The Maiden & The Barker

Had i come across the following page during my youth...

"Doom For A Dime" from the series Balbo The Boy Magician (Master Comics 41, 1943)

...I wouldnt have given it a second glance. But having since become aquainted with classic high strangeness, UFO-related cases, I instead thought: "hmm...what year is this actually from?" The answer is 1943, and in case you are still wondering what exactly to look for, compare it with the images below:

Yes, the infamous Flatwoods Monster and Mothman. Besides being some of the most instantly recognizable creatures of high strangeness lore, both are intimately connected with the state of West Virginia - one with the small town of Flatwoods, and the other with the slightly more populated Point Pleasant. While not mentioned by name in the story, or appearing in any context that could be considered extraordinary, I'm still wondering what the odds are for them being alluded to in this manner. And as I began reading closer, more connections appeared. 

And just in case you are wondering if the shadowy "creature" in the above story really is a moth, it is confirmed on the subsequent page:

Neither The Flatwoods Monster nor Mothman are easily pigeonholed. Nevertheless, the former is primarily related to a core incident that took place in September of 1952, while the latter has appeared in many seperate encounters over the years (some would argue, still to this day) and changed accordingly. I'm going to push the Mothman conundrum aside for now and instead focus on The Flatwoods Monster. To get a short but sufficient summary of the main incident, check this excellent video:

Now to get back to the Balbo comic: it never occured to me that The Flatwoods Monster could have been "inspired" by the torture instrument known as The Spanish Maiden/Iron Maiden. I had heard people compare it to the queen from Alice In Wonderland (not sure why though) and recently to Mandean Uthras, but never to a famous torture device. But now I see the comparison very clearly:

Spanish Maiden variants. The "Ace of spades" shaped head was a consistent detail mentioned by eyewitnesses to the original Flatwoods case.

Another encounter, which took place around the same time as the initial Flatwoods incident, very close to the original site, involved a tall, reptilian creature. This creature was said to be hovering by help of some mechanical extension, which covered it from the waist down. Frank Feschino Jr. investigated the case for his book Shoot Them Down and it also became the main focus of the 2010 Monsterquest episode, "Lizard Monster". Feschino speculates that the lizard creature could in fact be the same as the one in the original Flatwoods encounter, but this time without the top part of its "suit". This is a bit too nuts n' boltsy for my taste, but the description of the monster wearing a suit or being inside a type of flying container, resonates somewhat with the function of the Spanish Maiden (although perhaps a bit more comfortable). 

The "Lizard Monster" as it was portrayed on Monsterquest

Some time after the main Flatwoods incident, another, related case was discovered, involving a woman and her son. This actually took place a week before, and apparently involved a creature of more or less the same description as the "fully clad" maiden. But there appears to be yet another curious precursor on record, which Nick Redfern mentions in his book Monster Files. In a publication by the RAND Corporation titled The Exploitation of Superstititions for Purposes of Psychological Warfare, which assesses the use of various supernatural rumors during wartime, he found a reference to stage magician and intelligence asset Jasper Maskelyne's book, Magic: Top Secret. 

In the book Maskelyne claims to have helped the British army develop a mechanized "...gigantic scarecrow, about 12 feet high, and able to stagger forward under its own power and emit frightful flashes and bangs.", which had been used for spreading terror in small secluded areas of Italy during WW2. Nick speculates that The Flatwoods Monster could have been part of a later psy-op, inspired by Maskelyne's device. A place such as Flatwoods would have been ideal in that case, as it is a very secluded and scarcely populated town, even today. Nick furthermore mentions a more widespread tendency within military intelligence circles, of using Ace of Spades imagery. 

The cover of said RAND publication, which can be downloaded it its entirety here

The Jasper Maskelyne angle is even more interesting, when viewed in relation to the comic book story that inspired this post. As mentioned earlier, the "Doom For A Dime" story was published in 1943 as part of the contemporary series, Balbo The Boy Magician. The Balbo stories were very popular, and often centered around a seemingly supernatural event, which the young magician would eventually reveal as being pure illusion. Balbo was a true debunker of his time, it seems.

A big surprise came when I read the final page of "Doom For A Dime", and saw the reference to a "Barker". 

Anyone familiar with the Flatwoods and Mothman cases will know that both are very often mentioned in connection with notorious UFO trickster Gray Barker. In fact, the Flatwoods incident was Barker's point of entry into ufology - the first case he ever investigated. Furthermore, he was the first ufologist on the scene at Flatwoods, due to the fact that he was a native of Braxton County (which Flatwoods is part of). Barker also wrote the very first book about the Mothman sightings in Point Pleasant, The Silver Bridge. 

I had no idea until I began writing this post, but apparently "Barker" is a term given to the people standing in front of circuses, sideshows and the likes, trying to attract spectators. Ironically, many people would consider this to be pretty much the role that Gray Barker played in ufology, during most of his career. 

