{"id":54766,"date":"2021-05-12T19:20:13","date_gmt":"2021-05-12T23:20:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/?p=54766"},"modified":"2021-05-12T19:20:13","modified_gmt":"2021-05-12T23:20:13","slug":"astounding-tales-from-beyond-the-outer-limits-of-the-twilight-zone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2021\/05\/12\/astounding-tales-from-beyond-the-outer-limits-of-the-twilight-zone\/","title":{"rendered":"Astounding tales from beyond the outer limits of the twilight zone"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

A few recent items that both intrigued and disappointed me for their untapped Rod Serling-esque potential.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Meet Tom Horn, who \u201cSays an Asteroid Will Strike Earth in 2029, Unleashing an \u2018Alien Virus\u2019 That Will Give Rise to the Antichrist<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Horn said this, most recently, on televangelist-grifter Jim Bakker\u2019s show, which often features guests from the worlds of \u201cEnd Times Bible-prophecy scholars\u201d and of self-proclaimed \u201cprophets.\u201d Horn is both of those, sort of, but mainly I think he\u2019s just a failed sci-fi writer \u2014 the kind who manages to dream up entertaining premises, but then can\u2019t figure out where to go from there.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll admit it: If the SyFy channel cranked out a B-movie involving an asteroid striking the Earth and unleashing a zombifying alien virus that gave rise to the Antichrist, I\u2019d watch that movie<\/em>. That\u2019s not bad. Or, rather, it sounds terrible<\/em> \u2014 but potentially bad in a fun way.<\/p>\n

And Tom Horn seems like he\u2019s full of such ideas. His author\u2019s page at Amazon is quite the read<\/a>. his first book, from 2005, was a novel called The Ahriman Gate<\/em><\/a>: \u201cThis supernatural thriller tells the incredible story of a young Marine and his sister who discover information connecting the U.S. Government with UFO\u2019s.\u201d Apparently it was a Stargate\/<\/em>Nephilim or Ancient Astronauts\/Book of Enoch story, but it wasn\u2019t a huge success.<\/p>\n

So Horn stopped writing fiction \u2014 or, at least, he started writing his fiction as though it were nonfiction, cranking out a series of books alleging Vatican-UFO conspiracies, delirious manifestos about the Illuminati, and a couple of attempts to cash in on QAnon fantasies. This all led up to his latest sci-fi End Times anti-vaxx mash-up,\u00a0The Wormwood Prophecy: NASA, Donald Trump, and a Cosmic Cover-up of End-Time Proportions.<\/em><\/a> Phew.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll give Horn credit for his enthusiastic ability to try to include every disparate bonkers conspiracy theory in his work, it\u2019s a bit like the manic charm of Patton Oswalt\u2019s epic \u201ccitizens filibuster\u201d monologue<\/a> from Parks & Rec<\/em>. Oddly, though, it still feels like he\u2019s holding back<\/em>. If the initial overwhelming sense one gets from Tom Horn\u2019s oeuvre is that this guy is bonkers, that sadly gives way to the realization that his problem is he\u2019s not bonkers enough<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Undine brings us \u201cThe Case of the Time-Traveling Priest<\/a>.\u201d This is the story of Benedictine priest Fr. Pellegrino Ernetti, who claimed to have invented a \u201cchronovisor<\/a>\u201d \u2014 a kind of television\/DVR that allowed him to view and record events in the past by peering backward through time. (Tasha Shayne<\/a> and Marco Margaritoff<\/a> have also written about Ernetti\u2019s supposed invention.)<\/p>\n

Ernetti said his device used \u201cmysterious alloys\u201d and that it worked by \u201cprocessing residual electromagnetic radiation left over by numerous processes.\u201d I\u2019m no scientist, by I\u2019m guessing that it also involves reversing the polarity of the tachyon field.<\/p>\n

\"\"Ernetti also claimed that famed scientists Enrico Fermi and Werner von Braun helped him develop his invention, although he didn\u2019t start saying that part until after both Fermi and von Braun were dead. Ernetti never mentioned any assistance from T.L. Sherred<\/a>, even though his 1947 short story \u201cE for Effort\u201d is probably where he got the idea.<\/p>\n

Ernetti said he\u2019d used his device to witness (and record) the crucifixion of Christ, Cicero\u2019s speech to the Roman Senate, the Last Supper, and even a performance of Thyestes<\/em>, a lost play by the Roman poet Quintus Ennius, which Ernetti \u201ctranscribed\u201d (in anachronistic Latin).<\/p>\n

In his final years before his death in 1994, Pellegrino Ernetti stopped talking about his time-traveling TV. One theory is that he was ordered to shut up about it because the Vatican did not wish to be further embarrassed by his fabulous forgeries. Another theory is that a Vatican conspiracy silenced him because his amazing device was Too Powerful and had to be kept from Falling Into The Wrong Hands or perhaps for Darker Purposes. One can find multiple short articles arguing the former theory and several very long books arguing the latter.<\/p>\n

