"A group of American scientific researchers, isolated in Antarctica by the nearly-ended winter, discover an alien spaceship buried in the ice, where it crashed twenty million years before. They try to thaw the inside of the spacecraft with a thermite charge, but end up accidentally destroying it when the ship's magnesium hull is ignited by the charge. However, they do recover an alien creature from the ancient ice, which the researchers believe was searching for heat when it was frozen. Thawing revives the alien, a being which can assume the shape, memories, and personality of any living thing it devours, while maintaining its original body mass for further reproduction..." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_Goes_There? (1938)
It's interesting to see how the 2 initial THING movies interpret the source material.
"In Anchorage, journalist Ned Scott (Douglas Spencer), looking for a story, visits the Air Force officer's club, where he meets Captain Pat Hendry (Kenneth Tobey), his co-pilot Lieutenant Eddie Dykes, (a friend of Scott's), and flight navigator Ken "Mac" MacPherson. General Fogarty orders Hendry to fly to Polar Expedition Six at the North Pole, per a request from its lead scientist, Nobel laureate Dr. Arthur Carrington (Robert Cornthwaite); Carrington has radioed that an unusual aircraft has crashed nearby. With Scott, Corporal Barnes, crew chief Bob, and a pack of sled dogs, Hendry pilots a Douglas C-47 transport aircraft to the remote outpost.
Upon arrival, Scott and the airmen meet radio operator Tex, a woman named Mrs. Chapman, a man named Lee, who is one of two cooks, and the Inuit dog handlers. Also present are scientists Vorhees, Stern, Redding, Stone, Laurence, Wilson, Ambrose, Auerbach, Olson, Mrs. Chapman's husband Dr. Chapman, and Carrington. Hendry later rekindles his romance with Nikki Nicholson (Margaret Sheridan), Carrington's secretary. Several scientists fly with the airmen to the crash site, finding a large object buried beneath ice. As they spread out to determine its shape, they realize they are standing in a circle; they have discovered a flying saucer. The team attempts to melt the ice covering the saucer with thermite, but a violent reaction with the craft's metal alloy completely destroys it. Their Geiger counter, however, detects a frozen body buried nearby; it is excavated in a large block of ice and loaded aboard the transport. They fly out as an Arctic storm closes in on the site..." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thing_from_Another_World (1951)
"In Antarctica, a Norwegian helicopter pursues a sled dog to an American research station. The Americans witness the Norwegian passenger accidentally blow up the helicopter and himself. The Norwegian pilot fires a rifle and shouts at the Americans, but they cannot understand him and he is shot dead in self-defense by station commander Garry. The American helicopter pilot, R.J. MacReady, and Dr. Copper leave to investigate the Norwegian base. Among the charred ruins and frozen corpses, they find the burned remains of a malformed humanoid which they recover to the American station. Their biologist, Blair, performs autopsies on the remains and finds a normal set of human organs.
Clark kennels the sled dog, and it soon metamorphoses and absorbs the station dogs. This disturbance alerts the team and Childs uses a flamethrower to incinerate the creature. Blair autopsies the new creature and learns that it can perfectly imitate other organisms. Recovered Norwegian data leads the Americans to a large excavation site containing a partially buried alien spacecraft, and a smaller, human-sized dig site. Norris estimates that the alien ship has been buried for at least 100,000 years. Blair grows paranoid that the creature could assimilate all life on Earth in a matter of years. The station implements controls to reduce the risk of assimilation..." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thing_(1982_film)#Plot
The_Thing_(2011_film) is a good prequel that leads right into the classic 1982 John_Carpenter movie.
