Before I start, I just want to apologise for my blogging absence of late. It has been a very busy month or so. Several months back I was offered a job coordinating therapeutic activities for the elderly. It was an opportunity that I jumped at and has been a very rewarding “work life” experience thus far. Unfortunately, it has meant that I have succumbed to the rigours of regimented 9 to 5, Monday to Friday routine – something that I have avoided in my non-conformist work ethic for over a decade! What a shock to the system! It has also meant that my musical work has had to be slotted into evenings and weekends – somewhat problematic given that I have been snowed under by a number of projects of late. The good news is that I have had the opportunity to barter some time in studios and with a number of very talented muso types. The result is that I am producing some new material of my own creation. I will hopefully be able to post some links to the first of these new songs – entitled “Before the Warning” – in a week or two. More will follow in due course.
The 6th Annual British Exopolitics Expo
On September 27th 2014, I was invited to speak at the 6th Annual British Exopolitics Expo at Leeds Metropolitan University’s The Rose Bowl. Exopolitics Great Britain was created by Anthony Beckett in 2009 and since then their mission statement has been to “increase public awareness of issues relating to the evidence in support of the existence of extraterrestrial life ranging from UFO disclosure advocacy through to promoting and educating on exopolitical discourse.” Additionally, Exopolitics GB have kept abreast of the ongoing state of the ET/UFO “disclosure” process in all its forms. (See: http://www.exopoliticsgb.com/)
I generally tend to avoid “conference” speaking opportunities like the plague – given that they often play host to speakers whose “views” clash with the nature of my own evidence gathering and research. They also regularly provide a platform for disinformation/misinformation, limited hangouts and counterproductive “truth” agendas. In the case of the Exopolitics Expo, my decision to agree to take part was largely based on the presence of Andrew Johnson (http://www.checktheevidence.co.uk/) and Grant Cameron (http://www.presidentialufo.com/), whose work I respect and have followed for a number of years. Additionally (although I have only been aware of their work for a relatively shorter period of time) I was also encouraged by the involvement of Pierre Sabak (http://www.pierresabak.com/news.php) and Rosemary Ellen Guiley (specifically, the research in her book “The Djinn Connection” – http://www.djinnuniverse.com/)
Due to work commitments, I was unable to attend the full three days, yet the presence of most of the weekend’s speakers throughout Saturday gave me a chance to gauge the sentiments and perspectives of those involved. It was also a rather unique undertaking for me – given that I was being accompanied by three close friends whose perspectives represented the full range of mass perceptions of this particular subject. One friend is overall a skeptic of anything he lazily labels as “conspiracy theories” and “the paranormal” – although he is slightly open minded to the idea of “life out there”. The next is healthily and pragmatically open-minded – requiring a degree of plausible and verifiable evidence on the table before she will consider. The latter is remarkably open-minded to many subjects. As somebody who is a little overly guarded and cautious, it was only when I took stock of the ambience and content of the Expo that I realised how invaluable this trio of trusted “eyes and ears” had been.
My talk (entitled “The Source of the Nine – Is it ‘Life as we know it?’”) was a variation on the presentation I gave at Birmingham TruthJuice in August 2014 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wz6NkjxNWJA) regarding the connections between Star Trek/Gene Roddenberry and the “Lab 9” phenomenon – with emphasis on key Lab 9 player Dr. Andrija Puharich and his connections to SRI, NASA, CIA, etc. Surprisingly, I found myself very nervous during the first 5 – 10 minutes of my talk and fell over my words a little! Thankfully, I quickly settled into my stride. Overall, my presentation was very well received and prompted a number of people to ask follow-up questions throughout the afternoon. One or two people took exception to my remarks about some slightly disturbing connections with former Apollo astronaut Edgar Mitchell and gave me a severe inquisitorial grilling afterwards, but I expected such a reaction from certain quarters. Thankfully, my research on this matter is well sourced. As they say, you can’t please everybody…and I’m not going to start anytime soon! I also had the chance to chat with Grant Cameron, Pierre Sabak, Rosemary Ellen Guiley and Robbie Graham – the latter presented a controversial and thought provoking thesis on the nature of the UFO/ET disclosure movement during his presentation at the Expo. Although I didn’t entirely agree with all of his conclusions, his presentation was a valid assessment of the current state of play in ufological research. There are a number of recent articles on his website (http://silverscreensaucers.blogspot.co.uk/) that address this subject further.
Due to some problems with travel arrangements, I had to depart Leeds before the end of the day’s conference and missed much of Grant Cameron’s presentation. A great shame – although I am reliably informed that it was up to his usual and highly researched standard.
