Directed by Kevin Hooks
Written by Michael Angeli
A car breakdown strands Natalie and Monk in the podunk town of Vintonville, Nevada. While Natalie tries to get a phone signal, Monk sees what looks like a flying saucer.
The next day, at the only car repair shop in town, Monk, for all his book smarts, thoughtlessly insults the repairman, Boom Boom (Eric Stonestreet). The repairman increases his estimate from $300 for a day or two to $800 for several days.
At the Sleep Inn (a Choice Hotels brand), Monk once again sees the flying saucer as do Natalie and a hotel employee who uploads a video recording to the Internet.
The next day, a group of costumed extraterrestrial enthusiasts descend upon the town, they check in to the Sleep Inn. Then they go to a place near the Vasquez Rocks, where they believe the extraterrestrials landed. There, they stumble on a body, a woman whose face was torn off, perhaps by coyotes.
Monk goes to the crime scene to do his usual thing, which the enthusiasts interpret as a sign that Monk is an extraterrestrial who has taken human form. For whatever reason, the enthusiasts think that an extraterrestrial who can take human form would not have a normal human belly button. Monk of course won't show his belly button to strangers, or even to Natalie.
After initial skepticism, Sheriff Fletcher (Daniel Stern) fully cooperates with Monk's investigation. Monk believes the woman was murdered. The unfortunate woman was Marge Larkin (Ashley Gibson). Her brother Kyle (Ethan Cohn) comes under suspicion. Monk's visit draws the crowd of enthusiasts to the Larkin mansion, pissing Kyle off.
The sheriff goes back to the Vasquez Rocks with Monk and Natalie. The sheriff gets shot in the leg by someone in the distance. Now it's up to Monk to go back to town to get help.
Dirty, dehydrated and exhausted, Monk stumbles upon a crucial bit of evidence, which he holds on to even after he passes out. After a night at the hospital, Monk returns to his room at the Sleep Inn, where he tells the sheriff and Natalie that he has solved both the murder and the mystery of the UFO.
Kyle murdered his sister so he could get the family fortune to himself. Then he dumped her body at the Vasquez Rocks. But his plan worked too well- nobody found her body, so she was never declared dead and her fortune legally remained in her possession. Kyle grew impatient with the lack of results, so he created the UFO story to draw "internet people" to the vicinity, so that hopefully one of them would stumble on the corpse, which could then be ID'd as Marge so Kyle could finally claim the money.
The extraterrestrial enthusiasts don't buy Monk's explanation, and remain convinced that Monk is an extraterrestrial. Natalie also has doubts that Monk is human. Back home in San Francisco, she tries to look at his belly button.
This episode includes examples of the following tropes:
- Actor Allusion: When Monk is giving his "address" to the UFO enthusiasts, he says he is indeed not "hyoo-mun."
- Arbitrary Skepticism: Monk tells the sheriff he saw what everyone defines as a flying saucer, but when his mechanic says he saw a ghost once, he scoffs at him.
- Bludgeoned to Death: Kyle murdered Marge by striking her in the head with a vase.
- Carpet-Rolled Corpse: Monk notices double-sided tape on the floor of Marge's house, which makes him suspect a rug had been there and someone had moved it. Sure enough, it turns out Kyle rolled his sister's body in her rug before taking it to the desert to dump it.
- Casting Gag: One of the UFO enthusiasts who starts following Monk around is played by Jeremy Howard, who previously appeared as a similarly geeky superfan of the titular show in Galaxy Quest alongside Tony Shalhoub.
- Celebrity Paradox: In a scene where at a magazine stand, Natalie says she once saw a movie about an extraterrestrial who didn't know he was an extraterrestrial because his brain had been rewired, and said extraterrestrial also had bad dreams. While she doesn't mention the movie name, Natalie is describing Impostor, a movie which happened to feature Tony Shalhoub in a supporting role.
- Digging Yourself Deeper: Monk dismisses the town's only mechanic saying he saw a ghost (despite his sighting of a flying saucer) because he makes his living with his brain and is more reliable. When he tries to apologize later, he phrases it as being sorry he said he was stupid out loud.
- Gone Horribly Right: The perp decided to attract UFO fans to the small town so that his victim's body can be found. They do show up and do find the body... but unfortunately, this also attracts Monk, who quickly solves the case.
- Ignored Epiphany: When Monk decides he's going to be 'human' for once, he announces to the alien enthusiasts he's not an alien. Instead of obsessing over him, he wisely advises them they should go live their lives. Of course, they think he's lying to hide the fact he's an alien. Defeated, Monk resigns himself to telling the crowd everything they want to hear about aliens.
- Inheritance Murder: Kyle Larkin kills his sister Marge so that he'll inherit everything.
- Kirk's Rock: The Vasquez Rocks, which have appeared on Star Trek and some of its sequels and movies, also appear in this episode.
- Make It Look Like an Accident: When the UFO fans find Marge's body, she's wearing hiking gear and the coroner originally assumes she fell while hiking and hit her head. However, Monk finds evidence that someone actually placed the clothes on the body after her death.
- Mandatory Line: Natalie calls Captain Stottlemeyer, giving Ted Levine his only lines for the episode.
- Noodle Incident: The episode begins with Monk and Natalie on their way home from a wedding, and Monk's usual antics have apparently caused chaos at the reception.
- On Second Thought: Believing he's about to die alone in the desert, Monk pleads to see people again. Just then, he travels over a rise and the UFO enthusiasts spot him. Monk groans that he didn't mean them.
- Product Placement: The episode was sponsored by Sleep Inn and features a scene where Monk is returning to his hotel room with only one bag of cleaning supplies. Natalie reassures a hotel employee that having only one bag is like giving the hotel a gold star. Other scenes include a uniformed Sleep Inn employee as a minor character.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: The small-town sheriff is another minor character who, once Monk's credentials are verified, willingly assists him in the case.
- Running Gag:
- The fascination with Monk's bellybutton.
- The fact that Vintonville shares the same name as the one street in San Francisco where seemingly everything bad happens.
- "Scooby-Doo" Hoax: Monk and Natalie are driving in the country when their car breaks down in a small Nevada town. While Monk is trying to get a cell phone signal, he sees a small UFO fly overhead. It hovers for a few seconds over them, then flies away. The next day, Monk files a report with the sheriff. The next night, Monk, Natalie and a hotel manager see the UFO. It turns out to have been a model created by the killer of the week to lure out UFO enthusiasts to find his victim's body and let him collect his inheritance.
- Sibling Murder: Marge Larkin is murdered by her own brother.
- Springtime for Hitler: Kyle murders his sister Marge and leaves her body out in the desert, expecting someone to find it and call him. Unfortunately, when the call doesn't come, he realizes something must've happened to the body. Since she wouldn't be declared dead until it was discovered (meaning that the family fortune would still be in her name), he was forced to create circumstances that would lead to her body being found.
- Strange Minds Think Alike: Both Natalie and Stottlemeyer think Monk being an alien would explain a lot.
- Tear Off Your Face: While luckily the camera doesn't show it, the coroner and Natalie both note that Marge's face had been torn off before the body was discovered. The coroner suspects coyotes.
- You Can See That, Right?: Monk asks Natalie to confirm what he's seeing when the UFO turns up again.