"In the winter of 1982, a buried alien spacecraft is discovered in Antarctica by Lars, Peder and Olav, members of a Norwegian research station, "Thule". American paleontologist Kate Lloyd is recruited by Dr. Sander Halvorson and his assistant Adam Finch to investigate. They fly to Thule in an American helicopter operated by Sam Carter, a pilot, Derek Jameson, co-pilot, and Griggs, a crewman. The scientists are met by station chief Edvard Wolner, Juliette, and Karl. After seeing the spacecraft, the scientists examine an alien body buried in the ice nearby, and make plans to excavate it. That evening, the new arrivals meet the rest of the base: Jonas, Henrik, Colin, and Lars's dog.
The next day, the body is excavated in a block of ice, which gradually melts in storage. In the evening, while the team is celebrating the discovery, Jameson sees the alien burst from the ice. The team searches for the creature, finding Lars's dog dead. The alien is found; it kills Henrik by dragging him into itself, spattering blood on Olav. The group burns the alien, killing it. An autopsy finds a metal implant of Henrik's outside of his body, and further that the alien's cells were copying Henrik's. Olav falls ill.
The next morning, the helicopter crew departs with Olav, for McMurdo. During takeoff, Kate discovers dental fillings in a bloodied shower. She runs outside to flag down the helicopter. When it attempts to land, Griggs transforms into a monstrous creature, attacking Olav. The helicopter spins out of control, crashing in the mountains. Kate finds the shower has been cleaned up and tells the team that the alien organism can assimilate and imitate its victims, revealing that it is now living among them after showing bloody dental fillings from the shower. Noting that Thule's helicopter is away for refueling at Halley, Edvard orders the team to drive to the closest base and they ignore her warning. Juliette, however, seems convinced and wants to help her prevent anyone from leaving. She lures Kate into an abandoned room where they store the keys to their snowcats, before transforming and attacking her. Kate escapes; the Juliette-Thing instead kills Karl. Lars burns the Juliette-Thing with a flamethrower. The team resolve to quarantine themselves until the threat is eliminated..." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thing_(2011_film)#Plot
Dr. Michael_Crichton wrote a brilliant story about...
"an extraterrestrial microbe transported by a meteor that crashed into the satellite, knocking it from orbit. The microbe contains chemical elements required for terrestrial life (Hydrogen and carbon)and appears to have a crystalline structure, but lacks the DNA, RNA, proteins, and amino acids present in all forms of terrestrial life, and directly transforms energy to matter with no discernible byproducts. The microbe, code named "Andromeda", mutates with each growth cycle, changing its biological properties."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Andromeda_Strain (1969)
"A team from an Air Force base is deployed to recover a military satellite that has returned to Earth, but contact is lost abruptly. Aerial surveillance reveals that everyone in Piedmont, Arizona, the town closest to where the satellite landed, is apparently dead. The duty officer of the base tasked with retrieving the satellite suspects it returned with an extraterrestrial contaminant and recommends activating "Wildfire", a protocol for a government-sponsored team of scientists intended to contain threats of this nature.
The Wildfire team, led by Dr. Jeremy Stone, believes the satellite—intentionally designed to capture upper-atmosphere microorganisms for bio-weapon exploitation—returned with a deadly microorganism that kills through nearly instantaneous blood clotting. Upon investigating Piedmont, the team discovers the townspeople either died in mid-stride or went "quietly nuts" and committed bizarre suicides. Two survivors—the sick, Sterno-addicted, geriatric Peter Jackson and the constantly bawling infant Jamie Ritter—are biological opposites who somehow survived the organism..."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Andromeda_Strain#Plot
The introduction of the Wildfire facility https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgDmJzaSd40 (The scene that reveals the secret underground facility.)
"The story unfolds in flashback, told by Dr. Jeremy Stone as he testifies before a congressional committee:
After a U.S. government satellite crashes near the small rural town of Piedmont, New Mexico, almost all of the town's residents die. A military recovery team tries to recover the satellite but is unsuccessful. Suspecting that the satellite has brought back an alien organism, the military activates an elite team of scientists.
