Blood Red Movie Massacres

by Loren Coleman ©2012

July 22nd is the anniversary of the 1934 death of John Dillinger, who was killed in front of a movie theater, Chicago's Biograph, after watching the film Manhattan Melodrama. Dillinger was betrayed by the "Woman in Red," a madam (Ana Cumpănaş, also known as Anna Sage) wearing an orange dress, which looked red under the theater's lights.

In Michael Mann's 2009 Public Enemies, Christian Bale (shown) plays FBI man Mervin Purvis, Johnny Depp plays John Dillinger, Branka Katic plays Anna Sage, and Marion Cotillard plays Billie Frechette (shown at top as Dillinger's other woman in red). Bale and Cotillard have significant leading roles in The Dark Knight Rises.

In the film Dillinger saw the night he died, Manhattan Melodrama, Clark Gable (shown) plays the gangster-gambler Blackie Gallagher. The movie's finale has Gallagher being put to death in the electric chair for murder. The back story of Gallagher and his brother by adoption is one of two orphans, and parallels Batman and many other DC and Marvel superheroes. Indeed, they are twice orphaned in one of the strangest twists in movie fiction. The boys are adopted as orphans by Poppa Rosen for a short while. But then Rosen (meaning = roses, red), a Russian Jew, is trampled to death by a policeman's horse after he heckles former Red Army Generalissimo Leon Trotsky at a red Communist rally and a melee breaks out. In the end, Gallagher is the darkness, and his "brother" Jim, who becomes the DA and governor, is the light.

This is also the day of the release of the film Captain America: The First Avenger (a year ago, on July 22, 2011), with the first Nazi machine-gunning scene taking place in Norway, which also mirrors the same day's Breivik's massacre in Norway (July 22, 2011).

Hugo Weaving plays two roles, Johann Schmidt, Adolf Hitler's head of advanced weaponry and the transformed Red Skull commander of the terrorist organization Hydra, in the 2011 film Captain America. Weaving also plays the villain Agent Smith in the three Matrix films and V in V for Vendetta (all films that have resulted in copycat violence).

What we do know is that copycats were certainly a real outcome of the 2008 screening of The Dark Knight. The most infamous was Kim de Gelder, the Dendermonde Joker (shown), who killed two babies and a teacher in a Belgium daycare on January 23, 2009. He dressed like his own personal version of the Joker from The Dark Knight.

We still don't know how the alleged Aurora killer, suspect John Holmes appeared on July 20, 2012, at Theater No. 9. All is pure speculation, and yet the web has gone wild with imagined imagery (see above).

One of the news tidbits that has been revealed about James Eagan Holmes (shown in a photo from his youth) is that besides the reported red hair and goatee, underneath his black body armor, he was wearing red to the midnight showing of The Black Knight Rises. The name Eagan means "fiery."

The Greek Goddess Aurora is sometimes referred to as the "Goddess of the Morning Red." Colorado is Spanish for "red."

Anne Hathaway plays Selina Kyle aka Catwoman in The Dark Knight Rises. Seline (Luna/Moon) is the sister of the Roman goddess Aurora (dawn).

One of the first victims of the Aurora, Colorado shootings identified was Jessica Ghawi, an aspiring sportscaster, who happened to almost have been shot during the recent Toronto's Eaton Mall shooting. She also used the name "Jessica Redfield," a name she created because of her red hair, as she said people remembered that name more easily, since "Ghawi" is difficult to pronounce.

Seven employees of the Red Robin restaurant in Aurora were injured in The Dark Knight Rises shooting (thanks 82-28).

President Barack Obama came to Aurora, Colorado, early on July 22, 2012, to visit with shooting victims and family members. The quotation used by the media reflects an underlying theme in the event.

"It reminds you that even in the darkest of days, life continues and people are strong," the president said, after detailing the recovery of two victims. "Out of this darkness, a brighter day is going to come." [Emphasis added.]

The metaphor to dawn is strong in that simple quote.

For more, see my essay posted later on July 22nd, Red Dawn.

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The list

Movies and massacres are nothing new. Here is a compilation (enhanced by me) of theater-related violence, initially published by ABC News and other sources, which I preserve here before it vanishes. It is followed by video clips of Christian Bale talking about The Dark Knight and appearing in American Psycho.

1928 (Burlington, North Carolina): One of the earliest fatal shootings at a theater happened in Burlington, North Carolina and the active shooter is a Holmes. On Tuesday, January 17, 1928, George Washington Holmes, Jr., 30, shot to death Odis Leslie “Ode” Robertson, 34, in the lobby of Burlington's Lyric Theater, before the 7:00 pm showing of The Naked Truth (1924).

1934 (Chicago): Gangster John Dillinger dies in front of the Biograph Theater on July 22nd (see above for more details).

1955 (Chicago): Ex-con shoots rookie cop in a movie theater four miles from the Loop.

1985 (Chicago): Movie-line quarrel ends with one man dead of a gunshot wound to the back of the head.

1988 (Southfield, Michigan): In October, two men are shot during an argument near the box office of the Americana.

1989 (New York City): Ricardo Jimenez, 21, kills Sean Worrell, 20, for buying the last bag of popcorn at Tim Burton's 1989 Batman premiere on July 3rd, at the Whitestone Multiplex Cinema. Michael Keaton plays Batman and Jack Nicholson plays The Joker.

1989 (Southfield, Michigan): A man opens fire in the main auditorium of the November 17th opening night of Eddie Murphy's Harlem Nights at the Americana. (Metal detectors were installed and it was reopened in 1990 as the Southfield City 12, and closed forever in 2001.)

1990 (Valley Stream, New York): A 15-year-old was killed and three other bystanders wounded when a shootout (between a group in the front row and one in the back) erupts on Tuesday, December 25th, Christmas Day, during the premiere running of The Godfather Part III at the Sunrise Cinema Multiplex. (2012 media reports this then becomes the first cinema in the country with metal detectors.)

1991 (Chicago): A 23-year-old man is shot at a July premiere showing of Boyz n the Hood.

1991 (Los Angeles and nationwide): Boyz n the Hood sparks shootings that leave 33 injured, in LA, Minneapolis, Universal City, and other locations.

1991 (Seattle): A 15-year-old is stabbed during the premiere weekend at the Lewis & Clark Theater of Boyz n the Hood.

1993 (Brooklyn, New York): 19-year-old man is shot to death during a late screening of Judgment Night.

1998 (Bakersfield, California): Eight people are injured after shooting during I Got the Hookup.

1999 (Seattle): One man shoots another in the stomach during Analyze This.

2002 (Philadelphia): Janitor shot twice in the head in movie theater bathroom.

2006 (Baltimore): A 24-year old man Mujtaba Rabbani Jabbar, a resident of the exclusive Anton North neighborhood, sits behind Paul Schrum, 62, from Pikesville, at the Loews Valley Center 9, shoots Schrum in the head, hollers for everyone to stay down, and then fires three more shots during the showing of X-Men: Last Stand at the Owings Mills multiplex.

2006 (Pittsburgh): A screening of Get Rich or Die Tryin ends when one man fatally shoots another in the lobby after a trip to the restroom.

2008 (Philadelphia): James Joseph Cialella, 29, is charged with shooting the father of a family who he complained was talking during a Christmas Day showing of the Brad Pitt film, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Cialella allegedly throws popcorn at the man’s son and then shoots the man in the arm at the Riverview Regal Theater.

2008 (Raleigh, North Carolina): An unidentified masked man tries to rob the Marquee Cinemas Theater, and then fatally shoots the manager Mark Douglas Buhaug, 48.

2010 (Daly City, California): A man shoots three people outside a Bay Area movie theater, including a pregnant woman.

2011 (Tuscaloosa, Alabama): Teen shoots another teen in movie theater parking lot.

2012 (Aurora, Colorado): Alleged suspect James Holmes opens fire at the July 20th midnight showing of The Dark Knight Rises, killing 12 people and injuring 59 others, in Theater 9 and through collateral damage, at the Century 16 Theaters.

Credit: ABC News, Hollywood Reporter, and via other research and sources.

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Christopher Loring Knowles had this to say in his "Dark Knight of Our Soul, or The New Ambulance Chasers":

I do know that is just more bad news attached to a Christopher Nolan film. This is a guy who puts forward psychopaths as his protagonists (Following, Memento, The Prestige) and cast a guy previously best known as Bateman, the American Psycho as Batman....I do know this is a guy who revels in fascist, brutalizing imagery and themes in his work.
I do know that he deliberately created a brand new archetype with his Joker, the real protagonist of The Dark Knight. A figure of pure, wanton destruction- the killer that every Jugalo would love to be when they grow up. This was pure psychological manipulation of the worst kind, and has had terrible real world results.

