Quatermass and the Pit is a British television science-fiction serial that was transmitted live by BBC Television in December 1958 and January 1959. It was the third and last of the BBC's Quatermass serials, all written by Nigel Kneale. In Knightsbridge, London, a strange skull and an alien spacecraft are discovered; Professor Bernard Quatermass and his newly appointed military superior at the British Experimental Rocket Group, Colonel Breen, join the investigation. The ship and its contents have a powerful and malign influence over many of those who come in contact with it, including Quatermass. He discovers that aliens, probably from Mars, had long ago engineered a human genetic legacy responsible for much of the war and strife in the world.