Somewhere in the Skies - Calling All Earthlings

Episode Date: September 17, 2018

On episode 74 of SOMEWHERE IN THE SKIES, Ryan speaks with documentary filmmaker, Jonathan Berman, about his latest film, Calling All Earthlings, based on the life and work of George Van Tassel. In 1947, George Van Tassel, a Howard Hughes employee and confidante, suddenly quits working for his mentor and ditches the straight life, moving deep into the Mojave Desert where he and his family sleep under a rock. He leaves behind a tattered Los Angeles in the grips of postwar paranoia, opting for the quietude of the Joshua Tree area. It is during an August 1953 full moon that Van Tassel has an encounter with extraterrestrials, who give him the information to build a rejuvenation machine he dubs “The Integratron.”  Is Van Tassel crazy or could the Integratron really work? FBI agents try to halt the army of eccentrics who gather in the desert to create a collective, possibly threatening reality on the edge of the American Dream. A gentle inquiry into alternative culture, the story is told by the current residents of the Joshua Tree area, who must defend against rampant militarism and commercialization, all while still waiting for their spaceship. We get in the inside scoop on the making of the film, Berman's experiences while deeply embedding himself into the Joshua Tree communities that still believe in Van Tassel's mission, and we even touch on UFO disclosure and how it was viewed back in the days of the contactees and how it is viewed now post-Secret Pentagon UFO program. Guest Bio: Jonathan Berman is a Project Director, Producer, and Associate Professor in Arts and Technology. His films explore subculture and identity, challenging and redefining how alternative people, groups and ideas are represented. Berman began by working on Pee Wee's Playhouse, The Toxic Avenger 2, and on other TV, genre and art projects, soon shifting to documentary since “real life is more fantastic than most fiction.” He made The Shvitz, a National Endowment for the Arts supported project that found a wealth of characters and attitudes in the diverse patrons of a traditional New York bathhouse. My Friend Paul, produced with the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, focused upon the turbulence of bipolar illness and was one of the first modern documentaries about the friends and family of the mentally ill. His most recent film, Commune, reexamined the legacy of Sixties counterculture wins and excesses through communal living. Calling All Earthlings is his most recent film. Visit: www.CallingAllEarthlingsMovie.com Patreon: www.patreon.com/somewhereskies Website: www.somewhereintheskies.com Official Store: CLICK HERE Order Ryan's Book by CLICKING HERE Twitter: @SomewhereSkies Instagram: @SomewhereSkiesPod Opening and Closing Theme Song, "Ephemeral Reign" by Per Kiilstofte SOMEWHERE IN THE SKIES is produced by Third Kind Productions, in association with eOne Entertainment SOMEWHERE IN THE SKIES is sponsored by HelloFresh. To receive 50% of your first order, use promo code: SOMEWHERE50 at checkout by visiting www.HelloFresh.ca Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/somewhere-in-the-skies. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This episode is brought to you by Netflix. Most valuable promotions in Netflix are hosting a blockbuster triple headliner Saturday, May 16th. Rhonda Rousey returns to face fellow woman's MMA pioneer Gina Carano in the main event. Plus co-main's Nate Diaz versus Mike Perry. And the best heavyweight in the world, Frances Ngano versus Felipe Lenz. Watch Rhonda Rousey versus Gina Carrano, live only on Netflix. Saturday, May 16th at 9 p.m. Eastern Center time, 6 p.m. Pacific time. Welcome to Somewhere in the Skies. I'm your host, Ryan Sprague. Today, I'm speaking with filmmaker, Jonathan Berman, about his latest documentary, calling all earthlings.

Flying saucers and people from outer space. George Van Tassel, let's talk about this time machine you're building down in California. The Integratron was built by George Van Tassel. He worked for Howard Hughes on advanced aircraft. He was a U.S. UFO contact the eat. I was sound asleep. When he awakened, the man got off of the ship and approached me before I even knew there was a ship down. Oh, come off at jail. He said he had contact with those aliens.

Came to him and gave him and then a sign to that Integratron. The Integratron was to engineer a type of genetic reprogramming, leading to longevity. Eternal. The Integratron is an electrostatic generator. It's meticulously

built. And the The science behind this machine is Tesla science. If anybody tried to turn it on without being phased, they said it would be like 100 nuclear weapons going on. We did not want people to know that there were other sources of energy. He started getting more and more paranoid about the government watching what he was doing. I can see why he was a marked person. They tried to kill George.

It's smells of conspiracy. It's almost like there's some sort of experiment around here that we're all inside of. The suppression of this information. is the highest type of treason. There's a lot of mystery about George Van Tassel. Let's look at the evidence. It's there. Something was working.

We've got friends and neighbors out here. And they want to talk to us. Calling All Earthlings explores a mid-century UFO cult, led by one-time Howard Hughes confidant, George Fantasel. Van Tassel claimed to have combined alien guidance with the writings of inventor and physicist, Nikola Tesla,

and other controversial science to build an electromagnetic time machine he dubbed the Integritron. Was he insane? Or could the dome really break through the boundaries of space, time, and energy? FBI agents worked against Fantasso and the alternative community

that formed out of his work. Would he finish the Integratron before the government finished him? Tune in right now to find out. This is Somewhere in the Skies with Ryan's bread. Jonathan, thank you so much for joining me today on Somewhere in the Skies. I'm excited and I'm really glad we can make this happen, Ryan.

When I heard you were a fellow New Yorker and a filmmaker, I knew I had to get you on the show, Jonathan. I've been following the trajectory of this film for a while now. And I'm so excited to see that it's finally out. We can all see it. And today we're going to talk all about calling all earthlings. But before we dive in, man, you're fresh off the heels of a screening. Am I correct? Could you tell us a little about how that all went down?

Well, you know, you make these films and it's a very long lead trajectory, although I convinced myself that it was only going to take a year because that's what you do. And seven years later, we just came off of some wonderful festivals and theatrical screenings of the Calling All Earthlings film. and then this week, which is about, as we're going to talk about, George Van Tassel and his activities out in the deserts of California and Joshua Tree area. So we filmed in Joshua Tree, and that was like seven years ago. And I returned Friday night to show the film, and it was just a wonderful feeling of returning and people being into it. and, you know, it's always sensitive about how a community is portrayed and whether they accept it or not, and that was a process that I could tell you about. So it's a really fun, really great scene out there still.

You know, it's just nice, good people. Absolutely. Yeah, we'll definitely get into that community. That's a big aspect of all of this that I'd love to discuss. But, again, before we get to that, I always like to hear the origin story of, you know, how filmmakers became who they are, you know, the classic origin. origin comic book thing. So before we get into that, what made you want to become a filmmaker in the first place? Oh, you know, Ryan, I grew up watching a lot of TV and reading books. I was a little voracious reader as a kid. And when I watched a ton of TV, the Brady Bunch and the Partridge

family and get smart and all these shows, and eventually I felt like I had so much input that I wanted to put something back out. So, and you know, growing up, I was, you know, growing up, I was a guess what we thought of was middle class. I don't know if that exists anymore. I had the luxury in my mind, certainly, or maybe the luxury of pursuing art, but I think it was just more like an intuitive thing. I just started playing music when I was a kid and being in band, and we shot little super eight movies, you know, like in what was that film with the Spielberg film? Oh, yeah. He always has super eight. and his stuff. So shooting movies when we were 13, little like karate movies and mafia movies,

putting talcum powder in our hair and all that stuff. So between the music and the, and the filmmaking, I got into making art or whatever you call it. Media. Yeah, exactly. I know. It's a very amorphous term for sure. Well, one of your films really caught my attention when I saw the trailer for it. So if you don't mind, I'd love to ask you about my friend Paul. This really stuck out to me. Could you tell us a little bit about this film and what it meant to you? Well, that was definitely the most personal of my films. Growing up in Long Island on the South Shore, one of my best closest friends, like Paul and my friend Adam is also in the film. Paul was a total character. He was always one step ahead of us and he became a bank robber and I became a filmmaker

and my friend Paul is the story of our reunion. So it's a, it's really a film about living on the edge and friends and family of people with mental illness, really, because he was bipolar. That's what you find out as the film goes on. You know, when the euphoria, we ride the euphoria of Paul's journey as a deadhead and just getting more and more into drugs and all that. And and then becoming a bank robber and then we kind of move back and say wow, what is this?

What is this? Right, yeah, and I'm sure everyone can relate. Some friend or family member who just takes a trajectory you never really expected. You know, when I screen that film, which we did with public television, ITVS, which is this

great branch of American public TV, when we did that, I found that there were two two different types. break it down and go binary here. The people who had had experiences with people off the charts in their life and understood what I was talking about in the film and those who didn't. Some people were like, oh, why wouldn't you let Paul stay at your house?

I was like, oh, okay, you've never experienced. Just like going with the lunar, getting drawn into somebody's world and drama and not being able to or wanting to. Right. Yeah. I can only imagine, man. I'm sure it is a very powerful film. I hope to take a look at that soon.

One of the other things on your resume that really caught my attention, the last little question here off topic, but was Toxic Avenger 2? How the hell did this happen? I love trauma. Yeah, thanks for asking. You know, after I went up to McGill and I played in R&B bands, played like a big show band up there,

and it was still, you know, learning about making movies. I came back to New York and worked in edit rooms. And one of the edit rooms I worked in was at the legendary trauma. And I was an apprentice, assistant editor, and we just did it all. And for Toxic Adventure Part 2, I did some of the voices in the film. So I did some of the ADR, you know, the off-screen voices, as well as the karate sounds. And we were doing sound editing.

We would get calls. You know, you work crazy hours in film. And it was like 2 a.m. And we're sound editing the film. and somebody would call up and be like, you guys stole my script and we're going to blow up, I'm going to blow up the building, you know. And we'd be like, oh, well, call back on, call back on office hours, you know, Lloyd and Michael aren't here. We're just working here. So it was fun.

And working with Lloyd Kaufman is a hoot. He's a great guy. And he really understands audiences, too, you know. Absolutely. I believe I met him at a Comic-Con one year. And, my God, if you've ever seen passion in someone. you know, an executive of like a film company. That's the example right there for sure.

Yeah, Lloyd was more the creative and Michael was the business side. So he always wanted to make sure that people were getting it. And I feel the same way. I don't want, I don't want myself to be too esoteric, you know. I love, you know, out there avant-garde stuff sometimes. I like to balance it out. And I'm kind of try to be, make films that are understood by El Hente, you know, the people. And, I mean, that's a very,

prevalent in your recent film, Calling All Earthlings. So before we get to the actual story, Jonathan, of George Vantosso, how did you come to discover this man? And what sort of prompted you to want to make a film about him and his work? You know, I'd finished my last film, Commune, which is about the Black Bear Ranch Commune, kind of a legendary group of people getting together to change the world. Nothing too audacious there. And I was walking around L.A. as much as one can walk around L.A. And I walked into the Bodie Tree bookstore, and it's this bookstore that deals with the supernatural. And yeah, all your coast-to-coast kind of stuff, somewhere in the skies and beyond, you know, spirituality and personal growth.

