The Alien Leader is the unnamed overarching antagonist of "Black Leather Jackets", the 18th episode of the 5th season of The Twilight Zone, which aired in 1964. He is the ruler of a humanoid alien race that sought to exterminate humanity for their own benefit, and only appears on a computer screen, where he takes the form of a close-up shot of a human-like eye. While presumably a member of the alien species, due to his odd appearance, it is unclear if he is a form of artificial intelligence, or possibly a digitized consciousness.
The alien leader was voiced by the late Gregory Morton, who was uncredited in the episode.
Biography[]
In the mid-20th century, after observing Earth for some time, the alien leader sought to exterminate humanity to use Earth for his own species to expand, justifying his actions by declaring humans to be hateful and violent, thus inferior and undeserving of life, a claim supported by Earth's history and constant media coverage of violence and tragedy. To take over the planet, the leader sent dozens of infiltrator squads to Earth, disguised as humans in various professions and only identifiable via an alien symbol carried on a badge somewhere on their persons, unrecognizable by humans. The first area to be eliminated was somewhere in the United States, where at least 29 different squads, dubbed Bacteria Units, were deployed to, with a mission of infecting water supplies with an alien bioweapon that would kill all who drank it. However, during setup, one of the infiltrators, codenamed Scott, fell in love with a human girl named Ellen, jeopardizing the mission. His two brothers and fellow infiltrators, Fred and Steve, soon contacted the leader and informed him of Scott straying from the mission. After five days of Scott failing to report back on time due to being distracted with Ellen, the leader ordered Fred and Steve to continue without him, and continued to direct following waves of alien infiltrators.
On the eve of the extermination, with all Bacteria Units poised to strike, Scott tried to contact the leader directly, telling the leader about how their reports were wrong, that they had only documented the brutes and most vile members of humanity, and that humans had the capacity for love. The leader responded that his research indicated that Earth is a world of angry, frightened people, and that it was too late to stop the genocide. Scott tried to plead with the leader to give the order to abort the mission, but the leader instead denounced Scott as a traitor, cutting off the transmission. Scott then tried to get Ellen and her family to safety, but he was apprehended by an alien infiltrator posing as a deputy. With Scott out of the way, and humanity at large still oblivious to the aliens' plans, the leader was free to continue the invasion, dooming humanity to extermination.
