[4][3] The character Eadie Johnson is portrayed by actor Sandy Descher, who had previous science-fiction film experience when she played the catatonic child in Warner Bros.

A seaside trailer park houses personnel working with the military to complete the Thunderer, a rocket that will place an atomic device in permanent Earth orbit.

That evening, after a community cookout, the kids head back to the beach and encounter a small alien life form, resting.

Their father Dave becomes angry, believing they are lying to excuse the fact that they stayed out late and worried their parents.

During the next hours, the children perform tasks about the base while the alien mentally controls various people and objects such as sentries and locked gates to ensure that the mission is carried out.

The men give up and rush back to the base just as the Thunderer is about to be launched, realizing the alien will stop them from trying to interfere.

When the launch button is pressed, an explosion within the nose cone destroys the nuclear warhead, rendering the Thunderer useless.

Bud says his group did what other children have done in several other countries; they sabotaged rockets that would have carried nuclear devices into space, making humankind's self-destruction easy if such weapons were ever used.

[7] It was loosely based on The Egg, an unpublished story by Tom Filer (involving a girl with polio) that was significantly different from the final plot of the film.

In a panic, Alland called Orson Welles (for whom he had acted in The Mercury Theatre and Citizen Kane) and asked if he knew any actress who could step in on such short notice.

The Space Children was first released in theaters on June 18, 1958,[2] as part of a double bill with The Colossus of New York, also produced by Alland.

[9] The Space Children was released on DVD in 2006 as part of the Lost Movie Classics Collection by RoDon Enterprises.