Movie ‘Sedona’ explores metaphysical mysteries, Nature’s beauty, human heart

By Steve Hammons

Mysterious discoveries in quantum physics and one of Earth’s most beautiful, mystical spots merge with human consciousness and the human heart in the independent drama-comedy film “Sedona.”

This fun and visually-beautiful movie successfully captures and shares the wonderful “Red Rock Country” of central Arizona with viewers. Adventure, danger and important personal discovery await the main characters as they encounter Sedona, intentionally or by accident.

Or, are there hidden cosmic forces at work that have drawn them to Sedona for reasons they do not yet understand?  

The interconnectedness of our lives in time, space and place emerges in this film … the same kind of puzzling connections that physicists call “string theory” and “non-locality.” The “coincidences” that the movie’s characters experience also reflect the idea of “synchronicity” … that many coincidences are nothing of the sort but, rather, have meaning and purpose, and perhaps are part of a larger plan.  

Featuring a talented cast of seasoned film and TV actors, during 2012 “Sedona” was introduced to movie-lovers at film festivals throughout the country. In 2013, “Sedona” continues to be discovered and enjoyed by audiences through DVD, Blu-ray and On Demand via most cable and satellite providers.

A CHANGING REALITY

Writer-director-producer Tommy Stovall of Pasidg Productions (based in Sedona) brought the film’s cast and crew together in Sedona where they experienced the fantastic red rock formations and mountains, and possibly the interesting awareness and understanding that many people report. Stovall says local Sedona residents also helped in the production in many ways.

The main cast – Frances Fisher, Seth Peterson, Barry Corbin, Christopher Atkins, Matthew J. Williamson, Kylee Cochran, Tatanaka Means, Rachel Reenstra, Robert Shields, Lin Shayne, Beth Grant, Trevor Stovall and Rand Schwenke – as well as the supporting cast, thoroughly humanize the story.

In two separate story lines, Frances Fisher (Tammy) is a stressed-out advertising professional who takes a wrong turn (or the correct turn) to Sedona on her way to an important business meeting in Phoenix.

Meanwhile, Seth Peterson (Scott), also a preoccupied and tightly-wound attorney, his partner Matthew J. Williamson (Eddie) and their two young sons, Trevor Stovall (Denny) and Rand Schwenke (Jeremy), are on a planned vacation to Red Rock Country from San Diego.

Under seemingly random circumstances, they meet the other characters, Sedona locals: Barry Corbin (car mechanic Les), Kylee Cochran (auto repair shop employee Alana), Beth Grant (psychic pedicurist Deb), Christopher Atkins (coffee shop owner Pierce), Lin Shayne (apparently psychologically-challenged Claire) and Tatanka Means (local search-and-rescue member, Native American Chuck).

As the interactions between the characters develop and unfold, they are also interacting with the Sedona region – the community, the magnificent natural surroundings and the unseen elements that fascinate residents, visitors and people worldwide.

In fact, Stovall says, “We wanted Sedona itself to be a major character.”

SEDONA SPEAKS

Located at a “sweet spot” (elevation 4,500 feet) between the floor of the Arizona Sonoran Desert and pine-covered mountains, the Sedona area is regarded as having a near-perfect climate. Over past decades, dozens of movies of many genres have been filmed there.

Throughout the movie “Sedona,” Native American music and drumming provide additional emotional background and context, and help bring viewers into a significant aspect of the Sedona region – the Native American presence there reportedly dating back to 11500 B.C.

Stovall says, “We recorded some of them in a studio, but most of them out in Nature, including in some caves and some ancient Sinagua dwellings.” The Sinagua are believed to have lived in the area from 650 A.D. to about 1400 A.D.

Stovall adds, “The overall goal with the score was to sort of have the red rocks ‘speaking’ to the audience.” So, quite literally, the red rocks of Sedona are communicating to us.

At crucial times in the story, when tensions are high, danger is present, or characters’ emotions are in confusion and transition, Stovall uses fantastic aerial shots of the Sedona area to create an eagle-eye-view or God’s-eye-view of the larger scheme of things … of the magnificent larger beauty that the characters, and all of us, may not always be able to perceive in our day-to-day lives.

These scenes, too, like the music, seem to provide context to the challenges and changes that the humans far down below are experiencing.

The characters encounter and sometimes reluctantly embrace a kind of awareness in Sedona that is different from their previous viewpoints about life. Odd coincidences (or synchronicity), alternate ways of perceiving “reality” and mysterious energies in Nature seem to influence and guide the characters along a path of greater understanding and awareness.

They discover, or rediscover, what is important in life – family, love of and compassion for our fellow human beings, appreciation of the beauty of Nature and our connectedness with it, and perhaps a larger force at work on Planet Earth and in the Universe.

