The Brain Eaters is a 1958 independently made American black-and-white science fiction-horror film, produced by Ed Nelson (and Roger Corman, uncredited), and directed by Bruno VeSota.

[1] The Brain Eaters was distributed by American International Pictures as a double feature with either Earth vs. the Spider or Terror from the Year 5000 in different markets.

They stop to investigate in nearby woods and find dead animals before coming upon a metal structure resembling a rocket nose cone.

Sen. Walter K. Powers and his assistant Dan Walker fly to Riverdale to investigate and are met by Glenn Cameron, whose father, the mayor, is missing.

Alice Summers, the mayor's secretary, assists Dr. Paul Kettering, the committee's chief investigator, by recording test results.

During the autopsy, the doctor and Kettering find a dead creature attached to the mayor's neck; it injected a toxin into his nervous system.

Realizing she is missing, Paul and Glenn drive back to the cone and see Prof. Helsingman, a dying man who vanished five years earlier along with a scientific expedition.

Kettering questions the professor, who only utters the word "Carboniferous", referring to a geologic time period millions of years ago.

They are greeted by another member of the missing expedition, an old man who says he was once Prof. Cole but now holds "a position of a much higher order."

He prepares to shoot a connecting wire from the cone to a high voltage transmission line, completing a circuit.

Glenn fires the harpoon gun, making the connection to the transmission line, which engulfs the cone in electricity.

[3] After its release, science fiction author Robert A. Heinlein sued for plagiarism, asking for damages of $150,000, claiming that The Brain Eaters was based on his 1951 novel The Puppet Masters.

He did, however, see the obvious comparisons once he'd read the novel, so Corman settled out of court for $5,000 and acceded to Heinlein's demand that he receive no screen credit, as the author found the film "wanting".

[3] The lawsuit that resulted halted actor John Payne's intention of producing a film based on Heinlein's novel.