National Twilight Zone Day: When is it, who started it and why?

Let’s answer one of the questions posed in the title right off the bat: when is National Twilight Zone Day? It always falls on May 11.  The trickier questions to answer are when did it start, who started it and why?

Twilight Zone the television series didn’t debut on May 11 nor did its last episode air on that date. (It ran from October 2, 1959, to June 19, 1964.)

Its famous host, Rod Serling, wasn’t born on May 11 and it wasn’t his death date either. (He lived from December 25, 1924 – June 28, 1975.)

Is there some other mystical connection with that date then? In other words, what’s its significance?

Let’s see what we can find out about this fun but mysterious date that’s on the Weird Holidays & Observances page.

National Twilight Zone Day Origins

Before there was the Internet, there were newspapers. I decided to research those and see if any Twilight Zone Day info popped up.

I found a ton of TV listings, and several references to Twilight Zone-themed days for various things, including marathons of the TV show. Mostly around Labor Day and Thanksgiving Day weekends. (That’s when I saw my first Twilight Zone episodes. Thanksgiving 1980-something. Early 1980s. Looking back, I guess you could say that’s the first show I ever binge-watched!)

The first newspaper clipping I found referring to the observance of Twilight Zone Day was from a 2002 “Today Is…” listing in the Lansing State Journal.

Today Is… 1st Twilight Zone Day listing so far 11 May 2002, Sat Lansing State Journal (Lansing, Michigan) Newspapers.com

After that, it was more common to find it on National Day and “Today Is…” listings in newspapers, especially in the 2010s. But who created the day and why remains a mystery. So does the date that it’s celebrated on.

Why May 11?

We already covered that the show neither debuted nor ended on a day with 11 in the number. Does the answer for why National Twilight Zone Day is celebrated in May lay in the fifth dimension? (May = the 5th month in the calendar.) Refer to season 1’s intro: “There is a fifth dimension beyond that which is known to man. It is the middle ground between light and shadow. It is an area, which we call, the Twilight Zone.”

Or does it reference the number of seasons the original TV series ran? Even though it aired from 1959 to 1964 (which could be considered six years), there were only five seasons.

Could be…

But why 11?

Maybe it’s something cryptic and coded, like with the title or the show creator’s name. There are 12 letters in the title so that’s not it. The letters in Rod Serling’s name adds up to 10 so that doesn’t explain it either.

Could 11 have been Rod Serling’s favorite number? Or did someone familiar with numerology consciously pick the number 11 for good reason?

After all, Angel Numbers describes the meaning and symbolism of the number 11 as “one of the most talked about numbers in numerology and the most mysterious.” And how’s this for a very Twilight Zone-ish description of 11:

The 11 is the number that represents our intuition —but to see, to see, not just with our eyes, but with our soul and senses, we must be open and receptive to all hidden meanings.

You can also get to 11 if you add up the years the show ran combined with the number of seasons: 1959 to 1964 = 6 + 5 seasons = 11. But is that just me trying to force an 11 to happen to try and explain the date? Perhaps…

We may never know if the fifth dimension represents May or if the number of the show’s seasons does, or if the numerological interpretation of the number 11 has any significance. However, I like to think Rod Serling would get a kick out of us trying to figure it out. And I think he’d dig the numerology explanation.

5 Fun Facts about the Twilight Zone

1. The TV show added new words to our language, including “zoned out” and “in the twilight zone,” which, in a May 6, 2004 column of the Breese Journal, staff writer Joyce Fox explained is what we say when we find someone or something “odd or weird.”
2. Serling was likely inspired to name the series the Twilight Zone thanks to his military service. According to Screen Rant, pilots actually coined the term “the twilight zone” to describe “the area between day and night at the edge of earth’s shadow that some planes pass through on long voyages.” MeTV explained Serling would’ve been familiar with that term for two reasons: 1. His World War II service in which he served with the Parachute Infantry Regiment of the U.S. Army 2. He earned money in college testing equipment for the U.S. Air Force, which also involved parachutes. So he would’ve spent time aboard planes and around pilots and would’ve picked up on the lingo.
3. In 1982 Golden Earring released a “Twilight Zone” song, which was written by the group’s guitarist George Kooymans. However, the TV show wasn’t the inspiration for the song, but it does pay tribute to it. He actually got the inspiration from Robert Ludlum’s book, The Bourne Identity, in which Jason Bourne does find himself in a Twilight Zone-like situation.
4. In 2009, the United States Postal Service issued a 44 cent Twilight Zone stamp. It featured a TV set with Rod Serling’s face in it.
5. Rod Serling narrated at least three different introductions to the Twilight Zone, but all of them included the word “dimension” in them.

Ripped from the Clips: Twilight Zone Day Gowns

As I was scanning newspapers, I came across this description for Twilight Zone Day gowns. This is one sale I would’ve shopped back in the day just for the term alone!

But what the heck did the dresses look like and did they have anything to do with the series? Another mystery we may never know the answer to…

Twilight Zone Day gowns 10 Aug 1965, Tue The Indianapolis Star (Indianapolis, Indiana) Newspapers.com

Check-In

Have you ever watched a Twilight Zone marathon? Or, as is fashionable to do these days, binge-watched episodes courtesy of cable or any streaming services?