[upbeat music]
Anyone can put on a trench coat,
carry around a skinny notepad,
but it takes a lot more than the right equipment
to be a good reporter.
First of all, you've got to be able to ask those
probing Barbara Walters questions.
Like, if it wasn't for top-notch reporting,
would we know who started the Great Chicago Fire?
A city ravaged by flames, and it all leads back to you.
But how, Mrs. O'Leary?
She knocked over my lantern.
Do you feel guilt? Remorse?
Shame?
[moos]
Second, you've got to know your subject inside,
outside, and upside down if that's what it takes.
Any last words, Houdini?Hey, wait!
I'm not sure this is gonna work!
Well, remember, twist your arm this way.
Oh, right!Thanks.
♪
And third, a great reporter has
what's called "a nose for the news."
That means that sometimes you're on the scene
even before it's a scene.
[mystical music]
What took you guys so long?
Whoa! watch your step.
One small step for man...
One giant leap for mankind.
Can I quote you on that?
Well, I'd better start sharpening
those reporter skills,
because I'm about to get my first
real reporter assignment.
Clarissa M. Darling here,
card-carrying member of The Daily Dispatch.
♪
♪ Na, na, na-na-na
♪ Na, na, na, na, na
♪ All right, all right
♪ Na, na, na, na, na
♪ Na-na-na, na, na, na
♪ Way cool
♪ Na, na, na-na-na
♪ Na, na, na, na, na
♪ All right, all right
♪ Na, na, na, na, na
♪ Na-na-na, na, na, na
♪ Way cool
♪ Na, na, na-na-na
♪ Na, na, na, na, na
♪ Na-na-na, na, na, na
♪ Just do it
♪
Okay, I get to interview someone for
The Daily Dispatch.
I just have no idea who.
My editor Russ Rayborn is gonna call me as soon as
he makes a decision and confirms it with his editor
who has to confirm it with her editor,
who has an editor she has to confirm it with.
I guess that's what they mean by chain of command.
And as the newest stringer on The Dispatch,
I'm the littlest link.
[ladder bangs] Hi, Sam.
[twangy guitar chord]
Hey, Clarissa.
Mind if I hang out here for a while?
My dad's new girlfriend is driving me crazy.
Sure, Sam. What's she doing?
Nothing, except telling everyone else what to do.
I mean, I'm glad my dad's dating,
but why her?
So what's the news on the news?
I'm still waiting for my assignment.
Hey, isn't the pope coming to the United States?
Do you think?Funny, Sam.
I'm a lowly stringer.
My very first assignment is not gonna be the pope.
Yeah. Good point.
But whatever it is, I'm gonna make sure
I get the whole story, the real story,
the absolute truth, and nothing but the truth.
[telephone rings]
The public deserves to know.
[ringing]
Hello?
Oh, hi, Russ.
Yeah, absolutely. Ready as ever.
Got it.
Oh, I don't think I'm familiar with her.
Oh, great!
An eyewitness account of...
Oh.
I see.
Well, okay.
No problem.
Bye, Russ. Thanks.
[uneasy guitar tune]
So, what's the scoop?
I'm interviewing Katharine Whitacre.
Hey, isn't that the lady who ran for congress last year?
No.Hey, I know!
Isn't she that landlady/ convicted murderess?
Not quite.
"Katharine Whitacre, local resident notable
for having recently spotted a UFO."
A UFO? As in flying saucer?
You've got it, Sam.
We're talking, space aliens, Martians,
close encounters of the totally unbelievable kind.
For The Dispatch?
They want a, "Cute, kooky, little story
about some nutcase's brushes with extraterrestrials."
I mean, even inquiring minds are sick of this one.
I'm sure you will give it a new spin.
Thanks. I better get down to work.
UFOs--where do I start?
Maybe I should start by convincing Russ
to let me do a different story.
[upbeat music]
Hi, Mom.
Hi, sweetheart.
You seem to be engaged in a very noetic activity.
Noetic?
Of, relating to, or based on the intellect.
Oh, I see. That's a very good word.
You get an "A" in vocabulary, Ferguson.
Thank you.
I appreciate your being hortatory.
Ferguson, don't talk to Mom that way.
For your information, sis,
hortatory means "strongly encouraging,"
but I wouldn't expect someone as atavistic, i.e., primitive,
as you to appreciate my sesquipedalian,
i.e., multisyllabic, locutions, i.e., speech.
Wow, the know-it-all,
i.e., jerkwad, swallowed a dictionary,
i.e., give me a break.
How come you're working so hard on your vocabulary, Ferguson?
Word power--it's the key to doing well on PSATs.
"30 days to a gargantuan vocabulary."
That's for the average student.
I figure a week will be a plethora of time
for my superlative powers of apperception.
This is cool.
the less you're understood, the better.
I'll ignore your invective, Sis.
As an autodidact, I've got studying to do.
Sometimes, there are no words.
Mom, what are you working on?
Oh, I'm curating an exhibit of microminiature art
for the children's museum.
Microminiature, i.e., small?
Very small. This art is teeny-tiny.
Wow! It's teeny-weeny tiny.
You have to be pretty obsessed
to paint a portrait on a pinhead.
Now there's a story. I'll put that on my list.
What list?
My list of possible interview subjects for The Dispatch.
Wouldn't a microminiaturist be more interesting
than a flying saucer nut?
Well, when you put it that way...
I'm gonna pitch a whole bunch of alternatives.
[jazzy piano music]
Hiya, folks.
Hi, dear.Hi, Dad.
Hey, look what Stan Dresser gave me.
Who's Stan Dresser?
A very important client.
And a very wealthy client.
I'm going to design his cryogenic mausoleum.
Yup.
He plans to be frozen
with a box of his favorite double coronas.
Oh, strange.
I think he sounds interesting.
Do you think I could interview him for the paper?
Stan? Why Stan?
Well, I just want something more relevant than UFOs.
Hello. Features, please.
Russ Rayborn's desk.
Hi, Russ. Clarissa Darling here.
About the interview...
Yeah, well, I just wanted to run a few other ideas by you.
Yeah. I know it's approved.
Okay.
Uh, okay, um, it's an assignment.
All right. Yeah, I understand.
Bye, Russ. Thanks.
No go?
He said we can talk about my ideas
after I finish my UFO Story.
Well, I bet you'll find a way to make it worthwhile.
You know, when Eisenhower was president,
he regularly consulted with creatures
from outer space.
Oh, Marshall, that was just a rumor.
No, it was documented by the majestic 12 panel.
Flying saucer wreckage was recovered.
It was all a hoax.
Well, I beg to differ.
Now there's an angle.
All I have to do is research UFO hoaxes
through history to get a perspective
on why people want to believe the unbelievable.
"Unbelievable."
What's unbelievable about flying saucers?
Huh?
All those abductions by those alien spacecraft.
Nope.
Sounds pretty darn convincing to me.
Thanks so much for agreeing to meet me here, Mrs. Whitacre.
Please, call me Kate. And it's my pleasure.
I love to drive.
Really?So do I.
But actually, I prefer to fly.
Oh, really? You fly.
Well, not so much anymore, but when my late husband
and I lived in Alaska, we had our own biplane.
Oh, you flew in an airplane.
Well, that's normal, I mean, nice.
Yeah.
I was a wing-walker in those days.
We used to work the air shows.
Really?Cool.
So, um,
when did you see it, where did you see it,
what exactly did you see,
and how can you be sure you saw it?
8:52 pm, last Tuesday night.
The field past the abandoned railway trestle
at the end of Windermere road,
an unidentified flying object.
At least, it was an object, it appeared to be flying,
and no one's been able to identify it.
Boy, you're really precise.
Well, I don't want anyone to think I'm a kook.
A kook?
Why, who would think that?
Well, you know, between you and me,
some folks don't find UFOs very newsworthy.
You'd be amazed at how closed-minded they can be.
Oh, really?
Gee. [alarm rings]
Oh, golly... [laughs]
I've been carrying this around ever since my watch stopped.
[laughs]
Oh, well, I'd better be off.
I've got to give a talk at the amateur naturalist society
on the arctic fox.
Beautiful creature.
Well, thanks so much for coming over.
My pleasure, Clarissa.
I was skeptical about being interviewed,
but now that I've met my reporter, I'm--
how do you say it?
Totally psyched.
Me, too. Bye, Kate.
Bye-bye, Clarissa.
[mellow music]
♪
Gee, Kate doesn't seem like a nutcase to me.
On the other hand, I don't want to look like
a nutcase either.
She must have seen something.
So, I do believe Kate.
The only problem is, who's gonna believe me?
♪ Na, na, na-na-na
♪ Na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na ♪
[upbeat music]
♪
What if they are out there?
What if they're looking at us right now,
trying to communicate, trying to make contact?
A lot of things are weirder than UFOs--
tofu hot dogs, static cling,
and Howard Stern, to name a few.
Well, my deadline's this Monday,
and I still don't have an angle on this article.
You'd think an astronomer
would be a good place to start.
Now, optical wavelengths
of pulsars, quasars,
or neutrino stars or magnetic waves
can resemble accretion disks.
[pensive music]
Is there a translator in the house?
Then I fell into another black hole
when I found out there was such a thing as a ufologist.
Can you tell me more about your research?
Yes.
I personally discovered that all great geniuses
are extraterrestrials.
Take, uh, Einstein, Freud, Beethoven,
the creator of Pinglee's potato chips--
all are from the planet Uxon.
