Dark Matters Radio

Dark Matters Radio Archives

Welcome back to Dark Matters Radio. Week 26 begins with a foray into an esoteric corner of the paranormal. My guest on Monday July 12 is the writer/researcher Sesh Heri.

Sesh Heri

An illustrator, Heri was employed at Marine World briefly as a sketch artist, and illustrated his first novel and the graphic version adapted from it.

Heri is the author of “Wonder of the Worlds” (ISBN 0-9727472-8-1), an adventure featuring the scientific theories of Nikola Tesla and Heri himself, in which Tesla and Mark Twain journey to Mars with Harry Houdini to retrieve a crystal stolen by Martian agents. The novel features Tesla technology and Heri’s own theory of geomorphology, as well as several illustrations by Heri. “Wonder of the Worlds” is the first in a trilogy featuring Harry Houdini and Tesla, among other historical figures.

The Handprint of Atlas Handprint of Atlas
For over twenty-five years Heri researched and developed his theory of geomorphology, in which he states that the axis of the Earth was artificially set in place by a higher intelligence in order that advanced human life be able to develop.

Dark Matters begins at 10:00 PM Pacific Daylight Time on CyberstationUSA, and runs Monday thru Friday. We all hope to “see ya” on the radio.

Tuesday July13 Dark Matters Radio revisits Jim Marrs and Jim’s research into some very “dodgy” theories concerned with remote viewing, the Twin Towers, JFK and many other conspiracies. Jim is always a very fascinating guest and this show is Mucho Fun!

Jim Marrs-Don Ecker

Wednesday July 14 Dr. Barry Taff comes on Dark Matters Radio to discuss his new book Aliens Above Ghosts Below. Dr. Barry Taff is a world wide known Parapsychologist and his most recognized case concerns “The Enity”
which was a case that became a feature film starring Barbra Hershey and Ron Silver.
In “Aliens Above Ghosts Below” discusses many cases he has investigated over his almost 40 years in the paranormal research field. For more on his new book, go to Cosmic Pantheon Press

Thursday July 15 I am joined by long time researcher Greg Bishop, publisher of The Excluded Middle Magazine and host of Radio Misterioso, who along with Friday night co-host Rich Sarradet we will discuss items in a “round table”. There is always a lot going on and we will see how many topics we hit tonight! See ya on the radio …

Rich

Oh yes, one last thing … are you a doggie mom or dad? Well, I am and I always worry bout our furry kid. If you are a doggie Mom or Dad make sure you warn your 4 legged child that this can happen to “bad dogs!” See below …..

Bad Dogs Beware!!

Friday TBA

I just completed another radio interview today, speaking about (dare I say it ?) my rather extensive knowledge of the UFO field. Most of my life I have been blessed (or possibly cursed?) with my ability to pull up facts, figures, names, incidents, etc. mostly involving the UFO field. For about 20 years I was the Director of Research for UFO Magazine. ( a national-international publication begun by my wife and her former partner Sherie Stark.)

My first media appearance for the magazine was on Larry King Live, on that night hosted by Pat Buchanan.

King was off on another honey-moon with one of his wives. The topic of the evening was the sighting of a UFO that reportedly landed in the Soviet city of Voronesh in the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics or USSR. Its funny but I was neither nervous or camera shy. Buchanan seemed fairly open-minded on the topic, the guy opposite me was another “wonk” trying to do the skeptic thing. Near the end of the show I mentioned that General Douglas MacArthur worried about the idea of ET’s, and he mentioned the possibility that one day we might have conflict with ET, and said all this at his very last public appearance at the Military Academy at West Point. Buchanan came a little unglued but I had a copy of his speech with me. We ran out of time, show over. I ended up over the years doing around 6 shows with LKL.

Well until I “stole” his show in 1992. I was on talking about a story I broke nationally, the STS-48 Space Shuttle video that broadcast live a video of a UFO above Australia and the apparent SHOOTING at it by some type of space based weapon. I was debating Dr. Jim Oberg, and started out by asking Oberg if he was appearing under any security restrictions. Oberg was a NASA contract scientist and this pissed him off and King became “hinky.”

Larry King Transcript on STS-48

At one point he accused me of trying to be a prosecutor (kind of like a Court of Law) but I was so tired of folks going on these shows, linguine spine and all, and letting the “SKEPTICS” make them look like morons. (Of course, it didn’t help that many of them WERE morons.) I was a different breed of cat and over the years many skeptics avoided me just like the plague.

For a while it seemed like I did national TV almost weekly, not to mention many – many radio programs. Hell, I was on the NBC News with Tom Brokaw.

I was also broadcasting my own national radio show, UFOs Tonite. I really enjoyed it because I then believed that using my police background, doing in-depth and honest research and investigation, at some point the main-stream would sit up and take notice. Geeze, I was naïve. However I did manage to piss off a number of important people. A week or so after I did the LKL STS-48 show we got a phone call at the magazine from a reporter, well known, on the national security beat that we knew. I answered the phone and he informed me that I had pissed off a number of folks at the Pentagon by my breaking the STS-48 story. Up till that time, NASA missions in space beamed back live video but after the King show all video was time delayed or vetted first. No live video has been seen by the public since my appearance on Larry King. Damn.

I met many people that I admired both on and off camera, and on and off the microphone. Many folks that you may be familiar with. People like Colonel Gordon Cooper, one of the original Mercury 7 astronauts.

Ingo Swan, the “Godfather” of the military’s “remote viewing program,”

Zecharia Sitchin, known for his series of historical journeys into mans remote past starting with “The Twelfth Planet.”

Another treat was meeting and then interviewing Robert “Bob” Wise. Are you drawing a blank? Ever see the original “The Day the Earth Stood Still” or perhaps “The Andromeda Strain” or perhaps “Star Trek – The Movie” ? Yep, that Bob Wise.

In all those media appearances my main objective was to attempt to legitimize the overall UFO research field. Believe me, there is a reality there, but the main problem has been that the mainstream television and news media have, over the last 60 years, been conditioned to laugh, ridicule and dismiss the subject. Imagine this if you can. … apparently unknown and very advanced technological devices have been invading our skies with total impunity for many decades. What? You don’t believe that, well then allow me to suggest you do a bit of research, prove me wrong. These things, whatever they are, have invaded the airspace over Washington DC, nuclear power plants, military reservations, nuclear weapons storage areas … to name just a few incidents. Some very important people have admitted this, former Senator Barry Goldwater, President Jimmy Carter, President Ronald Reagan, General Doug MacArthur, former Prime Minister Winston Churchill, well you should get the idea. It is not and never has been the proper question to ask “Are UFOs real?” The question should be “What are UFOs?” Are they someone else’s technology and if so, whose? Over the years millions have seen something, and many official reports have verified that fact. Just what are they?

