Star Trek: 10 Alien Encounters Before First Contact
4. The Vulcans - Carbon Creek
Was it just a tall tale, told by T'Pol to tease Trip Tucker? Or was this one of the earliest known appearances by the Vulcans in Earth affairs? That purse at the end of the episode surely leads us to believe the latter.
A Vulcan survey ship was damaged in orbit of Earth in the late 1950s, forcing it to crashland in America. Naturally, this is because there was the most space to pick a suitable site - even if over here in Ireland we would have put out a much better welcome.
Carbon Creek is a simple story of three aliens trying to get by in a world they know next to nothing about, but it manages to tell their tale most charmingly. From their discovery of I Love Lucy, to the radical gift of velcro, this alien encounter has a massive impact on Human history - even if it's been kept entirely off the books. We may never truly know if T'Mir is the genius behind this great invention, or if Mestral followed through with his promise to, technically, vaporize himself before death. When this little detail is left to the side, Carbon Creek is a wonderful example of alien visitation before the world was quite ready to know about it.