Rev. Loveshade with one of his sock puppets.In 2015, a somewhat amusing bio of yours truly was posted at Discordia Wikia that is almost 23 percent accurate and presumably written by someone identified as Miley Spears, who in reality is a sock puppet of a self-styled Discordian named Reverend Loveshade who—it appears—has not only created this Miley Spears persona, but also a number of other phony Discordian characters such as Pope Hilde, Gypsie Skripto, not to mention a certain Johnny Shellburn (the same name of the protagonist in Kerry Thornley’s Idle Warriors) who operates KerryThornley.com where you can find an imaginary interview conducted by the aforementioned Pope Hilde with a supposed early Discordian named Richard Marshall who also probably never existed—or at least never existed in the sense that the interview suggests.
Confused yet?
Richard Marshall—it so happens—also has a Discordia Wikia page which is also probably 23 percent accurate (at best!) although there actually was a real Richard Marshall who lived in San Francisco during the same period as Discordian Society co-founder Greg Hill, although none of the real Early Discordians I’ve talked to have ever heard of the guy.
According to Richard Marshall’s Discordia Wikia page (written by Miley Spears), Marshall contributed to Principia Discordia and The Illuminatus! Trilogy although I’ve never come across anything in the Discordian Archives to even remotely suggest that these claims have the slightest relation to reality or that Marshall ever knew Greg Hill or Robert Anton Wilson or Kerry Thornley—let alone Michael Arthur Quinn (aka The Midget) who is another imaginary character (based on an Illuminatus! character) apparently cooked up (once again) by Rev. Loveshade, who—it should be noted—also has a Discordia Wikia page submitted by (you guessed it!) Miley Spears, who—as previously noted—is actually the one and only Rev. Loveshade. In other words, the whole thing is a giant sock puppet circle jerk perpetrated by somebody with a lot of spare time on their hands.
In 1970s—according to Loveshade— his mother was purportedly friends with Robert Anton Wilson’s daughter and because of this Loveshade and his hippie mom became acquainted with Wilson, who he affectionately referred to as ‘Grandbob’ and along the way Loveshade “became obsessed with meeting the original Discordians” and that inspired him to (supposedly) track down Greg Hill in the 1990s at a San Francisco watering hole, an account of which appeared in Loveshade’s Ek-sen-trik-kuh Discordia: The Tales of Shamlicht.
Some might suggest that a shaggy dog story about meeting Greg Hill is perfectly acceptable from an Operation Mindfuck standpoint, as a form of pranking and modern myth making. On the one hand—being a card carrying Discordian—I can appreciate this type of culture jamming. On the other hand—with Historia Discordia and related projects — I’ve taken seriously the task of chronicling, as accurately as possible, the early days of the Discordian Society and its influence on the 1960s counterculture and onward. So when imaginary sources create imaginary history, it certainly leads us down a slippery slope.
In 2012, I was contacted by an enterprising Australian lad named Brenton Clutterbuck (which totally sounds like another made up name, but no he’s an actual dude) who informed me that he was working on a book project about modern day Discordianism entitled Chasing Eris.
While discussing with Clutterbuck different latter-day Discordians during a 2012 midnight Skype session, he informed me that as part of his Chasing Eris project he was planning a tour of the U.S. to interview prominent Discordians, including someone going by the name of Gypsie Skripto who had been introduced to him by Johnny Shellburn of KerryThornley.com, who—as previously noted—is another one of Loveshade’s alter egos.
Using the email address given to him by “Johnny Shellburn,” Brenton started a correspondence with Gypsie Skripto, who claimed that she had been friends with Greg Hill and part of the early Discordian scene in San Fran in the 1970s. In response, I told Brenton that I thought someone was yanking his chain, that the Gypsie Skripto in Greg Hill’s Principia Discordia afterword was an obvious literary construct, and that this person posing as Gypsie Skripto had basically co-opted Hill’s imaginary character as a way to troll the internet and create phony Discordian street cred.
Ultimately, Brenton’s planned meeting with Gypsie Skripto in Austin, Texas failed to materialize when she stood him up, using the pretext that she had to attend some last minute political activist hippie rally fundraiser (or some-such) and Brenton soon came to the realization that I was correct in my assumption that “Gypsie Skripto” was just one among a host of other spurious Discordian sock puppets courtesy of Rev. Loveshade.
With all this in mind, we’ll soon have a post up from Mr. Brenton Clutterbuck himself regarding his take on adventures with the Rev. Loveshade and his various sock puppets.
Our last entry recounted Rev. Broshears’ association with Jim Garrison’s investigation, and what Garrison called “Odd Sects” (not to be confused with “odd sex”!) that included a cast of characters scattered not only across JFK assassination lore, but also the funky field of ufology.
Ufology—for those not in the know—is the study of flying saucers, and the spacemen (or spacewomen) who flew in them. As good a place as any to start tugging on this Broshears-UFO thread is with Fred Crisman, who as noted in past installments was (allegedly) one of the three mystery tramps (apparently up to no good) picked up in Dealey Plaza following the JFK’s assassination. But long before Kennedy’s assassination was but a gleam in his eye, Crisman—along with a buddy named Harold Dahl—gained notoriety (or infamy, as the case may be) for their involvement in the Maury Island UFO Incident.
Before traveling back in time to Maury Island, we should acknowledge Kenneth Arnolds’ sighting of “nine gleaming objects” over Mt. Rainer in Washington State on June 24, 1947, an incident that essentially launched the Modern Era of UFOs. An experienced pilot with over 9,000 hours of flight time, Arnold’s sighting added an air of seeming legitimacy to what was considered, at the time, the playing field of crackpots and hoaxers. Not long after his seminal sighting, Arnold became acquainted with Ray Palmer, publisher of the science fiction pulp magazine Amazing Stories, which featured not only the standard sci-fi fare, but also Richard Shaver’s supposedly non-fiction accounts of encounters with diabolical subterranean creatures called Deros who first appeared in his story, “I Remember Lemuria.”
March 1945 edition of Amazing Stories with Richard Shavers 'I Remember Lemuria.'
