Somewhere in the Skies - UFO Cults

Episode Date: November 9, 2020

On episode 186 of SOMEWHERE IN THE SKIES, we dive in to a very controversial aspect to the UFO topic and that is UFO cults. From metaphysical gurus to suicidal groups hoping to catch a comet to heaven, the power and danger of belief has caused many groups immense pain and suffering; all in the name of UFO enlightenment and ascension. We run through some of the obvious culprits and some that appear more innocuous. We hear from ex-members of two of the most well-known UFO cults/religions and how they got out, and a new generation of cults springing up to take advantage of the UFO topic, its hardcore believers, and of course, your money. This presentation was originally broadcast in video form as part of the ALL THE STRANGE 2020 Virtual Conference, produced by Rogue Planet TV. To watch the video version of this and various other presentations, subscribe by CLICKING HERE  Patreon: www.patreon.com/somewhereskies Website: www.somewhereintheskies.com YouTube Channel: CLICK HERE Official Store: CLICK HERE Order Ryan's Book by CLICKING HERE Twitter: @SomewhereSkies Instagram: @SomewhereSkiesPod Watch Mysteries Decoded for free at www.CWseed.com Episode edited by Jane Palomera Moore Opening Theme Song, "Ephemeral Reign" by Per Kiilstofte SOMEWHERE IN THE SKIES is part of the eOne podcast network. To learn more, CLICK HERE 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

At first, I didn't think it was real. I woke up to this blinding light, and I was transported to another place. Pluto TV! Then I heard a voice. Come with me if you want to live. There were thousands of movies and shows, and they were all free.

The truth is ours. It's just so beautiful. On Pluto TV, free streaming of Terminator 2, fringe arrow, the 100 NX files may cause excitement, loss of sleep, and sudden belief in extraterrestrials. No credit cards or alien encounters necessary. Pluto TV, stream now, pay never.

As the crispy chicken sandwich from 7-Eleven, people always call me loud. And I'm like, yeah, I know. I'm crispy. Did you expect me to whisper? If you want quiet, go eat some soup and reflect. Like, I know I'm a handful. I'm bold, I'm juicy. Throw some pickles and barbecue sauce on me, and baby, I'm a whole meal.

And with seven rewards, I'm just $4. Quiet, no. Krispy, saucy, and $4? Very. Only at 711. Valley through 62326, participating stores only well supplies last the app for full terms. This is your chance. I'm here. I can take you out of here. I can lead you into that kingdom level above human. That can't happen unless you leave the human world that you're in and come and follow me. Time is short. Last chance. This is somewhere in the skies with Ryan's bread. So today I'm going to be talking about a topic that doesn't get covered in uphology that often. And that is UFO.

cults and UFO religions. So I have a question right off the bat for you. What is the first thing you think of when you hear the term UFO cult? Is it this? It's the largest suicide in the United States history and it has all the components of just being so bizarre. It's been 20 years since 39 members of the Heavens Gate cult were found dead. Their bodies discovered under purple shrouds inside a mansion in Rancho Santa Fe. Yeah, it was for me too. I remember, when I was 13 years old and I was in school, I was so excited because I had a brand new pair of Nike sneakers, my first name brand sneakers I ever owned. And I remember one of the kids coming up to me and pointing at the sneakers, and I thought he was going to give me a compliment.

But instead, he just pointed and he laughed at me and he said, look, Ryan's part of one of those groups that killed themselves. And I had absolutely no idea what he was talking about. When I went home from school that day, I saw on the news about the heavens. Gate Colt. And they just so happen to be wearing the same exact sneakers as I had. And I just so happened to be into the topic of UFOs starting that year. So it was purely coincidental, but it really got me worried. I was becoming obsessed with UFOs at this point. I was writing essays to myself about Roswell, Rendell Shum, anything you can think of when it came to flying saucers. And when I saw what this group had done and that they believed that a flying saucer was coming on the back

of a comet to pick them up and take them away and 39 people died that day. I was worried. I was worried about where my obsession would ultimately lead me and I hoped that it wouldn't be like what happened to these people. But we will get to Heaven's Gate in just a little bit. So without going into a huge debate about what's a cult, what's religion, we're just going to sort of paint everything. We're just going to sort of paint everything as a movement, a religious movement for today's purposes. So my next question probably has a pretty simple answer, but I'm going to ask it anyway. What exactly is a UFO religion and how did these start? Well, it actually starts a lot sooner than I think a lot of people think it does. It started with a modern UFO era.

