The Franklin Files

Omega · Guru

RE: The Thule Society II

Omega · Guru

Preston Nichols — aware of the fact that if the future Duncan Cameron on one end of the time portal saw the past Duncan on the other side of the portal, this would lead to some sort of time paradox/reality shift with decidedly disastrous results — hatched a plan with some of his Montauk colleagues to sabotage the whole bleeping project. Of course, without the covert participation of Duncan Cameron, this whole daring plot would've never come off and we'd all probably be living in an alternative reality right now and not even know it! Whatever the case, somehow they managed to convince Duncan Cameron that the Montauk Project was coming undone, and that his help would be crucial in righting the ship that had gone astray, namely the USS Eldridge.

This plan was put into effect — when on dramatic cue — one of the Montauk renegades walked up to Duncan in The Chair and whispered: "The time is now." At that precise moment, Duncan let loose a monster from his subconscious that took form and put a big wallop on the entire Montauk Project operation, bringing it to a sudden and cataclysmic end. The monstrosity in question was a big, hulking beast, "hairy, hungry, and nasty", to quote the inimitable Preston Nichols, no master of understatement. In The Montauk Project: Experiments in Time, Preston Nichols goes on to say that "…after the bizarre occurrences of August 12, 1983, the Montauk base was virtually emptied. The power was restored, but lights were left off with everything in disarray. Most of the personnel were eventually rounded up, debriefed and brainwashed accordingly…after the events of August 12th, the Montauk Air Force Base was abandoned. By the end of the year, there was no knowledge of anyone being on the base."

Omega · Guru

During the course of all this — before the Montauk time portal closed — Duncan, who by now had traveled back and forth in time on numerous occasions, returned to the Montauk of 1983, while his brother Edward remained in 1943. (Now, I don't quite follow all of this myself, but let's not worry too much about the details at the moment, or we'll all go mad!) At this point, it was discovered that Duncan's body was dying, and that he was rapidly aging due to his involvement in all these Montaukian time travel shenanigans. Somehow, Montauk scientists were able to copy Duncan Cameron's "electromagnetic signature" and transfer it to a new body. To make this operation a reality, Duncan Cameron, Sr. — a mysterious figure himself in the lore of Montauk and Naval Intelligence — was contacted by high Montauk mucky-mucks, who traveled back in time and persuaded the elder Cameron to sire a son.

It was this child, Duncan Cameron Jr., who was imprinted with the "electromagnetic signature" of the dying Duncan Cameron from the future. So, in this case, the question begs to be asked: Who came first, the chicken or the egg? The Duncan Cameron body swap is just one more in a long line of time travel conundrums that litter the pages of the Montauk book series, and sets the reader's head a-swimming through a maze of reality shifts and time travel mind-trips. In regards to Al Bielek's body swap, Bielek states that age regression techniques were used to place Edward Cameron (that's who Al Bielek was in his previous existence) into a body in the Bielek Family. (For those of you keeping score at home, you might as well give up, 'cause it all gets even kookier from here…)

Omega · Guru

Recently, I heard Bielek on the Coast To Coast radio program with Mike Siegel, speaking his oft repeated Montaukian mantra about how he'd been Edward Cameron in a previous life upon the USS Eldridge, as well as the standard version of the Philadelphia Experiment story as presented in the books of Nichols and Moon. During this program, a caller to the show stated that he — as well — has been a crew member aboard the Eldridge during the Philadelphia Experiment time period. The caller in question stated that he didn't remember doodley squat regarding Bielek's astounding claims that the USS Eldridge had been blasted straight out of the space-time continuum and into hyperspace. In response, Bielek didn't really address the matter, but if he had the argument no doubt presented would have been to the effect that this call-in crew member had probably been brain-washed, and that his memories of the Philadelphia Experiment wiped clean by Montauk operatives, which seems to be the party line espoused by the likes of Bielek, Nichols, et al. when someone comes forth testifying to have been on the Eldridge during the Philadelphia Experiment, and that nothing out of the ordinary had happened.

Omega · Guru

Another convenient argument — offered up by Montauk experiencer Glenn Pruitt — is that the reason the Montauk Project is so difficult to prove, is because it all transpired in an alternate dimension, which many observers could construe as a cop-out, because how the hell are you gonna prove an alternate dimension????? Of course, proving all these far-flung assertions is like wrestling one's way out of a Chinese finger trap: the more you struggle to make sense of this miasma of muddled mysticism and myriad madness, the more lost you become in a Montaukian maze.