Statement of Al Bielek's Producer, Mr. Michael Houtzager
by Gerold Schelm and Fred Houpt
"Don't let Al have the final say on what you believe" - Michael Houtzager
Since July 2003, we we have been waiting for Michael Houtzager's statement or response that he
more or less promised would appear somewhere at the end of August. As you know, August went by and so did
September, October and November. Nothing showed up on
http://www.bielek.com/ until a few days ago.
Finally Michael Houtzager provides surprising insight into his personal and business
relationship with Al Bielek. Mr. Bielek has not contacted any of us or written directly
into our web site message board to respond in any way to what we presented on our site, bielek-debunked.com.
And we must admit, we expected no less from the beginning.
Houtzager, on the other hand, spent some time with checking out our information and
obviously was able to achieve a more discriminating point of view concerning Bielek's claims.
Below you will find the original text of Mr. Houtzager's statement seen recently on
his web site. We have added some remarks in between.
The reaction of Michael Houtzager basically gives powerful support to our report and leads us to believe that our assessment has been correct.
It seems to us that it is now even more possible that Bielek groupies that cling to emotional or irrational
ideas that somehow Bielek had to be telling the truth will be presented an even stronger reality check.
What remains clear from our work is that it is not just us who feel this way but many more people in the
UFO and PX community are now distancing themselves from any support of Bielek's stories. It is still
possible for some die-hard fans to change their minds, after they have read our complete report.
I seem to have been placed in the odd position of determining if Al Bielek's story
is either true or false. Let me state early on that honestly, I don't know. My job
was to provide a comprehensive interview of Al Bielek. The goal of the project was
not to prove or disprove any of his claims.
Al Bielek Debunked?
Comments from Michael Houtzager, Producer and Interviewer of the Al Bielek Philadelphia
Experiment and Montauk CD set.
GS:
This is the same story as with all of Al Bielek's appearances on various radio shows
like Art Bell's or George Noory's 'C2C'. None of them ever made the slightest attempt to
critically ask Al Bielek for evidence or anything supporting his weird claims. They all were
just happy to 'sell' a good story which offered them good ratings for their show. Houtzager
approached this project from a salesmans point of view: 'Here's somebody with a good
story and people will love to buy his CD's and videos'. I can understand that up to
some degree, but on the other hand, Mr. Houtzager, you multiplied the propagation of unfiltered,
uncommented and unproved claims which were taken as true fact by many of your customers.
Well, at least he's honest. He did not start out, like we did, to determine whether
Bielek was telling the truth about the Philadelphia Experiment. Our goal was to
scrutinize and examine his claims and try to support or refute the claims. Our
research took us to many sources including universities in the USA and Scotland.
As I reflect on this project, which happened around 3 years ago, I realize I may have been in error in my approach. Many of Al's claims are quite extraordinary. I am sure many people who bought the CD are perhaps quite troubled by the information provided. So maybe now, I can provide my own reflections on that experience 3 years ago and what has happened since then.
GS:
Late insight, but late is never too late.
FH:
Exactly. It seems as though Michael got it from both sides and had little choice
but to reach this point. He saw the strength of our research and he saw how odd
and bizarre Bielek turned out to be.
The bottom line is we are all seekers of the truth. I learned that those individuals who bought the CD are people who have looked around the world and said "something is just not right". In their search for the truth, they came across this web site which seemed to offer some viable alternative explanations to the strange reality we live in. Given Al's powerful presentation style, one can easily believe his story. I know I did.
GS:
As a 'truthseeker', why didn't you ever try to verify Bielek's claims? Why did we
have to launch bielek-debunked.com? You gave the answer yourself: "Given Al's powerful
presentation style, one can easily believe his story. I know I did." That's all about Bielek:
He's a gifted speaker. Take that away and nothing is left except a pile of lies.
FH:
It's true: Bielek is a superb and often mesmerizing speaker. In fact we have audio tapes of
Bielek's speeches from before he became a PX spokesmen. He was a gifted speaker many years
ago and is obviously a well educated man who is comfortable discussing scientific material.
He is also a gifted weaver of tall tales. Why no one decided to come forward with
a strong challenge until Barnes and then our joint report is strange. Readers will
be interested to know that we have been told by Stanton Freidman, PhD. that he tried
to confirm Bielek's stories in the past and gave up after he reached similar conclusions
to our report. Although he did not challenge Bielek in as direct manner as we did,
he still took some time to examine the material.
How I decided to do this project
For many years, my friends told me I had a good "voice" and a natural interviewing
ability. At the time, I was recording Art Bell programs and listening to them in
the car as I drove back and forth to work. Art Bell opened my mind to the
possibilities of Aliens, Government Conspiracies, and yes - Al Bielek. I remember
hearing Al being interviewed by Art Bell and being "blown away" by his presentation.
Somewhere around June 2000, I received a flier in the mail announcing that the 2000
Preparedness Expo would be held in Atlanta GA. I didn't have anything to do that
weekend, so I attended.
I had already heard Al Bielek on the Art Bell show, so I thought I would take in
one of his seminars. As I listened to his presentation, I observed his audience.
No one fell asleep and everyone was memorized - including myself!
After listening to Al speak for 2 hours, I signed up for his second 2 hour
presentation. After 4 hours of Al Bielek, I felt he had only touched the surface
of the information he had. Then I made the decision that I would approach him to
conduct a series of interviews. Sounded like a good place to start my new venture.
Al agreed to do the interviews and we both agreed to share the revenue from
whatever we produced. This began a 3 month process of meeting with Al around 3
times a week to conduct a series of interviews.
The Interviews
I arranged for Al to come to my office for the interviews. Using professional
recording gear, we sat down and engaged in an "Art Bell" like interview. After
each session was over, I would listen to the interview and prepare my notes for
the next interview. It took a while to develop an understanding of the material,
but once I did I was able to take Al deeper into his material than I think anyone
ever did.
I was amazed at the ease that Al spoke about Aliens, Time Travel, Mind Control
and other bizarre topics. He had such confidence in his statements. When he
spoke about these subjects, he would would look at you in a manner that was
almost intimidating. To him, his words were the gospel and there was no room
for error. I told my friends that he had the demeanor of a three star general.
Many times after my interviews, I would leave the office and check my rear view
mirror to see if anyone was following me. I started to become paranoid.
I felt if this information was true, then surely I would be stopped from
publishing it. Despite all my fears, I don't think I was ever followed in my
car or certainly never threatened to stop publishing the CD.
About half way through my interviews with Al, I determined that our best course
of action was to find others who could corroborate his story. It was just too
amazing. That's when he gave me the names of Larry James, Duncan Cameron,
Stewart Swerdlow, and Preston Nichols.
GS:
Sure Bielek gave those names to Houtzager: Bielek knew Nichols as from the early 80ties at the
United States Psychotronics Association (USPA) and certainly, Cameron, Swerdlow and James
joined shortly after that. All those fellows easily could support Bielek's story, because they
had been the co-creators of what Bielek later presented as their 'spokesmen' to the gullible
audiences. Remember, the late 80ties / early 90ties were the time of the X-Files
series and people were hungry for stories about secret government projects, aliens and cover-up
stories. This was the ideal time for Bielek to step to the microphone during the famous
MUFON conference of 1990 and begin his play.
FH:
Sure, name dropping has the impact of sounding important on the surface. It is a type of strength
by association. However, even when people are named a good researcher will not be thrown off
but will absorb this material as just another point to be inspected. In fact one of the biggest
blunders or outright lies we caught Bielek in was in name dropping. One quite famous, Dr. John
von Neumann and the other a fictitious character, Dr. Kurtenhauer (many spellings appear).