In July of ’47, Palmer received a cigar box filled with “flying saucer fragments” mailed to him from two men in Tacoma, Washington: Fred Crisman and Harold Dahl. Needless to say, Palmer was a tad dubious about these “flying saucer fragments,” as he’d previously corresponded with Crisman a year earlier. At that time, Crisman claimed that during World War II he and another soldier engaged in a firefight with the some Deros in a cavern in Burma at which time his fellow soldier had been shot with a ray gun that left a dime sized hole in his hand. But that wasn’t all: Crisman offered to travel to a cave in Texas to recover some ancient Dero machinery if Palmer was willing to pony up $500 for expenses. Palmer wisely declined Crisman’s come-on. Not sure what to do with the box of “flying saucer fragments,” Palmer enlisted Kenneth Arnold to investigate what would become known in the annals of ufology as the Maury Island Incident.
Fred Crisman circa early 1970s
On July 29, Arnold flew to Tacoma and his first order of business was to find a hotel room for his stay. After calling around to the cheaper hotels and having no luck securing a room, Arnold phoned the most expensive hotel in town, the Winthrop, and was informed by the desk clerk that there was already a room reserved in his name. When Arnold informed the clerk he hadn’t made a reservation—and that it was probably another person by the same name—he was told that the reservation was indeed booked for a Mr. Kenneth Arnold of Boise, Idaho. Later that day, Arnold interviewed Dahl and Crisman, and this was the story they shared…
On June 21, Dahl (a timber salvage worker/harbor patrolman) was out on his boat on the eastern bay of Maury Island along with his teen-age son and dog when “six large donut-shaped machines” appeared in the sky. One of the ships began laboring when another of its companion craft descended and touched the laboring donut ship as if to repair it, after which it “spewed out” molten fragments—later referred to as “slag”—that rained down on Dahl’s workboat, killing his poor pooch and severely scorching his son’s arm. After ejecting slag spew, the craft rejoined its fellow donut ships and zoomed away. Dahl gathered up some of the slag fragments and returned to the harbor to give his supervisor the lowdown. Dahl’s “supervisor” was Fred Crisman.
Harold Dahl, date unknown.
Uncertain as to the veracity of Crisman and Dahl’s claims, Arnold called in his friend, Captain E.J. Smith (Big Smithy)—a pilot with United Airlines—to assist in the investigation. On the evening of July 30, Arnold received a phone call from UPI reporter Ted Morello, who said he’d received information from some “crackpot” who repeated a full account of Arnold’s investigation up to that point. This led Arnold to suspect his hotel room had been bugged, and that his reservation surreptitiously arranged so that his activities could be monitored. Throughout his investigation, Arnold attempted to keep it on the down-low, and the only ones privy to his activities were Palmer, Big Smithy, Crisman, and Dahl. Because of this, Arnold grew to suspect that Ted Morello had been tipped off by either Crisman or Dahl in an attempt to promote their story. Concerned he was being set up by a couple of confidence men, Arnold placed a call to Air Force Lt. Frank Brown and Captain William Davidson inviting them to join the investigation. The officers accepted Arnold’s invite and flew to Tacoma that same day, but after questioning Crisman and Dahl, they apparently were unimpressed by the men’s story.
Kenneth Arnold (middle) with his buddy, Big Smithy, on the left, no doubt trippin' out on a UFO photo.
Crisman and Dahl invited the Air Force officers to a boat trip to Maury Island, but Brown and Davidson declined, stating they had to return to California early the next morning. As a parting gift, the officers were given a box of Kellogg’s Corn Flakes filled with slag fragments. Arnold and Big Smithy, however, agreed to the Maury Island trip, which ultimately turned out to be a bust. According to Dahl and Crisman, their “patrol boat” had been severely damaged by the slag that had rained down, but when Arnold and Big Smithy examined the vessel there were no signs it’d been damaged, or recently repaired; nor was there any indication of it actually being a patrol boat, and it appeared totally unseaworthy. Unsurprisingly, Crisman and Dahl were unable to start the engine of the boat, which seemed like a convenient excuse to cancel the outing.
Shortly after take-off from McChord Field in Tacoma—in the early hours of August 1, 1947—the B-52 transporting officers Brown and Davidson caught fire and went down in flames, killing both men. The next afternoon, the Tacoma Times featured a curious headline: SABOTAGE HINTED IN CRASH OF ARMY BOMBER AT KELSO. The article reported that the B-52 “had been sabotaged ‘or shot down’ to prevent shipment of flying disc fragments…” and “that the ill-fated craft had been carrying ‘classified material.’” One can assume that Crisman had a hand in spinning this tale, which—if such was the case—seemed like a tasteless PR stunt. To this end, many suspect that Crisman cooked up the Maury Island caper, the intent of which was to sell it to Ray Palmer and cash in on the sudden saucer-craze sweeping the nation. This would support the theory that Crisman, under an assumed identity, contacted reporter Morello to leak details of Arnold’s investigation, and that Arnold’s hotel room had not actually been bugged—it was simply Crisman (affecting an anonymous identity) repeating conversations he’d had with Arnold.
1947 Tacoma Times.
In the aftermath of the B-52 crash, Ted Morello contacted Arnold and Big Smithy telling them he’d received another phone call from an anonymous tipster who informed him that the B-52 had been shot out of the sky.00001 Morello’s source added that, immediately following the crash, Crisman had been reactivated for military duty and assigned to Alaska, which suggested the Feds swooped in and spirited him away as a means of quashing further Maury Island inquiries.
Before leaving Tacoma, Big Smithy contacted an Army intelligence officer stationed at McChord Field named Major George Sanders, who met with Arnold and Big Smithy and informed them that the B-52 crash had been an accident, and not the result of sabotage.00002 Sanders then drove the men to a local steel mill to show them a smelter which he believed was the source of the supposedly otherworldly slag.
On Arnold’s flight home, the apparent veil of doom hanging over this episode reared its head when he lost power to the engine of his plane. Fortunately, Arnold was able to land safely in Boise, although afterwards he needed a change of undergarments. Shaken by these events, Arnold dropped the Maury Island case, as he felt no conclusive evidence had emerged during his investigation, as well the suspicion that Crisman and Dahl had been trying to pull a fast one.