Some bonus info that fits right into all of this: According to wikipedia, one of the most famous fictional barkers on screen was Tinman (played by Nipsey Russell) from the 1978 movie, The Wiz:

In "Doom For A Dime" there is also a tin man type creature, operated by the exhibition barker, who looks very similar:

Phew...it's probably not even the end of it, but it will have to do for now.

The Illuminati, Before They Were Famous - Part 2

MacGyver like you never saw him before

Through The Eyes Of A Killer is a TV-thriller from 1992, based on a short story by British author Christopher Fowler. It's not very high budget, but has an interesting and talented cast. Richard Dean Anderson (MacGyver) is here in the only bad-guy role I've ever seen him in, and I must admit he plays it pretty convincingly. Marg Helgenberger plays Laurie, a well educated, independent and sexually frustrated, woman, who hires Anderson's character, Ray Bellano, to refurbish a trashy old apartment. Shortly thereafter, she gets physical with him and feels like she's on cloud nine for about 20 minutes of the movie. Then they have a fallout, which ultimately sparks the premise of the movie. Tippi Hedren has a minor role as the landlady, and I wouldn't be surprised if there is some kind of hommage to an older movie there somewhere, that I haven't picked up on yet.

What makes TTEOAK so special, is that it is the only "old" movie I know of that incorporates the all-seeing eye in a directly malevolent context. It is also the only movie I've seen, period, where the eye becomes more than just a fleeting symbol to be seen here and there. In TTEOAK it is even beyond being just a plot device: it is a completely independent entity, that interacts subtly with the involved characters and affect their actions - and ultimately the outcome of the story.

The Eye continually appears with a shiny, glowing effect throughout the movie. The Eye of Providence, surrounded by sunbeams, can be found in many freemasonic lodges, as a reminder of "The Great Master Builder of All Worlds"

After watching Through The Eyes Of A Killer, I learned that it was based on a short story called The Master Builder by Christopher Fowler. This of course describes Richard Dean Anderson's character is in the movie: a superb craftsman who takes the expression from trash to treasure, to a whole new level. But it is clearly also a freemasonic reference, viewed in conjunction with the symbolism that is such a central part of the plot. I was therefore surprised, when I read Fowler's original story, to learn that the evil eye mosaic is not a part of it at all. It's not even hinted at. So whatever this nod at freemasonry and/or The Illuminati is supposed to mean, it probably came solely from the filmmakers. But let's take a closer look and speculate some more along the way (Warning: There will be spoilers).

In the first clip, Tippy hedren shows Laurie the window with the eye, and a sense of dread comes across her. The sun shining through the eye creates a mysterious light.

In the next clip, Ray sees the eye, and it is as if an exchange is taking place. This clearly isn't your everyday window decoration.

One thing noticed about the Ray Bellano character from this point onwards, was how much he looks like Adolfo Costanzo, the "Godfather of Matamoros", whose Palo Mayombe-inspired cult created mayhem across the southern US states and Mexico during the late 1980's. Costanzo's activities ended in 1989, when he commited suicide just prior to getting apprehended by the Mexican police. His followers were either arrested or died with him.

Below I have put up a screenshot from Through The Eyes Of A Killer against a picture of Costanzo, in order to demonstrate the similarities. It might well be a coincidence, since that type of dodgy haircut was all too popular in those days. But it is in no way improbable, since the Matamoros case was very well known at the time.

One night, shortly after the work on the apartment has commenced, Laurie is attacked by Ray Bellano. A rape ensues, but she decides to go in on it. When she wakes up in the morning, the eye shines briefly but knowingly at her. Laurie and Ray begin a short affair, until he seduces her best friend. Ray gives her a sinister promise, that he wont give up on her, but finishes off the apartment without any further complaints or interactions. Later, when its all set to move in, the following scene occurs:

Ray has left a "gift" for Laurie - a pyramid with an all seeing eye - a hint that she is being watched? But how? The guy at the end of the above clip is a colleague of Laurie, who tries to win her via the friendship way. But i'm not sure exactly how to interpret the scene with the knife, as there is yet no reason for him to be cautious. Maybe the eye is influencing him too? In the next scene, Laurie is beginning to sense that there is something older and more sinister about the apartment, and suspects that the eye plays a part in it.

The gift is transformed into a weapon, as Laurie bashes Ray with it. Afterwards she discovers how he could have remained hidden in the apartment - there is a hollow area within the thick walls that Ray has made into an advanced system of halls and entrances from which he could get into the apartment. Someone else than the Eye has been watching her!

In the following scene, Ray talks about how the place itself gave him power, like the inner "force" that you often hear serial killers talk about. It is therefore the place itself, expressed via The Eye, that affects the people who comes into contact with it.

Finally, Rays dies, and the most eerie scene of the whole movie plays out. It seems that The Eye decides to turn on its own device, hypnotizing him so laurie can finally get the drop on him.

