Meanwhile, a major magazine attacks belief in UFOs as 'New Age jabberwocky'
6/16/2000
Flying Saucers over Hollywood! by filmmaker Paul Davids offers a rare glimpse into the great Hollywood UFO films.
What a week last week was, both in Hollywood and in the UFO trenches! June 7th was the long-promised commemoration of the achievements of the late science-fiction producer/director George Pal, with the 40th anniversary showing of his film, THE TIME MACHINE, at the prestigious and beautiful Orpheum Theater in Los Angeles. The Orpheum, built in 1926, used to be the site of performances by vaudeville greats that included Jack Benny, Will Rogers, Lena Horne, Sophie Tucker, and Eddie Cantor.
The presentation of the George Pal film featured extraordinary props on stage. Bill Barton created a perfect working reconstruction of the time machine used in the film, as well as a reconstruction of Gort, the robot, from THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL, who beamed his bright orb eye light at spectators (see >www.the-robotman.com). Sci-fi collector Bob Burns owns the "original" time machine prop, which is no longer useable because it is in poor condition. The reconstruction was actually more gleaming and eye pleasing.
Star Trek's vivacious Jeri Ryan was on hand to interview Alan Young (who played Rod Taylor's sidekick David Philby in the film and who was the voice of Scrooge McDuck), and Jeri also spoke on-stage with Arnie Leibovit (Exec. Producer, with Steven Spielberg, of the upcoming remake of H.G. Wells's THE TIME MACHINE for Dreamworks and Warner Bros., from a script by the writer of GLADIATOR), and Dr. Acula himself - Forrest J. Ackerman (see FSOH dated 5/19/00). Always the memorable punster, Forry Ackerman described GLADIATOR as the first true cannibal movie - Forry said the title proves his point: GLAD-HE-ATE-HER.
Arnie Leibovit (www.scifistation.com) and I had a chance to catch up afterwards, and as always when we get together, we managed to exchange a few updates on UFOs. Arnie has been a UFO researcher for a couple of decades. He's quite anxious for government "disclosure" on the subject and an end to the official false posturing that we both feel has misled and victimized the public for half a century. He's been rather persuaded for a long time that the visitors are here, as are the black helicopters (as a former resident of Sedona, Arizona, he.s seen plenty of black choppers and an occasional anomalous object flying in the sky).
I had just read a copy of U.S. News and World Report and shared the news with Arnie that on page 31 (in an article by World Report writer Michael Satchell) it stated that UFOs are "New Age jabberwocky." That.s just the kind of Establishment balderdash that raises the blood pressure of flinty-eyed guys like us. Consider Michael Satchell as one of the brigade of "Old Paradigm" defenders. Jabberwocky is a term that is synonymous with nonsense, which I believe first showed up in Lewis Carroll's writing. In the article, Satchell lumped a lot of things together as New Age jabberwocky, including psychic warfare, paranormal research and UFOs. The article was mainly about a convicted American murderer (a 1970s anti CIA/anti-KGB radical) whom France has refused to extradite - and who, horror of horrors, believes in all that "stuff."
Arnie Leibovit wasn't the only cinema honcho who weighed in this week with his continuing irritation over the endless UFO coverup and the Establishment's hypocritical posturing on the issue. Two days prior to the George Pal event, I had a close encounter with James Cromwell, who you'll all remember as the Australian "Farmer Hoggett" from BABE, as well as the Chief Detective in L.A. CONFIDENTIAL. "Jamie" Cromwell, as he is known to his friends, definitely does not consider UFOs to be jabberwocky. His blood pressure rises, too, at the very thought of haughty Establishment opinion makers getting away with that kind of ignorant "Old Paradigm" garbage. But first we have to set the stage for the Cromwell/Davids encounter, because, after all, you.re reading FLYING SAUCERS OVER HOLLYWOOD - so here's the Hollywood part. . .
On Tuesday evening June 5, my hovercraft touched down at the Casa del Mar Hotel by the beach in Santa Monica. Celebrities were swarming like an army of termites ready to swallow a house. Everywhere I glanced there were famous actors whose salaries per picture are in the five to twenty million-dollar range, all crowded together as if they were pedestrians shoving one another on a street in New York. In fact, they were all squeezed so tightly together, I REALLY had to watch out whose shoes I was stepping on - "Whoops, excuse me, Dustin, sorry about that, didn't mean to collide with you. How's everybody's favorite RAIN MAN this evening?"