A few days after Arnold left Tacoma, Crisman and Dahl visited the local FBI office claiming they had no clue about anything related to Maury Island or a saucer sighting there.00003 Crisman and Dahl’s story was that they’d discovered fragments of what they believed might have been flying saucer, then afterwards sent them to a lab at the University of Chicago for analysis. Somewhere along the way—according to Crisman and Dahl—Ray Palmer learned about the slag and contacted them, which in turn led to Kenneth Arnold’s involvement with the case.
August 10, 1947 The New York Times article on Maury Island Incident.The deeper one delves into the Maury Island Incident, the more conflicting stories emerge, which is to be expected when you have an apparent flimflam man like Crisman involved, as demonstrated in this New York Times story from August 10, 1947.
After the dust (or slag) had settled, Project Sign investigators determined that the Maury Island Incident was a hoax, and at one point the Air Force considered filing charges against Crisman and Dahl. Crisman sent a letter to Fate Magazine in January 1950 denying he’d perpetrated a hoax or that he bore any responsibility for the deaths of the two Air Force officers.00004
Contrary to popular legend, Crisman hadn’t actually been spirited away to Alaska immediately following the Maury Island caper, although he had been called up for active duty in the Korean War in 1951 and assigned overseas as a P-51 fighter pilot. According to researcher Mike Sylwester: “[Crisman] suffered a great deal from a premonition he would be killed, and he was reassigned to fly transport flights between Korea and Japan. Eventually, he began to suffer such anxiety that he was hospitalized in Japan. He began to abuse tranquilizers during this period…”00005
In 1953, Crisman separated from the military, leaving with the rank of reserve major. That same year he became a high school teacher in Elgin, Oregon, and then later, in 1956, the Superintendent of Schools in Huntington, Oregon.
Crisman became “involved in the UFO fringe with Frank Stranges and Wayne Aho” in 1958.00006
That same year, in an issue of Ray Palmer’s Flying Saucer magazine, Crisman (using the pseudonym of Eldon Everett) wrote in to the letters section to recount his Maury Island yarn, in addition to other saucer encounters he’d supposedly experienced in the ensuing years. Also in 1958, Crisman was arrested for drunk driving and disorderly conduct, at which time it was discovered he was under the influence of barbiturates. Due to this incident, Crisman was fired from his teaching job. According to Mike Sylwester: ”[Crisman] aggravated this situation [with the police] by making strange remarks, such as that he had a metal plate in his head.” Following his firing from the teaching job, Crisman worked for a couple years at Boeing Aircraft as a “personnel representative.”
In the mid 1960s, Crisman was joined in his flying saucer hobby by the one and only Thomas Edward Beckham, a colorful and criminally inclined character introduced in Part 00002 of this series.
In his testimony before the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) in 1978, Beckham stated that “Crisman had been a CIA agent and he had worked on a thing called Project Bluebook…”
1972 mug shot of Thomas Edward Beckham.
Crisman claimed it was Harold Dahl who first introduced him to Tom Beckham, which differed from Beckham’s account, who said he was living in Olympia, Washington, in late 1964 when he came across a magazine ad for membership with a “Parapsychology Association” operated by Crisman. Afterwards, Beckham traveled to Tacoma to meet with Crisman and the two men became partners in a wide range of dubious activities. During this same period, Crisman re-entered the teaching profession with a job at Cascade Union High School in Salem, Oregon, a position that lasted only two years before he was fired for “forming a secret student organization… Crisman formed the organization and conducted meetings on school premises without authority.” A school board ruling stated that the “organization is of such a nature that it should not be condoned or authorized to exist in this district.”
Newspaper article about Fred Crisman being fired as a high school teacher.After his dismissal from Cascade Union High School, Crisman began a career as what some have described as a right-wing propagandist employed by the Riconosciuto Marketing Agency. Crisman’s job description included speech writing and PR for conservative politicians in the Tacoma area, activities that overlapped with a daily radio show Crisman hosted, using the alias of Jon Gold, on radio station KAYE. At the time—according to certain accounts—Crisman was involved in spreading political propaganda, which he presented as an anti-corruption campaign waged against local government. Crisman’s version of events was later recounted in Murder of a City… Tacoma (1970), authored by Crisman under his Jon Gold pseudonym. The book blurb for Murder of the City… Tacoma reads:
“Fred L. Crisman, known to his radio and television audiences as Jon Gold… born in Tacoma… was swept up in the battle of political philosophy that now rages in that city… Naming himself a Liberal Democrat, he has been classified as a Far Right extremist… He denies being anything but what he is, a sincere man, dedicated to seeing the return of decent, honest, representative government to his home town. His planned broadcasts of political propaganda were never… other than… propaganda. (A) conspiracy… worked to bar him from the airwaves…”
Cover of Murder of a City... Tacoma by Jon Gold (Fred Crisman).
Murder of the City… Tacoma is quite rare, so I haven’t been able as of yet to lay my hands on a copy, but an industrious researcher named Jeff Suwak has been posting about the book here.
One of the players involved in the Murder of a City saga was Crisman’s boss, Marshall Riconosciuto, the father of Michael Riconosciuto (aka “Danger Man”), a scientific whiz kid who referred to Crisman as his “mentor.” In the early 1980s, Riconosciuto was involved with a secret version of the Promis software a la the Inslaw affair, all part of an elaborate conspiracy laid out in The Octopus: Secret Government and the Death of Danny Casolaro.
Michael Riconosciuto aka 'Danger Man.'In the Martinsburg, West Virginia, hotel room where Casolaro allegedly committed suicide in August of 1991, notes were discovered that mentioned “MJ 12—extraterrestrial,” and “Area #51.” The source of Casolaro’s UFO info was Michael Riconosciuto, who also alleged that Fred Crisman had hoaxed the Maury Island Incident to cover up a radioactive liquid metal that had been sprayed over Maury Island by Boeing Aircraft as part of a secret experiment. As previously noted, Crisman worked at Boeing in the late 1950s/early 1960s, and due to this association conspiracy researchers have connected Boeing and Crisman as agents of the dastardly military-industrial complex that also allegedly had a hand in the JFK assassination dance party.
More saucer news! On August 12, 1967, Fred Crisman and Thomas Beckham organized the “First Midwest UFO Conference” in Omaha, Nebraska, although Crisman was a no-show for the event.00007 That same year, Crisman appeared at the “Northwest UFO Space Convention” in Seattle where he recounted the Maury Island Incident and claimed that he possessed photos of the slag spewing donut ships, but for whatever reasons decided not to present them, nor have these photos ever surfaced, if indeed they ever existed (which of course they probably didn’t).