And I spied this book and it was about California being a spiritual state. And it was photographs. And one of the photographs was of the Integritron dome. And I just saw this white kind of Gothic dome with a signed purchase. on it in the middle of the desert and the sign said for basic experimentation in life extension and I was hooked so I knew I had to go out there you know right right and you know that the integratron itself which we'll get into is so iconic now I mean my friends send me picture messages all the time of them going there and going out in the desert and just

just to see it this like relic that just sort of stands there again we'll get into that but like you just said you went out there and when you decided to make the film you you embedded yourself into this community to make the film. So what was that like? I can't even imagine. That's an interesting question because when I made commune, I went up to Siskiy, you county. And I was like, well, that's going to be pretty exotic.

And I'd get there. I'm like, God. And first, when we made commune, first, the first thing that happened was we kind of got like interrogated by all the people in the commune. It was like a big reunion. So from ages 8 to 80, they were like, who are you? You're the media. what brings you here, you know?

And then after kind of getting, passing through the trial by fire with them and them on the Black Bear Ranch commune understanding that we weren't there to get them because the media often gets stuff wrong, right? The media. So with this project, there was, there's like a state that you go through where you're like on probation. So I got out there and went past through this trial by five. which I could tell you about. But I realized, oh, my God, and I really realized that again this weekend, I'm like, these are the cool people I love to hang out with. These are, you know, just like in George's Day, all the musicians and artists and desert rats and inventors

and people who also may not have the money to live in a Beverly Hills mansion, as somebody says in the film, there is something about the desert that was just always magical. and so I feel very akin to a lot of people there. Save now at Whole Foods Market. It's the summer splash event, with great everyday prices on 365 brand ground beef for the grill and ice cream for dessert. They have yellow sales signs on ready-to-cook beef or chicken kebabs too.

Level up with savory marinate, spices, and rubs, and complete your cookout with a crowd-pleasing cherry pie and their balsamic chicken salad. Available at the prepared foods' camps. Get Summer Splash Savings Now at Whole Foods Market. Yeah, I know what you mean, man. I mean, being in downtown Los Angeles, like, you get one perspective of California here, but the minute you step outside of that bubble, you know, like any city, I would imagine,

and branch out, something just pulse you, you know. Whenever I even see the word Mojave, I just, I want to get out there. I just want to go and experience it. And as an East coaster, like, I feel that even more now, this magnetic pull to something I've never experienced. Yeah, and I don't know about you, but, you know, it's also like small town living in a good way because you know everyone. Like you go to the saloon and it's like, oh, there's this guy, there's that guy, and everyone's friends. You can let your guard down a little bit. Right, right.

I mean, I know living in New York, I don't know about you, but, you know, you find your pockets every now and again. but I couldn't even tell you my next-door neighbor's name in my apartment building. It's just so, you know, everyone's sort of on guard and on their own. Oh, that's funny, because in New York, I don't feel that way. But it is a thing in New York where you like, I don't know if it's historically, but you don't want to know your neighbors. Because when you're blasting your music at three of the morning, you don't want them complaining. Exactly.

Maybe that was it. Maybe that's it. I always felt very at home in New York, actually. Yeah. But L.A. is a whole other world. You know, it's a different geographic and a cultural makeup. You know, this is, this was Mexico and really, you know, supposed to still be part of that country. And really, yeah, when you look at Los Angeles itself, it's a bubble of kind of English speakers surrounded by what continues to be. I know. I'm not an ethnographer, really. I'm not an anthropologist. It does seem like there is a bubble here. And I feel like, like I felt a lot of the early settlers, early people who came from other places out to California, probably felt as kind of an alien nation. Absolutely.

What better place to put this mission into fruition as Van Tassel did. So, I mean, who was George Ventassal? What exactly was his connections to these people you mentioned in the film? Howard Hughes. I mean, my God, Nikola Tesla. What? What is this? Well, just to take a step back, since we were on that thread, so many people came out here seeking something. They were the seekers. They came out to the Southern California to be movie stars.

They came out like the Grapes of Roth to eat food because they were starving in the dust bowl. People were seeking something when they headed west. And they were also seeking nourishment of the soul, right, as well. And these are the people who leave their towns, a lot of times are more adventurous. And they were looking for something new. And it was a fresh place. George Vintasel came from the Midwest, as did a lot of people out here in SoCal. And they wanted new forms of spirituality as well.

So for the very beginning, there was all kinds of wild stuff operating in these here hills of Los Angeles and the environs. which wasn't of course just in L.A. There was Simple McPherson. She had a huge church that was here in Echo Park and the church is still there actually, Amy Simple McPherson and kind of like

you had, you know, as you got on, you had Gene Scott in the 60s and 70s and 80s, Reverend Gene Scott. It was classic. And I just love that aspect of California as people seeking. Once the atomic bomb was

dropped in, tested in New Mexico and then dropped in Japan. Everything changed. And people like George Van Tassel felt an awakening. So George came from Ohio and he loved airplanes. I don't know if this is how he got into airplanes. I should find out. I would be the person to find out. I do know that a lot of people in the Midwest or people with farms, you can operate a

plane at any age. And it's still true, I think. My friend's son started flying when he's like 14 or something. Because you're dusting crops, you know? For whatever reason, George was fascinated by aviation and moved left Ohio, moved out to, may have studied some aeronautic stuff. His whole story is slightly clouded in mystery, which is really as it should be, learned a lot about airplanes. Came out to California. The war, World War II was on.

and they needed people to work making airplanes, and George was up for it, and he worked at Lockheed and Hughes and a few other facilities. And as the story, legend goes, he became friends with Howard Hughes and his personal flight inspector. And in 1947, as it was all shutting down, he moved out to the desert, and some would say he moved out just to get out of the rat race. I think he even said that. I mean, he certainly was one of the first counterculture people of the new age, I would say. And then other people would say, no, George actually was going out to the Harper Dry Lake, which was a test facility, a secret test facility that Howard Hughes had. So either way, in early 1950s, when August night full moon, George looks up and he under a butter yellow light, he hears a voice. Booming actually voice.

