Aliens Invade Laurel Canyon

I recently posted an audio podcast of my talk on Dave McGowan’s Weird Scenes Inside the Canyon over at the SSI. That raised the issue of Wavelength, a 1983 film that seems like a strange kind of companion piece to the book.

A lot of people have been asking about this piece, which was published in an anthology some years ago. It’s quite long, so I am breaking it up into parts, which I’ll be posting in a series. 

But first, the news...

I did a pop-up livestream on the Snake Eyes/Charlie Kirk syncs last night. 

It's a wild ride and you can watch the whole thing here.

And of course...

It's finally here - XF-ULTRA
is now available in paperback,
hardcover, and Kindle!

Here's the lowdown...

From the co-author of
The Complete X-Files,
comes the deepest dive
on The X-Files, ever.

XF-ULTRA is an exhaustive and obsessive guide to the only TV series that really matters, going places no other book dare go. Whether you're already a hardcore X-Files fan or just a novice, this is the one book you have to read to truly understand what you're seeing play out on your screen.
 
First, we start with the basics:

Pre-Season: A behind-the-scenes look at the creation and development of The X-Files.

X-Ancestors: A comprehensive look at the TV shows and movies that influenced The X-Files.

UFO Conspiracy Theories: An introduction to the history of UFOlogy, as well as the parapolitical figures and events that shaped The X-Files’ storylines.

Human Experimentation: An overview of the dark history of medical abuse that lies at the very heart of The X-Files.

Declassified: Deep background on each of the series’ eleven seasons.

Case Dossiers: Detailed reviews covering all the episodes and feature films, packed to the gills with behind-the-scenes information and presented in an accessible, capsulized format.

A Season of Conspiracy: Overviews of the controversial and momentous real-world events that took place during each season of The X-Files.

Then we go DEEP…

The Mytharc for Beginners: A comprehensive primer that breaks down and lays out the X-Files Mythology arc, presented in an accessible format.

Myths Behind the Mytharc: An extensive and comprehensive deep dive into the ancient myths that influenced The X-Files’ Mythology.  

The First Toxic Fandom: An insider’s look at how The X-Files inadvertently cultivated unhealthy and abusive online communities.

TV in the Wake of XF: A detailed survey of the TV shows and movies that were influenced by The X-Files.

But wait! There’s more!

“Real-Life X-Files”: A skeptical examination of the UFO disclosure cult and the so-called “real-life X-Files.”

Ancient Abduction: A look at the ancient cults that worshipped mysterious flying objects, even one that devised a way to initiate alien contact!

Millennium: A look at Chris Carter's revolutionary crime drama.

The Lone Gunmen and 9/11: A hard look at the X-Files' spinoff and its eerie foreshadowing of one of the darkest days in American history.

PLUS:

• Deep dives into some of the real-world characters whose lives eerily parallel those we’ve seen on The X-Files. 

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XF-ULTRA is already a Top 20 hit on Kindle!

XF-ULTRA: THE DEEPEST DIVE
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• Off The Record addenda:

  • 70s Conspiracy Thrillers
  • The Unabomber
  • Oklahoma City
  • Edward Snowden
  • The Patriot Act
  • The Secret Space Program

  
  PLUS:

  • Deep dives on the Solar Temple and Heaven’s Gate cults and their influence on The X-Files.
  • Overviews of the major themes running throughout the series
  • Reviews of all the X-Files books, graphic novels, and CDs.
    
    

  And much, much more besides!

Available in paperback, hardcover
and Kindle at Amazons everywhere!

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FRZ21VF4
 

• • • • • • • • • • • • • 

I'm not quite sure how it happened, but somewhere in the course of my wanderings I came across this strange interview from the Project Camelot site.

It wasn't from the Dying NASA Scientist, but close; it was from a physicist who claimed to work at Lawrence Livermore National Labs in California. In it, he made this rather startling claim.

What can you tell us about the ET presence?

Look up the movie Wavelength. It’s based on a totally true story. Have you seen it? It's based on an incident that took place at Hunter Liggett. This is a hot one. 

You shot down a disk?

[shaking head] We should never have done it. It wasn't me personally, but the group did. Between us we had all this gizmo weaponry and I guess they panicked and thought they were in a movie or something. 

The disk was disabled and it was captured, and so were the occupants, and I saw these very briefly. They were small child-like humanoids, with no hair. And they had small eyes, not large almond-shaped eyes. I don’t think anyone knows about this. As far as I know it’s not on the internet.

This is incredible. I've never heard of this incident.

 Most of the other witnesses ended up in Vietnam and many were killed. I may be the only living witness to what happened... I don’t know. The rest of the story is in a sci-fi movie called Wavelength, which was released in the early '80s. I’d never heard of it until I ran into it years later, in Arizona. Did I just say this? [laughs, for the first time]When I saw the video, I was expecting some, you know, light entertainment with a beer or two, but I mean, my mouth just hung wide open. 

The beginning of the film just completely clearly and accurately describes the incident, and the film is very close to the rest of the story, including the use of an abandoned Nike base in Southern California to store them. Go find it. It’s all basically true. I was just amazed when I saw it. The person who wrote it must have been there, or knew someone who was there. But I don’t know who.

I'd never heard of the film Wavelength, which is strange since I had my ear quite low to the ground in 1983, being a regular Starlog reader. It probably never got released in the Boston area. It was an independent film, shot in 1981 but not released until the middle of 1983. Critics at the time compared to E.T., but it could be not less similar. 

After re-watching the film and doing some research, I would most definitely say it was based on a true story, one that's popped up in allegorical form in some other venues, including The X-Files. 

But although it does have something to do with aliens and the area around Hunter Liggett, I would venture to guess it has nothing to do with a crashed flying saucer or recovered alien pilots. Rather it has to do with a dark and disgraceful chapter in postwar America...

Wavelength was written by Mike Gray, a writer and political activist better known for his nonfiction and documentary work. Having earned a degree in aeronautical engineering from Perdue (that's Gus Grissom's alma mater, for those of you keeping score at home), Gray also worked for Aviation Age and later went into advertising. In Chicago he formed a film group that began producing commercials but soon began making highly-charged political documentaries.

Gray's group made documentaries on the protests at the 1968 Democratic National Convention as well as the murder of Black Panther Fred Hampton. These earned him some unwelcome attention from the Chicago Police, encouraging his migration to Los Angeles. Gray was also highly critical of drug war policy and wrote about its negative effects on the country up until his death for magazines such as Rolling Stone.

Read the whole thing here.