Chapter 44 - Joshua Tree

I DON’T KNOW how or why it happened. The day we ventured out to the high California desert hearing stories about Gram Parsons going out to there looking for answers and truth and inadvertently stumbling onto things not expected. In fact, after he died in 1973, his body was stolen from the LA airport by a good friend, Phil Kaufman, and brought back to Joshua Tree to be cremated. There is a 2003 film, Grand Theft Parsons, with Johnny Knoxville as Kaufman, which tells the story, well most of it anyway.

Joshua Tree is a beautiful place in the high desert of San Bernardino County in California located between Twentynine Palms and Landers. It has a population of roughly seven thousand now, but in 1977 it had one fourth of that number. That’s when Robin Stewart and I went out there to see what all the fuss was about – there were reports of UFO sightings in the area and we wanted to see for ourselves.

We heard that George Van Tassel (an American ufologist and metaphysician) had built a geodesic dome in Landers called The Integratron, a device constructed for scientific research on rejuvenation, anti-gravity, and time travel. It was made from wood, fiberglass, various non ferromagnetic metals, glass, and concrete. He built the structure in as a “rejuvenation machine” supposedly following instructions provided by visitors from the planet Venus. The structure was financed predominantly by donations, including funds from Howard Hughes. Van Tassel started hosting group meditation in 1953 in a room called Giant Rock excavated by Frank Critzer, a prospector. In August 1953, in the middle of the night a spaceship landed from the planet Venus, and an alien pilot woke Van Tassel, showed him the spaceship and invited him on board where he gave him the technique for rejuvenating the human body.

  In 1954, Van Tassel and others began building Integratron structure to perform the rejuvenation. Van Tassel told us that the aliens had given him plans for the machine --- and that a small one had been built in Chicago. When they put rats through the small one, it increased their lifespan 200 to 300%. When I asked him about the '"time machine", he said it wasn't a "time machine per se", but that it increased the life span. But they were acting very mysteriously when I asked them that -- he and his wife...looking back and forth, at each other and then back at us.

           Van Tassel had written a few books about alien abduction and contacts made by aliens and humans. He was a good friend and colleague of George Adamski, who claimed to have photographed ships from other planets, met with friendly Space Brothers, and to have taken flights with them. The first of the so-called contactees of the 1950’s, he was called a “philosopher, teacher, student and researcher of saucers”, though his claims were met with much skepticism. He had written a bestselling book entitled Flying Saucers Have Landed detailing his experiences, co-written with Desmond Leslie.

            We were both amazed and fascinated by the perfectly round structure and wanted to go in and see for ourselves but at that time the Integratron was not open to the public or you had to have special permission to enter. Just being on the premises was enough to inspire some inspirational thought and actions. Robin had a friend in LA, Marlene, a feisty little ball of fire, and she told her of our adventures in the desert. She wanted in. Marlene was an only child who sold real estate and lived on Sweetzer Avenue in west Hollywood. One day when Robin was moving into the building she had set a chair down by her front door. When she came back upstairs with another load of her belongings, the chair was gone. That’s when Marlene came out of her apartment and Robin asked her if she knew any of the other tenants, someone who might have kleptomaniac tendencies. She didn’t have a clue about the theft but after a few minutes of gabbing they realized they had hit it off quite well. Marlene said she was a professional astrologer and invited Robin to a party that evening where there would be various professionals from the world of the occult. There were psychics who worked with the police, cosmic ministers, and a range of garden variety palmists and card readers from the local psychic fair, and the very short, well endowed, strident, and excitable Marlene was waving her arms and offering everyone snacks and encouraging them to read Tarot cards and interpret astrology charts for each other as the party went along.

When I finally met Marlene I told her in passing about the trip Robin and I had made out to the desert and her eyes lit up. She brazenly rented the most expensive video and still photography equipment and the three of us headed down to Joshua Tree with the intent to find aliens and film them, hell, even interview them. Early one spring morning in 1977 we were sitting at the local coffee shop on Joshua Tree’s Main St. or whatever the name of the main drag was there in the small desert community. Marlene draped in the poundage of gear that almost outweighed her stood up and announced to the patrons in a loud voice. “Does anyone here know anything about the UFO’s that have been sighted here?” I was embarrassed and so was Robin. What was Marlene thinking? Did she think that these humble folk were going to speak to her (a city girl and no doubt a spoiled member of the Hebrew tribe with nail extensions and tons of make-up) about such things? I thought not. After the meal a tall rugged blonde-haired man named Eric Short approached us. He whispered that there was a special meeting tonight at his father’s church that had to do with aliens. His father, Robert Short, had what he called “visitations” from beings that lived on one or more of the moons of Saturn, We were invited by Eric and his red-headed wife Jody to come along and see for ourselves—he indicated that he didn’t go in for all that stuff, but his father was dead serious about it. 

We entered the home of Robert Short at seven pm and were led downstairs to his church by his wife. Robert was sitting on the pulpit with his eyes closed apparently waiting for the “voice” to come through. I noticed before I sat down there were pamphlets stacked on a wooden bench that were the chronicles of his monthly service. I knew I was going to pick up a few of these pamphlets on the way out but what happened next was beyond belief. I saw Robert Short transform himself into a channel from another dimension. He didn’t physically change as much as his voice changed. He started clicking in staccato rhythm with his mouth and soon after a voice that sounded like a combination of Don Pardo and ET emerged. “Welcome visitors, I am Vorton, representative from what you call the rings of Saturn. I have come forth to give warning to the people of planet earth which is in great peril.” The voice went on predicting world events that were going to happen. Was this really happening? Was this guy for real or was he just another crazy cultist trying to make himself a household name? I thought I’d better wait and see before passing any judgments. On the drive back to LA, Robin, Marlene, and I tried to make sense of what had happened in the desert. No, we didn’t get any photographs of aliens, but we got something else—a channel of information from beings who he claimed lived in our solar system and were monitoring us. It made me think of that Twilight Zone where aliens come down to Earth to save mankind with a book called How To Serve Man. It turned out to be a cookbook. I prayed it wasn’t going to be the same kind of thing as I thumbed through the pamphlets of past “sessions” (which were called The Solar Space-letters) from the church of the “Blue Rose Ministry” Reverend Robert Short and his family now live in Cornville, AZ., and he is still a spiritual counselor, and what some refer to as a “UFO contactee and channel.”. Since moving from Joshua Tree, Robert and his family have all undergone UFO second, third, and fourth-type encounters. 

I made several trips to Joshua Tree after that and introduced most of the friends I had who were willing to experience this odd ministry for themselves, just as I had. Chas had come down a few times and others too that I can’t remember. Before we went to Joshua Tree, Chas and I would stop at his retreat in the mountains of Idyllwild located in the San Jacinto range not far from Palm Springs and Tahquitz Canyon where I some spent time before. He called this special place deep in the forest “Studio A”. More about this later.