Friday, July 10, 2020

The Skeptics In A World of Their Own


It was Groundhog Day, 1984, when four musicians gathered together for the first time atop Braddock Mountain in Frederick, Maryland. By that evening, they were a band and soon thereafter known as The Skeptics. 

For the next six years, the band created a blend of original garage, surf, punk, Appalachia, and psychedelic ear candy for a small but devoted fan base. Playing clubs, alleys, side streets, and opening for accomplished bands, such as Love Tractor, The Slickee Boys, and The Velvet Monkeys, The Skeptics brought their unique vibe and magic to these venues. By the Fall of 1990, The Skeptics were no more. They drifted apart and went their separate ways. 

Importantly, a very integral part of The Skeptics' story surrounds their long-time manager, Ol' Hole Heels (OHH), one of Frederick's finest entrepreneurs, who's been with the band from the beginning. OHH discovered the boys practicing in an old tool shed he was renting them. Quickly realizing they had real talent and potential, OHH took them under his wing. He became their mentor and manager, guiding them on a dizzying upward spiral, amidst a whirlwind of rehearsals, gigs, interviews and recording sessions. OHH's management style was unprecedented. In fact, he was responsible for such things as the band's look, attitude, wardrobe, and for many songs in their impressive catalog.

In 2007, OHH came out of hiding and convinced the boys they should return to the scene. That summer, The Skeptics played a reunion show in Frederick. OHH was happy. The crowd was happy. The boys had performed well and they were happy. It was then that OHH decided the time was right to think about documenting their story. He felt that new generations of listeners should have the opportunity to hear and see the legendary band. 

OHH reached out to me about making The Skeptics documentary. There was no way I'd pass on working with the famous OHH, so he didn't have to ask twice. The project was a go. Over the next couple of years, I dragged my camera around, interviewing OHH, the band members, fans, friends, family, and was given unlimited access to the band's musical archives. 

In March 2010, The Skeptics In A World Of Their Own premiered at the historical Weinberg Center in Frederick, during the town's annual film festival. After the screening, The Skeptics took the stage. It was a good night. A fun night.

Now over a decade later, I'm digitally releasing the documentary on my Youtube channel. For those who followed the band, I'm sure it will be fun revisiting those times. For those just discovering the band, you're in for a treat. Home grown magic at its best. The Skeptics In A World Of Their Own is a rare glimpse into one of Frederick, Maryland's best unknown musical treasures. I hope you enjoy their story.

The Skeptics In A World Of Their Own

Keith Chester
July 10, 2020







Monday, May 4, 2020

That Place By The Water







Thanks for tuning in to my new posting. Too long between posts, I know.

Took a stroll one evening. Low cloud cover felt good. Took the chill out. I ended up walking a few miles and found a dirt road. It seemed to lead towards the direction of a faint light. It was a good distance away. Hmm, what would I find?

Tonight, when that quiet time descends upon you, and you've found that place to execute chill mode, tune into the link below. Take a gander at the short moment of time I filmed happening down at That Place By The Water .

Monday, June 3, 2019

The Hidden Nazi Book Trailer

Hello again. On 5/30/2019 I revealed my latest book project, The Hidden Nazi, The Untold Story America's Deal With The Devil.

I won't go into detail here, but if you're interested in learning a little more about the book, please see my last posting.

In the meantime, grab your favorite beverage and find free moment. It'll be a brief moment, but one that should create a chilling vibe of our story coming this Fall. My colleagues and I are hoping you'll find the story a powerful and revealing story about a very dark secret of World War II. In some ways, it can arguably be the biggest.

Our story will intrigue you. Fascinate you. In short, it's an amazing story about one evil bastard during a very dark time in history. And though it's been many years since the end of World War II, it is hard to believe a story this big could have remained secret for this long.

The Hidden Nazi Book Trailer

Thursday, May 30, 2019

The Hidden Nazi

Hello All,

I'd like to share with you what I've been doing a near daily basis since 2007. Yea, a long time. Some of you know that in May of 2007, my book Strange Company, Military Encounters with UFOs In WWII was published. It was the culmination of a four year effort, primarily conducted at the National Archives, College Park. Maryland. Strange Company was the first in-depth accounting of aerial phenomena reported by the Allied military air crews during the second World War. For more about the book, see my previous blog posts. Here are a couple of links:

Interview with Nick Redfern

Anomalist Books

Binnall of America

Amazon.com


After Strange Company's publication, my time was split among unrelated film projects and continued World War II research at NARA, College Park. I kept going to NARA, not to research for a sequel, but something else. In 2005, still researching Strange Company, I was greatly inspired by two books, Blunder! How The U.S. Gave Away Nazi Supersecrets To Russia, by Tom Agoston, and The Hunt For Zero Point: Inside The Classified World of Antigravity Technology, by Nick Cook. Both books were highly intriguing because they were relative to my research. Keeping my eyes open for intelligence records discussing new and sophisticated German technology observed by the Allied pilots was important. The source of many of these sightings were not absolutely identified by the air intelligence officers questioning the pilots. I needed to determine if there was as a connection between possible unknown German technology and the sightings. It made sense that some of the observations were misidentified conventional aircraft, rockets, jets, and celestial phenomena. And it also made sense that some of the sightings might be new experimental Nazi aircraft and weaponry.

More importantly, both Blunder!... and The Hunt:... had something else in common. Actually, someone. His name: SS General Hans Kammler. By war's end, Kammler was arguably one of the most important men in Germany, just outside of Hitler's immediate circle of confidants, which included Joseph Goebels, Martin Bormann, Herman Goering, and Heinrich Himmler. Kammler held a held a most powerful and wide ranging position. If the unidentified sightings observed during the war were German, then by early 1944 Kammler was a, if not the, key person behind them.

By late 1944, Kammler was in charge of the entire jet aircraft and rocket programs, building of underground installations, and advanced technological research carried out in Germany and Czechoslovakia, including the so-called "death rays", chemical, biological and atomic warfare. In addition to Kammler overseeing all the high tech wizardry, he directly managed the building of death camps, and controlled the use of all slave labor for a variety of projects. Therefore, advanced technological aircraft of the science fiction realm, meaning extremely advanced and defying conventional wisdom of the time, was under Kammler's command. All these things major positions held by Kammler placed him as a high priority target and one of the most sought after personalities of the war by Allied command.

Kammler was highly intelligent and a ruthless overlord. His meteoric rise to power in the SS made him a direct extension of Himmler's power and motives. In essence, this made Kammler a dangerous monster. He was a serious threat to Allied victory and a free Europe. Yet, even today, there is little discussion about him in the history books. One can find information about Kammler, but usually the information is sparse and doesn’t offer much substance. Furthermore, history reveals in official records that Kammler committed suicide in May of 1945. But that date and his death is mired with controversy, as there are numerous conflicting accounts. This was enough to spark my interest. So, as of April 2007, my gears shifted from the hunting down answers to the strange war time sightings to that of an unknown Nazi personality. I was determined. I had to know whether Kammler had indeed died by his own hand or that his alleged suicide was fabricated. My search was a tall order I was tackling another mystery. A big mystery. Burt I felt compelled to take it on, whether I was wrong or not. I was in for the long haul.

It was by Fall of 2007 that my curiosity turned into a full blown obsessive hunt. A pivotal moment had come my way. I had located a document that validated my doubts. Kammler Did Not commit suicide. In fact, he surrendered to U.S. troops. I was stoked. It was exactly what I needed to launch a serious research effort. That one document that would be my foundation. For the next three years I hit the Archives hard. Near weekly. This time, however, a few months in, my quest had become a team effort. In early 2008, I joined forces with Dr. Colm Lowery, who was also independently on Kammler's trail. Colm was on the other side the Atlantic living in Ireland. I learned of him by seeing his posts on a WWII forum. He was asking questions about Kammler and citing information about Kammler that was quite unique. I immediately wanted to know what information Colm had in his possession because it was far beyond the typical fluff I found on the internet. We needed to talk.

Colm is an award-winning lecturer in biomedical science at the University of Ulster in Northern Ireland, where he lectures in molecular biology and its application to bio-warfare and terrorism. Colm is a World War II enthusiast who was also hunting Kammler, years before I got on the trail, With nothing to lose, I tracked Colm down and called him early one morning at his office. It was worth the effort. In short, my unannounced brief call our brief was stimulating and our conversation quickly fused into what would become a long time collaboration.

