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Hello, tonight you shall enter a realm of the supernatural, seldom visited by normal
mortals.
Yes, tonight with your very own eyes you will witness the power of infinite wisdom.
Now so we will not interrupt our story for a commercial, witness the wisdom of smart
minds, ready to restrain yourself from the clutches of fear as we begin tonight's strange
story entitled, Just What Happened.
Lights out.
Now
a story and all of us stick to it.
You're gonna get out of the way!
What happened?
Oh no, I just heard a thud and here he was.
Vera, listen.
Vera!
Stop, I'm trying!
We've got to get ourselves a story quickly
before they get here.
They'll never believe it.
They'll never believe he fell out.
He didn't.
No, he didn't.
What's the matter?
What happened?
Oh, did you see it happen?
No, no, I just heard a thud and there he was.
Oh, what would he fall out?
Hey, he was up there.
What's that?
Oh, yeah.
He was up there.
He went up with some other people.
They're up there now, I guess.
I don't know who they are.
What's the matter?
Yeah, he goes up there all the time
to see Mr. Melius.
What happened?
Go on, what happened?
It was an accident.
Mr. Melius was leaning out of the window.
I guess he got dizzy because he leaned out too far
and lost his balance.
Yes, that's what happened.
Are the others up there now?
Yes.
All right, come along.
We'll see what they have to say.
All right, let's break it up here.
Let's move out.
All right, move on, move on, everybody.
Come on.
Poor Mr. Melius.
Move away.
Remember what I said.
Yes, yes.
It was an accident, wasn't it?
You shut up.
I'll listen to what they have to say.
All right, what happened?
Well, it happened this way.
We were having a little party.
There were five of us.
Five?
Yes.
Mr. Maddox brought a girl.
I think her name was Lydia Gay.
Mr. Melius, who lived here, didn't like Miss Gay,
and then Maddox started to quarrel with him.
Then Miss Gay went home feeling insulted,
and Maddox became angry and abusive.
Then they started fighting over there by the window,
and he fell.
Oh, was he poised.
That's a lie.
That's not what happened at all.
You agree with this, Stollow?
Yes, yes.
It happened just the way he said.
Well, that's two against one.
But it isn't true.
It isn't true at all.
You did bring a girl here.
Yes.
And she left in a huff?
Yes, but that's no reason I would...
What happened?
Well, it was my fault, I admit that.
But I didn't kill Carl O'Melius, I didn't.
All right, I'll be taking all of you down to the station.
Come on.
It's our story and we're gonna stick to it.
Now don't forget that.
Come on, you two.
♪
Mr. Maddox, you don't expect me to believe that.
But I've told you the truth.
The jury will think you're insane.
Oh, I'm as sane as you are.
Not with that story, you're not.
If you want to set up a defense of insanity, all right.
Then go ahead and tell your fairy tale to the jury.
I'm not going to.
I'm not going to.
I'm not going to.
I'm not going to.
Then go ahead and tell your fairy tale to the jury.
But if you insist upon not being considered insane,
then I can't let you take the stand.
I admit it's a little difficult to believe.
I'd rather go to an asylum than to the chair.
I don't want to be caged up with a lot of lunatics
the rest of my life.
I refuse to plead insanity.
I'd rather take my chances.
Maddox, you take my advice and I'll save your life.
All right.
What do you want me to do?
Good.
I want you to do as I say and stand a chance
of getting off with a second degree murder verdict.
I want you to confess to having thrown
Carl Emilius out of the window, but without premeditation.
No, I won't confess to anything like that!
I refuse to lie about what happened,
even to save my own life.
Okay.
If you won't help me, then I can't take your case.
Call me if you change your mind.
Here ye, here ye.
All those having business before this court
come forward and ye shall be heard.
People of the state of New York, you guessed Harry Maddox.
Raise your right hand.
Do you solemnly swear to tell the truth,
the whole truth, and nothing but the truth,
so help you God?