His take on von Neumann, a well known scientist who among many highlights, worked on the
Manhattan Project, was that he did not die when we were all told he died. He lived on in
someone else's body or else it's his own body but somehow tampered with. He also said with
a straight face, many times, that the Serbian genius, Nikola Tesla, also did not die when
we were told he did and was seen alive many years later. The utter nonsense of these
claims borders on having psychotic delusions. But, more on that later. His take on the
so called Kurtenhauer is even more impossible to understand. Many people already
familiar with PX lore knew of a fictional account of the PX (see our report) in which a
fictional scientist, a Dr. Kurtenhauer, appears. Bielek insists that he was the real
man even though the authors of the novel creating him out of "Thin Air". Almost no one
took the time to connect the dots and say out loud to him that it was just silly and
made up and please stop pulling our legs. Barnes was the first to do a comprehensive
look at Bielek and at that time these points started to be written down and related
back to the UFO/PX community. Our joint report is a spin off of that original work.
It was quite difficult to get any of these people to agree to do an interview.
When asking all of these people if they every remember working with Al at
Montauk - the only one who did was Larry James. But Larry said he worked as
the Montauk Time Chair operator as a different person. When Montauk was
invaded he used the chair to perform a "soul transfer" to another body in the past.
My interview with Duncan was even more difficult. Duncan "danced" around all
of my questions with frivolous answers. It appeared he just didn't want to
talk about Montauk and only spoke to me after my persistent phone calls. In
the end, he really didn't provide any meaningful information.
If you listen to Larry's interviews carefully, you will find that he differed
with Al quite a bit on Al's time travel experiences at Montauk.
My interview with Preston was quite difficult. He was evasive and elusive.
I had a very difficult time pinning him down on specific answers to help
corroborate Al's story.
Speaking with Steward Swerdlow was quite interesting. He never met with Al,
but said he knew of Al at Montauk. Close - but not close enough. I found
Steward to be quite articulate and honest with his answers - he seemed to have
nothing to hide.
So after 24 hours of interviews and no concrete evidence, I decided to publish
the CD. I had quite a lot of time and money in the project and needed to get
something back.
GS:
'...interviews and no concrete evidence.' This is exactly
the worst that could happen! Houtzager's decision to produce the CD's was based only on
his personal judgement or impression about the credibility of the men he had interviewed.
FH:
He also saw an opportunity to make some money. Good for him. Trouble is,
now he realizes he was selling fertilizer.
Perhaps my interviews gave the debunkers materials they never had before. Upon reflection, that's good. If our common goal is the "truth", then Al should be subject to scrutiny.
GS:
No, all the claims and details that we proved to be untrue stem from transcripts of
official interviews which were conducted by magazines and radio shows. And yes, Al Bielek and
his companions are still subject to scrutiny. I wonder, why Mr. Houtzager didn't decide
that way already years ago ?
FH:
That's true. The material we found, so much of it was on the net in archives. All people had
to do was treat Bielek seriously, look for what exactly he said and then try and figure
out if it was true. The measure for truth in this search was verifiable evidence to back
up the claims. In all cases we found that he made things up either out of whole cloth or
else borrowed from known stories from the past. The mixed up material sounded good on the
surface but fell apart under the microscope.
Reflections of speaking to Al Bielek and some odd behavior
The more I worked with Al, the more my heart went out to the man. He would drive to my office in a 10 year old car which would break down constantly. Many times I would look through my window after Al left and saw him working on the car so he could get it started to go home.I would always buy him lunch/dinner whenever he came by. If there was any food in the kitchen in our office - he would eat right through it! He didn't seem to have a penny to his name. When the History Channel did a television interview with him, I negotiated a sum of money for him and bought him new clothes for the recording.
After spending some time with the man, I had a mental inventory of many of his answers. Many times when I would ask a question, I would get the same exact response to a different question. It was like he had an inventory of programmed answers and his mind would pick the closest response to give as an answer. What was strange was that his similar responses were almost identical word-for-word even though they were given to me weeks apart.