That's why Pinglee's potato chips taste so good.
Oh, by the way...
I'm from planet Uxon, too.
[eerie music]
OBKB.
Well, the military's a good resource--
if you can get anyone to talk to you.
Lieutenant, I understand the military has been
doing research on extraterrestrial life forms,
and The Dispatch would like to know--
No comment.
But it's been well-documented that in 1978--
No comment.
Well, what about the supposed flying-saucer wreckage--
No comment.
Well, do you ever wish that your uniforms came
in a more flattering array of pastels?
No comment.
[martial music]
Now, if I could just write "No comment"
for my Dispatcharticle, I'd be all set.
[door clicks] Hello, otiose one.
Don't you knock?
I just came here to admire your quotidian
salmagundi of bedizenment.
Ferguson, I have two very big,
very important words for you--
get lost.
Rather exiguous in the linguistic department,
aren't we, captious kinswoman?
[dramatic music]
Now, there's an alien life form.
[telephone rings]
Hello?
Yes, this is Clarissa.
Oh, hi, Russ.
[ladder bangs] Yeah, it's going fine.
[twangy guitar chord]
Well, I've just been thinking about our angle,
and, you know, she's really not a kook.
She's actually very...
No, no, I understand what you want, but...
No, I'll have it for you Monday.
No problem.
Kay, gotcha.
Bye.
Why are the words "cute" and "kooky"
really starting to drive me nuts?
Clarissa, you're not starting to believe this UFO Stuff,
are you?
I can't make Kate out to be a nut.
I like her. And I think she's for real.
What happened to Clarissa Darling,
supreme skeptic?
I've checked out meteorite showers,
the Hubble satellite, northern lights,
space debris, high-flying aircraft,
atmospheric temperature inversion,
weather balloons, and swamp gas.
Gee, you really did your homework.
Nothing seems to fit with what Kate saw.
I don't know.
What if they're trying to reach us and they're being
thwarted by narrow-minded logic heads?
I guess anything's possible.
I just need some corroboration.
There's only one thing left to do.
Seeing is believing,
so I'll just have to go see for myself.
[adventurous music]
Whoa! Finally.
I'm seeing one-- a cigar-shaped UFO.
Ha. Clarissa, this is my model for Stan dresser's mausoleum.
You know, he likes cigars so much.
I just figured he'd like to be buried in one.
Sounds kind of creepy.
Yeah, well, it's a Montecristo. It's a very elegant cigar.
It's beautifully crafted--
smooth wrapper,
burns perfectly.
Dad, you're not actually smoking these things, are you?
No, sport, of course not.
Well, maybe just a few--
for research purposes only.
[jazzy musical flair]
I guess, sometimes, research stinks.
When I went out to the field at the end of Windermere road
just like Kate said, and I looked up,
and I waited, and I waited, and I waited,
and I didn't see anything, except a lot of stars--
a whole, whole lot of stars.
Great stars, really.
So I sat there wishing I could have
a close encounter of my own.
[eerie music]
[dramatic music]
Who's there? What's going on?
Is something out there?
♪
Who are you?
Do not be afraid.
What do you want from me?
We have a message to give you from our planet,
a message of peace,
and a six-pack of Cardassian space worms.
In exchange, we'd like a box set of Nirvana CDs,
and an automatic food processor from you.
We need your help to establish
an intergalactic shopping network.
But I don't even watch the shopping network.
Please explain everything to us.
What is a Richard Simmons' Deal-A-Meal?
What is the purpose of matching accessories?
Why me? Why me?
Explain! Explain! Explain! Explain!
Explain! Explain! Explain!
That's when I woke up and realized
I'd fallen asleep out there.
And unless I think of something,
my article's gonna be one big snooze.
Hi, Clarissa.
Hi, Mom.
Help me with this, will you?
Sure.
I still don't see it. Oh.
Maybe I need a stronger magnification.
Mom, it's a pin. What are we looking for?
There's supposed to be a Mona Lisa
painted on the head of that pin.
No way.Uh-huh.
Oh! There it is.
Fantastic!
Wow! This is unbelievable.
Yeah. The artist paints these with a single strand of hair.
You know,
I bet a lot of people think this guy is really nuts.
He actually works between heartbeats
so his hand won't shake.
You know, a minute ago,
I would have sworn this was just an ordinary pin.
I guess, things just aren't always what they appear to be.
Yeah, I wouldn't have even given a second glance.
Thanks, Mom. You've really helped me.
Really? I have?
Yeah. I've been looking at things all wrong.
[upbeat music]
I don't care how ordinary, mundane,
or insignificant it seems. Just circle it.
Hey, Clarissa, this paper's a week old.
I know.
I'm checking out every possible event
that occurred on the night in question.
