Aulis well

Aulis (Ancient Greek: Αὐλίς) was a Greek port-town, located in ancient Boeotia in central Greece, at the Euripus Strait, opposite of the island of Euboea. Livy states that Aulis was distant 3 miles (4.8 km) from Chalcis.. Aulis never developed into a fully independent polis, but belonged to Thebes (378 BC) and Tanagra respectively.. According to legend (The Iliad) the Greek fleet … (Wikipedia)

Aulis is a website used as a clearing house for information on Apollo. There is a pile of stuff there. I spent the last three days reading the work of Mary Bennett and David S. Percy, authors of Dark Moon: Apollo and the Whistle-Blowers. I read more than half of that book, and not due to lack of interest but extreme skepticism, gave it up. I did think the authors did a good job exposing the frailty of the case for moon landings in 1969-72. But they were headed in a direction I could not fathom, that of a connection between supposed structures on Mars and the pyramids.

Take one example: The image to the left is part of the surface of Mars referred to as Cydonia. The blue circle above is a much smaller image of the one blown up to the left. Bennett and Percy attach great significance to what to me appears to me a mound that has indentations that look like eyes and as mouth, kind of apish.

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, sometimes a mound is just a mound. Stop and think – imagine life on Mars thousands of years ago, probably more if it ever was. Those inhabitants had to have guessed that Viking I would be orbiting and photographing the surface. They had to be actively sending a message to passers by. The message, a I see it, would be “BOO!”

Don’t get me wrong. I have no knowledge of civilization on Mars and do not imagine such a thing ever was. But this does bring to mind the debate that has been going on here about the possibility of space travel. In the view of those who think it impossible, the above photos, and there are almost 53,000 images of Mars from the two Viking missions, would have to have been faked.

I am tempted to invoke Occam’s Razor here, but it has been so badly abused in the Moondoggie affair that it is lost its edge. Suffice it to say that if they actually took those pictures from Lower Earth Orbit, and if that was all they came up with as something resembling civilization, then Viking 1 and Viking 2 were abject failures. Let’s see, launched in 1975 and 1976, they could have at least shown us photos of Jane Fonda sunbathing by her pool. That would have made the trips worthwhile.

Since I maintain that the Apollo program was merely a cover and that the military was using it to place spy satellites in LEO, I would not argue that NASA lacked to ability to check out Jane.

That’s a diversion. I’ve been savagely attacked by Gaia concerning the possibility of space travel. Read it for yourself here. Be warned, it is very long. I am not sure I am worthy of such a piece of work. My family loves me.

Speaking of long, I just got done reading some essays and appendixes from Aulis, again written by Bennett and Percy. There are three photos of Stanley Kubrick just under the opening photos. The three are separate essays reviewing Kubrick’s body of work, looking for Apollo clues. The films they mention are Dr. Strangelove (1964), 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), Barry Lyndon (1975), The Shining (1980) and Eyes Wide Shut (1999). Kubrick is said to have died before Eyes Wide Shut could be completed,  six days after showing it to Warner Bros.

There is a lot of material to cover there, so I recommend that if you intend to read it, you use some vacation time. I am retired, and so got wrapped up in it all, but not so much that I think it to be the last word. So much of it was, in my view, irritating and inconsequential detail. But the evidence surrounding Cardington Hangars, shown below, is intriguing, as this was where, in their view, much of the Apollo footage (missions 11-15) was shot. I find that somewhat convincing given their evidence.

Eyes Wide Shut premiered on July 13, 1999, and was released to the public on July 16, exactly 30 years after Apollo 11 departed Cape Kennedy, allegedly on its way to the moon. That was Kubrick’s idea, and a not-so-subtle hint that Apollo was not about moon landings.

I have seen all of these films except Barry Lyndon, a film in which Kubrick was experimenting with low-lighting film techniques. The only films that have held my interest were The Shining and Eyes Wide Shut. 2001: A Space Odyssey, has not, in my view, aged well. It is tedious and slow moving, far more suited for its time than now.

The Shining is loaded with Apollo clues, and one surprisingly overlooked by Bennett and  Percy. Throughout much of the film Jack Nicholson’s character, author Jack Torrance, is typing away in the giant lobby of the Overlook Hotel, but we do not see his work until near the very end, when it is revealed that he was typing, over and over again, the following:

“All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.”

Pretty innocuous, no? But take a closer look … in those days people used either manual or electric typewriters, and the numeric keys in the top row started with “2.” The reason was that the numeral “1” was identical to a lower case ell (“l”), and so served dual purposes.  Read that way, the line might read “A 11 work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.” Or, “Apollo 11 work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.”

The boy above is Danny “Doc” Dorrance, the original “Shiner” from the Stephen King book (which I never read). I don’t think it is even clever, not like “A11 and no play …” above. That’s Apollo 11 taking off, and later we will see his sweater is unraveling. Kubrick must have thought Apollo 11 would have unraveled by now, and indeed it has, at least in the minds of true skeptics.

Finally, much of the action is centered around Room 237, symbolizing 237,000, or the average distance from Earth to the Moon over the course of a year. King is said to have used Room 217, and Kubrick wanted it changed.

If there is any connection between Eyes Wide Shut and Apollo, I do not know what it is. It is too obscure for me. The film, which featured frontal nudity, much of which was later censored by Warner Bros, appeared more to be about Freemasonry, with weird cult scenes and masks, and one death.

The connections between 2001: A Space Odyssey and Apollo are many, even as the movie came out a year before Apollo 11. Some think that NASA was preparing the public for the concept of human space travel, and others that Kubrick was perfecting the techniques he would be (or was in the process of) using for the Apollo program. I would say … both. Surely the Moon footage had long been in the can before July 20, 1969.

In fact, Bennett and Percy spend inordinate time on photographs allegedly taken on the moon, and do a good job deconstructing them. I cannot begin to bring them here, save this one, in which we can see with the naked eye that the same landscape was used for various Apollo 16 settings, highly impossible.

You’re on your own. I plan to spend some more time with Aulis, and hope readers journey there as well, bringing skeptical judgment along with them. It is a treasure house.

25 thoughts on “Aulis well”

    1. Out of place how? I know people have some issue with him but the movie works for me… Endlessly intriguing like all of Kubricks movies. It always seems tantalizingly close to telling you some veiled truth if you can just decode it.

      I admit I had/ have a hard time with the slowness of 2001 too, but even there I suspect it’s probably my own fault. That leisurely pace lets you meditate on all his themes and ideas. Most movies are “sound and fury signifying nothing” – Kubrick at least signifies something.. if you can just figure it out haha.

      Has Miles ever touched on Kubrick? He’s covered so many major figures but I don’t recall him commenting on Stanley (well that name would be highlighted..)

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      1. The fake death in the duel make me think of Alexander Hamilton. Maybe Kubrick is suggesting that’s a fake death too. Hamilton’s grandson also has a suspicious death.

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  3. My short interpretation of Barry Lyndon: It’s as if a gambler was using the Tarot deck instead of proper playing cards. Kubrick was also forced to use a box office star and he offered Robert Redford the role (yikes!) so in that context, O’Neal was the lesser of two evils. Oh, and the super fast lenses were designed originally for NASA, for what it’s worth.

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    1. I don’t think I have ever liked Redford’s work. Somehow, he doesn’t fit. Even in Three Days of the Condor, I had trouble believing Faye Dunaway fell in love with his character. He’s too smooth, non-emotive, uninspiring. In Out of Africa one of the reviewers noted that he always looked throughout like he had just come from Brooks Brothers.

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        1. My only memory of him in The Sting is his one night stand with a woman shot and killed. Otherwise, I do not recall him having much presence. Butch featured both him and Paul Newman, both eye candy, neither much good at acting. There’s a reason why Newman was Oscar-starved. JJohnson: I had forgotten about, where he was the product of good writing, but still just a pretty boy. I loved the scene where the old man directed a bear through the cabin and then said “I’ll get you another after this one.” Completely implausible, but funny.So too was his fighting ability, as if Indians had nothing better to do than track down and trap a white hunter, like he was some kind of menace to them.

          Just my opinion … everyone takes things differently. Redford has never inspired me, nor Newman. Concerning Paul, we have a friend up north originally from Connecticut, and one day she and her granddaughter were at a gathering where Paul was present, so she sent the GD on a mission to get his autograph. He turned her down, saying “Sorry, but today I am just a regular guy.” I liked that. It showed humility. He was eye candy, but just wanted to be regular around people.

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          1. That was Will Geer, and I agree a funny and impossible scene. He had desecrated the Indian burial grounds, thus the death score with the injuns.

            As to Paul – whatever – but have you ever seen The Verdict? I suggest it.

            On the off-topic of “pretty boy”, I will say this given my 61+ years: back then, ALL were pretty… TV, Movies, Advertisements and “NEWS”. I would take that non-representative slice of humanity any day over the current and overtly obnoxious and yes purposely UGLY “professionals” of todays world. PEEEEEYUKE!

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              1. Back then I did not know that all the awards were fixed. However, when it was announced that Kingsley had won for Gandhi, I knew something was up – and I really like Ben Kingsley. THEN, Mr. Newman gets the BA for Color of Money – which is a relative piece of shit. I took that as an apology to him from whoever grants such awards.

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  4. OT: Alabama dept of public health has an ad running on fb – “join the new normal” – with off-putting photos of children in black muzzles, a forlorn dude getting nose-swabbed etc. Almost universally very negative comments telling them to screw themselves basically – lots of “awake” people, at least awake to covid. The ad is odd – are they really that tone deaf, or was it meant to provoke – some sort of feeler?

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  5. When I look at O’Neal’s face I see seething anger but that’s beside the point.
    For me, Americans aren’t convincing as Irish or Brits – the drawl is just under the surface – or above it…
    Kubrick would have been spoiled for choice these days with British and Irish actors who are popular in the U.S.

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    1. Well I certainly can relate since many Hollywood actors do terrible southern accents as well, that can be painful to hear. His face though imo, in his younger years, projects youthful innocence, naivete, in general. Which seems appropriate to his character in that movie, at least in the first half.

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  6. I read the book two years ago and gave up halfway. Their movie was much better than the book in my opinion. I had to wonder whether it was their sincere belief or were they threatened to write the book for damage control (i.e. to paint the non-believers as kooks who believe Apollo did reach the moon but the government cannot show us real footage because of aliens)

    On Kubrick, I find the following article to be helpful in understanding how Kubrick hid Illuminati symbolism in The Shining (i.e. through the chandelier placements), of course take with a grain of salt
    https://collativelearning.com/the%20shining%20-%20chap%2015.html

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  7. 237 is your space ship. Your cage, the rib cage. A color image on Wikipedia shows the different kinds of ribs – 237. The heart in the cage of the beast. You’re traveling 3d space, the cube. Watching movies branded cube brick. So the rough brick may be finished. Law and commerce are loaded with sea references. The rib cage looks like a wooden ships structure. These movies got different layers, as usual. / There are old radio lectures from Milton William Cooper (another MW like MM), about Apollo and Kubrick. Polished English, a nice listen, easy to find. / A song by Udo Lindenberg “Woddy Woddy Wodka” referes to the human body as an astronaut suit. It’s about his alcoholism, feeling like Tom Hanks when fueled. The moon fake is mainstream a long time now…

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    1. That sort of layering that extends even to the name of the director, would suggest that the movies were the product of some high level secret society of craftsmen, and Kubrick the figurehead/ public face. Or alternately that these designs are beyond human capability and rather the product of archons or extra dimensional entities playing in and guiding the realm of human affairs. Such that even human “elites” are just pawns in the bigger scheme of things – maybe some of them with a level of awareness or occult knowledge regarding those hidden powers behind the everyday world, so that they try to align with or use them.

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