An airport owner in the 1950s created a weird story about time machines and aliens to get more business. It ended up becoming a religion. In the late 1950s, George Van Tassel was running a small airport in Giant Rock, California. One day, out of nowhere for this seemingly normal clean-cut business owner and family man, Van Tassel started peddling a story about how he'd been visited by an alien who had given him plans to build a time machine. The story was clearly meant to drum of word of mouth hype about his airport so that more people might visit the various tourist attractions and restaurants on the property, but that didn't stop his wild story about Ashtar the alien and the Galactic Command from getting co-opted by the New Age movement in the 1970s and turned into a legitimate religion that still exists to this day. On this episode of Deep Cuts, we explore the baffling creation of Ashtar Galactic Command. -- Pick up some Deep Cuts T-Shirts and other merch! https://bit.ly/deepcutsmerch -- Get the official Deep Cuts shoulder patch! http://bit.ly/deepcuts_patch -- Listen to our new album, a 9 song rock opera about the rise and fall of Napster! https://open.spotify.com/album/63C5uu1tkzZ2FhfsrSSf5s?si=q4WItoNmRUeM159TxKLWew -- Additional incidental music credits: The Deadboy Detectives Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices