The Invaders

The Invaders  aired on ABC from January 10, 1967 to March 26, 1968 and starred Roy Thinnes from General Hospital fame.  On General Hospital he played Dr. Brewer.

Architect David Vincent (Roy Thinnes) is overtired after a long drive and after taking a shortcut down a dark and isolated road, ends up at Bud's Cafe. He hears a loud noice and then sees a spacecraft landing. He learns that the occupants are aliens from a dying planet who plan to take over Earth by impersonating humans.

When he tries to convince authorities of what he has seen, they dismiss him as a nut case. But David Vincent knows that he must stop them to save the Earth.

At first he is alone in his fight, but then he finds the Believers, ("The Believers" 12/5/1967) led by Edgar Scoville (Kent Smith). There are supposed to be seven of them but we only meet Elyse Reynold (Carol Lynley) and Bob Talman (Anthony Eisley). I'm sure we could have known the other four Believers if they hadn't cancelled the show!

As the series progresses we learn key facts about the aliens:

• Some of them have a crooked 4th finger
• Most aliens are emotionless, but the few who do have feelings are mutants.
• Alien leaders are called imaginatively, Leaders.
• They have no hearts, thus no pulse, no blood.
• They die by disintegrating into a glowing light.
• They have to regenerate and have glass chambers for this.
• When it's time to recharge, they begin to glow.
• They can reproduce by passing electricity through seawater.
• Pure oxygen kills them