Episode 3: The Gift From Space
(featuring Namegon)
Manjome, Jun and Edogawa, Yuriko are flying over the ocean in an airplane not a helicopter this time, when they spot a strange object parachuting into the water. Jun radioes Togawa, Ippei gives him their location and tells him to report the object to the Japanese Coast Guard. Which he does. The object turns out to be a space capsule send to film the surface of Mars by the Japanese government 6 months ago (in reality the first capsule sent to Mars was in 1969, 3 years after this series, by the US and it took 228 days to get there) which was presumed lost after a transmitter malfunction. Jun and Yuriko unconvinced this could actual happen consult with renowed scientist Profesor Ichinotani. The profesor belives the only way it could happen is that someone had to send the capsule back, whieh means there is life on Mars which is at least equally as in inteligent as man. Along with other scientists he examines the parachute which is conluded to be made from fibers unknown on Earth. None of the scientist can make sense of the photoes taken by the capsules camera. Inside the capsulre were two tiny, golden, eggiike objects. Some of the scientists joke about them being a gift from Martians. The military wants everything kept secret while more research is done, which Dr. Ichinotan agrees is wise. A thief breaks into the vault in which the tiny objects were kept, next to money. He takes everything including the "gold".
After Ippei has left for the night, the theif tries to hire Jun for a quick, nighttime flight but Jun declines stating there are laws against it. The thief pulls a gun but Jun knocks it out his hand. They fight. Jun losses the fight but the thief loses one of the golden objects, not noticing it has fallen out of his pocket and has been covered up by objects knocked of shelves. Jun is forced to make the flight by the theif who tells him it is uselss to call the cops because he will be in Macao within an hour. The theif and his partner, his brother, for some inexplicble reason end up in cave and again don't notice when the second of the golden objects rolls into a poll of boiling water, as they are divding the money. In their greed they fail to notice the heat has caused the tiny golden, egg-like object rapidly grown in size or that something was hatching out of it. When they do notice it they shoot at it but the bullets have no effect. The monster fires deadly rays from its eyes. Later, hearing reports of some kind of monster, News Desk Editor, Seki attempts to send a young man to cover the story but terrified he doesn't want to go claiming "its a matter of taste" and point out that he's an entertainment reporter. Yuriko asks to be assigned and when her boss says "what you again"? With a smirk she replies "its a matter of taste". In their plane, Ippei asks Yuriko to close her eyes and when she does he puts a necklace with the golden egg-like object left in their office around her neck. She is pleased with the gift but asks if it wasn't really expensive, Ippei says "not really" and laughs. He does not explain. Because the professor did not even tell his pilot friends they have no idea the object was found in the space capsule. The three adventurers arrive at the cave, which is being guarded by locals too frightend at the strange roaring they've been hearing try to stop them from going in but they go in anway. Iniside the cave they find a flashlight, cash and two dead men. As Ippei tries to collect the trash the monster appears and they all flee the cave. The monster, a giant slug. breaks out.
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Chasing Manjome, Jun, who shot at it with the dead thief's gun (that should have clued him in that bullets would not stop it), the monster falls off a cliff into the ocean, where the salt kills it. Later, its reported on the televsion news that 80 armed men are searching the missing second egg from Mars. Dr. Ichinotan speculates that the eggs were placed in the space capsule as a warning to humans, to stay away from Mars. Yuriko bends over a lit bunson burner and her "pendant" begins to grow from the heat. Jun asks Ippei where he bought this thing, and Ippei finally explains he found it on the floor. The professor realises its a monster's egg. Ippei applogies to Yuriko. The two young men pick up the growing egg to throw it out the window. The professor has another man prepare salt water and tells Jun to call the Space Exploration Division. The egg hatches a second Namegon. The episode ends with the narrating stating that he's sure this monster will be taken care of because there is plenty of salt water but if mankind keeps sending rockets into space the next "gift from space" could be a monster that grows stronger from salt water instead. The second Namegon is not actually shown being destroyed in fact the final scene is a close up of one of its eyes.
‹THE END›
Note: Namegon is the first monster to kill humans in the Ultra series, and the first space monster. The monster's name is never actually mentioned in the episode since no one on earth would know it.