That's how it comes to him. It says, my name is Solganda, and I would be pleased to show you my craft. And that's how his adventure began in direct communication, like personal communication, according to George, with beings from another world. He had already been channeling. He had already been living out there for a year and have been singing spirituals with his family. They moved underneath this giant rock. with the name of Giant Rock.

And they were seeing spirituals and invite people over. Pretty soon these spirituals were morphing into channelings. And George was getting messages. And one of the messages was that they were going to give us a buzz over our capital. 1952. Yeah. You know the Washington flap? Absolutely.

Yep. Yep. Where the Air Force and Pentagon, I believe it was, even had to get involved and be like, everyone calmed down. But yeah, they sent jets up even to try to intercept the objects. Crazy. So in Washington, D.C., some unidentified objects flew right over the Capitol, really, really near the White House. And George had, according to George, sent a registered letter to various officials in the U.S.

government a few months beforehand. So they had told them that they were going to try to get our attention that way. What I would give to have seen those letters postmarked. I know. I know. That would be something to find, you know? Yeah. The poem is never finished, only abandoned.

Absolutely. You heard that expression? Yep. Yep. I love it. It fits perfectly here. I know, because I'm like, oh, I could, I'd love to see those letters. I did not find them.

We did a lot of research. Okay. So he gets, he's channeling. He gets this message. You know, we don't want to give away too much of that. But the biggest outcome from these messages was to build this machine. So I'd love maybe if you could sort of describe what this machine was to us, Jonathan, if you don't mind. So, yeah, the Integritron was a building designed for basic research into life extension, is how George termed it.

But it was much more than that. So one of the reviewers of the film called it the Swiss Army knife of like of the new age, you know, of all all the things that people wanted. One of which was free energy. What this was was a domed machine that was supposed to spin around and create electromagnetic waves, multiple wave oscillations, that would then use George Creel's idea. Creel, having been the first doctor, to have done blood transfusion, and Creel's idea that the cells are like little batteries and that they need to be recharged. So zapping the cells with electricity to rejuvenate people. And the reason why it wasn't just vanity, George's explanation of this was that you get wisdom. And just as you start moving towards giving some wisdom, you die.

So the intent was to bring wisdom to the people and extend life. At the same time, the dome worked on another. of different principles, although it never was turned on, as you know. And those include Tesla's benefits of negative ionization and George Lakovsky's Multiple Wave Oscillations that we were talking about. So it is a wild and crazy and audacious idea. And one of the things, as I talk about the film, I'd really love to do a conference where we get together the more esoteric scientists with the more hardcore scientists. One of the things I love visually about George, by the way, speaking of just hardcore scientists, is how like middle American kind of square jawed he is. Right.

It's not like hippie-dippy. Exactly. Yeah, you look at him and you're like, oh, he could work on my car. And he did work on cars. And that's another story. That's how he found out about the area at first. Oh, interesting. Yeah. George, well, since you said that, George worked with his uncle. It was the Depression. They were fixing cars out in Santa Monica. And this. a German minor comes along, or German American. Again, another Roshaman. There's a whole Roshaman aspect of the film, Roshaman being the Japanese film where there's multiple stories of the same event from different perspectives. So this minor, his car broke down. He needed some bucks to get the car fixed and money to get his mine going out in the desert. And he ran into

George and his uncle, and they staked him some money. They fixed his car and they stayed in touch. and then one day the sheriff of a nearby county to where he was mining, which was under this giant rock, right? And they came by to see what was going on. After all, this guy was a German with shortwave radios and dynamite and aircraft living in the middle of the desert during World War II. And they came and there's multiple versions of the story, which you'll have to see the film, I guess, to find out. But it turns out that he dies in an explosion. there at the Rock, and George and his family, circling back, come there a number of years later and scrub the walls of the blood and start their venture, which they did not know was going to turn. They started living under the rock and singing the spirituals, yeah. And the rest is sort of history. So out of all this, Jonathan, he creates these conventions, which was another big part of your film, this counterculture that were coming out to the deserts to sort of support the intent.

Megatron, which was really interesting idea. And then the intelligence agencies kind of got involved with this. Can you kind of maybe briefly run us through this whole string of events? Well, first of all, it's easy to forget that he invited the intelligence agencies. Well, the FBI is the one that he contacted, but he contacted other people in the military, like at, what is it called Dwight? I think it's called Dwight Patterson. It's the one in, oh, Wright Patterson. Right, Patterson, yeah, exactly.

