The very first entry of “The Twilight Zone” uncannily foreshadowed the Apollo 11 moon landing, whose 50th anniversary is next month .

That pilot episode, which aired 60 years ago this fall and sold CBS on the cult series, dealt with the country’s early attempts to hurl humans into the cosmic void, depicting what viewers learn only late in the show is an astronaut trainee who has been in an isolation chamber for nearly three weeks.

Many American TV watchers were still paranoid about the Sputnik launch two years earlier and didn’t know what lay ahead as man reached for the stars. For them, “Where Is Everybody?” (as the episode is titled) was a startling introduction to what the series creator, Rod Serling, called in his famous opening narration a realm “as vast as space and as timeless as infinity.”