Outer Limits: “O.B.I.T.”

Outer Limits: “O.B.I.T.” Greg Oswald, director. ABC Television 4 November 1963. 

Opening narration, given in Wikipedia entry (lightly edited): “In this room, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, security personnel at the [U.S.] Defense Department's Cypress Hills Research Center keep constant watch on its scientists through O.B.I.T., a mysterious electronic device whose very existence was carefully kept from the public at large. And so it would have remained but for the facts you are about to witness….” The Storyline on IMDb is less accurate, but Wikipedia entry summarizes, “While inquiring into the murder of an administrator at a government research facility, a U.S. senator is confronted with paranoia, secrecy, and intimidation. He ultimately learns the cause: An unusual security device that is used to monitor its employees. The Outer Band Individuated Teletracer (known by the acronym O.B.I.T.) is so pervasive and invasive that no one can escape its prying eye, at any time or within 500 miles. It is even deemed addictive by some of its operators. After a missing administrator is found and reveals his knowledge of O.B.I.T., [… it is revealed as] an alien invention that was designed to demoralize and desensitize the human race in preparation for invasion. During government hearings, Lomax, one of the project's administrators reveals himself to be an alien, proudly warning onlookers as to the horrific impact O.B.I.T. will have on mankind. As he speaks, a nearby O.B.I.T. machine shows Lomax in his true alien form.” This alien monolog is quoted on Wikipedia and as of 15 November 2018 is available as a clip on YouTube.

The episode took on political implications as U.S. (and other?) Libertarians cited it in 2013 as crucial background for judging Edward Snowden’s exposing of the U.S. National Security Agency’s electronic surveillance.

See for the motif of surveillance and for what Garrett Stewart has called Videology (in SF film), especially in that striking climax shot of the alien in his/its true form shown on a screen in the O.B.I.T. device.

RDE, Initial Compiler, 15Nov2018