see the second post above!
I've contributed a rather long-winded essay to Robbie Graham's Silver Screen Saucers. the post has the screaming headline of GUEST BLOGGER EXCLUSIVE all capital letters, bold red type and it's italicized!
The post is titled:
Alien-human hybridization as predicted by Hollywood (linked here)
Alien-human hybridization as predicted by Hollywood (linked here)
There was a made-for-TV movies from 1974 titled The Stranger Within. It stars Barbara Eden (form I Dream Of Jeanne) in a dramatic role. She plays a suburban housewife who is mysteriously pregnant with an alien hybrid.
The movie was based on a 1953 short story by Richard Matheson titled Mother by Protest (later re-published as Trespass). Matheson himself adapted it for the small screen. The short story is essentially the same as the movie, including some word-for-word dialog.
The movie was based on a 1953 short story by Richard Matheson titled Mother by Protest (later re-published as Trespass). Matheson himself adapted it for the small screen. The short story is essentially the same as the movie, including some word-for-word dialog.
What is positively bizarre is that a story from 1953 could so accurately predict a long list of details that have only recently emerged in the UFO abduction meme. There are presently books filled with accounts of mysteriously pregnant woman and alien hybrid babies, but how did these ideas manifest themselves almost 60 yeas ago?
Here's a brief excerpt:
I dug into The Stranger Within for emotional and personal reasons, there was nothing at all logical in my investigation. Peering into this made-for-TV movie unleashed a flood of synchronistic weirdness. Something palpable emerged and parts of it are aligned with my direct experience. I started this exhaustive essay by saying “bits of that movie have been stuck in my head for the last 38 years.” I was describing a very real itch, and when I started scratching, something elusive showed itself.
Please note:
I now have an even longer version of this essay. It's offered as a down-loadable PDF below.
Click on the button on the far right to view in FULL-SCREEN mode.
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Mike, do we know something about Matheson's religious beliefs? Was he raised a Christian? Catholic? Pastafarian? ;)
ReplyDeleteIt would be really cool if someone could contact him and ask him about what inspired him to write that short story.
Fantastic. I know I've said it already but I don't care.
" There are presently books filled with accounts of mysteriously pregnant woman and alien hybrid babies, but how did these ideas manifest themselves almost 60 yeas ago? "
ReplyDeleteThat sounds like you may need to do an audio conversation with the man himself?
And talking about Hollywood,have you heard of Richard Martini (assistant to director of the movie "Salt"- Phillip Noyce)
and his new book "Flipside" ?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMNv99gyCtI&feature=player_embedded
Interesting talk,but I haven't read his book.
Matheson is visionary. Gete an interview with him, Mike. You'll see.
ReplyDeleteOh, well, that's GET not gete!!
ReplyDeleteReminds me of the good ol' synchromystic stuff, with a better narrative thread.
ReplyDeleteIt seems that you inadvertently argued in favor for pop-culture informed experience- Though I give you all the credit in the world for being honest.
Currently I find my own views challenged. I believe that experiencers, do witness something profound, but the amount of possible, pop-culture, "artifacts", seeded within the accounts are making me question whether or not testimony is compromised. The notion of triangle shaped craft, popularly conflated on the x-files, as extraterrestrial craft (-though we know now sightings coincide with the manufacture of the stealth fighter/bomber), are still proliferated as ufos. I'm beginning to seriously wonder, when faced with these experiences, are they so other, that our psyches draw on our modern myths to best attempt reconciliation?
You & your contemporary's of late, have been throwing around the idea that the desperate paranormal areas (: cryptids, aliens/ufos, spirits, and all that is fortean), may be describing the same/related phenomenon. Too simplistic though it may be, is it too far a stretch assuming, it's related by our inability to adequately interpret these experiences and, instead substitute and, conflate what our unconscious holds to be a similarly, profound, representation, to best reconcile this "other" with reality- rather than jeopardizing the self via faulted worldview- thus a fractured mind. I'd assume it'd be easier for the mind to handle falling into a known myth/movie/etc. than it would be to accept a reality of something entirely alien.
You're work is always well laid-out, thoughtful, and always worth my time.
That was a thoughtful read and I am looking forward to the PDF.
ReplyDeleteSo much of our existence feels like questions that can't be answered, only speculated upon. We have fractures but no memory of the breaking events. Were they big or small?
Be well, Delorus
Bravo! Enjoyed very much.
ReplyDeleteCindy
~ Lucretia here:
ReplyDeleteGotta say regarding the David Huggins painting with "Crescent"-? Yeah, dig the wig?
Meanwhile, I don't know if you ever had the chance to talk to Budd about all the novelists and screenwriters he knew who WERE abductees and had experiences back in the 40s, 50s, 60s... I know one of the regular writers of the original Star Trek was an abductee.
Part of the problem of the notion that somehow the media is causing people to have similar experiences, or that maybe the experiences are copying expectations people have--? (I'm saying this in reaction to comments here and on the site of the essay.) --Is that there's an assumption that abductees can't be part of the "mainstream" society. By far and away, most of them ARE. There are plenty of abductees that know what they are, and have these experiences, but keep it a secret. A few of them sublimate their experiences, either consciously or subconsciously, by writing fiction stories that are inspired by things that they either remember, or perhaps suspect (SO much happens that gets suppressed in the memory, but it can 'leak' out in creative ways) or maybe they just have a weird idea they can't get rid of and can't discuss-- but gosh! It would make a great story!
