The Zombie Book. Nick Redfern

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       Body Snatchers

       See also: Alien Abductions

      In 1954, a writer named Jack Finney penned a story that became a classic in the field of science-fiction. It went by the title of The Body Snatchers and was published in serialized form in Collier’s—a magazine that began in the late 1800s and which closed down three years after Finney’s article appeared. It was, however, relaunched in 2012. Such was the success of the story, one year later—in 1955—it surfaced as a full-length book. And, in no time at all, Hollywood came knocking on Jack Finney’s door. Just twelve months after the book hit the stores, a big-bucks movie version of The Body Snatchers appeared in cinemas all across the world. Its famous reworked title was Invasion of the Body Snatchers and starred Kevin McCarthy as Dr. Miles Bennell, the first man to stumble upon the terrible truth of the alien invaders in our midst.

      The 1956 movie production of Finney’s story is the definitive one, filled with chills and thrills, and shot in moody black and white. The 1978 version, with Donald Sutherland taking the lead, is very good also. Body Snatchers, of 1993, is not a bad film. The Invasion, of 2007, which saw Nicole Kidman taking the primary role, is undeniably terrible and should be missed at all costs.

       Invasion of the Body Snatchers was released in 1958 and had a remake in 1978 (shown here, featuring Donald Sutherland). In both, space pods arrive on Earth and form replicants that replace human beings one by one.

      The story is as original as it is creepy. Most of us assume that if aliens are going to invade, then they will likely do it in Independence Day-style, with gigantic spacecraft, awesome weapons of frightening power, and armies of hostile aliens. Body Snatchers (and the movie versions) took a very different approach to a planetary takeover by extraterrestrials.

      There are no aliens to be seen, no gigantic flying saucers, no laser guns—in fact, there is nothing whatsoever to even suggest an alien invasion is in the cards. That is, until strange flowers start popping up here, there, and everywhere. They are flowers to be avoided at all costs. Why? Because they have the ability to duplicate and replace people with identical, lifelike equivalents, that’s why. Well, they are physically identical, but as far as their personalities are concerned, they are very much akin to the mind-controlled undead of the likes of such movies as I Walked with a Zombie, White Zombie, and King of the Zombies.

      This brings us to a big, important, and controversial question: was Jack Finney’s creation only fiction? Is it feasible that high-tech experimentation has been undertaken—and even perfected—to create cloned, lifelike equivalents of people, ones that look like their originals, but which are truly old-school zombie-like in their actions and manner? It couldn’t really happen, could it? Some say that it already has. In the latter part of the 1990s, a very strange story circulated amongst UFO researchers, newsletters, and magazines in the United Kingdom. It was a story that, incredibly and in hair-raising fashion, suggested Jack Finney was right on the money.

      Although the story didn’t surface until 1997, the events it told supposedly occurred in the early 1990s, possibly either 1991 or 1992. The location was a highly secure facility in the south of England called Porton Down, which is located in the county of Wiltshire. The county itself is typified by rolling green fields, enchanting old villages, and beautiful countryside. There is nothing beautiful or enchanting about Porton Down, however. It’s an installation where the British government undertakes its most secret research into such domains as lethal viruses, chemical weapons, and biological warfare. Should zombies ever walk the streets of Britain, the likelihood is that they will be shown to have had their origins in some fortified lab far below the secret facility.

      As for the story in question, it went like this: given that Porton Down’s staff are known to have undertaken controversial experimentation on animals, on one occasion—late at night, or in the early hours of the morning—a team of animal-rights activists broke into the base, with the specific intent of releasing into the countryside just about as many of those same animals as possible. While the team failed to find any such animals, they came across something else: a room that contained dozens of curious-looking containers, all around eight or nine feet in length, and all containing nothing less than duplicates of well-known British politicians of that particular era. Not surprisingly, the terrified activists fled.

      Today, the story is still told in those places where UFO fanatics hang out. It’s a story that remains as intriguing and amazing as it was when it was first told. But it remains something else, too: completely unverified. To date, the animal-rights activists have not been identified and officialdom is saying nothing, one way or the other. True or not, the story of Britain’s zombie-like politicians lives on. And a word of caution: should you, one day, find yourself in the vicinity of Porton Down and you stumble upon some strange looking, colorful flowers, whatever you do, don’t touch them or pick them: just run!