The years 1962 and 1963 are among the most interesting in the life and non-musical career of Frank Sinatra, not least because it was in these two years that Frank's friends Marilyn Monroe and John F.Kennedy died under circumstances that have been far from clearly understood.
Outside of these two epochal events, it was, perhaps, in the first 3 months of the two year period that maximum documented weirdness resides.
Early in January, Frank produced and starred in a film called 'Sergeants 3,' which also starred Dean Martin, Peter Lawford, Sammy Davis Jr. Joey Bishop also featured, playing a character called 'Sgt.Major Roger Boswell' (a hidden message or what?).
That month the president made it known that during a future trip to Palm Springs, he hoped to stay with the Sinatra family - plans were made for this, with guest quarters specially renovated.
On January 22nd, 'The Manchurian Candidate' began shooting. Frank Sinatra played a U.S.soldier, Bennett Marco, who, along with a compatriot Raymond Shaw (Laurence Harvey), has been captured and brainwashed by Chinese communists during the Korean war. Raymond Shaw has been made a political pawn, who is being prepared through mind-control involving the Queen of Diamonds card to kill a presidential candidate. Bennett becomes aware of the plot, and along the way meets up with Rosie (Janet Leigh).
January 26th, Frank "..did a comedy turn on ABC-TV's The Soupy Sales Show with the popular slapstick comic."
On February 27th, the Secret Service decided that JFK would stay at Bing Crosby's house, rather than Sinatra's, while he was in Palm Springs.
In March, Frank made a cameo appearance alongside Dean Martin, as visitors from another planet in 'The Road To Hong Kong.'
Now, let's jump forward 36 years to a news piece in Issue 27 of Alien Encounters magazine. Under the heading 'Billy Liar,' the text begins: "A new American TV-Special is said to prove once and for all that the claims of notorious contactee Eduard 'Billy' Meier are absolute tosh. Famous for both his accounts of encounters with alien visitors, and his many photographs of alleged flying saucers, Meier has long been regarded with heavy suspicion by UFO researchers and his tales of contact with Pleiadians have come under much scrutiny.." The article further states that: "One.. picture allegedly depicts an alien known as Asket from Earth's twin universe, Dal, who was in contact with Meier for some twelve years. The blurry nature of the photograph, explained away by Billy as a consequence of the 'radiating energies' coming from Asket's spaceship, has now been revealed to be a result of the photo being taken from a TV screen. And the mysterious 'Asket' was actually the singer of an American dance formation on the popular programme, The Dean Martin Show!..."
Billy sought guidance from his E.T.contacts, who told him that the two women in the 'fake' photo were, indeed, not Asket and Nera, as he had previously thought, but two look-a-likes photographed in a frame-up operation by the opposition to discredit his work. They were indeed the women who featured on Dean Martin's TV show.
This is interesting, because. as we've already seen, Dean Martin made a cameo appearance in 'The Road To Hong Kong' (March 1962) as a visitor from another planet. Furthermore, the plot of this film is not unworthy of comparison to the Billy Meier scenario:
Bing Crosby (as Harry Turner) and Bob Hope (Chester Babcock) play con artists in India, trying to sell an 'Interplanetary Fly-It-Yourself Space Kit.' When the police intervene, according to Nancy Sinatra "..Chester is injured trying to prove the space kit works and ends up in a hospital suffering from amnesia. The two travel to a Tibetan 'Lamasery' where the Grand Lama cures Chester and gives him a drug that makes him remember everything he sees. But before they can use Chester's supernatural ability in their vaudeville memory act, the duo get into various espionage escapades, which finally land them - via rocket - on a distant planet called Plutonius. With them is the beautiful Secret Service agent Diane (Joan Collins), whose boyfriend is a 'spaceman' played by Sinatra in a cameo appearance."
Back in January, Frank Sinatra had begun shooting as the brainwashed soldier in 'The Manchuran Candidate.' Now, in March, he was making an appearance as a spaceman, in a film, the plot of which also involved amnesia, mind control and espionage.
Four days after 'The Manchurian Candidate' began shooting, he made his TV appearance with Soupy Sales, who, 30 years later would be quoted in the book 'UFOs Among The Stars,' saying: "I definitely think that there are a few people running around today who are from another planet. There is just something about them... I can tell in their face and in their eyes..."!!
Then, to cap it all, there is one curious exchange of dialogue in 'The Manchurian Candidate' itself. After Bennett (Frank's character) has suggested to Rosie (played by Janet Leigh) that she should contact her folks about getting married, she comes out with a line, which superficially at least, along with Bennett's response, may seem without any relevance to the plot of the film.
Rosie: "I used to be convinced that as a baby I was the sole survivor of a spaceship that overshot Mars.."
Bennett: "Very sexy stuff.. very, very sexy.."
For more about Frank Sinatra, read Star
Communion Report 1.
