Mysteries from Beyond Earth

Mysteries from Beyond Earth is a 1975 documentary and a sterling example of the kind of dated, hokey material endemic to UFO flicks of the era. It’s narrated by a bearded guy (credited as Lawrence Dobkin), whom I at first mistook for a man wearing a keffiyeh as a cravat. Actually, I realized he was just imitating Don Knotts in Three’s Company, NOT demonstrating his undying support for a Free Palestine.

I have been vastly influenced in my life by In Search Of with Leonard Nimoy, an incomparable thespian who brought Spock to life in a way no other actor ever could. Nimoy was always pegged for “far out” occult and sci-fi themes in his career (right down to voicing Galvatron in the butt-rockin’ good times we call Transformers: The Movie from 1986). He hosted In Search Of with no less of that naff 1970s excellence than anything else he did during that era.

Waking up to In Search Of at my late grandmother’s house, seeing that forever image of Stonehenge in one corner of the screen and the other of a plane flying eternally into Amelia Earhart’s ear, Satanized my young soul to the point that I was demonically possessed and became a channel for otherworldly forces aboard a UFO while I was abducted by giant, smelly skunk apes that disappeared into the Florida Everglades after straying too close to the Bermuda Triangle. Yowza.

In other words, a typical series of events, but one that hints at conspiracy-addled depths the likes of which even the late, great Art Bell never plumbed.

Anyway, seeing all those old shows—In Search Of, Sightings (with host and appropriately named hale and well-good fellow Tim White), Unsolved Mysteries with Robert Stack, Unexplained Mysteries, and the not-so-occult-themed but still undeniably creepy Ripley’s Believe It or Not! with the craggy, scary Jack Palance as host—triggered the swirling devils of occult dabbling in my pre-adolescent beingness. That a number of these shows were created and produced by Henry “The Fonz” Winkler was icing on the cake, a fact to which I resoundingly say, “Aaaaaa!” (Thumbs extended.)

Mysteries from Beyond Earth begins with bad model flying saucers borrowed from Ed Wood Productions, shot against black velvet curtain backdrops with pinholes in them for stars. Planetoid globes and spaceships alike are propelled forward through dimensional portals via fishing line, and then we get some ominous, swirly 1975 psychedelic “time tunnel” that would have made H.G. Wells proud to chase Jack the Ripper to San Francisco down. (That came a few years later, but so what? As Metallica reminds us on The $5.98 E.P.: Garage Days Re-Revisited, “Time is an illusion!”)

The doc dances through every “paranormal” (hate that overused word) subject conceivable, from ancient astronauts (“the aliens did it!”), Teotihuacan, and ancient Giza stone blocks weighing a cool 25,000 pounds each, to—G-d help us—Bigfoot, Skunk Ape, Mikhalova and Russian psychics, Ukrainian telepathy experiments, Kirlian photography, Betty and Barney Hill, and, as the centerpiece, the alleged abduction of the “Pascagoula Fishermen,” Charles Hickson and Cal Parker. One of them was on my Facebook friends list when he died a few years back. (Or maybe it was last year. I’ll have to check.)

I first heard of the Pascagoula Fishermen when I was a little kid perusing those UFO books written by Daniel Cohen (who also wrote about magic, monsters, and magicians. Oh my!), which were part of the Antichrist’s plot to create a demonic army of small, child-sized zombie soldier occultniks, happily swinging around sacrificed cats in their G.I. Joe lunchboxes. Never imagined that forty years later, one of them would be on my Facebook friends list. (You see, Facebook didn’t exist in those days. You had to use MySpace in 1984. Yeah, I know—"primitive as can be,” as the old ballad goes.)

Today, I tell fortunes for customers every night (er, early morning, rather) of my life, dabbling in the occult constantly, as it were; it’s been like this for years. And I owe it to shows such as these (and also Daniel Cohen).

