An Exclusive Interview with Chad Meek: Nephew of Famous UFO Contactee George Van Tassel
By: Brent Raynes
Chad Meek’s successful oil and precious metal mining business ventures have taken him around the world, but nothing he has seen has been as compelling as the events he witnessed as a child, growing up in the desert at California’s Giant Rock. Chad had a front row seat as his uncle became the most famous UFO contactee of his era, and his unique access makes him the best person alive today to relay the story that has lain hidden beneath the sand for over three decades. Check out Chad’s website: www.giantrockthemovie.com
Brent Raynes: Mainstream ufology today reflects back on the Giant Rock stories and huge gatherings as tall pipe tales inspired by elements of the lunatic fringe, the early contactees, of which your uncle George Van Tassel played a very prominent role. In fact, some might say he was the ringleader of this controversial movement that revolved around the alleged revelations of Space Brothers visiting our planet. However, your movie project hopes to correct what you certainly feel is a big false impression there.
Chad Meek: Brent, my uncle was a self-educated, humanly flawed man. There was not a skirt in the world that he didn't chase. Everything he did was to push the then so-called UFO contactee movement forward. I personally came into contact with former military and civilian airline pilots that told me that they were going out of their minds until they talked to George Van Tassel. I pitched a group of rocket scientists from Morton Thiokol where their head of the group told me that if it were not for my uncle he would never have entered into his profession, and with my Vice President and my Geologist sitting there would not let us leave until he told us about his experiences with other than earthly space craft. I had drinks with a group of Serbian scientists that were Tesla Free Energy people who told me stories about my uncle. I had the director of my company who was in charge of the Ad campaign for Toyota USA tell me that he would set his clock out in Long Island New York so he could wake up to listen to the Long John Nebel show where my uncle would talk about the UFO activity. I grew up out there and my mother would continually talk in very negative terms about my uncle, about his skirt chasing, and how she thought he was a B.S. artist. That is until one night her and my sister, who were walking out in the desert, in 1965 saw a low flying UFO or space craft. I could never figure out why she changed her tune about George until much later in life. He will be portrayed as what he was, which was a flawed human being who was over his head and way ahead of his time. The space contactee movement had to start somewhere and all of the UFO purists should be celebrating these nascent pioneers doing some primitive heavy lifting for all of us.
Brent Raynes: Although you want to set the record straight, this won't be a documentary right?
Chad Meek: I am not out to set the record straight. He could of cared less what people thought then and now about him. He got over that fairly early on. NO documentary, NO mockumentary. It will be a major film release with several A list actors.
Brent Raynes: You intend this movie to be a quality drama, but factually based, with a Hollywood veteran actor like Kevin Gage playing a lead role?
Chad Meek: For some reason, that I sort of understand, I have had George yelling in my ear and coming to me in dreams. The scary thing is there have been some times that I have two way conversations. One of them was when I started to write the Giant Rock screen play and got stuck. His words came to me, which were "write the story how ever you want." From then on the pages and the story just started to flow. Most of the story follows the general theme of the happenings back in the day and some additional information that I was able to research about what the Government was doing to these people.
Kevin was my neighbor down in Baja and he was about 35 lbs heavier than he is today, and he looked like my Uncle George. I was mesmerized because it brought me back to when I was a child looking at him out at Giant Rock. I am pretty sure that the movie will upset both his supporters and detractors, but I will make damn sure that this film will resemble a real life emotional roller coaster, or space ship ride, where you will know two things.
1. That you entered the most amazing world of the early UFO space contact movement.
2. The lights came on and it is time to go home.
I have been told by everyone who has read the screenplay and subsequent Directors shooting script that they could not put it down until they finished reading it. Now I am in the difficult phase of having to raise the needed money to get the story line laid down as it is written in the script. The actors that have read it all want to do it. I call this our Tin Cup Phase.
Brent Raynes: How is it that you and Kevin came together on this and what is the vision that you both share on this project?
Chad Meek: I finally ran into him and he introduced himself to me and he is a really nice guy. I asked him what he did and he said he was in the movies. And I asked him do you build sets or are you a part of a film crew? He said "I am an actor." I then looked in those blue eyes and we both, at the same time, said "Waingro," which was a sinister part he played in the movie HEAT with Robert De Niro and several A listers that included Al Pacino, Val Kilmer, Tom Sizemore. I told him, “You look like my uncle George.” He asked me who was my uncle George? About three hours later, sitting on the beach, he grabs me by the shirt and says, “DUDE, you have to write a screen play about this. This is the who's who of the 50s and 60's.”
Brent Raynes: You lived at Giant Rock as a young man and you have memories yourself of seeing UFOs and having experiences that you yourself can't explain, correct? Could you share a little about this with us?