"Leonardo, please excuse me, didn't mean to knock into your elbow. How's life on THE BEACH treating you?"
"Sharon, my you're looking lovely tonight, you could make a man's most BASIC INSTINCT go wild if he weren't careful"
"Good," Sharon Stone replied. "If by BASIC INSTINCT you mean spending lots of money. Bid up the prices as much as you like. It's all for a VERY important cause."
It was the occasion of an auction of movie memorabilia to benefit an organization known as The Film Foundation, and the American Movie Classics cable channel hosted it. The Film Foundation is dedicated to the restoration of old films. It's common knowledge that the negatives of many major feature films of Hollywood's proud heritage are decaying. A common bond connected all those who had turned up for the historic fund-raising evening. All of them were incredibly famous, but all of them would be astonishingly forgotten if the film that captured their performances were to contract a fungus. It costs money to shore up the great cinematic works of yesteryear. It can run about a million or two for state-of-the-art restoration of an old color Hitchcock movie such as VERTIGO or REAR WINDOW (which Universal Studios has been dutifully handling), or as low as $20,000 for an old black and white silent flick.
Martin Scorsese was on hand with Robbie Robertson. They made THE LAST WALTZ together at the outset of their careers (which was produced by Jonathan Taplin, one of my ol' classmates from Princeton). Scorsese was the Master of Ceremonies, and along with Sharon Stone and Whoopi Goldberg, he rallied the troops, getting everyone jazzed up to save our cinematic heritage.
There was so much creme de la creme of Hollywood there, it was like a star-studded malted milkshake. Elliot Gould made the scene, and so did Red Buttons. Director Joe Dante was on hand, jovial and smiling as ever. He remembered me from our mutual attendance at some of the famous birthday parties of Forry Ackerman, who's now in his eighties. Dante once gave a wonderful speech at one of those birthdays about his admiration and appreciation for Forry, world.s greatest sci-fi collector. Forry had inspired him into this crazy business, much as had been the case with me.
I told Joe that I loved all of his films. After first-place GREMLINS, there's a special warm place in my heart for MATINEE, one of his less successful efforts, but a brilliant story nevertheless about a horror movie producer, based on 1950s film mogul William Castle (played by John Goodman). If you haven't seen MATINEE, put it high on your list to rent.
The Hitchcock family was well represented by Alfred's daughter, Peggy. Of all the directors who have benefited from the process of film preservation, certainly the late Alfred Hitchcock is at the top of the list. Jean Firstenberg was on hand, Director of the American Film Institute Center for Advanced Film and Television Studies. As one of their alumni, I am especially appreciative of the role the AFI plays at the forefront of film restoration. I also spotted Jennifer Jones, who is perhaps best remembered as Marian the Librarian in THE MUSIC MAN.
Martin Scorsese urged everyone to cough up money for the autographed posters and lobby cards at the auction. An auctioneer from Christy's was on hand to keep the bidding lively. Some of the treasures being auctioned were very quaint. There was a signed poster of ANNIE HALL. ("Buy it," Scorsese barked, "It's very RARE, Woody never likes to sign ANYTHING.") For sci-fi fans, they were offering three robot lobby cards with an opening bid of $900 - two of Robby the Robot (from FORBIDDEN PLANET and THE INVISIBLE BOY) and one of Tobor the Magnificent from some old B-movie. (By the way, Tobor spelled backwards is robot).
And then I bumped into Jamie Cromwell and learned that he is soon meeting with a VERY highly placed government official. I won't name any names, because I don't know whether it's authorized, but between you and me (and this is VERY hush-hush) the person he'll be meeting is often referred to as the Leader of the Free World. My heart leaped a bit at hearing this news, because I know that Jamie Cromwell is a crusader against the UFO coverup. He's a blue-blooded Aussie who hails from Down Under, land of the underground, secret Pine Gap base, and he's had his fill of official denials about flying saucers. In fact, he got much of his education on the subject from Dr. Steven Greer, a man whose UFO research Jamie greatly admires.
