- Ned "Scotty" Scott: All right, fellas, here's your story: North Pole, November Third, Ned Scott reporting. One of the world's greatest battles was fought and won today by the human race. Here at the top of the world a handful of American soldiers and civilians met the first invasion from another planet. A man by the name of Noah once saved our world with an ark of wood. Here at the North Pole, a few men performed a similar service with an arc of electricity. The flying saucer which landed here and its pilot have been destroyed, but not without causalities among our own meager forces. I would like to bring to the microphone some of the men responsible for our success... but as Senior Air force officer Captain Hendry is attending to demands over and above the call of duty... Doctor Carrington, the leader of the scientific expedition, is recovering from wounds received in the battle.
- Eddie: [Softly] Good for you, Scotty.
- Ned "Scotty" Scott: And now before giving you the details of the battle, I bring you a warning: Everyone of you listening to my voice, tell the world, tell this to everybody wherever they are. Watch the skies. Everywhere. Keep looking. Keep watching the skies.
- Ned "Scotty" Scott: So few people can boast that they've lost a flying saucer and a man from Mars -all in the same day! Wonder what they'd have done to Columbus if he'd discovered America, and then mislaid it.
- [referring to McPherson's gun]
- Ned "Scotty" Scott: You sure you know how to use that thing?
- Lt. Ken McPherson: I saw Gary Cooper in "Sergeant York."
- Ned "Scotty" Scott: Think of what it means to the world!
- Hendry: I'm not working for the world. I'm working for the Air Force.
- Ned "Scotty" Scott: Dr. Carrington, you're a man who won the Nobel Prize. You've received every kind of international kudos a scientist can attain. If you were for sale I could get a million bucks for you from any foreign government. I'm not, therefore, gonna stick my neck out and say you're stuffed absolutely clean full of wild blueberry muffins, but I promise my readers are gonna think so.
- Dr. Chapman: Find anything, Captain?
- Hendry: Not a sign. We poked into every snowbank within miles.
- Bob, Crew Chief: Barnes flushed a polar bear.
- Cpl. Barnes: Sure did.
- Dr. Chapman: Scare you?
- Cpl. Barnes: Not after I saw it was only a bear.
- Dr. Arthur Carrington: You're doing more than breaking army orders. You're robbing science of the greatest secrets that ever come to it.
- Hendry: You'd better go back, Doctor.
- Dr. Arthur Carrington: Knowledge is more important than life, Captain. We've only one excuse for existing - to think, to find out, to learn.
- Ned "Scotty" Scott: What can we learn from that thing except a quicker way to die?
- Dr. Arthur Carrington: It doesn't matter what happens to us. Nothing counts except for our thinking. We thought our way into nature. We split the atom.
- Eddie: Yes, and that sure made the world happy, didn't it?
- Dr. Arthur Carrington: [about the carrot] Its development was not handicapped by emotional or sexual factors.
- Dr. Arthur Carrington: We owe it to the brain of our species to stand here and die... without destroying a source of wisdom.
- [after a quick encounter with the Thing]
- Hendry: Did you get your picture?
- Ned "Scotty" Scott: No, you were in the way and the door wasn't open long enough.
- Hendry: You want us to open it again?
- Ned "Scotty" Scott: NO!
- Ned "Scotty" Scott: Here's the sixty-four dollar question - what do you do with a vegetable?
- Nikki: Boil it.
- Ned "Scotty" Scott: What did you say?
- Nikki: Boil it... bake it... stew it... fry it?
- Ned "Scotty" Scott: Please doctor, I've got to ask this. It sounds like, well, just as though you're describing some form of super carrot.
- Dr. Arthur Carrington: You're acting like frightened children.
- Hendry: You're right, Doctor... I am frightened.
- Dr. Arthur Carrington: Miss Nicholson.
- Nikki: Yes, Doctor?
- Dr. Arthur Carrington: At 12:10 AM the hand became alive. The temperature of the forearm showed a 20-degree rise. Because of this rise in temperature I believe it was able to ingest the canine blood with which it was covered. I believe...
- Ned "Scotty" Scott: You mean... You mean it lives on blood.
- Hendry: [getting ready to go in after The Thing] Ready, Bob?
- Bob, Crew Chief: No, but go ahead and open it.