In early 1968, Crisman (using the pseudonym of Fred Lee) wrote to Lucius Farish of the Parapsychology Research Group, stating that, “Mr. Crisman is probably the most informed man in the United States on UFOs and also one of the hardest to find—as the FBI has learned several times!”00008
Researcher Mike Sylwester interviewed Crisman’s son, Fred Lee Crisman, Jr., who informed him that: “In the last weeks of his life, [Fred Crisman] was at home reading a book about alien abductions, and he suddenly passed out because of kidney failure. When he regained consciousness, he was in an intensive care ward, hooked up to a lot of hospital equipment and surrounded by personnel in masks and gowns. For a few moments, [Crisman] wondered if he himself had been abducted on to a spaceship…”00009 Crisman, at one time or another, claimed that the character of David Vincent, portrayed by Roy Thinnes in the ‘60s TV series The Invaders, was based on his life.
Another odd UFO twist in the Crisman saga was his association with a group called the “Servants of Awareness” that nowadays goes by the name “Cosmic Awareness Communications.” According to JFK assassination researcher Joan Mellen: “By 1968 Crisman would be investigated for narcotics activity in connection with… [the] Servants of Awareness.”00010 In the late 1980s, I became aware of this group courtesy of Tim Cridland’s Off The Deep End zine that featured, on occasion, Cosmic Awareness Communications broadsides and advertisements, such as the kooky one below.
Cosmic Awareness Communications advert.
Although there’s no evidence that Rev. Broshears ever met Crisman in the flesh, he corresponded, on occasion, with Thomas Beckham. Beckham, Crisman and Broshears were acquaintances of the Reverend (or Dr., depending on how he wished to present himself) Frank Stranges, author of Stranger At The Pentagon, the story of Venusian Captain “Valiant Thor.” According to Stranges, after Val Thor had met with the President and members of the Joint Chiefs, he had a meeting with Stranges at the Pentagon.
Frank Stranges and his charming wife Bernice with Buddy Ebson, television's own Jed Clampett!
Stranges was director of the National Investigations Committee on Unidentified Flying Objects (NICUFO), a group he started after being kicked out of the more well-known and quasi-respectable National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena (NICAP).
Membership brochure for Frank Stranges’ National Investigations Committee on Unidentified Flying Objects.
In addition to his saucer activities, Stranges was President of the International Theological Seminary of California, which appears basically to have been a diploma mill he cooked up. To this end, Stranges was famous for bestowing titles upon himself, including the prestigious FBI Gold Medal, which in reality was also a totally made up award. Stranges’ supposed association with the FBI drew the ire of the Secretary of NICAP, Richard Hall, who contacted the Feds on April 27, 1962, as documented in the letter below:
April 27, 1962 letter from Richard Hall of NICAP to J. Edgar Hoover, FBI reagarding Frank Stranges.
According to an FBI memoranda dated May 3, 1962:
“…a review of the enclosed material indicates that allegations against Dr. Stranges pertain to a period in August and October, 1960. In October, 1960, the Seattle Office conducted an investigation concerning Dr. Stranges after information was received that he was implying that he was at that time or previously connected with the FBI. During the investigation no one was located who had actually heard Dr. Stranges make any such allegation although it was generally conceded that he had left a number of people with such an impression. Dr. Stranges is an evangelist. Based on his background, numerous addresses and organizations which he has had and the fact he claims to have talked to an individual from the planet Venus, it appears he may be also something of a confidence man…”
Rev. Broshears hosted a number of UFO events at which Stranges appeared as guest speaker, such as this following promoted in Broshears’ Light and Understanding from November, 1968.
November 1968 Light of Understanding.
That same year, Stranges assumed leadership of a “religious organization” formerly overseen by Rev. Broshears called The Council of New Age Churches (CNAC). It’s not clear what CNAC was about, but some of Broshears correspondence suggests it never really amounted to much, but was yet another title that Stranges could add to his ever expanding rolodex of fake titles.
Rev. Broshears’ Doctor of Divinity diploma provided by Frank Stranges and the Faith Bible College and Theological Seminary. (Fake!)
Crisman and Beckham likewise ran a number of dicey diploma mills, and it was from one such that Dr. Stranges earned a Ph.D. from the National Institute of Criminology, a title listed on the back cover of The Stranger from the Pentagon.
Although Stranges presented himself as a pseudo law enforcement official, there’s no indication he was ever on the right side of the law, and on many occasions found himself leaning more towards the dark side. In 1972, an aircraft with a bent propeller attempted to take off from Thermal, California. Besides the pilot, the only other person on board was Rev. Stranges. Police found about 400 pounds of marijuana in the plane. Stranges was convicted of attempting to transport an illegal substance and sentenced to eight months in prison and three years probation.
In 1974, Stranges hosted the “8th Annual UFO Space and Science International Convention” in Anaheim, California, advertising William Shatner, astronaut James Irwin, and U2 pilot Francis Gary Powers as featured speakers. All said they had either refused, cancelled, or never heard of Rev. Stranges.
Rev. Robert Short synchronizing his chakras.
Another of Broshears’ ufological allies was Rev. Robert Short, for whom Broshears organized an event at the Los Altos Public Library chronicled in a July 9, 1968 Long Beach Independent Press-Telegram entitled “Outer Space Chef Tosses Bewildering Salad.” Staff writer Frank Anderson described Short as:
…an outer space chef, [who] cut some green cheese from the moon, mixed it with horse radish and served it up on flying saucers…
Billed as a lecturer of unidentified flying objects, Short confined most of his remarks to communiqués from extra-terrestrial sources which have been published in the Solar Space Letter of his Solar Space Foundation at Joshua Tree.
The audience of 30 persons appeared mystified by it all, for the knowledge by Short flew by faster than the cafeteria line at a tape worms’ convention.
Short was introduced by Rev. Raymond Broshears, pastor of the sponsoring Church of God of Light. After some Hawaiian music, the lecture began with Short telling his audience how outer space beings tune in on earthlings.
It’s done, he said, by means of a resotron, a device that fits on the head like a hair-dryer and immediately translates earthlings thoughts and language into super space intelligence.
Having cleared up this awesome technology, Short read some documents, the substance of which is that the United Nations just isn’t interested in UFOs and “please stop writing to this office.”
Next came the slides. The first one purported to be outer space lights seen through pink clouds—but if you thought it was a slice of liver left too long in the hot sun, you wouldn’t be far off the mark.
This was followed by what appeared to be a human eyeball the day after New Year’s—or an under-fried egg.
Short —perspiring freely in his royal blue turtleneck, dark blue blazer and canary yellow slacks—got the next slide in upside down and backwards. But his apology was wasted—the audience didn’t know the difference…
Pity the poor Martian trying to decode Monday night’s proceedings on his resotron. He’ll think he blew a fuse.
Like a number of UFO contactees, Rev. Short channeled Commander Ashtar and by the mid-1950s (under the non-de-plume of Bill Rose) started an organization called “Ashtar Command” to monetize his otherworldly communications. Rev. Short and his spunky wife Shirley operate the Blue Rose Ministry out of their home in Cornville, Arizona, and publish The Solar Space Newsletter where “You can learn the mystic connection between the Hopi’s, the Pope’s and the UFO’s!” For many years, the Shorts were familiar figures on the flying saucer lecture circuit where the good reverend was usually more than happy (for a free will love offering of around $20 or so) to put on eye shades and perform psychic readings courtesy of Ashtar or Korton or whatever entity was possessing his vocal chords at the time. As my friend Greg Bishop recalled:
At the International UFO Congress in 2004, Bob Short set up a TV tray in the merch room (because he couldn’t afford a table) and gave psychic readings. I gave him $20 and he gave me a $20 performance. He went into a trance and began to spout extreme generalities which could apply to almost anyone. I was not very helpful with any feedback to lead him, so he continued in this vein. It was a fun session, mainly because I just wanted to help him out with a few bucks and see how good he might be. I recorded the session, but mistakenly recorded over it with a bootleg recording of a Hasil Adkins concert.
Rev. Short’s psychic readings table at the 2004 UFO Congress. Photo: Greg Bishop.
'A' is for Adamski: The Golden Age of the UFO Contactees by Adam Gorightly and Greg BishopThanks to Greg Bishop for assistance with portions of this article, some of which were ripped from the pages of our recently released “A” is for Adamski: The Golden Age of the UFO Contactees (Available now in a Black & White version or a Full Color version).
I’ve compiled a hot mess of Maury Island files, FOI and otherwise, here.
Rev. Billy James Hargis with a portrait of Jesus (with a haircut!) and miniature knight-in-armor (Christian Crusader?), not to mention an American flag to emphasize the point that Hargis was an anti-commie patriot.Tom Jackson over at RAWIllumination.net recently posted “More wild JFK probe information from Adam Gorightly” which further fleshed out my Historia Discordia offering “The Raymond Broshears Files Part 1,” and, in specific, Broshears association with Rev. Billy James Hargis, who during the 60s and early-70s operated a ministry called the Christian Crusade.
Rev. Broshears—as I previously noted—studied under Hargis, and was a member of his ministry until getting the boot after being arrested for groping a male youth in 1965, which resulted in Broshears serving six months in the Belleville, Illinois state pokey.
Despite Broshears’ falling out with Hargis, apparently the two remained in touch, at least on a professional level, as documented in this letter dated June 24, 1970, wherein Hargis grants Broshears the use of a rather long-winded quote about the scourge of “ultra-liberalism.”
Letter from Rev. Hargis to Rev. Broshears dated June 24, 1970, concerningthe scourge of “ultra-liberalism.” (The Raymond Broshears Papers. Courtesy of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender Historical Society)
Tom Jackson points out that Hargis himself suffered a similar scandalous fate (as Broshears) in 1974 when it was discovered that he’d seduced two of his former students, one male, and one female. (Shades of “ultra-liberalism”!) These revelations forced Hargis to step down from his ministry under a cloud of sinful shame, subsequently turning over the Christian Crusade reins to his right hand man, Dr. David Noebel.
As Tom Jackson noted, Communism, Hypnotism and the Beatles was mentioned in Illuminatus!, one of the many crazy influences that wormed its way into Wilson and Shea’s magnum opus.
In the Discordian Archives—filed under “Operation Mindfuck” —you’ll find a letter sent to Dr. Noebel from Rev. Charles Arthur Floyd II (aka Robert Anton Wilson) hipping Noebel to the fact that long before The Beatles were corrupting the youth of America, Ludwig von Beethoven had been up to the same sort of perfidy, basically using his compositions as part of an Illuminati plot that later brought us such iniquities as communism, ultra-liberalism and birth control pills.
RAW's prank letter to Dr. David Noebel
It should be noted that this communism-conspired-to-influence-rock-music genre is a bit of an obsession with your humble Discordian author. Another Noebel classic in my collection is The Beatles: A Study in Drugs, Sex and Revolution that includes a somewhat hilarious cover because it seemed like the artist was going out of his way to make it NOT look like the Fab Four. I mean, Paul looks a little like Paul, but George looks more like Charlie Manson, and Ringo, well—I don’t know who he looks like—certainly not Ringo. And aside from the granny glasses, you’d never know it was John. But one thing’s for certain: they all look like a bunch of drug-addled hippies, and that’s all that counts!
My initial exposure to this communism-influencing-rock-music-mind-rot was in a rock music anthology I owned many years ago, of which I unfortunately no longer have a copy—nor can I even remember the title of the darned thing—but it featured some of this Beatles communist conspiracy stuff. As I recall, this anthology *might* have included an excerpt from Dr. Noebel’s opus Rhythm, Riots and Revolution, which presented the theory that rock music put American youth into voodoo trance states and turned them into rockabilly zombies, and that black roots music was an influence on rock n’ roll which further ushered in multiculturalism, free sex and interracial coupling. (And all the other bad hootchie-kootchie that I guess the Illuminati is keen on, and of which Aleister Crowley would most assuredly approve!) To this end—according to Dr. Noebel—rock musicians were unwitting dupes spreading the message of peace, love and drugs, which is exactly what the commies wanted so they could bring the United States and capitalism to its knees.
Also in this mystery anthology was an essay about how Jim Morrison was the manifestation of Dionysus, and (as I recall) another essay about how Theodor Adorno had clandestinely composed a lot of The Beatles music as part of some grand plan to indoctrinate the masses. The reason I bring this anthology up is because I’d love to track down a copy. So if any of our readers have a clue as to the title of said book, please contact me at info@adamgorightly.com, and if you have the correct answer, I’ll send you your very own Discordian patch. (Pictured below.) Better yet, if you have a copy of the book, feel free to gift it to me, and I’ll be your pal forever. (That “pal” offer also includes a patch!)
Tell me the book title and get your very own Discordian patch! (While supplies last.)
For some additional Dr. David Noebel goodness check out “Marxist Minstrels – The Beatles” by Henry Makow, and also this video of Doc Noebel babbling about Bob Dylan and Joan Baez:
Although their hoax letter writing hijinks occurred nearly a decade before the Early Discordians got busy with similar shenanigans, Gray Barker and Jim Moseley could certainly be considered pranksterish precursors to Greg Hill, Kerry Thornley, RAW, et al.
Gray Barker (Gray Barker Collection, Clarksburg-Harrison Public Library)
The most notable Barker-Moseley letter prank was pulled on famed UFO contactee George Adamski with what became known as the Straith Letter Hoax, a party that got started in December 1957 when Barker got his paws on a batch of absconded State Department stationery, and during a weekend of heavy boozing, he and Moseley concocted the Straith Letter out of whole cloth.
Jim Moseley, The Clown Prince of U-fool-ology. (Photo credit: Greg Bishop)
The letter in question—signed by the fictitious R.E. Straith, a member of the State Department’s “Cultural Exchange Committee”—informed Adamski that his 1952 encounter with Orthon the Venusian in Desert Center, California, had been confirmed by government officials, and Straith encouraged Adamski to drop by the Cultural Exchange Committee’s D.C. offices whenever he was in town.
Professor George Adamski holding the beloved scout ship that transported his Venusian pal Orthon to Earth.
Adamski all but wet his pants over this phony State Department endorsement, trotting out the Straith Letter at every opportunity to support his ET contact claims. This prompted an investigation by the real State Department and FBI, who ordered Adamski to stop pimping this cockamamie letter as it was an obvious hoax and there was no such department as the “Cultural Exchange Committee.” Of course this didn’t dissuade Adamski, who claimed that the government was trying to suppress the Straith Letter from the public. But he would not be deterred!
The infamous 1957 Straith Letter (Gray Barker Collection, Clarksburg-Harrison Public Library)
At some point the feds grew to suspect that Barker was the brains behind the Straith Letter, and they questioned both he and Moseley on a number of occasions, although each denied involvement in the caper. Barker—worried that he was going to end up doing hard time in Leavenworth—destroyed the typewriter on which the Straith Letter was composed and buried its remains in wet cement at a construction site in his hometown of Clarksburg, West Virginia. The feds—unable to uncover any tangible evidence linking Barker to the letter—eventually dropped the case, probably viewing it as a rather harmless stunt. Following Barker’s death, Jim Moseley came clean about his involvement with the Straith Letter hoax in a 1985 issue of Saucer Smear.
Saucer on a string: Jim Moseley concocting the 'Lost Creek, West Virginia, UFO film'
Another memorable Barker/Moseley prank occurred in 1966 when the two concocted the “Lost Creek, West Virginia, UFO film” which basically consisted of attaching a miniature flying saucer to a fishing pole line and dangling it around. Moseley later used this fake film during college lecture gigs to astound and amaze his audiences, presenting it as authentic UFO footage.
Hail Eris! All Hail the Saucers!
This article was sort of ripped off from a forthcoming book by me and my pal Greg Bishop called ‘A’ is for Adamski: The Golden Age of the UFO Contactees, which should be available before too damn long. Here’s a video promo for the book…
Michael Marinacci, author of Weird California and California Jesus sent me this short Kerry Thornley article he came across entitled “Reprogram Yourself For Freer Swinging” that appeared in EROS LIB Issue #2, a newsletter published by the San Diego Sexual Freedom League, circa 1975.
On the same page is what appears to be a short-short by Ray Faraday Nelson who is the author of “8 O’clock in the Morning” a short story later adapted into the paranoid cult classic They Live.
1975 newsletter EROS LIB Issue #2, article by Kerry Thornley.
The front piece to the Paste-Up Discordia (The Sacred PUD). Courtesy the Discordian Archives.Here at Historia Discordia, we’ve be on a mission from Goddess to document the Origins, History & Chaos of the Discordian Society.
Hey, we even put this calling into the site’s masthead, so, you know, we’re like srsly Discordian zealots.
(DEATH TO ALL FANATICS!)
We enjoy this unique opportunity to have access to both Discordian Founders’ archives as well as other original materials. While Greg Hill and Kerry Thornley kept their stash of documents by very different methods, one Hodge and the other Podge, some clarity has been achieved regarding Discordian history.
Many New Old Truths have been discovered about the origination, growth, hilarity, and impact of Discordianism from this cache of source documents.
As such, we’ve tried to put a little sanity, Goddess forgive us!, on this library of madness:
As we glean new information and post articles about and from the Archives here, we include them into the Discordian Timeline, a linear year-by-year accounting of what was going on and when with the Early Discordians thru to current Modern Discordians.
The Discordian history is a murky maze and fraught with many Erisian contradictions, so we hope offering an understanding of its conception, history, and weirdness on a timeline will help every past, present, and future Discordian Pope better grasp these wonderful absurdities.
Kerry Thornley in the late-60s. Photo courtesy John F. Carr. Aside from Jim Garrison’s On The Trail of the Assassins (Amazon), the first book to address, in any depth, Kerry Thornley’s alleged role in the JFK assassination was Joe Biles’ In History’s Shadow: Lee Harvey Oswald, Kerry Thornley & the Garrison Investigation (Amazon).
Biles’ claimed that Thornley—on account to his supposed CIA affiliations—was well looked after by intelligence agency handlers as payment for his participation with a shadowy New Orleans cabal that conspired to assassinate JFK. According to Biles:
“Garrison investigator Jim Rose would later learn that Thornley had two homes in Florida, one in Miami and one in Tampa, as well as two cars. The Tampa residence, where Thornley lived, was a large white frame house on a one acre lot. Thornley was single and supposedly had only worked as a waiter and doorman at a few apartment houses.” 1
Yours truly has reviewed hundreds of letters in the Discordian Archives dating from the mid-60s until Thornley’s death in the late-90s, and in these letters one can trace his whereabouts and activities, in particular during the Garrison investigation period. Biles’ assertion that Thornley owned two homes in Tampa has no factual basis. Kerry lived on the edge of poverty most of his life (he never owned a house), and was homeless for extended periods. At one time he even made his home in a renovated chicken coop in Tujunga, California.
The only accurate statement—in the above passage from In History’s Shadow—is that Kerry lived in Tampa, and that his employment over the years included jobs as a waiter and doorman. Among other occupations, Kerry edited a Libertarian newsletter, The Innovator, during the mid-60s, in addition to working other odd jobs, including as a dishwasher, a job he performed at a variety of restaurants in Florida and later, Georgia.
Biles maintains that Kerry was single, another glaring goof-up. For the record, Kerry married Cara Leach in Palos Verdes, California in December 1965. They separated in the early 1970s.
Biles’ claim that Kerry owned two cars is also bunk. As was the hippie fashion of the day, he and Cara owned a VW van during the period they lived in Los Angeles, which they later sold to help fund their move to Florida in the autumn of 1967. From that point forward, Kerry never owned another vehicle.
After relocating to Florida, Kerry and Cara—with their infant son, Kreg—lived in an “inexpensive place” in the Palm River District on the outskirts of Tampa, settling there in late 1967 just as the Garrison investigation started heating up. Soon afterwards, they moved to a rented cottage on Marlin Street near the Yacht Club where Kerry worked as a dishwasher. Kerry’s mode of travel at this time was a used $8 bike he purchased from Goodwill. So much for the fantasy he was some sort of well paid CIA super spook. During this period, Greg Hill and Bud Simco visited Kerry in Tampa. According to Simco:
“The only real time we had to visit was while Kerry was at work. So Greg and I went with him and washed dishes at the Yacht Club for free—just to hang out in the kitchen to visit with Kerry… and it was a lot of fun—we did that for a day or two. And the management, they were really amazed that people would do that—these three guys back there washing dishes, two of them for free—all of them, by all appearances, over qualified to be washing dishes… And they couldn’t figure out why Kerry was back there washing dishes because he was obviously a very intelligent person, and they knew he was a writer—basically that’s what Kerry said: “I just want to write—I just want to cover the basic minimum daily requirements, and be left alone to write.” 2
Kerry Thornley and family circa late-60s or early-70s. Photo courtesy of John F. Carr.
Jim Rose’s entrée into the Garrison investigation came courtesy of former FBI guy William “Bill” Turner, who during this period was freelancing for Ramparts magazine and dabbling in JFK assassination research. At some point, Garrison passed on leads in the case to Ramparts editor Warren Hinkle, which Hinkle passed along to Turner. (Hinkle and Turner would later co-author The Fish is Red: The Story of the Secret War Against Castro (Amazon). Soon after, Turner inserted himself into Garrison’s investigation and brought with him Jim Rose, who had also freelanced at Ramparts.
Jim Rose aka Carl. E. McNab.
Although Rose used a number of aliases (Jim Rhodes, Vince Rose, Carl Davis and Steve Wilson) his real name was E. Carl McNabb (as far as I’ve been able to ascertain), but for clarity’s sake we’ll just call him “Jim Rose” because that’s how he’s most often identified in memos, letters and articles from the period. According to Warren Hinkle:
“We called him Jim Rose. At least that was the name by which he was known to everyone on the magazine, including one of the secretaries with whom he took up housekeeping between derrings-do. But he had a name for every day of the week. He was Jack Carter when he worked in Miami, until later he became too hot and decided to ‘kill off’ Carter by simulating a plane crash at sea, thus discouraging the spoilsports in the F.A.A. from inquiring further into the checkered history of Carter’s flight plans. He had several newspaper clippings reporting his own death, which he would exhibit with the eager shyness of someone showing you an appendix scar or bottled gallstone. He was also known as Dawes, also as McLeish, also as several other people, among which I was always partial to Rose, because of Gertrude Stein and all. But by any name he was, as Damon Runyan said about those types who stand out among other types of their type, the ‘genuine item.’ He loved adventure, and second only to that he loved talking about adventure.” 3
Ramparts editor Warren Hinkle.
Although Hinkle considered Rose a real deal soldier of fortune with intelligence agency connections up the wazoo, others connected to the Garrison investigation were less enthralled with the seemingly self created legends swirling around the enigmatic Mr. Rose. Rose claimed he’d worked as a CIA contract pilot, and had flown missions—at one time or another—with one of Garrison’s key suspects, the notorious David Ferrie of red wig fame. However, Rose said many things to many people that more often than not never really panned out. Just the same, there’s plenty of evidence to suggest that Rose was involved in paramilitary activities linked to the CIA.
Jim Rose with P-51 Mustang, Santa Barbara, 1967
Strange bedfellows such as Jim Rose suggest that Garrison showed little hesitation about recruiting into his investigation former intelligence agents or assets from the very same agencies that he theorized were behind JFK’s assassination—such “former” agents or assets that could potentially serve as moles and undermine his own investigation. And that’s exactly what Garrison later claimed: that his investigation had been infiltrated by former CIA spies and ultimately sabotaged. In particular, a character named Bill Boxley (aka William Wood), a former CIA spook who—prior to hooking up with Garrison—had apparently been booted from the agency due to frequent bouts with the bottle. Boxley and Garrison eventually had a falling out and Boxley jumped ship and ended up working on Clay Shaw’s defense team.
Bill Boxley aka William Wood.
Even though Garrison was knee deep in his belief that the FBI and/or CIA were attempting to sabotaged his case, he nonetheless possessed an almost fan boy fascination with former spooks. The first time Rose met with Garrison at the D.A.’s office, he was frisked by staffer Lou Ivon, who apparently overlooked a deadly ballpoint pen Rose was carrying. “It’s napalm,” Rose explained. “If I shot you, your face would go up in flames.” 4 Garrison endearingly dubbed Rose, “Winston Smith,” then later “Winnie the Pooh,” and “Rosalie.”