Abductees are people too. Before assuming that they are copying narratives from fiction, it would be great if more of the general public knew how many of these fiction stories really ARE inspired by real experiences.
Sometimes people are inspired by true accounts. Sometimes they may be 'plugging in' to something out of normal awareness. And sometimes they're sharing bits and pieces of their own experiences in the only safe way they can-- through fiction.
Just saying. I don't know that many of them would admit it, although certainly back in the day Budd knew many of these people personally. Most would never publicly admit it because it would destroy their careers.
Thank you, Mike. Great essay-- and you touched on so many details that just are jarring in so many ways. Lots to think about.
Reply to Lucretia Heart:
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Richard Matheson wrote ONE episode of Star Trek.
So, he wasn't the "regular" writer you commented on.
Right?
peace,
Mike C!
~ Lucretia here:
ReplyDeleteThat Matheson wrote an episode doesn't surprise me, but no-- he's not the one I'm thinking of. =^)
I'm imagining an 'entity' that is a non-material cloud of pure consciousness. As it enters our domain, it's presence is at first perceivable in the dreams of artists and the like. Some of them bleed into pictures, or paintings, or poems. (Is there anything more uncanny than the paintings by Max Earnst that Christopher Knowles featured on Secret Sun?) As it draws closer, more people see it. By seeing it, they are giving it expression. Breathing into it a form.
ReplyDeleteI don't believe in the notion of 'predictive programming' per Alan Watt (who seems to have basically just made it up), but I do see the patterns, as Knowles so eloquently describes in his posts about Jack Kirby's uncanny muse.
Vallee wrote of the dual nature of 'the thing', as did Jung - having both physical and non physical characteristics. And we know, as Vallee also described, of the narrative template that seems to be common to ancient tales of fairies, and modern tales of aliens. With phenomena such as 'air-ships', I see a 'transitional form' in the evolution of the the idea-machine-entity-cloud-thing. In my OWN sighting of 'ufos', that the thing that struck me... they looked just the tiny balls of light I once called fairies, or little people...and when I was visited by light beings that shattered my understanding of the world with a beam of what I can only describe as golden-white-love-light, they at first appeared as humanoid forms, and then collapsed into balls of light. And in all of these episodes, there was the distinct feeling of in invisible blanket called 'the real', utterly vanishing, leaving me existentially naked and confused... like I suddenly noticed I was on a very well crafted movie set... and again, naked.
I think the hardest trick to the whole mess is the illusion of 'out there' vs. 'in here'. I don't have ready recall of the specifics, but I recall the Buddha (allegedly) having spoken on this issue. I know that with respect to my own most profound contacts with 'entities' they have been in one sense, 'internal', insofar as they are subjective, and I saw them mainly in my mind's eye, but they were also in a sense 'out there', insofar as I had the distinct impression of imaginal commerce taking place with a distinct 'other', both in terms of sentience and location.
The major flaw in my beginning analogy, is that I can't see a time when 'the cloud' ever wasn't. In other words, is it really, creeping up on us, us just, changing over time the manner in which it interacts with our imagination, ever and always "approaching" from a vector that transcends any notion of outer and inner? The ultimate pincer move.
When we look for answers as to whether this is a feature of the mind, or the 'objective' world, I start to wonder if we have any business holding such a notion as 'objective', or if, as some have argued, there is nothing other than inter-subjective consensus. To again touch upon my own experiences, they have the powerful quality of awaking from a dream - of remembering, not learning. And just as when we awaken from a dream, a 'reality' that was solidly real, suddenly isn't, in the literal blink of an eye. Sometimes there is blurring, as we experience lucidity in dreams; perhaps the same is occurring when we have 'mystical' experiences. Perhaps this is akin to when towards the end of a dream, objects on our bedroom become part of dream narrative, such as when my alarm clock once became a daemon. (I find that one instructive on the human fear of death, actually. We don't want to give up the dream...)
(continued.....)
(part 2...sorry, I was on a roll...)
ReplyDeleteAnyhow. I don't think it's as simple as: a TV show existed, and then people maybe saw it, or heard of it, and then later had a fantastically complex 'hallucination' that just happens to borrow the plot. No. That does nothing to explain men like Earnst, or Kirby, or the kindly farmer who introduced the world to air-ship pancake mix. It's definitely something more.
Is it real? Is it physical? Is it imaginal? Well, are we so clear on what this difference is? I don't think we are. Not at all. I think it's the crux of the mystery of our existence, this.
On that note, what are we to make of this other divide we straddle, between 'self' and 'other'... is it possible that this is possibly as ephemeral as our faith in an 'objective reality' that can be obliterated in the literal blink of an eye?
Thanks for the post, Mike. This 'Twilight Zone' is right where the heart of the mystery lies, I think. Now I'll have to check on that movie!
Be well.
-GLU (aka, DM)
ugh. I hate my typos. oh well. my eyes are heavy. is what it is....
ReplyDelete