Admiral Television Studio

In this edition of Klaatu Barada Nikto I am featuring my most favorite toy of all time.  It was actually a FREE promotional premium from the Admiral Television Company called the "Admiral Television Studio".  With it, you could put on several different TV shows with cut-out puppets that were controlled by a Magic Wand.  It was all so very cool.  This toy came out in 1953, so it is very hard to find, but I was lucky to come across an unused one about a week ago, and I bought it right away.  For all you baby-boomers out there, this is the vintage toy to get.  Safe journeys to all the fans of Klaatu Barada Nikto, wherever you may be.

Alternative 3

"Alternative 3", is the classic conspiracy book:  It was first published by Sphere Books Ltd., of London in 1978.  Here are the major claims of the book:

FACT:  The Earth's atmosphere is becoming super-heated and unbreathable.  If this trend is not reversed, life on Earth is doomed.

ALTERNATIVE 1:  Blast "chimneys" in the stratosphere with nuclear weapons releasing heat and pollution.  Project Status: abandoned.

ALTERNATIVE 2:  Relocate Earth's population in massive underground caverns drawing fresh, cool air from the soil.  Project Status: abandoned.

ALTERNATIVE 3:  A bold venture into space built on revolutionary technology, officially-sanctioned murder, and a secret international conspiracy.  Project Status: unknown.

The major claim of the book is that a joint United States / Soviet Union space mission made a manned landing on the planet Mars on May 22, 1962.  That is an extraordinary assertion.  This was all started by a weekly British TV show called "Science Report".  The producers of that program were doing research on the "brain drain" in England, and quite inadvertently stumbled upon some amazing information.  They subsequently devoted a whole show based on their findings.  Hence was born the "Alternative 3" mythos.  After the original broadcast, there was an outcry from the viewers in London, who felt terrified by the conclusions of "Alternative 3".  This has echoes of Orson Welles' 1938 "War Of The Worlds" broadcast.  The British government got involved and Anglia TV which originally produced the broadcast, was forced to publicly state that the program was a hoax, in order to appease the government, and quiet down the negative reactions of the British people.  Shortly afterward, a book was commissioned by Anglia TV to set the record straight.  The basic issues, according to Anglia TV, were that the "Alternative 3" broadcast was not a hoax, and people died as a result of the revelations in the documentary.  The debate goes on and on, but the centerpiece of the broadcast was a video that purportedly shows the Mars landing of 1962. Click on the video widget below to watch this actual footage.  Safe journeys to all the fans of Klaatu Barada Nikto, wherever you may be.

Celestial Visitors

A moment of celestial peace.  Safe journeys to all the fans of Klaatu Barada Nikto, wherever you may be.

Calling Occupants Of Interplanetary Craft

Watch the skies.  Safe journeys to all the fans of Klaatu Barada Nikto, wherever you may be.

Chandu The Magician │ Classic Radio Shows

Click on the video widget below to listen to classic "Chandu The Magician" radio shows.  Safe journeys to all the fans of Klaatu Barada Nikto, wherever you may be.

Children Of The Damned

 Clive Powell

In this edition of Klaatu Barada Nikto I am featuring the 1963 classic film "Children Of The Damned".  This movie is actually the sequel to the "Village Of The Damned" that was released in 1960.  Both of these films were loosely based on the novel "The Midwich Cuckoos", written by British author John Wyndham.  Clive Powell plays the part of Paul Looran, the leader of the children.  I have to say that "Children Of The Damned" is one of the most frightening and intense movies that I have ever seen.  Much of this is due to Clive's enigmatic and extremely otherworldly persona.  Needless to say, this is Clive's movie.  It is interesting to note that the children in the movie are clearly implied to be Christ-like advanced human beings, complete with virgin births, and the raising of the dead.  Unfortunately though, the children are destroyed because society is not able to accept them.  Safe journeys to all the fans of Klaatu Barada Nikto, wherever you may be.

The War Of The Worlds │ Orson Welles

Orson Welles

 Few people remember now-a-days the panic that struck the United States on the evening of  October 30, 1938, seventy-five years ago.  Orson Welles was the director of "The Mercury Theater On The Air" which was broadcast live by the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS today).  It is hard to imagine how a radio broadcast could cause so much havoc, but Welles' adaptation of H.G. Wells' "The War Of The Worlds" was disguised as a program of dance music, inter-spaced with news bulletins of a Martian invasion.  Like today's channel surfers, radio listeners of the day would spin the radio dial looking for other programs when they got bored with what they were listening to.  It was no wonder that most of them missed the introduction of the broadcast, and took the news-bulletins to be real, and many of them fled to the hills for protection.  Keep in mind that the program was transmitted live from coast-to-coast.  Well, the rest as they say is history.  At the close of the program, Orson Welles said these words although it did not lessen any of the fears and the panic caused by the broadcast: "This is Orson Welles, ladies and gentlemen, out of character to assure you that  'The War Of The Worlds' has no further significance than as the holiday offering it was intended to be.  The Mercury Theater's own radio version of dressing up in a sheet and jumping out of a bush and saying 'Boo!'"  In this edition of Gort Klaatu Barada Nikto I am featuring the complete radio broadcast of 1938 just as America heard it on that faithful evening.  Please click on the video widget below to hear Orson Welles' "The War Of The Worlds".  Safe journeys to all the fans of Klaatu Barada Nikto, wherever you may be.