New Book Reviews
By Brent Raynes
Beyond Hollywood:
A Memoir of Fate, Luck, The Unexplained
& Living The American Dream
by J. Herbert Klien
International FA Publishing
3183 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 196 (C38)
Los Angeles, CA 90010
www.internationalfapublishing.com
2011, 296 pages, US $16.95
ISBN-13: 978-0615482743
Reviewed by Brent Raynes
Beyond Hollywood, written by J. Herbert Klien, is one of those very enjoyable, behind-the-scenes books that shares details about Hollywood celebrities like Jayne Mansfield, Frank Sinatra, Jon Hall, and others, as well as legendary eccentric millionaire Howard Hughes, which is also sprinkled with intriguing UFO stories to the delight of ufologists like myself. Klien, today at age 90, has led quite a life. He was a successful business man, a friend to many Hollywood stars, and today is one of the oldest members of the Adademy of Television Arts and Science, as well as the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. He knew Howard Hughes, and even produced along with a Charles Martin the film Death of a Scoundrel, the last Hughes financed motion picture.
It was legendary actress Jayne Mansfield who introduced the author in 1965 to Jon Hall, one of Hollywood’s famous leading men from the 1930s and ‘40s, who starred with Dorothy Lamour in The Hurricane in 1937. However, besides having good looks and great acting skills, Jon Hall also had brains. He had studied engineering at universities in England and Switzerland, was a pilot, worked on inventions related to photography, energy, and transportation. During their first meeting, Jon Hall rather mysteriously told Klien that he was working on something that Klien was “not going to believe,” and elaborated no further, though Jayne Mansfield tried to get him to say more.
Later Klien would understand Hall’s reluctance to say more at that time. The story that later unraveled was that Jon Hall was developing something he called an anamosphic camera lens that he said was a still camera version of the Cinamascope, that allowed for a wide-screen format. He applied the principle to a 35mm camera. Klien could see the business sense of partnering with Hall on this, but before long Hall was showing him strange pictures (they even did some experiments together) where very strange things appeared on the film! Hall actually believed that they were UFOs and beings (he had seen silver disks that came up close to his plane and then just vanished during a flight he had made over California in the 1940s). He told Klien he believed that he was capturing UFOs/beings that were cloaked in invisibility somehow! Klien thought that it was rather ironic that here was an acclaimed actor who had starred in leading roles as an invisible man in the 1942 film Invisible Agent and the 1944 film The Invisible Man’s Revenge who now believed he was photographing invisible UFOs!
On August 12, 1977, Hall and Klien got to attend a test flight of the Space Shuttle Orbiter Enterprise at Edwards Air Force Base near Mojave, California. They got some really unusual images that day that photo experts at 3M Corporation couldn’t explain (a copy of the letter and photos are included in the book). One in particular, that Hall felt was a space ship observing the shuttle testing operation, was a real weird image of this pattern of something in the sky, resembling no space ship I’ve ever seen in a picture, illustration or in person, that looked rather like a lace doily, of all things. There was more than one picture of that. They even got a picture that showed a strange “figure” of something alien looking seemingly attached to the tail of the aircraft that the Shuttle was sitting atop of (it was still on the ground at the time).
Jon Hall passed away in 1979, and though he did receive a patent for an anamophic photo enlarging system in 1976, no patent was ever issued for a system designed for regular photography. After reading this book, I even tried checking with the author about Hall’s original camera(s) and an assistant of his checked for me and the word I got back, sadly enough, is that the specially made camera(s) that Jon Hall had constructed, that produced the mysterious images, are not in Klien’s possession. Presumably, no one has one, although we do read in the book that during their attendance at the historic Shuttle flight test at Edwards AFB in 1977, Hall told Klien that he had provided those pilots with camera equipment that had the anamorphic lens, but that they couldn’t publicize that fact at that time, telling Klien that that was just “how the government works.”
So maybe NASA has an old Jon Hall camera laying around somewhere, but good luck with that inquiry. Besides, they’re having trouble keeping up with their moon rocks!
I had heard years ago that Howard Hughes had an interest in UFOs, and in this book Klien reveals how, according to Jon Hall, Hughes had in fact seen UFOs himself while flying back in the 1950s.
The Out-of-Body Experience:
The History and Science of Astral Travel
By Anthony Peake
Sterling Publishing Co., Inc.
387 Park Avenue South
New York, NY 10016-8810
2011, 222 pages, US $14.95
ISBN: 978-1-78028-021-9
Reviewed by Brent Raynes
This book wades through and breaks down tons of historical, literary and scientific research regarding the so-called “out-of-body” experience, or what the metaphysical folks simply call “astral travel.” The material is deep and challenging, and while the author isn’t afraid to dive into some very theoretical areas of quantum physics, he always backs up his conjectures and speculations with pretty persuasive science and interconnecting reports.
The title of the book may be a bit deceptive in that it seems overly simplistic sounding. It’s not your typical do-it-yourself instruction manual and/or case book on “soul travel.” Instead it takes a hard look at all relevant data, both from metaphysical and scientific sources, and it attempts to carefully separate the proverbial wheat from the chaff and integrate into the mix what is truly meaningful in order to focus in on the big and relevant picture of what is happening here.
The search is a complex one that explores a vast territory. From the alternate realities of the shaman to the zero point field of the quantum physicist, to the Akashic Records of Edgar Cayce and the Theosophists, the journey is convoluted and fascinating. The author certainly knows how to jam pack each page with a wide, tantalizing and fascinating assortment of very thought-provoking information, with quite a few things I’ve never read anywhere else before! From a sweeping historical background that includes the shaman’s world, the sixth siddhi of Hinduism, the ancient Tibetan fascination with the pineal gland, to the Monroe Institute’s modern focus on the pineal gland’s role in the out-of-body experience - and so very, very much more – with all sorts of metaphysical lore from all over and modern scientific discoveries that are interconnecting many things that were once viewed as wholly separate and unrelated. Truly science is beginning to rediscover what people already knew in ancient times!
Anthony Peake’s previous works Is There Life After Death? and The Daemon were excellent and highly thought-provoking and I couldn’t imagine back then how he’d top them, but in my mind he has done it here! I highly and whole heartedly recommend this book!
Keep Out!
Top secret places governments
don’t want you to know about
By Nick Redfern
The Career Press, Inc.
220 West Parkway, Unit 12
Pompton Plains, NJ 07444
www.careerpress.com
2012, 288 pages, US $15.99
Reviewed by Brent Raynes
That tireless, prolific Brit strikes again! Nick Redfern has churned out yet another thought-provoking book, this time looking into military facilities and government research installations that reportedly maintain classified UFO files, perhaps even store crashed UFOs and/or alien bodies, perhaps conducting secret experiments with reverse engineered alien technology, and who knows what else? Among those included in this book are Area 51, Hangar 18 at Ohio’s Wright-Patterson, the Montauk facility, the Dulce Base, Pine Gap, and a host of others. The book also wrestles with such controversies as the Philadelphia Experiment, the supposed use of advanced holographic technology, the alleged development of time travel, HAARP, etc., etc.
The author presents the evidence, weighs the pros and cons, and then ultimately lays the burden of responsibility in the laps of his appreciative readers, allowing the reader to make up his/her own mind based upon a thoughtful presentation of a carefully and rather comprehensively prepared summary of the best available evidence.