So...what to conclude about this eye business? Why is it used in such a sinister context? Is there anything in the director's past works that could hint at a reason? Looking on IMDB, Peter Markles' resumé almost explicitly includes TV movies and episodes for various TV-series, most of them with a crime theme. At first glance there isn't really anything on the list that stands out, except maybe Flight 93 (2006) about the missing plane on 9-11, but even that was very non-challenging in its narrative, as far as i remember. Markles also directed a few episodes for the X files and Millenium, but these were written by someone else. Then it struck me that maybe the writer on Through The Eyes Of A Killer was the real culprit. He is listed on IMDB as Solomon Isaacs, a name that sounds like it could have been made up for the occasion. Indeed, there is no other listed works attributed to him, nor could I find any other info about him anywhere. I even tried writing Christopher Fowler about it, but he never answered. So I'm afraid the trail ran cold there.

Finally, there is one question left asking: Is the film worth watching? Well, you got some major spoilers from reading all this, but why not, it isn't half bad. Just remember to check your apartment thoroughly before going to sleep.

Part 1 here.

Reeve's And Robin's

I was reading an article about movie and television "predictions" some time ago, when a stray thought hit me: Hadn't Christopher Reeve once, prior to his 1995 riding accident that left him paralyzed from the head down, played a quadriplegic in an old crime movie? I looked it up, and sure enough there were lots of resources on the Internet mentioning it. But it turns out that my memory wasn't completely on the money. The movie in question was the HBO-produced Above Suspicion from 1995, and Reeve "only" played a paraplegic in it...well, there is a bit more to the story actually, but I won't spoil anything for those who want to watch it (f.x. via the youtube link below).

When I finally sat down and watched Above Suspicion the other day, I didn't recognize it at all. The movie I thought I remembered was Deathtrap from 1982, which Reeve stars in together with Michael Caine. The plot and setting is completely different from Above Suspicion, and most importantly Reeve's character in Deathtrap is not in a wheelchair. So somewhere along the way I must have gotten the two mixed up in my head, for some reason. Still, it was a bit of a "wow" moment for me, especially when looking further into things. 

What makes the Christopher Reeve case particularly interesting, is that life seems to have imitated art with very short notice: Above Suspicion premiered on TV only six days before Reeve's accident. That and the fact that Reeve had gone to great lengths preparing for the movie, which was after all just a relatively small TV-production. He even went as far as staying at a spinal cord trauma unit for days at a time, so he would be able to play his role more convincingly. It makes you ponder the possibility that he somehow manifested his own accident, after focusing so intently on it within a fictional setting. Either that, or the universe handed out a particularly cruel dish of irony that day. 

Reeve was by reputation, and by his own admission, a very self-absorbed person before his accident, and he eventually looked back with regret on his sometimes smug attitude after leaving the rehabilitation unit, saying to himself "thank god that isn't me". Despite that, Reeve did make an effort to promote the cause for spinal cord injury victims prior to the release of the movie. "One moment everything is fine and then the world falls apart", as he was quoted saying at the time.

This was exactly the situation he faced after he was thrown off his horse "Eastern Express" during a riding competition on May the 27th, 1995. Reeve broke two of his upper veterbrae in the fall, and it was against most odds that he survived at all, with his brain functions intact. His head was almost completely seperated from his spine and had to be surgically reattached.

Reeve as Dempsey Cain in Above Suspicion (left) and in real life, not long after his injury (right).

That Reeve's accident took place so shortly after the airing of Above Suspicion, generated a lot of discussion at the time. But it also fed into the already existing legend of the "Superman curse", which refers to the many misfortunes that have fallen upon people involved with the Superman franchise. What fuelled it even further was that former 1950's Adventures of Superman star George Reeves was already known for being one of the prior victims of the "curse", dying in obscurity at a very young age. The obvious similarities between the names 'Reeves' and 'Reeve' have fostered a lot of speculation among Forteans ever since.

If you wan't to know more about the Superman curse, there is a good wikipedia entry on it here, but I recommend that you also check out this article, which looks at the matter from a more sceptical angle. Also, a more recent addition to the curse has been put forward by Loren Coleman at Twilight Language. And if you feel like taking it even further, Loren discusses the "name game" qualities of the Reeve/Reeves/Reaves name variants, originally started by John Keel in connection with UFO's, here and in his book Mysterious America. 

And if you are thinking that a UFO/ET connection sounds ridiculous, you might want to reconsider. Not only is Christopher Reeve by far the most recognized person to ever play Superman - who after all is one of the most famous aliens of all time. In 1995 he also starred in John Carpenter's remake of Village of The Damned, one of the most classic alien invasion stories ever written.

The Black Fox mini-series was filmed in 1993, but aired a few months after Reeve's horse-riding accident.

The Death of Robin Williams

Robin Williams died by apparent suicide on the 11th of August this year, and several "predictions" have surfaced from this event as well. Williams had a very strong connection to Christopher Reeve. They both went to Cornell University, where they were often the only people in their classes. Subsequently they became the only two students to be picked out for the prestigious Juillard school in New York, in 1973. They both studied drama at Juillard and kept a close friendship for years afterwards, while their acting carreers took off in different directions.

