OK, I am not one to share YouTube links--I understand most people share them with the very best of intent, but I find it irritating in the same way that my friends and family find me annoying when I routinely interrupt whatever they're doing and badger them (again, with the best of intent) to look at whatever I've just stumbled across in my reading.

HOWEVER, in the spirit of Halloween, I've got to share this video snippet.

It took a while to track this movie down. I'd caught it once, on TCM, during that channel's broad-minded celebration of the film "Chariot of the Gods" and it's offspring (y'know, those UFO psuedo-documentaries from the 70's obsessed with proving a connection between extraterrestrials and ancient man).

The film is called "Mysteries From Beyond Earth" (available on DVD--and Ellis, don't think I ain't ordering you a copy), a film so obscure IMDB doesn't have much to say about it.

In fact, Ellis, it was your post on the immortal Paul Frees that got me thinking of this: when I first saw this film, I mistook the narrator for Paul Frees. No longer.

The narrator of "M.F.B.E." is someone named Lawrence Dobkin, (a man IMDB tells us is one of only two men to both act in, and direct an episode of the original "Star Trek" TV series, but whose extensive list of credits on his IMDB page fails to mention "M.F.B.E.")  As you'll see, not only is his voice gargantuan, his demeanor is fantastic--just watch for his slide-show film advance gesture. Priceless!

There is a line of dialogue unfortunately not included in this clip. At one point he asks the rhetorical question, "why can't man travel between the stars, like these extraterrestrials?" and quickly cites the dangers of "cosmic rays." He describes their danger thus, with barely concealed rage: "The power of these cosmic rays is so great, should a crew of astronauts travel into deep space, they would return to earth a pack of gibbering idiots."

!!!