Soon the family started holding UFO conventions for thousands of people, with Van Tassel believing Giant Rock to be a source of electromagnetic energy that allowed him to contact extraterrestrial beings. There, he built a café and received approval from the BLM to hold conventions and operate Critzer’s airstrips. Van Tassel worked for Douglas Aircraft and Lockheed as an aeronautical engineer and flight tester for experimental aircraft, before moving his family out to the desert where Critzer had lived. Then, under some odd circumstances, Critzer found himself in trouble with the government and was accused of being a spy, before being killed in 1942 during a police confrontation involving a box of dynamite.

Unsurprisingly, many people thought he was strange and avoided his subterranean digs. Critzer had created a home for himself under a massive boulder, known as Giant Rock, that was sacred to local Native American tribes but would become the epicenter of one of the biggest UFO movements in North America.Ĭritzer dug out his home under this standalone, 70-foot rock and built a number of airstrips around it. In the late 1940s, Van Tassel found himself living in an area of the Mojave Desert at the behest of an eccentric friend named Frank Critzer. One of the originators of UFO religion was a man named George van Tassel. Some say they heard the name “Asteron,” some heard “Gillon,” and others heard “Bramaha.” Adding to the intrigue is the fact that the only audio or video evidence of the message is a reenactment. What is strange about the Ashtar Command broadcast is that not everyone heard the name “Vrillon” that night. This allowed the signal to be interfered with, though it would take someone well-versed in the technology to intercept and interrupt it. The particular broadcasting system that was being used by the Southern Television station was unusual in that it bounced one signal to another transmitter on the Isle of Wight, rather than using a direct landline like most television transmitters at the time. Though the culprit in the latter case turned out to be a disgruntled employee. The Southern Television broadcast is often compared to the Max Headroom Chicago broadcast interruption of 1987 or the Captain Midnight HBO interruption a year earlier. Was the name Vrillon just a misconstrued pronunciation of Vorilhon? Many believed the broadcast to be the doing of the Raëlian community, the UFO church founded just four years earlier by Claude Vorilhon, whose name sounds and looks uncannily similar to the Ashtar Commander, Vrillon. Adding to the conspiracy is the fact that the culprit of the transmission has still never been discovered. This added to the confusion creating a War of the Worlds-type anxiety among those who couldn’t fathom the possibility of a hoax. News stations distorted the story, reporting different names and versions of Vrillon’s message. But some began to panic, frantically phoning the station under the assumption that the apocalypse was upon them, despite Ashtar Command’s seemingly peaceful dispatch. The transmission returned to the evening’s normally scheduled programming of Looney Tunes before viewers were assured by news broadcaster, Andrew Gardner, that everything was alright and that it was simply a hoax.

Vrillon also confirmed the UFO phenomenon and his race’s presence “seen as lights in the skies.” Vrillon warned humanity to be wary of false prophets and the evils of money, before imploring his audience to live in harmony and put down its weapons.

On this particular Saturday evening, unbeknownst to those working at an independent television station in Southern England, thousands of viewers were subjected to a six-minute message from an entity referring to itself as Vrillon of the Ashtar Galactic Command.ĭuring the broadcast, Vrillon warned his unassuming audience of the dangers humans were getting themselves into by using weapons of mass destruction. Southern Television Broadcast Interruption a Hoax? 26, 1977, unsuspecting viewers in England who tuned into the nightly news experienced a Southern Television broadcast interruption by a ‘voice from space.’ To this day, no one knows for certain who was behind the interruption. Government agencies that regulate television and radio signals are pretty astute when it comes to maintaining the security of the airwaves.

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