I do, so help me God.
Your name?
Harry Maddox.
Be seated.
Harry Maddox.
I may not be able to convince you of my innocence, because what I have to tell you is very hard
to believe.
I couldn't even convince my own lawyer, and he advised me to confess to something that
wasn't true.
To confess that I'd thrown Carl Emilius out of the window, but without premeditation.
Well that isn't true, I didn't throw Carl Emilius out the window.
I'll tell you just what happened.
It all began one night when I attended a lecture at Carnegie Hall.
The lecturer was an Indian yogi, and he talked about spiritualism.
I don't go in much for that stuff myself, but I do rather enjoy the show of a seance.
Well, seated next to me was a thin young man who seemed intensely interested.
We struck up a conversation, and he invited me over to his studio.
It was Carl Emilius.
I just can't figure it out.
What can't you figure out?
How that medium up there on that stage could read those messages with his eyes taped up
and bandaged like that.
Oh that.
Some kind of a trick?
A trick that has a natural explanation?
No, Harry.
It looked to me like genuine clairvoyance.
Carlo, I can't bring myself to believe in that stuff.
I'm strictly from Missouri, I have to be sure.
You recall what Hamlet said, there are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than
are dreamt of in your philosophy.
Well, I'd go so far as to say that there are things in life that are difficult to explain
or understand.
But that's only because our minds aren't ready for the explanation.
Tell me, have you ever dreamed of flying in the air?
Sure, everybody does, one time or another.
I do all the time.
Some people say it's a prehistoric memory of when we were apes and jumped from tree
to tree, but there's a lot more to it than that.
It's a marvelous sensation.
Perfectly marvelous.
Why, you know, I can float along through streets, over hills, valleys, and rivers, floating
anywhere I want to go, simply by directing my will.
Carlo, you know what Freud's theory is.
No, no, he's as far off as those 25-cent dream books that people read.
Why, to me, these flying dreams are as real as anything in my waking life.
But still, only a dream.
Yes, but even in a dream, you have to learn how to do it.
It takes a special technique.
You learn one step at a time.
Carlo, I'm afraid anything is possible in a dream.
I began by taking enormous jumps, oh, perhaps a hundred feet.
And then when I land, I spring off again, exactly like a bouncing ball.
It's a question of timing your mental impulses.
I finally got the hang of it.
It's just like, well, like swimming.
You almost make it sound real.
I finally learned how to take off, even while lying flat on my back.
Of course, Harry, it takes a tremendous amount of concentration and willpower.
But you know, if you try hard enough, you can rise slowly in the air.
In your dreams, you mean?
Yes, in my dreams.
But the sensation is so vivid, so powerful, that after I wake up, I actually try to do
it.
In fact, I try to do it every morning in bed.
It seems impossible that I shouldn't be able to do it the way I do in my dreams.
I know exactly how it's done.
I think he would have demonstrated for me right then, if the doorbell hadn't rung.
I remember we were both kind of annoyed at the interruption.
It was like being waken too early in the morning.
Well, it was Hunter and his friend Vera.
We were all introduced, and it seems they knew all about Carlo's interest in levitation.
Hunter encouraged him to talk about it.
I had no idea the thing was so well-known.
Oh, yes.
Everybody believed it in the Middle Ages.
Why, there's some historic cases of men flying in the air while praying.
Flying in the air?
Yes, they would hang there suspended, still praying.
Why, Carlton Newman in his Apologia professed to the reality of levitation.
Wasn't there a medium in England back in the 1860s?
I think Elizabeth Barrett Browning believed in him.
What was his name?
Holmes.
Yeah, that was at his séances.
He used to float right out of the window and then float back in again.
I don't believe that ever really happened.
Oh, it did, Harry.
It did.
Sir William Crookes was present at several of Holmes' séances and testified to the truth
of the phenomena.
Yeah, but wasn't he exposed later?
I know some crooked mediums who've done levitation by means of trickery.
Magicians do it all the time.
That doesn't prove that it isn't possible to overcome the force of gravity by some unknown
power or some sheer effort of the will.
He walked on the water, didn't he?
The apostle Peter did, too.
And he sank only because he didn't have enough faith.
You've got to have enough faith or you never can do it.
Miracles?
Miracles are merely the phenomena of scientific laws we don't yet understand.
The Swami Vivekananda says it's possible even nowadays.
Yeah, but those miraculous things the yogis in India do, they're the result of, you know,
severe ascetic training.
You can't develop these powers, Carlo, if you smoke and drink.
And eat steaks and chops.
And I never saw a mystic with a short haircut and a closed shave.
Nor did I ever see one who wore smartly tailored clothes.
Well, maybe you're right.
But I know exactly how it's done.
And I'll do it, too.
I forgot all about the matter when I left New York and went up to Maine for a couple
of months during the summer.
When I got back, I called up Carlo and he seemed very eager to see me.
As a matter of fact, he invited me over that same day.
And so I went.
Now what I'm going to tell you now, I hardly expect anyone to credit.
Until now, you may have thought merely that Carlo was a little cracked.
From this point on, you may think that I am, too.
But I'm not.
Yes, come in.
Come in.
Harry.
Harry, I'm so glad you could come.
I've, I've instituted a new way of life, Harry.
Not so much to mortify my body as to refine my senses.
I'm afraid I can't offer you a drink.
Oh, that's all right.
The smell of alcohol affects me disagreeably nowadays.
Carlo, are you sure you're all right?
Oh, yes, yes.
Don't worry about me.
I'm all right.
But I, I do wish you'd stop smoking.
Oh, I'm sorry.
My senses have become so acute lately.
Do you know, Harry, I can hear what people are saying out in the street.
And I can read when it's almost pitch dark.
There's a new power growing in me.
Power?
Yes.
A spiritual power, perhaps psychic.
It's a new kind of force, but it does take a lot out of me.
I've lost about 18 pounds.
But then it's easier that way.
There's not so much of me to lift.
Carlo, do you mean to say you've had success already?
That you've actually lifted yourself?
Yes, yes.
This morning I succeeded in rising several inches above my bed.
And the telephone rang and seemed to break my concentration.
I dropped back again.
Or else the bell woke me.
It's getting hard for me to distinguish between my real life and my dreams.
I don't know anymore.
Sometimes I think I'm asleep.
Then again, I, I don't know.
Harry, I want you to watch me and see what happens.
I know I need a witness in order to find out how far I'm progressing.
All right.
Sure.
Don't speak, Harry.
Wait with me.
Wish with all you've got that I will lift myself.
I'm growing weaker, Harry.
I'm coming down.
Relax.
I'm coming down.
Relax a little.
Relax.
You helped a lot, Harry.
I could feel your added power lifting me.
Oh, my head.
You know, Harry, with more concentration I believe I could float about the room like
home did.
Carlo, this is something uncanny.
But you mustn't do it again.
Something will happen to you.
No, no.
I'm going to try and I'll keep on trying.
Yes, we must ask Vera and Hunter to work with us.
I wonder if a woman present would help.
Vera is psychic, you know.
She can read your thoughts.
I've seen her do extraordinary things.
In the 17th century, she would have been burned as a witch.
Yes, I know what you mean.
The eyes.
She has what the gypsies call the light behind the eyes.
She's interested in this work, Harry.
She strengthens my faith.
Carlo, if you feel that way about it, I wonder if you'd mind if I brought someone I met this
summer.
All right.
All right, Harry.
There will be five of us, then.
Five of us concentrating together will form a sort of psychic battery.
And that's where I made my fatal mistake.
I didn't tell Lydia exactly what the party was going to be like.
If I had, then she could have testified earlier that I had told her we were going to experiment
with levitation.
But I didn't.
I wanted to surprise her.
That's why all she could say truthfully was that I had asked her to come up to Carlo's
with me and hadn't even told her that there wouldn't be any drinks.
Come in.
Lydia, I want you to meet my friend Carlo Melius.
Lydia Gay?
How do you do?
I'm so glad you came.
I want you to meet my other guests, Mrs. Derrymanson, Mr. Hunter.
Oh, no, Harry.
Well, Miss Demelia, I wouldn't want you to paint my portrait.
I wouldn't have but one eye and probably no feet.
I'm afraid you don't flatter anyone who sits for you.
I'm afraid you don't know much about modern art, Miss Gay.
Modern art?
Why, my dear girl, I guess I ought to know something about it.
I played Ophelia in Hamlet with modern costume and no scenery.
In fact, in this very gown.
Do you really call that dress modern?
Well, it's as modern as that thing on the wall there.
Some of us aren't capable of appreciating the subtleties of life.
Do you call that outfit you're wearing subtle?
Where'd you pick it up, in a rummage sale?
Is it any breathing or sensitivity at all?
I'm afraid Miss Gay has brought in antagonistic vibrations.
I think we'd better call the whole thing off.
Oh, I had no idea.
I'm terribly sorry.
Harry, I'm afraid you've given me a bum steer.
Juliet, please.
I'd like to leave, Harry.
All right, I'll go with you.
I'll take you home or wherever else you want to go.
Oh, no, you needn't bother.
I have a late date.
Besides, why don't you stay and play with Cat-Eyes over there?
You can imagine how ruffled we all were, but there was absolutely no comment at all.
We all tried to ignore the episode.
All except Carla.
Vera finally succeeded in getting him to agree to go on with the seance.
Now, you heard Hunter and Vera testify here that Carla and I got into a fight over the
incident.
The idea of Carla Melius, who was always peaceful and was weakened by his fasting anyway, weighed
only 118 pounds.
The idea of his getting into a vulgar brawl is absurd.
So there you have the setup for that night in Carla Melius' studio, the night he died.
Concentrate now.
Concentrate.
Concentrate now.
Concentrate.
I've got it.
I've got it.
The whole secret has been revealed to me.
Faith, will, serenity.
You must have them all.
I know now that I can float out the window into the street.
No, Carla, don't!
Harry, wait a minute.
I've got to get down there.
He may still be alive.
But you can't go.
Will you think what you're doing?
We have to get a doctor at once.
Will you use your head?
They may accuse us of throwing him out.
We've got to get down there.
They want to know how it happened.
You bet they want to know.
The police will ask all sorts of questions, and we've got to explain it somehow.
We can't tell them what really happened.
They'd never believe us.
Let me go.
We've got to get ourselves a story right now, and all of us stick to it.
Get out of the way!
And that's exactly what happened.
It was my fault.
I probably broke the spell by shouting.
But I was only trying to save him.
That's the truth.
About the death of Carlo Melius.
Poor Mr. Maddox.
No one will believe him.
No one except those of us who, with our very own eyes, saw just what happened.
Now before we tell you of next week's star and next week's Lights Out thriller, here
is a very important suggestion for you and your family.
Franger Admiral Dealer would like to remind you that the 1950 Red Feather campaign is
underway.
Now, maybe you don't realize that red feather and community chest mean such things as this
for your hometown.
The Boy Scouts and Boys Clubs and Girl Scouts and the Traveler's Aid and dozens of other
vital community services.
So give.
And give a lot in this year of 1950.
Give enough for all Red Feather services.
The needs this year are greater than ever before.
Coming on Lights Out next Monday night when your Admiral Dealer will present the distinguished
actress Miss Florence Reed in an unusual Lights Out thriller entitled The Thing Upstairs.
Meanwhile be sure to see Admiral's fast moving variety show Stop the Music over another television
network.
Consult your newspaper for time and station.
NBC television.