Batman Dies

William West Anderson, born September 19, 1928, in Walla Walla, Washington State, better known as Adam West, died Friday, June 9, 2017. He passed away after a short battle with leukemia.

In 1959, West moved with his wife and two children to Hollywood, where he took the stage name Adam West. In his autobiography Back to the Batcave, he explains he chose "Adam" simply because he liked the way it looked and sounded with "West," his middle name. His close friends and family still call him "Bill."


West's acting career began in films in 1959, and he achieved his signature fame via the ABC series Batman (debut, 1966) and its theatrical feature film. He did voice work on The Fairly OddParents, The Simpsons and Family Guy (where he voiced fictional versions of himself in all of those animated series) and also Batman: Return of the Caped Crusaders.

West starred in an episode of the ABC Outer Limits series titled "The Invisible Enemy."

Producer William Dozier cast West as Bruce Wayne and his alter ego, Batman, in the television series Batman, in part after seeing West perform as the James Bond-like spy Captain Q in a Nestlé Quik commercial. 

Skull and Bones:

Batman was an intriguing series with a variety of synch-conspiracy angles, such as the one relating to Bruce Wayne's great-grandfather being a founder of Skull and Bones.

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Bond & The Gemstone File:

In 1970, West was offered the role of James Bond by Cubby Broccoli for the film Diamonds Are Forever. West did not accept, later stating in his autobiography that he believed the role should always be played by a British actor.

As I asked in 2012: "What is the most synchromystic, conspiracy-laden James Bond film?"

The answer is an obvious one. It happens to be the cinematic expression that revealed Ian Fleming's leaking of the Gemstone Files, in one of the 23 Bond films that have been made through 2012: Diamonds Are Forever (1971). Read more here.

Mothman: 

The 1966 Batman TV show inspired a local West Virginia newspaper copy editor, early in the 1966 sighting series of a large winged monster in Point Pleasant, to dub the creature "Mothman."

Hangar 18's Lord Dies

Stephen Lord, the writer behind Hangar 18 (1980) and two The Bermuda Triangle efforts (1978, 1979), known as a prolific TV writer whose mainstream credits ranged from Bonanza to Fantasy Island, died at the age of 85, May 5th, in Sherman Oaks, California.  Surrounded by his family when he passed away, Lord suffered from Alzheimer's.

Born Stephen Loyacano on December 14, 1926, in New Orleans, Lord began his professional life as a popular big band leader and radioman. Before he died, he had amassed more than 200 credits during a movie and television writing career that spanned 35 years. Lord also was active in Hollywood unions for years, working with the WGA and DGA.

As a writer he was involved with many projects. If one looks deeply at the works he penned, it is obvious he was interested in a variety of science fiction, cryptozoological, parapsychological, and ufological topics. Conspiracies and coverups were often part of the stories, from Hangar 18 back to his early Outer Limits scripts. Among those Lord wrote, the following stand out as being specifically Fortean:

1991 They Came from Outer Space (TV series)

– Play Doctor (1991) (story)

1981 Fantasy Island (TV series)

– Man-Beast (1981) (story)

The story is about dreams of a man who thinks he is a werewolf.

1980 Hangar 18 (motion picture) (writer)

During a Space Shuttle mission, a satellite is being launched but is rammed by a ufo and an astronaut killed. The ufo then makes an emergency landing in an Arizona desert. The aliens inside are dead, but a human woman is found inside and symbols found in ancient Earth sites are discovered on the control panels. However, a coverup begins with the White House denying its existence because of the quickly approaching presidential election. The ufo is then hid in the secret Hangar 18, and the blame for the accident shifted to astronauts Steve Bancroft and Lew Price. More murders and explosions follow as the coverup continues.

1979 The Bermuda Triangle (docudrama) (writer)

Both the near-documentary (1979) and the movie (1978) had Charles Berlitz listed as a co-writer.

1978 The Bermuda Triangle (motion picture) (screenplay)

1978 Beyond and Back (documentary) (writer)

Time Magazine said this about the film: 

This semidocumentary is an attempt to dramatize case histories of people who have somehow revived after having been pronounced dead. The film stresses the similarity of their experiences in the twilight zone: a sense of hovering above their beds, a trip through a prettily lighted tunnel toward a bright glow, pearly gates (or something quite like them symbolically), the whole accompanied by warm, sensual feelings.

1975 Kolchak: The Night Stalker (TV series)

– Demon in Lace (1975) (story/teleplay)

1965 Bonanza (TV series)

– The Strange One (1965) (writer)

Hoss and Little Joe are hunting a big mysterious cat that was preying on

the cattle. At the same time, a group of people left a girl named Marie

without food and water because they felt she was somehow causing bad

things to happen ("voodoo"). It's unclear at first if she is supposed to

be clairvoyent or have second sight or whether she is somehow 'haunted' or a ghost, as Hoss later suggests.

1964 The Outer Limits (TV series)

– Keeper of the Purple Twilight (1964) (story)

– Specimen: Unknown (1964) (writer)

1959 Johnny Ringo (TV series)

– The Cat (1959) (teleplay)

Cyrus Hampton, a rich old man dying of an incurable disease, arrives in Velarde with a wild tiger. He releases it into a remote canyon. When a cattleman is found severely mauled by the beast, the tiger is blamed. But was it the released tiger that killed him?

Stephen Lord took the rest of the secrets he wanted to reveal with him to the outer limits about which he often wrote. His scripts will be missed.