I also noted that he had a deep hatred for his Bielek father and a deep love for his supposed Cameron father. He hated his childhood and still to this day does not like being a Bielek. Could he have possibly fabricated this story as a way to justify his unhappy life? That's for you to decide.
GS:
If the Montauk Al Bielek is the fellow who I think he is, I recall working with
him in Chicago in the 1970's at a company called the Vapor Corporation where he
contracted as an Engineer.
He was pretty caught up in Government Cover-up research at that time and had one
story after another about Plots, UFO's, SETI and you name it. I think he was
modeling himself after Sherman Skolnik, another Chicago "once upon a time"
researcher. This particular Al seemed wrapped up in worries that Rockerfeller
was going to be appointed President after Nixon ousted himself. Nice enough
guy and interesting to listen to, but I'm afraid he didn't look to me like he
was zapped into this space-time continuum, nor someone who had walked the
surface of mars. I think Al just got a little too close to his own stories.
I am under the impression, that Bielek
focused on his story as alleged survivor of the Philadelphia Experiment and the
Montauk Project to finally become that 'somebody' who he always longed for. Bielek probably
is just looking for publicity and fame, but that has become a 'spleen', or
even worse a 'fixed idea' in his mind. After this, there is no way back for him.
All that we could see from Bielek's vita was, that he tried to become 'somebody known' in the
arena of UFO researchers in the 60ties and seventies. Bielek was befriended with
popular names like Ivan T. Sanderson. Sanderson got fame, Bielek remained unknown.
This is supported by an anonymous fellow, who frankly stated this:
FH:
We know for a fact that Bielek's contact and friendship with Ivan T. Sanderson would have
exposed to him to the earliest known stories of the PX. His so-called "memories" that
came rushing back to him is just so much melodrama. That Cameron and Nichols have
hitched a ride on the Bielek/PX side show is now probably more of an embarrassment to
them and might explain why they were so dodgy with the recent interviews. By now they
know of our work and are quite certain that their days of trotting out the circus/freak
show of PX/Montauk tales is shrinking into a small hole. As it should. The truth of
an incident is so often sublimated to the surface noise where all the shouting and
hysteria gets the front page. The harder work, pioneered by Barnes, is to go to
libraries, military journals, Freedom of Information requests: do the hard work of
checking into what can be learned about the science behind the PX. Do the work and
you'll see how silly Bielek really is; but, a clever and skilful story teller, that
I'll hand him.
I finally started to question Al's information when he told me privately that the Holocaust never happened. This was the first time I strongly argued against him. I could buy a lot of things he said to me in the interviews, but the Holocaust not happening - no.
GS:
Now this is something which reveals a new, unknown facet of Bielek's world view.
Alarming as it is, this information is totally in line with what I found out about Bielek
and some European connections. Bielek has been befriended by one Jan van Helsing (real name
Jan Udo Holey) of German origin, who is a book writer of dubious reputation.
The first two books of van Helsing have been banned by German court order because of anti Semitic and
radically right-wing content. Another German guy, Oliver Gerschitz, a close friend to van Helsing,
managed to bring Bielek to a conference in Bavaria on 8 November 2003.
Bielek appeared as a guest speaker. I go into more details in a separate chapter soon.
FH:
Holocaust denial comes in many flavors and Bielek's on the lunatic UFO fringe is not too
surprising. Although we did not hear this claim until recently, it only underscores
the troubled mind of this guy.
Where the relationship broke down
Al was forced to move out of his house in Atlanta a couple of months after we were done with the project. I was paying him royalties for the CD sales when I met him every other week. When he moved to Florida, we handled all of our correspondence through the phone and mail.Al moved to Florida with the help of a woman named Dee. Dee found an apartment for Al and the two spent a great deal of time together. Another person - Michael Relfe www.2012.com.au/mars.html helped fund Al's move.