Too sexy for his shirt? Jim Rose on assignment.
Although Rose wasn’t officially on Garrison’s payroll, he was compensated through a slush fund called “Truth or Consequences” that set up by a group of wealthy right wing Garrison supporters. Among his many activities, Rose was paid a thousand dollars upfront to travel to Tacoma, Washington, to investigate Fred Crisman, another among the many colorful alleged JFK assassination conspirators targeted by Garrison.
Fred Crisman
On a trip in the Northwest in 1968, Fred Newcomb (a JFK assassination researcher and graphic artist commissioned by Harold Weisberg to touch up Kerry Thornley’s photo), spent a couple of days in Tacoma, following up leads on Crisman. While there, Newcomb learned that Rose had been snooping around town earlier that year and making claims that “Chrisman [sic] had been known to transport large sums of money to several cities in the country and that he had no visible means of support.” Rose later claimed that he had been shot at while in Tacoma and barely got out of town alive. 5
As for Crisman’s alleged role in Garrison investigation bingo, he was accused of being one of the three mystery tramps (presumably up to no good in Dealey Plaza) that had been picked up by Dallas cops in the aftermath of the assassination. This was a theory originally promoted by Garrison’s “photographic expert,” Richard Sprague, based on information developed by Jim Rose’s mentor, Bill Turner, and then subsequently “investigated” by Rose.
These allegations against Crisman were later debunked in 1977 by the House Select Committee on Assassinations who determined that—on November 22nd, 1963—Crisman had been filling in as a substitute teacher at Rainer Union High School in Rainer, Oregon, his whereabouts corroborated in affidavits provided by three teachers in attendance that day: Marva Harris, Norma Chase, and Stanley Peerloom. 6
In On the Trail of the Assassins, Garrison spoke glowingly of Rose:
“…an urbane, very bright young man who had grown up in Latin America and spoke Spanish like a native; he was useful in interviews with Cuban exiles… [Rose] was accepted after a strong recommendation from Boxley, who had known him back in his agency days. Rose had a number of photographs showing himself instructing anti-Castro guerrilla trainees at the no name key training camp in Florida back in the early-60s.”
Garrison’s puffery aside, there’s no evidence that Rose actually served with the CIA. According to Big Jim’s glowing prose, Rose had been involved with training anti-Castro exiles, something that Fred Newcomb discovered after coming across a series of photos taken of these training exercises. Newcomb passed the photos along to his circle of assassination researchers that included Penn Jones, Jr., who was able to verify that Rose was indeed the mystery man in the photos identified as “Steve Wilson.” These associations cast a cloud of suspicion over Rose that he had infiltrated the Garrison investigation for dubious reasons.
Arrest photo of Jim Rose (red circle around his head) with Cuban exiles involved in paramilitary training exercises in Florida, 1963.
1) Biles, Joe G. 2002 In History’s Shadow: Lee Harvey Oswald, Kerry Thornley & the Garrison Investigation. Writers Club Press. (Pages 66-67).
2) Author’s interview with Bud Simco, Feb 17, 2003.
3) Hinkle, Warren, April 1973, Esquire Magazine, “The Mystery of the Black Books”.
4) Mellen, Joan. 2005. A Farewell To Justice: Jim Garrison, JFK’s Assassination, And The Case that Should Have Changed History. Potomoc Books.
5) “Memo on Jim Rose/Jim Rhodes/Vince/E. Carl McNabb with sidelights on Turner/Jaffee/Crissman/Sprague” by Fred Newcomb (Harold Weisberg archives).
6) Report of the Select Committee on Assassinations of the U.S. House of Representatives. 1979. (Page 607).
Please spread the word on this Indiegogo launch for The Hill and the Hole, a film featuring yours truly as a wise-cracking sociopathic Freemasonic fry dough truck operator and cult leader!
If everything goes as planned, you may even get to see me kill a person or two.
Check out the teaser trailer below and if you are so moved, help any way you can at the film’s Indiegogo page:
@thehillandthehole on Instagram & Facebook
A teaser for the supernatural independent feature film, The Hill and the Hole, adapted from a Fritz Leiber short story, retold by directors Chris Ernst & Bill Darmon. A weird tale from the southwest. Who would you sacrifice?
Film Score: Drew O'Doherty
Featuring: Liam Kelly, Kristen Brody, Brandt Adams, Adam Gorightly, Chris Dunlop, Matthew O'Donnell, Ricardo Burgos, Xochi, William McLane
Just released! Chasing Eris by Brenton Clutterbuck. Grab your copy!As we recently celebrated this past March, it has been FIVE years since Historia Discordia contributor Brenton Clutterbuck visited the Discordian Archives (both West and East Archive locations!) on his world-wide quest to document Modern Day Manifestations of Discordianism and meet the Discordian Popes around the world who keep Eris fnording.
Brenton Clutterbuck visiting the Discordian Archives East for his Chasing Eris book project. Here he's holding the front-piece to the original Paste-Up Discordia known as the Sacred PUD. Courtesy of the Discordian Archives.And now his crazy idea has come to perfect Golden Apple fermentation on the auspicious Erisian date of May 5, 2018 (on the Kalendae Discordium date known as Setting Orange Discord 52nd, YOLD 3184), also coincidancing on Early Discordian Camden Benares‘ Discordian Holiday known as St. Gulik’s Day, with the publication of his years-long efforts now known as his newly released book Chasing Eris!
Go grab your very own copy via Lulu.com immediately.
I asked Clutterbuck for a few of his thoughts on the occasion of the release of Chasing Eris:
After years of horrifying experiments and strongly-worded letters from the Ethics Committee, my secret laboratory has finally produced the most significant marvel of International Chaos Science—my book Chasing Eris.
A note that I am totally wiped-out, weirded-out, and bedazzled by how willing people have been to get excited about this release—it’s very sweet and overwhelming to have my excitement and joy shared by so many of you weirdos, and I hope you know how simply humbled and delighted I am.
I have an e-book and some other tasty treats on the way, and if you’d like notification of when they arrive, you can sign up to my mailing list.
Keep the Lasagna Flying!
Congratulations, Clutterbuck! Eris abides on Chaos well done.
Check out a recent interview with Clutterbuck about writing Chasing Eris, some great deep-mind RAW stuff here:
