Hellier

goblin

goblin

Noble
I finally made the time to get through the first episode last night. I agree the production quality is impressive. Despite feeling like, "There is going to be nothing to all this", I did enjoy the spooky thought of cave goblins crawling beneath the U.S.A. I hope to watch the rest of this first series, just have to figure out when to do it (my wife is not interested in the topic and hates the 'tension building' music they employ in some scenes so, I am on my own with this one!).

Probably not worth mentioning but I will anyway... at my last job I worked with a developer who had worked with Greg and Dana Newkirk. He told me they were really cool people, and he seemed a good guy so I chose to believe him, despite my wariness of anyone trying to earn their keep from 'the paranormal'.
 
humanoidlord

humanoidlord

ce3 researcher
GhostofBiedny said:
This is top notch stuff. The production values are insane compared to any documentary, let alone a small project that is available for free on Youtube. If I had not known, I would have presumed this was a big budget Netflix effort. It certainly puts the average paranormal stuff that Discovery/History etc do to shame. The story itself is really interesting because there is so little (bar John Keel) that covers the high strangeness topic directly. I'm two episodes through and thoroughly hooked.
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it was definitely something different, no sensationalism, just the weirdness and synchronicities that happen
 
nivek

nivek

As Above So Below
I watched the first two episodes Saturday night and wow, well down for being a free viewing, looking forward to watching the rest of season one later this week...

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GhostofBiedny

GhostofBiedny

Celestial
oxsnaard said:
I watched the first 2 and half of the third one. I am impressed with the production but not so much the content.
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I thought it started off really well but then went a bit batshit crazy with ghostboxes and bizarre "experiments" as it went on. I do hope they skip that kind of BS for future episodes because it ruins the understated nature of the whole thing. That said even with all that in it was more fun IMO than the usual paranormal series.
 
humanoidlord

humanoidlord

ce3 researcher
GhostofBiedny said:
I thought it started off really well but then went a bit batshit crazy with ghostboxes and bizarre "experiments" as it went on. I do hope they skip that kind of BS for future episodes because it ruins the understated nature of the whole thing. That said even with all that in it was more fun IMO than the usual paranormal series.
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the real bad part was the spiritual offerings part, wich was very cringy new age BS
i myself see no problem with ghostboxes, keel proved that the ultraterrestrials can jam eletromagnetic signals and input messages (usually in a metallic, obviously artificial voice) that weren't there in the first place, a ghost box scans various radio frequencies at a fast pace, making it quite easy to input such kind of messages, the fact that the device was apparently narrating what was happening in the room during the session was very weird, in fact it sometimes seemed to answer the questions in a tongue-in-cheek manner
 
nivek

nivek

As Above So Below
Round Table Discussion - Talking Hellier with Tim Binnall, Wren Collier, and Greg Newkirk.

#81 Talking Hellier

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Vrillon

Vrillon

Ignore Alien Orders
I binge-watched this doc series as soon as it dropped, as I had heard the Newkirk's on a podcast and Pfeiffer on another, prior to its release. I had high hopes, as they all made it sound like quite an amazing experience.

The first 2 episodes piqued my interest and I had high hopes for the remaining three. Alas, that hope was premature and ultimately, misplaced. Gone was the intriguing "creature hunt." The series devolved into ghost box silliness and tenuous claims about "synchronicities." And for god's sake, this whole "investigation" could have been avoided if they'd just traced the IP address of the original email that set this whole thing in motion in the beginning. I won't bother to comment more on that or critique the series in more detail, as I don't want to be a spoiler for those that still want to watch it without too many pre-conceived notions. Personally, I just want those 5 hours back (well, maybe the last 3, for sure).

Full disclosure, most of the reviews I've heard on the many podcasts I listen to have been rather positive, so my take may be in the minority. Perhaps my expectations were too high after listening to the creators talking about it on the podcasts? So, as with anyone expressing an opinion, YMMV.

As previous posters have noted, the production quality is excellent. I was pleasantly surprised by that.
 
nivek

nivek

As Above So Below
Vrillon said:
I binge-watched this doc series as soon as it dropped, as I had heard the Newkirk's on a podcast and Pfeiffer on another, prior to its release. I had high hopes, as they all made it sound like quite an amazing experience.

