Jul 232012
 

I don’t know where to start. There’s so little left, so little in my heart. And what’s the point? No one will read this; there’s no one left.

No, I don’t know that. I can’t think that way. I’ve got to go on. I’ve got to get back home somehow. My family might be okay. They MUST be okay.

I’ve got to write to keep up hope, to keep believing that all is not lost so that I can find the strength to get back home.

 ~~~~~~~~~~

It all started only three months ago in July. That’s July, 2012. I was at the London Olympics. I never thought I’d be in the Olympics, not at my age. I turned fifty last March and only took up archery five years ago. Somehow, I managed to make the U.S. Olympic Archery team. I barely made the team, but I performed well enough to get me to London and get me a full set of crappy, Chinese made USA Olympic outfits.

I was on the field that night during the opening ceremonies when suddenly the music stopped and most of the stadium lighting shut off. We had rehearsed the whole thing the night before and we all knew that something was wrong but none of us were surprised because nearly every aspect of the London Olympics had been buggy so far.

After a few seconds Katy tugged on my blue Ralph Lauren blazer. “For an old guy, you look cute in that little blue beret,” Katy snickered, “French and a little constipated, but awkwardly handsome.”

“Gee, I thought I looked more like a balding Che Guevara,” I muttered quietly in the nearly silent stadium. Meekly holding up my right fist so as not to get too much attention, I stiffened, clicked my heals and continued “Viva la revolucion!”

“Uh, I think that’s more like ‘Southern Nazi’ than ‘classic Cuban revolutionary,’” Katy remarked. “Yeah, I need to polish my Argentine accent a little,” I admitted. “Argentine? I thought Che Guevara was Cuban,” she asked. “Common mistake,” I replied, “Che was a ‘citizen of the world’ as the pretentious rabble like to say today. He got around a lot.”

“But now that you mention it, you do look a little like Che in some of his later and less groomed years,” Katy mused, “Not that I know much of anything about Che Guevara except what they taught me in high school, and you can see they didn’t teach me much.”

A member of the USA women’s archery team, Katy was a sprite of a young lady, barely topping five feet tall and just over one-hundred pounds. We both had competed earlier that day and the archery bag she carried that night was nearly as big as her. Katy believed in being prepared and her archery kit would make the Green Arrow envious.

At eighteen, innocent, full of life and with long blond hair and blue eyes, she reminded me of my oldest daughter who had just turned fifteen. Katy approached everything with joy and wonder and her wide eyes had never been wider than during the opening ceremonies that terrible night.

And despite being weird and downright creepy at times – the 13 Illuminati pyramids encircling the stadium overhead were just the beginning – the opening ceremonies were a spectacle to behold.

“Do you think they just found the mother of all computer bugs?” Katy asked about the breakdown of the opening ceremony. “That’s my guess given their dismal track record,” I grumbled. I ‘m an old school computer programmer by trade and I don’t have much patience for computer glitches.

But just at that moment, the relative silence of the stadium was shattered by an ear splitting roar. The black sky was simultaneously lit by a rope of fire overhead, followed by another and then another. By the third instance, it was clear that three fighter jets had passed only about a hundred feet over the stadium. A smattering of applause and cheers arose from the confused crowd who assumed the nearly supersonic planes were part of the opening ceremony.

“What the hell was that!” I said to myself. By that time, all heads were turned skywards as the nearly one-hundred-thousand people in the stadium were obviously thinking that same thing.

As the exhaust trails from the three jets thinned enough to see the sky above, a bright light directly above the stadium came into view. Slowly and gradually it appeared to be growing in intensity. Soon it became obvious that it was some kind of craft descending steadily towards us, but still far up in the sky.

The lead jet was closing quickly on the craft when a barely visible, violet light suddenly connected the two vehicles. At once, the jet plane careened off in a violent spiral causing the two trailing planes to abort their approach. The lead fighter twirled frantically for several seconds before exploding into a ball of flames like an enormous Fourth of July firework.

Immediately, panic gripped the crowd, but few if any people tried to leave. After all, everyone had been told ad nauseam that the stadium was the most secure place in London. At that point, I felt Katy squeeze my arm. “Don’t worry, this is probably the safest place to be in the world right now,” I reassured her.

As if on cue, the stadium PA crackled to life cooing a soothing, aristocratic, British female voice. “Thank you for joining us tonight in a global celebration of the 2012 London Olympics. We are currently working through minor technical difficulties. We are grateful for your patience.”

At that moment, four full batteries of Rapier missiles came to life in a deafening peal, launching sixteen rockets screaming straight upwards towards the still steadily descending light.

In only a second or two, the Rapier missiles had already reached halfway to their target when a subtle violet ray of light strobed each one from the UFO. As with the downed fighter jet, all sixteen missiles spun wildly out of control and exploded within a fraction of a second.

Flaming debris began to fall upon a wide area of London surrounding the Olympic stadium, but fortunately nothing struck the stadium itself.  The PA system stirred again. “London welcomes the world to the 2012 Summer Olympic Games. We continue to be working through minor technical issues and we fully expect to have them resolved shortly. Thank you again for your kind patience.”

The confusion caused by the grossly understated second announcement only served to deepen the terror now engulfing everyone within the stadium.

“For the safety of others as well as yourselves, please remain seated and calm. For your continued inconvenience, complementary food and drink will be served for the remainder of tonight’s ceremonies,” the PA lady continued.

Another wave of confusion swept over the 2012 London Olympic Stadium before the arena’s video screens came on bearing the image of Queen Elizabeth. “We are most terribly sorry for the apparent delay of tonight’s ceremonies, but I assure you that you are safe and we are progressing as stated. Please return to your seats, relax and enjoy tonight’s festivities. Everything is under control, and everything you have seen is as planned,” the Queen calmly announced.

Amazingly, nearly everyone returned to their seats and waited while an army of ushers distributed food and refreshments. Likewise, most of the thousands of athletes on the field returned to their positions, sitting now on the ground or in folding chairs. The stadium soon glowed from countless smart phone screens as people updated their social networks, emailed friends, phoned home or filmed the ongoing spectacle.

All the while, the light above the stadium slowly grew larger and larger.

After a few minutes, the various video screens around the stadium lit up again and music began to play. Images of the British Royal Family flickered across our faces. The Royals were singing a bizarre song. The lyrics were unmistakable since the video was captioned with them.

 And did those feet in ancient time.
Walk upon England’s mountains green:
And was the holy Lamb of God,
On England’s pleasant pastures seen!

And did the Countenance Divine,
Shine forth upon our clouded hills?
And was Jerusalem builded here,
Among these dark Satanic Mills?

Bring me my Bow of burning gold;
Bring me my Arrows of desire:
Bring me my Spear: O clouds unfold!
Bring me my Chariot of fire!

I will not cease from Mental Fight,
Nor shall my Sword sleep in my hand:
Till we have built Jerusalem,
In England’s green & pleasant Land

 “That’s Jerusalem by William Blake,” Katy stated matter-of-factly, “it says so on the program we got yesterday.”

When the song completed, the video screens went black and the stadium was silent briefly before spotlights all around the area pierced the darkness and illuminated the skies overhead. The crowd released a collective gasp as the full outline of the UFO could now be plainly seen. Hovering silently just a few feet above the stadium, the light on the craft was only about thirty or forty feet across, but the vast ship engulfed the night sky and exceeded the dimensions of the stadium itself.

A gentle violet light pulsed once from the entire surface of the enormous ship and London fell into darkness. Even the thousands upon thousands of cell phone screens in the stadium went black. The only illumination visible in the area came from the craft above our heads.

Through the white light in the center of the massive UFO descended a gold shuttle that looked somewhat like an ornate, horseless carriage or chariot. Wheel-like appendages at the four corners of the vehicle crackled with static electricity as the conveyance set down softly on the large stage located at the north end of the playing field.

A door swung upward from the center of the landed craft and out stepped a towering figure in a hooded, white robe. Gliding slowly toward the center of the stage as if almost weightless, the being stopped and removed his hood revealing a bald head that was both shocking and beautiful at the same time.

The creature, roughly nine or ten feet tall, had pale, white skin and more closely resembled a giant Greek statue than a human. In fact, he looked very similar to the alien engineers seen in the recent movie Prometheus.

The light from the hovering ship overhead grew brighter until it was like midday in the stadium. The video screens came to life again, this time filled with an image of the creature’s face. Staring directly into the camera with unblinking, blue eyes, the being uttered three words in a slow, deep, booming voice that resonated strongly within my chest: “I am God.”

Feb 142012
 

NOTE: The makers of Guidestones contacted us about the manner the movie is distributed. A bug in their email scheduling code resulted in our getting all of the episodes jumbled in our inbox simultaneously. This bug has been fixed and we have updated the review below to reflect these distribution changes and have added other important observations about this groundbreaking movie production.

We have written extensively about the Georgia Guidestones, the enigmatic and highly controversial monument that is sometimes called “Humanity’s Tombstone.” A good summary of our research can be read here.

And now Guidestones launched today, a new interactive movie based around that menacing granite edifice located in rural Georgia. Distributed as a 50 part series, the fictional account contains numerous, easily identified clues which the viewer can use to pull up web content from across the Internet. There is even an associated decoder ring application the earnest viewer can use to decipher selected evidence sprinkled throughout the movie. Some of the “supplemental” material is real (in fact, our research is cited here), but much of it was created for the movie.

The movie is distributed to the viewer through scheduled email. After signing up for Guidestones at guidestones.org, the viewer is “pushed” links to episodes in movie time. In other words, if a day elapses between episodes, the emails for the second episode will arrive a day later than the first. This innovative approach allows and encourages the viewer to interact with the movie by investigating its many hidden clues.

This could pose a problem if the clues are too well hidden. Fortunately, there are many clues that are very easy to identify, while others are more subtle ensuring that the viewer will quickly catch on, drawing him into the action, while challenging the viewer as well. Altogether, the interactive nature of Guidestones is a success, deeply engaging the viewer while enmeshing him in an immersive world of evidence that is a blurry mix of fact and fiction.

The total run time for the movie is two hours, but there is a lot of additional offsite footage that this does not include.

Guidestones claims in Episode 1 that it is based on real events and the names of the characters were changed in order to protect them. In fact, the producer, director and writer of the $300,000 flick, Jay Ferguson, revealed that the movie was inspired by two real Ryerson University students. Regarding the woman who was inspiration for the female lead, Ferguson says:

I met with her and she was a bit dodgy (in regards to) what she was saying about the Guidestones and conspiracies, and so I started doing some research and some of her things started turning out. Certain things that I was able to back up in some of my research.

From Twitter, Ferguson wrote:

I was approached 3 yrs ago by a woman involved in a murder investigation. She didn’t want me to make a documentary. I made a drama instead… I have shown guidestones to the woman who’s story it is based on. She is glad it is about to be public but does not want her real name used.

Despite its modest budget, the movie unfolds across numerous locations in Canada, USA and India and production quality is very good. The movie was shot with digital SLRs and edited on laptops.

Sponsored by Coca-Cola, Major League Baseball and Samsung among others, Guidestones can be viewed here. The press release for the movie can be read here.

The dark spirit of the Georgia Guidestones monument is accurately captured in this dramatic account and I highly recommend Guidestones for its entertainment value, innovation and intelligence. In fact, the ending demonstrates esoteric insight that adds a very sinister twist to the movie, but the ending might be too subtle for most viewers to fully appreciate.

All in all, Guidestones is about as much fun as a realistic accounting of the Apocalypse can be, while providing an engaging and thrilling story.

Most importantly, Guidestones presents a realistic — though horrific — scenario that is consistent with our research. MAKE THIS MOVIE GO VIRAL! It is worthwhile to see based solely upon its motion picture quality — it is much better than most of the brain-dead pablum coming out of Hollywood today — but Guidestones also contains a message that needs to be spread.

As Jay Ferguson stated in his Guidestones interview on FernTV:

It’s always important to scrutinize everything you see. We like to think we are in control of our lives but the fact is many of us live in a constant state of cognitive dissonance. Time to start scrutinizing the status quo. Time to start walking the walk!

Bluegrass + Bangles = Genius

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Jan 262012
 

The talented Blue Grass group The Cleverlys covers the Bangles hit Walk Like an Egyptian and the result is comedic genius that sounds great.

The spastic, twitchy, hilarious and gifted drummer is “Digger Jr. Jr.” who has been missing from the band for nearly two years. Whatever happened to him, The Cleverlys need to bring him back because DJJ makes the band truly special.

