An Alien Odyssey

Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: a Space Odyssey was a masterpiece of state-of-the-art pop media as is existed in the mid 1960’s. As described in an earlier post, the 1960’s was not only a high-water mark for “Old Earth Culture” …it set the stage (to use Kubrick’s vernacular) for the end of the old era, and the heralding in of the new. The coming of the millennium, as prophesized in Kubrick’s 2001, marked the end of the old paradigm… the old empire… and the transition to the new vision. To accomplish this ambitious task, Kubrick used the prophetic mediums of the era… psychedelia and science fiction.

The film is overtly an Ancient Astronaut tome, with many layers and subtleties. From the “dawn of man” alien intervention to the then-present arms race/space race speculation on our alien assisted near future, Kubrick prophesizes in the fine science fiction tradition… a classic cautionary tale/hero’s journey. The most profound depiction of what astronomer and UFO researcher J. Allen Hynek referred to as: CE3, or close encounter of the third kind (ie: one-on-one alien contact) is beautifully rendered in what can only be described as Kubrick’s 60’s psychedelic magnum opus. It captures the essence of not only the times, but what a mind-bending, reality-morphing event alien contact must be.

Here is the Star Gate sequence from 2001: a Space Odyssey. We redid the audio mix, using another titan of the 60’s (& beyond!) The Grateful Dead…

 

A very enlightening examination of film’s considerable (and continuing) role in shaping public opinion can be found at one our favorite “watering holes” …The Secret Sun. In his post: Stanley Kubrick and the Reality Star-gate, revisited, Christopher Knowles delves deep into Kubrick, NASA, ultra-terrestrial hypothesis, as well as other emerging 21^st century mythologies. Check it out…