By Captain Pyke | February 19, 2012 - 11:12 pm

Many of you know Norman Spinrad as an award winning science fiction novelist as well as the writer of the TOS classic "Doomsday Machine". Up until recently, Norman's second, unproduced and ill-fated, Star Trek episode "He Walked Among Us" was thought to be lost to the ages.

Norman explains: "I thought the text of my original version--written on a typewriter!--was lost forever until recently a fan asked me to autograph a faded copy he had bought somewhere. I did, and in return he sent me a pdf off a scan"

"This screenplay was commissioned by Gene Roddenberry as a vehicle for Milton Berle as a serious actor and [Gene] also sent me to an overgrown backlot village set he wanted to try to write into the script."

Norman continues: "This original version was rewritten into an unfunny comedy by the line producer Gene Coon apparently unaware that Uncle Miltie was also a serious dramatic actor and a good one. It was so bad that I complained to Roddenberry: This is so lousy, Gene, that you should kill it! I told him: You can't, you shouldn't, shoot this thing! Read it and weep!"



"Gene did, and he agreed with me. I killed my second Star Trek, which, down through the years has cost me tens of thousands of dollars in lost residuals."

With the recent unearthing of "He Walked Among Us", Norman has made the script available to Trek fans through Amazon .

Just as a side not, the script for "He Walked Among Us" has nothing do with the novel written years later by Norman Spinrad.

We'd like to give special thanks to Mr. Spinrad for emailing us about this awesome find. We'll definitely be purchasing a copy and you can get your copy here .