The conference was very well organised with everybody involved being extremely helpful and friendly. Organiser Anthony Beckett was a gracious host and went out of his way to accommodate me. He even allowed me the use of his laptop when mine steadfastly refused to co-operate with the lecture theatre’s projector system! I am truly grateful to him and all those at Exopolitics Great Britain for providing me with the opportunity to present information that some researchers (and conference organisers!) would consider inconvenient and prefer to ignore. All the presentations at the Expo were filmed, so hopefully I will be able to provide a link these videos at some point in the future.
Yet More on Kubrick…
Whilst I’m on the subject of my ongoing research, I have (yet again!) discovered a few more curios relating to the legendary filmmaker Stanley Kubrick. Kubrick is becoming something of an ongoing research project for me – particularly with regard to his alleged involvement with NASA’s “Apollo” program. Following the publication of my aforementioned book, I genuinely believed I was pretty much done with the Kubrick matter. How wrong I was! As my faithful readers will know, I have currently become stalled with the opinion that (for whatever reason) the Kubrick/NASA connection was first fully and openly articulated/verbalised in the public consciousness at some point during the early/mid-1990s. This may have been an elaborate and contrived ploy to “create” a specific point in time when the notion was seemingly first “realised”, therefore falsely validating the notion that there is and never was a LEGITIMATE Kubrick/Apollo connection – at least not with regard to Apollo Mission fakery – before the 1990s. However, just because something had no obvious public exposure before a specific date, does not mean the notion ever existed. Unfortunately, what we have before the mid-90s is scant. There are things such as the NASA/”2001: A Space Odyssey” interplay and the metaphorical symbolism on display in Kubrick’s “The Shining”, but nothing specific or concrete. This has placed me on a quest of sorts to find a specific reference to the connection before the 1990s – the best evidence would be a TV documentary or book (preferably a paperback with an edition date so as to preclude the possibly that it is a more contemporary reprint – or potentially tampered with in the case of a pdf file, for example) – to prove the pre-existing connection. Please feel free to contact me if you know of any sources before this period that can be verified by a date that cannot be falsified. I would very much appreciate any leads! I approve comments (to filter trolls and spam) before publishing on my blogs – so if you want to leave your contact email in a comment, I will write it down and then delete the comment rather than publish. Your details will be kept in strictest confidence and never passed on to another party. Anyway, back to the subject at hand.
The reality is that I will probably have to read thousands of books for many years and may never find that elusive handful of words that would once and for all blow the whole thing open (metaphorically speaking!) My resignation was given something of a jolt recently when I came across a 2009 RT News interview with former Soviet Cosmonaut Alexei Leonov. Mainstream history books cite Leonov as the first person to ever walk in outer space (1965.) In the RT interview, Leonov discusses his “recollection” of his time in the Soviet Space Program and the “official” accounts of NASA’s Apollo missions. He also goes out of his way to dismiss any suggestion that the Apollo Lunar missions were in any way staged or faked.
The following is taken from a transcript of the interview (http://rt.com/news/i-armstrong-bouncing-moon/). The article was posted on September 15, 2010 and further edited on April 03, 2011. The piece begins: “Russia’s prominent cosmonaut, first man to walk in space, Aleksey Leonov strongly rejects claims that Americans made up their moon mission and shares with RT his memories of Neil Armstrong walking on the lunar surface.”
In the interview, the RT news correspondent asks Leonov, “The US is often accused of not actually going to the moon and faking the images from there. What’s your take on that?” Leonov replies, “That is ignorance, total ignorance on the part of those who say so. These people don’t know anything about technology. Or they just seek popularity.” He further asserts, “… When the Americans announced their mission, we all gathered at this military base. We sat there, holding our fingers crossed. We wished all the luck to the guys. We personally knew them, and they knew us. Radars were monitoring the whole process. When the ship landed, their external cameras began to show the surroundings. We saw it all. Then the hatch opened, the next camera turned on (they really had thought it all through). Armstrong goes down the steps. The last step was about 50 cm above the Moon’s surface. He was moving his foot carefully. We all froze, waiting to see what was going to happen next. He jumped off the step, then bounced and began to walk. He had an antenna that transmitted everything to the Earth; we saw everything that they did.”
It is interesting that Leonov slams any notion that the Apollo missions were in any way faked. It may be that he simply buys (as many people still do) the “official” history of man’s “first steps” on the Moon. It could also be that he knows more and isn’t saying. It seems reasonable to suggest that somebody in Leonov’s former position would have some insight into what may have really occurred in relation to the Apollo Lunar missions. However, this isn’t all he says.