Shortly after Reeve's accident, Williams played a pracitical joke on him at the hospital, pretending to be a German doctor who was supposed to perform a rectal exam. Reeve has often stated how much this incident encouraged him at the time, and shows just how strong their friendship was. 

Robin Williams with Christopher Reeve and family, towards the end of Reeve's life.

It is curious that the death of Robin Williams should also be surrounded with "synchronicities". Among the top examples, is the fact that the BBC aired an episode of Family Guy, where the lead character Peter Griffin nearly commits suicide after creating an army of Williams clones, just 10 minutes prior to Reuters announcement of his death. 

As a spokesperson for the BBC said about the episode: 

 It was scheduled more than two weeks ago so it is just an uncanny coincidence. Some of our people who work here noticed that the death of Robin Williams was announced just as this episode ended. 

The said episode is titled "Viewer Mail #2", and is actually made up of three small segments, all based on viewer suggestions. After watching it I was surprised to discover that the episode included not just one, but in fact two suicide attempts. The second involves Kurt Cobain. Both can be seen in the video below.

Family Guy came under notable scrutiny in synchromystic and conspiracy circles last year too, for it's "predictions" about the Boston Marathon bombings in the episode 'Turban Cowboy'. It even made it into the mainstream media, due to a "hoaxed" video that had been circulating. But despite the questionable editing of the above mentioned video, there were still many details that could not be so easily dismissed. Additionally, the bombings were linked in several ways to another Seth McFarlane creation - American Dad - via the episode 'Missing Kink'.

One has to bear in mind that Family Guy is a hugely popular show in many countries, so the chances of that episode being shown somewhere in the world, at the same time as Robin Williams death, are not as astronomical as you may initially think. But those watching the episode at the time may rightly have been very confused about the news that met them, after having watched Robin Williams and two attempted suicides in the same program, within a matter of minutes.

Another thing that was pointed out almost immediately after the news of Williams death, was that his suicide mirrored that of his character's son, Kyle, in the 2009 movie World's Greatest Dad. In it, the son is made into a legend only after his death, and the story is effectively a social critique of the way society treats its dead (and living). In addition, actor David Carradine was found dead later that same year, due to the exact same cause as Kyle in World's Greatest Dad: erotic autoasphyxation (look it up).

And, would you know, another connection can be made here as well: World's Greatest Dad was written and directed by comedian Bobcat Goldthwait. Although fairly well known in the US, most Europeans will probably only remember Goldthwait for his role as the edgy and crazy 'Zed' in the Police Academy movies. But he was also a good friend of Nirvana, and toured and performed extensively with the band during their final years. They also did some very weird promotional material together, as can be seen in the clip below.

The ending of World's Greatest Dad has been visually compared to the cover art of the "Nevermind" album and the plot of the movie ditto with the spectacle that followed Kurt Cobain's death, here.

Finally, in retrospect, it is quite eerie to read this IGN forum topic about Robin Williams coming death. IGN is home to one of the biggest gaming communities on the Internet, and the topic was posted by some apparently random user only 3 days before Williams actually died. But perhaps it is not so mysterious after all. As someone mentions later in the discussion, there is actually a chance that Williams could have read the topic and become further motivated to commit suicide, as he was well known for being an avid gamer (he named his daughter Zelda after the Nintendo game series). Of course, we now know that Williams had been battling severe depression and alcoholism for years. On top of that, he had recently been diagnosed with the early stages of Parkinsons disease. So the incentive was there already. But it should make anyone think twice about where and what they write nowadays.

Val Thor vs. Val Tor

The story about Valiant Thor, or Val Thor for short, has enjoyed a strange sort of revival lately. In the last couple of months, I have found mention of author/reverend/contactee Frank E. Stranges' The Stranger At The Pentagon several places, and some people I know have even sent me links to the story - independently of each other. I also learned a while back, that there is a relatively famous metal band called Valient Thorr, whose bass player calls himself Dr. Professor Nitewolf Strangees.

One of the many photos of Valiant Thor that appear in The Stranger At The Pentagon.

I had of course read about Val Thor in many UFO books prior to all this, and always brushed it off as a silly fantasy. But the name itself is one that stuck in my head from the beginning, and I have often wondered where he came up with it.

Well, I think I may have actually found out where. Browsing through a bunch of old pulps and comics a few weeks ago, I came across a story named Heritage, which featured in science fiction comic Space Adventures no. 13 (1954). The story takes place thousands of years into the future, and is about a robot who tries to find out what happened to his long gone creators, vaguely referred to as "man". The robot protagonist's name is Val Tor.

Heritage featuring Val Tor, the final story of Space Adventures issue 13 (1954). You can get the whole story here.

The Stranger At The Pentagon came out in 1967, but there were publications around by Frank E. Stranges mentioning Val Thor as early as 1960. Nevertheless, this was still many years after Heritage had been published, so it is quite possible that Frank Stranges at some point read the comic, took note of the name of the main character, and eventually - conciously or not - concocted the name Val(iant) Thor from it.