- Dr. Arthur Carrington: [Addressing Captain Hendry, arguing against the plan to destroy the alien creature] You're doing more than breaking Army orders, you're robbing science of the greatest secret that's ever come to it. Knowledge is more important than life, captain. We've only one excuse for existence: to think, to find out, to learn! It doesn't matter what happens to us. Nothing matters except our thinking. We've fought our way into Nature, we've split the atom... We owe it to the brain of our species to stay here and die, without destroying a source of wisdom. Civilization has given us orders!
- Hendry: [Annoyed] Get him out of here!
- Hendry: Wait a minute, Scotty. You won't need any boots. When it comes you go back with the others. You don't belong out here.
- Ned "Scotty" Scott: I didn't belong at Alamein or Bougainville or Okinawa. I was just kibitzing. And I write a very good obit, a obituary to you.
- Nikki: Say that again!
- [She observes cold breath coming out of Scotty's mouth]
- Ned "Scotty" Scott: Oh Nikki, not you, too!
- Nikki: No, silly, your breath!
- Ned "Scotty" Scott: Well, I'm sorry, but I've been under a great deal of strain lately!
- Nikki: Oh, you ninny, look!
- Eddie: [heard over P.A] Come on, Mr. Martian and get some nice Scotch blood. One hundred proof. Nothing like it... for babies!
- Dr. Arthur Carrington: Captain, when you find what you're looking for, remember it's a stranger in a strange land. The only crimes involved were those committed against it. It awoke from a block of ice, was attacked by dogs, shot by frightened man. All I want is a chance to communicate with it.
- Hendry: Doctor you can do anything you want with it provided it's locked up in a safe place.
- Ned "Scotty" Scott: Captain, we catch up with our pal give me a chance to get a picture before somebody makes a salad of 'em eh?
- Hendry: Sure scotty.
- Dr. Arthur Carrington: Well Captain, can we start now?
- Hendry: You mind telling me where we're going, Doctor?
- Dr. Arthur Carrington: Forty-eight miles due east from here.
- Hendry: Your message said an airplane had crashed. Is that what we're looking for?
- Dr. Arthur Carrington: I don't know, Captain.
- Hendry: I think you'd better explain, Doctor.
- Dr. Arthur Carrington: Oh, I'm sorry. Miss Nicholson, would you mind reading Captain Hendry my first notes?
- Nikki: Surely.
- Dr. Arthur Carrington: I was thinking only of the vagueness of my information. I dislike being vague.
- Lt. Ken McPherson: Hey Pat! The heat's off in the mess hall!
- Dr. Chapman: No more oil coming in.
- Ned "Scotty" Scott: Pat, it's off in there, too. Could the tank be empty?
- Dr. Chapman: Filled the day before yesterday.
- Ned "Scotty" Scott: The main line could be plugged. You better run outside and fix it.
- Hendry: And probably run smack into our visitor. He'll be waiting for you to do just that.
- Lt. Ken McPherson: We underestimate this guy.
- Dr. Vorhees: Arthur, what if that aircraft came here not just to visit the earth, but to conquer it? To start growing some kind of horrible army? Turn the human race into food for it?
- Dr. Arthur Carrington: There are many things threatening our world. New stars, comets shooting through space... There are no enemies in science, professor, only phenomena to study. We are studying one.
- Dr. Arthur Carrington: I'm your friend! I have no weapons! I'm your friend! You're wiser than I! You must understand what I'm trying to tell you! Don't go farther! They'll kill you! They think you'll harm us! But I want to know you, to help you! Believe that! You're wiser than anything on earth! Use that intelligence! Look and know what I'm telling you! I'm not your enemy! I'm a scientist who's trying...!
- Ned "Scotty" Scott: [on seeing the North Pole compound for the first time] Taxpayers oughtta see this.
- Hendry: Dr. Carrington, we just learned you found a dog in there bled white by our visitor. You didn't report it. Why?
- Dr. Arthur Carrington: I didn't consider it necessary.
- Hendry: But it was necessary to leave two of your friends in there to be killed.
- Dr. Arthur Carrington: I posted them as a guard. I was in there myself...
- Hendry: Dr. Stern was right. I looked through that door. They're hanging in there upside down like in a slaughterhouse. I wish you'd seen it.
- Dr. Stern: Isn't there something we can do about it?
- Hendry: They're dead now and it's our job to see that nobody else joins them.