The Thing from Outer Space (short story): Difference between revisions

It featured the [[Third Doctor]].

It was just before midnight on a dark wintry evening, when the blinding green flare suddenly lit up the whole of the Southern Counties of England. It lasted for ten seconds, an unearthly pulsating glow, that stopped men in their tracks and had farm animals for miles around kicking and moaning in terror. Then it vanished, and the gloom that followed, lay like a thick brooding menace over the land. At the Secret Research Station near Portsmouth, Dr Who was awoken in his sleeping quarters, by the flare like light, and pressed a button on a video screen to ask the Duty Guard Officer to find out about it and report back. The sky was pitch black and there was nothing to be seen save the lights of a frigate berthed across the harbour, and the unusual degree of activity on board. The Duty Guard Officer then informed Dr Who, that reports were coming in to say that a bright, flaming object had splashed down in Portsmouth Harbour, and that the navy were wondering if the Secret Research Centre were responsible for it. Dr Who, ordered an emergency meeting to take place in the operations room, and thereafter took a high speed lift to the control centre at the top of the ten storey block that dominated the Research Centre, where in turn, he found an excited group of officers and scientists, already assembled for the meeting. They were all crowded near to a huge window that overlooked Portsmouth Harbour, and Dr Who joined them, to see a great, glowing mass, heaving and pulsing, like some monstrous jelly fish, a creature with long tendrils protruding from its body, and a hideous frog like head. Every breath it took, it pulsated an eerie green light that beamed out across the harbour. Horrified onlookers in the operations room watched as the sailors on the frigate manned the canons and fired a steady stream of shells at the advancing monster, all of which, burst short of the huge glowing creature. The closer the creature got to the ship, the closer to the ship, their shells burst, until as the monster was almost upon them, their cannon exploded. Simultaneously, the great pulsating Thing stretched out its antennae and touched the side of the ship, resulting in the vessel becoming engulfed in a phosphorescent fire, that for a few seconds lit up the harbour. The monster then disappeared into the depths of the water.