Clifford Simak’s "The Visitors" Summary

This book chronicles contact with non-humanoid intelligence, depicting the alien presence through social destabilization and the paralysis of the market economy under the influence of free gifts from space. The science fiction novel was published in 1980.

The Fall of the Black Monolith at Pine River

A giant black rectangular object falls near the town of Lone Pine, Minnesota. The object, about a hundred meters long, covers the riverbed and crushes a wooden bridge, along with a car. A local barber shoots a stranger with a hunting rifle. The focused beam of energy instantly reduces the man to a pile of ash, melting the barrel of the weapon.

Forestry student Jerry Conklin is fishing near the shore when the ship crashes. A flexible appendage hooks the young man and pulls him into an impenetrable volume. Round, luminous disks shimmer in the dim light. Jerry senses a strange sense of comfort and a lush, pine-like vegetation. The visitor examines the captured fauna, then launches the man into the treetop.

Local weekly editor Frank Norton contacts his friend Johnny Garrison from the Minneapolis Tribune. Reporter Kat Foster and photographer Chet White are dispatched to the scene. Meanwhile, the monolith methodically fells pine trees, chews up the wood, and dumps neat bales of compressed cellulose onto a clearing. Jerry Conklin finds Kat in the woods, makes her promise to keep his capture a secret, and hurries off to the university.

Orbital swarm and reproduction

Radars in near-Earth orbit detect a gigantic disk-shaped cluster thirty-two kilometers in diameter. A research shuttle is transmitting alarming data. The swarm consists of thousands of pitch-black bodies absorbing the sun’s rays.

Government experts mark the Minnesota monolith with a green marker bearing the number 101. A day later, the smooth walls are covered with large bulges. The shell bursts. Fourteen five-foot-tall babies tumble out, greedily devouring cellulose briquettes. Kat helps one clumsy baby roll over. The black side of the mother object gently grasps Kat’s hand in a silent handshake. Having fulfilled its natural duty, the giant soars above the treetops and disappears into the sky.

Thousands of monoliths descend on the continent the following night. They hover above the ground over cornfields, highways, military bases, and civilian airport runways.

Secret trials and the anatomy of the deceased

Military specialists in Utah fire a military rifle remotely at a stationary unit, causing the rigid casing to absorb the kinetic energy and instantly destroy the gun mount with a counter-energy pulse.

In the forest near Lone Pine, local drifter Steffie Grant discovers a frozen, cold alien. A research team led by the President’s Science Advisor, Dr. Allen, arrives at the scene. The body of the dead giant is composed of compressed cellulose of unprecedented density. The outer covering is revealed to be an organosilicon polymer capable of blocking gravity and absorbing external radiation.

Goose Island and flying machines

Alien number 101 occupies a field in Iowa and sows furrows with pine seeds. The shoots sprout within a few days. Jerry Conklin returns to the familiar monolith. The creature pulls the biologist inside and transmits a mental route to Goose Island in the Mississippi River into his mind.

Jerry and Kat reach the river floodplain in Quinn’s boat. In a hidden clearing, three giants sprout wheelless flying cars. The vehicles hover above the grass. They require no gasoline and are protected from any road collisions thanks to sensory protection. The heroes master the controls, retrieve two multicolored vehicles, and fly them to the roof of the editorial office.

Floating houses

News of free, sophisticated transportation sparks panic on Wall Street. The president declares a moratorium on financial transactions and closes the stock exchanges. Crowds storm the coastal cordons in an attempt to get their hands on the flying car.

Frank Norton, while on a river trip, stumbles upon a hidden alien base deep in a nature reserve. The aliens are practicing creating fully fledged country cottages. The first examples are crooked or blind, but the third cottage turns out to be a perfect mansion with a lit chandelier, a set table, and functioning appliances. These floating homes threaten to completely ruin the global construction industry.

Norton delivers the scoop to Harrison. The Tribune editor contacts White House press secretary Dave Porter, giving the administration a head start on preparing an official statement. The president decides to abandon secrecy and seek support from foreign powers for a joint restructuring of the global financial order.

Before sending the issue to print, Harrison takes a black pencil. He decisively crosses out the last line of Norton’s report about suspicious silhouettes in the kitchen of the floating house, shielding the public from the idea that aliens have created artificial humans.