 Bale on Batman

   

Bale as Bateman

 

Venus Transits Sol & Introduces Prometheus

A drawing of the 1631 eruption of Mt. Vesuvius 
by Glovan Batista Passaro.

The December 7, 1631 Transit of Venus was followed on December 16th by a violent, unexpected eruption of Mt. Vesuvius beginning around 6:00 am. Vesivius have been inactive for a great deal of time, probably since 1139. During the night of December 16-17, earthquakes occurred every 1-15 minutes. At about 11:00 am on the 17th, a large mass of ash, gas, and stones flowed down all sides of Vesuvius, causing the liquefaction of the mountain. Ten minutes later, a tsunami up to 6 to 15 feet of height hit the coast. By 6:00 pm on December 17th, the decline of activity began, lasting several days. The death toll was variously reported to be 3000 to 6000 deceased individuals in Pompeii and other locations.


A Transit of Venus across the Sun takes place when the planet Venus passes directly between the Sun and Earth, obscuring a small portion of the solar disk. During a transit, Venus can be seen from Earth as a small black disk moving across the face of the Sun. The duration of such transits is usually measured in hours (the transit of 2004 lasted six hours).

Crabtree watching the Transit of Venus A.D. 1639 

by Ford Madox Brown, a mural at Manchester Town Hall

The first known observation of a transit of Venus was made by Jeremiah Horrocks from his home at Carr House in Much Hoole, near Preston in England, on December 4, 1639 (November 24th under the Julian calendar then in use in England). His friend, William Crabtree, also observed this transit from Broughton, near Manchester. Horrocks and Crabtree were founding members of "Nos Keplari." Horrocks died mysteriously two years later, at the age of 22.

Charles Mason (1730-1786), astronomer, and Jeremiah Dixon, (1733-1779), surveyor and astronomer, are best known for giving their name to the Mason-Dixon line in the United States of America. But their biographies are interwoven with their viewing of two Transits of Venus in 1761 and 1769.

In 1760 the Royal Society chose Charles Mason to go to Sumatra to observe the 1761 transit of Venus, and, probably on Bird's recommendation, Mason suggested Dixon should go as his assistant. An encounter with a French frigate delayed their final sailing so that they could not reach Sumatra in time. They therefore landed at the Cape of Good Hope, where the transit was successfully observed on 6 June 1761….
Mason and Dixon eventually reached England early in 1762. In August 1763 Mason and Dixon signed an agreement with Thomas Penn and Frederick Calvert, seventh Baron Baltimore [qq.v.], hereditary proprietors of the provinces of Pennsylvania and Maryland, to go to North America to help local surveyors define the disputed boundary between the two provinces. Arriving in Philadelphia with their instruments in November, they began operations before Christmas 1763. When work for the proprietors on what was to become the famous Mason-Dixon line was complete late in 1766, they began on the Royal Society's behalf, at Dixon's suggestion, to measure a degree of the meridian on the Delmarva peninsula in Maryland and to make gravity measurements with a clock sent out by the Society, the same one that Maskelyne had had in St Helena and Dixon took to the Cape in 1761. They reported their task complete on 21 June 1768 and sailed for England on 11 September. Before leaving, they were both admitted as corresponding members of the American Society held in Philadelphia for Promoting Useful Knowledge.
In 1769 Dixon sailed to Norway with William Bayly in the Emerald to make observations of the transit of Venus on 3 June on the Royal Society's behalf. Dixon observed on Hammerfest Island, Bayly at North Cape, about sixty miles apart in case of cloudy weather. They reached England again on 30 July. Dixon returned to Durham, resuming his work as a surveyor. Among places he surveyed at this time were the park of Auckland Castle and Lanchester Common. He died [at age 55] unmarried in Cockfield, county Durham, 22 January 1779.
…
Mason was employed by the Royal Society during six months in 1769 on an astronomical mission at Cavan in Ireland. He observed the second transit of Venus on 3 June, partial solar eclipse of 4 June, the phenomona of Jupiter's satellites, and in August and September the famous comet which signalised the birth year of Napoleon Bonaparte....He returned to America, and died in Philadelphia in 1787. His journals were almost tossed, also found a certificate of admission into American Society of Philadelphia. Dixon was reportedly born in a coal mine, died [at 46] at Durham in 1777. ~ Oxford University Press Dictionary of National Biography

The above drawing was created, partially, in anticipation of the Transit of Venus of December 9, 1874. Bob Rickard, editor of Fortean Times, writes me: "This is an illustration from Harry Price's Poltergeist over England (1945) and is a satirical comment on the alleged teleportation of the medium Mrs. Guppy during a poltergeist haunting in London in 1871."

Transit of Venus, December 1882

Freemason John Philip Sousa's Transit of Venus was composed after the Transit of 1882 (pictured). See here for more synchromystic details related to Sousa.


After 1882, the next Transit of Venus was not until June 8, 2004. What notable events are associated with that Transit? Days before it occurred, on June 4th, Ronald Reagan, American actor, 40th President of the United States (b. 1911), and officially a Scottish Rite Mason, died. On June 8th, during the Transit, the 30th G8 summit took place on Sea Island, Georgia, USA.


One seemingly strange event was timed exactly for the 2004 Transit of Venus. The heart of the dauphin Louis-Charles, recognized by French royalists as Louis XVII of France, was entombed in the royal crypt of Saint-Denis Basilica outside Paris, 211 years after he perished in the French Revolution. DNA testing had verified the heart as belonging to the son of the guillotined King Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette. No French government officials or members of reigning royal families attended the service.



The Year 2004 is perhaps most remembered for one of the worst natural disasters in recorded history, when the strongest earthquake in 40 years hit the entire Indian Ocean region. The massive 9.3 magnitude earthquake, epicentered just off the west coast of the Indonesian island of Sumatra, generated enormous tsunami waves that crashed into the coastal areas of a number of nations including Thailand, India, Sri Lanka, the Maldives, Malaysia, Myanmar, Bangladesh, and Indonesia. The official death toll in the affected countries is recorded as 186,983, while more than 40,000 people are listed as still missing.

Strange Eye looks at the 17 dates of the previous sixteen Transits, plus the 2012 Transit of Venus.

For 2012, this Transit will be visible in its entirety from Hawaii, Alaska, Australia, the Pacific and eastern Asia, with the beginning of the Transit visible from North America and the end visible from Europe.

Secret Sun had a few visual observations about the forthcoming Transit of Venus, posted a month before the event, here. Etemenanki has his too, and Andrew Griffin, as well.


The Transit of Venus will be seen in the USA on June 5, 2012, from about 8 PM EDT until sunset. It will continue be visible during sunrise in the UK on June 6th. The Queen's Diamond Jubilee is on June 2-5, 2012, in the United Kingdom, as noted in "Queen's Diamond Jubilee omens." 

What will truly occur in 2012? 


What you perceive as happening in the wake of this year's Transit of Venus may not be as euphonious as you have heard in various peace-filled and transformational predictions. Well-known astrologer and former psychotherapist Philip Levine of Sirius Astrological Services shared with me his balanced insights about the upcoming Transit of Venus:

It seems like no big deal that Venus is doing this. One hundred five years is a very short time in the life of planets. And this Sun-Venus conjunction is squared by Mars, so all the harmony and money and love and other Venusian things that one might expect have a fairly loud dissenting voice being thrown into the mix, because Mars squares are about hostility, conflict, aggression, and competition. Such a time would seem to be challenging in terms of finding the best mix of these opposing principles.

Venus, Mars, the Sun...thoughts of a human from a company named Sirius? I can't think of a better guide to a more reasonable way to think about this event.

But what will be the most immediate phantasmagoric space-related imagery that directly follows the 2012 Transit of Venus? Indeed, it may be the June 8th opening in the USA of Ridley Scott's Prometheus, which introduces its new mythos for our beginning, graphically. 

Prometheus stole fire from Zeus and gave it to the mortals. What will this movie give to all of us? What will the Transit of Venus presage for tomorrow?

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"I do not know how to find out anything new without being offensive. To the ignorant, all things are pure: all knowledge is, or implies, the degradation of something. One who learns of metabolism, looks at a Venus, and realises she's partly rotten. However, she smiles at him, and he renews his ignorance. All things in the sky are pure to those who have no telescopes. But spots on the sun, and lumps on the planets -- and, being a person of learning, or, rather, erudition, myself, I've got to besmirch something, or nobody will believe I am -- and I replace the pure, blue sky with the wormy heavens...." 

~ Charles Fort, Lo!

The Brotherhood of the Bell

A film involving the suicide of an individual who is pressured by a secret society, alluding to the background of rumors of ritualized deaths and copycat suicides theorized among secret society researchers, is worthy of some attention.

The Brotherhood of the Bell is a 1970 made-for-television movie produced by Cinema Center 100 Productions and starring Glenn Ford. The director Paul Wendkos was nominated in 1971 by the Directors Guild of America for "outstanding directorial achievement in television." It should be noted that Paul Wendkos (b. 1925) is still alive in 2008, and went on to direct other intriguing movies, such as The Mephisto Waltz (1971) and episodes of the harmonically named television program, Route 66.

The motion picture has been interpreted as a fictionalized portrayal of a real-life, academic-based secret organization, in general.

But The Brotherhood of the Bell is something more. It allegedly is especially based on the secret society called the Order or Chapter 322, known in the popular jargon as Skull and Bones or Bones, which only exists at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut.

The film relates how a successful Economics professor, Dr. Andrew Patterson, discovers that an elite fraternity he had joined 22 years before in college is really a callous banking and business cabal that obtains wealth and power for its members through nefarious practices.

Twenty-two years, according to the summary plot noted in Wikipedia, after his initiation into a secret society known as the "Brotherhood of the Bell" or "the Bell," Dr. Andrew (Andy) Patterson (Glenn Ford) is requested to be the "senior" of a new initiate, Phillip Everest Dunning (Robert Pine). The initiation takes place in "the secret chamber of the bell" in the Beta Epsilon Lambda fraternity house of St. George College in San Francisco at sunrise.

Patterson is coldly greeted by the house proctor Weber, who directs him to the library where he meets his "senior" Chad Harmon (Dean Jagger) of San Francisco, a member for forty years. The initiation takes place before a large bell in the center of points of the compass depicted on the floor.

Phillip Dunning had been studying the articles and letters of the brotherhood since midnight. He is then instructed by Harmon to give them to him to be destroyed. He is sworn to secrecy, and he takes his appropriate place at the due east compass point with Harmon at the south point, Patterson at the west point, and Weber at the north point. He is reminded that he will be given an assignment or "due bill" at some indeterminate time in the future, and instructed that he is obliged to carry it out without question. The four men recite the oath of loyalty and secrecy and end by tolling the bell.

As they leave the fraternity house Chad Harmon gives Patterson a business card with an address written on it, telling him to stop by there before he takes the return flight to Los Angeles. In a parting conversation with his new junior Phillip Dunning, he makes the point of telling him that they are not only part of the Establishment but "the Establishment."

Patterson arrives at the address on the business card to find that it is a mansion that is probably unoccupied—the furniture in the parlor he goes to is covered with dust sheets. A tall gray-haired man asks him for the card, and hands him two envelopes. A legal envelope contains the assignment, and a large manila envelope contains materials that assist in carrying out the assignment. Patterson is told to open them one hour after leaving the mansion.

Chad Harmon is then shown in his office being seated for luncheon when Patterson is ushered in. When the two of them are alone, Patterson tells Harmon his assignment: to see to it that a colleague at his institute, Dr. Constantine Horvathy (Eduard Franz), decline a deanship of the College of Linguistics in the eastern United States to which he has been appointed. The materials to assist in that assignment are photostated dossiers (pictures and descriptions) of all the men and women in a Communist nation that helped him to defect to the west. Patterson is instructed to send them to the embassy of that nation if Horvathy refuses to comply.

Since Horvathy is a dear friend of Patterson and his wife, Harmon tries to calm Patterson with advice to make his appeal to Horvathy on a personal level, which might eliminate the need of blackmail. Patterson summarily complies when he returns to Los Angeles by seeing Dr. Horvathy just before an evening scholarly presentation.

Dr. Horvathy does not agree to comply with Patterson's request that he decline the deanship, and demands reasons why he should do so. Patterson hands him the dossiers, and Horvathy is horrified as its release would cause the deaths of many people back in the old country. A terrified Horvathy into hurrying back to his apartment and dies by suicide that evening in his bathtub.

Dr. and Mrs. Vivian Patterson (Rosemary Forsyth) are awakened by police investigating Horvathy's suicide since Patterson was the last person to talk with Horvathy. When the police leave Dr. Patterson tells his wife the real reason Horvathy took his own life. Vivian suggests that Patterson see her father Harry Masters (Maurice Evans) and ask his advice.

