The Twilight Zone (TV Series)

Where Is Everybody? (1959)

James Gregory: Air Force General

Quotes 

• Air Force General : You see, we can feed the stomach with concentrates. We can supply microfilm for reading, recreation - even movies of a sort. We can pump oxygen in and waste material out. But there's one thing we can't simulate that's a very basic need. Man's hunger for companionship. The barrier of loneliness - that's one thing we haven't licked yet.

• Reporter #1 : Do you consider this a success, sir?

  Air Force General : Very much so. The man was confined alone in a box for something in the neighborhood of 484 hours. That's roughly equivalent to a trip to the moon, several orbits, and return.

  Reporter #1 : And this was a simulated trip to the moon? Is that right, General?

  Air Force General : For all intent and purpose, yes.

  Reporter #2 : What about these wires attached to him?

  Air Force General : Electrodes. All of his reactions were charted and graphed; respiration, heart action, blood pressure.

  Reporter #3 : What happened to him toward the end, General? Before he... he pushed that button or whatever it was.

  Air Force General : What happened to him is that he cracked. Delusions of some kind, we assume. But let me tell you all something, gentlemen. If any one of you were confined in a box 5 feet square for two and a half weeks all by your lonesome without hearing a human voice other than your own, I'll give you especially good odds that your imagination would run away with you, too. Such as his obviously did.

• Mike Ferris : Next time, it won't be just a box in a hangar, will it?

  Air Force General : No, Mike. Next time, you'll really be alone.

• Air Force General : How do you feel, son?

  Mike Ferris : I feel much better, sir. I'm sorry about toward the end.

  Air Force General : It's all right.

  Air Force Colonel : What was it like, Ferris? Where did you think you were?

  Mike Ferris : A place I don't want to go again, sir. A town; a town without people, without anybody. What was the matter with me, doc? Just off my rocker, huh?

  Air Force Colonel : Just a kind of a nightmare that your mind manufactured for you.