Chad Meek: Some of my experiences are included in a character called Chase that will be in the film. But I could not go down under the Rock by myself because I am psychically sensitive and the inside of the rock with its crystalline would begin to illuminate. The Rock is one hell of a Universal Conductor. Voices out of the sky calling my name. Time lapses of hours that nobody knew I was missing. Abductions.
I didn't tell my uncle because I thought that these things would only get worse the more they were acknowledged. It was obvious to most everyone that there was something going on with me when I would come running into my grandmother’s cabin out there and crawl under her bed. I still remember telling my Uncle George that I did not believe in Flying Saucers and him smiling back and saying if you don't now you soon well. He knew what was going on. I couldn't mention any of this even to my wife until I was 25. I have often been asked if I have gone through any regression therapy with a hypnotist and the answer is yes in Denver but it was so painful and I stopped mid-session. I then heard an interview by Travis Walton of the Fire in the Sky movie when he was asked if had gone under regression therapy and he said HELL NO. I like him do not want to recall the pain portion of something I did not seek out. Some people think this is some sort of a treat to be in contact in this manner I don't. I knew ahead of time when I was going to have an encounter because I would begin to stutter profusely and could not put a complete sentence together. When I was 12 I tried to kill myself with a fairly lethal dose of wine and barbiturates that I got out of a friends mothers medicine cabinet because of the many encounters and from the toll of trying to act and be normal. I became unconscious and I was brought to a cellular wall and shown at what level of my earthly evolution I was and then shown the level where I needed to be. And then was given a very warm but firm telepathic imprint that I was never to try this again. It was one of the more profound things I have ever felt. Anyways there is much more in the movie.
The night when my maternal grandmother died (the Cherokee side where I hold both a federal and tribal card) I was sleeping between my brothers and she came floating down the hallway of her home that we were staying at. I was terrified and doing every kind of movement to get my brain dead and comatose brothers to wake up to no avail. It became apparent that I was the psychic in the family at an early age and that all of these things were for my eyes only.
Brent Raynes: Your uncle George Van Tassel, I see from your website, actually predicted the UFO wave that struck Washington, D.C. in July 1952, and this caused him to get into hot water with our government? What can you tell us about that?
Chad Meek: I was asked by some people back in 1995, who apparently wanted me to revive my Uncle’s college and ministry. They never really told me what precisely they wanted but this one women told me that if I was going to lead the group that I needed to lose weight? Her and this really strange looking man kept on nodding and saying that I looked like George. They were in possession of my uncle’s papers and showed me the various telegram receipts that were sent to the Air Force, Los Angeles Tribune, Life magazine regarding the UFOs over Washington flap. There were other telegrams that he sent to both General Eisenhower and Mamie Eisenhower about this. They asked me if I was interested in helping. It all felt very weird because I could not figure out what they wanted until years later. I told them I had no intention of doing anything like this because it seemed more like a religion. They asked me if I wanted some of his books and the channeling tapes. And I reluctantly accepted them.
Brent Raynes: Kevn Gage is an alien abductee himself?
Chad Meek: Kevin told me that he had an encounter with the grays as a young child. He claims they tried but didn't physically abduct him.
Brent Raynes: A few months back, I met a Nashville (TN) brain surgeon who claims that his father was a scientist who helped your uncle with the Integratron, the dome shaped building (still standing) that was supposed to, I understand, produce powerful healing effects and alter the flow of time. However, just prior to fully completing the task, he says he still remembers how these men in black pulled up in a black cadillac and warned his father to discontinue his work.
Chad Meek: You know I would not be surprised but I have no proof. There have been some serious films on the subject like Close Encounters, Contact, and Fire in the Sky. I am suspicious of movies like the Men in Black Trilogy and other cartoon like films that seem to trivialize the existence of alien life forms here on earth. Speaking of Close Encounters, I was told by Gabriel Green from Yucca Valley that Steven Spielberg visited him out at Giant Rock and made my uncle a guest of honor at one of the premieres of the film, I believe in Las Vegas.
Brent Raynes: Did your uncle ever share anything similar to this doctor’s MIB story with you about being prevented from completing this project in some way?
Chad Meek: This still remains one of the more mysterious questions that I can only speculate about. During the 70s, everything out at Giant Rock began to fall apart. My Aunt Eva died and George married a very strange woman who was his booking agent. There was a literal war between George’s daughters and George’s new wife. Because everyone thought that my Uncle had lost his mind the research dollars dried up. The other side of this story was that George’s new wife was part of a larger conspiracy that was planted to derail the whole project. I kind of lost touch with my Uncle George and moved about 100 miles away to an LA Suburb with my family. I was in a complete sense of denial about the things I experienced out there. I would be sitting with friends and my Uncle would appear on an old documentary on the television and I would not say a word. In fact, I almost had a nervous breakdown when I was 14 and my older second cousin Shawn (George’s Grandson) fled from out there and lived with us for a few months. He would try to tell me stories about what was going on out there. I always quickly cut him off because I was simply trying to be normal. He killed himself a year later.