Not more than a month into Al's move, I noticed his demeanor toward me
radically changed. He became convinced that I was not paying him his fair
share of the CD sales. Then Michael Relfe, owner of the domain www.albielek.com
switched the domain to a website that he built. This new website asked people
to send the money for the CD directly to Al Bielek in Florida.
I made several phone calls to Al asking him why he did this. I tried to explain
that I never cut him out of any money and in fact gave him more money than our
agreement. Nothing I said changed his mind. Al would always ask for a few more
days to think about his actions. When I called him a few days later, he would
ask for a few more.
GS:
Looks like Al then tried to draw as much money as possible out of this venture
before it's gone. I think, Al Bielek realized that he would not get along with his
bedtime stories any longer and prepared for the end.
FH:
Heh, his claims are fair game just like anybody else's. He's upset that we pulled
the curtain down on his old vaudeville show and that's just too bad. Someone
eventually would have.
I tried to contact Michael Relfe directly and ask him why he repointed the
domain name. Michael would never speak to me directly. He only responded
via email. Again, Michael asked me to give Al a little time to "think about it".
Finally, I had Michael Relfe's website taken down because of copyright
infringement. That's when all hell broke loose. Michael sent me vicious
emails telling me he was going to report me to the FBI for restraint of trade
and on and on. Hardly the demeanor he displays on his own sites (love and compassion).
GS:
Looks like Bielek found in Relfe somebody, who tries to milk the cow as long as possible. This
includes attacks on Bielek's former promoter, Michael Houtzager.
I applied for the domain name www.bielek.com and posted all of the content there.
Since then, Al and I have only briefly spoken to each other. It's unfortunate.
educate-yourself.org/ab/productsfromalbielek15jul03.shtml
This all came about when a friend of Larry James told Larry that there were
files on the CD that send all of your personal information to the NSA.
Honestly, I am not smart enough to figure out how to put a program like that
together - and no - there are no hidden files on the CD.
Never heard from Larry again.
Hidden files on the CD
If you read the content on some websites, they will say I put "hidden files" on the CD.
When these accusations came out, I spoke to Larry. I asked him to show me the
hidden files and how they worked. I even told him that if he could prove to me
there were hidden files sending user information out, I would pull the CD from
the market.
GS:
As expected, not only Bielek turned his back on Houtzager, Bielek's companions too. This was just a
attempt to take the CD's sold by Houtzager from the market, so that Bielek and Relfe then
could sell even more and make more money without sharing royalties with Houtzager anymore.
FH:
I just love it: "Educate Yourself". Has anyone looked at the self mocking nature of Adachi?
He's just a force of nature, don't you know!
I also emailed Ken Adachi (Owner of Educate-Yourself.org) and asked him to
remove his comments about these hidden files. I also explained what happened
between Al and myself and asked if he could present my side of the story on his site.
Ken said he would talk to Al - and then I never heard from Ken again. You can
see that his comments are still there. I don't understand these people who
profess to be seekers of the truth. I think they are more interested in
upholding their paradigm instead of learning about the truth.
GS:
http://educate-yourself.org/lte/lteanondebunkerofalbielek10aug02.shtml
Not only that Adachi is ignoring everything that probably has potential to disprove Bielek's claims, he even didn't understand
what we posted on our web site:
Nobody here ever denied that the Philadelphia Experiment happened, only Al Bielek and his
companions never participated in it.
This ignorant reaction of Ken Adachi is no surprise to me. I already have personal experiences with him.
Despite his web site is titled 'educate-yourself.org', there is not so much education as parroting of hearsay.
I tried to open up a fruitful discussion with Ken Adachi in August 2002, when we
already had completed a huge part of our investigation. Convinced by what
we found so far, I wrote Ken Adachi, (who still has a chapter promoting Al Bielek
on his web site even after he has been notified twice
about the material presented at bielek-debunked.com) but he came back to me claiming that I
was launching a 'gas attack':
July 22, 2003. A new campaign to debunk Al Bielek got kicked off on the internet
somewhere in late Spring of this year. I've been sent e-mails by two relatively
unknown individuals who are anxious to have me review their debunking allegations
against Al. I haven't responded to them yet, but a third individual said to be
associated with this current debunking effort is better known; his name is Marshall
Barnes. Barnes has previously spoken supportively of the Philadelphia Experiment
(and Al Bielek) on the radio, so one has to wonder what's going on there. This
is not the first time a campaign has been launched to discredit the Philadelphia
Experiment story..."