But how can any of this explain a UFO?
I don't know yet.
I've ruled out all the scientific explanations.
I'm just looking for something ordinary
I might have overlooked.
Hey, there was a potluck supper at the Kiwanis club.
The local opera performed La bohème.
Hey, here's something--
an ad for the grand opening of a 24-hour Diggy Piggy's.
What's a supermarket opening got to do with UFOs?
I don't know, but before it got dark out,
I do remember seeing a distant strip mall
across the field.
I think it's the same mall.
So?
So, don't Diggy Piggy's have those
giant neon flying pig signs?
Yeah, but I don't see how flying pig--
Sam, I've been reading about how lights bouncing off clouds
have been mistaken for flying saucers.
And if they turned on the signs at exactly 8:52...
You think?
It's a long shot, but it's the only shot I've got.
♪
Thrasonical.
Boastful.
Thrasonical.
Boastful.
Thrasonical, boastful.
Describing yourself again, Ferguson?
Very roguish, sis,
but must you always be the synapse?
[scoffs] I mean, cynosure?
Why am I starting to get the feeling
you have no idea what you're saying?
That's quagmire--
I mean, noisome.
No--nugatory.
Better slow down your word-building, gastropod.
That means you've got the brain capacity
of a shellfish.
[doorbell rings]Thank you.
But I don't need to take your capricious cacophony
or calumny, for that matter.
Chiaroscuro!
Chiaroscuro?
Hi, Kate.Hello, dear.
Thanks for coming over.
It's so nice to see you again, Clarissa.
Well, I'm ready to answer
all your hard-hitting questions,
so fire away.
Well, it's about what you saw.
I don't think--
You know, I've been thinking.
As a species, we're so darn egocentric.
Isn't it wonderful to open people's eyes
to the possibility of other life forms?
Actually,
I suppose, but in this case,
I've been doing some research, and I've gotta tell you--
I am just so thrilled that I got to see something like that
before checking out of Hotel Earth.
Kate, you're such a great person.
You're totally cool.
You probably want to know more about what you saw, right?
Like, you'd probably love to have an explanation.
Well, I don't know. I kind of think--
I hope it was a spaceship from another planet.
But if it wasn't, you wouldn't wanna be deluded?
[sighs] I don't know, Clarissa.
When you get to be my age,
you start thinking there's nothing out there
you haven't seen before.
It makes you feel young again
to think there's still something
we just don't know a thing about.
Right, but...
Right.
So, is that all?
I guess so.
Well, then,
there's a weekly poker game I'd love to make.
So long, dear.
Kate!Wait.
I can't lie to you.
I can explain what you saw. It wasn't a UFO after all.
It wasn't?
No. I've been able to identify it.
See, a Diggy Piggy's opened across the field that night.
And they turned on three floodlights
with a neon flying pig sign
just about the same time you saw what you saw,
and the lights hitting off clouds have been known
to create the perfect illusion of a spacecraft.
Oh, I see.
That... That sounds reasonable.
I'm sorry, but don't you think that can explain it after all?
I knew you're a good reporter, Clarissa.
If anyone can get to the bottom of things, it's you.
Thanks.
I'm sorry to, you know, burst your bubble.
That's okay, but something troubles me.
What's that?
Well, first of all, there's the fact that
I saw six distinct lights instead of three,
and then there's my watch.
It stopped ticking at the exact moment
I saw those lights.
And this thing has gone deep-sea diving,
mountain climbing, and bungee jumping,
and it's never stopped before.
Now, I finally brought it in yesterday to be repaired,
and the jeweler told me
it must have been exposed
to a giant magnetic force.
Well, I guess a neon pig couldn't explain that.
I don't know what to make of all this.
As Ludwig Wittgenstein said,
"The more things are explained,
the more the mystery remains."
Oh, I do hope I see you soon, Clarissa.
Me, too. Bye, Kate.
I guess some things can't be explained,
least of all Kate.
Hey, now that's an idea.
♪
You really captured the spirit of a fascinating woman.
Thanks.
Luckily my editor and his editors liked it too.
They thought it was a great human interest story.
That's terrific.
Well, I figured news is more than facts.
It's people.
A profile just seemed like a way to go.
Maybe I should ask Kate Whitacre
to give a talk at the children's museum.
That'd be cool, Mom.
So, you see, Ferguson,
E.T.was not such a fantasy after all.
I mean, it really does all make sense.
Clarissa, great article.
Yes. Good read.
What's with Ferguson?
Well,
little too much Word Power-- blew a fuse.
Brain. Ow.
Yeah, he decided to clear his system by sticking
to one-syllable words for a while.
Right, Ferguson?
Mom?Juice?
Weird.
Well, I guess some things you just can't explain,
and some things you just don't want to explain.
♪