Sunday, November 4, 2012

Hangar 18 and predictive weirdness

the final film of the 1970's

I just watched the 1980 movie Hangar 18. It's a cheesy reworking of the Roswell story where the Air Force gets a hold of a crashed flying saucer. This movie was recommended by Christopher Knowles through a series of posts in THE SECRET SUN where he digs into this odd little film. These essays are required reading, linked below:
~ An in depth review of Hangar 18
~ Gary Collins, the star of Hangar 18
I was fascinated by what Knowles had to say, but I want to add a few more thoughts.

Hangar 18 was released in 1980, and this was a decisive year for the mythos of crashed UFOs. Even though the supposed event near Roswell New Mexico took place in 1947, it was effectively unknown to the public until it re-emerged in 1980. In February that year, The National Enquirer ran an interview with Jesse Marcel, a key witness who claimed to handle some of the wreckage. This introduced the Roswell incident to the world.

Researcher Terry Hansen states that a former CIA psychological warfare agent created the National Enquirer as a way to discredit UFO reporting.

The first book on the subject, The Roswell Incident by Charles Berlitz and William Moore was published in 1980.

1980 was the same year that IN SEARCH OF (a television series hosted by Lenard Nimoy) aired an episode titled UFO Cover-Ups. This examines charges that the Air Force is hiding alien corpses and the remains of crashed space craft in Hangar 18 at Wright-Patterson AFB in Ohio. 

On one level, Hangar 18 is a buddy film where two astronauts work together to try to unravel a mystery, echoing both 2001 and I Dream of Jeanne.

The parallel plot line features a crew of scientists, under the direction of Darren McGavin (Kolchak: The Night Stalker). They are in charge of researching the crashed UFO. They examine the dead pilots of the crashed UFO only to find that they are essentially human. They also decipher documents on board the mysterious ship, and they come to the conclusion that these UFO occupants made an appearance here on earth at the dawn of human history. These aliens were seen as Gods, they interbred with human women and they orchestrated the evolutionary leap that created modern humans. And, these former Gods were about to come back in a mass world wide landing.
(There is a transcription of Darren McGavin's histrionic monologue where he shares the secret history of the aliens, it's at the bottom of this post)
So, there you have all the key plot points at the core of the Ancient Astronaut Theory (AAT). These same ideas were at the core of Erich von Däniken's CHARIOTS OF THE GODS. This immensely popular book was first published in 1968, the same year as 2001: A Space Odyssey as well as Planet of the Apes. These two sci-fi films explore the AAT and the evolutionary leap that created modern humans.

This parallels a secret Air Force report seen in 1983 by reporter Linda Moulton Howe, more on that below.

Spoiler alert:
The film Hangar 18 culminates with government officials at the highest levels making the decision  to destroy all the evidence of their cover-up. They have their underlings fill a jet plane with explosives and then fly that plane using remote controlled "joystick" technology right into Hangar 18. These same plot points are at the heart of the darkest conspiracies from the events of 9-11.

A remote controlled plane flying into a building? This concept was seen again in the pilot episode of The Lone Gunman, a spin-off from The X-Files. This episode was aired on March 4th 2001, just months before the actually events on September 11th. Christopher Knowles explores the what might be the source of this extremely weird predictive programming in an excellent essay on The Secret Sun, linked HERE. Let me add that this was posted on my 50th birthday.

 This movie started it all, in 1970.

Reporter Linda Moulton Howe had a very strange experience in 1983. It seems she was allowed to read a super secret Air Force report while in preparation for a documentary on UFOs.

The document that Howe saw could very well have been written by Darren McGavin from what he learned in the movie Hangar 18. Here is a link to a good article on what happened to Howe and what she saw in that report.

This Air Force document
included a long list of UFO weirdness:
~ Two different retrievals near the region of Roswell, NM, one in 1947 and another in 1949. The second crash resulted in the captures of a live Extraterrestrial that was taken by an Air Force officer to Los Alamos National Laboratories. The document said that the creature communicated telepathically and was held captive until 1952 when it died of unknown causes.
~ Other crashes listed were Kingman, AZ, Aztec, NM, Loredo, TX, and a place in Mexico just south of the border.