The first 2 episodes piqued my interest and I had high hopes for the remaining three. Alas, that hope was premature and ultimately, misplaced. Gone was the intriguing "creature hunt." The series devolved into ghost box silliness and tenuous claims about "synchronicities." And for god's sake, this whole "investigation" could have been avoided if they'd just traced the IP address of the original email that set this whole thing in motion in the beginning. I won't bother to comment more on that or critique the series in more detail, as I don't want to be a spoiler for those that still want to watch it without too many pre-conceived notions. Personally, I just want those 5 hours back (well, maybe the last 3, for sure).

Full disclosure, most of the reviews I've heard on the many podcasts I listen to have been rather positive, so my take may be in the minority. Perhaps my expectations were too high after listening to the creators talking about it on the podcasts? So, as with anyone expressing an opinion, YMMV.

As previous posters have noted, the production quality is excellent. I was pleasantly surprised by that.
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I watched the other episodes over the last few days, I guess my expectations were too high as well, I was disappointed...I totally agree the production quality is excellent but substance was seriously lacking...Glad it was free...

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nivek

nivek

As Above So Below
 
nivek

nivek

As Above So Below
Here's a review of season two Hellier from Red Pill Junkie, I haven't watched any yet, if it's pay to view I won't be watching it...Kind of tired of being nickel and dimed for things online, so I'll try to find a free view and post the link here if I do...

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PARANOID PURSUITS: HELLIER SEASON 2 (REVIEW)
RED PILL JUNKIE - SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 30TH

Something weirdly this way comes: The new season of Hellier, the ground-breaking, independent paranormal series produced by Dana and Greg Newkirk, alongside their associates Karl Pfeiffer and Connor Randall, has just dropped on Amazon Prime; ready to make your Black Friday even blacker –and darker— than you would expect.



[SOME MILD SPOILERS AHEAD]

As I wrote in my previous review of season 1, the thing I appreciated the most about Hellier was that it was made for people like me –someone who is disenchanted with the tired stereotypes exploited by mainstream media when delving with unexplained phenomena: UFOs are spacecraft from other planets, ghosts are spirits from the dead, Bigfoot is an undiscovered ape hiding in the woods, yadda yadda yadda… UUUUUGH!

With Hellier, all that ‘nice and tidy’ compartmentalization (read: boring AF) is thrown out the window, and what you get is a Fortean smorgasbord in which *everything* goes: cave-dwelling creatures, UFOs and esoteric techniques to try to get in contact with them, Tarot readings, medium seances revamped with modern electronic gadgetry, the Mothman sightings, and much more; all wrapped up and connected through the mystical veil of synchronicities –uncanny coincidences which seemed specifically designed to pique the Hellier crew’s interest and to make them pursue what most would perceive as an improbable (or impossible) case.

On season 2, many of those elements are still present in the narrative, but also other ingredients are injected to spice things up: references to the ancient Green Man archetype; occult groups and disturbing allusions to human sacrifices with the collaboration of government agencies and the military; hooded cryptoterrestrials wielding wands which can immobilize their victims –not unlike the metal rods used by ufonauts during the golden age of flying saucer reports; Ley lines (or should we say Goblin lines?) connecting all the places they investigate with seemingly impossible straight lines. Compared to the seemingly innocent vibe of season 1, these latest episodes of the Hellier saga take a much more sinister turn.

If Hellier 1 was Scooby Doo, Hellier 2 feels more like Twin Peaks.

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The first two new episodes start with a bit of a slow pace, showing the team reconvening after shooting season 1 to learn what each of them have learned, while perusing different threads of the yarn they’d started to untangle when they first visited Hellier in 2017. We see the group going to visit Taunia Derenberger, daughter of the famous contactee Woody Derenberguer –who once claimed to have met an enigmatic grinning man from the planet Lanulos called Indrid Cold. Taunia maintains she still receives regular visits from Cold’s family of ultraterrestrials –while staying in a nursing home– so the viewer gets a small glimpse of the bygone era of the contactees: a kitschy part of American history when seemingly ordinary citizens shared fantastic tales of meeting with the Space Brothers. Functional schizophrenics, or humans who have gotten a glimpse of ‘the other side’ and interpreted those glimpses as best they could? The audience is free to reach their own conclusions.

In episode 3 things begin to ramp up when we get a visit to one of the Meccas of American High Strangeness: Point Pleasant, West Virginia; a fulcrum of Forteana in which the team seems to be retracing the steps of their hero John Keel. Here we have a chance to observe some of the innovative –albeit controversial– investigative techniques that characterizes the Hellier case, in the form of a “God helmet” –a device that stimulates the brain using magnetic fields in order to induce altered states of consciousness akin to mystical experience. Utilizing the human mind as a ‘biosensor’ –or an ‘antenna’– is one of the most intriguing elements in the Hellier case, but given how that same idea seems to have been utilized in other paranormal studies —like the infamous Skinwalker ranch— it is worth noticing.

But it is also worth noticing that, sometimes, people in this field have a tendency to connect the dots too hard. And it’s perhaps no wonder why for a man with a Keel hammer, everything looks like a Mothman nail…

And yet, even though there’s a risk of finding connections that are not really there when you embark with a ‘synchromystic’ approach to study these sorts of things, such is the nature of this game. And if anything, you can at least force your mind to observe what’s right in front of your nose from a fresh, new perspective –e.g. The Green Man vs Indrid Cold (the “grin(ing) man”)

Season 2 also gets the addition of a new “Alien Cave Task Force” member in the form of Tyler Strand, another young paranormal investigator whose contagious enthusiasm and gung-ho attitude is both amusing as it is somewhat disturbing; he kinda fills the role of a reckless Johnny Storm to Greg Newkirk’s Reed Richards, and at one point that dynamic is more palpable when they are shown arguing on whether to go out and investigate a new lead to the case as soon as possible, as Tyler wants to, or wait instead until they’re more certain of things –“why go there?” Greg asks; “because that’s what we do!” replies Tyler.

Indeed, this series is a good example of how it is impossible to convey in simple, analytical ways what is it that drives some individuals to have an active interest in the paranormal. We can argue all we want about the need to expand knowledge and help to review our society’s take on the nature of Reality; but at the end of the day, when you feel the electric sting of a synchronicity ringing on the doorbell of your daily life unannounced, and you feel your head swooning because for one fleeting moment you get that ineffable sense of cosmic connection, the paranormal is more a matter of passion than pensive thinking. What else would Greg and Dana respond to the question on why on Earth they keep purportedly haunted objects in their house, other than “because that’s what we do”?

But if one side of the paranormal coin is marked by the sign of Passion, the other one is marked by Paranoia –and I’m talking from personal experience here, alright?. By the 4th episode we see Greg and Dana “losing their $#!t” when they receive a similar letter than the one sent by the enigmatic –and evaporated— “David Christy”, which kickstarted the Hellier adventure in the first place; only this time the level of crazy presented by “Amy” is cranked up to 11. If you stick around long enough in this field and attain a certain level of prominence, sooner or later you get one of those messages in which someone claims to have figured out the Reptilians’ secret plan to take over the world, or the Illuminati’s hangout bar; why the Newkirks chose not to throw Amy’s email into the loony bin, is because the text contained certain keywords which made them glimpse the hidden hand of the mysterious “Terry Wriste” as the puppet master who has been pulling the strings of this story all along –but to what end, exactly?

In his book Revelations, Jacques Vallee relates his awkward dealings with Bill Cooper, godfather of American paranormal paranoia. At one point during their conversation about alleged alien underground bases, the author of Behold A Pale Horseoffered Vallee to take him to a cave entrance to one of these extraterrestrial lairs; to which the French researcher politely but firmly refused –“who knows what there is on these caves?” he told a drunk Cooper, who was ordering yet another Chivas Regal, “maybe dumped nuclear material.” Cooper accused Vallee’s caution as cowardice, and yet I have an unsettling feeling that Tyler Strand would have said “entrance to a secret base? Let’s go, baby WOOHOO!“

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Understand that I’m not making fun of Tyler, Greg, or any of the Hellier crew. But I feel it is important to point out that there are risks involved when you decide to answer the call of the phenomenon once it starts knocking on your door. Since I’ve already brought Vallee, it would be worth bringing out some of the episodes of UFO history included in his books: In Forbidden Science vol. 2, 3 and 4 he mentions the somewhat sorry fate of Andrija Puharich, the Israeli researcher who brought Uri Geller to the United States, and got so obsessed with the ‘alien messages’ he thought he was receiving from several psychics, he decided to embark on a wild goose chase all around the world financed by a wealthy backer, Sir John Whitmore; Puharich ended up his days alone, poor and discredited, the massive alien landing warnings he received never coming to fruition.

Another more worrying example is the famous Vintem case of Brazil, in which two young electrical engineers –Miguel José Viana and Manoel Pereira da Cruz– were found dead, on top of a hill in the municipality of Niterói, near Rio de Janeiro. The two bodies were wearing crude maks made out of lead, and people close to the victims told the police the two men had gone to that remote location because “they were going to meet with extraterrestrials.”

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We have to consider the possibility that the phenomenon feeds off not only of ‘fear’, as some researchers have posited, but also attention. So if you’re planning to visit the mouth of an ‘active volcano’ –or a Kentucky cave– you’d better not go wearing just some stretchy jeans and Converse sneakers. And some “do not try this at home!” warnings would also be appropriate at the beginning of each episode, while we’re at it…

But perhaps such cautionary warnings are already arriving too late. By now Hellier is turning into a viral modern myth, just as I had predicted in my review of season 1. And, perhaps… more than a myth? Unbeknownst to Dana, Greg, Karl, Connor and Tyler, maybe someone is making use of all this attention spawned by tales of cave goblins in order to perform a collective magic ritual, not unlike what Grant Morrison intended when he tried to turn his lauded comic book series The Invisibles into a giant sigil.



Is that someone Terry Wriste, Allen Greenfield (author of The Secret Cypher of the Ufonauts), Indrid Cold or some other mysterious agency? To try to find out, you can now check out the ten episodes of Hellier season 2, available on Amazon Prime. One thing that can be guaranteed in this crazy field of uncertainties and unanswerable riddles, is that the top-notch production quality of the series –coupled with an amazing soundtrack– will make for one hell(ier) of a ride!

Hellier2_03.png

 
nivek

nivek

As Above So Below
 
nivek

nivek

As Above So Below
wwkirk said:
Does that means it's free with the voluntary option to donate?
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I'm not sure about the donation part...Earlier this morning I asked him about the cost to watch season two since its on Amazon prime, I do not pay for that prime service nor do I wish to join just to watch Hellier...So I'm glad they are going to release it free after a little time passes...

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Kchoo

Kchoo

At Peace.
I watched the first 5. And for me was old sleepy entertainment, but not much else.
The investigation techniques are a like 10 minute snipe hunt style Campfire story, expounded with fluff to make 5 weak episodes. I wont bother to watch any more...
 
nivek

nivek

As Above So Below
Kchoo said:
I watched the first 5. And for me was old sleepy entertainment, but not much else.
The investigation techniques are a like 10 minute snipe hunt style Campfire story, expounded with fluff to make 5 weak episodes. I wont bother to watch any more...
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The first season was a free to view production, but I tend to agree, it was a sleepy show in many ways...I'm assuming season two will have an improved production since it seems they want to make some money back on it before releasing a free to view version...At least I'm hopeful the second season will be more entertaining lol...

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Autumn Sun

Autumn Sun

Adept
I'm 3 episodes in Season 2, the thing with Hellier is that the series isn't built in the usual paranormal reality series format. It isn't trying to hit a shock moment every few minutes, it's digging deep into a singular mystery without pretending to have all the answers. The series is less about the weirdness of things, and more about how that weirdness impacts the investigators.
 
nivek

nivek

As Above So Below
 
J

JohnnyBoy79

Novice
The Hellier 2 is amazing, but can we discuss Tyler? He didn't really add anything, seemed like he was just there to get famous (see the Dustin hair) and he was playing it up with the Estes session. He is the only one that detracts from it being truthful for me.
 
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