Skip to content
From the High Desert book cover

From the High Desert

A Cultural History of Art Bell

Thumbnail for September 22, 1999: The Ultimate Frontier - Richard Kieninger

September 22, 1999: The Ultimate Frontier - Richard Kieninger

Sep 22, 1999
2h 44m
0:00 / 0:00
Art Bell speaks with Richard Kieninger, author of The Ultimate Frontier, a book that has remained in print for 36 years since its 1963 publication. Kieninger explains that since the age of 12, he has received teachings from individuals representing an ancient organization called the Brotherhood, a group he describes as saints who have preserved knowledge across millennia. He outlines a cosmology involving seven planes of existence and describes human consciousness as something that persists through multiple incarnations.

Kieninger discusses his prediction that May 5th, 2000, when the visible planets align on the far side of the sun, could trigger a displacement of Earth's crust relative to its core. He cites geological evidence of three separate polar ice locations within the past 30,000 years and references Albert Einstein's endorsement of Charles Hapgood's crustal displacement theory. He also points to increasing solar flare activity and seabed volcanism driving El Nino patterns as compounding factors.

The broadcast also features Colm Kelleher of NIDS announcing a new 24-hour national hotline for reporting UFOs, animal mutilations, and other anomalous phenomena. Kelleher describes the organization's capabilities including eight simultaneous phone lines, PhD-level scientific staff, and contracts with ten nationally accredited laboratories, all privately funded by Robert Bigelow at no cost to the public.

Key Moments

  1. NIDS launches a 24/7 national UFO investigations hotline: Colm Kelleher, deputy director of NIDS, announces a fully staffed 24-hour hotline with eight digital-recording lines, PhD-level scientific staff, ex–law enforcement investigators and 10 contracted accredited labs - privately funded by Robert Bigelow - to investigate UFO sightings, animal mutilations and unusual phenomena nationally at no cost to witnesses.

  2. Kieninger predicts a crustal slip on May 5, 2000: Richard Kieninger predicts that on May 5, 2000 - when the visible planets align on the far side of the sun - the entire crust of the Earth will slide relative to the core into a new position, with mega-quakes intensifying as the configuration tightens. He cites the Caspian Sea, Sudan Basin and Hudson Bay as previous polar sites within the past 30,000 years.

  3. Kieninger's lifelong contact with the Brotherhoods: Kieninger says that on his 12th birthday in Chicago an elderly stranger approached him and began teaching him; over decades, a series of physical (not mystical) men appeared roughly every six months, each picking up where the last left off, representing a worldwide network of saint-like 'Brotherhoods' he traces back to Atlantis 21,000 years ago.

  4. Kieninger founded planned communities to ride out the change: Kieninger explains he founded Stelle, Illinois (about 200 residents) and Adelphi, Texas (about 20) so 'practical idealists' could practice the philosophy, develop a specialized early-childhood education system tied to neurological development windows, and survive what's coming. Art presses him on whether this fits the definition of a doomsday cult.

  5. Kieninger: Jesus was a body 'used' by an archangel for three years: Kieninger states the Brotherhoods teach that Jesus was a man who prepared his life and body to a point of perfection so that an archangel could use that body for three years - and that the head angel of Earth is Jehovah, beneath higher archangelic beings who form stars by precipitating hydrogen with mind power.