“The rumour started when Stanley Kubrick’s wife commented on her husband’s work. She said that it was very difficult to make the film about Americans landing on the moon. Well, it is understandable. There are two ships left on Earth. One is at the Smithsonian museum. It is not allowed to even take pictures there, because the displays there are extremely valuable. And the second ship, the exact copy, is in Hollywood. So he did some of the shots there, things like landing, opening of the hatch… because otherwise viewers would not get the whole picture. So that’s how the rumour about the landing on the moon footage being fake started. Two people even went to prison for bearing false witness?”
RT uploaded clip of the interview (featuring this section) can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X55bRwXlWBM and the full 28 minute interview can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rpkngTKdbXQ The interview verifies Leonov’s statements in the transcript – at least those words spoken by the translator, as Leonov is naturally speaking Russian. In order to confirm his remarks, I wanted to see if the translation matched what he says in Russian. Fortunately, I have a colleague who is fluent in Russian. I asked him to watch the interview for me and he says that the translation is indeed accurate.
At the heart of this matter are the claims he makes about Kubrick. Leonov says that Kubrick utilised an exact copy of the LEM (located in “Hollywood”) and “did some of the shots there, things like landing, opening of the hatch… because otherwise viewers would not get the whole picture.” Given the context of this statement – such as “landing”, “opening the hatch” and that this was done to give “viewers” the “whole picture” – one can easily assume that Kubrick was doing this work for NASA or some associated agency. It also follows that this was during the same period as the Apollo mission. Therefore, one could perhaps conclude (at least based on Leonov’s statement) that Kubrick worked on the Apollo program! If true, this is a staggering revelation – one that seems to have been totally absent from not only every official account of Kubrick’s career but also the investigation into Kubrick’s involvement in the NASA/Apollo cover-up.
Before I began getting too excited at the possibility of discovering a lead that had previously eluded me, I sat back and considered the context of his claim. Leonov cites Kubrick’s widow, Christianne, as the source of yet another claim – that Kubrick made a “film about Americans landing on the moon.” I am unsure as to what film he is referring. Is it possible that he means “2001; A Space Odyssey”? The film is not actually about Americans landing on the Moon – given that any Moon related portions of the narrative occupy a very small portion of the running time. In the story, America has been on the Moon for quite a while and “landed” many time previously. However, strictly speaking, it does technically show the landing of an American space craft (with American passengers) on the Moon.
It is possible that Leonov is simply referring to Christiane’s interviews in the French “mockumentary” film ‘Dark Side of the Moon’. However, I would be surprised if this was the case. If Leonov really does hold fast to the idea that the Apollo missions were “as seen by the world”, then I’m sure he would give little credence to a film that’s central notion is that Kubrick was employed to fake footage for use in the global perception of a “manned Moon landing” by NASA. The film itself is an oddity. It is widely accepted as being a spoof and this is generally backed up by the use of stock footage of key historically figures talking about (non-Apollo) subjects that have been edited to fit the central conceit of the film. Yet, it has never been adequately explained why Christiane was involved in the film. In light of Leonov’s comments, it is possible that we finally have a possible explanation. If Kubrick was employed by NASA to work on a P.R. film about the Apollo mission, is this what Christiane was talking about in ‘Dark Side of the Moon’ and used slightly out of context?
On the other hand, we should also consider everything Leonov has said as disinformation and half-truths that muddle and dissemble the subject at hand. His remarks would benefit the cause of disinformation on multiple levels. If we can’t trust the words of astronauts like Buzz Aldrin and Edgar Mitchell (as many researchers, including myself, have discovered), why should we trust somebody like Leonov? In light of my research, I would like to entertain what he has said regarding Kubrick as it answers many questions I still have about the man and this subject. Yet, as a largely pragmatic person, I have to accept the possibility that Leonov is just another tool of the system, spouting the rhetoric and leading us down yet another dead end path. If nothing else, this information adds another depth to the rabbit hole that is Stanley Kubrick and I feel compelled to keep digging!
As an interesting aside, the spacecraft dispatched to Jupiter in “2010: The Year We Make Contact” (the book was written by NASA stalwart and Kubrick Collaborator Arthur C. Clarke and the film a direct sequel to Clarke and Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey”) is name “The Cosmonaut Alexei Leonov” (http://2001.wikia.com/wiki/Cosmonaut_Alexei_Leonov) The director of “2010” was Peter Hyams who also helmed “Capricorn One” – a film that depicted a faked manned mission to Mars and the subsequent cover-up. Nothing like a good synchronicity to keep us wondering, eh!?
Until next time,
The Truth Seeker’s Guide.