And so he invited a lot of people because he got this message. So he was on their radar almost by like he called them in. However, they were very interested in George. And again, multiple potential reasons why. One, he was gathering after he got the message. What happened when Solgan? You're getting a little bit of a modern art version of the story, right? But Solganda came down and he said, I would be pleased to show you

our craft and then they gifted him or direct downloaded it. I don't know how else to put it. The plans or the basic inspiration for this integratron, this machine. And that needed funding because if you're going to combine extraterrestrial technology with Tesla's negative ionization, with George Creel's charging of the cells as batteries, with George Lakowski's multiple wave oscillation, you better have some bucks. he started doing these conventions and he invited out all the contactees, you know, the classic in Georgia was one of the classic 1950s contactees and he invited them to the desert to speak and barbecue and, you know, and all the fans, right? This was, there was no coast to coast. There was no somewhere in the skies back then. There was just you and your little town and you may have had

an experience and you felt weird about it and all of a sudden you read it in a magazine and at one point particularly Life magazine, did a piece where they were kind of mocking it, which happens a lot with the media for various reasons that we can go into. But that just backfired and people came out to the desert and thousands of people came. And it was the first burning man, in my opinion. Yeah, very early predecessor for sure. And of concern to the government, one, they could be communists. They're talking about free love and they're hanging out in the desert and they're trading ideas that if you really go to the roots of some of the original settlers of this country, were part of their roots, to be communitarian, to help people, you're right?

But they saw it as a potential threat and possibly Soviet-backed of the government. On the one hand, on the other hand, he was mucking around with some technology that maybe was secret. Or the other hand, he maybe was just going to blow up the whole grid of the Southern California. Oops, electrical system. You know, there's two sides to this whole world, right? There's the excitement. When you feel it and you see it with Formica. and cars and shopping centers, for better or worse,

and all the inventions and television, you know, like things that we just take for granted, these were new and bright. And then on the other side was the fear of the bomb. And these two polarities play into this whole story on every beat. Absolutely. I mean, you sort of have like the foreshadowing of the Cold War creeping in, I guess, is another good way to look at it.

Like, what if these contactees? What if, like, the message they were given was a Trojan horse of sorts? You know, build this device that's going to blow up the planet. Who knows? Well, I mean, a lot of this, to me, stems. You look at like Operation Paperclip, the bringing of the Nazi rocket scientists to the U.S. Because it was like, well, are they going to go to the Soviet Empire? Are they going to go to the U.S. Empire?

So they were successful in bringing these folks here. I think that, to me, is the start of Cold War. See, 1947, yeah, right after World War II. So this was really smack in the Cold War. Yep. And there are, I don't know if there's been a lot of innuendo, including freaky book about, what is it, Area 51, that there was, that the craft that landed at Roswell was some kind of Soviet disinfo program. And Jacobson, yep. Yeah, I think that's a bunch of hooey, but, you know, everybody's entitled.

I mean, she got that from a tail spun to her by some old, you know, tech, a science guy. You know, I don't know if she has any proof of that. But I wouldn't be surprised if there was some support of UFO stuff from the Soviets. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. I mean, again, like, these might just be stories, but you always hope there's even a shred of fact to some of them, for better or worse, I guess. And I haven't found any actual proof that there was Soviet backing of that. I think there's a lot more proof of Soviet interference now and Facebook and all that.

Very good point. Yeah, bring it to present day for sure. Yeah, this has proof. I haven't found it. There is one journalist, Nick, what is his name? Nick, and he, do you know what I'm talking about it? He's kind of a punk rocker. He's great.

Oh, Nick Redfern, yes. Nick Redfern, yeah. Nick Redfern wrote, oh, no, Nick Redfern. and who I met at Contact in the Desert, where we tested the film, this wonderful kind of relative son of George's activities. I met Nick, and he did a book where he talks about all the contactees and the FBI and George Van Tassel. So it's been a wild ride in the UFO communities, what is going on, and there's so much disinfo from the very beginning, including, do you know about?

the National Ampoon. National Inquirer and the Weekly World News, do you know how they were started? No, I mean, I remember buying it every, you know, every week or whatnot when it came out when I was a kid, but no, I don't know how it all sort of started, no. Right. So these are papers. They were like early, I don't know, well, one was really out there, right, weekly world news. The Inquirer had some out there stuff too. The original founders of the National Enquirer or a family that was connected to the Bafia, you could say, and were paid by the government as disinformation conduits. And actually, nothing has changed there because did we see that recently with Trump and his ladies, his mistress? Yeah, good point. And I mean, we have

Operation Mockingbird as well. What's that? The CIA, they actually bought out, journalists back in the 50s through the 70s to spread propaganda. So, I mean, these things have been going on for a while, but I didn't know that about the Inquirer and Weekly World News, Bat Boy. Bat Boy was one of my favorites for sure. Oh, Bat Boy, okay. You know, this stuff was so, from so far into the past that it's, you know, it was more like the OSS, the original CIA group, the, what was it, Office of Special,

services? Strategic services. Yeah. Strategics. Yeah. So, you know, it's a great way of controlling information is to make fun of it. So a lot of the stuff that came out in the weekly world news did damage control that way about UFO stuff. Now, people may have just been seeing top secret stuff, you know. We have Eric Byrd and the great rock and roller from the animals in the film. And he's like, look, you Americans, you think you're supposed to know everything, right? That's somehow part of our it really is a blessing to be born in a place like this when you can see what's going on around the world. Unfortunately, what's going on around the world has a lot of culpability from this country. But when you see that somehow we have this freedom that we've been granted, and hopefully we will continue to exercise it,

where we think we should know everything. But I think Eric Burton might be right. Maybe there's some stuff you're not supposed to know. Yeah, I mean, there's secrets for a reason. So part of me is a very patriotic American, and part of that has to do with also being able to exercise our rights as citizens in free conversation, but also understanding there's some stuff. Like, there's stuff that are people in a secret whatever, what do you want to call it, like protective services, whatever. They've thwarted plots that we'll never know about, you know. Of course.

Yeah. Well, I mean, sort of coming back to, uh, to your whole narrative in this one. You go into great detail about Ventassal's plans with the Integrichon, and then just, you know, all systems are ready to go. You know, he got funding, he got it up, and ready to run. And then something happens that sort of brings everything to a screeching halt. So could you maybe give us this little part of the story as well?

George had an untimely death. He, well, it depends how you look at it. You know, I'll go with the print the legends, as they say. He was just about to turn on the dome. It had been a lot of years, and he was on his way to an interview, and he mysteriously and suddenly died. That's one version of the story. In other words, a lot of people would say, and I'm not going to vociferously deny their assertations. They would say that George was stopped by elements of the government.

I'm not sure what it is, but this whole populist conspiracy thing has been a big part in the history. of this country as well, you know, like people getting all crazy about Illuminati and stuff. It's true that there are, you know, cabals of certain types, but I don't know if they were out to kill George. It's a beautiful legend. It's possible, you know, circling back to our history of California part, right? You know, all these alienated communities and, you know, little towns connected by dusty roads and this hard scrubble life. You know, it wasn't what people, you know, yeah, there were oranges and olives and stuff. And it had a Mediterranean aspect to it, definitely.

But really, a lot of fast food was going on, the origins of the great and terrible McDonald's and Rickrock. Depending on the day, that's why I feel. Great work. So some people say George died from eating too much crappy food. A long way from, yes, murder conspiracies for sure. Yeah, I mean, I could give you three or four versions, for sure, of his death. But he did die in 1978, and the dome was never completed. And, you know, various forces or people rushed in and grabbed up the stuff and the plans, you know.

Right, yeah. And that sort of brings me to the three sisters. So, I mean, these are kind of the people who run the Integratron now, am I correct? You are correct, and it's so funny because you make these films and you stitch together audio and you put together video and you hope it makes some kind of sense. And I was watching it after I cut the whole thing, you know, many, many times. And I realized that Nancy and Joanne are the Carl sisters. The third sister is like, she's like the gummo. She's never around from the Marx Brothers.

And Tron, they're the ones that I know. The stewards are owners of the dome. And Joanne says about Nancy. She's like, yeah, she's brilliant. She used to work at Stanford Research Institute in Intelligence, in a Bright software, artificial intelligence. And that recently, I was like, oh, my God, she worked at Stanford Research and Artificial Intelligence.

I'm sure her listeners are aware of SRI and its place. In both the wonderful scientific history of this country, the invention of the mouse and the computer, I think, was invented there, or that was Xerox as well. Also in the more woo-woo parapsychology work that was, was done there. So that, I was like, wow. So they own the dome. They bought it from another owner. It went through a series of owners. It went fallow for a while. I just love that it's this spot where people project their own stuff onto. And I think that the current stewards of the

Dome are really good about that. Like, they're able to allow me to engage in my predilection for the counterculture activities of California and make a film about it. And they will enable someone else to do there yoga retreat there. You know what I mean? It's like it's this space and this place that we can project our hopes, fears, and desires and work onto. So it's kind of neat. And just in a pure art level, like installation art, like someone like Robert Smithson and other Earth artists and site-specific artists, it really has that, if nothing else, it's a beautiful piece of art. But I do believe it's a lot more than that. I do too. And I think that's a really good point. It's sort of the lens in which you look at the Integratron and even the counterculture that stemmed

around the time. So, I mean, I guess sort of to wrap up this story of Fantaso and the Integratron, Jonathan, where do you stand in terms of what's going on in Joshua Tree now in terms of back then and how it's all sort of changed? The contacting movement was at its peak and Fantasso was doing his work and you had others around the world trying to give this message of, you know, peace and harmony and all this really good positive stuff. Yeah, that's right. That was the message that they came down with. It's like you look at the channeling stuff, some of the channelings, and all the story around that it's cool. And then you get to the actual content,

and it's always kind of similar, beneficent stuff. In this case, peace, love, and harmony. And especially a warning about the hydrogen bomb over the other atomic bomb so that that was going to be a real issue. So, listen, as the preeminent historian of the state of California says in the film, the desert has always attracted, you know, mystic visions, starting with the Bible and before, right? So this is no exception. And I guess back then it was pretty empty.

And there were the original Native American people who were there, who had their own very deep spiritual connection, including a connection to the extraterrestrial, which is relayed in the film. By the way, there's a website for the film. It's calling all earthlingsmovie.com. And there's a, there is a 70-page paper that was recently printed. And if people sign up for our mailing list, I'm happy to send them a copy of that paper. It's brilliant. It really gets into every aspect of it. But I don't know if he gets into this aspect, which is in the film about the Native American connection to extraterrestrial origin, origin theory of mankind. But everybody who went out there seems to have been on some kind of spiritual trip,

or at least don't tread on me trip, right? Like, a lot of veterans went out there. We have one in our film. And a lot of veterans went out there and were given free land and the Jack Rabbit Chucks. And it's a wild and crazy history. It is. And, I mean, again, like, you know, the areas in Joshua Tree, a lot of them have changed. You've got all the Airbnbs and the commercialism popping up.

Right. I know. I know. But, I mean, your film brings us back to a better time when this, when they could invite veterans to, you know, deal with their PTSD or go somewhere where they're welcomed, you know. So, I mean, I'm hoping that's still the case when it comes to the Integratron and the work with the three sisters and in all of this swirling around Van Tessel's original message. And what I find also really interesting. is that you recently, in your interviews, you talked about you went to Malibu for a screening,

and someone told you that they believe there's other Integritrons that have been built throughout the world. Now, I know there's nothing to sort of prove this, but I found that pretty interesting as well. Well, the dome itself is built right on the border of one of the largest military installations in the world's 29 pumps facility. 29 pumps. it has a official name, but we know what it is. It runs from the town of 29 pounds all the way. It's up towards the top, up the five. It's a huge area with, you know, faux Iraqi villages, you know, and all kinds of stuff

going on up there. And there's always been this connection between the military and the Integratron, one bringing more about aggression and the other more about the peace and the people in Joshua tree who are the peaceful air, spiritual errors of Van Tassel, who I just hang out with this weekend. You know, not officially, but, you know, they are carrying on a lot of the same stuff. So, yeah, it is a funny thing about capitalism. I'm not against capitalism. I think it's a good thing.

I think a mixed economy is nice, but it's just out there. And somebody was saying, oh, Clive Wright, is one of the musicians in our film. And he lives there forever, a brilliant British musician. and they were like, oh, I can get you $200 a night for your Airbnb instead of $75. I'm like, hey, hold on. Next time I come out, my rate to stay at Joshua Tree is going to double. So it's like this weird double-edged sword. People need to make a living, and I don't want to regulate anything.

I'm not a regulator. At the same time, you know, price gouging is hard. I guess the market will figure it out. I expected to see a lot more activity, but it seems pretty, much the same trippy cool place. It's just like the rents have gone up, you know, and the house values. It might be one of those places, too, that shakes out the people who can't hack it. Well, I mean, okay, so, you know, aside from this, Jonathan, where do you think we stand today as a society? 2018, we get like the biggest bombshell story of UFO disclosure from the government.

You know, the New York Times puts out this article, the Pentagon's been invests. investigating UFO secretly for like eight, ten years or something like that. Which article are you referring to? This was the New York Times article that came out in December. Right. And I think that was through Tom DeLonge. How do you say it? Correct.

Yeah. Yeah. Organization. Yeah. I mean, for a lot of people, they're like, duh, we knew that. But for that to be in the New York Times, it's a big step. Yeah. Yeah.

Where do you stand on, you know, UFO disclosure? You know, this idea that the government is going to tell us what they've known for so long or that a... It's an interesting question. I never, I haven't really fought that through. I mean, I would think that people love to gossip and talk. So let me say it brings up a more, not more, but an interesting question of the whole world we're in right now of fake news and real news. How the heck do we know what's real? And this is the ultimate subject where we don't know. One thing that leads, Lens, credence to it for me, which is very intriguing. I spoke to this guy, Robert Salas, as I was making the film. Do you know him in his work?

Yes, the gentleman with the nuclear bases, right? Exactly. That is, you should get him on your show, because that is a really interesting story. That nuclear, he has a group of people who were military officials, many of them high-ranking, and that they experienced odd shutdowns from extraterrestrial forces according to the way Salas describes it. I don't know if he explicitly says, yeah, I think he does. And so there is something going on. I don't know.

You know, it's like if you ask me about George Van Tassel, on Monday I might say, oh, he's Tom Sawyer trying to get his fence painted and, you know, live a life in the desert. And on Wednesday, I could say, yeah, the guy had this brilliant idea that's 30 years ahead of his time. So the disclosure issue is interesting. We all want to have an interesting life of significance, right? So if we said now it's all a bunch of hooey, that would suck. Best gift ever. A Lego set is a gift that always clicks. And clicks.

Who! Next level. And clicks. For kids who love gaming, choose a Lego set. The gift that always clicks. It would suck either way. I say that as a film professor and a Cal State wonderful school Cal State, San Marcos. But we all want to liberalize of significance on the one hand, and it's possible it's all just illusion.

And on the other hand, it could be disinformation to keep people busy. And on the third hand, because we're aliens, we have three hands, it's very possible that there is a bunch of stuff that is hidden. I'm sure there are people you've had on your show who know a lot more about this than I do. I'm just a film guy. I make films about communes and weird domes and on to my next thing after this. Yeah, well, we're happy to have you, man. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, I have really, I think it's fascinating, though. And then the thing is like, yeah, of course I fell into a lot of rabbit holes, the majestic papers for one. It's like, aha, we have definite proof. And then it's like, oh, turns out they were probably faked.

Yeah, welcome to my life. Right. And maybe they weren't faked, although according to someone who I really love and trust, who's a great filmmaker, Chris Munch, and you should try to get him on your show, he's doing a film about that Eisenhower meeting. Chris was saying, yeah, that the majestic papers are probably a hoax, but he's a believer. Yeah. I certainly believe there's intelligence outside our planet. I don't think anyone would say otherwise. I would hope not at this point, yeah.

I think the visit could have been more of a mushroom, you know, what are like mushroom spores kind of thing, like crystallized intelligence that could live for millions of years. And that's how we became associated. We're all stardust. We're all from multiple planets, right? So I don't know what the government knows. Yeah. I just feel like on the one hand, the government is still working with like old IBM machines. with a green type.

You know, like, these are the people who are keeping all these secrets. Do you know what I mean? That's what I was saying about gossip and all that. Absolutely, yeah. But people have stepped forward. What's your feeling? We'll go into our UFO chat mode. What's your feeling on Bob Lazar and that whole thing?

