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- [00:00]
Jack Wagner
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Get your summer savings and shop Premium Wireless@mintmobile.com Otherworld that's mintmobile.com Otherworld Upfront payment of $45 for 3 month 5 gigabyte plan required equivalent to $15 a month New customer offer for first 3 months only, then plan options available, taxes and fees extra. C Mint Mobile for details this episode is brought to you by Quintz. You know when you get a new shirt that instantly becomes your go to? That's what happens to me. Every time I get something from Quints. Every time I go to the closet, that's the first thing I end up going for. Quint has all the things that you actually want to wear, like organic cotton silk polos, European linen beach shorts and comfortable pants that work for anything you're up to, whether it's a nice dinner or just hanging out in the backyard. The best part? Everything from quince is priced 50 to 80% less than what you'd find at similar brands. 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In the previous episode, we met a software engineer and musician named David, who was camping in Ojai, California, as a teenager when he had a terrifying experience with a UFO above his tent. He described not only seeing this craft, but the craft making an incredibly loud humming sound that resonated throughout his entire body. He told me that he had never heard anything like it before, and he never heard anything like it after until years later, when his girlfriend took him to a sound bath out in the desert near Joshua Tree at a place called the Integratron. During the sound bath, the frequencies of the glass bowls being rung in this acoustic dome resonated throughout his body and instantly gave David vivid flashbacks to this experience he had as a teenager. He told me that it was the first time he had ever heard anything slightly similar to the sound that this UFO made. And to make things weirder, when David left the sound bath, he learned that the building it was in was no ordinary building. It's called the Integratron, and it was built by an aerospace engineer named George Van Tassel, who claimed to have been given the instructions on how to build it by an extraterrestrial named Salgonda. After the interview with David, I spent several months reaching out to the current owners of the Integratron in hopes of learning more about the history of the building. They declined. However, I eventually was introduced to Daniel Paul, and I immediately knew I had met the exact person I was looking for. Daniel Paul is a historian, and he actually wrote the National Register of Historic Places landmark application for the Integratron. Not only that, he was fascinated by this building long before he was brought on to do that work. He's very passionate about the Integratron and the eccentric man who built it, George Van Tassel. And it turns out the Integratron is just one part of a much larger story that is absolutely incredible and super strange. So in this episode, I sit down with historian Daniel Paul to learn about the long, bizarre and complicated history of the Integratron and George Van Tassel. This is episode 123, and you're listening to Otherworld. Hello, Is this Bobby? Yes, it is. At its core, the science you can't argue with. I'm worried about up in the Sky. It's almost frustrating that it's happening. I'm gonna die. Its limbs were just, like, wrong. Everybody moves back into the light, even if it takes them a min. I am joined now by Daniel Paul. He is an architectural historian and a man who knows a lot about a very specific building that we're going to be talking about today. Daniel, welcome to the show. Thank you for speaking to me.
- [06:05]
Daniel Paul
Hello. And thank you very much for having me.
- [06:08]
Jack Wagner
What is your background exactly? How did you end up becoming an expert, the expert on this building? You wrote the historical papers for the Integratron.
- [06:18]
Daniel Paul
Yes, I did. And so I'm an architectural historian for a living. I have a master's in art history. A big part of my work as an architectural historian involves writing what we call landmark applications. They could be for a city. I've done city of Los Angeles applications for the Capitol Records building in Hollywood, the entirety of Griffith park in la. So the family of three, the Carl sisters, they hired me to write a National Register of Historic Places landmark designation for the Integratron property that allows it to be a protected property, it makes it harder to demolish, and it allows the property to use a more flexible building code here in California called the State Historical Building Code. So, yes, as you mentioned, I did do all of the paperwork to complete the National Register of Historic Places application.
- [07:26]
Jack Wagner
You are exactly the person that I need to talk to about this. I'm very glad that I found you. First of all, very basic question. Can you just tell me what is the Integratron?
- [07:38]
Daniel Paul
Yes. Okay, so what is the Integratron? Well, the Integratron, if we. Look, let's start off with it physically, and then we'll talk a little bit about its intention and its purpose. The Integratron is located in a town called Landers. So this is what we call the high desert here in Southern California. It's near a town called Joshua Tree. And if you were to drive up on the Integratron, the first thing you would see is a large white dome. So the Integratron is basically a substantially scaled hemispherical dome structure about 43ft in diameter and 33ft tall, with these 64 metal die rods. Rods sticking off of it. So this is a very peculiar building to identify. So when you first see it, it looks like something from 1950s science fiction or outer space or some sort of stage set for something related to something very otherworldly. Originally, the Integratron was not called the Integratron. It was called the College of Universal Wisdom Research Laboratory. And the building was intended to be the primary building of a campus that was going to be about 10 acres, that was going to be focused upon information that George Van Tassel and others had received through channeling activity, and primarily information given to George and these others from what he called the space people, what are commonly called aliens. When I was working on the nomination, they didn't. They preferred not to be called aliens. So I guess we could stick with space people or, you know, these entities. But in. In general, the Integratron was intended as a life extension machine that through electrostatic. If the Integratron was to generate electricity, modulate it basically to a human cell as a way to. To keep the cell alive and to therefore extend human life. So this was intended as a life extension machine primarily. I mean, among some other uses that George Van Tassel talked about. But that was the primary purpose for the Integratron.
