Lt. Harper One thing's sure. Inspector Clay is dead. Murdered. And somebody's responsible!
Played by Duke Moore 
Plan 9 from Outer Space (1957) · 42 quotes
Plan 9 from Outer Space (1957) · 42 quotes
Most-quoted character in Plan 9 from Outer Space (1957): in 13 of its 42 quotes
Most scenes with: Col. Edwards (5), Jeff (3), Larry (3)
Scenes with Lt. Harper
13 scenes Lt. Harper Lt. Harper What're you gonna do?
Clay Look around a little.
Lt. Harper Once you get beyond those lights you won't be able to see your hand in front of your face.
Clay I will get one of the flashlights from the patrol car.
Lt. Harper You be careful Clay.
Clay I'm a big boy now, Johnny.
Lt. Harper Get back up to the car and get on the radio. Tell the coroner he's gotta make another trip out here.
Well how 'bout the lab boys?
Lt. Harper Well who do you think we left back at the car, boy scouts?
What do you suppose that noise was?
Lt. Harper Whatever it was it's no more strange than the other things happening around this cemetery.
Spirits like Old Farmer Caulder talked about?
Lt. Harper Heh. Maybe.
The only spirits he saw tonight were those I smelled on his breath.
Lt. Harper Well don't forget Mrs. Trent claims to have seen them too. She didn't have anything on her breath.
She was hysterical.
Lt. Harper Well true, she was frightened, and in a state of shock. But, don't forget that torn nightgown and the scratched feet.
Yeah I hadn't thought of that. I guess that's why you're a detective lieutenant and I'm still a uniformed cop.
Lt. Harper Sometimes it's only the breaks, Larry.
Lt. Harper It was a saucer.
Poiliceman
A flying saucer?
What makes you say that?
Lt. Harper You remember the noise we heard the other night?
We were knocked to the ground, how could I forget?
Lt. Harper Exactly, but you're not remembering that sound.
There you're wrong, Lieutenant. I'm with the fact the sound is similar, but what about the blinding light?
Lt. Harper Well haven't you heard? Many times a saucer hasn't had a glow, or a light of any kind for that matter.
That proves it.
Strange. If someone had broken in, the dirt should be piled up here somewhere. It looks like it's fallen in, into the grave.
Lt. Harper Larry, you'll be out of that uniform before you know it.
Did you see that thing? Did you get it?
Lt. Harper We got it.
What was it? It didn't fall...I fired every bullet I had.
Lt. Harper So did I. I don't know what it was or what happened, but unless that bag of bones can reassemble itself, it's out of the running now.
Lt. Harper [at the cemetery]
Colonel I've been out here so often you'd think I'd taken a lease on this place.
Not a long lease, I hope.
Lt. Harper I see what you mean. But you know, I can't help but feel the answer's out here somewhere.
Is the, uh, girl safe?
Lt. Harper Mrs. Trent you'd better stay with the car.
Stay here alone? Not on your life.
Lt. Harper Modern women...
Yeah, they been that way all down through the ages. Especially in a spot like this.
Lt. Harper I figured that, but that's impossible!
I wonder.
Lt. Harper Look, Colonel, some things just can't happen.
Yeah, well after that apparition that was draped across Mr. Trent's patio, I would say we should keep our minds open to anything.
Lt. Harper Look, Colonel, I'm a policeman. I've got to deal in facts. But, I guess I'll have to go along with you. You know I bet my badge right now we haven't seen the last of those weirdies.
You goin' in that thing?
That's what we're here for.
I don't know, the way these things speed around we might just get in there and pft! Off it goes.
That's a chance we take.
Lt. Harper Well, I took a chance on those earlier airplanes. Might just as well see what the inside of one of these looks like. Got your guns ready?
I tell you one thing, if a little green man jumps out at me I'm shooting first and asking questions later.
Lt. Harper Now you two stay right where you're at.
We will do as you command. For the moment.
Lt. Harper No for the moment about it. You just do as I tell you.
You do not need guns. They would be of no use to you now.
Lt. Harper They've been mighty useful before on flesh and blood, and you two look like you've got a lot of both.
True, they would be effective upon us. If you were to have the opportunity to use them.
Mister, if you don't get away from that control board I'll show you just how effective they can be.
You fiend!
I? A fiend? I am a soldier of our planet! I? A fiend? We did not come here as enemies. We came only with friendly intentions. To talk. To ask your aid.
Our aid?
Yes. Your aid for the whole universe. But your governments of Earth refused even to accept our existence. Even though you've seen us, heard our messages, you still refused to accept us.
Why is it so important that you want to contact the governments of our Earth?
Because of death. Because all you of Earth are idiots!
Now you just hold on, Buster.
No, you hold on. First was your firecracker, a harmless explosive. Then your handgrenade. They began to kill your own people a few at a time. Then the bomb, then a larger bomb. Many people are killed at one time. Then your scientists stumbled upon the atom bomb. Split the atom. Then the hydrogen bomb, where you actually explode the air itself. Now you bring the destruction of the entire universe, served by our sun. The only explosion left is the solarbonite.
Why there's no such thing.
Perhaps to you. But we've known it for centuries. Your scientists will stumble upon it as they have all the others. But the juvenile minds you possess will not comprehend its strength, until it's too late.
You're way above our heads.
The solarbonite is a way to explode the actual particles of sunlight.
Why, that's impossible.
Even now, your scientists are working on a way to harness the sun's rays. The rays of sunlight are minute particles. Is it so far from your imagination they cannot do as I have suggested?
Why, a particle of sunlight can't even be seen or measured.
Can you see or measure an atom? Yet you can explode one. A ray of sunlight is made up of many atoms!
So what if we do develop this Solanite bomb? We'd be even a stronger nation than now.
Stronger. You see!? You see!? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
That's all I'm taking from you! [leaps at Eros]
Lt. Harper Get back here you jerk! Let him finish.
It's because of men like you that all must be destroyed. Headstrong, violent! No use of the mind God gave you.
You talk of God?
You also think it impossible that we, too, might think of God? You, who wear the uniform of your country. You see, I wear the uniform of my country. Yes, we've had to use drastic means to get to you, but you left us no alternative. When you have the solarbonite, you have nothing. Nor, does the universe.
You speak of solarbonite, but just what is it?
Take a can of your gasoline. Say this can of gasoline is the sun. Now you spread a thin line of it to a ball, representing the Earth. Now, the gasoline represents the sunlight, the sun particles. Here we saturate the ball with the gasoline, the sunlight. Then we put a flame to the ball. The flame will speedily travel around the Earth, back along the line of gasoline to can, or the sun itself. It will explode this source, and spread to every place that gasoline, or sunlight, touches. Explode the sunlight here, Gentlemen, and you explode the universe. Explode the sunlight here, and a chain reaction will occur, direct to the sun itself. And to all the planets that sunlight touches. To every planet in the universe. This why you must be stopped. This is why any means must be used to stop you. In a friendly manner, or as it seems, you want it.
Lt. Harper He's mad.
Mad? Is it mad that you destroy other people to save yourselves? You have done this. Is it mad that one country must destroy another to save themselves? You have also done this. How then is it mad that one planet must destroy another that threatens the very existence-
That's enough!! In my land, women are for advancing the race, not for fighting man's battles. Life is not so expansive on my planet. We don't cling to it like you do. Our entire aim is for the development of our planet.
Lt. Harper Oh, I wonder if that's the last we'll see of them?
Perhaps, but sooner or later there'll be others.
