CALIFORNIA: Death of a Man from Mars

Forrest Ray Colson was a thin, pallid, blond boy. His hands were soft and white, and he wore gloves whenever possible. But for all this he wanted to be a “big hero” and have lots of girls. At 16 he left high school in Hollywood and joined the Marine Corps. He served six unrewarding years, from 1941 to 1947. He saw no action, won no medals.

Discharged, he joined the Monterey Park (Calif.) police force as a rookie. His neat uniform, pistol and dark gloves had the desired effect on females; he came to work with a girl on each arm, stole off with women when on patrol duty—and was dropped from the force. He got another job as a rookie cop on the police force of nearby Glendora. After two months the chief called him in and fired him. The reason: women. Colson picked up his pistol, put it to his head and said, “I bet you don’t think I got guts enough to pull the trigger. You wanta dare me?” The chief talked him out of it.

Colson went to Oklahoma City and moved in with his mother. The 26-year-old ex-hero seemed to have plenty of money saved; he bought a maroon and black Ford, and took occasional trips back to California, where he dropped in at the Monterey Park police station to ask for a fresh chance to become a cop.

One evening last week a woman clerk, who had just started home after her day’s work at a San Gabriel, Calif, supermarket, saw a frightening apparition climb out of an automobile at the rear of the store. Its face was covered by a black mask, dark goggles and a gas respirator. It wore a black helmet decorated by three metal antennas and a skull & crossbones, was dressed in a black shirt, black pants, black boots and black gloves. It carried a shotgun, wore two bone-handled .38s on its hips and a bandoleer of shotgun shells.

The apparition strode through a back door of the supermarket. The woman ran for a telephone and called the police. The masked figure had been robbing suburban Los Angeles supermarkets for ten months, had gotten away with more than $50,000. Anywhere else a man in a space suit would have attracted attention; but in Southern California eccentrics were so common that supermarket clerks refused, until too late, to get excited at the appearance of a Man from Mars. But this time the police arrived just as the apparition was leaving the store, clutching $13,675 in a canvas bank bag. As it began leveling its shotgun, a patrolman fired one shot from the hip. The figure fell, shot through the temple. The cops pulled off the mask and helmet, and there lay Forrest Ray Colson—back in uniform. He died two hours later.