The alien emissary becomes friends with Bobby (Billy Gray) and his mother Helen(Patricia Neal), and the boy leads him to Professor Barnhardt (Sam Jaffe), a physicist, who is impressed, rather than frightened, by Klaatu's superior knowledge. The scientists in the film are depicted as dedicated individuals who are trying their best to live outside the political bickering and backstabbing of the Cold War era and who are willing to arrange for Klaatu to address an international assemblage of the leaders of world science. Realizing that Earth's heads of state are too chauvinistic to set aside their petty differences and listen to his message, Klaatu arranges a demonstration that no one on the planet will be able to ignore: He shuts off all power and machinery on Earth for one hour.

Considered a threat to national security, Klaatu is killed by the military and his body placed in a cell. Before he was shot, however, he advised Helen what to do if anything should happen to him. She approaches the massive Gort and speaks the order, "Klaatu Barado Nikto," a command which enables to the robot to restore life to Klaatu and brings the film to its conclusion and the alien ambassador's final message to all of Earth: "It is your choice. Join us and live in peace or face obliteration."

The unsettling implication made by Klaatu before he leaves in his space craft is that it really doesn't matter that much to the aliens what Earthlings decide. His mission is completed. Earth has been warned.

Some have made comparisons to Klaatu's mission to Earth and the messages and ministry of Jesus. Both came from "above;" Jesus was a carpenter, Klaatu chose the alias of Carpenter; both were killed and resurrected by a power beyond Earth's knowledge; both returned to the "heavens" when their message that humans must repent and change their ways had been delivered.

The admonitions of Klaatu have been subsequently repeated in the channelings of the UFO contactees for decades now. Regardless of whether or not this film will ever be acknowledged as the source of numerous contactees' messages from outer space, it seems likely that at least on the subconscious level, the stately, silver-suited figure of Klaatu (Michael Rennie) and his warning to Earthlings to cease their aggressive behavior and live in peace has been echoed in countless sermonettes that I have heard from alleged Space Intelligences and have recorded in my books Aquarian Revelations (1971) and The Fellowship (1988).

Any student of the UFO phenomenon can name several candidates among the contactees as a successor to Klaatu, but we shall select George Van Tassel for a brief examination.

Van Tassel established a reputation as an accomplished flight test engineer for both Lockheed International and Douglas Aircraft in the 1930s, and spent World War II flying for business magnate/aviator Howard Hughes. In 1947, Van Tassel moved with his wife and three daughters to the land around Giant Rock, California, and reopened the airfield near what had been declared by many as the largest boulder in the world.

Van Tassel theorized that the huge boulder's piezo-electric composition could intensify meditation and the power of the human mind to establish communication with alien intelligences. When he began holding weekly meditations under the rock, he was soon joined by others who felt drawn to the rock and the desert. In 1951, Van Tassel went into trance and said later that he had been taken out of his body to meet with a group of discarnate beings who inhabited a spaceship orbiting Earth.

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