EDITOR’S NOTE: This episode of Kolchak: The Night Stalker was on the CBS Late Movie on June 15, 1979; June 12, 1981; October 16, 1987 and February 19, 1988.

Directed by Allen Baron, who did four episodes of Kolchak: The Night Stalker, and written by Rudolph Borchert, who wrote five episodes of the series, and Dennis Lynton Clark, who started his career in Hollywood as a costume designer on A Man Called Horse and Man In the Wilderness, the title of this episode comes from a line in H.P. Lovecraft’s The Dunwich Horror: “The Old Ones were, the Old Ones are and the Old Ones shall be. Not in the spaces we know, but between them; they walk serene and primal, undimensioned and to us unseen.”

A killing force unseen has blown into the Windy City with hurricane strength. It kills by creating an electromagnetic field that sucks the bone marrow from both humans and animals. And, oh yeah, it steals lead and electrical equipment.

Sounds like a story for Carl Kolchak.

Carl’s nemesis, Ron Updyke, has been selected as the temporary sports editor. And he owes Carl, who saved his life from an angry roller derby player a few weeks ago. He promised Carl a World Series ticket and the chance to see the Chicago Cubs play in the biggest baseball game, the first time in nearly thirty years, but he forgot. And now Carl will either get his ticket or a piece of Updyke.

But Vicenzo has worked for him. Today, a cheetah died in the zoo. Carl corrects him and says that it was yesterday and it was a panther. Vicenzo double-corrects him. Two dead jungle predators in two days. Forget the World Series; Carl smells a story.

Carl learns that the police are at an electronic company and arrives just in time to watch a wall explode and a bunch of lead disappear into thin air. Captain Quill (James Gregory) pulls him away, but not before saluting some very important military people. Now, Carl is practically dying to figure out this story.

Keen-reporting instincts lead Carl to the zoo. As he studies where the animals were killed, he can see that the bars are bent, there’s a black goo everywhere, and zoologist Dr. Bess Weinstock (Mary Wickes, Sister Mary Lazarus in the Sister Act movies) informs Carl that a leopard and a panda have also been killed and their deaths appear to be heart attacks. This matches an angry talk radio caller that Kolchak hears complaining about black tar all over Mariposa Way.

After getting a sample of the black substance—and who said this show wasn’t an influence on The X-Files—and getting Weinstock to work with him, Cark learns that it’s a mix of hydrochloric acid, acetone, and bone marrow. As all of the animals killed at the zoo had puncture marks at the major bone joints to drain the marrow, the zoologist theorizes that whatever was doing the killing ate the marrow and then puked.

At the morgue — to discover what happened at the factory explosion — Gordy the Ghoul is willing to talk for a price. Carl’s shocked to learn that Gordy’s boss, Stanley Wedemeyer (Rudy Challenger), tells him that the one dead person from the factory died from a simple heart attack. But Gordy sneakily reveals the truth to Carl and passes him a cassette tape.

The actual cause of death: All of the bone marrow was sucked out of his body.

Carl busts into a press conference and asks questions that get him kicked out of nearly every press conference he ever attends. He grills Captain Quill on what exactly happened at Raydyne Electronics, why everyone’s watches have stopped at the exact time, how the lead bars disappeared and how the animals and humans who have been killed all died from having their bone marrow removed.

When Vicenzo tells Carl to drop the whole mess — saying, “We don’t need another UFO story” — that only spurs him on. After all, he never said UFO. Who said UFO? Carl definitely finds the thing, a small metal ship, after an attack on an observatory and is nearly killed by the force when it comes back. Only the whine of his camera can protect him.

As always, no evidence remains.

This is one of the first times Carl has been threatened that someone much worse than the police will be taking care of him.

Also, there’s a moment where the zoologist explains to Carl that pandas are raccoons, not bears. Believe it or not, there was a significant debate over this. Only when DNA technology was advanced enough to be used did we discover that pandas are actually bears.