After many years I grew increasingly frustrated, not by the phenomena but by many of the people that have attached themselves to the subject. Outright liars, hoaxers, and quite simply bullshit artists. I finally decided to “pull the pin” on the subject and left the field. Now … IF you are INTERESTED IN WHY, here is where you can go to read my “Goodbye Letter” to the wonderful world of UFO research.  20 Years In the UFO FOG

Now I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that I never lost interest in the overall subject. I am still interested and I have done a number of radio interviews on the subject since I quit overall research. The most recent one has been on “The Paracast Radio Show. This will be available to listen to starting March 8^th. If you would like to hear it, here is the link, it is just a matter of clicking on the radio link and then hear me go over just what in hell is wrong with most UFO research today, with hosts Gene Steinberg and David Biedny. The Paracast Radio Show

Hey, if you don’t know much about the subject you might even find this of interest. So, in the meantime …. lets say you are going out with your significant other and you happen to look up in the sky and you see something that shocks the hell out of you and you suddenly realize ….GEEZE, IS THAT A UFO ??? Do me a favor …. Don’t call ME! So, with that … until later …. and Keep Looking UP!

Today Boys and Girls, we take a different tack … we are gonna talk about Vampires!

Okay, my question is … “Who doesn’t like a great horror tale, especially if a little sex and T&A is thrown in? I do, so I hope this doesn’t upset your view of me. Now, I got a story to tell you! (And it has the advantage of being absolutely TRUE!) If you’ve been dropping by here for awhile, you know that several months ago I left a post about writing and my published horror novel “Past Sins.” Past Sins is a tale about what might happen if the American Intelligence establishment managed to get their hands on a “gen-u-wine, no bullshit, honest to God VAMPIRE”, attempt to weaponize it, and how it would probably turn out! (Here is a hint, not so bloody damn good.) Now, if you stopped for a second to wonder why a guy with my background would be interested in such topics, well here is the answer.

Back in the 80’s I was a cop and in “81-82” I was tasked to investigate several cattle mutilations. Part of the evidence on those cattle mutes was the fact that the animals were missing quite a bit of blood that could not be accounted for. What I just related is both very weird and also true. By the way, this mutilation phenomena is damn near world-wide and it has never been solved. But, during this time is also when I first heard about something called the “Highgate Vampire Case.” Highgate is a cemetery in North London that was first consecrated in 1839, and during the Victorian Era was the place to be buried in. Some very well known “heavy-weights” are planted there. (Karl Marx for example.) I could go on for pages about this subject, I did end up investigating the “so-called vampire” and here it is in a nutshell. Oh, and did I say … NUT Shell? Well lets just stop at NUT.

When I finally did manage to find some info out on Highgate it was the early 1990’s, and my first sources came from the internet. I discovered two names entwined with Highgate, one Sean Manchester and the other a David Farrant.

Farrant

Manchester

Oh yes, lest I forget .. there also seemed to be a feud between these two guys, a feud that spanned over 30 years! It still goes on to this day! Really. Did I mention that I also became somewhat involved in this feud? Well I did and brother let me tell you … American crazies got NUTTIN’ on British crazies. The upshot is that Manchester bills himself (to this day) as an actual, no kidding, honest-to-God, only gonna say this once, Vampire Hunter and Killer! ( Well that is if Vampires were living, which anybody that ever watched the old Hammer Film version of Dracula KNOWS that Vampires are the Dreaded UNDEAD!) Did I mention he loves to play “dress-up”?

Maybe I should just say a Vampire Dispatcher. Anyways ….

David Farrant is an actual, honest-to-God, no kidding around, bonafide Paranormal researcher who now claims he does not believe in real honest-to-God blood drinking and sucking Vampires, but does buy into spirits that go bump in the night, kind of like Ghostie thingies.

When I discovered these two guys I tried to contact Manchester to interview him. He wanted nothing to do with me. I discovered he had written a book about his alleged investigation and ultimate dispatching of what he claimed was a vampire that had been haunting the Highgate Cemetery, so I tried to find the book here in the U.S. but couldn’t so I ordered it from the U.K.

I read it (very turgid prose) and was still intrigued. One thing that he claimed was that this young and beautiful girl (he called Lusia) had been attacked by the vampire and finally turned into a gen-u-wine, honest-to-God, no kidding around, blood sucking Vampire! And then he staked her ass! (Had to save the world and all don’t you know!) This was almost too much for me, so I did what any self respecting cop would do, tried to track this babe down. (Yeah, the photos I found showed she did appear to be a babe. Sorry Ladies, a guy thing.)

Lusia aka Jackie Cooper

No luck and I even had a research contact in the U.K. So anyway I was stuck until I discovered a podcast radio show that had both these guys (Manchester & Farrant) on their show at different times. These two guys appear to loath each other.

The babe’s real name turned up via Farrant, one Jackie Cooper. Wow! Now I had somewhere to go with this. Finally after this Manchester boob refused to allow me to interview him, I contacted Farrant and interviewed him on my show Dark Matters. This turned into a rollicking almost two hour show … and warts and all were exposed! Farrant admitted to spending several years in the Queen’s Pokey (prison) for grave desecration (and he claimed he was framed mainly by our boy Manchester, and Manchester proved to be an attention seeking whore who never missed an opportunity to get his name or face in the newspaper. These two “fought duels” with swords (supposedly) and had it in the papers, and at one time Manchester even faked his death and solicited funds to have his “body” shipped back to England from France!

One more Phony Duel

(A very humorous sideline was when the CID (police detectives) dropped by Farrant’s “flat” to ask him what he did with Manchester’s body after he “killed him” in a duel, and Farrant, trying for that understated British quip, told them since this was out of the U.K.’s jurisdiction, they should contact INTERPOL! The cops were not amused.

I had an entire forum dedicated to this topic (at the time I was bored and needed the amusement) and was surprised at the people from all over the globe that ended up jumping into this topic! The Manchester bunch (probably he himself… oh yeah, now he claims he is a man of the cloth, a Bishop no less in the Old Catholic Church and he has tons of aliases) sent photos of Farrant cavorting with nude chicks,

Farrant and willing Chick

holding “black arts ceremonies” and all kinds of juicy things. Then it turned out that the “Bish’s spouse” was at one time a “sacred prostitute” in some kind of Black Magic thingie. Geeze! I mean, how can this get any better?

The Bish

Oh yeah, lest I forget … anybody who questions this Manchester guy gets internet stalked and threatened by his bunch. Now if you were to ask me my bottom line? Well back in the day (1970’s to the 1980’s) I think these two were simply trying to get laid. Told you it was my bottom line. However this “feud” has gone on so long that I believe these two forgot what it was all about and are so locked into this thing, they will both end up dying with it on their minds …..

Oh well, every once in a while I kind of go to their sites and lurk, read what is going on and then end up with a HUGE SMILE on my face …….. What the hell, its good for a laugh. Sad part is, I wonder if they know OR care how “BLOODY RIDICULOUS” they appear to the rest of the world? VAMPIRES???? Oh those Wacky Brits!

ADDENDUM

There is a Ton of Stuff on the so-called Highgate Case. If you plug that into Google or plug Farrant or Manchester into the mix you will find many hours or days worth of reading and wading through the material. Just try to separate the “wheat from the chaff” and you will see what I mean. But after I posted the above I did a Google on Highgate to see what new was up there. Remember ol’ Mr. Giles from Buffy the Vampire Slayer TV show? Actor Anthony Head narrates a video put out by our “fearless Vampire Slayer” the Right Reverand and most Holy Joe, Sean Manchester. And!! Manchester manages to say he BELIEVES IN VAMPIRES! with a straight face! If you want to waste a couple of minutes …. here is the video!

Our Fearless Vampire Slayer!

Jeeze, I woke up this morning and it hit me … it’s 2009 … already! Man, oh man, who would have “thunk” it? On New Year’s Eve I hit the sack about 10:30 PM and never even gave midnight a thought. This morning however, I did that thing that many folks do … gave the last few years a review. Oh, Boy!

It was about October, 1995 or so, (back in my other life when I was a recognized “expert” in the UFO field – more on that later) when I got a telephone call from Paul Davids.

Paul Davids and Me

Vicki and I have known Paul for years and years, and you may recognize him as the Executive Producer of the movie ROSWELL. Roswell is the film based on the real life happenings that took place in Roswell, New Mexico in 1947 involving the alleged crash of an Unidentified Flying Object or UFO. This happened next to the only “nuclear capable” military organization in the world at that time. Roswell is synonymous today with UFOs and ETs. Back in those days, Vicki and I were “UFO Magazine,” a publication my wife and her then partner began in 1986 and that we ran almost single handedly. We had covered Paul’s movie extensively in our magazine.

On this date, however, Paul called to ask me if I would be interested in appearing (briefly) in a new film he was shooting … ” Starry Night .” I was initially flattered, thinking O-boy! Hollywood finally saw me as a “Star in the Rough” (until Paul told me it would be an unpaid spot! Of course, why change my MO now?) It seemed that he needed two reporters covering the Rose Parade in Pasadena, California on New Years Day, which was New Years, 1996. The movie plot was pretty simple … a century after his death, Vincent van Gogh magically returns to present day America, arriving at the Rose Parade, (where by the way he is hit by one of the floats) and after getting out of the hospital realize’s his art is worth millions! My role, along with Brandon Scott, was to play a reporter reporting on the accident involving van Gogh. Nah, we didn’t have a script per se, we ad-libbed our speaking parts, making it up as we went along.

Brandon Scott & Don Ecker

Making movies close to Hollywood, California can be tricky. You got to know what you’re doing … and so importantly … you gotta have all the right paperwork and licenses to film on location. At the time Paul had a budget that wouldn’t buy lunch for two at Burger King. In other words, he didn’t have the paperwork. There was the camera man filming me and Brandon, ad-libbing our sparkling commentary, and all the while the real cops were looking at us suspiciously. The Rose Parade was going on and the actor playing van Gogh popped out into the street pretending to get hit … ah hell, you get the idea.

We all met at Pauls about 1:30 or 2:00 AM, then trucked over to Pasadena looking for a spot to set up. Now, if you’ve ever gone to Pasadena just before the Rose Parade you will know that you don’t have room to even turn around, much less set up a film shoot. With all those people there you would think someone was giving away free beer and pretzels, and they get there the day before. (And that isn’t even mentioning the football game after the parade.) We schlepped around until later in the afternoon, making sure Paul got all the shots he needed. Then … years went by and nada.

I bumped into Paul at a MUFON meeting sometime after 2001 or so. When I saw him I walked up and after shaking hands and asking how he was, I asked about “Starry Night.” The film was released in 1999, and guess what? My segment (with Brandon Scott) was left on the cutting room floor … That’s when it hit me … my acting career was over … before it even began!

Flash forward to present … Here is a wish for a Happy Prosperous 2009. May Peace Reign.

Starry Night video clip

“A megabyte. In other words, a quarter of a MILLION Bytes!” Whoa.. I understood a million. A million of anything was impressive enough for me. So, if I bought more memory … my head now really started to swim. So I okayed him upping the memory to 384-K. Seems like at that point I needed something else in the computer to go all the way to 640 K and he didn’t have one. (However I did get it about a week later.) Oh yes, I also bought an external disk drive that was a 3 1/2 inch disk that handled 740-K. (Wow. Now we were talking cause that meant in the real world, 3/4 quarters of a million bytes, whatever in hell they were.) I also got talked into a printer, another Tandy Special. After all, once you had something in the computer you’ve got to have a way to get it out. Remember that this was 1987, virtually eons ago, computer-wise. The Internet was not yet around for all us home users, and I had not yet discovered BBS’s. If you don’t know what they are, plug it into a search engine. Do a little research. It is hard to believe how ancient those days are.

Oh, yes–one other item that I bought that day. And when I tell you that it changed my life, I do not exaggerate. In passing this guy mentioned a MODEM .

“A what?” I asked. Now I could start to feel the pinch of my wallet.

“A modem,” he stated emphatically.

“Okay, what is a modem?”

Now I was starting to feel just the tiniest bit taken advantage of.

“Well if you have a modem you can communicate with other computers around the world.” Then he smirked. Now, with that bit of information rattling around in my head I began to hyperventilate a little.

Well I bought one. And today with cable modems, you will fall off your chair when I tell you the price. Did I mention it was a 300 baud unit? Oh yes, a 300-baud modem for a mere $100.

I walked out of there after laying down about $1,200. Today, of course, if I had all that stuff in pristine condition I couldn’t give it away. But in the end I had a Tandy 1000 EX computer with 384-K of memory, an internal 5-1/4 inch 360 K floppy drive, an external 3-2 inch 740-K drive, a CGA Monitor, a 300-baud modem, a box of 10 floppy 5-1/4 inch 360 K disks, DOS 2.1 and a stand to put the monitor on, a dot matrix printer and assorted cables.

Now I will say this: After the Radio Shack closed he came over to my townhouse and helped me set the whole damned thing up. He also showed me how to use it to format a disk to make a copy of the DOS disk. This was WAY before Windows was on the scene; everything worked from DOS. (And even though I am embarrassed to admit it now, the only thing I could do with that computer was to format the DOS disks. I used up the whole box making DOS floppies. I just spent $1,200 on it, I had to do something with it!)

I do not want to sound sour grapes, because I really grew to love that little 1000 EX computer, but had I known what I was doing I could have done SO MUCH better with the money I spent. I learned a lesson after buying it. The reason Radio Shack had a sale (and I really didn’t save much money at all) was because they had phased out the 1000 EX. (It, by the way, sported an 8088 CPU. Totally anemic). They were going to a new 286 series and wanted to unload their stock. They burned me one more time on the next computer I bought there, but I will save that for another day.

The 300-baud modem is a story in itself. I discovered Compuserve, or as it became known among users, CI$. At $6 hour if you used a 300 baud modem. It you were fancy and had a 1,200 baud modem, that bounced you up to about $12 AN HOUR! 2,400 baud modems were (in those days) the stuff dreams were made of. Actually as time went on and I started to learn computers I began to write and modems became invaluable. However that lay in the future. And with that, I must sign off for now. All this remembering made me realize that it has been some time since I visited my old haunt … The Shack. Let me think, I told Vicki I had some errands to run, maybe if I just pop my head in for a second …

Okay, lets review the situation. Just a very short time until the big day. Which day? Why Christmas of course. Seeing as how my last post was rather dour, I thought it was time to Lighten Up a bit.

The fact of the matter is, Christmas has always been a great time of year for me. I love the Holly, love the Lights, love the Tree, Decorations and all the other stuff that goes with the Season! Of course buying Christmas gifts, receiving Christmas gifts, geeze the little boy comes out in me. Which means …I’ve been thinking. I have always been a sucker for electronic gizmos, which is how I bought my first computer way back in 1987. When I bought it from Radio Shack, (back in the day they had a big computer thing going on) I actually did not have a clue what I could do with it. The system was a Tandy 1000 EX, which meant it was composed of a keyboard with internal 360 K drive (just one) and a stand for the monitor and when the monitor was turned on you could count the pixels on the screen.

BUT I GREW TO LOVE THAT COMPUTER!

I also bought a couple of external disk drives (another 360 K and a 720 K drive) a 300 baud modem, a dot matrix printer, more memory until it had 640 K’s worth (and did you know that back then Bill Gates SAID NO ONE NEEDED MORE THAN 640 K ?) and all the assorted cables extra blank floppies, etc.

Yep, I was in Hog Heaven.

Then I did something that reverberates to this day. I bought Starflight .

It was a game. It hooked me. Let me tell you about it.

I was a rookie. In Army speak I was a FNG, a cherry and this

damn game almost took me over. For just a while it grabbed me

worse than crack gets an addict and I didn’t know any better.

Over the years I have bought a number of different computer

games. Actually I am not big gamer, and the game has to grab me

in order to keep my attention. Most of my computer time is

involved with my writing, my research and surfing the web. My

point is that today I don’t game a lot.

Back in early “87″ there wasn’t a lot to keep us science fiction

fans happy. I like to explore the concepts that good science fiction

presents. But in “87″ the only thing Sci Fi happening was the

occasional Star Trek flick coming out. Even the next Star Trek

series, The Next Generation, had not debuted yet.

I had gone over to the Radio Shack Computer Center and was

wandering around their software section. I had become good

buddies with the staff, and when I wandered into the store they

usually cleared a path for me. They knew they had a sale. I was still

learning computer-ese and carefully scanned the software on

display. I was in the game section and noticed a pretty cool looking

package. It said STARFLIGHT and it had an awesome looking

ship on the cover. The package was dark, and behind the ship was

a starfield and several planets lurking in the background. One of the

salesmen, a younger guy drifted over. “Hey, this looks kind of

cool” I began. “Oh definitely.” he said. “I have it at home and it’s a

keeper.” “Alright, so what is the deal?” I was thinking of Kirk and

Spock.

“Well, this is a mystery” he began. “It starts out at a starport where you are assigned your ship.” Oh this was almost too much! My very own Enterprise with phasers, photon torpedoes and other goodies! Well not quite… Whoever designed this game had studied (very carefully) all the important tenets of capitalism and entrepreneurship and wanted to make sure that only with hard work AND a level of failure built in, would one finally get that bad ass starship. You start with a ship that barely gets out of space dock, and had they had a kid with a slingshot, he could have knocked you out of the sky.

The idea is to go boldly where only a few (that each paid their $50) have gone before and earn lots of MU’s (that’s STARFLIGHT lingo for bucks or the long green stuff …. Monetary Units) and then you can outfit your ship with all the neat stuff. Stuff like armor for the ship, lasers NOT phasers, screens (if this were Trek that would be shields) and engines that didn’t come out of a 64 Corvair. Unfortunately the first one in my ship probably did. You see, everything came in classes, class 1 engine up to a class 5. Same with the ships screens, lasers, etc. Oh yes, one more thing. The crew (which you can pick from the recruitment center, and they are not necessarily all human) have to be trained. All this of course takes money and they don’t give you much. I guess they wanted to see just what we starship captains were really made of.

I plopped down my $50 and took it home.

The game came on two 360 K disks. They squeezed a lot on a 360 K disk back then. First order of business, make two working copies of the disks, which I did. I knew this would work on my system, it said right on the cover. I had no hard drive, so during game play you are called upon to swap disks at times. Luckily it never happened when something really good was going on.

I called my best buddy Chuck to inform him of this new development. He promised to come over.

So, here I am up to my ears in the instructions. I want to make sure I experience every second of what this thing has to offer. And there was a lot of stuff in there. A star chart, a security access code wheel (now this was interesting, what in hell do you need something like that for?) the manual, and Aquick start sheet plus the two disks. First order of business is make the working copies. For you more recent computer users, there was a time when one had to do all this prior to using a program. You had the master disks then the worker disks. Sounds kind of like a commercial for communism doesn’t it?

Anyway I got that done. I secured my master disks in a safe place just like the manual said. Now I am ready to explore the universe. Well almost…. I fired the game up and first had to tell it all about my computer. Yes I have a CGA monitor, yes I will be switching floppies, yes it is a Tandy 1000 computer. Okay, I think it is ready.

Bingo, I am on a space platform that vaguely resembled something I remembered being on my school lunch box when I was a kid. Suddenly my character beamed in! on the platform. With a kind of buzzing noise. From the computers very anemic sound thingy. This is well before sound cards were available. Okay, NOW I was hooked. I looked around at the platform and there were a number of different modules to go to conduct my business. Operations, personnel, crew assignments, a trade depot, ships configuration, and the ALL Important Bank. Now in this universe things were run by an outfit called Interstel. Kind of a cross between the Rockefellers with a touch of Bill Gates thrown in for good measure, and oh say, Blackbeard the Pirate. It seemed like Capitalism that has run amok with more than a hint of piracy. Ok, I can live with this.

The manual recommended I first go to the Op’s Center to be briefed. I wandered in and figured out how it worked and read the briefing. There were a series of personal messages along with some stuff I could use. The company, Interstel, discussed reports from ships that made it back talking about certain areas of space. Areas where ships had disappeared, places with planets that might be suitable for colonization and so on. Later when I really went where no man has gone before, I found this universe HUGE! Much bigger than two 360 K floppy disks would lead you to believe.

The ships propulsion system and the ships power all came from some stuff they called endurium. Kind of a cross between premium octane gasoline and plutonium. The most rare, expensive and powerful substance this universe had to offer!

My buddy Chuck popped through the door.

I brief him on what I got sitting on my computer desk. His eyes light up. I showed him what the starport looked like and now he is suddenly as hooked on this as I am. Oh boy is his wife Charlotte gonna be pissed…..

Anyway what you need here is money .. lots of it. Now there are a number of ways to make money. It seems like this place will pay good MU’s for minerals. Of course in order to do that you need to get out on the frontier with your ship and crew. My problem was I didn’t have a crew yet. Chuck and I wandered over to Personnel.

You need a Captain, that’s me. Well I owned the game and computer so I selected a human guy, named him after me and we’re set. I will be making all the final decisions. We need a Science Officer, (they scan planets, other ships and stuff and can tell you if anything looks good on a planet. Oh yes, they can also recommend a planet for a possible colony if it is suitable. But do not screw this one up, Interstel will fine you big-big MU’s.) We need a good Navigator to pilot the ship. He is the guy that will make sure you don’t get lost in space. And there seems to be a lot of it .. space that is. One other thing he does, in the event of combat he handles all the weapons. We need an Engineer, he will maintain all the systems and make sure they are running at optimum, plus if anything gets damaged he will (hopefully) fix it. Then we need a Comm Officer. He will talk to the different races we may encounter. Last, but certainly not least, need a Doctor to maintain the crew. (Pretty sophisticated for 1987 isn’t it?) So this is what we need. The problem is that we don’t have nearly enough money to trick out these guys.

Oh, one other thing I should mention about the ships crew. We have close to a half dozen different races to choose the crew from. Each one had their pluses and minuses. Humans, the Veloxi (a bug race, good engineers) the Thrynn (reptilians and very good at communications) the Elowan (a race of bipedal photosynthetics or in plain English, plants) and Androids. There were other races to be sure, but these stick in my mind. Another thing. In deep space not all these races get along with each other. If you do have two different races on board that don’t get along “Out There” even though they get along on board, you may run into problems if you encounter one of these races while out there. Trouble like a Class 5 laser blast into your crew compartment once they encounter you. Just another thing to keep in mind.

Now Chuck and I had been working on this for a few hours when the phone rings. Oh yea, it’s his wife. I put him on, he mumbled for minute and hung up. “Uh, I got to go” he informed me. He left out the front door and I figured I wouldn’t be seeing him again for a couple of days. Two hours later he showed back up with a box of the very finest grape adult beverage and we proceeded.

In the solar system, not too far from the starport, was a planet that had been listed as being mineral rich. Like I may or may not have said, one way to earn MU’s was mining. Get out there after getting a crew, training them as much as you could and launching your ship with your 1964 Corvair engine. Get to this planet, land and deploy your rover to explore and mine. Now here is where the navigator comes in handy. Get too far from the ship and if your guy isn’t trained, well Pal, you can get lost. Run out of fuel and you end up walking back. The problem is now you don’t have that rover and you will have got to buy another one. Kind of like working for the company store back in the coal fields of West Virginia.

But if you do land okay, and the planets gravity doesn’t crush you, or you are not killed by planetary wide storms (and this happened to me.) and you mine a bunch of minerals to sell, this is just the beginning.

Back to the starport to sell this stuff and gas up again. Go to the bank and see how much is in the old account. Can I train my guys, buy a new class of engine, upgrade the screens, put on a laser that will do more than warm a TV dinner? I tell you the life of an Interstel Starship Captain is not an easy one.

By now it is about 4:00 AM on Saturday morning. Chuck and I emptied the box of wine some time before and I had put on the coffee. We discovered what the mystery was. We didn’t know what caused it but we knew what it was. It seemed that this entire section of space had become unstable. Stars were going nova. In other words they were blowing up! And no, I do not recommend you or your ship be in the solar system when it happened.

Besides mining we discovered another way of making a lot of MU’s. This, by the way, only worked if you had good ship screens and powerful lasers. If one had an unpleasant encounter with an alien race that resulted in a weapons discharge, and of course, providing that you smoked them, you could salvage their fuel and materials. Instant spending cash. Now we could really train our guys and upgrade everything! (And some of these arrogant alien scum had it coming. We had been taking it in the ear from some of these green scum for too long now. Groveling every time we ran into some of these guys. Just because they had more powerful ships and weapons. Things were changing!)

I looked at my watch. It was close to noon. Chuck and I had been on my computer since the afternoon before. A box of wine, 3 pots of coffee, no sleep, hot smoking lasers, Baby! we was wired.

Stay tuned for the EXCITING CONCLUSION, Part 2, TO THIS EXCITING STORY ! Oh yeah, and a very HEARTY MERRY CHRISTMAS to You and Yours !

Ah, the “writers life,” spending time of the beach while the prose flows endlessly from my typing fingers! Oh yes, hours and hours writing at my favorite coffee shop while enjoying my coffee of choice and writing and writing. Well, if you believe any of this crap, I got some really good “bottom land” for sale in Florida.

The fact of the matter is … writing for “fun and profit” came to me late in life. Oh, I wrote before of course but it was mainly limited to reports, personal letters and the like. It wasn’t until the latter 1980’s that my writing took on a life of its own. At first it was mostly articles and investigations for UFO Magazine, a publication started by my wife and her then partner Sherrie Stark. Being a former policeman, my investigations bore in for factual information, a “fact” not often appreciated by many in the UFO field. And, as time wore on I began writing fictional “short stories” as a way of toning up my writing … and for fun. For a number of years I would “zero” in on two favorite holidays of mine, Halloween and Christmas, and write themed stories and send them out to family and friends. Two of them seemed to strike a cord with my readers, one themed for Halloween was called “Night Shift” and another, a Christmas story, was titled “The Footlocker.” At the time of my Halloween story, one person I sent it to happened to be a writer with credits among other things, Star Trek, TNG. She read it and called me up and after telling me how much she enjoyed it, suggested I expand it into a full blown novel. I thanked her and told her I would consider it. At the time though, I was somewhat intimidated by the thought of finding enough words to perform such a feat. A full blown novel? Good God! But then it happened.

You see, in my former life, (before UFO Magazine) I had been a cop, and I had one case that always stumped me. Back in 1981-1982 I had been a lead investigator on two cattle mutilations. One really weird thing about these dead animals was that they were both drained of blood. Weird, right? Also, at that time I had no idea how wide ranging this type of crime was. Years later I was to become somewhat of an “expert” in cattle mutilations, but back then I didn’t have a clue what seemed to be going on. I ended up “tucking this case into the back of my mind.” As the century changed and the year 2000-2001 rolled around I suddenly saw the path for my short story. (Did I mention it was a HORROR STORY? And, it involved VAMPIRES?) The whole blood loss thing really jogged my creative juices.

Oh yes, before I forget, at that time while I was toying with the idea, one Sunday I was trimming the hedges around my house with electric trimming clippers. The upshot was I had a “small” accident and damned near removed my small finger on my left hand. About one-half second after chopping that finger, while watching the blood spurt out … the hook for my story SUDDENLY hit me! “What IF … VAMPIRES were really REAL … and the CIA got their hands on ONE?” Suddenly with the hook in mind, the plot developed and I was off and running. Well, not really.

The trick to being a writer was … WRITING. This being my first book, I had to learn that. At that time all my writing had been completed in days or at most weeks. This novel thing was a whole new ball game. I would write for a while then take a break for several days or even several weeks. But then sometimes my “Muse” or sometimes my “Demon” would take over and I would literally write from before sun-up to after sun-down. There were times when my wife Vicki would come out to my little writing niche and ask me if I was coming home anytime soon. It is really hard to describe … but it was wonderful and it was scary as hell. I knew I had to take a break when my vampires started to invade my dreams. I kid you not.

So, about 3 years after I began the process it was done! “Past Sins” was published in 2003-2004. Now, as a brand new author I was not sure what to expect next. Would it be a blockbuster and make me a Million Dollars? ( Yeah, sure buddy … and don’t hold your breath!) My publisher was a small one up in the Bay area, and they did almost no marketing. A lot of it was left to me. I started by getting the word out to friends and family. I bought a number of books and sent them out to a number of folks I thought would be able to also get the word out. Slowly, oh so slowly I also started to get some reviews in. They were quite a surprise as they were very good!

One of the first reviews was by my buddy Dwight Schultz. You may know him from “The A Team” or Star Trek: TNG. Good ol’ Lt. Barclay. Dwight told me it would make one hell of a good movie and he sent it to a producer he knew. The guy read it and told Dwight he loved it! He wanted to do a movie based on Past Sins, however I am still waiting to hear from him. (One thing about Hollywood, they will MURDER YOU with hope. They eat their young.)

Another guy associated with the “Poltergeist” franchise read it (yeah, he read it, not just his assistant flunkie) and called me to tell me how much he loved it! He wanted to do a movie on it. Sent me the paperwork and everything, then he stopped calling. Another outfit back on the east coast read it, called me up and wanted to do a deal. At first they wanted to option it for 3 years, pay me a DOLLAR (yeah, you heard right … ONE Dollar) and have me tied up for 3 years. I said yeah, right. Tell you what … lets option it for One Year, you pay me 750.00 and I will look at you first at the beginning of Year 2 if nothing happened yet. No, they didn’t want to do that so I said thanks and moved on. Well like the man once said, better to have been loved and lost than never to have been loved at all. Uh huh.

The readers loved Past Sins though. I get asked all the time about when the sequel will be done. To tell the truth it has been a while since I’ve worked on that sequel. Recently I finished a “novella” I titled “Person Of Interest.” My wife, who doubles as my “editor in chief” is currently perusing my latest effort and when she completes it I am submitting it for several “sci-fi” publications to buy the rights. But, back to Past Sins.

Past Sins spans the landscape from the killing fields in Viet Nam to the hallowed halls of the White House. From the depths of Langly, Virginia to the San Fernando Valley north of Los Angeles. When I was writing it, I drew from my experiences in the Army to my days as a criminal investigator. What if!!? What if Vampires were real and represented a threat to our public safety, how would the “powers that be” handle such a threat. In today’s world fueled by concerns dealing with international terrorism, (the real world) a threat like this would turn everything inside and out! Here is a excerpt from Chapter 6 to simply give you a flavor!

“Police Departments are a study in institutional hubris. Most departments throughout the United States overflow with testosterone. It doesn’t matter if the cops are men or women, a large department or a smaller one, the cops see themselves as the “thin blue line” keeping chaos at bay. And … it doesn’t matter if a cop gets his ass kicked every time, as long as he or she is willing to “mix it up” every time.

The other thing about police departments that hold true is that the cops love gossip. They will keep it among themselves almost exclusively, but they love it. And let something weird happen out on the street and no matter how much the brass will try to keep it quiet from the troops … the word gets out.

Grassy Patch Bar & Grill
Burbank, California

Brandt Hollingsworth pulled into the parking lot of the “Patch.” It was a small and lively bar and grill owned by a former LAPD officer by the name of Richard “Dickie” Crump. Dickie worked the job for twenty-two years making it to sergeant when he pulled the pin. Country western music was the preferred beat, and if you were a single cop or were looking to commiserate the sorry state of your marriage the “groupies” hung out and were available. It was also a good place to come to where you compare notes with the “brothers” (and the lady cops were NOT excluded.)

Bobby Seal had called Hollingsworth when he heard the rumor mill begin to grind after the incident at the morgue.

Hollingsworth walked into the dimly lit bar, stopped and looked around. Seal was sitting at a table in the rear with a pitcher of beer and several glasses. He waved and Hollingsworth walked over and sat down. Seal nodded and pointed at the beer glasses. “Grab one Holly. Is your partner coming over?”

Hollingsworth nodded and reached for a glass. He picked up the pitcher and poured it to the brim, some running over the edge while foaming mightily. He picked up the glass and sipped.
“Hmm, now Bobby, that is the pause that refreshes.” Placing the glass back down he reached into his suit jacket and pulled out a pack of unfiltered Lucky Strikes.

“Say, I thought you quit, Holly. What’s the deal?”

Hollingsworth looked at Seal while he pulled out one and lit up. “Yeah, I quit. But I might start up a whole lot of bad habits I dropped.”

They both saw the front door open and Marty Paul walk in. He saw them and walked over. Marty had aged a whole lot in the last couple of days. He pulled up a chair and grabbed a glass.
“The next pitcher is on me, matter of fact lets get it now.” Marty waved at Dickie behind the bar and held up the now almost empty container. “Another, Dick.”

Dickie nodded and began filling another.

Marty drew a long drink and set his glass down. “You tell him yet?” he said looking at Hollingsworth. Hollingsworth took another drink and shook his head no.

“Jesus, what is going on with you two guys?” Seal was now feeling genuine unease because he recognized how disturbed Hollingsworth and Paul appeared. “You guys look like hell. What went on the other day? Holly, is it true you were called down to see the Chief? What the hell happened over at the morgue?”

Hollingsworth looked at Marty Paul, then his eyes went down to the table. Not looking at Seal he said in a very quiet voice, “Bobby, are you sure you really want to know? Cause let me tell you pal, some things should be left alone.”

A waitress brought the pitcher of beer to their table and set it down. Paul pulled a ten dollar bill out of his wallet and handed it to her. She gave him change and he tossed a dollar on her tray. She smiled at him and walked off.

“Bobby,” Paul began. “Let me tell you what! If I live until I am two hundred years old I will NEVER FORGET THE SHIT I SAW THE OTHER DAY!”

Both Paul and Hollingsworth drained their glasses and both refilled. Seal sat still for a moment and just looked at them. Then he turned to Hollingsworth.

“God Damnit Holly, jus’ what the f*ck happened?”

Hollingsworth sat back and looked at Seal. Seal realized he had never seen anyone with a look of such horror and disgust as what Hollingsworth was now displaying.

“Okay Bobby. You want to know so I will tell you. But you remember that you asked.” He pulled out another Lucky Strike and lit it. Hollingsworth then took a very deep drag and blew it out. “That girl we picked up the other night. The young one with her throat bitten out. You know?”

Seal nodded. “Yeah Holly, that is a f*cking weird one.”

“Oh yeah, weird doesn’t cover it though. Me and Marty went over to witness the autopsy. Hector Santos was conducting. We got there and Hector pulled her out and the first thing he says is that her condition is weird. I mean real weird! He told us she had no surface lividity, her eyes were clear and there was no rigor. He never saw anything like it.”

Seal took a sip of beer. “How is that possible? What did he think caused that?”

Hollingsworth gave a sad little smile. “Oh Bobby, we didn’t get to the most f*cking strange part. Hang on a sec. So anyway me and Marty are just standing there and I get a call on my cell. Suddenly she sat up!”

“What? Who sat up?” Paul shuddered and blurted out;

“The stiff Bobby. She sat up and looked around and said sumpin’ like `where am I? I couldn’t believe my eyes, Jesus Christ, I almost had a f*cking heart attack right there! Christ!”

Seal shook his head and suddenly laughed. “You two guys are pulling my dick! What the hell is this? You expect me to believe this shit?”

Hollingsworth just looked at him. “Oh yeah, Bobby, I do, cause it happened just like that. Hector about shit himself then remembered he was a doctor. He jumped forward and tried to help her, then she looked at him and said she was hungry. Hungry Bobby! She grabbed him one handed, jerked him off his feet then bit a chunk right outta his neck and started drinking the blood!” Hollingsworth stopped and drained his glass. He looked around and motioned for another pitcher.

Seal now felt a cold band of fear wrap itself around his head. He wasn’t quite sure what to say. He looked at Hollingsworth and Paul for a second.

“You guys aren’t shitting me are you?” They both shook their heads. “What the f*ck was she?”

Hollingsworth just smirked now. “Bobby, we picked up a gen-u-wine vampire, buddy! And Hector, if he lives, will verify that fact. Shit, I think this is a hell of a good reason to get blasted. What do you say, Marty?”

“Yeah, Holly, works for me!” Seal looked at them like they were suddenly struck insane.

“A what?” Paul picked up Hollingsworth’s cigarettes, pulled one out of the pack and lit it.

“You heard him Bobby.” Seals face showed massive confusion.

“Holly, what did they want down at Parker Center?” He figured that was the safest thing to say at this point.

“Well, Bobby, the Chief called in all the troops and the cavalry. All the shift commanders, the Special Agent from the Los Angeles FBI, and a guy from the CDC back in D.C. He questioned me all about it with all that brass sitting there, hanging on my every word. You know we had two detectives get mugged or something. Somehow I got the idea it was all connected.”

“Yeah, Archuletta from Foothill, and you remember Mallory from Foothill? He retired on a medical a few years ago. I heard some weird things about that, and they are all over at St. Joe’s.” Seal poured another glass, draining the pitcher. Dickie himself brought over the next one.

“Say, what you guys got going on? Somebody get promoted or maybe divorced?” The three of them looked at him and then laughed.

“Dickie, my man,” Holly said, “You wouldn’t believe it and take my word for it, you don’t want to know.” He looked at them funny and shrugged, took their money and walked off.

“Oh yeah, I haven’t seen this much confusion since the Rodney King debacle. Not even the damn 9-11 mess and the terrorist shit. What I saw there my good friends, there is some serious f*cking concern.”

Seal reached down and pulled up a folder he had on his seat. “You guys see this yet? I got it as I was leaving the station.” He pulled a photograph of Frankovitch out.

Marty grabbed it and looked. “Who the hell is this guy?”

Hollingsworth took it and looked at it. “Hey, I remember him. Franko – something.”

“Yep, Frankovitch. Detective Marty Frankovitch. He disappeared about seven years ago while working on the Valley Stalker case. Matter of fact he was partnered with Mitchell Mallory, the guy over at St. Joe’s. You will hear all about it during tomorrow’s briefing, for sure. Everybody thought he was dead, now they are looking for him. And the brass are not happy about it. Seems like he is about to be declared public enemy number one. The Sarge told me this guy is not to be approached alone. He is supposed to be some very, very bad news.” Paul and Hollingsworth were now confused.

“I don’t get it, why?” Marty asked.

Seal now leaned forward and in a very low voice said, “’Cause he and some young chick are supposed to be the perps that attacked Archuletta and Mallory guys. And, this is the wild part, supposedly they were both bitten and bled out!”

“Shit!” was all that Hollingsworth and Paul could now muster.”

Okay, that is it for now. In the meantime my family wishes you and yours a very Happy Thanksgiving and hopes for a wonderful Holiday Season. Keep checking back for more occasional ramblings by yours truly, and if you would like more information about my novel Past Sins, the link below will take you to Amazon where you can read the reviews and more about it! Keep looking UP!

Don Ecker

Past Sins

Lo and Behold! My God, I blinked and was suddenly struck by the fact we are in the Holiday Season. How in the world did that happen so fast? Well no matter, you can’t argue with the calendar or that clock for that matter. So, what has been happening here at the Dark Matters website?

As many of you know, I live in southern California, and of late it HAS NOT been all sweetness and light. As a matter of absolute fact it has been a bitch. Last month, in October, I experienced one of “life’s wake-up” calls. Twas the wee hours of October 12^th (about 3:30 – 4:00 AM) and I became conscious, pulled from a deep sleep. I was dreaming a dream from Viet Nam, not something I do much of anymore. What could have caused that? It was the helicopter flying over my house, then circling … non-stop. At first I thought the police had someone cornered by my home but nope, the tip off was when a Sheriff’s marked unit drove down our lane, on the loudspeaker, giving a mandatory evacuation order! Wildfires had sprung up and they were heading right for my neighborhood. My wife and I only had the time to throw on some old cloths, grab our dog Buckwheat and our cell phones (plus I snatched up my laptop) and get outta Dodge. Someone asked me what we felt at the time and the only thing I could come up with was that it was like being thrust into the middle of a war zone. Damned scary.

We spent the next three days at an evac shelter, that is until we found out we couldn’t take our dog in. Okay, he may be a dog to you but he’s family to Vicki and I. Then we found a Motel 6 that would accept him … because of the fires. We didn’t even know for two days if we still had a house, but thank God it was okay. Talk about an early Christmas present. We finally were able to go home, and thanks to my gasoline generator we had lights until the power and phone service was restored. Everything seemed okay until last week when more wildfires began in the Sylmar area. Once again we feared we might have to go but the winds drove the flames away from us … and if the truth be known not much around here was left to burn.

Yes, still out of the UFO business but I have been working with someone on a documentary on Lunar phenomena. This is an aspect of research I’ve been fascinated by since the early 1990’s. More to come on that but at present it looks pretty good that something may happen with that.

So, since the Christmas holidays are fast approaching I have made a decision to not listen to very much news. The reason? I am getting sick to death of hearing just how horrible the economy is supposed to be. For example, here in California we are teetering on the edge of going bankrupt. All I have heard about is how the state plans to raise more revenue, I suppose by taxing me into bankruptcy. Plans are in the offing to raise the state sales taxes, raise automobile registration … maybe as much as triple it. My property taxes are due, the fridge is bare, the only good news is gasoline has finally become affordable again. The upshot seems like this year at Christmas we are going to have to tighten up the old belt. I’ve always been only too willing to get way too extravagant during the Holidays. Vicki, who is into astrology a bit tells me it’s because I’m a Leo. What do I say? I just enjoy buying stuff for family and friends during the Christmas holidays, but this year … not so much because of the economy. I guess we will just have to wait and see what shakes out.

I mentioned that I was working on a project concerning Lunar mysteries, and you never know what you might locate on the web. Friday I was doing a search on You Tube and came across something amazing. Now before I tell you what it was, allow me to relay a small story to you.

This past year something made me recall an old Joan Baez ballad she did back in the 1970’s, Diamonds and Rust. D & R is a haunting melody of youth and lost love. At the time it had been many years since I had heard it and I did a search looking to see if I could find an audio recording on the web. I found nothing. So, yesterday while I was on You Tube searching for Lunar stuff I came across a video of a young lady doing a rendition of Baez’s ballad. Intrigued I decided to play it and she brought tears to my eyes. This young lady has the voice of an angel and I will not be surprised at all if at some point she hits “super-stardom.” Her name? Lili-Ana. Her instrument of choice? Her guitar. Researching a little more she has a number of tunes up there and they are all great. So, I will tell you what I’m going to do. I will direct you to her where you can hear her doing Diamonds and Rust. Listen to it and then tell ME right here that it didn’t affect you! And until next time … remember to KEEP LOOKING UP!

Don Ecker

Diamonds and Rust