Yeah, so, I mean, I've looked extensively. We did a special episode all about Bob Lazar and the community, the quote-unquote, UFO community is very divided on it. Okay, yeah, yeah. You know, I personally, I give him, I want to give him the benefit of a doubt. I don't see what this man really had to gain. I mean, he's sort of, you know, been put through the ringer, both personally and professionally after coming forward with all this. So I don't really see a motivation to lie about it. We've recently found people who have worked with him at Los Alamos, where he said he'd worked. So, I mean, there've been some developments in that whole Bob Lazzar. story, but enough to definitively say, yes, he was there. He worked on what he said, no, we'll never know. It's just a story, just like all of these things I think we deal with within the UFO community and beyond. So, yeah, I'm still on the fence about it, but I'm leaning more towards

believing a lot of his story than disbelieving for sure. Yeah, there are elements where it seems like he made some stuff up. And then it's always hard, like my friend, my friend Paul, right, who I did the film about after robbing all these banks. he eventually went to prison. In prison, he was put in a minimum security facility, and his buddy there was Lyndon LaRouche. And if you're into conspiracy stuff, Lyndon LaRouche was a real interesting,

squirrelly character, definitely involved with some dark stuff. But the thing is, he knew he was smart, and for every crazy thing he would say, like 90% crazy, one would be really true and brilliant. So people are shapeshifters, you know. Yes. Art of deception.

Well, don't worry. We're going to be taking the human out of all this, according to Elon Musk, and I do believe he's a very smart guy, and apparently we're heading towards the singularity for better or worse, hopefully for better, and hopefully they'll keep us around as pets or something. Hopefully, man. Oh, my God. I can only imagine what Ventessa would have thought about all this now going on with Musk and everyone.

Well, that's the thing. Ventasel was a peace of love guy, you know, and that was a radical message, and that's not the way things have transpired, unfortunately. Although some people would say we're in a period now that's more peaceful than ever. You know what I mean? There's always another side to the story. And the thing about good science fiction, I've been starting to reconnect with my professor at McGill, where I went to college, and he's the world's one of the leading, he's, I think, the leading

critic of science fiction. And these worlds in science fiction and futurism are all. Often very politically radical. They're utopianists, their better world. I'm not talking about your Star Wars space opera. That's just a Western with Rayguns. I'm talking about more your Star Trek, you know, alternate worlds of different possibilities, often thinly cloaked visions of utopia and often more leading towards the left of the spectrum.

In the film, we really tried to show also the... whole economic set of it like that, that all these experiences are about humanistic impulses and dignity for people who have money or don't, you know. And that's like the special world of the desert has been able to kind of encapsulate both the rich and the poor in maybe a better life than they would have in the city. Jonathan, this has been so awesome, man. I got to ask, where can we find the film in all of your other work? Oh, yeah.

Yeah, thanks for having me today. I hope it makes some sort of sense. Like I said, just back with Joshua Tree. So I'm operating on very, very altered realities right now. Hey, we've got to challenge your minds every now and again. Yeah, I mean, no drugs or anything, just being there. Exactly. The beautiful landscape.

I mean, people who live in the country, I'm starting to understand why they're like, yeah, I never come to the city. Me too. You really see the star. there and you really do connect in a very, very deep level. So this film is available everywhere on iTunes, on Amazon Instant, the one that you, you know, pay a few bucks for. You can download it from iTunes and the voodoo and all those kind of places. Every digital Xbox, you name it.

You can get it. Calling all Earthlings. And then, you know, if somebody wants to show it at some kind of semi-theatrical, you know, theater or group that they have, they should get on it. Everybody should get on our website and sign up for the mailing list. I'm very bad about the mail, but I do send something out every month or so. Keeping you up on what we're doing, we're having a European premiere, and we have a few more screenings, including one at the Anthropological Meeting of American Anthropological Association meeting in San Jose,

which is exciting. Oh, wow. That's awesome. Yeah. Yeah, it's a totally different context, yeah. Yeah, I might have to make a trip out there. Oh, cool, yeah. Awesome. Well, I mean, I personally hope there's more integrity. trons out there and more films like

years, you know, in a time where I think we need them now more than ever, let's be honest. It's a hard road to hope because the films that have been done beforehand seem to be either like sloppy, you know, rabidly pro, you know, just cheesy UFO 1980s

video shelf stuff or quick TV films. And I tried to take my time that I'm blessed with as a professor to really think some of it through and tell these people's stories with dignity. and show multiple worlds, multiple possibilities. Well, I really think you hit the mark, man.

Again, the film is Calling All Earthlings. Jonathan, thank you so much for joining me today. Thank you. This was a blast. I feel transported. That's it for this week's episode. Again, Calling All Earthlings is available on most streaming services. Or you can purchase it right through the website, calling all Earthlingsmovie.com. Somewhere in the sky's recently hit

number one in its category on Apple Podcasts in iTunes, Canada. Thank you so much to all my Canadian listeners for making this happen. For my listeners in the United States and abroad, I hope you'll take a few moments to subscribe, rate, and review the podcast on your country or region's Apple Podcasts. It helps the show gain new listeners. Thank you for your support. If you'd like to receive bonus episodes, content,

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One podcast network. To learn more, visit Entertainment One Podcast.com. Hello, all you curious creatures out there, I'm Amber A. And I'm Andrew McKay, and we are the hosts of Into the Portal. If you like Myth, Legends, History with a Paranormal Twist, join us every week as we explore the lesser-known mysteries of our world and beyond. Like the Braxton County monster that once lurked in the forest of Flatwoods, West Virginia, or the mythical thunderbirds, giant terrors of the skies.

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