We don’t need to physically visit Sedona to learn these lessons. Scientists and researchers have clearly demonstrated that humans have the natural ability to perceive using a “sixth sense.” Call it hunches, instincts, intuition, extrasensory perception (ESP) or even "remote viewing" (used in U.S. defense and intelligence efforts). As understanding about this real part of human consciousness spreads, our lives on Earth and beyond will undoubtedly be enhanced – possibly in wonderful ways we can barely imagine.

The movie “Sedona” helps us on this journey. It takes audiences to a special place: a gorgeous place in central Arizona, a place within ourselves and a place that the human race is heading to, whether we fully realize it or not.

You can visit the "Sedona" movie website, learn more about the film and view the trailer at: http://www.sedonamovie.com/.

Rendlesham Forest UFO incident linked to Sedona, Arizona

By Steve Hammons

New and possibly significant information has emerged about the 1980 Rendlesham Forest UFO incident that involved U.S. Air Force personnel.

Sedona, Arizona, has been named as a location that may have been identified in a mysterious alleged psychic transmission to one of the Air Force security police officers who claimed to have had a very close encounter with a strange craft in Rendlesham Forest.

Sedona has long been known as not only a magnificently beautiful place drawing visitors from all over the world and serving as a location for many movies since the 1920s, but also the site of various kinds of unusual, and some say uplifting, phenomena.

Located in the central mountain area of Arizona at an elevation of 4,500 feet, Sedona is on the northern edge of the Sonoran Desert region, located between the cities of Phoenix and Flagstaff.

A human presence in the Sedona region reportedly has been documented to between 11500 B.C. and 9000 B.C. More recent native inhabitants, the Sinagua, may have appeared in the region in approximately 650 A.D. and departed in about 1400 A.D., possibly leaving for other locations occupied by the Hopi and Zuni peoples in other parts of Arizona and New Mexico.

But how is Sedona connected to the Rendlesham Forest case?

MYSTERIOUS NUMBERS, GEOGRAPHIC COORDINATES

Many TV viewers, researchers and interested people have recently learned more about the December 1980 incident at a U.S. air base in the UK. The U.S. Air Force facilities there at the time, located at the Royal Air Force Bentwaters base in Suffolk, England, bordered Rendlesham Forest.

Base personnel including several U.S. Air Force security police officers and the deputy base commander reported witnessing and experiencing a puzzling and shocking UFO encounter in Rendlesham Forest after indications that an aircraft may have crashed and base personnel responded to the scene.

Former UK Ministry of Defense representative Nick Pope investigated this case years later and reportedly found it to be highly credible.

More recently, two of the former Air Force security policemen, retired Sgt. John Burroughs and Sgt. Jim Penniston, have gone public with their experiences, as has former deputy base commander Col. Charles Halt. Their accounts have been featured in many TV shows and other media platforms, serving to educate and inform the public about this interesting incident.

In even more recent months, one of the security policemen, Penniston, has stated that during one phase of the encounters, he was able to actually walk up and touch the craft, perhaps not the wisest course of action, yet a brave one by a very curious military police officer. Or, perhaps he was drawn to it for some reason.

However, he kept one element of the encounter private for years: When he touched the object, his mind was filled with overwhelming light and the visualization of a long series of zeros and ones, which he later learned seemed to be a binary code, such as that used in modern-day digital technology.

After these zeros and ones kept entering his mind following the confusing encounter and after subsequent interrogation by U.S. government investigators, he found that writing the zeros and ones out in a notebook was helpful in clearing his mind of this puzzling series of numbers.

Years later, those zeros and ones in Penniston’s notebook have been the subject of attempted interpretation. Among other reported apparent partial sentences and messages contained in the binary code, there were seven sets of geographic latitude and longitude coordinates, including one set that turned out to be a location in the vicinity of Sedona.

In addition to the Sedona area, the other coordinates reportedly are linked to an ancient city in Central America; a location in South America; Giza, Egypt; a Greek island; a location in China; and the site of a reported ancient and sunken island off the west coast of Ireland known as Hy-Brasil which appeared on mariners’ maps in the 1400s, 1500s and 1600s. 

(Update: This last location reportedly is the subject of some discussion, with one interpretation identifying the location as the town of Woodbridge, Suffolk, England, near where the Rendlesham Forest incident occurred, not Hy-Brasil. The reported discrepancy is apparently based on different interpretations of Penniston's handwritten zeros and ones.)

MORE ABOUT SEDONA

Sedona is known around the world as a place of immense beauty and the region is often referred to as “Red Rock Country.” Towering rugged red rock formations create a scene that is both awe-inspiring and strangely comforting for many people, residents and visitors alike.

The red rock formations and equally red earth there are due to high iron content. It has been reported that this high iron content, combined with deposits of quartz in the region, may contribute to some type of electro-magnetic or other physics-related phenomena that is not fully understood.

The several so-called energy “vortexes” or fountains in the area are alleged to contribute to feelings of well-being and insight for some people. Visitors often seek out these vortex locations for thoughtful meditation and out of curiosity – just to see if there is any truth to claims about these sites.

Sedona is an upscale community full of high-end homes and resorts. Numerous art galleries featuring western art also draw many visitors there. Annual cultural events such as the Sedona International Film Festival, Sedona Jazz on the Rocks festival, and the Sedona Bluegrass Festival are just some of the other activities that provide great reasons to visit the area.

Oak Creek meanders through the Oak Creek Canyon north of town and through the heart of Sedona. Visitors often find Slide Rock State Park on the creek a fun place for kids to wade, swim and slide down the cascading waterway.

Surrounding Sedona is the Coconino National Forest and north of the city is the Red Rock-Secret Mountain Wilderness Area. The National Park Service has created and maintains a wonderful system of trails throughout the area suitable for hikers of all kinds. Arizona state parks are also nearby.

Ancient Native American ruins can be found in the region, and some say the spirits of the ancients still smile on Sedona, reportedly regarded as a special place by regional native peoples, past and present.

UFOs and other odd encounters have been reported by residents and visitors to Sedona over the years. There have even been stories of mysterious U.S. military activity in the Red Rock-Secret Mountain Wilderness Area and strange incidents there.

Now that Sedona has surfaced as part of the Rendlesham Forest incident, one of the most significant UFO encounters in recent history, it might be helpful to consider all the elements that combine in Sedona – geologic, geographic, demographic, cultural, historical and metaphysical.

Can we expect something interesting to happen in Sedona in the future, or is the identification of that location connected to our ancient past? Or both?

(Related articles “Storytelling affects human biology, beliefs, behavior” and “Reagan’s 1987 UN speech on ‘alien threat’ resonates now” are posted on the CultureReady blog, Defense Language and National Security Education Office, Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness, U.S. Department of Defense.) 

More information on UFOs helps public preparedness, readiness, safety

By Steve Hammons

The UK Ministry of Defense (MOD) recently released more UFO reports from the public and other witnesses. This latest release is said to be the final group of such reports the MOD will make public and post on the UK’s National Archives website.

Other countries have also released significant reports of alleged UFO incidents in recent years. Brazil and Belgium come to mind, along with other nations to varying degrees. Elements of the U.S. government have made public a significant amount of information on UFO-related developments and incidents.

These kinds of information releases seem to help further educate the general public about possible scenarios related to UFOs. They may even provide clues and indications about the possible current status of the UFO situation. That current status might be quite complex and sensitive.

Yet, through the steady release of more information about UFO incidents, the public becomes more prepared for any further developments that could occur.

As helpful as the recent information releases from the MOD and other governments are, they do not seem to provide a full picture of the situation.

OPEN-SOURCE MEDIA

Let’s face it, by taking an honest look at the whole scope of open-source information that has accumulated for many years and available to the global public, it seems fairly clear that a significant situation is going on regarding visitation to Earth by intelligent beings from somewhere else.

Some may travel in UFOs.

How do we integrate the UFO situation with our daily lives and getting the kids off to school, holding down a job to make enough money to live decently, dealing with personal and family health issues, and the dozens or hundreds of other things we do to live life each day, each week, each month, each year?

And what about our deeper lives, worldviews and spiritual understanding?

We may not have enough information to fully understand what kinds of changes could be coming our way. Other changing circumstances could emerge, such as developments related to other dimensions and human consciousness, for example.

What exactly is the current status of the UFO situation anyway? That is a question that millions of people worldwide wonder about from time to time. The questions involved also generate films, TV shows, books and other kinds of media that explore possibilities. 

In certain cases, truthful and reliable insights about the UFO situation are possibly included in some of these media portrayals. As a result, the general public probably does gain greater understanding about what may be occurring and what may be at stake.

This increased understanding helps public preparedness and readiness for future developments, which may be challenging, scary or ultimately rewarding in some ways. 

SAFETY A PRIORITY

However, it may be somewhat unclear for the average person what the UFO situation entails. We probably have access only to limited information on the subject. The recent MOD releases probably do not tell the whole story.

Are we talking good news, bad news, something in between or just different? How does this affect our understanding about our own lives, our families, our communities, our societies, our Earth and the Universe?

Many researchers have pointed out that there seem to be significant defense-related elements involved in the UFO situation. Public health and safety considerations also seem to come into play on a number of levels. 