The similarities seem to end with the name, though. After all, Val Tor the robot could hardly be more different than Val Thor the holy space brother, who is a typical human-like 1950's alien. He is described by Stranges as tan, very manly, and with a "...firm grip that silently testified to strength and power". Like George Adamski's Orthon, he also comes from Venus. By contrast, the Val Tor of Heritage is a restless robot in the middle of an existential crisis, obsessed with discovering what happened to the humans who created his race, so long ago that they are now only regarded as a fairy tale. 

Stranges was involved with many different community oriented projects, as this 1960 ad from My Friend From Beyond Earth shows. 

Still, the story resonates somewhat with parts of Stranges UFO-theology. Rev. Frank E. Stranges basically used the hype about flying saucers at the time, as a vessel for promoting his own religious agenda. In his booklet My Friend From Beyond Earth, he describes his first meeting with Val Thor one December morning in 1959, during an "evangelist crusade", and from the very outset he attempts to validate the message of Val Thor in light of that of Jesus Christ. Thor himself says that he is a messenger from God, and that he has come to make people correct their errors and return to the Lord, because they have strayed too far in recent times. 

At the end of Heritage, Val Tor finally finds an underground cavern full of humans in suspended animation. He awakes a man from his slumber, but quickly realizes that humans have destructive impulses that threaten the stability of the current world order, and puts him back to sleep again. The humans in Heritage have therefore clearly also strayed about as far from God as possible, but by the power of Val Tor they are kept in check. Furthermore, the hollow earth element is something Frank Stranges also came to incorporate into his outlook on UFO's.

More Val Thor

There are no other obvious similarities between the stories of Val Thor and Val Tor. But then again, why should there be? Stranges might have found it convenient to not use an obvious name, IF he indeed purposely "borrowed" the name. And even if he didn't, does there have to be anything more than a coincidence at play? Does the name itself tell us anything?

"Val" has different etymological roots depending on the language used, but it is certainly not an uncommon short form of a name in the English speaking world, and neither is the association with words like "valiant" "vale" and "valor". Therefore the chances of some form of it being used, are not astronomical. "Tor", in the English language, means “a high rock, lofty hill, tower”, but there could have been nothing to this in the creation of robot Val's name. On the other hand, one can't help but think of the god of thunder in Norse mythology, when seeing the last name of Stranges' Pentagon friend.

It does appear to be more than coincidental, though, regardless of what associations the names awake, that they should appear in the exact same combination. And that of course begs the question - in case you were ever in doubt - if Valiant Thor was ever a real...Venusian.

Some readers might also make another association when hearing the name Val Thor, as I suddenly did while I was writing this. There is a well known ski resort in the French Alps known as Val Thorens. It is quite a famous destination for young Danes and other Northern Europeans. In this case "Val" derives from the french "Vallée" (meaning "valley" - although it might also make you think of a certain French ufologist). So, one could also argue that Val Thorens might just as well have been the inspiration for the name Valiant Thor. The probem with that, though, is that Val Thorens didn't come into existence until the late 1960's. So if anything, Valiant Thor was the inspiration for Val Thorens, not the other way around. But what are the chances of that.

External sources:

Stranges, Frank E.: Flying Saucerama (1959)

Stranges, Frank E.: My Friend From Beyond Earth (1960)

Stranges, Frank E.: Stranger at the Pentagon (1967)

UFO's Uncensored, vol.1 no.1 (1966)

Special thanks to Ole Henningsen for sharing rare material by, as well as personal experiences about, Frank E. Stranges.

Who Watches The Waltons? Part 2

Continuing from my previous post, I am picking up the trail of The Waltons, from where i last left it. First of all, there are some general facts about The Waltons TV-show that i didn't really look into the first time around. Primarily because it didn't occur to me that there could be much more to find here, thinking I was probably just dealing with a few interesting UFO-related coincidences emanating from an otherwise standard family show. After all, what could be more mundane than a rural all-American family's daily problems during the great depression?

It is certainly not my usual choice of entertainment, although I must admit that I have actually come to like this series a great deal over the last couple of months. The general themes of The Waltons may be as plain and moralistic as anything can get, but it also features some great storytelling, as well as some really good actors and likable characters. So it's popularity, at least, is no longer a mystery to me. But more relevant for the topic at hand, there are indeed also other, and even more explicit, UFO-connections with The Waltons than those i pointed out in my first post. 

Enter The Twilight Zone

The Waltons was co-created by American writer Earl Hamner Jr., based on his bestselling book Spencer's Mountain, which in turn is inspired by his own life during the 1930's depression-era USA. According to Wikipedia, the name "Walton", as used here, is actually an artificial construct which incorporates the names of his paternal grandfather Walter Clifton Hamner and great-grandfather Walter Leland Hamner. 

Many years before The Waltons, in 1963, a movie adaptation of Spencer's Mountain came out - which in retrospect is kind of like watching a condensed (and slightly less sanitized) version of several Waltons episodes. In addition to this, a few years before the show first aired, another book-based movie called The Homecoming was made. This movie ended up effectively serving as a pilot episode for The Waltons, but didn't feature entirely the same cast.

With this in mind, one could easily come to the conclusion that these kind of stories are all Hamner ever dealt with. But throughout the 1960's he actually wrote a lot of other, all-together different material, including some interesting episodes for the original Twilight Zone series. In fact, he wrote the very last episode for the show, The Bewitchin' Pool.

Some of Hamner's Twilight Zone stories has that particular "Walton feeling" to them, such as The Hunt (Episode 84) and Jess-Belle (episode 109), which both take place in the same Virginia mountain range (The Blue Ridge Mountains) as the fictional Walton's Mountain is supposed to be located. Of course these stories are underpinned by various supernatural undercurrents befitting of The Twilight Zone, but many of the same elements appear later on in The Waltons as well. In The Hunt, for example, the main character is warned off by his wife because of some ill-interpreted omens, and towards the end of Jess-Belle we see a falling star - similar to the scene in The Waltons episode The Star:

And not just that, but in episode 87, A piano in the house, the word 'snowflake' appears once again, although in a different context:

But the most intriguing of the Earl Hamner Jr. Twilight Zone stories are those that deal specifically with the subject of extraterrestrial visitors: Black Leather Jackets (episode 138), which is about a group of leather clad "Men In Black" type aliens, trying to take over the earth and Stopover in a Quiet Town (episode 150) where a couple are abducted from their car on the way home from a party.

Stopover in a Quiet Town is by far the most interesting of the two, not only because it is a full-blown alien abduction story (and therefore takes us back to where I started in my previous post, namely with the Travis Walton case), but also because it has elements that were not very well-known outside of ufological circles at the time (it aired April 24th, 1964, but it is hard to say for certain when it was written), including the sense of isolation and lack of natural sounds of the abductees - hinting towards what Jenny Randles has popularly termed The 'Oz Factor' aspect of many close encounter cases.

I suggest that you watch the whole episode, which i have linked to below, as there are too many interesting parts to highlight:

The Waltons Meet The Invaders

As if the above examples weren't enough, there is even a number of direct connections between The Waltons and the classic 1960's alien invasion series The Invaders. Here i suggest that you read up on some of the research Kenn Thomas has done, linking The Invaders to the JFK assassination via the Maury Island UFO case.

Not only did Earl Hamner Jr. write an episode for season 2 of The Invaders called The Watchers, but several lead actors from The Waltons have prominent roles in the series - both in the original and in the 1995 follow-up mini-series of the same name. They are furthermore all destructive roles, which support the agenda of the invaders in one way or another. This is just a fact that I find interesting, since it contrasts so dramatically with their usual Walton personas. I don't mean to imply that it has any deeper meaning as such. It is possible to watch all the episodes (minus the 1995 ones) on youtube, by the way.

The first Walton that appears on The Invaders, is the most tight-lipped of the bunch, "Grandma Walton" Ellen Corby, who plays a homicidal alien invader posing as well-meaning contactee in the pilot episode The Beachhead. As a fun little detail there is a scene in the episode where Roy Thinnes walks into the Palomar Hotel and is introduced to the manager, Mrs. Adams. 

This is clearly an intentional reference to pioneer contactee George Adamski and the fact that he and his initial followers were very active around the Mount Palomar area in the early UFO days. Mount Palomar is also the location of the famous Palomar astronomical observatory.

The next time a Walton family member appears on the show, is in the penultimate episode, The Pursued. This time it is "Grandpa Walton" Will Geer, who plays a former sheriff whose wife is murdered in the beginning of the episode by an alien defector. He ends up killing the defector (who by this time has become a love interest of Roy Thinnes' character David Vincent) and in the process destroys crucial evidence that could have lead to an exposure of the invasion.

In the 1995 "sequel", the main boss alien is played by none other than Richard Thomas AKA "John Boy Walton", the lead star of the The Waltons. The character of John Boy basically is Earl Hamner as he was growing up in Virginia, writing and compiling stories about his family and their surroundings. So we have here a bit of a convoluted interrelation between a real-life writer, who created a fictional character based on himself, that in turn also writes and tells stories and who's fictional family turn up in some surprisingly coincidental places. Together with the allusions to future events, the lines between reality and fiction end up being somewhat blurred.

Richard Thomas as John-Boy Walton, alter ego of Earl Hamner Jr.

Leaving The Mountain

I would very much have liked to correspond with Earl Hamner Jr. while creating this post, and did in fact try to contact him as he is still alive and apparently active. It would have provided me with some more background for those of his writings I discuss here, and perhaps even have made some of them seem less synchromystic. I never did get an answer from him though, but I'm not too surprised that something like this would be low on his list of priorities. Instead I made good use of the book "Goodbye John-Boy", which did have some valuable information, but had to be supported with a lot of Internet search activity.

I will leave The Waltons for now and concentrate on other writings. But I have, as of yet, only watched the first season of the series, so who knows what else might appear along the way. In fact there are a few more potential leads that I have tried to follow, but so far have not gotten me anywhere. If something develops with that, I will probably write a short follow-up or update the existing posts.  

Who Watches The Waltons? Part 1

The Waltons (screenshot from the 1972 episode "The Star").

A lot has been said about the Travis Walton abduction case over the years and the discussion continues to this day over what really happened that November 5th, 1975 in the forest near Snowflake, Arizona. But many interesting details relating to the case are scattered throughout the UFO literature and seem to have been halfway forgotten over the years. In this post, I will bring some of them together and highlight a string of curious "coincidences" surrounding the incident, as well as show some intricate connections with other UFO cases. The background and main story of the Travis Walton abduction has been summarized so many times already on the Internet, that I advise people not familiar with the case to read up on the basics before continuing here.

Controversy has existed practically from day one with the Walton case and much of the immediate aftermath consisted of a long struggle between Travis/APRO and CSICOP - led by the late debunker-berserker Phil Klass – arguing for and against the sincerity of Travis and his fellow witnesses. Recently doubts were fueled again, due to Travis' appearance on the show Moment of Truth.

In my opinion, good points and arguments have been put forward from all sides of the debate, as to the overall solidity of the case. But at the same time, I don't think that the information I will be bringing up here can or should be measured by categories of 'true' and 'false'. It is something that goes beyond simple validation of UFO and abduction experiences.

Artist rendition of Travis Walton & UFO by witness Mike Rogers.

UFO's And The Influence Of Fiction

It has often been pointed out that the 1975 TV-movie adaption of the Barney and Betty Hill abduction case, The UFO incident, aired only a few weeks before the Travis Walton abduction. Therefore, Travis and his fellow crew members would very likely have been aware of it and could have been influenced by it, even - as some have claimed - to the point of using it as building material for an elaborate hoax.

According to Travis, in his book Fire in the Sky: The Walton Experience, crew leader and friend Mike Rogers did actually watch part of The UFO Incident the day it aired, but he claims that he turned it off after only a few minutes. Travis insists that he himself did not own a TV at the time, so there is no way he could have seen it (at least not at his own house). Actually, parts of the Hill abduction story itself has been called into question in much the same way, assumed to have been influenced by an episode of The Outer Limits called 'The Bellero Shield'. This episode was shown on TV shortly before the hypnosis session where Barney Hill first describes their abductors (You can read more about that here). 

These examples of "fictional contamination" are often used both as an argument against the reality of UFO experiences and as evidence for foul play involved in them. Therefore, although such potential influences are both interesting and important to acknowledge, they also tend to put at stop to any further discussion of a "real" phenomenon. But there are other ways of looking at it.

Travis brings up a fair point in Fire in The Sky, namely that hardcore skeptic/debunker conclusions about the influence of science fiction sometimes appear pretty shallow, considering that even in 1975, the theme of UFO's and aliens had become so widespread and popular, that tying ”real” UFO experiences to a fictional counterpart – say a movie that came out a few weeks prior to an incident - would be almost a no-brainer.

He also brings up the question - not so much in relation to his own experience (and i don't bring this up to make a comparison with the aforementioned examples), but against the general skeptics argument, that virtually all UFO experiences have their roots in fiction - of why these influences should be coming from so many obscure sources. Why would so much be traceable back to f.x. low level sci-fi productions (which, after all, fewer people are likely to have seen), compared to large scale blockbusters such as Star Wars, Close Encounters of the Third Kind and E.T.?

Granted, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, for instance, did certainly play a determining role in spreading the imagery of small proto-grey type creatures to the rest of the world. But very often, as many "synchromystic" bloggers and researchers can attest to, one can track strangely coincidental and (seemingly) non-causal links, back to the most unlikely of sources. So maybe we could in fact be looking at a more indirect form of "cultural" influence, that doesn't always adhere to an obvious set of rules.  

Enter The Waltons

In Fortean Times, No. 82 (1995), on the basis of a letter written to her at the time, Jenny Randles mentions some ufologically - as well as synchronistically - interesting details, appearing in certain episodes of the 1970’s family series The Waltons (which can be described as an inter-war-period equivalent of The Little House on The Prairie). The first event noted by Randles, takes place in episode 6 of the first season, named “The Star” (which aired the 19th of October, 1972). In the beginning of the episode we see a flaming meteorite fall from the sky, which is immediately interpreted as a bad omen by grandpa Walton, setting the precedent for the theme of the episode.

While there is no appearance of, or even talk about UFO's or aliens in the episode, it is still interesting to note both the imagery and the effect it has on the family. Watching the whole episode, I would say that certain "supernatural" implications are definitely there, although downplayed to a certain degree. But it is when the town of Snowflake, Arizona is mentioned, seemingly at random, in episode 12 of the same season, "The Dust Bowl Cousins" (aired December 7, 1972), that it becomes almost too good to be coincidental.