I find all of this terribly disappointing. Neither Ernetti himself nor any of the folks trying to spin conspiratorial webs based on his claims seems to have realized the full potential of the stories that could be told based on this premise. The raw material here ought to be enough to provide a mind-bending, genre-mixing Umberto Eco-meets-Philip K. Dick-meets-Dan Brown thrill ride but instead these folks just squandered it on poorly mimeographed photos of an Italian Jesus. Meh<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\u2022 The eminently patient science-blogger Joel Duff discusses \u201cThe False Hope of a Mature Creation<\/a>.\u201d This is about the omphalos hypothesis<\/a>\u00a0(so named because it puts a huge significance on whether or not Adam and Eve had belly buttons).\u00a0Duff focuses on the young-Earth creationist critiques of this idea and how it\u2019s mainly used as a dodge to avoid the implications of thinking too much about the meaning of deep time.<\/p>\n

And so, alas, he doesn\u2019t get into the really fun-to-play-with implications of this dodge \u2014 the reason why it\u2019s also sometimes called \u201cLast Thursday-ism.\u201d If God was willing and able to create an apparently ancient universe just 6,000 years ago, then God must be just as willing and able to create an apparently ancient universe just 6 seconds<\/em> ago. That raises the possibility that everything you think you know or remember isn\u2019t real. All of your texts and photos, your memories of your now-deceased love ones, everything in every book you mistakenly believe you\u2019ve read, and even your recollections of earlier today might well be \u2014 just like dinosaur fossils or the Martian landscape \u2014 merely apparent histories placed there by God as part of a \u201cmature creation.\u201d If those fossils and sedimentary layers are not real, then perhaps your own memories are not real and, thus, perhaps you<\/em> are not real in any meaningful sense. (Jean-Luc Picard voice:\u00a0<\/em> \u201cAll this might just be an elaborate simulation, running inside a little device sitting on someone\u2019s table.\u201d)<\/p>\n

The elegant aspect of this theory is that it\u2019s impossible to prove it\u2019s not true. The inelegant aspect is that it\u2019s a theory of \u201ccreation\u201d that completely undermines the doctrine of creation (and the doctrines of incarnation, resurrection, redemption \u2026).<\/p>\n

Another downside is that it makes you sound like you\u2019re really, really, really<\/em> high.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A few recent items that both intrigued and disappointed me for their untapped Rod Serling-esque potential.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":141,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[10,59,238],"class_list":["post-54766","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-agnotology","tag-creationism","tag-left-behind"],"yoast_head":"\nAstounding tales from beyond the outer limits of the twilight zone<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A few recent items that both intrigued and disappointed me for their untapped Rod Serling-esque potential.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2021\/05\/12\/astounding-tales-from-beyond-the-outer-limits-of-the-twilight-zone\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Astounding tales from beyond the outer limits of the twilight zone\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A few recent items that both intrigued and disappointed me for their untapped Rod Serling-esque potential.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2021\/05\/12\/astounding-tales-from-beyond-the-outer-limits-of-the-twilight-zone\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"slacktivist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2021-05-12T23:20:13+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/52\/2021\/05\/EforEffort.jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Fred Clark\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Fred Clark\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2021\/05\/12\/astounding-tales-from-beyond-the-outer-limits-of-the-twilight-zone\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2021\/05\/12\/astounding-tales-from-beyond-the-outer-limits-of-the-twilight-zone\/\",\"name\":\"Astounding tales from beyond the outer limits of the twilight zone\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2021-05-12T23:20:13+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2021-05-12T23:20:13+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#\/schema\/person\/32666545e535b697afb93d9848dcfc47\"},\"description\":\"A few recent items that both intrigued and disappointed me for their untapped Rod Serling-esque potential.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2021\/05\/12\/astounding-tales-from-beyond-the-outer-limits-of-the-twilight-zone\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2021\/05\/12\/astounding-tales-from-beyond-the-outer-limits-of-the-twilight-zone\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2021\/05\/12\/astounding-tales-from-beyond-the-outer-limits-of-the-twilight-zone\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Astounding tales from beyond the outer limits of the twilight zone\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/\",\"name\":\"slacktivist\",\"description\":\""Test everything; 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Jesus loves Fred far more than Fred loves Jesus, but he at least has the decency to recognize the unfairness of that lopsided relationship and he has long wished that he were better at maybe kind of sort of doing something more to correct that some day. A Baptist, an amateur, a Gen-Xer, a Gemini and a Mets fan, Fred lives in Southeastern Pennsylvania with his wife and two teenage daughters. 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A former managing editor of Prism magazine, Fred worked in the parachurch nonprofit world for a decade and then for a decade in the newspaper biz. He began blogging in 2002. In 2003 he began writing a review of the best-selling Left Behind series. Eight years later he still hasn\u2019t finished reviewing the second book of that series and the experience has left him a broken shell of a man. Fred knows the difference between the possessive \u201cits\u201d and the contraction \u201cit\u2019s,\u201d and he is acutely bothered when others mistakenly confuse the two, yet he himself just kind of instinctively types the apostrophe whether or not it belongs there. Some feel this is his greatest hypocrisy, but those who know him better know better. He\u2019s guilty of much greater hypocrisies. Jesus loves Fred far more than Fred loves Jesus, but he at least has the decency to recognize the unfairness of that lopsided relationship and he has long wished that he were better at maybe kind of sort of doing something more to correct that some day. A Baptist, an amateur, a Gen-Xer, a Gemini and a Mets fan, Fred lives in Southeastern Pennsylvania with his wife and two teenage daughters. You can reach him via email at slacktivist at hotmail dot com.","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/author\/fredclark1\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54766","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/141"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54766"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54766\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54766"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54766"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54766"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}