Conspiracy Music (Part 7)

Three years after the Beatles broke up in 1970, a new psychedelic rock band called Klaatu emerged from obscurity.  The musical style of the group was—according to some influential music critics—so similar to the Beatles that many thought the Fab 4 had secretly reformed under a new name.  Klaatu’s record company, Capitol, did little to dissuade potential customers from believing this rumor (it seems, in fact, they did everything they could to encourage it), as the feverish speculation could only increase sales on the band’s debut album, 3:47 EST, which was rechristened simply Klaatu for its United States release in August of 1976.  

It turns out that the band, which was named after the extraterrestrial emissary portrayed by Michael Rennie in Robert Wise’s 1951 film The Day the Earth Stood Still (Klaatu’s identification with Wise’s film must have been substantial, as the title 3:47 EST is the exact time mentioned in the movie at which the alien’s spacecraft arrives on Earth), actually consisted of three Canadians:  John Woloschuk, Dee Long and Terry Draper.  Their first album, interwoven with several metaphysical and science fictional elements, includes a song entitled “Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft (The Recognized Anthem of World Contact Day),” which is clearly based on Albert K. Bender’s 1962 nonfiction book, Flying Saucers and the Three Men, an essential entry in the flood of UFO “contactee” books that surged from the cultural zeitgeist of 1950s/60s America.  On p. 82 of his book, Bender writes:  

…early in March, 1953 [the  International Flying Saucer Bureau] voted to hold what we would term a “World Contact Day,” on which we would urge all IFSB members to attempt to send out a telepathic message to visitors from space.  If there was anything to the claims of people expounding telepathic methods, and if we did have visitors from space, perhaps such a message might get across, particularly with so many minds concentrating on the same message. 

On pp. 83-84 Bender reproduces the message that was transmitted, telepathically, on what Bender calls “C-Day” (Contact Day), March 15, 1953:  

“Calling occupants of interplanetary craft!  Calling occupants of interplanetary craft that have been observing our planet EARTH.  We of IFSB wish to make contact with you.  We are your friends, and would like you to make an appearance here on EARTH.  Your presence before us will be welcomed with the utmost friendship.  We will do all in our power to promote mutual understanding between your people and the people of EARTH.  Please come in peace and help us in our EARTHLY problems.  Give us some sign that you have received our message.  Be responsible for creating a miracle here on our planet to wake up the ignorant ones to reality.  Let us hear from you.  We are your friends.”  

 

In 1962 even the most credulous UFO buffs scoffed in disgust at Bender’s mysticism-laden narrative.  From a 21^st century perspective, however, the book can be seen as an illuminating exploration of formerly obscure occult phenomena that have since become far more widely known thanks to the New Age movement that burgeoned several years after the book’s publication.  In retrospect, Bender comes across as a reluctant shaman rather than a neurotic clown.  

In Chapter 10 of his excellent 1970 book, UFOs:  Operation Trojan Horse, John A. Keel offers up his own thoughts on Flying Saucers and the Three Men:

From what we know about the Pleiades, the stars there seem to be swirling among great clouds of radiant gases.  If they harbor any planetary systems, we wonder what effect those gases might have.  An early contactee, Albert K. Bender, wrote a book containing so many far-out details that few ufologists took it seriously.  He claimed that UFO entities told him that they lived underground on their home planet because periodically they passed through masses of deadly clouds which destroyed life and created a great blackness.  When Bender’s account, Flying Saucers and the Three Men, was first published in 1962, it read like the fantasies of a madman.  But now many of the things he described have repeatedly occurred all over the world, and the book deserves a careful rereading.

I couldn’t agree more.  Used copies of Bender’s long-out-of-print book can still be found HERE.  

The entirety of Klaatu’s song “Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft (The Recognized Anthem of World Contact Day)” can be heard HERE.

“Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft” by Klaatu:

In your mind you have abilities you know
to telepath messages through the vast unknown.
Please close your eyes and concentrate
with every thought you think
upon the recitation we're about to sing:

Calling occupants of interplanetary craft.
Calling occupants of interplanetary, most extraordinary craft.

Calling occupants of interplanetary craft;
Calling occupants of interplanetary craft;
Calling occupants of interplanetary, most extraordinary craft.

You've been observing our earth
and we'd like to make a contact with you.

We are your friends!

Calling occupants of interplanetary craft.
Calling occupants and interplanetary ultra-emissaries.

We've been observing your earth
and one night we'll make a contact with you

We are your friends!

Calling occupants of interplanetary craft.
Calling occupants of interplanetary, quite extraordinary craft.

Please come in peace we beseech you.
--Only a landing will teach them!--
Our earth may never survive,
so do come we beg you.
Please interstellar policemen.
Won't you give us a sign (give us a sign)
that we've reached you?

With your mind you have ability to form.
And transmit thought energy far beyond the norm.
You close your eyes,
you concentrate
together—that's the way
to send the message
We declare World Contact Day

Calling occupants of interplanetary craft;
Calling occupants of interplanetary craft;
Calling occupants of interplanetary, most extraordinary craft.

Calling occupants;
Calling occupants;
Calling occupants;
Calling occupants;
Calling occupants of interplanetary, most extraordinary craft