Harry Masters and Patterson meet with a Thaddeus Byrnes, whom Masters says is an agent of the "Federal Security Services" (fictitious name for the FBI). They meet in what Byrnes calls a cover office. Byrnes persuades Patterson to surrender the papers he has, which he does. When there is no follow up, Patterson returns to the building, which also houses an ostensible office of the Federal Security Services. An Agent Shepherd (Dabney Coleman) gives Patterson the astounding news that there is no agent Thaddeus Byrnes, and that there is no record of his report to the FSS with information on the Brotherhood of the Bell. Harry Masters when called by Shepherd denies having taken Patterson to see Byrnes, and tells him that Patterson is emotionally disturbed and needs to consult a psychiatrist.

Coincidentally, when Patterson goes again to Harry Master's home he finds him in his study with a psychiatrist. Patterson ends the visit with the statement, "You're a damned liar, Harry!"

Patterson then finds out that his entire branch of economics at his college must be discontinued by the Dean Dr. Jerry Fielder (William Smithers) due to a rash stoppage of grant money. Patterson is then "black-listed" so that he cannot acquire employment elsewhere as a professor. The strain of all of this causes Vivian and him to separate as he realizes that all he has ever had in life for the past 22 years has been given to him because he was a Brother of the Bell.

Patterson holds a press conference in which he discloses the existence of the Brotherhood of the Bell and his assignment from them that brought about Constantine Horvathy's death. It is denied by Chad Harmon, and the local district attorney discounts it on lack of evidence.

His father Mike Patterson (Will Geer), who is a road construction contractor, is also ruined by a sudden audit of Patterson Construction's books. The elder Patterson suffers a stroke in a confrontation with Harry Masters and dies shortly thereafter.

Dr. Patterson has now become a crusader to expose and destroy the Brotherhood of the Bell. He appears on a local television talk show hosted by Bart Harris (William Conrad), who conducts an on-the-air forum of people, who respond to his guests. Since Patterson alleges a conspiracy, two eccentric forum participants claim that they know all about it as something altogether different. Harris humiliates Patterson by telling him that he is part of a lunatic fringe in the United States, which finds conspiracy everywhere. Patterson attacks Harris physically and is led off to jail.

Help comes from an unexpected quarter when his friend Dr. Fielder bails him out of jail and has him stay at his home. He encourages Patterson to find another Brother of the Bell to come forward with him. Patterson can think of no one who would do this but his own junior Phillip Dunning. He flies to San Francisco, and confronts Dunning in his dorm room early in the morning. Feeling he has failed to convince Dunning, he dejectedly returns to the airport. He is shown walking down a deserted corridor of the airport when he hears footsteps of someone running towards him. It is Dunning rushing to meet up with him to go back to Los Angeles and do what Dr. Fielder had suggested.

Speaking of bells....

A successful 1958 movie, Bell, Book, and Candle involves a coven of characters, a Greenwich Village witch Gillian Holroyd (Kim Novak) who owns a gallery of primitive art, publisher Shep Henderson (James Stewart), Sidney Redlitch (Ernie Kovacs), author of a best-selling book, Magic in Mexico, who is researching a book on witches in New York, and his collaborator, Gillian's warlock brother Nicky (Jack Lemmon). Few today realize that speculation about witches, voodoo, and warlocks was so popular in the 1950s.

More Brotherhoods...

The legacy of Brotherhood of the Bell continues in the film, The Skulls (2000), which stars Joshua Jackson, Paul Walker, and Leslie Bibb. It is directed by Rob Cohen, the famed director of the new The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor (2008). The Skulls plot is based upon some of the conspiracy theories surrounding Yale University's so-called Skull and Bones student society.

The phrase "Brotherhood of the Bell" is also used in the title of a book by Joseph P. Farrell, Ph. D.

Farrell's The SS Brotherhood of the Bell: Nasa's Nazis, JFK, And Majic-12 caused one reviewer to remark that it is filled with an "incoherent pastiche of interlocking conspiracies that populate the chapters. "

Farrell's tease is that the book is about "a mysterious Nazi secret weapons project code-named The Bell [that in 1945] left its underground bunker in lower Silesia, with its project documentation, and the 4-star SS general Hans Kammler. Taken aboard a massive six engine Junkers 390 ultra-long range aircraft, The Bell, Kammler, and all project records disappeared completely, along with the gigantic Junkers 390 carrying them. It has been speculated that it flew to Argentina."

I'll stop there, for now. I'll speak of other "Bells" on another day.