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conspiracy theory

Calling All Earthlings – The Look of Faith?

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In the California desert, near Joshua Tree and 29 Palms stands a strange domed building that is the focus of belief in UFOs, conspiracy theories, and a small part of the birth of the counter-culture and emergence of New Age ideas. Calling All Earthlings is a documentary that uses that building to look at the time it was built—and also a bit of what faith can look like.

In the 1950s, aerospace engineer George Van Tassel met a visitor from Venus who took him onto his spaceship and revealed the secret of rejuvenation to him. It is from this that Van Tassel got the plans to build the Integratron. This building would create an energy field that would make it possible for people to live much longer lives. While the construction was going on, Van Tassel hosted an annual Interplanetary Spacecraft Convention which drew thousands of people to the desert.

Since this is at the height of the Cold War, this also attracted the attention of the FBI (in part because of letters from local people) as a possible front for Communist activity. When Van Tassel died shortly before the planned activation of the Integratron, many wondered if foul play was involved.

Integratron creator George Van Tassel.

This sounds like it belongs in The X-Files. Filmmaker Jonathan Berman talks with both skeptics and believers as he explores the meaning of this building in the middle of nowhere. I expect this film will be met by some with head shaking that anyone would buy into this, but also by some who will find vindication for their belief in things beyond our understanding.

Put me with the head shakers. But I also thought as I was watching this that these people, with their acceptance of something that seems so absolutely ludicrous, are a model of what many people of faith seem like to those outside of faith. When people of faith tell stories of a man walking on water or feeding 5000 with five loaves of bread and two fish, or when we hear Paul (or Mohammed [pbuh] in another faith tradition) speak of being taken up into heaven, do we seem just as ludicrous as the Intergratron faithful seem to me? Which raises a question that the film never quite gets to—what is the nature of belief? It is that question that I would suggest people consider as they watch the film.

Photos courtesy of  filmmaker  Copyright  2018  Carpe  Stella  Productions

Operation Avalanche – Do You Disbelieve?

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Operation Avalanche is a mockumentary about a mockumentary dealing with a conspiracy of a hoax. Needless to say, truth is not high on the agenda.

In 1967 the CIA suspects that the Soviets have a mole in the NASA space program. A pair of young agents (Matt Johnson and Owen Williams) make a pitch to infiltrate NASA under the guise of making a documentary about the Apollo project. Johnson and Williams are the kind of guys who were probably the AV nerds back in high school. They set about getting into offices and setting bugs. They learn a terrible secret—that it’s not possible to send men to the moon and get them back safely. Of course in the 1960s this was a major national goal. JFK had made the challenge and we were determined to see it happen. So something had to be done. The pair then shift from their search of the Russian mole to finding a way to fake a moon landing and save American prestige and honor.

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Of course there have been various conspiracy theories that claim that the moon landings were a hoax. Some of those theories assert that the landings were created by filmmaker Stanley Kubrick. Kubrick is not directly involved in the conspiracy here, but the agents do go to his set to get ideas about how to fake a moon landing. Another tip of the hat to Kubrick is seen in a motel room where the bedspread has the same design as the carpet in the hotel in The Shining. (For more about Kubrick in these conspiracy theories, see Room 237, a documentary about various interpretations of The Shining, one of which is that it is his “confession” of faking the moon landings.)

This is clearly not a serious attempt to give credence to the conspiracy theories, rather it is a farce that shows an improbable scenario for these ludicrous claims. The film plays up the amateurish filmmaking of the young agents. To think that people of that quality could be behind such an elaborate scheme is preposterous.

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The underlying issue of the film is really about belief and disbelief. Why is it that some people are so willing to not believe something? And the antithesis is also important: why are some people willing to believe something? It is interesting that in the case of these hoax conspiracy theories, disbelief is an act of faith, while belief in the moon landings is the response to evidence. Does that apply to the way we understand faith in a religious context? In Hebrews 11:1 we read “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” Is faith something as unlikely as these conspiracy theories, or is there something more substantial to faith?

Photos courtesy of Lionsgate Premiere