The Magnetic Monster (1953)

Description

Working for O. S. I., the Office of Scientific Investigation, A – Man agent Jeffrey Stewart (Richard Carlson) and his partner Dan Forbes (King Donovan) are sent to a local hardware store where they find a strong magnetic field has magnetized every metal item in the store. Investigating further, they eventually trace the source of the magnetism to an airborne flight carrying scientist Howard Denker (Leonard Mudie), no dying of radiation poisoning, who has carted on board with him a new radioactive element which he has bombarded with alpha particles for 200 hours. The element, dubbed ‘serranium’ grows geometrically by creating matter out of energy which it absorbs from metallic object surrounding it. Stewart calculate that if the substance is not destroyed soon that within 24 hours or so it will have grown large enough to throw Earth out of its orbit. Long before that, however, the resulting radiation is going to start killing large numbers of people, and the destructive force accompanying it will threaten to split the Earth’s surface apart.