scale vast enough to be visible from the Earth."
SCOTT (looking up)
It's going out of the picture. The Earth is moving.
DOC
I'll adjust it, hold on a moment.
DAVE
Here's one of my favorite passages in his first book. This
is only his first book titled simply 'Mars' published as a
best seller to wide acclaim in 1896. "Below the white cap of
the north polar lay a region chiefly bluish-green,
interspersed, however, with portions more or less reddishochre. Below this, again, came a vast reddish-ochre
stretch." Page 33.

SCOTT
Green and blue?
DAVE
And reddish-ochre.
KAY
Like Arizona and New Mexico.
SCOTT
Phenomenal.
DOC
The colors are proof positive of the presence of an
atmosphere.
DAVE
And atmosphere, water, the presence of life.
DOC
She's back in the picture for you Lieutenant. The Earth is
rotating fast.
SCOTT (takes it again)
Thank you. I can't tell you how thrilling this is.
DAVE (v.o. reading)
" ... Canals inclosing ... the Galaxias region ... the
Boreas, and the Eunostos ..."
DOC (v.o.)
Names give to the canal regions by Dr. Lowell and his fellow
Harvard astronomers at the time in the 1890s, Professors
W.H. Pickering and Mr. A.E. Douglas.
SCOTT (v.o.)
And they saw the canals too?
DOC (v.o.)
Yes. On this very same telescope, after many many hours and
nights of viewing. Mr. Douglas found them perceptibly darker

than Dr. Pickering.

DAVE (v.o.)
Depressions and projections seen on the terminator of Mars.
SCOTT (v.o.)
The light line between day and night, like the Terminator on
the Moon?
DAVE
(v.o.)
Exactly.
KAY (v.o. reading)
"One deduction from this thin air we must be careful not to
make - that because it is thin it is incapable of supporting
intelligent life. That beings constituted physically as we
are would find it a most uncomfortable habitat is pretty
certain. But lungs are not wedded to logic, as public
speeches show, and there is nothing in the world or beyond
it to prevent, so far as we know, a being with gills, for
example, from being a most superior person."
SCOTT (v.o.)
I see it! They're like thick, yellow lines between the
canyon rifts. Lines. Oh my. They're like ... they are ...
like ... vibrating or something, it seems like.
DAVE
Yes.

DAVE, KAY, and DOC in the darkened Observatory share good

looks among them, as Scott continues peering in the
telescope.
DOC
After air, water.
DAVE
Clouds.

KAY
And there is water on Mars, at the poles, and underground,
erosion of dried waterbeds and great rivers.
DAVE (reading the book)
"That the blue was water at the edge of the melting snow
seems unquestionable. That it was the color of water; that
it so persistently bordered the melting snow at the north
pole; and that it subsequently vanished, are three facts
mutually confirmatory to this deduction."
SCOTT (on the telescope)
I don't see any water.
DOC
You're not aimed at the poles. Wrong time of year anyway.
Mars has four seasons just like we do.
SCOTT
Definitely canals or roads or something between the large
darker patches.
DAVE (reading)
"Meanwhile an interesting phenomenon occurred in the cap on
June 7. On that morning -- "
DOC
He looked in the daytime too, sometimes.
DAVE (reading)
" --- at about a quarter of six (or, more precisely, on June
8, 1h. 17m., G.M.T.) as I was watching the planet, I saw
suddenly two points like stars flash out in the midst of the
polar cap. Dazzlingly bright upon the duller white
background of the snow, these stars shone for a few moments
and then slowly disappeared. The seeing at the time was very
good. It is at once evident what the other-world apparitions
were, - not the fabled signal-lights of Martian folk, but
the glint of ice-slopes flashing for a moment earthward as
the rotation of the planet turned the slope to the proper
angle."
DOC

Nature's own flash-lights.

DAVE
It would have taken them nine minutes to make the journey;
nine minutes before they reached Earth they had ceased to be
on Mars, and, after their travel of one hundred millions of
miles, found, to note them, but one watcher, alone on a
hill-top with the dawn.
DOC (reading)
Page 91: "What had certainly been there on the 12th was not
there on the 13th. The ice-cap had disappeared."
DAVE
It changes constantly.
KAY
Like the Earth.
DAVE
No wonder an astronomer in Massachusetts can't see something
an astronomer in Arizona saw yesterday.
SCOTT (still on the telescope)
Astronomical pictures have always made me marvel - we had a
small telescope on the Air Base where I went to Cadet School
- because they are optical illusions: upside down, south
lies at the top of the picture, west to the right, north at
the bottom, and east to the left. Mars rotates as does the
Earth, from west to east. It's amazing. Truly amazing. She's
moving out of sight again, Doc.

He gets off and rubs his eyes. DOC gets on it again to move
it slightly.

KAY
How do you like it?
SCOTT
Are you kidding me? This is the greatest thing I've ever

seen.
DAVE
It really is.
SCOTT
I want to read his books. Where can I get them?
DAVE
They're all out of print, decades ago. Nobody cares about
Percival Lowell, especially scientists.
DOC
Everybody thought he was nuts.
KAY
Still do.
SCOTT
They're the crazy ones.
DAVE
You can borrow my copies, signed by Percy, if you're really
serious.
SCOTT
Oh, I couldn't do that.
DAVE
One copy at a time, if you swear to return them.
SCOTT
On my honor. And I'm dead serious, this is ... my god ...
the most important thing going on in our times.
DAVE
I agree. Here, take it. Christmas present.

Hands him the book. Scott almost cries.

SCOTT

Books are ... almost sacred to me. I can't tell you how much
... Thank you. Thank you Dave.
DOC
She's back in view, on the south pole, er, the north pole at
the bottom.
SCOTT (at it again)
I can't wait to read it. Oh God, look at that!

MARS

DOC (v.o.)
That's the received Greenwich of Martian longitudes, and was
named by Schiaparelli the 'Fastigium Aryn', such as having
been the name of a mythologic spot between the zenith and
the nadir - the middle of the star-planet.
DAVE (v.o.)
Close to the Mare Serenitatis, to the west of Sabaeus Sinus.
SCOTT (v.o.)
There's the lines again.
DOC (v.o.)
With regard to their surprising symmetry, it is only
necessary as Lowell said to say that the better they are
seen the more symmetrical they look.
DAVE (v.o.)
He said, it was evidence of a great planetary-wide
civilization, that was so unified it could construct
something in coordination, and, necessarily, in peace. They
are all over the world. He and his scientists drew detailed
maps and charts of the canals, and Oases at the great
junctions and crossroads. They took telescopic photographs
of them. They worked on it for twenty years, all over the
world, at other observatories in Peru and Europe. They had
to be a unified world, the whole planet, to get it done for the water on Mars was, apparently, running out. It was a
great crisis. They were not the evil, violent warmonger

invaders that H.G. Wells concocted. Not at all. That was

nonsense, Jack. Nonsense. Only Earthlings fight World Wars.
SCOTT (v.o.)
You're right, Dave. You're absolutely right.
KAY (v.o.)
Here he wrote, on the last page: "That we are the sum and
substance of the capabilities of the cosmos is something so
preposterous as to be exquisitely comic."
DAVE (v.o.)
Another great quote, here, page 211: "To talk of Martian
beings is not to mean Martian men. Just as the probabilities
point to the one, so do they point away from the other. Even
on this Earth man is of the nature of an accident. He is the
survival of by no means the highest physical organism. He is
not even a high form of mammal."
SCOTT (v.o. laughing)
Killer apes, the anthropologists have been proving in
Africa.
DAVE (v.o. reading)
"Mind has been his making. For aught we can see, some lizard
or batrachian might just as well have popped into his place
early in the race, and been now the dominant creature of
this Earth. Under different physical conditions, he would
have been certain to do so. Amid the surroundings that exist
on Mars, surroundings so different from our own, we may be
practically sure other organisms have been evolved of which
we have no cognizance. What manner of beings they may be we
lack the data even to conceive."
SCOTT (v.o.)
A mind of no mean order would seem to have presided over
this system I'm looking at.
KAY (v.o. reading)
Quote: "The evidence of handicraft, if such it be, points to
a highly intelligent mind behind it... really older than our
own ... one of the most peaceful of the heavenly host ...
The canals are constructed for the express purpose of
fertilizing the oases. They are not purely natural

developments, but cases of assisted nature ... " It goes on

and on, Jack. But I'm afraid we have to get to Midnight
Mass.
He pulls back from the telescope.
SCOTT
No problem. It's going to take me years to comprehend all
this. Thank you Doctor.
DOC
You're very welcome Lieutenant. Good luck out there.
SCOTT
Thank you. Good night, and Merry Christmas.
DOC
Merry Christmas to all of you too.
The 3 of them exit.
EXTERIOR - NIGHT
They all involuntarily stop and look up at the great sky of
countless stars.

DAVE
There she is, just one red dot among all the others.
SCOTT
Incredible.
KAY
I don't know how anyone can not believe there isn't some
infinite creation out there behind it all, whether it's
religion or science or anything else. How could we die and
then end it all, in some unreasonable oblivion? It doesn't
seem fair, if anything.
DAVE
There is justice in the sky. It is fair, Kathleen. My
darling girl. Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas Jack Scott.

SCOTT
You too Sir, Merry Christmas.
KAY
Merry Christmas.

They all hold hands and walk happily back to their car, in
the quiet clear night.

SLOW FADE OUT

END OF ACT TWO