The Stargate Conspiracy (37 page)

The idea that scientists - with their traditional contempt for all matters paranormal - believe they are in personal contact with extraterrestrial (or other nonhuman) intelligences may seem surprising and unlikely, but many of the Nine’s most devoted followers are, as we have seen, physicists. In response to Sarfatti’s description of his childhood telephone conversation with a computer from the future, Brendan O‘Regan said he knew of ‘several hundred’ similar cases, and Saul Paul Sirag stated unequivocally that over 100 scientists in the United States alone believe they were in telepathic contact with extraterrestrial intelligences.
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John C. Lilly, another pioneer in the study of altered states of consciousness and LSD research, who spent time at the Esalen Institute in the late 1960s, reported his own experiences of contact with ‘intelligences or entities higher than myself, which he believed were ‘a shared organized aspect of the Universe’.
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He speaks of these higher intelligences as ‘programmers‘, and developed a theory that human beings are really ‘biocomputers’. He wrote: ‘All human beings... are programmed biocomputers. No one of us can escape our own nature as programmable entities. Literally, each of us may be our programs, nothing more, nothing less.‘
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Although this sounds remarkably like a mechanistic or behaviouristic concept, Lilly was also convinced of the existence of higher intelligences - the ‘programmers’ — who, by implication, program human biocomputers and control the development of civilisation on Earth. These ideas are strikingly similar to James Hurtak’s, as expressed in
The Keys of Enoch.

Another leading figure in this strange elite of contactee scientists was the very respected philosopher of science, R. Buckminster Fuller,
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whose director of research was Brendan O’Regan. Although others stop short of actually claiming personal contact, some leading figures in this investigation have affirmed their own belief that such things are not only possible, but are actually taking place. Former astronaut Edgar Mitchell spoke during a radio interview in 1996 about his belief that extraterrestrials have visited Earth. And Jerry Mishlove wrote of Arthur M. Young (who died in 1995):

Arthur Young also lectured in San Francisco on the reality of underground alien bases in the United States,
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yet, once again, this may seem rather inconsistent with his academic status in the eyes of those who automatically equate a belief in ‘aliens’ with underachieving New Age ‘flakes’. On the contrary, Young - most famous as the inventor of the rotor mechanism that made the very first viable helicopter for Bell — was respected as one of the foremost thinkers of the twentieth century. And he was also present at the Nine’s very first appearance, at Puharich’s Round Table Foundation in 1952/1953.

Leading scientists and thinkers not merely accepted the possibility of extraterrestrial contact, but in many cases actually claimed to experience it. Virtually all of them are part of the same network of people and organisations, centred on the avant-garde research institutes of 1970s California, with the same people repeatedly surfacing in this tangled web. For example, Brendan O‘Regan, research director for R. Buckminster Fuller - who himself claimed extraterrestrial contact - ‘triggered’ the memory of Jack Sarfatti’s weird phone call and worked with Andrija Puharich and Uri Geller at the very time they were heavily committed to the Spectra/Nine contacts.

These links go far beyond mere coincidence, but seem only to confuse the picture further. Could this immensely complex scheme, extending over many years and involving hundreds, perhaps thousands of people, really have originated with extraterrestrials? Is this evidence of a clever long-term plan from nonhuman intelligences, such as the Nine? Tempting though such a scenario may appear, the fact remains that there is a large degree of involvement — and obvious orchestration — by clandestine government agencies. Although these two hypotheses seem contradictory, there is another option. Are the shadowy presences of the intelligence agencies and the nonhuman intelligences not, as they may seem, mutually exclusive, but actually an alliance?

