Plot

Two astronauts survive a crash-landing on a planet where intelligent apes rule over humans. The men find that their own intelligence challenges the apes' superiority and puts their lives in danger.

A human-male named Farrow finds a crashed spaceship, goes inside, and discovers three astronauts - one dead, two unconscious. He carries the two unconscious ones to his cave and, after they revive, shows them an old book with a photo of New York City in the year 2503. Shocked, the astronauts figure that while they left Earth in the year 1980, they've somehow come back to Earth more than a thousand years later, and that apes now rule the planet! Farrow is killed defending the astronauts who are captured by apes, tried, and thrown into a cell. They escape in company with a sympathetic chimp named Galen and begin a series of adventures.—dinky-4 of Minneapolis

Three astronauts crash-land on a strange planet, but only two survive. An old man pulls the two surviving but unconscious men out of the ship and into his secret cave. Later, the two astronauts discover two terrible truths. One is that they are now on a planet run by intelligent apes. Two is that this Planet of the Apes is the same planet they came from: Earth. They are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of years into the future. Apes are now the dominant creatures of the planet; humans are inferior. This is the dogma clung to by such eminent apes as the orangutan, Zaius, and the violence-prone gorilla, Urko - but not by the free-thinking chimpanzee, Galen. Those who do cling to the dogma consider the two astronauts extremely dangerous.—J. Spurlin

The series begins with the crash of an Earth spaceship that encountered a time warp while approaching Alpha Centauri on August 19, 1980. The spaceship is manned by three astronauts, one of whom has died in the crash. The other two astronauts, Colonel Alan Virdon and Major Peter J. Burke, are unconscious but are rescued by an elderly man, named Fallow, who carries them to an old bomb shelter. After the Fallow opens a book containing historical text and pictures of Earth circa 2500, the two astronauts are convinced that they are indeed on a future Earth.

The crash is also witnessed by a young chimpanzee who tells his father, a village official who alerts the authorities. Ape councilor Zaius, notes that another such incident occurred ten years earlier. He orders the chief gorilla, Security Chief Urko, to find the humans and bring them back alive. Zaius wants to find out as much as he can about the humans before they are eventually killed. Zaius doesn't trust Urko to follow his orders and bring back any surviving humans, so he sends along his newly hired chimpanzee assistant, Galen.

Both Virdon and Burke go back to their ship to check the ship's chronometer. They see the date as March 21, 3085... more than 1,000 years in the future from when they left Earth. Virdon insists on retrieving the ship's flight log in the hopes that they will be able to analyze it and be able to return to their own time period, but while they are at the ship, they are captured, and the old man is subsequently killed by a group of apes.

Galen finds the human book that the old man had been carrying. He reads parts of the book and begins to doubt the history that he has been told: apes have always been dominant, and humans have always been inferior and subservient. When Galen finds out that Urko has arranged for the two astronauts to escape and be killed in the attempt, he stops the shooter and helps the humans escape. During the escape, a guard is killed, and Galen is found standing over him with a gun in his hand.

Galen discusses the book that he found with Zaius, who then accuses him of heresy. Galen is sentenced to death for his crime. Then Virdon and Burke find out about his sentence and rescue Galen. They are all then declared enemies of the state and become fugitives. The three fugitives thereafter wander around the territory that used to be the western United States having various encounters with apes, humans, and old human civilization ruins.