I came across something interesting last night while watching the music video for Jon Bon Jovi's 1983 single, "Runaway". On the opening montage, there's a series of newspaper clips about some kind of nuclear fallout and exposure. There might even be a reference to Pyrokinesis. There's a piece of paper with the following: FILE X-8026, check it out.
The video, directed by Phil Griffin, seems to have a loose paranormal theme, it's really inspired more by Steven King's book "Firestarter" than anything else. Nevertheless, this is interesting, people should be reminded that "X" in mathematical terms represents the unknown. Yet, could the video have been an indirect influence on Chris Carter when he came up the title of the show? I'm looking into this through direct sources, and so stay tuned for more on this....
First off, my apologies for taking so long to update here.
One of the interesting outcomes of my recent interview with Bob Goodwin, was the connection I felt with our shared liking of old 50s genre films. I was very much tickled to look at the posters and lobby cards for “Alien Trespass”, it triggered memories of my avid interest in 40s and 50s Science Fiction and Horror posters, I had an huge interest in the subject when I was younger. I share many of the same favorites that Mr. Goodwin mentioned. Some include War of The Worlds, Earth vs. The Flying Saucers, It Came from Outer Space, Howard Hawk’s The Thing, invaders From Mars, the iconic The Day The Earth Stood Still, as well as such interstellar epics as Forbidden Planet, This Island Earth, and George Pal’s Destination Moon. Unfortunately, with today’s contemporary eyes, and due to the sophistication and production values that Sci Fi genre fans have become accustomed to, many of these films probably seem quaint or crude. By fans dismissing them, they miss out on an important part of pop culture history, and most importantly, many of these films for their time, successfully captured that sense of wonder that a 10-year-old holds.
Much in the same way that, by the mid thirties, the Flash Gordon / Buck Rogers Universal serials with Buster Crabbe captivated children, and those serials were upholding the tradition of the Science Fiction Pulp magazines of that era. There’s something to be said for the naive exuberance of that era, before astronomical science had caught up to the point of changing the sensibilities of genre writers. One of my great collecting obsessions has been the premiere Science Fiction Pulp magazine of the 20s and 30s: "Amazing Stories." Before Steven Spielberg co-opted the title for his 80s anthology. "Amazing Stories" was a ground breaking publication in the mid 20s. below is a copy of the one of editions I have.
Yes, I’ll admit the aliens with the huge ears is hokey, but there was again a charm in the naïve exuberance to the magazine, the artwork, and the stories. Its publisher, Hugo Gernsback had as an interesting and compelling story, as compelling as the personal life of H.P. Lovecraft, or Edgar Rice Burroughs. Gernsback was an entrepreneur who was born in 1884 in Luxembourg, Germany and immigrated to the United States in 1905. He founded radio station WRNY in 1925, and was involved in the first television broadcasts and is considered a pioneer in amateur radio. He published "Modern Electronics" in 1909, as well as founded the Wireless Association of America. He created "Amazing Stories" in 1926, and it is generally considered that he founded modern science fiction by creating a magazine dedicated to the genre. He even founded the phrase "Science Fiction", although it was awkwardly dubbed "Scientifiction" in the beginning. He also wrote Science Fiction in 1911, "Ralph 124C 41+", although, it should be noted, it was an awkwardly written book filled with interesting ideas. The magazine depended on reprints of H.G. Welles, Jules Verne, and Edgar Rice Burroughs in the beginning, yet talented writers did start their publishing careers from the magazine, such as A. Merrit, and E.E. "Doc" Smith or eventually John W. Campbell. It could be argued that editor Farnsworth Wright for "Weird Tales", did recruit a more important and influential pool of talent for that magazine. But Gernsback’s important role should not be ignored. The "Hugo" award, given out by the World Science Fiction Society, is named after him. He died in 1967 in New York City.
I mention all of this, to remind fans, that is it important to be aware of the past history of certain genres, both on film and in print, as such knowledge can only enrich your appreciation of it.
One of the problems and dangers for ufologists, or people who believe in alternative theories, is taking certain photographic evidence at face value. The adage, "Seeing is believing" isn't necessarily true concerning photographic evidence, and for those who do believe, or who are open to the extreme possibilities, they should allow for a degree of skepticism. There are two examples I will site, to illustrate my point. The first is a controversy that brewed in the summer of 2007, in various locations throughout California, the alien "Drone" ship(s) flap.
Photos were taken of various drone objects between April and May 2007, the most circulated were from Capitola in May 2007.
As well as evening photo’s in Lake Tahoe May 2007, and Big Basin.
To complicate matters, there were earlier reports of similar objects in Birmingham, Alabama in 2006, and allegedly Georgia (Russia, assumed) in 1996.
There we’re also claims in a disclosure from someone named "Issac", who worked in Palo Alto, California in the eighties. That he was working on a project to reverse engineer UFO technology. And had documentation to prove these "drone" ships were real.
Mufon has investigated the "Drone" issue and issued a report, determining is was an elaborate hoax, as well as the claims from "Issac" and this can be found at the following PDF file (you will need Adobe Reader to pull).
To any objective eye, the photos should have looked suspect. They looked a little too pristine, and looked like the construction of CGI modeling. It was probably due to some on-line viral marketing campaign. Yet, as I recall, some of these pictures went out to the national media. The problem lies with Ufologists who mistakenly took this at face value.
The second example of the problem of "seeing is believing" has to with Richard C. Hoagland, a former science curator and advisor to CBS news during the Apollo missions of the 60s and 70s. This is problematic for a great many who follow his work. He has argued that advanced civilizations exist or once existed on the Moon, as well as Mars, and some of the Moons of Jupiter. That the American government and NASA collaborated to keep these facts a secret, he has published a book titled "Dark Mission: The Secret History of NASA."
He was interviewed in a program titled: "Project Camelot", which featured his claims that the Apollo NASA missions were executed to secretly uncover evidence of ancient glass domes on the surface of the moon, as well as evidence of the head of an android that can be seen in one of the landscape photos. Mr. Hoagland makes the standard argument that the discovery of extra-terrestrial life would trigger a crisis of global faith. An argument I never personally understood for the following reason: Why couldn’t God create life on this world and life in other worlds in the universe? and why would such a possibility be a conflict?
Indeed, is it hard to know what to accept with Mr. Hoagland. He seemed founded in the principle of scientific research, yet it is possible somewhere along the line, he went astray in his scientific pursuits. Regarding his claim of a droid face on the moon? It is human nature to find patterns in nature and objects. Examples would be shapes found in a cloudy day, or a face that can be found in the shrubs of a tree: "Seeing isn't always believing".
Then there is his other assertions later in the interview, that NASA astronauts photographed evidence of glass domes, and that these domes we’re twenty times stronger than steel, he argued generally, if you mix the glass with various minerals and metals, there are various things that could be done with glass.
He basically argues that if you turn up the brightness of certain photos from the Apollo missions, you find various hidden patterns, grid work, structures, scaffolding and buttresses, as well as evidence that support the argument for glass domes because of light prisms in some of the photos. These discoveries were made based on image processing that was analyzed by architect Robert Fritech, where a model grid was created. He also asserts that after these photos were taken the negatives were tampered with. My issue is, my question is, was an outside, objected party brought in, and recreated exactly the methods behind Hoagland’s image processing analysis? It would add to the credibility of his argument, and would demonstrate an example of proper scientific method. There’s no known evidence of such an effort being made.
It should be noted, based on arguments from detractors, that Mr. Hoagland once argued the lunar landings were fake, and has done a reversal to support his present arguments, which can be found here (although the tone seems needlessly hostile):
I asked a friend with a fairly solid background in structural engineering if Glass could be stronger than steel in outer space. He concluded it's not possible in theory. The other point that should be questioned is the possibility that light distortions are being misinterpreted in the photographs. Unless someone can come forward with a credible explanation, can anyone claim or fully conclude that video and film imagery reacts in outer space exactly as it would in our atmosphere?
The issues concerning Richard C. Hoagland are more complicated, but no less problematic. For those who believe, or are open to the possibility of extra-terrestrial life, they should be careful to take at face value Mr. Hoagland's conclusions: "seeing isn't always believing", and for those who want to believe, that there are truths out there, they should allow themselves to be discriminating in the pursuit of such truth.
There's a long spell where I haven't added anything to here. It's really hard to believe that with this election, we have officially entered the 21st Century. We'll soon see how things develop, both pro and con. My deepest hope is that we will no longer be bound and shackled to 20th Century thinking. There was an interesting article about Obama's appointment for Director of National Intelligence, retired Admiral Dennis Blair.
Blair will have limited access to the intelligence communities classified files on UFO's and Extra Terrestrial life. On a side note, a random thought, there's a rumor that CIA Director, Leon Panetta's associate, John Podesta is a big X-Files Fan, As well as being known for advocating for the declassification of Government documents.
They're isn't much I need to comment on about the following Link. Chris, who's contributed to the Lexicon in the past, has his own blog and his approach to myth and pop culture is taken from a deep influence from Jung. Therefore his take on "I Want To Believe" is interesting.
First off, I hope everyone who visit here will consider entering our contest.
For those who have visited the new redesigned site, you probably have noticed the two public service banners. Both are subjects that I have a passionate concern for and, ideally, if I can get others involved, then I’ll be quite content. Let me try and explain why the issue of Internet Neutrality and Cyberbullying is such a concern and why it should be important to others.
All webmasters, especially in America, should be far more invested in the issue of Internet Neutrality. To put this as simply as possible, to quote from the site: Net neutrality prevents Internet providers from blocking, speeding up or slowing down Web content based on it’s source, ownership or destination. Various corporate telephone and cable companies want to tax content providers to guarantee speedy delivery of their data, to discriminate in favor of their own search engines, while blocking or slowing down their competitors, to limit the bandwidth, and no longer have a level playing field. In truth, this issue is something I could envision The Lone Gunmen being involved with….and this isn’t a conspiracy theory. The legislation for Internet Neutrality already exists, it just needs to be reinforced and strengthened. While many on-line users and webmasters may think: "This will never affect me," such thinking is incorrect and I’d advise everyone to visit the website we have a banner for and research this for yourself.
Now Cyberbullying is another issue that seems to be overlooked, or off the radar of most users. Yet it is a very real problem which people should educate themselves on. Now, I have never been affected by the kind of Cyberbullying that some teens experience, but I can sympathize. I had an internet experience that indirectly related to the issue, during the period of 2000 through late 2001, I was involved with another website and met a person that eventually put me into a situation that was similar to the book and the film of “The Night Listener”. This person would invent crisis after crisis and invent people who didn’t exist. This ended badly for me, damaging my reputation with the site I was involved with, only for me to find out the truth after the fact, and the experience was so devastating for me, that I nearly swore of all internet activity for a period. You live and learn.
I hope this will compel users and webmasters to look into these issues.
Being a webmaster of a website, that is devoted to a subject you love, can drive fans to such exuberance, that they tend to not pay attention to such details as the copyright, or "Fair use" of the subjects they write about. To be ignorant of these areas can put webmasters at risk, and they should really educate themselves.
I have been fortune to never have faced a cease and desist order from 20th Century Fox for the work that's done at the XF Lexicon. Crossing fingers I'm never faced with that situation. But I have been indirectly touched by the issue. At one time, years ago, I was a forum moderator and contributor to The Harry Potter Lexicon, who's owner, after getting involved with the publisher RDR, faced a lawsuit from J.K. Rowling's legal team and Warner Bros to stop publication of a print version of that website, J.K. Rowling's argument being that such a publication would be detrimental to the eventual publication of her own reference Encyclopedia about the HP world. The RDR publishers argued "Fair Use" in publishing their unauthorized edition, without the approval of the text from JKR's circle or WB. That "Fair Use" has applied to reference books in the past.
While I am not thrilled with the legal team of RDR, and feel that Steve Vander Ark was not advised or served well by them, I have also not been thrilled with the legal team of JKR or WB either. I have a lot more to say personally on the issue, but that's neither here nor there. The point being is that fellow webmasters of X-Files sites, should pay closer attention to this issue, in light of the outcome of the JKR vrs RDR case. Here's a couple of web addresses to educate anyone interested.
I do want to make it clear, as a writer of original fiction, I do believe that an author's work should be copyright protected, and others should not profit off of their work. Even if that author's work has become a cultural, and corporate, juggernaut, and I have personal doubts that the publication of a reference book from a small publisher could have much effect on that author's fortunes. But fans should respect the intellectual property of the author or creator. The precedent from this decision could affect on-line fandom in numerous areas, and webmasters should be wary of their actions, especially if it edges into the publication of their on-line work in print.
Hopefully, the relationship between corporate entertainment franchises and on-line fans will not become adversarial.
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