“The 37’s” is episode one of season two of Star Trek: Voyager.
Captain Janeway is asking Harry to confirm something. Yes, he has detected rust in space. As to how iron can rust in space without oxygen, he doesn’t know. The captain orders Tom to follow the trail of rust and then complex hydrocarbons are detected. Which Tom says sounds like gasoline, explaining what it is. Tuvok detects a small object that seems to be the source of the rust. It’s a pickup truck. In space.
The car is brought onboard and Tuvok says that it is a ground vehicle from mid-20th century Earth. A 1936 Ford, according to Tom; antique vehicles are a hobby. B’Elanna detects things in the rear of the pickup, which Janeway says is manure. Probably horse. The owner was likely a farmer or lived in a rural area. The question is how it got here; there are no wormholes or temporal anomalies in the region.
Tom lifts the bonnet and sees there is still oil in the crankcase and water in the radiator. He decides to check if the battery works, looking for the key. When turned the engine, absurdly, starts (there is no possible way a vehicle left drifting in space for 400 years would even have all the fluids in it, and no chance it could have started). The engine backfires, causing everyone else to be startled. Harry asks about something, which Tom says is an AM radio. When tuned, the radio picks up something which B’Elanna uses the computer to identify as an S.O.S. The planet the signal is coming from is located; Harry explains that the signal wasn’t on the ones they monitor. It’s slower than light and hardly suitable for interstellar communication.
The planet is Class L, an oxygen-argon atmosphere. There’s too much interference to transport down to the surface and even a shuttle would be hazardous. So Janeway suggests they land Voyager instead. Even though whoever sent the signal may be long dead, something brought that truck halfway across the galaxy, and it could send them back as well. Tom says he has never actually landed a spaceship before. Neither has the captain. This isn’t something it was known that Voyager could do and, when landed, it looks a little front-heavy.
Outside the ship, Chakotay detects something that seems to be a power source. Janeway takes Tuvok and Harry to the signal’s source whilst Tuvok heads towards the power source. This is coming from a twin-engine prop plane, although there is an alien fusion-based generator rigged to the AM transmitted as a power source. Chakotay contacts the captain; the source of power comes from within what looks like a mineshaft and he wants a security detachment. Someone is watching those at the plane.
Inside the mine is some advanced technology, and eight cryostasis tubes. The equipment is still functioning, and the people inside are human. There are five other chambers nearby, but none have any lifesigns. The second tube looked in has a female wearing a leather jacket on which are a pair of gold wings and a nametag reading ‘A. Earhart’. A name that Captain Janeway recognises.
She explains to the others back on the ship that Amelia Earhart was one of the first female pilots in human history. In the mid 20tyh century she became famous for flying across the Atlantic Ocean. In 1937, she attempted to fly around the world, but she and her navigator vanished in the South Seas. An extensive search discovered no wreckage from the plane which caused a lot of speculation. The most ridiculous notion being that they were abducted by aliens. Which now appears to be true.
They want to find out how and why the aliens brought the people here and Tom suggests waking them up and asking. Which the captain had thought as well. She isn’t going to leave them for another 400 years. They will need carefully handling, with only humans present – although Janeway wants Kes to be instructed in how to revive them, as she can easily be made to look human.
Everyone is going to be revived simultaneously; Tom notices that one, in a Japanese military uniform, has a sidearm, which he is relieved of. When woken, there is understandably difficulty in working out what has gone in on the part of the revived. Fred Noonan, Amelia Earhart’s navigator, is promising to tell everyone what happened. It turns out he was also armed and wants them to call Washington and J. Edgar Hoover himself. That will be difficult. Being told they are halfway across the galaxy 400 years in the future is not an easily believable story. Then, there is whoever else is on the planet.