Here’s a more recent video sans DJJ where The Clevelys truly improve upon the Black Eyed Peas hit I Gotta Feelin’.

The range of the Cleverlys is unlimited as demonstrated by their rendition of Hocus Pocus by the 70’s Dutch band Focus. Focus, strangely like The Cleverlys, dwarf contemporary pop bands in terms of raw musical abilities and have seen a rebirth in popularity in recent years.

The Cleverlys are a fictional band purportedly from the Arkansas hills. The lead of the band is Digger Cleverlys played by the comedian Paul Harris who really is from the Arkansas Ozarks.

As a final video, here is Owner of a Lonely Heart.

Is This What Easter Be?

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Apr 022010
 

Poem written by Flora Smith, age 12.

Is This What Easter Be?

Out of the stores come garlands and elves,
So chocolate bunnies can fill the shelves.
Egg and peeps, you now can see,
Is this what Easter be?

Games and egg-hunts are now afoot.
Parents hide goodies in every nook.
Little children cry with glee.
But, is this what Easter be?

The stores try to get you to buy lots of things,
Candy and gum and cute little rings.
They see this as a money-making spree.
This cannot Easter be!

No, Easter is not about treats and eggs,
It’s about Jesus nailed up with pegs.
On a cross for you and me,
Oh, this is what Easter be!

Jesus, oh, yes! He was God’s Son,
He fought the battle and it is won.
After He died, He rose on day three,
So remember, this is what Easter be!

Flora Smith

This is Jesus’s Day

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Apr 022010
 

Easter poem written by Evelyn Smith, age 11.

This is Jesus’s Day

Easter is a time for joy and praise,
For Jesus rose from the dead that day.
Easter is not for bunnies galore,
But for people to know from shore to shore
This is Jesus’ day!

The day of His death brought sorrow and gloom.
And three days later Mary wept at the tomb.
But do not worry, Mary, so dear,
Jesus has risen. His day is here!
This is Jesus’ day!

Jesus died on the cross for us all.
We are forgiven, great and small.
He rose three days later, so do not fear
That day is Easter and it is here!
This is Jesus’ day!

Evelyn Smith

Felling the Beast: an intro to a new novel

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Feb 122010
 

It’s Tuesday, May 30, 2017.  My name is Winnie Smith and I just turned 13 last month.

Our new home is hard to get used to.  It’s real pretty here and the weather is nice right now.  It’s a little like our old home in Arkansas.  I miss that place a lot.

I miss the rain at night and the cool mornings.  I miss the smell of the dogwood and honeysuckle flowers.  I miss the friendly little hummingbirds that were always flying around our shoulders.  I miss fishing in our ponds, working in our garden with Mama, skipping rocks on the Cossatot with Daddy, eating Hope watermelons and swimming in the ice cold creeks under a warm sun.  In a way, I even miss the chiggers, seed ticks and poison ivy which are all usually bad this time of year in the Ouachitas.

Daddy probably misses Arkansas more than anyone else.  He was born and raised there.  Even though I was born in Texas, Daddy managed to find a way to get us back to a good home in Arkansas where we could be safe during the War.  Daddy never wanted to move again, but, when we had no other choice, he told Uncle John that he didn’t want to move too far away from home.  That’s one of the reasons why he and Mom picked this place.

Daddy took us outside tonight for a surprise.  We had a marshmallow roast and told spooky stories around a camp fire.  A little after midnight, Daddy set up his telescope and asked us to guess what we were looking at.  It was a dim yellow star, just a tiny, flickering speck of light, even through his telescope.  It was the sun — or at least our old sun.  It was hard for me to imagine that our old, green house still circled that little, yellow dot 2,110 light years away.

We had a good time tonight.  Everyone was happy.  Everyone but Daddy.  When he thought everybody was asleep, he walked back to that telescope and looked at earth for a long, long time.  He only quit when he began crying.  I’ve never seen Daddy cry before, even after all that he went through during the War.

It’s very late and I need to go to sleep.  I miss Arkansas a lot right now.   I love you, Daddy.

Oldie-But-Goodie

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Jan 292010
 
We published this very popular baby makeover photo several years ago (click to enlarge).