- [10:21]
Jack Wagner
Yes. And as a novice who just kind of heard about this place somewhere nearby to where I live, you know, in Los Angeles, I always heard of it as, you know, this strange place that has a unique design and kind of like perfect acoustics almost. Is that true? Are the acoustics inside of this place remarkable in some way?
- [10:44]
Daniel Paul
Yes, they are. So it's essentially what we call a whispering gallery. It's a dome. So the acoustics in there are absolutely incredible. And it's that effect where if you say hello or anything, you sort of hear your own voice coming back at you. And surround sound. Today in the Integratron building, they do sound baths where people lay down and they have various crystal bowls and they hit the bowl and, you know, rub the rim of the bowl and come up with these frequencies. So the acoustics in there are magnificent and to the point where during these sound baths, if somebody's whispering something to their friend or if they're falling asleep and snoring on one side of the Integratron, everybody could hear everything they're saying on the other side.
- [11:34]
Jack Wagner
That is fascinating. Okay, so I should catch you up a little bit on why I'm talking to you. I interviewed a person who had an encounter with a ufo. Essentially, they were camping in the Ojai area with their friends in high school and saw this thing in the sky. Of course, they're woken up to it. The remarkable thing for him was not what he saw, it was what he heard. He described hearing this sound that was like a resonant tone that shook his core, like, literally, like vibrated his bones. Is how he is describing it to me. And he said it was an incredibly unique sound. He's never heard anything like it in his life. It completely resonated throughout his body. And this was in high school. The experience was weird. It was him and his high school friends that kind of put it behind them. And he didn't think about it for a while until years later when he's an adult and he goes with his girlfriend who booked them a sound bath at the Integratron. He didn't know anything about this place. He just went along with his girlfriend and they do the sound bath. And as these glass bowls are being played in the dome, he said it was the first time he ever heard a sound similar to what this UFO was making. And it gave him, like, flashbacks, essentially. He said it was crazy. It was like the same exact sound and feeling that he experienced when he saw this ufo and then later learned the history behind the Integratron, which freaked him out even further, that there was this connection. This man built it with instructions from space people, essentially.
- [13:15]
Daniel Paul
That's right.
- [13:17]
Jack Wagner
Is this unusual for you to hear people having strange, alien space people experiences in connection with the Integratron in its current form?
- [13:29]
Daniel Paul
I'm. I'm not surprised. I don't really talk with a lot of people about their experiences, but I'm not surprised by that. I think the being inside that dome is a very special experience for. For anybody. Now, the funny. The thing I want to get to, though, that I think is kind of interesting about this, and I think it will circle back, is George Van Tassel. First of all, the acoustics were never intended to be anything on that floor. That floor was just intended to hold machinery. And the building is made entirely out of wood. Because when George had this contact with this space being named Solanda, that is what Salgonda instructed George to do. Because there was a concern about metal interfering with some frequencies around the. You know, the life extension of the healing process. So the funny thing about this, perhaps looking back now, is in George's mind, all of this was just science. There was a spiritual quality to the Integratron. He compared the Integratron to the tabernacle of Moses. But in terms of the experiences that people have in that room now, I think one of the remarkable aspects of the Integratron is how much it has given back to so many people, coupled with the fact that none of that was ever intended. It was just. It was really just intended to be a machine. And it wasn't made out of wood to be beautiful. It was made out of wood for a very practical purpose, based off teachings given to George by a space being. It's almost like George Van Tassel, with help from Silgonda, created something very beautiful and giving to so many people. Yet that wasn't the deliberate or conscious intent. So in one sense, it becomes even more pure, beautiful in its own way. You know what I mean?
- [15:28]
Jack Wagner
Yes. I think maybe we should take a couple big steps back and start this story at the very beginning so that we can understand who George and eventually Sol Gonda this being even is. So who is George Van Tassel and what led him to eventually building this place in the desert?
- [15:52]
Daniel Paul
So George Van Tassel was born in Ohio in 1910. He did not finish high school, but his siblings considered him a super intelligent person, Very, very smart. When he, apparently when he was like 12 or 13, he built a roller coaster off the family barn and put his siblings on it. So he was an engineering mind even at a very young age. By the time he was around 20, he had his own. He had a pilot's license. He was very interested in flight. And when he was in his early 20s, he moves to California. He lives with an uncle in Santa Monica, and he's fixing cars in a garage in Santa Monica. Meets this fellow named Frank Kritzer, who was a German, even though, you know, of German descent, even though apparently he was an American citizen and even born here. You know, I think a lot of people just thought he was German. And I'll get to that. This fellow says, I live deep in the desert. I live at this large boulder, which we know today as giant rock, aptly enough. And George befriended Frank. Frank would have George out to the boulder. He thought Frank Kretzer had a very good positive energy. And he thought he somehow attributed Frank's well being to living underneath this rock. It's believed to be world's largest freestanding boulder. George would visit him, go out there, hang out with Frank, and that was that for a while. Well, at a certain point, George takes on aerospace work. I think he works for McDonnell Douglas, Hughes Aircraft and Lockheed. At this time, Southern California is sort of the world's sort of center for aerospace and high tech. And so George is in the milieu of that. In fact, for a while, George is working directly under Howard Hughes as one of his test flight inspectors. So George has a personal relationship with Howard Hughes, which is going to factor into this, too.
- [18:01]
Jack Wagner
And yeah, and it still is a bit like that, too, you know, like directly north of The Integratron in the desert. Lockheed has the skunk works facilities there. And a lot of the other big experimental crafts are being tested out there in the desert not far away.
- [18:16]
Daniel Paul
Absolutely. There's all kinds of that stuff out there. And right after World War II, Southern California was the world's capital for aerospace manufacturing. I mean, it was the. I think it was probably the primary generator of the Southern California economy was defense satellite missiles and aerospace and all of that. So George is right in the middle of that. During World War II, Frank Kreitzer builds an antenna on Giant Rock. And local. The locals, including some of the local sheriffs, accuse him of being a spy. And they're getting really suspicious of him because here's this German living deep in the desert with an antenna on his shoulder. And at a certain point, they accuse him of stealing dynamite because Kritzer is doing some, you know, mining or whatever in the area. They get suspicious. And at a certain point, there's two different stories as to what happened next. One of them is that he committed suicide as they were closing in on him. But the other was that they threw a flashbang into his little hovel beneath the rock, probably knowing that there was TNT in there and knowing that they were going to kill him. And the flashbang, you know, caught the dynamite on fire and it blew up, and Frank Kritzer was dead. So Van Tassel finds out about this, and he works with the Bureau of Land Management to acquire that property, to sort of homestead it. And Van Tassel eventually moves out there. I think this is about 1947. He leaves the aerospace practice altogether and decides to run the landing strip out there. He builds a little cafe for his wife to run called the Come on in, where people could land on the landing strip just to go get a piece of pie, like Howard Hughes apparently did all the time. Would fly and get a piece of cherry pie and leave. And when Van Tassel first moved in there, he had three young daughters. Also, he cleaned Kritzer's blood off the rocks. I mean, his blood and his innards were still in there. Like, it was just, you know, Van Tassel, what a weird experience. He cleans it off. One of his daughters told me later that they never actually lived under the rock. They lived kind of next to it in these sort of tents, but they lived outdoors. But Van Tassel gets really interested in what's going on under that rock. And at a certain point, he starts leading regular Christian church services out at Giant Rock. Prayer, singing of hymns, so on and so forth. I mean, he's not a minister, but he's doing this and he's running the airstrip that Kritzer had established. And at a certain point those who are gathered with him underneath the rock start getting really interested in experiments. I believe it's called telekinesis, where you move objects by thinking, you know, thinking your way through, moving them and whatnot. And he starts getting into more things, a little more esoteric than just your typical church service. And that led to a series of channelings that Van Tassel and others claimed to begin having underneath the rock. The first occurred on January 6, 1952 and the space being's name was Lutban. I don't know where these names come from, but. L U T B U N N Lutbun says this was the channeling. It's short. I'll read it. I am Lutbun, senior in command, First Wave Planet Patrol, Realms of Shari. We have your contact aboard 80,000ft above this place. Your press will have more to report on your so called flying saucers. We return your contact discontinued.
- [22:18]
Jack Wagner
Hmm.
- [22:20]
Daniel Paul
So that was his first channeling. And from there there are going to be numerous of these channelings from beings with names like Newt, Morco, Deska, Ashtar, and the Golden Density where George would just kind of take on this green gold sort of radiance and channel through him. And so underneath the boulder, George and his friends start getting these channelings. George refers to them as Telethot and sometimes he calls them Omni Bean and sometimes they give messages. There are some issues. He had a newsletter called Proceedings and some of them give messages for the Christian holidays. Like there's an Easter message from ESU and they give channelings according to George and the others. And a lot of it is kind of life advice. There's, there's instructions on how to get rid of the headache.
- [23:19]
Jack Wagner
Anything useful?
- [23:20]
Daniel Paul
I haven't tried it actually. I, I'm trying to remember the details, but I can't offhand. It involved something, almost something around a polarity where you would touch one part of the body with another and then switch it over. George is really interested in polarity in a variety of his endeavors with the Integratron too. So anyway, I think there's a lot of, I won't say fear, but the space beings, according to George and the others, this is right after the bomb went off, right? This is right after Hiroshima, Nagasaki, the bombs. And there's a lot of concern on the space beings about, about where this is going and concerns about humanity. They seem to be pretty positive. I mean, none of them say anything really evil. They seem to be, according to what George experienced and the others, they seem to have kind of a positive spin on all this. So he's having these channels for a while, about a year. And suddenly one night out of these channelings on August 24, 1953, that's when he has his visitation from solganda. It was one night around I think 2am and George Van Tassel said he was in his. I think he said he was in his boxers or underpants of some kind. I think he referred to them as skivvies. I don't know if people still call them that. He was outside the rock. So this would have been just outside giant rock. And he said it was a Venusian space. Being 5 foot 6, tanned and handsome, 28 year old man who was 300 years old, he was wearing a one piece gray suit, like a sweatsuit with no buttons or pockets. So he remembers all these details. And the being said, I am Sulgonda and I would be pleased to show you my craft. And so, and in so many words, the being said, consider this a reward.
- [25:26]
Jack Wagner
Did he get to see Salgonda's craft?
- [25:29]
Daniel Paul
Yes, he went inside it and talked about some of the instrumentation. From what I remember that there were fluorescent tubes. He went inside the craft. He said Salanda had a dog that looked like a rabbit, like with really big ears, went inside the craft. Salanda showed him around a little bit. I don't think the craft went anywhere with George in it. Apparently he was sort of like, like portaled up into the craft, like sort of lifted, almost like an out of body experience, you know, where you're kind of lightweight and floating. This is what he claimed happened. And then the being said, the problem with you earthlings is that by the time you know what you need to know, you are too old, you need to live longer. So what the being imparted on George was that by the time humans have the wisdom that they sort of need to understand the world, they're ready to die or they're starting to decay. And so there must be a way to extend human life. And the apparently Sol Gonda gave George various instructions on how to build what later became the Integratron. Some of these George took with him. You know, never shared it with anybody. But from what we know from what he did share, the structure was to be made entirely of wood. Humans were not to wear metal. And he imparted on George an equation of f equals 1 over t frequency equals 1 over time. So after this, George kind of hit the ground running. He acquires 10 acres where the Integratron is eventually going to be made. He has plans to start a whole campus based off the teachings of these channeling experiences. And shortly after this, he starts what's called the Interplanetary Spacecraft Conventions at Giant Rock, which lasted from 1954 until 1977, but only missing one year there, like 1971. And these were the first in the US sort of conventions or gatherings where people would come together and talk about contact or UFO experiences. So George Van Tassel becomes kind of an important person in what's called ufology. And immediately after this experience, he begins to get going on building this campus. He builds an observatory that's still there and kind of like a room for taking care of business, like an office. And then there's plans to build the whole the College of Universal Wisdom Research Laboratory with the Integratron as its center point. And all of this is done, I mean, starting in 1947. That's right when Van Tassel moved out there. This is when a lot of people think they're seeing flying saucers, UFOs. You know, you have Kenneth Arnold, Marjorie Cameron, who I think was the first in the post war era to see something that we would call today a ufo. I think she saw hers in like February or March of 1946. So George is kind of like part of this whole Malou. He's coming out of the aerospace thing. He's working with Howard Hughes, he's deep in the desert. He's kind of like the perfect person to have this experience, you know, looking back and leads these spacecraft conventions. Right around that time the FBI opens a file on him. I mean, they're totally like kind of little freak freaked out by everything he's doing. Somebody he had given. He had been giving a lot of talks all over the country in TV interviews, wrote a book called I Wrote a Flying Saucer, even though he really didn't. And he. As soon as you get in the book, it says the being said I did. I don't claim to write a flying saucer. The being said, I did. Little bit of a disclaimer there, I guess. And after this experience, it was all about starting this campus and building the Integratron and making sure, finding a way to make the Integratron happen.
- [29:46]
Jack Wagner
All right, we'll be right back after this quick break. Foreign this show is sponsored by BetterHelp. Mental health awareness is growing, but there's still progress to be made. 26% of Americans who participated in a recent survey say that they have avoided seeking mental health support due to fear of judgment. When people hesitate to get help, it doesn't just affect them, it impacts families, workplaces and entire communities. This is Mental Health Awareness Month. Let's encourage everyone to take care of their well being and break the stigma. BetterHelp has over 10 years years of experience matching people with the right therapist from their diverse network of over 30,000 licensed therapists with a wide range of specialties. Better Help is fully online making therapy affordable and convenient. We're all better with help. Visit betterhelp.com otherworld to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp h e l p.com otherworld.
- [30:55]
Morgan Abshur
Hey, it's Morgan Abshur and I'm Kayla Moore and we're the host of the Crime House original podcast Clues.
- [31:01]
Kayla Moore
Every Wednesday we sneak past the crime scene tape and open a new case file for some of the most gripping true crime cases.
- [31:07]
Morgan Abshur
While Kaelyn pieces together the timelines and breaks down the hard facts of these cases, I'll be diving into the theories and pulling at the threads that may or may not add up.
- [31:17]
Kayla Moore
From serial killers to shocking murders, Clues dives into all the forensic details and brilliant sleuthing that went into the world's most infamous cases.
- [31:25]
Morgan Abshur
These clues shine a light on stories that have been waiting for, sometimes for decades, to finally be heard. So join us as we open a case and uncover the breakthroughs, the heartbreak, and the relentless pursuit of answers behind these unforgettable investigations.
- [31:39]
Kayla Moore
Follow and listen to Clues, an Odyssey Podcast in partnership with Crime House. Available now on the free Odyssey app and wherever you get your podcasts, this.
- [31:47]
Jack Wagner
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- [34:28]
Daniel Paul
You know, who knows? I mean, like, did George really have this information in his head or is that mythology? I don't know. But George Van Tassel did hire an architect named Howard P. Hess. Because of George's background with aerospace, I'm guessing, and because of how similar the integratron is to an aircraft fuselage, I'm guessing that George already knew a lot of this information. I mean, whether it was sublimated to a being named Sulgonda or not, George was around it. On the document. We have a space where we list architects. So I did credit Sulgonda. And the way I did is after George Van Tassel's name. I gave Sagonda a parenthetical because according to George, the instructions came from Sulgonda. So who am I to? Who am I to disagree With George on this. If. If George says it's Sol Gonda, then I'll just go with that because that's what he said. Even if this other architect, Howard, has had a lot to do with it, George credited Solganda. And I'm just. I'm just going to honor what George credited or how he would want it.