In that era, basically began in 1947 when a pilot witnessed nine unknown aerial objects over Mount Rainier in Washington State. Kenneth Arnold would report what he'd seen to several newspapers. He described the movement of these objects like saucers skipping off of water and thus the term flying saucers was born.

Even though the objects weren't actually saucers shaped, but that's a conversation for another time. Not two weeks later, something crashed in the New Mexico desert. The military swooped in, retrieved it, and the headline hit the newspaper within hours. RAA

captures Flying Saucer on Ranch in Roswell region. So now Flying Saucers were on the minds of everyone, and this would lead into the 50s, the 60s, the 70s, with the contact team movement. And this was basically individuals who claimed to have made contact with beings from other worlds. And this spawned a huge movement. People from all over were now convening in large groups to discuss these contacts. and the supposed messages these space brothers and sisters wanted to impart to humanity. And from these early movements came specific belief systems and guidelines from whichever alien race had made contact.

And thus, religious movements were born from flying saucers. From these beliefs spawned UFO movements, religions, and eventually cults. And trust me, there are dozens and dozens of these out there. But today we're going to focus on six of them, and the first one we're going to talk about is the Ashtar Galactic Command. The Ashtar Galactic Command actually refers to multiple religions, as multiple different people and groups over the years have kind of claimed contact with a certain extraterrestrial named Ashtar. George Van Tassel was the first. In the late 40s, Van Tassel created an event known as the Giant Rock Spatr. spacecraft convention, which some of the photos you saw earlier were actually from.

During this event, he and his followers would channel messages from Ashtar. Now, Ashtar was a extraterrestrial being or a group of beings that were part of a galactic law enforcement agency, preparing an imminent rescue of humanity from destroying themselves with nuclear weapons and the destruction of our planet. George Van Tassel also integrated the idea that the Christian Bible could be read as alien intervention on our planet, and he even claimed that Jesus was an alien. The supposed channeling of Asthar, with the backdrop of Christianity influencing its messages,

followers became divisive, and the Ventasso movement of the Ashtar command soon collapsed. Thereafter, many other people claimed the Ashtar command, and recycled it into their own ways, either going full-blown galactic federation or sticking to the more spiritual side of Ashtar's messages, and that we needed to ascend into higher levels of spiritualism to solidify our place in the cosmic heavens. A woman named Yvonne Cole claimed to be getting messages from Ashtar in the late 80s, and through Ashtar, she predicted that in 1994, multiple alien races would arrive on the earth

and proceed to destroy human civilization. I don't think it happened. But this didn't stop people like Cole, who kept making bold predictions and failing at every corner. In fact, a really weird thing happened in 1977 when a British television broadcast was illegally interrupted, with what adherents called a message from Vrillion, a representative of the Astar Galactic Commission.

Men. For years, you have seen as a lot of interest in the world of us. The speech in the album of kissing as we have done to your brothers and sisters on the list of your planet does. Nobody ever took credit for this broadcast, corruption. So we're left wondering, was this some kind of prank? Was it a member of the

Astar Galactic Command actually making contact with humans? We'll probably never know. The Asthstar Galactic Command literally became the Wild West of UFO cults with so many people claiming to be a part of this or to be channeling Ashtar themselves. And the idealism of Asth-Tar and its brand just continued from there on out, even up until today. And the same could be said for the idea of ascension, which we'll get to in a little bit. But let's move to our next movement, and this is the Ethorious Society. The Ethrius Society was founded in 1954 by a man named George King. This society is named after the cosmic master, Etherius, who, like in the case of Van Tassos claims,

was an alien being who represented a godly figure. Buddha and Jesus in King's eyes were also alien beings from the planet Venus, and they invited King into their cosmic brotherhood of sorts to help heal and save the world. This would be done with the help of the Atherius Society, which would practice yoga, mixed theosophies, and even use harnessed psychic and supernatural abilities to heal through astral projection. So at the center of this belief system and the cosmic masters is to save the earth and uplift humans to a higher state of evolutionary consciousness, ascension. Your name is...

I am noon is... Is the Ceres. Where do you come from? The planet Venus. His specific mission as a cosmic master was to channel messages from the masters and launch what he called Operation Prayer Power, which allowed followers to wield their own spiritual karmic powers and pursue their own evolutionary paths to enlightenment.

King even created a spiritual battery, which contained materials like gold and quartz, and he claimed this could be used as store and harness prayer energy, With enough energy, all members could begin to heal the world and bring us to cosmic enlightenment. The Aetheria Society boasts thousands of members around the world, but they presently still practice mostly in the UK and in California. So without actually promoting this group or any of the others that you're going to hear about today, I will say this. The Aetheria Society seems to be pretty innocuous in terms of UFO cults or religious. They honestly just want to heal and help the world.

They don't charge to become a member. Everyone's invited, and there's no commitments to make. They just want to heal what has already been so broken in the world. So they're still going, and good on them for that. And I guess the same could be said about our next group, and as a personal theater nerd, this one kind of spoke to me. Not enough to join, but I found it pretty interesting. And this was the Unarius, a cat.

Academy of Science. Unarias is a spiritual non-profit educational foundation, established in 1954, by Ernest Norman and his wife Ruth. Unarius stands for universal articulate interdimensional understanding of science. It's the study of four-dimensional science and the sacred transmissions by the Space Brothers, who are an advanced intelligent race of aliens existing on a different frequency. Ernest and Ruth set up shop in Southern California, and followers started to slowly trickle in. They started teaching people about their sacred transmissions. And through these transmissions, Ruth channeled news from the Space Brothers who said 33 giant spaceships would be landing on the Earth soon. But just as things seemed to be gearing up, Ernest died in

1971. Ruth, who now went by Uriel, became the organization's leader. The Academy started taking on a different set of goals. And that was to promote the study of extraterrestrial intelligence, reincarnation, and free energy. But its fundamental purpose remain channeling alien beings for creativity, from churning out mind-blowing public access TV shows to a variety of UFO-themed paintings, music, books. You name it, they were creating it. What also distinguishes Unarias from other cult-like movements, was their emphasis on spiritual healing through past life therapy and reenactments on film. In their time, even stretching up to today, the Academy has produced three feature films, 80 television shows, as well as scores of student paintings, hundreds of handmade costumes,

thousands of photographs, and over 200 self-published books. And while Ruth, or Uriel, might be a little wacky and eccentric, and the fact that her prophecy about 33 spaceships showing up never really panned out. It seems like a pretty positive and creative atmosphere, helping people who were lost find creativity. And I mean, if anything, this could go down as the biggest performance piece in UFO history.

So, looks like they are having a lot of fun, going out, trying to vectoring UFOs. As long as no one's getting hurt and nobody's making a lot of, a ton of money. This sounds like a lot of fun. And our next group also likes to have a lot of fun, but in many very controversial ways. This is the story of realism. What's up guys, Ryan Sprague here, and I'm just dropping in to remind you about our Patreon campaign. Somewhere in the Skies is always free to consume, but it's not free to create. So if you want to help the show on a monthly basis, we have tons of rewards for you in return,

including shoutouts on the show and website. bonus content and episodes, and free merge. Want to be my guest or pick a topic for the show? You can do that too. So if you'd like to learn more and to help support the show, visit patreon.com slash somewhere skies. Thank you and keep looking up. The core foundations of realism

is the belief that a group of extraterrestrials called the Elohim created the human race in a science experiment. The Elohim appeared to early humans as godlike beings, and may be the cause for the mystifying cave drawings that many claim to be ancient astronauts. Once again, as with other UFO religions, Buddha, Jesus, and other historical figures start to arise as prophets in the Ralean narrative. Founded by Claude Verilhan, or Rale, in 1974, this dude was in close contact with the Elahim, and they came to Earth and told him their reasons for coming here and what Claude should do.