One thing is certain: the Nine have had an influence on a huge variety of prime movers, which is no mean achievement for entities with no visible presence or means of support. But the Nine themselves were only part of an intricate tapestry made up of many equally vivid threads. Jack Sarfatti notes, in describing a conversation in 1996 with Thomas Jenkins, a former physicist who now runs the Gorbachev Foundation/USA: ‘Tom [Jenkins] and I had an interesting conversation in which we both noted the amazing patterns of synchronicity linking physicists interested in consciousness, extra-terrestrial intelligence, remote-viewing and other fringe areas with the pivotal events that ended the Cold War.’
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Also writing of the milieu in which the Nine were an inseparable part, Sarfatti says: ‘The fact remains ... that a bunch of apparently California New Age flakes into UFOs and psychic phenomena,
including myself,
had made their way into the highest levels of the American ruling class and the Soviet Union and today run the Gorbachev Foundation [his emphasis].’
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This is a troubling scenario. As Sarfatti notes, key figures in his scene have become ‘the American ruling class and the Soviet Union[’s]’, who even — arguably — brought about the end of the Cold War, perhaps the collapse of communism itself as a force to be reckoned with. These people may have a major part in running the world, but they also — to an unknown degree — are influenced by the Nine.

For this reason alone the Nine should be taken seriously, even if this requires a massive suspension of disbelief. They may be who they claim to be — the ancient Egyptian gods — but it seems highly unlikely. There is another possibility: the Nine may be real, in the sense that they are not hoaxes or delusions — and not monsters created by Dr Frankenstein-Puharich - but genuine nonhuman intelligences trying to deceive us into thinking that they are the Heliopolitan Ennead for reasons of their own.
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We have already noted the influence that the Nine have over the New Age, but there are other arenas in which their influence is surprisingly, not to say disturbingly, strong. As we have seen, Richard Hoagland gave a lecture at the United Nations, organised by a special interest group of UN employees and representatives called the Society for Enlightenment and Transformation (SEAT), run by employees Susan Karaban and Mohammad Ramadan. It is heavily influenced by the Nine, as can be inferred by the identity of previous SEAT speakers at the UN, who included James Hurtak and Andrija Puharich. Hurtak has also written articles for the SEAT newsletter on the Face on Mars and extraterrestrial intelligence.

Mohammad Ramadan gave a lecture at the First Scandinavian Conference on Extraterrestrial Intelligence and Human Future in Helsinki, Finland, in November 1996, in which he quoted extensively from the Nine. The theme of his lecture was the potential impact of widespread belief in extraterrestrial communication, if and when the spaceships land. He used channelled material to illustrate what the extraterrestrials themselves thought about this, although he added words of caution about their reliability and the possibility of the message being distorted by the channellers’ minds. But he has a novel solution to this problem: ‘I have taken special care to use the messages taken only from their highest hierarchy, that is from beings of the 5th Dimension and above, or the ultra-terrestrials as futurist Dr James Hurtak calls them.’
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But we only know which extraterrestrials are fifth-dimensional because they tell us. In other words, Ramadan only trusts the entities that tell him they’re trustworthy. And the only people who appear to be qualified to sort the extraterrestrial wheat from the chaff are Phyllis Schlemmer and James Hurtak.

Some of the figures lurking further back in the shadows also reappear time and time throughout this story, such as the American multimillionaire (and former Navy intelligence officer) Henry Belk, a close associate of Puharich in the 1950s and 1960s, and one of the few who attended his funeral in 1995. Belk appears in the acknowledgements of
The Only Planet of Choice
as the person ‘who started it all’, although tantalisingly, how he did this is not explained. He is known to have funded James Hurtak,
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and the two of them were also involved with another controversial research foundation with particularly high-level connections. This was the Human Potential Foundation, which was founded in 1989 by Senator Claiborne Pell, and whose president was one of Pell’s aides, C.B. ‘Scott’ Jones, a veteran of US Navy intelligence.

According to Jim Schnabel, ‘Scott Jones was in touch with a ring of psychics around the United States, who he occasionally put in touch with various intelligence officials on operational matters.’
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One of Jones’s favourite psychics was Alex Tannous, who also worked for the US Army’s Project GRILL FLAME, and in 1984 was brought in by the CIA to remote view the location of a CIA station chief who had been kidnapped in Beirut. (Tannous identified the correct place and accurately revealed that the agent was dead, although this seemed highly unlikely at the time.)
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Jones invited Tannous to remote view the Sphinx: the results of this are unknown, although it is known that Jones sent his report to ARE.
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The Human Potential Foundation received funding from several prominent individuals, including Laurence Rockefeller. Its employees included Dick Farley, who resigned in 1994 after three years as director of program development.

From his inside knowledge, Farley has become extremely concerned about the increasing influence of the Council of Nine over politicians and decision-makers. He writes that the Nine ‘maintain a working network of physicists and psychics, intelligence operatives and powerful billionaires, who are less concerned about their “source” and its weirdness than they are about having every advantage and new data edge in what
they
believe is a battle for Earth itself.’
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Farley records a meeting of Jones, Henry Belk and James Hurtak to discuss, among other things, the funding of the Human Potential Foundation.
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This suggests that Hurtak’s - and the Nine’s — philosophy is reaching the highest levels of US politics. Jones’s superior, Senator Claiborne Pell, is an extremely powerful figure in Washington. He was Chairman of the Senate’s influential Foreign Relations Committee and is the elder statesman whom the younger Vice-President Al Gore has come to respect. Pell and Gore worked closely together when the latter was a senator. The two share a passionate belief in the paranormal and both are great supporters of government-funded psi research. According to Farley, Pell has ‘long been a friend and advocate of [Henry] Belk’s’
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and he is on the board of Edgar Mitchell’s Institute of Noetic Sciences. Uri Geller told us how he had been brought in by Pell, Anthony Lake (later President Clinton’s National Security Advisor) and Gore to help ‘influence’ the Russian team at arms reductions talks in Geneva in 1987.
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Pell also arranged for Geller to secretly brief government officials on his psychic information on Soviet strategy in a secure room in the Capitol. The audience included senators and Pentagon officials.
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There is cause for concern here. Not only do Vice-President Al Gore and Senator Claiborne Pell share the same esoteric interests, but they are also political allies. It is reasonable to assume that Gore is familiar with the Nine; if so, how much is he influenced by their teachings - or, in the worst case scenario, even their instructions? The evidence suggests that he is by no means the only top-ranking American politician to have been drawn into the Nine’s sphere of influence.

By now it is plain that the Nine are behind the messages of Giza and Cydonia, and that all three are now inextricably entwined in a sort of inescapable juggernaut of the ‘truth’. It is impossible to have one without the other, thanks to the sterling work of the intelligence agencies, who ensure that this new belief system is constantly being topped up with new rumours and counterrumours, so that we will never fail to be gripped by the unfolding story. But welded firmly on to a very reasonable interest in the mysteries of Mars and the secrets of ancient Egypt lies the insidious presence of the Nine and their ever-eager disciples.

Just like the New Egyptology and the Message of Cydonia, this is a scenario in which controversial ‘alternative’ events are intimately connected with, if not seemingly directed by, intelligence agencies. Moreover, these three strands, although each seemingly had independent origins, have gradually, but inexorably, been drawn together like three fish caught in the same tightening net. The pronouncements of the Nine have - through Hoagland and Myers — been integrated with the Message of Cydonia, and this in turn has been firmly welded to the mystery of the Egyptian civilisation and the search for its lost secrets.

The same individuals play major parts in all three stories. The prime example is James Hurtak, the ultimate guru, who channels the Nine, was Puharich’s second-in-command at Lab Nine, was the first person to make the Mars — Egypt connection public, and was — and still is - also a major player in the events at Giza.

There is also the involvement in all three stories of SRI, an organisation with intimate connections with defence and intelligence communities in the United States. SRI crops up in Giza, in the Mars story, and, through its involvement with Puharich, in the events surrounding the Nine.