Wearing protective suits, Dr. Stone, the team leader, and Dr. Mark Hall, a surgeon, are dropped in Piedmont by helicopter. They find that the town's doctor had opened the satellite in his office and that all of his blood has crystallized into a powder. They soon discover that almost all of the victims' blood has crystallized, causing rapid death. Two other townspeople have committed suicide after going insane. Stone and Hall retrieve the satellite and find two survivors, a 69-year-old alcoholic man named Peter Jackson and a six-month-old infant, Manuel Rios.
In addition to Stone and Hall, the elite team also includes Dr. Charles Dutton and Dr. Ruth Leavitt, who are summoned to a top-secret underground facility, code named Wildfire, located in Nevada. Upon arrival, they undergo extreme decontamination procedures, descending through four disinfection levels to a fifth level where laboratories are located. If the organism threatens to escape, the Wildfire facility includes an automatic nuclear self-destruct mechanism to incinerate all infectious agents. Under the "odd man hypothesis", Dr. Hall is entrusted with the only key that can deactivate the device, the theory being that an unmarried male is the most dispassionate person within a group to make critical decisions in a crisis.
By examining the satellite with powerful cameras, the team discovers the microscopic alien organism responsible for the deaths in New Mexico. The greenish, throbbing life form is assigned the code name "Andromeda." Andromeda kills animal life almost instantly and appears to be highly virulent. The team studies the organism using animal subjects, an electron microscope, and culturing in various growth media in an attempt to learn how it behaves. Hall tries to determine why the elderly man and the baby survived..." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Andromeda_Strain_(1971_film)#Plot
"In the near future, the unmanned Pilgrim 7 space probe returns from Mars to Earth orbit with soil samples potentially containing evidence of extraterrestrial life. The probe is intercepted by the International Space Station, whose six-member crew retrieves its samples. Exobiologist Hugh Derry revives a dormant cell from the sample, which quickly grows into a multi-celled organism that American school children name "Calvin." Derry realises that Calvin's cells can change their specialisation, acting as muscle, neuron, and photosensory cells all at once.
When Derry conducts further research on Calvin, it crushes his hand and knocks him unconscious. Calvin escapes its enclosure and it devours a lab rat, growing in size. Engineer Rory Adams rescues Derry, but is quarantined in the lab when Calvin attacks him. Adams tries to fight off Calvin, but is killed; Calvin escapes through a fire-control vent. Soon after, the station's communication system overheats, cutting off all contact with Earth. ISS commander Ekaterina Golovkina performs a space walk to find and fix the problem, which turns out to be Calvin. Calvin attacks her and ruptures her spacesuit's coolant system. As her suit fills with coolant, Golovkina blindly makes her way to the airlock. She and the crew realise that Calvin will re-enter the station if they let her in, so she chooses to stay outside and drowns in her spacesuit.
Calvin attempts to re-enter the station through its maneuvering thrusters. The crew fire the thrusters to blast it away, but they drain so much fuel that it causes the ISS to enter a decaying orbit, where it will burn up in Earth's atmosphere. Pilot Sho Murakami suggests using the ISS's remaining fuel to get back into a safe orbit even though it will allow Calvin to re-enter. The crew seal themselves in one side of the station and prepare to vent the atmosphere from the other side to render Calvin dormant. Derry grows weaker and unexpectedly dies. The crew discovers that, due to Derry being a paraplegic with no feeling below the waist, Calvin had been wrapped around his leg and feeding off of him. They are then attacked. Murakami seals himself inside a sleeping pod, while Calvin tries to break inside. Physician David Jordan and Quarantine Officer Miranda North use Derry's corpse as bait to lure Calvin away and trap it in the other side...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_(2017_film)#Plot
The creature in the movie, Life is more like, The Blob than The_Thing.
However, these monstrous entities essentially hack and corrupt the DNA Source+Code of other life forms. Then either absorb or imitate them.
Of course HRG has his own take on the ALIEN theme.
The burn the monster scene is quite common in several Sci-Fi movies.