~ Extraterrestrials had manipulated DNA in an already evolving primate species to create Homosapiens.

~ Another paragraph went on to state that 2000 years ago the Extraterrestrials had created a being to put on this planet to teach homosapiens about love and non-violence. When Howe read this she said out loud “Are we talking about Jesus Christ?” Howe say that Air Force representative (Sgt. Richard Doty) in the room with her did not say a word, but that he turned red.
~ A secret project code-named Garnet was listed as having answered all questions and mysteries about the evolution of Homosapiens on this planet. (Curiously, Garnet is Linda Moulton Howe's birthstone)
~ Another issue was that Howe was told that she could use film footage from the vaults of the Air Force that was "Extraterrestrial related." This footage would be featured in the documentary she was producing. The chance to feature this elusive footage got the executives at HBO excited, but at the last moment the Air Force reneged on it's offer, and the entire documentary project fizzled. Howe believes that this was a tactic by the Air Force to stop her documentary from being made.
So, we have a reporter being shown a secret document by the Air Force in 1983, the conclusion is that they wanted this information floated out to the public. Three years earlier we have the movie Hangar 18 "floating" out the same information in the guise of an action film. Please note that Hangar 18 had the blessing an cooperation of NASA, and this is odd because this low budget movie is sort of dopey and it certainly paints NASA and the Air Force as a sinister bunch of secret keepers.

Now, I trust that Howe actually read this a document exactly as she claims. The real question would be if the information within the document is actually true. Researchers who study disinformation will state that in order for it to be effective it needs to be interspersed within REAL information.

Here is an article by Alejandro Rojas where he writes about Linda Moulton Howes' experience with the Air Force in 1983, and here's an audio interview with Howe on the same subject.

I know of two other similar stories where the Air Force promised exclusive film footage of UFOs to documentary film makers, only to withdraw it's offer in the final moments of the production. One offer went to Walt Disney in 1952. The other was Bob Emenegger, who's film credits include the music for Lancelot Link, Secret Chimp (again, the chimpanzee as a "Link" in human evolution).
~ Article by Robbie Graham on Walt Disney and his aborted UFO documentary.
~ Audio interview on Radio Mysterioso with Bob Emenegger and his aborted UFO documentary.

Bob Emenegger talks about his aborted UFO documentary 
and the odd role of the US Air Force.

Also from 1970, the same year as the movie Chariots of the Gods.
(music by Bob Emenegger)

The speech about ancient aliens 
worshiped as gods

There is a very odd sermon-like monologue within the movie HANGAR 18. It feels less like a scriptwriter's imagination and more like it was planted in there by someone with an agenda. Below is a transcription of this heavy-handed bit of this dialog, delivered by the every-hammy Darren McGavin. Note how this paralles into the document that Linda Moulton Howe was shown in 1983. The time count matches the youtube video at the top of this post.

[start time 1: 06: 20]

Darren McGavin as Harry Forbes enters the conference room with a manilla folder filled with papers. Serious looking assistants are seared around the table.

Darren McGavin: Council has deciphered the alien's language. This is a translation of a document found aboard the space craft. Now the translation is very rough and it's incomplete but if what we can read is true, and there's no reason to doubt that it isn't. Then all of the previous information that we have had about the origin of mankind and the human race is absolutely false!

Man: What are you talking about here?

Darren McGavin: This is a report of a previous visit of the spacemen to earth. This report speaks of the capture the training and the use of certain "animals" as slaves, both male and female, the slave worshipped them as gods,

Man: Then what they refer to as "animals" were pre-humans?

Darren McGavin: Yes. The report also speaks to the fact that the female slaves found it a great honor to be chosen to live with and to bear the offspring of the gods.

Woman: Good Lord.

Darren McGavin: You see, it's no coincidence that the spacemen are almost identical to us. It is not, Sarah, a cace of two species developing - evolving - independently of each other. Those ancient spacemen altered forever our evolution. They are the missing link.

Scientist in lab coat: Do you know what you are saying?

Darren McGavin: Yes. We, mankind, the human race, are their children!

(dramatic pause, music rises, thoughtful expressions)

What me must find out now is why they are monitoring us, why they are watching us.

[end time 1: 36: 55]


Tristan Eldritch said...

Also worth noting that the scenario outlined to Moulton Howe regarding Christ recently made a appearance in popular culture - Ridley Scott rather coyly confirmed/denied that the reason PROMETHEUS'S Engineers decided to destroy humanity 2,000 years ago was due to our murder of an emissary they had sent to earth to teach us pacifism - what became known on the internet as the Space Jesus Theory.

Mike Clelland! said...

Yes, good point.

I love the Space-Jesus idea. God himself address this in Neal Donald Wasch's trilogy CONVERSATIONS WITH GOD.

A visitation to a young Virgin and a mysterious pregnancy? Born under an odd light in the nighttime sky? Three "wise men" as Men in Black? Performing miracles? Rising up into the heavens?

Red Pill Junkie said...

Weird synchronicity. Last Saturday I went to see Skyfall with my sister Angélica and my nephew. Before the movie started my nephew and I went to a record store to buy the latest album of my favorite band, Café Tacuba. Incidentally, while walking to the record store I talked with my nephew about the amazing synchronicity I experienced before going to Paradigm symposium, as well as my (possible) UFO sighting I had after my return to Mexico.

Anyway, as I was listening to my new CD on my way to work, I started paying attention to track #7, titled Zopilotes (buzzards) and it quickly dawned on me that the song's lyrics were inspired by the Roswell incident!

Basically, the lyrics are how the buzzards are startled to find strange bodies of different blood color in the desert, after a 'star' or object of metal crashed. Which is consistent with all the tales that all the carrion animals refrained from consuming the cadavers of the aliens.

And now I find Mike's newest blog post! :)

Anonymous said...

Some Baby Boomers of my acquaintance are obsessed with this film. It apparently had a significant impact on a fair number of semi-believers and outright believers in the possibility of a UFO cover-up by the government. I wonder how much of this film's content has permeated the media via persons in positions of power or authority today who were fascinated by the film long ago.

Another one worth talking about is Starman:

Red Pill Junkie said...

I <3 Starman!! :)

Lucretia Heart said...

My parents were born in 1928 and 1930, and both were abductees, and BOTH believed my whole life that Jesus was a real man who was the progeny of a alien DNA project. Neither of them knew they were abductees until the early 90s when I finally started talking about my own experiences.

The idea that people who have been touched by this phenomenon are more likely to think or or advocate for such theories seems to make sense.

Lucretia Heart said...

Regarding the role of the Air Force and other governmental agencies:

I can't help but feel that there are conflicting agendas at work here. On the one hand a concerted effort to get the ideas out to the public that aliens may have created us and are still tinkering with our genes, and may even RETURN (!!!) Yet on the other hand, there is the whole massive cover-up and ridicule campaign to discredit possible abductees and the very notion that humans are not on top here!

The inconsistency seems consistent with how turn-overs in personnel can affect policies. Also, various sub-groups privy to the truth may disagree as to what to do about it.

Red Pill Junkie said...


So, were they always interested in the UFO phenomenon then?

Lucretia Heart said...

Yes. Both had seen UFOs multiple times in their lives (from a distance.) Both were intensely interested in paranormal phenomena, but mostly hid those books away and didn't really talk about it with me until I was much older. They would, however, watch things like In Search Of and so forth.

Only later after my own experiences did they belatedly realize that some other bits of odd memory might be explained by MORE than what was apparent to them at the time. My father definitely has memories that involved him and hybrid females and sex for example that he always thought were some sort of dream or maybe spirit attack (that left marks.)