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.)