Guided by aliens, a man builds a machine that can make you younger. But will he finish it before the government finishes him? – Guided by those very same aliens, James Bartlett reviews Jonathan Berman’s documentary.
Deep in the Mojave Desert in California is something white, wacky and wonderful – the Integratron – and until you visit yourself, you can learn about it from the irresistibly-titled new documentary Calling All Earthlings from Jonathan Berman.
After a short cinema release in America it is now available on VOD, with the possibility that there might be a European release or screenings too – after all, who can resist a story that combines aliens, a time machine, and the hint of a Government conspiracy?
Paid for by UFO festivals and built over many years by George Van Tassell and his friends, the Integratron is a dome structure that’s a cosmic battery for electromagnetic energy, a conduit for healing, and maybe even the secret to life.
How can that be? Because an alien from Venus named Solganda told George so in 1954, so he took his aviation and engineering skills out into the wilds to build what Solganda wanted out of fiberglass, wood and concrete. Not a single nail or screw was used, and Van Tassell made sure it was built right on a geomagnetic anomaly, where three underground rivers meet.
The FBI started sniffing around when it emerged the Integratron utilized Nikolas Tesla’s ideas of “free energy” in the design, and when Van Tassell died unexpectedly just weeks before the unveiling in 1978, his blueprints and some of the Integratron’s technology went missing: did he really have something special on his hands that the MIBs wanted to keep secret?
I have been to the Integratron a couple of times, and the 38-foot-high and 50-foot-wide structure is striking when it appears on the horizon among the rocks, sand and cacti.
It’s currently run by three sisters who hold “sound baths” in its acoustic circular chamber, and they see everyone from celebrities (Robert Plant, Jarvis Cocker, Anthony Bourdain, Charlize Theron, Robert Downey, Jr) to norms like me partaking of the quartz Tibetan bowl experience.
Being a skeptical Brit, I wasn’t convinced I’d be transported away into the cosmos, but then I lay down to relax and listen and realized – all the birds outside had stopped singing. Call Mulder and Scully if you like, but there’s something about hearing those tones; they seem to pass right through you, and everyone leaves feeling chilled out.
Maybe George was on to something, and so until you can visit this oddity yourself – and book well in advance, as this place is no secret anymore – check out this short and sweet documentary. Most of the interviewees are, let’s say, colourful and eccentric, but they all believed. See you in the stars!
www.callingallearthlingsmovie.com