Soon, after Colm and I joined forces, we began working with a lawyer, Dean Reuter, who is General Counsel of the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy and a fellow at the National Security Institute at George Mason University's Antonin Scalia Law School. Dean has also edited a couple books on terrorism. I had known Dean for some time prior to working together so I approached and asked him if he would create a collaboration agreement between myself and Colm. Dean readily agreed. He monitored our progress, since he too had an interest in WWII. It wasn't long, however, before Dean was working with us, eventually becoming the lead writer for the book. Our team began working with renewed passion and vigor. We had much to do. Much to figure out. Many questions to answer. We needed more information. Needed to be sure our case was strong and well supported. There were many obstacles to overcome, but we put blinders on and faced each hurdle one at a time.

Now, eleven years later, I'm happy to announce the culmination of our efforts has paid off and come to fruition. In October of this year, we'll see publication our book. The Hidden Nazi, The Untold Story of America's Deal with the Devil. Regnery Publishing will bring bring our story to the public. This story is the first in-depth accounting of the Nazi War Criminal Hans Kammler.


Amazon.com

Regnery Publishing

This is not a UFO book. Though some still link Kammler to such technology, at this time I have not found that to be the case. Just conjecture. I did not find anything that indicated to me that the strange sightings during the war had anything to do with Nazi Germany's advanced technological programs. And, therefore nothing to do with Hans Kammler.  Throughout my research for The Hidden Nazi, I continued hunting answers to the unexplained aerial objects, and continue to do so. The jury is still out. Knowing that so much is still Classified and unknown, even to this day, keeps me suspicious and on the hunt. That said, I must point out that my colleagues were not interested in this topic. Our goal was reporting only what we could find in the official records. Again, let me be clear: I am speaking on this issue for myself.

We believe there is much about The Hidden Nazi that will fascinate you. Written in the First Person, The Hidden Nazi's chapters will unveil Kammler's rise to power. You'l learn about the technological projects that were under his control. You'll learn about other Nazi personalities who worked directly and indirectly with him. You'll learn about those who hunted him. The list goes on. There is so much information packed in the book's pages that I don't do it justice here.

The three of us also believe we've assembled a major story that will contribute to the already massive body of material assembled over the last seventy-five years regarding the Holocaust. If in custody, Kammler would have definitely been a major prisoner of war at the Nuremberg trials and surely been hung. But that just didn't happen. He escaped justice and has remained in obscurity... Until Now. Our story will become part of newly discovered history that has been removed from the official records.

We are excited about sharing this work with you. We are excited that our effort will instigate further discoveries. Excited about bringing attention to this war criminal and allowing the world to learn about Kammler's criminality and his dark efforts during such dark times. These things are rewarding to us. Our way of contributing to justice not served. We hope those of you who decide to read our book find it's an important work this pertinent, informative, entertaining, and even a little shocking.

Cheers!


Tuesday, February 9, 2016

It's All In The Foo

Hello, all. While sitting here drinking another round of high octane java and watching it snow, I discovered a new article that reminds me of the year 1945. It was actually New Year's day when AP writer, Bob Wilson, broke a story about strange and mysterious sightings that were being reported to the allied command.

I'd like to thank Billy Cox for writing this article about my research effort into the mysterious "foo fighters" sighted during WWII. Many of you know about my time spent at the National Archives II, College Park, Maryland, that culminated in my book Strange Company: Strange Company.

In recent weeks, I donated my archives to a top researcher/historian to be used by others who will follow in my footsteps. Check out the article:

http://devoid.blogs.heraldtribune.com/15459/foo-fighters-revisit-your-namesake/

Cheers!

Wednesday, February 3, 2016

Bulletized Breakfast

Good day to you all. Yesterday, on Facebook, I posted a picture of my daily morning wake up. Actually, I wanted to post here first. Oh well, it's never too late, so here's to another great morning. There's nothing like a high fat, high octane breakfast of fortified Java to help put me into a state of ketosis for the next 16 hours.





Tuesday, January 26, 2016

The Hateful Take




Hello, It's been  a while since I posted here. Well, winter is upon us, those of you living nearby in the grand state of Maryland. Several weeks ago I was with my wife and good friend, Stephen Blickenstaff, traveling to the AFI theater in Silver Springs, Maryland, to see the master filmmaker, Quentin Tarantino's roadshow version of his new film, The Hateful 8.

There is no need to discuss the film here. For those of us who like the films of Tarantino, it was yet another fine dish he offered up. For those of you who don't get, like, or understand his style, well, that's fine too.

The point here I'd like to convey is my mood while waiting to see the film. The more I waited in line to get in, the more troubled, irritated, and just plain....hateful I became: