Outer Dimensional Forces
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Contents |
[edit] Introduction
The Outer Dimensional Forces (O.D.F.), also known as the Armageddon Time Ark Base Operation, were a UFO-believing doomsday cult, anticipating a millennial apocalypse, based out of a Weslaco, Texas compound.
[edit] History and beliefs
The group were very secretive; therefore, relatively little is known about their beliefs or practices. That the group yet exist is doubtful.
[edit] History
The group were founded by Orville T. Gordon (who styled himself "O.T. Nodrog") on September 3, 1966.[1]
Thirty years ago, in the late 1970s, they were "attacked" by the CIA, so they claim. The veracity of this report is dubious, but it is one of the very few details (falsified or veritable) about their past which can be attained.
They fell slightly into the public spotlight after the 1997 suicide of the Heaven's Gate UFO-cult, during which time their spokesman Daniel Hoverson gave an interview with the media (Nodrog rarely appears in public) in which he outlined the cult's apocalyptic vision for the millennium.[2]
During the last decade, the world having failed to end at the appointed time, the group have fallen back into obscurity. It is not even clear whether Gordon (Nodrog), last seen in his nineties, is yet living or whether he has since perished.
[edit] Beliefs
The cult's beliefs are outlined in a rather enigmatic document entitled The State of Time Station Earth. The cult claim that, having "returned" in 1966, the Outer Dimensional Forces found that humans had destroyed the pristine Earth.
The document schizophrenically jumps between such topics as the humans' inefficient use of the Circle as the friction-generating wheel to the endangerment of mankind by the Armageddon Disease (that is, AIDS). They seem to be under the impression that great advances were possible for humans, by means of a "Universal Time Bank" of energy, but that the wicked governments of man had ruined this potential.
For this reason, they believed that the purgation of the Earth in order to facilitate future, responsible habitation was inevitable and necessary.[3]
In contrast to the almost nonsensical rambling of their document, the doomsday portion of their teaching is quite clear. They revealed it to the media during the course of their single interview. According to spokesman Daniel Hoverson, they believed that the cult would be whisked from the Earth in flying saucers in 1999 [4], before the United States was destroyed by floods and earthquakes in retribution for the alleged CIA "attack" of 1978-9.
[edit] Conclusion
This group most likely dissolved with the failure to fulfill of their millennial doomsday prophesy. They have not, at any rate, been heard from in any public manner since this failure. They are another curious instance of the strange wave of New Religious Movements and cults which materialised at the end of the last century.
[edit] References
[edit] Sources
- Anon. "State of Time Station Earth". Cult Literature. Armageddon Time Ark Base Operation: Publication date unknown. [1]
- Gallagher, Johnathan. 1 October 1999 Devotional Message. Seventh-Day Adventist Church. [2]
- Heard, Alex and Peter Klebnikov"Apocalypse Now. No, Really. Now!: A coast-to-coast guide to America's millennial Chicken Littles." The New York Times Magazine. December 1998. [3]
- Warms, Richard. "New Religions: Outer Dimensional Forces". Anthropology Pages. Texas State University: 2003. [4]