It may be wise to make safety a high priority in dealing with such unconventional developments.

For example, incidents such as the “Phoenix lights” and Stephenville, Texas, UFO cases along with hundreds of others in the U.S. and worldwide seem to indicate that public health and safety concerns, air-traffic safety, as well as national and global defense considerations should be taken seriously.

For public safety officials, researchers and the general public, the 1992 firefighter training manual “Fire Officer's Guide to Disaster Control” has an excellent chapter on appropriate planning and response for UFO incidents.

The chapter Disaster Control and UFOs includes a section on Adverse Potential of UFOs that is worth noting. The authors state that the two main hazards in UFO encounters are powerful anomalous energy fields and psychological impacts. These can cause public health and safety concerns in a number of ways, they point out.

Safety may continue to be a factor as we learn more about UFOs in various ways, such as the recent MOD information releases.

In addition, the UFO puzzle pieces in the MOD reports and from various other media may begin to make more sense to the general public in some way as we gain greater understanding and situation awareness about UFOs.

(Related articles “Storytelling affects human biology, beliefs, behavior” and “Reagan’s 1987 UN speech on ‘alien threat’ resonates now” are posted on the CultureReady blog, Defense Language and National Security Education Office, Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness, U.S. Department of Defense.) 

Easter Sunday brings opportunities for Heavenly miracles

By Steve Hammons

As Easter Sunday 2013 approaches, it seems like a good time to explore theories, beliefs and personal accounts of the afterlife and Heaven.

The book “Proof of Heaven” by neurosurgeon Eben Alexander, M.D., is one of the most recent reports about near-death experiences (NDEs). Alexander was previously an atheist who relied on medical and conventional scientific explanations about the human brain, body, life and death.

Alexander experienced an acute brain infection and was in a coma when he had an experience that changed his view about human consciousness and a larger consciousness in the Universe. He now believes that there is an afterlife and it is beautiful.

Alexander has been reported as saying, “It is the most comforting thing beyond any kind of comfort and joy and bliss you could ever feel in this world.”

Since his experience, Alexander has explored the vast literature on near-death experiences and now realizes that he took the same journey as millions of other human beings, though his experience was also apparently quite unique. He has also looked into other research efforts about these kinds of topics, such as those at the Monroe Institute in Faber, Virginia.

MERGING HEAVEN AND EARTH

If we believe that people like Alexander, children as well as adults, have experienced a larger consciousness deep within our souls, and visited others who have passed on, it surely must resonate with many of us. And the contrast between that reality and some of the very difficult situations on Earth seems particularly important.

People like Alexander and the youngster Colton Burpo have put their experiences in recently-published books that have been immensely popular. Young Colton’s NDE was described in the book “Heaven is For Real,” written by his father, Todd Burpo.

Respected researchers like Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, M.D., and Raymond Moody, M.D., Ph.D., have long been known for their thorough and credible explorations and analysis of NDEs and what they seem to indicate.

Other credible groups and organizations such as the International Association for Near-Death Studies (IANDS) have also tackled the crucial questions involved.

Researchers like these have helped educate millions of people around the world about the apparent reality of another dimension. Apart from enhancing the spiritual faith of many people, NDE research and education have introduced millions of others with more secular viewpoints to the evidence about Heaven.

TIPPING POINT

Over the centuries, there have been predictions by many indicating that a day will come when our troubled Earth and the dimension we call Heaven will merge in a significant way. What might that look like? How would it play out?

Are we getting close to that emerging development? And, are there things we can all do to help that miracle take place?

The distance between our everyday reality and what neurosurgeon Alexander described as “the most comforting thing beyond any kind of comfort and joy and bliss you could ever feel in this world” may not be as vast as we might think. In fact, Heaven may be close at hand. Sometimes that distance is described as nothing more than a "veil,” a very light curtain or membrane.

Are there angels and our other loved ones and ancestors nearby? Are they working toward a miracle to help transform this troubled Earth of ours into a better place? It is comforting for many people to feel this way and to hope for such a positive change.

Between the efforts and goodness of many people in our world, and the plans and activities in the place we call Heaven, maybe we can achieve the breakthrough that many people hope and pray for. And again we might wonder how such a change would occur. Will human consciousness just gradually evolve or might there be some type of event that gets us past the goal line?

What better time than Easter to think about the ideas of the afterlife and the higher Force, God, Great Spirit or whatever name we give to the Creator. It’s a time of forgiveness, family love, healing, mutual community support and transcending the problems of the everyday world.

Easter of 2013 could bring us closer to a tipping point, a paradigm shift, a new day when the old world is transformed – maybe a little, maybe a lot. Joy and peace could expand significantly.

And every tear will be washed away.