Within the last year, Jamie Cromwell agreed to be a sort of narrator/moderator on a presentation video Dr. Greer prepared. Dr. Greer, who is an emergency room physician as well as the author of a rather immense and compelling book about UFO secrecy, is the founder of CSETI: Center for the Study of Extraterrestrial Intelligence (not to be confused with SETI, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence). In the video, Jamie gave Dr. Greer a rousing send-off, endorsing whole-heartedly his effort to bring about government disclosure on the UFO issue. Dr. Greer.s book, by the way, is EXTRATERRESTRIAL CONTACT: THE EVIDENCE AND IMPLICATIONS, and it is also highly recommended.
Subsequent to Jamie Cromwell's appearance on the Steven Greer video (which was a promo piece for a potential TV series called DISCLOSURE), I conducted my own video interview with Mr. Cromwell. He generously gave his time to express his anguish about the UFO issue. As he expresses it, international governments float on a sea of lies. The evidence from competent observers, including military personnel and pilots, is so compelling to Jamie, that he feels there is "no contest" when it comes to deciding whether the TRUTH is being withheld from the international public. He is also significantly swayed by government documents which have been released via the Freedom of Information Act. Many of these documents are available to study at John Greenwald's website (www.blackvault.com), and dozens of relevant documents have also been published in the outstanding book by Fawcett and Greenwood, titled THE UFO COVERUP (originally published under the title CLEAR INTENT).
When you get Jamie Cromwell started on the subject, he can talk heatedly for hours, in very impassioned tones, about how enraged he is that the F***ing Establishment won't tell us the truth about UFOs. "They should tell us the truth and put us out of our MISERY!" he declared to me. The continuing non-disclosure on this subject and grotesque SILENCE from the powers-that-be (except for the occasional "crash dummy" report) really do make him MISERABLE.
So at the occasion of the Film Preservation event, I asked him an obvious question. Given that he was soon going to have an audience with a man often referred to as the Leader of the Free World, would he bring up this topic? He suddenly fell rather silent. After a pause, he explained to me that the purpose of the meeting had to do with getting help for the Lacota tribe whose language and culture is at the verge of extinction. He made it clear that in one more generation, their language would be lost forever unless something is done to preserve the knowledge of both their language and heritage.
Then he explained that the subject of UFOs, being so highly sensitive, is not something he intended to bring up with the Leader of the Free World. He made it clear that he's acutely aware how they (the Establishment powers) "look at you" when you bring up AlienZoo's favorite topic. They stare you down as if you were talking . . .JABBERWOCKY!
As passionate and crusading as he is about this topic, he wouldn't feel comfortable "carrying the torch" in the arena of politics and government. It's sad, isn't it? This is no criticism of Mr. Cromwell, because I well understand his personal sensitivity and concerns. We've all seen people who are in the limelight on this topic get "the treatment." What thanks did astronaut Gordon Cooper receive for his public crusade on UFOs, and his public statements that extraterrestrial vehicles are maneuvering in Earth's atmosphere? Why, he received an article in the New York Times, which scrutinized his financial affairs and business dealings, designed to strongly hint that perhaps this American hero didn't have all his cards on the table - or all his marbles. The strong message for all celebrities? DON'T GO THERE.
AlienZoo columnist and Washington DC UFO lobbyist Steve Bassett is much more optimistic than I am, when it comes to predictions that official disclosure on UFOs may be right around the corner. In his regular AlienZoo column, THE POLITICS OF UFOs, he brilliantly analyzes what he sees as the hidden political agendas of the two major parties. His assessment is that government disclosure on the UFO/ET issue is inevitable, and that there are forces moving the process forward that are larger than politics. And yet is it wishful thinking? Both parties have had plenty of opportunities for half a century to make public disclosure on the matter. What has changed?
And what will trigger U.S. News and World Report, Time, Newsweek, CNN, and all the rest of the news media to rescind their oft-stated position that UFOs are New Age JABBERWOCKY? For a while, ufologists were predicting the camcorder would do it. There's so much home video evidence of UFOs in the skies that you could fill ten years of a TV show of people's weirdest camcorder footage. But the Establishment - ho-hum - is still not impressed.
As of now, I don't know what it would take to trigger disclosure. But perhaps if we follow another Lewis Caroll creation, the White Rabbit with the waistcoat-pocket watch, as he runs down his rabbit hole to Wonderland, maybe Tweedle-Dum and Tweedle-Dee will spew forth more jabberwocky and tell us! I'm ready to be surprised. See you next week, same time, same station, same Website, for more FLYING SAUCERS OVER HOLLYWOOD!