My attempts to mend the relationship
In the summer of 2003 Al suffered from a stroke. I did call his hospital and told him I wished him a speedy recovery. He seemed to appreciate my phone call and I thought we were on the road to rebuilding our relationship.During this time, the website www.bielek-debunked.com was launched. I read through ever page of the site. I found the material that the authors presented in their site quite convincing. Their basic premise is Al is making up the story.<
GS:
And everybody reading our material with both eyes wide open will realize that for sure.
Since I was on the road to rebuilding my relationship with Al, I thought I would ask him to do some more interviews with me. I wanted to give him an opportunity to defend himself. I believed if I gave him a forum to respond to the accusations on bielek-debunked.com, he would emerge stronger and more believable.
Then I never heard from Al Bielek again.
GS:
This is what we expected. We officially challenged him, and he has nothing in his hands to
defend or support his claims. That is why he avoids to comment what we posted here.
Since proving/disproving Al Bielek and all of the related stories is not my full time profession, I haven't pursued it any further. Given the fact that he has chosen not to answer any of his critics is not good. Again, its up to you to come to your own conclusions.
GS:
It is neither our full time profession to execute such a complex investigation as it was necessary
to disprove Al Bielek's story, but we decided to put this lying to an end. Once and forever.
Did the Philadelphia Experiment and Montauk Project really happen?
My own personal conclusion is that both experiments really happened. There was
a Philadelphia Experiment and there was a Montauk Project. Al's degree of
involvement is questionable. Perhaps he was involved to some degree, but mixed
his own personal experiences with his own personal agenda. I don't think
we'll ever know the truth.
My advise
My advise to all who reads these words is this - think with your own mind. It
really isn't important if Al Bielek or Larry James or any of the other people
interviewed on the CD's are telling the complete truth or not. Give them a
chance to tell their story and then determine for yourself what your truth is.
Once you have determined it for yourself - then live it.
Al has served an important role in uncovering and presenting information on several projects that I think really happened. For that reason alone, it is worth listening to what he has to say. But don't let Al have the final say on what you believe. Visit the website www.bielek-debunked.com and draw your own conclusions. Also, follow these stories through other sources. I think eventually what really happened with these two projects will surface.
GS:
Thanks for those promoting words.
For me personally, this has been a fun ride. I have spoken to many very interesting people as a result of compiling this CD. I have been featured on television programs and radio interviews. I'm glad I took on the project.
I also learned what can happen when one gets too into this "conspiracy" thing. Suddenly, everything becomes a conspiracy. I saw Al and his friends suddenly turn on me for no reason. I became the bad guy and was part of the conspiracy. So be careful with your thoughts.
FH:
As soon as you feel that everything is a "conspiracy" then you're into your own X-files
type of headspace and you can't think straight any more. Never mind that it was
spooky and things were hidden. That's the way things are in war times and even
after wars. Military people have a vested interest in hiding their research.
If they felt that we should know, then Matt Drudge would have it spread around
the net in a minute. As it is, eventual military research makes itself known in
new hardware. The stealth aircraft now in the U.S. Military were for years
denied being in existence even though watchful eyes saw them in the skies near
Area 51. Still, in due course they made their appearance. Would such a
technology as "cloaking" or quantum tunneling make itself know? It is hard
to imagine that any new genie could be kept inside a bottle forever. At some
point we'll all know, one way or the other. Until then, we ask questions and
keep digging.
If you have any comments about my statements that you would like to share with
me please feel free to email me at [email protected].