Brent Raynes: A respected researcher named William F. Hamilton III wrote in a book entitled Alien Magic (1996) how his alien quest for 40 years (at that point) had begun back in the 1950s, with reading the works of early contactees like George Adamski and George Hunt Williamson. He had a really extraordinary experience at Giant Rock back in October 1967 when contactee Bob Short was channeling a space message. They were being told that two reconnaissance space vehicles were headed their way and would arrive in four minutes. At the time, Hamilton expressed skepticism over the channeling and was walking away, grumbling that he was beginning to think that such communications were nonsense, when exactly to the second of the four minutes communicated, two smooth polished metallic disks, about 20 feet in diameter, flew overhead. They got to a nearby airport runway that is there, made two right-angled turns and flew silently back overhead. Hamilton wrote: "I was astonished by this whole display. What I saw were definitely flying machines and their appearance was forecast in advance."
Does this story surprise you in any way, or is it just another of many you've heard through the years?
Chad Meek: I was living out there at the time and that story along with many, many other people including the many stories coming from cops and pilots about UFO were quite common. It was paradoxical for me as we lived off and on out there for over 9 years because both of my parents would bounce from alcoholism to religion. When they were into the religion thing we were shielded from what they felt was my Uncle George and his cult like following. But during the alcohol phase it was okay to talk to and to be around my Uncle George and his many eclectic friends.
Brent Raynes: Hamilton also described how your uncle's son-in-law Dan Boone had his own contacts, though he didn't share this with the general public, but did share his experiences with Hamilton. In fact, one that stood out was one he claimed where a tall, dark handsome man calling himself Venudo came to Giant Rock and was attending a meeting held in the room that used to exist beneath the Giant Rock itself. Venudo demonstrated how he could make himself invisible! Though the room was dimly lit, Dan claimed there was light coming in a window from outside and he was sitting next to this Venudo. After a minute he reappeared. Dan asked him to do it again, and he disappeared again, at which time Dan touched Venudo's shoulder, even though he was still invisible at the time! Were you familiar with any of these stories?
Chad Meek: Boone was and still is an interesting character. He once lived with a spiritual Guru about twenty miles away when the Guru, coming out of a meditative trance, directed Boone to go help that man out in the desert. I don't recall that particular story. But ironically I had heard that he had come into contact with Big Foot in Washington state. I remember him being a nice man.
Brent Raynes: What was your uncle George's involvement with the famous millionnaire Howard Hughes? By the way, I read where Hughes had seen UFOs while flying? Ever hear of him seeing anything at Giant Rock or with your uncle?
Chad Meek: Well George worked pretty close to him as flight engineer and left for more money at I believe Lockheed. They stayed in contact and Hughes gave my uncle some cash for the Integratron. Now mythology is great and I have no doubt of my uncle’s abilities to channel information from what he called the Universal Mind. But the connection between the Spruce Goose and the Integraton is too close not to connect the dots. They were both made without metals and the Integratron was really geared to medical research - something that Hughes was very interested in. The second part, and this is in the script, is that he had to make a forced landing out at Giant Rock after getting too close to a rainbow colored space craft and losing power near Morongo Valley.
Brent Raynes: What do you hope to achieve with the final production and release of Giant Rock the movie?
Chad Meek: Giant Rock was one of the most unique places on earth that touched people from around the world. Every President from Truman to Nixon had their eyes and ears monitoring this obscure place out in the middle of nowhere. Jack Parsons, L. Ron Hubbard, Howard Hughes, Robert Plant to Charlize Theron to Jay Leno and countless others have made the pilgrimage to Giant Rock. It is one of our planets sacred crossroads where even seeing and catching a ride on a space ship is possible. The other thing I hope to achieve is to help in the battle for full and final disclosure about all of this. Churchill and Truman were reported to have been so paranoid about the population not going to church and not paying taxes for their various Military Industrial complex buddies that they did everything they could to suppress any independent revelation of these close encounters of the third and fourth kind. Movies are the new books and if you can entertain audiences for a couple of hours they may just decide to do some serious research on their own. When they do they will never be satisfied by anything but real and immediate disclosure of any event that occurs between those out there and us living here.
Brent Raynes: What do you want everyone to know about George Van Tassel?
Chad Meek: He did not care about money. He cared deeply about the effect of above ground nuclear testing and his other love was the development of free energy. Most of all I want everyone to know that wrong or right he would never back down from anyone, including the U.S. government about his views on the UFO phenomena. That based on my experience with most everyone who knew him that he inspired many people to think outside of the box and to get out of their respective comfort zones.