The Waltons is supposed to take place somewhere in the state of Virginia, which is almost as far away as you can get from Arizona, while still being within US borders. Why, of all the potential places they could have chosen, does Mary-Ellen Walton mention the small and easily overlooked town of Snowflake? Also note the way the cousin in this scene underlines how he hasn't even heard of the place, almost as if the director meant to stress the point of the curiosity of wanting to go there.

It almost seems like the Travis Walton abduction (real or fake) was at least being hinted at, years before it happened. At the same time, I acknowledge that this might just be a case of coincidence paired with over-interpretation of detail which, when taken out of context and presented in the way i have done here, has a tendency to appear more anomalous than it actually is. But the person who contacted Jenny Randles, signing the letter as "A Walton fan" (who therefore, presumably, must have watched most if not all the episodes), sure did assign it enough significance to write in about it. It also makes you wonder what else could be unearthed by checking into sources that don't (at least not in any direct way) pertain to UFO’s or related phenomena

More coincidences?

I don't know if Travis has ever been presented with the above examples or, if he has, view them as anything more than a freak coincidence. But it is no secret that he has had several synchronistic experiences himself over the years, many of which happened during the production and filming of Fire in The Sky. He relates quite a few examples in his (revised) book - too many to mention here. But one of the most incredible of these, involves actor Robert "T-1000" Patrick, who plays the role of Travis' friend and crew leader Mike Rogers in the movie.

Robert Patrick's birthday is the 5th of November 1958, which means that he turned 17 on the very day of the Walton abduction. 17 years later, he would then go on to have one of the largest roles in the movie about the abduction AND find out that he actually had family ties to Snowflake, going way back. He even found out that he was related to the real life Mike Rogers. (As an aside, there is an interesting connection between Mike Rogers and this case, which happened three years before). Reading Travis' account of this and other similar stories, one almost gets the feeling that unseen forces were pushing certain people with obscure connections to each other, to come together around the project.

One particular thing that comes up a lot in this case, is the number 5. Travis mentions that during the filming (which took place in Oregon, not Arizona), a meteor hit a ravine nearby. The meteor was only the fifth recovered meteorite in the state's history. The abduction of course took place on the 5th of November 1975, with Travis disappearing for 5 days. And we can even tie this to a further case, which took place 5 years later in the UK.

On June 6th (which would almost be the 5th, if one accounts for US time difference, and therefore exactly 5 months before the anniversary of the Walton incident – but let’s not stretch the argument too much here :)) 1980, a 56 year-old Polish immigrant disappeared near a mining area in West Yorkshire, England. The man's name was Zygmund Adamski - a name that should more than stick out to most UFO interested people. Adamski disappeared under strange circumstances, the day before he was to act as best man at his goddaughters wedding, an event he had been looking forward to, according to family and friends. At some point during the day, seemingly out of the blue, he told his wife that he had to make a quick shopping trip for some potatoes. 5 days later he was found dead, on top of a 15-foot-high pile of coal, 20 miles away from his home where he was last seen.

Jenny Randles chronicles the case of Zygmund Adamski in her books The Pennine UFO Mystery and Death By Supernatural Causes? (with Peter Hough), both of which are highly recommendable. She writes, that while the autopsy revealed that Adamski had apparently died of a heart attack and had climbed on top of the coal pile on his own, the investigators did not agree with that conclusion. But in short time they were pulled from the case, which was afterwards put on ice.

Other strange details about Adamski's death involve some unusual burn marks found on his body. He had also died with a painful grimace on his face, looking upwards towards the sky. According to one of the investigators, PC Alan Godfrey, many things pointed towards Adamski having been murdered and dumped on top of the large coal-pile, although he never thought along the lines of an alien abduction. But the strange circumstances, combined with some dubious ethics of certain researchers at the time, made sure that this connection eventually became popularized.

It wasn't entirely unfounded to make such an alien connection though, since Alan Godfrey actually had a close UFO encounter only a few months later, on the 28th of November. Driving along a deserted road he came across a large hovering craft in the shape of a “spinning top”, blocking his way. Suddenly he found himself a lot further down the same road, without any memories of how he actually got past the UFO. He later found that he had experienced a short time lapse. During hypnotic regression, he recounted having been led aboard the craft during this missing time period, where he encountered an "alien" and even a black dog. The case was investigated by veteran British ufologist Harry Harris, and as another curious detail, Jenny Randles points out that one of the later Waltons episodes from season one, "The Fire", was written by a person called...Harry Harris!

Before moving on, I should point out that there is actually another ufological 5 day disappearance (sort of) on record, namely that of Armando Valdes from April 25th, 1977. Although Valdes was only physically gone for 15 minutes, his watch indicated that 5 days had passed, and he had a growth of beard that apparently matched that period. There are good reasons to be sceptical about this case too, but the coincidence and details are curious to say the least. 

Is this all a result of some cosmic copycat effect? And if so, what would the criteria for "participating" be? 

Click here for Part 2