Mysteries features a “black mass” scene from Frisco where the Satanic congregants are curiously NOT being led by Anton LaVey (so a dramatization, perhaps?), and a witch who boasts of the subconscious ability to control minds. The narrator observes: “Some people still allow themselves to be seduced by the theatrics of dark and sterile practices.” Whatever that is supposed to mean.

An Ending? Really?

The film ends with an obsession over black holes as dimensional portals, time tunnels, the Admiral Byrd expedition, and his alleged flight into the hole at the polar caps leading to the Hollow Earth—wherein the Vril is hidden by the coming race of superhuman Nazi UFO pilots foretold in the occult fiction of Edward Bulwer-Lytton.

There are some appearances here by late ufologist Stanton Friedman, Hollywood actress turned parapsychologist Thelma Moss, and Charles Hickson, of course, who seems thoroughly credible and down-to-Earth (ha-ha) when describing his extraterrestrial encounter. The film was produced by Ralph and Judy Blum, who co-authored the old UFO book Beyond Earth: Man’s Contact with UFOs (Bantam, 1974) , which featured Hickson and Parker’s story as its centerpiece.

The narrator ends by questioning whether these events and phenomena are occurring independently or are part of some larger “programming” that mankind is experiencing. Fifty years on, it is difficult to say his question lacks relevance, in the face of the Grusch UFO revelations on the floor of the United States Congress and the birth of an entire “alien mind” in the form of AI. Could this be anything LESS than preparation for an astounding revelation? (Vide the recent spate of “drone” sightings that the U.S. government disclaimed any knowledge of.)

If it seems as if I have been snarky or ridiculing this phenomenon, it is because, as the author, it is my responsibility to see that you, the Reader, are entertained. I have written a book on ghosts, a book on paranormal topics, a book on UFOs, and many, many, many articles on esoteric and occult topics. I’ve seen a UFO close-up, as well as phantoms and ghosts, and I have experienced poltergeist phenomena—including flying books, shaking beds, electrical appliances that operate themselves, and tap-tap-tapping on the wall to keep me awake at night. Pesky damn thing. Thinks it’s funny, I’ll wager.

Sleep paralysis, hideous specters, and a close-up UFO sighting are things I’ve experienced. Communications of a psychic nature, trance states, remote visualization, clairvoyance, precognitive dreams, and portents—affirmative, in my long history with this stuff.

I occasionally get “voices” on audio recordings that shouldn’t be there—quite clear ones, in some cases. Five years ago, after the death of my co-author and friend Jon Titchenal, and after, like a fool, calling forth spirits while employing an ITC “ghost box,” I received a spate of telephone calls “from beyond.” What I take to be Jon and the voices of other “dead people.” This unnerved me at the time, because D. Scott Rogo, who wrote of this in his book Telephone Calls from the Dead (Berkley, 1980), was murdered by an unknown assailant. I was terrified that the mysterious, staticky telephone message might be an omen of my own impending death.

But I am still here, obviously.

So I don’t doubt the reality of anything “paranormal.” Matter of fact, I’m something of a solipsist—a “simulation theory” guy. I don’t doubt Universal Consciousness. I doubt the material world, which quantum physics posits as nothing more than an illusion.

Even if you can’t accept THAT, you have to accept that one day you’ll die. The lights instantly go out, and ALL of this disappears. What is the importance of it, finally?

Well… keep watching the skies.

Baker out.

Links to my own books on paranormal topics. Note: for the most part, the titles were not chosen by me, but are the publisher's title:

HAUNTED INDIANAPOLIS AND OTHER INDIANA GHOST STORIES W/ Jonathan Titchenal

INDIANA GHOST FOLKLORE

MIDWEST UFOS (AND BEYOND!)

GLORY: A LITTLE HANDBOOK OF THE PSYCHIC LIFE

Mysteries from Beyond Earth (1975) Documentary on UFOs, paranormal, Bermuda Triangle - much more!

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