Nobody really considers Rod Serling a prophet, but I’ll tell you, this guy saw our day and even did an episode of The Twilight Zone on it. Serling was a typical Hollywood leftist, so were he alive, he would not appreciate the connection I am making here, but it is unmistakable and like most episodes of The Twilight Zone, it will give you the creeps.
The episode “To Serve Man” first aired in 1962, and it makes virtually every top ten list of all-time Twilight Zone episodes. The same story line was used by ABC in their “V” series that lasted four episodes and is scheduled to return on March 30.
WudBfRa0ETwRespectfully submitted for your perusal: a Kanamit. Height: a little over nine feet. Weight: in the neighborhood of three hundred and fifty pounds. Origin: unknown. Motives? Therein hangs the tale, for in just a moment we’re going to ask you to shake hands, figuratively, with a Christopher Columbus from another galaxy and another time. This is the Twilight Zone.
Kanamits arrive on earth and immediately make everything better. They promise humans that they will bring the world peace by installing force fields between the nations that will not allow weapons to penetrate (take that, Homeland Security). They have some secret energy source that will power everything we use (they were green before green was cool), and they have secret fertilizer that will make arid soil flourish and there will be plenty of food for all mankind (and they did all this before there was an Earth Day or a Sierra Club).
When the king of the Kanamits lets us little people know what he will do for the world he says, “We ask only that you trust us, only that you simply trust us.” Sounds like a great deal. I’m all in! “Yes we can, yes we can, yes we can!”
Naturally, the United Nations falls in love with the Kanamits. The media adores them and the headlines blast out their praise. “KANAMITS PROMISE NEW ERA”, “KANIMITS OFFER PEACE AND PROSPERITY”. Gotta love the U.N., their discretion has always been top notch.
Ah, this is as good as it gets. Kanamits can do it all, and just to prove they can, they drop of a book with all sorts of strange writing it in. The government brains are called upon to interpret the book. Of course, there is some resistance. Since these Kanamits have already said they have only benign motives, and initially, their plans are working—why should any of us mere mortals try to figure out why they are really here?
After extensive research they finally decipher the title of the book, “To Serve Man.” Of course, those who are gullible are even more excited at the altruistic sounding title. Like Obama, even when he tells us his plans are to “share the wealth,” many still find it hard to believe that he loves socialist principles. Those who haven’t fallen in “schoolgirl love” with the Kanamits quickly figure out that the plan by the Kanamits is to “serve” the people up as their next meal. No duh.
In the final sequence of the half-hour episode you find the main character had been fooled to fly to this nirvana planet where the Kanamits live. He quickly finds out that he is on the menu, then offers a warning to those left on earth, “Sooner or later we’ll all of us be on the menu.” Rod Serling saw our day.