Hello, all! As the hauntingly horrifying Halloween
season descends upon us, The Dial drops a selection into your trick or treat bag that may frighten
and disturb some, yet will likely cause many others to raise the “sign of the horns”
high in the air and bang their head enthusiastically. From 1990, it’s thrash
metal pioneers Megadeth, and their ode to visitors from the stars… “Hangar 18”.
“Welcome to our fortress tall… Take some time
to show you around.”
Thrash
metal is a genre I dabble in very rarely. I’ve never been much of a metal head,
but I definitely appreciate the technical mastery of metal musicians. However,
this single, pulled from Megadeth’s 1990 Rust
in Peace LP, really blew me away. It didn’t hurt that the subject of the
song is something I’ve been interested in for a while, the idea that the US
Government has sequestered a wrecked spacecraft and alien bodies since the 1940s
at either “Area 51” at Edwards Air Force Base in California, or
Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton Ohio, which actually does have a Hangar
18 on site. The video is appropriate Halloween viewing as the aggressive music
and rough vocals are coupled with scenes of alien creatures being captured and tortured…
and clearly not enjoying it.
“Foreign life forms inventory… suspended
state of cryogenics…”
Now,
this is far from George Lucas or Steven Spielberg stuff here – it’s a lower
budget music video with a lot of quick cuts of aliens struggling against
military personnel, and ominous views of the inside of the hangar and the
equipment within. But even still, it impresses me for the atmosphere it
creates. Check out the disturbing scenes involving the short hairy alien with
the huge proboscis nose, the half-naked cyborg woman, the sawblade “surgery”,
and the cute baby like alien who suffers the receiving end of a needle probe
while still alive. Warning, this video is not for the squeamish.
There’s
also a curious opening sequence in which Megadeth’s band mascot Vic Rattlehead
(the skeletal ghoul that appears on many of the band’s LP covers) barks orders
to the soldiers at Hangar 18 to capture the aliens from the crashed spacecraft.
Does this mean that he is actually a high ranking military or government
official? That would explain why he’s giving the orders.
Additionally,
at the end of the clip, the Megadeth band members are frozen in canisters, to
be locked up in a deep freeze with the extraterrestrials. This raises the
question – are the band members themselves actually aliens? Or are they
being frozen because they’ve seen too much, given that they were rockin’
out in the hangar as the aliens were being brought in?
And
why were there multiple disparate alien species in this spacecraft? Was it an
intergalactic Noah’s Ark? That would be like if we sent a spacecraft to another
planet containing people, cows, hawks, gorillas, kangaroos, flamingos, and alligators.
So.
Many. Questions. But I love it.
“The military intelligence… two words
combined that can’t make sense.”
Thrash
metal has always been a tough sell on top 40 radio, and Megadeth’s music never
quite made the pop mainstream. In fact, the only hot 100 entry for the metal
pioneers was 1992’s “Symphony of
Destruction” which peaked at US #71 pop. Hangar 18 did not chart in the US,
though it did make UK #26.
Despite
the lack of support by radio, Hangar 18 has rightfully become one of Megadeth’s
signature tunes, and even inspired a 2001 sequel entitled “Return to Hangar”, in which the aliens kill all the military
personnel and scientists in the hangar before escaping.
So
crank it up, and prepare yourself for thrash legends Megadeth (guitarist Marty
Friedman, bassist David Ellefson, drummer Nick Menza, and of course, snarling
vocals from Dave Mustaine) as they relate a story of extra-terrestrial visitors
who come to regret their Earthly stop.
And
from all of us here, (Mrs. Radio Dial, the Radio Dial kids, and of course, your
host – me... Kyle !) have a happy, spooky, and safe Halloween!
“Possibly I’ve seen too much… Hangar 18… I
know too much.”
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