The basic idea is that if humans could just get their act together and become peaceful and aware, the Elohim would contact us again. This is sort of the Raylian's version of the apocalypse. The Elohim will come down and meet humans at an embassy they've asked the Raylians to build for them. This embassy will have a landing pad for the Elohim spacecraft. They will then tell the humans. about their advanced science and technology,

and humans will be able to build a life on other planets, as the Elohim have done for us. The Ralean Church has a fully flushed-out clergy that practices sensual meditation, and advocates strongly for political causes, including pro-GMO crops. The topless rights of women, they are very pro-sex, in fact.

The October 2004 issue of Playboy features Rails Girls, a group of Raylian X-Strippers and call girls. And the group is also anti-Catholicism. The anti-Catholicism is no small issue. In a stunt known as Operation Condom, Raylians handed out 10,000 condoms to Catholic school children. In another effort, they incited Catholic children to burn crosses. Nah, no, that's not cool.

If you've heard of the Raylians, you probably know them from the media frenzy they created in 2002, when a quote-unquote Raylian Bishop, by the name of Bridget Boselier, announced that her biotech company, Clone Aid, had produced the first cloned human baby, named Eve. The claim has never been 100% substantiated, though it is worth noting WikiLeaks released a cable showing that the U.S. government investigated the Raylian's claims. It wouldn't be too surprising as the group has long supported the ideas of biotechnology and mind-uploading technologies in attaining physical immortality. One final point worth noting about the Raylians, before a PR move in 1991,

one of the Raylian symbols was a swastika over the Star of David. That didn't go over too well, and it was eventually turned into the Star of David with a swirling galaxy within it. There is a lot to cover with the Raylians, and they are still very active today and recruiting. I know from personal experience, I've been contacted by several of them within the last few weeks or so, but let's move on. So this is where things start to sort of veer into very dangerous territory. Probably one of the most visible cults in the last, what, 10 to 20 years or so, would have to be Scientology. And while there have been many exposés and TV shows, books, documentaries about the religion itself, I thought, let's cut to the actual core scripture and story behind this religion.

The most well-known story publicized and held up to ridicule by critics is that of Zinu, the ruler of the Galactic Confederacy, who was said to have brought billions of frozen people to Earth 75 million years ago and placed them near a new. number of volcanoes and dropped in hydrogen bombs, thus killing the entire population in an effort to solve overpopulation. The spirits of these people were then captured by Zeno and mass implanted with numerous suggestions and then packaged into clusters of spirits. From the early 1950s onward, Scientology's founder, El Ron Hubbard, published a number of books, lectures, and other works describing what he termed a space opera.

Wait a minute. I thought this was a space opera. Anyways, Scientology teaches that all humans have experienced innumerable past lives, including lives in ancient, advanced, extraterrestrial societies. Traumatic memories from these past lives are said to be the cause of many present-day, physical, and mental ailments. Scientologists also believe that human beings possess superhuman power, which cannot be restored until they have been fully rehabilitated as spiritual beings through the

practice of auditing using methods set out by Elron Hubbard in his various works. According to Hubbard, a Thayton has a body. This is their term for a soul. When that body dies, the Thayton goes to a landing station on the planet Venus, where they are re-implanted and are programmed to forget. their previous lifetimes. The Venusians then capsule each Thayton and send them back to Earth to be dumped into the Gulf of California, whereupon each Thayton searches for a new body to inhabit. And only through auditing can Scientologists go clear and become the greatest self they can

possibly be, with superpowers, of course. So from here, we all kind of know the story. are extremely litigious. They will stalk members who leave the church. They will bribe them with all the confessions they've made during auditing, and they will literally rip families apart. They are extremely dangerous, and we did not learn that any more clear than with the television shows that came out about it, and also from ex-members coming forward to talk about it. And one of those individuals, Joey Chait, is an ex-member. And I had him on the Somewhere in the guy's podcast to talk all about how he got into it, how he climbed the ranks, and how he was eventually able to get out of Scientology. But without going into that, I'm going to let Joey

talk for himself. Well, I was born into it. I'm a, what they call a second generation Scientologist. So my parents got into it back in the 70s, in the early 70s before I was born. And they got suckered into it. And then by the time I was born, and by the time my two younger brothers were born, they were already fully indoctrinated into Scientology. So it was basically the religion that I was raised with. I didn't really have a choice in the matter. They did, which was stupid. So I ended up suffering for their mistakes, which most kids do, especially when it comes to religions or cults. Scientologists are not allowed to talk to or be in any sort of relationship with anybody who's labeled a suppressive person. So my entire family is in Scientology. So

all of my friends that are still in Scientology, they stopped talking to me. They blocked me on Facebook and blocked me on social media. If the FBI or some government agency decided to do a raid on any church of Scientology where people are being held under watch, 99% of the people would be, oh, I'm not being held against my will. I'm here in my own volition. You know, this is my religion because that's what you're trained to do. The brainwashing and the mental conditioning that you go through, you protect the church at above and beyond all costs. Church first, individual second. I would say run as far away as you possibly can, especially with Scientology, because it's like you're going to spend so much money, you're going to get sucked

into this cult. It's just, it's just not worth it. I get that everybody in life is always looking for something. Everybody wants the answers. And that's something that I think that people can just figure it out on their own. If you want to study something about Scientology, do it for free on the internet. That's my biggest thing with Scientology. If you wanted to become a Catholic, you go into any Catholic church or Protestant church or whatever you want to study, the materials are there. The Bible is free. You don't have to pay money to them. If you wanted to study about Judaism, go to a temple or go to a synagogue and read the Torah, it's free. Scientology charges people for salvation. That's the biggest thing that drives me crazy. I mean, you know, outside of the physical

abuse and the sexual abuse and the medical malpractice and all that stuff, the fact that they charge for it, that should be, that should be the thing that makes you go, okay, no, this is bullshit. So while Scientology seems to be fizzling these days, there's no doubt that people are still falling for it and still joining. And that's just sad and tragic. So I'm glad there's people like Joey out there being vocal and taking the risks to try to get to people before they join or try to get people out of it. And while Scientology is extremely contentious and dangerous, the next cult we're going to talk about is actually just tragic. And that is the Heaven's Gate cult. Founders Marshall H. Applewhite and Bonnie Nettles met in 1972 and soon became convinced that they were

the two end-time witnesses mentioned in the book of revelations in the Christian Bible. In 1975, they held gatherings in California and Oregon that attracted their initial followers. Those who attached themselves to the two dropped out of society and prepared for the transition to a new life on a spaceship. When the expected transition did not occur, the group settled in Texas and lived a quiet communal existence, practicing disciplines that they believed would prepare them for the eventual movement to a higher level of existence. They had few contacts with outsiders until 1994, when their expectation of the imminent transition was again heightened, and they began a new round of recruitment. They also divested themselves of most of their possessions and began a pilgrimage that led them to California. Settling in the San Diego area in 1996, they supported themselves by creating websites in the early days of the internet.

Early in 1997, a rumor circulated among the New Age community that an artificial object, or a spaceship, was following the recently discovered comet, Halbop, which would approach close to Earth around the time of the spring equinox. As the comet approached, they would board the spaceship and head to it. to their next journey. This is your chance. I'm here. I can take you out of here. I can lead you into that kingdom level above human. That can't happen unless you leave the human world that you're in and come and follow me. Time is short. Last chance. The Heavens Gate Group, which had shrunk to only 39 members at this point, took poison in three waves.

On March 26, 1997, following an anonymous tip, police found the bodies of the members, neatly lined up in bunk beds, wearing matching outfits and identical Nike sneakers. They donned patches on their sleeves that simply read, away team. During the recruitments across the country, Heavensgate members were forced to sever relationships with all outside friends and family members, as their entire world became consumed by this cult. This was the same for Frank Leiford, one of the Heaven's Gate members. Leiford defected from the cult in 1993, but his girlfriend, Erica Ernst, remained and died in the cult's mass suicide in 1997. In an interview with People magazine, Frank said it was one of the most painful experiences he ever endured,

and the impact lasted a lifetime. Now, I was actually able to catch up with Frank and talk to him about what life was like post-cult, and he was so gracious to give his time to give us these quotes. Frank said, we all have a connection to the divine within us to tell what our best path should be. We all have that radio transmitter built in. We don't need anyone to translate that for us. That was the big mistake that we all made, in my mind. It was believing we needed someone else to tell us what our best.

best path should be. Frank also said, I've made peace with my choices. I have taken full responsibility for them, also realizing that my experiences have served an amazing cornucopia of learning and wisdom that I likely would not have gained through a more normal life. To me, the more important part of my life is the time following being in heaven's gate, and that is my journey, post-cult, back to myself. Frank explained the end goal of the Heaven's Gate cult, saying that it was, in effect,

ascension to a higher level of existence. Applewhite led classes designed to help the cult members transform into a different world. Now, I'm sure you've noticed the running theme throughout this entire presentation, and that is the use of the word

ascension. This word seems to be used in almost every single movie. movement or cult that we cover today. And honestly, that goes up even till today. There are so many classes being offered and UFO-centric speakers who are offering this ascension to raise to a higher level for a price. In a recent article published by Vice News and written by one of our speakers today, MJ Benayas, we've learned that ascension seems to be the key word for those who offer this. The stories of alien saviors continue to integrate themselves into past movements, recycled and morphed into different figures, different alien races, different teachings

from established religions turned upside down in promises of cosmic disclosure, energy healing, QAnon-like conspiracy theories that are based on absolutely unsubstantiated claims, and questionable motives. by those who pronounce them. Look, I'm not going to name names, but these individuals who are doing this today, they are a litigious bunch, and that's not a can of worms. I want to open up here.

But if you want to learn more about Ascension and those offering it today, definitely go check out M.J. Benyus' article over at Vice News. The title of the article is UFO conspiracy theorists offer Ascension from Our Hell World for 333.3. That seems pretty cheap to me. There are so many cults and movements within the UFO field to even cover today.

So I highly suggest if you really want to know how many are out there, go online and go down the rabbit hole like I did. It's pretty concerning. And look, at the end of the day, we all just have to make up our own minds. You know, these existential questions we have in life. Why are we here? Are we alone? What comes next? You can pay someone to give you those answers according to their own belief systems, their own concocted stories of alien saviors or UFOs coming on the back of a comet.

But at the end of the day, I always refer to the X-Files poster that Mulder had in his office, the one that said, I want to believe. By the way, that UFO in that poster, definitely taken by a possible UFO cult leader. But that is a presentation in itself, and we do not have time to cover that here. Maybe next time. But the words on that poster, they really do speak volumes. I want to believe. Not need to believe, not must believe, but want. That's a curiosity that we're all seeking in this life.

And while some of us use that curiosity to look for UFO somewhere in the skies, others use it to find their savior somewhere in the skies. And you know what? Maybe they are one in the same. Who's to really say? But all I'm going to tell you is this. Keep looking. Keep searching.

Just keep your feet on the ground. Somewhere in the Skies is produced by Third Kind Productions in association with the Entertainment One podcast network.