II.

by H. G. Wells

THE FALLING STAR

It was the night of the first falling star. Early that morning, people in Winchester saw it streaking across the sky, a fiery line racing eastward. Hundreds must have witnessed it, likely thinking it was just another meteor. Albin described it as leaving behind a greenish trail that glowed for several seconds. Denning, our top expert on meteorites, estimated that it first appeared about ninety to one hundred miles high and believed it landed roughly a hundred miles east of him.

I was at home, writing in my study. My French windows faced Ottershaw, and with the blind up—I loved gazing at the night sky—I missed the spectacle. The most extraordinary object to ever fall from the cosmos must have passed right above me while I sat there, oblivious. Some witnesses claimed it traveled with a hissing sound, but I heard nothing. Many people across Berkshire, Surrey, and Middlesex likely saw it fall, assuming it was just another meteorite. No one seemed to bother looking for the fallen mass that night.

But very early the next morning, poor Ogilvy, who had seen the shooting star and was convinced a meteorite lay somewhere on the common between Horsell, Ottershaw, and Woking, woke up determined to find it. And he did, shortly after dawn, not far from the sand pits. The impact had created a massive hole, flinging sand and gravel in every direction, forming heaps that could be seen from a mile and a half away. The heather was ablaze to the east, and thin blue smoke curled up against the dawn sky.

The object itself was mostly buried in sand, surrounded by splintered fragments of a fir tree it had shattered during its descent. The exposed part resembled a giant cylinder, its surface caked and softened by a thick, scaly, brownish crust. It measured about thirty yards in diameter. As Ogilvy approached, he was taken aback by its size and the unusual shape, as most meteorites are more rounded. It was still too hot from its fiery journey for him to get close. He attributed the faint stirring noise coming from within the cylinder to the uneven cooling of its surface; at that moment, he hadn’t considered that it might be hollow.

Standing at the edge of the pit the object had created, he stared at its bizarre appearance, astonished mainly by its odd shape and color, and vaguely sensing that there was something deliberate about its arrival. The early morning was eerily quiet, and the sun, just rising above the pine trees toward Weybridge, was already warm. He couldn’t recall hearing any birds that morning; there was no breeze, and the only sounds were the faint movements from within the ashy cylinder. He was completely alone on the common.

Then, suddenly, he noticed with a jolt that some of the grey clinker—the ashy crust covering the meteorite—was flaking off the circular edge. It fell in flakes, raining down onto the sand. A large piece broke away with a sharp noise that made his heart race.

For a moment, he barely grasped what this meant. Despite the intense heat, he climbed down into the pit to get a better look at the object. He still thought the cooling might explain the ash falling off, but what puzzled him was that it was only coming from the end of the cylinder.

Then he saw it: the circular top of the cylinder was slowly rotating. It was such a gradual movement that he only realized it when he noticed a black mark that had been near him five minutes ago was now on the opposite side. Even then, he didn’t fully understand what it meant until he heard a muffled grating sound and saw the black mark jerk forward an inch or so. Suddenly, it hit him—the cylinder was artificial, hollow, with a top that could unscrew! Something inside was unscrewing the lid!

“Oh my God!” Ogilvy exclaimed. “There’s a man in there—men in there! Half roasted to death! Trying to escape!”

In that instant, he made a quick connection between the object and the flash he had seen on Mars.

The thought of the trapped creature filled him with dread, so much so that he ignored the heat and rushed toward the cylinder to help turn it. Fortunately, the intense heat stopped him just in time, preventing him from burning his hands on the still-glowing metal. He hesitated for a moment, then scrambled out of the pit and took off running wildly toward Woking. It must have been around six o’clock.

He encountered a wagon driver and tried to explain, but his wild appearance—his hat had fallen off in the pit—made the man dismiss him and drive on. He had no better luck with the potman who was unlocking the doors of the pub by Horsell Bridge. The potman thought he was a madman and even tried to shove him into the taproom. That brought him back to reality a bit, and when he spotted Henderson, the journalist from London, in his garden, he called out over the fence.

“Henderson!” he shouted. “Did you see that shooting star last night?”

“Well?” Henderson replied.

“It’s out on Horsell Common now.”

“Good Lord!” Henderson exclaimed. “A fallen meteorite? That’s amazing.”

“But it’s more than just a meteorite. It’s a cylinder—an artificial cylinder! And there’s something inside.”

Henderson stood up, spade in hand, looking puzzled. “What do you mean?” he asked, as he was deaf in one ear.

Ogilvy recounted everything he had witnessed. Henderson took a moment to process it all. Then he dropped his spade, grabbed his jacket, and stepped into the road. The two men hurried back to the common, finding the cylinder still in the same spot. But now the sounds from within had stopped, and a thin ring of bright metal appeared between the top and the body of the cylinder. Air was either entering or escaping at the rim with a faint, sizzling sound.

They listened closely, tapping on the scorched metal with a stick, but when they received no response, they concluded that whoever was inside must be unconscious or dead.

Of course, they were powerless to do anything. They shouted words of comfort and promises, then headed back to town to get help. One can imagine them, covered in sand, excited and disheveled, running up the little street in the bright sunlight just as shopkeepers were pulling down their shutters and people were opening their bedroom windows. Henderson went straight to the railway station to send a telegram to London. The newspapers had already primed people to accept such news.

By eight o’clock, a group of boys and unemployed men had begun making their way to the common to see the “dead men from Mars.” That’s how the story had spread. I first heard about it from my newspaper boy around a quarter to nine when I stepped outside to grab my _Daily Chronicle_. I was startled and wasted no time heading out across Ottershaw Bridge to the sand pits.