- [35:36]
Jack Wagner
So in the official government filings for this historical building, Sulgonda is listed as an architect.
- [35:42]
Daniel Paul
Yes.
- [35:43]
Jack Wagner
That's really funny.
- [35:45]
Daniel Paul
So, okay, so George has this experience, gets 10 acres of land near Giant Rock, which is where the Integratron is eventually built, and starts the Interplanetary Spacecraft Convention. Starts writing books, starts doing television interviews. He had already, before the visitation from Sulaganda, he had already been having Omni beam and telethot experiences and channelings and recording them. So I feel like the Solganda visit is kind of the culmination. But then from there, he has to build this. So he starts a magazine called Proceedings, which is published more or less quarterly, and it prints a lot of the channelings from various space beings and. And talks about the progress of building the campus, the need for funds, how far along they are and what his plans are. And he finally gets enough money to get going on the College of Universal Wisdom Research Laboratory. So the construction began in 1958. So that's, what, about five years after his visitation. And the dome was completed by 1960. But in 1958, right after he started the early Proceedings newsletters mentioned that they're running short. You know, they need more money. And suddenly on May 4, 1959, he gets a donation of $40,000. It's an anonymous donation of $40,000, which is about $436,000 today. It's an anonymous donation. It allows him to finish the Integratron. Nobody knows who did it. But in the mid-70s, whenever it was when Howard Hughes died, George Van Tassel ran a very nice homage to Howard Hughes in one of the issues of proceedings from the 70s, saying he was more generous than anybody will ever know. In all likelihood, because George was friends with Howard Hughes, worked with him, and we know they got along. Nobody's going to have that kind of money in George's circle except for Howard Hughes. So in all likelihood, it probably was Howard Hughes who paid for the Integratron.
- [38:09]
Jack Wagner
He liked that pie. He had to thank them.
- [38:12]
Daniel Paul
Yeah, I don't know. I would be curious to know if the space beings ever gave any, like, recipes, but I.
- [38:17]
Jack Wagner
Maybe that's why they're there, too.
- [38:19]
Daniel Paul
Yeah.
- [38:19]
Jack Wagner
Yeah, that was my first thought when Salgonda landed. I'm like, there was a strip. There was the pie.
- [38:23]
Daniel Paul
Right, Right. I'll show you my uf. Give me. Give me pie.
- [38:27]
Jack Wagner
So he finishes building this thing and, like, what did the build involve? Like, what. What makes the Integratron so special in terms of its architecture?
- [38:35]
Daniel Paul
In terms of the architecture, what makes the architecture special is it's all. It's all wood construction. Even. There's not. There's no nails even used anymore. It's wood dowling. So these 16 ribs that sort of support this hemispherical umbrella dome, they're all wood doweled together, and they all meet in an oculus, which is an opening in the roof that's 1.5 tons of concrete and a material called micarta. And that. That oculus is so heavy that it compresses everything down. So what makes it special is the structure is all wood. It's quite beautiful without ever intending to be beautiful. And it's remarkably strong. There was no damage from a 7.1 earthquake just three miles away. And George, at the time, even knew it would be strong. And on top of it, what makes it special is acoustically, it's quite magical in there. Even though, again, that was never. That's a byproduct of everything else. The Integratron was intended to be a life extension machine based off a variety of. Of studies, papers, information out there at the time about electricity and the possibility that if a human cell can receive a certain amount of electricity at a certain frequency, that that would regenerate the human cell and therefore extend human life. So the way the integratron was to function, people walk in, there's. There's one door, I think it's facing south. People walk in, they are to turn counterclockwise. And as they walked counterclockwise, they were going to be the recipients of a generous amount of electricity that would be regulated to the human cell through equipment that George operated in a control facility outside of the dome itself. And the belief was that if people undertook this walk, you know, they weren't supposed to wear any metal. If they undertook this walk and were the recipients of this electrical charge, not to mention the billions of negative ions that the integratron was intended to generate, that this could possibly be a means of life extension. So part of the way that the electricity was to be generated was on the outside of the building. Originally, George Van Tassel had what's called a Wimshurst apparatus. That's what he proposed, it's a way to generate electric static energy. There's 64 of these metal rods protruding out. He was able to flip a switch and to turn those rods on, and they were to spin really fast, generate electrical energy that a collector comb and some other aspects of the Integratron would collect and redistribute back inside the dome in a way that was to be safe and appropriate to regulating it toward the cells of the humans that were to walk through there. And George had a very strong belief in this because he believed very strongly in the connection between humans and electricity. In fact, there's a quote from George that we are electrical creatures using a biochemical body to exist in an electrochemical environment. He even saw spirit as electricity. So for him, there was a sort of a scientific logic to a lot of this. He's coming at this as an engineer, as an aerospace guy, but he's tapping into some very interesting territories by connecting electricity with spirituality. And he's also turning to electricity to extend human life. And that was the purpose of the Integratron, its primary purpose, by the way. It's called the Integratron for the ability of electricity to integrate with the human cell. So it's about integration between electricity and biology. That's where the name Integratron comes from, huh?
