TALES OF TOMORROW / "Plague From Space" - 1952

Here's one from the dark side... A spaceship from Mars lands at an Air Force Base, there is a passenger inside but he's infected by a virulent bacteria, and it looks like it's a planned attack by someone on the red planet!..

This exceptional little feature stars Gene (THE OUTER LIMITS - "The Borderland") Raymond, Charles (THE SILENT SERVICE - TV) Proctor, Phillip (THE LOST MISSILE) Pine, James (forever Scotty) Doohan and Harry (PHANTOM FROM SPACE) Landers.

Colonel Ward is commander at a remote Air Force base in the desert. After his heroic stint in WWII, he wonders if his career is on the downturn, and, he has started drinking.

Then, reports of a strange object approaching from space spreads through the base, and it's not acting like a meteor would! After changing directions a number of times, the thing lands down at the air field. The men are dumbfounded by the event. Now what?..

What else, they take the object into a hanger where they can get a good look at it. 

Ignoring any safety concerns, they eventually get the door open on the ship.

The passenger is pulled out, he seems to be sick with some sort of illness.

The Corporal offers up an observation after studying the bacteria under a microscope, and with a device to detect brain waves (that's one Hell of a hunch there Brainiac!).

You mean?!.. Yes, each bacteria has a little brain and life force, and they're attacking all the men on the base!

And now, there's no trace of the bacteria on the passenger!.. What the?!

The men are dropping like flies!! Corporal Turner, Ward's pal, starts freaking out, saying that he doesn't want to die, he tries to run away but is shot down by a guard! Ward's on a bummer, he calls in to see how many men are left alive on the base. The answer is 13 out of 2000!!

Welp, it's time for some old time religion, first off, toss that booze bottle into the trash!

There is only one thing to do, call in an A-Bomb strike on the base!!.. Yeah!!

Ward watches as the plane passes overhead... Like I said, only one way to stop the spread!!

I thought this was interesting, we got a TV a year later. It's amazing how basic this ABC logo was at the time, and times have changed (for the worst)!