- [43:11]
Jack Wagner
That is wild. He got pretty far in building this thing. Was it ever completed to the point where somebody could test this out?
- [43:20]
Daniel Paul
No. So the later issues of Proceedings magazine, he sort of comes up with this. This sort of, like, percentage. And they're quite funny if you read them month to month. It's like, we are 79% there, we are 81% there. We are 88% there. We're almost there. And my understanding is it was never fully completed in George's lifetime. And he died in 1978 of a heart attack. And there's some thoughts around his death. A lot of people found it quite suspicious. They said he was in really good health, you know, but, you know, heart attacks happen. I have sometimes wondered if the Integratron got far enough to where he was trying it on himself. Some aspects of this, and that may have caused a problem because, you know, if you zap a body with a lot of electricity, that's going to cause something to go wrong with your heart, you know, I mean, I don't know. I mean, there's a lot of issues left to be resolved with what he was proposing. He didn't die on site, though. He died in Orange county, visiting some Friends and getting a publication done. But he was only in his 60s. He wasn't. He lived a very interesting life. I mean, he left the aerospace industry at age 37 and just lived out the rest of his years out there doing this. He was 68 or 67 when he passed away. You know, a very. Like a weirdly full life, if you will, but. But as far as I know, it never got to the point where. Where it was operational. I know that there are some people out there said, oh, we got to get it running. You know, they're just interested in getting this thing going, you know, and sort of which all the machinery's gone now. Right after George died, a lot of the machinery disappeared. I've heard different stories that the government came and took it or, you know, or maybe just got cleared off the site some other way, I don't know. But I also heard from a lot of folks about, you know, some other thoughts or theories about what happened to the machinery and did the FBI come and take it. And the FBI file on George, by the way, closed. It was signed by J. Edgar Hoover, which is interesting, but it closed. By the late 60s, they kind of saw him as benign. They weren't too worried about him. After a while they just basically said, you know, he's harmless. He's just eccentric, you know, doing his own thing. He's different. And they let it go. And, you know, at this time, especially to go back to something I mentioned earlier, because Southern California was sort of the center point of aerospace and high tech for the world at that time, and it had a lot of open space. You probably are going to see a lot of things in the air at that time that the military doesn't want you to know about. So people are probably. They probably are seeing things that are different and distinctive and the government's not going to want to talk about it. You know, if it's a military craft, they're just going to want to say, yeah, that's. Don't look at it, or just that's not what you think or whatever. A lot of the channelings that George experienced, a lot of information around the dangers of the nuclear situation and concerns about what humans are going to be doing. And so that coupled with just how intense the bomb was and what technology led to with the bomb, I think sort of led to this. I don't know how much, if you want to call it sublimation or what, but a lot of energy toward these feelings or experiences, in their words, of being channeled or going through something like this.
- [46:54]
Jack Wagner
That's really fascinating. I mean, on one hand, a person could hear a story like that and think, oh, yeah, everybody's afraid of the nuclear bomb. This is like the fear on everybody's minds. Of course, they are imagining things like that. But on the other hand, there is a increased amount of activity around nuclear sites. They say, you know, there's a lot of people who think that there might be some advanced life forms just kind of watching us to make sure we don't develop the technology to blow ourselves up or blow up the rest of the couch.
- [47:25]
Daniel Paul
Wow. Well, that would be n. That would be nice if somebody's trying to make sure we don't. I mean, that's a nice. That's a nice thought, you know.
- [47:33]
Jack Wagner
So what ended up happening to the Integratron after George died? I mean, I know that it's still around now, but what happened to it? I mean, I'm actually kind of impressed that it survived this long.
- [47:45]
Daniel Paul
There's a couple things that happened right after George died. He had a wife named Doris, and there was a man who sort of, in a sneaky way, ended up with the deed to the property and kind of having it sign it, sign the property over to him in a way that she may not have intended. And his plan was to turn it into a gay nightclub called the Lavender Disco.
- [48:12]
Jack Wagner
It's in the middle of nowhere. What year Was that?
- [48:16]
Daniel Paul
About 78 or 79.
- [48:18]
Jack Wagner
That is really funny. This is like several hours drive into the desert. And if you were to drive there from Los Angeles, you would pass Palm Springs, which is a very popular and thriving gay community with many nightclubs.
- [48:34]
Daniel Paul
Right. No, it was options. You know, you get options from a business plan alone.
- [48:41]
Jack Wagner
I'm just fascinated by.
- [48:43]
Daniel Paul
Yeah, yeah. So that was the plan.
- [48:45]
Jack Wagner
Okay, okay.
- [48:47]
Daniel Paul
And that didn't. That didn't happen for a while. There was a couple that owned it, and I think they wanted to. They were either friends with George or sort of true believers in the Integratron, and they were going to try to get it running again. And it kind of just sat there. It was maintained good enough. I mean, I think it had some problems. It was getting, you know, there was never a lot of money around it for like, the 20 years that it kind of sat there. I actually first came across it in 1997 before it sort of took on the new life that it has now. I was actually. I was there with my friend Godfrey, who was one of the fellows who discovered the Mojave Telephone booth. If you've ever Heard about that. This telephone booth that was deep in the desert near an off ramp called Sema C I M A and just on a dirt road, miles and miles in the desert. Suddenly there was a working telephone Booth in the 90s. And we used to go camp there. Anyway, he had a car. It was a 1963 Chevy, completely covered with the album covered Whipped Cream and Other Delights by Herb Alpert. And the car was called Whip It. You know, back then you can get those. You'd get that at any thrift store. I had my little Honda through the catchback and we're driving around. He drives me out to Landers to show me giant rock. Then we go to the Integratron and both our cars get stuck in the sand, both of them. And this old man comes up to us and he had a white beard and he's holding like. I don't know if he's drinking beer out of a cozy or what, but he's holding one of those Styrofoam cozies. Daytime, it's like 11:30 or 1 in the afternoon. And he looks at us and he says, you're here to see that. And we're kind of sheepishly saying, yeah, you know, and we're thinking this guy's going to just mock us, you know, because we're here to see this ufo. Ufology thing. And he kind of stops and he kind of looks up and he says, yeah, Says, I remember the night it happened. Like, what are you talking about? He says, the time stood still. It was like time stood still and he saw these lights. And I had no idea what, what this man was talking about, but he gave us this whole thing. And at the time, I didn't even zero about the Integratron. I had no idea what he was talking about. And so he kind of goes into some detail about time standing still and these lights. And he said his name was Daniel Boone. And I'm like, that's interesting. Daniel Boone, okay. And it turns out that his name really was Daniel Boone. He was George Van Tassel's son in law. So I was talking with George Van Tassel's son in law this whole time and I had no idea. I had no idea who George Van Tassel was. I had no idea this Daniel Boone. I mean, I remember telling him, my name's Daniel too. I mean, what do you say in that situation? He pulled both our cars out with his truck and we were on our way. And I didn't know until years later that that was George Van Tassel's son in law.
- [51:59]
Jack Wagner
Law telling us that that is incredible. And you would eventually write the historical papers to save this building.
- [52:05]
Daniel Paul
Yes. So the sisters, the Carl sisters, bought it about 2000 from this couple that had it before. And they're the ones who are kind of really responsible for regenerating it. And I think a lot of them were interested in the idea of audiology or hearing, like a therapeutic healing through sound. And they had the, you know, realizing how amazing the acoustics are on that upper level, which again, was never intended to even have anybody in it. It was never intended to have anything in it but machinery. Van Tassel ended up making something so beautiful and so magical for so many people, but that is totally peripheral to what he intended. So it's funny how life works out. I mean, the integratron itself now has an extended life, if you will. It's the integratron that lives on in this sort of beautiful new afterlife form.
- [52:59]
Jack Wagner
That is so fascinating, you know what I mean?
- [53:01]
Daniel Paul
Yeah, it's gorgeous. It was not a form that it was ever intended. It took on this beauty in the next life that nobody at the time could have ever predicted. So the integratron itself is what got extended life through these sisters. And they've. They were very good about preserving the building and they're the ones who hired me. And, you know, everybody understood how distinctive this was in that it spoke to a very unique chapter in ufology and that in that Southern California after World War II especially had a sort of lineage with ufology. Carl Jung, he called Southern California classic saucer country.
- [53:44]
Jack Wagner
I mean. Yeah. And the building really does look like a classic flying saucer when you look at it. This is. Especially with those poles, you know, it does look like a machine, I guess. One of my last questions, Daniel, you're a very technical guy. You got hired to do this as a job. Very unusual one. But as a job, after learning about George and Solgonda and all of those, like, what do you make of all of this? What do you make of the. The supernatural side of this unique building?
- [54:16]
Daniel Paul
I think that. Well, you mean on a personal level.
- [54:19]
Jack Wagner
Yeah, on a personal level.
- [54:20]
Daniel Paul
Oh, man. Well, I think I try to look at these things very clear eyed. You know, as a historian, I need you. That's important for me to do. And so everything I've just told you is basically what George stated in his words. And I'm not. I have no right to disagree with him on anything that he claims to have been an experience of his, which is part of the reason why he gave Salgonda a parenthetical in the nomination. The way I see the potential for other life to be out there, I'm more. I guess there must be something out there that equivocates to consciousness. I would like to think that there are all kinds of things insofar as they have an energy, that perhaps there is some form of life to them that. That, you know, we're. We're in a living. We're on a living planet, and we're part of a living universe in ways that we may not be able to possibly even perceive yet. And as we do, perhaps that becomes more what we equivocate to consciousness as humans.
- [55:33]
Jack Wagner
Maybe we could understand that if somebody one day builds some sort of machine that can extend our lives.
- [55:41]
Daniel Paul
Yeah, well, we know that at least one person's tried.
- [55:45]
Jack Wagner
Daniel, thank you so much for your time and telling me this amazing story of George Van Tassel and the Integratron. This is really fascinating. I've always wanted to know more about this place and especially in relation to the story that made me start researching it in the first place.
- [56:05]
Daniel Paul
Yeah, yeah. Well, it's a very interesting property, and I hope you've enjoyed learning more about it.
- [56:11]
Jack Wagner
Thank you so much. Okay, thank you once again to Daniel Paul for coming on the show and catching me up on the history of George Van Tassel and the Integratron. I really went in not knowing much about this, and I was completely blown away by how vast the history is. I started out looking for answers about David's experience out in Ojai, but now I just have more questions. Did David experience these flashbacks because of the sound bath? Maybe from being in the building itself that was meant to be this machine, a machine designed by an alien named Solgonda? Or from just being out in the same desert near Giant Rock where George and his colleagues spent decades allegedly attempting to make and successfully make contact with these beings? All of these questions lingered. I had many more beyond that, and it turns out I was not exactly done with the Integratron. Or perhaps the Integratron wasn't quite done with me. After we stopped recording the interview you just heard, Daniel, Paul and myself stayed and chatted for a while. And while we were chatting, he mentioned that if I was curious, there was this guy named Don out in the desert who owns George Van Tassel's entire archive. Daniel shared with me some recordings of George that Don owns, but he told me that this guy don has over 70 reel to reel Tapes, boxes of George's photos, the original model of the Integratron, and the blueprints. My first thought was that, you know, we probably don't need any of that for these episodes. But Daniel was explaining this, and at a certain point, I think I asked, wait, who is this guy? Like, who is Don, and why does he have all this stuff? How did he get it? Daniel told me that his name is Don McKinney. He's a retired construction worker that lives out in the desert very close to Giant Rock, and he's basically an eccentric dude that acquired this collection years ago and has been doing his best to preserve it on his own. I asked Daniel if he knew whether or not the tapes and photos had been digitized and backed up. Daniel told me that Don was trying to do this, but he's getting older and doesn't have much money. And this is when I got pulled into a bit of a side quest. Daniel introduced me to Don McKinney. That afternoon on the phone, I spoke to Don about his huge collection of George's stuff. He told me that he had indeed been trying to digitize it over the years, but it's been hard. There are so many tapes. He had a nephew that was helping him out at one point, but the nephew has moved away. He also told me that the hard drive on his computer was getting full and he needed tech support. With that, along with a bunch of other things, I was like, hey, Don, I make this show called Otherworld, and. And I have two guys that are both named Theo who work on the show and are really good at audio. Maybe I can ask them if they want to come out there with me, and we could try to help you out with preserving some of this stuff. Suddenly, Theo and Theo flew in from Santa Fe in New York, where they live, and all three of us were driving out to the desert to meet Don McKinney and spend the week helping him digitize this giant archive of George Van Tassel's reel to reel tapes, photographs, blueprints, writings, and much more. This ended up being quite a huge task. If you want to hear more about our week in the desert with Don and the archive, we recorded a Patreon episode about that. I also filmed a little mini doc interview with Don while I was out there, and I'll be posting that on the Patreon as well. The work we did out in the desert with the archive was mainly not for the podcast, but ever since I started this show, I've always hoped that Otherworld could do more than just tell stories. And I thought this was the perfect opportunity where we could use the resources of the show to not only help out Don, but also preserve some paranormal history. I'm actually currently working with Daniel Paul trying to get Don McKinney's collection into a museum so that it could finally have a permanent home somewhere where it can not only be preserved properly, but also somewhere where it can be enjoyed by the public. We have some promising leads on that, so fingers crossed. But for now, the side quest is not quite over and I will keep you updated if any updates come in the future. By the way, after doing all of this, I realize I completely forgot to even tell David from the previous episode that I was doing it. I ended up reaching out to him after I got back from our Don McKinney escapade and it was very funny telling him, hey man, by the way, I forgot to mention this, but I've been in the desert for a week archiving all of George Van Tassel's belongings. Sorry I didn't tell you. He thought that was very surprising and funny. David, I still owe you a call to properly catch you up on all of that. That brings us to the end of this episode. If you want to hear about our trip out to the desert to help Don McKinney and our experience going through his vast archive of George Van Tassel's belongings that will be available@patreon.com Otherworld Once again, thank you to historian Daniel Paul. I also want to thank Don McKinney who allowed us to use some of his recordings of George Van Tassel in this episode. This has been episode 123 and you've been listening to Otherworld. Otherworld is executive produced and hosted by myself, Jack Wagner. Our theme song is by Cobra Man. The soundtrack of this episode is by North Americans. This episode was edited by Theo Krantz and engineered by Theo Schaeffer. Our associate producers are Nikki Kate Delgado and Haley Pearson. Our artwork is by Cul de Sac Studios. If you want to hear bonus episodes of Otherworld, you could become a patron@patreon.com Otherworld Please show us your support by subscribing, leaving a five star review and telling your friends about the show. Our social media is theworldpod. Thank you to the team at Odysee. Leah Rhys Dennis, Rob Mirandy, Eric Donnelly, Maura Curran, Kate Rose, Colin Gaynor, Michael Lavey, Josephina Francis and Hilary Shuff. Follow and listen to Otherworld now for free on the Odysee app or wherever you get your podcasts and finally, if you or somebody you know has experienced something paranormal, supernatural or unexplained, you can send us your story@storiesotherworldpod.com.