The Cloud: Investigation, Cover-Up, and Harassment

Music Hello and welcome to another episode of the William Brannum Historical Research Podcast. I'm your host, John Collins, the author and founder of William Brannum Historical Research at William-Brannum.org, and with me I have my co-host, researcher, minister, and friend, Charles Paisley, the founder of Christian Gospel Church.org.

And together we're examining the history and the intersections in history between William Brannum and other key figures that either influenced or were influenced by the post-World War II healing revivals. Charles, we have such an unusual episode today.

I'm trying to picture somebody who's never been influenced by William Brannum's cult of personality, who's curious looking in, wanting to understand the history, how it developed into the new apostolic reformation, and picture them starting with this episode. They would be saying, what on earth does this have to do with Christianity?

And the sad truth is, Charles, you know as well as I do, most of the things that we considered to be the most important and fundamental things that we believed really had nothing to do with Christianity.

So somebody looking from outside in who starts with this episode, they're going to, you know, think it's weird, but to us we're going to think, oh, this is the greatest thing that we believed, man, this is it, this is the message, this is the reason for the message.

So it's so odd, but I am going to recommend if this is your first episode that you go back and start at the beginning, we have been talking about the cloud and we're kind of setting up all the different trails of research and history that goes into this photograph that you'll find in every message believers home, many churches, you'll find it in their magazines, their publications, their marketing material, everywhere you look, you're going to see this thing because this is the message.

This is when people talk about the message of William Brannum, they're talking about the things that were a result of what happened during and after this alleged cloud event that William Brannum said that he was caught up with the angels.

And so I'm excited to get into it Charles, but again, this is kind of a weird episode. for somebody who is unfamiliar. Yeah, today's episode two is episode number 52 that we've recorded, John, which would make it one full year since we started this series, this podcast.

So, and finally, just now a year later, we're getting to the climax of William Brown's ministry. And like you mentioned, this is probably not the best place to start. If you wanna start exploring William Brown, we have been chronologically analyzing the life and times of William Brown from his birth on.

So, if you go back to episode one, you'll be able to work all the way up here. We're now within really just the last two years of his life, last two and three years as we come up to this episode.

But yeah, it's just incredible stuff. And we are looking at what, as you mentioned, John, is quite arguably the most important event in the history of the message. And just to remind our listeners, this event from 1963, it is a critical milestone.

Milestone in the messages end of day's rapture scenario. In the message, we believe that with the opening of the Seven Seals in 1963, and the appearance of the supernatural cloud in 1963, and the separation of the wise and foolish virgins in 1963, that it kicked off this special phase of getting ready for the rapture.

And because of this event, the message believers have been getting ready for the rapture since 1963. And so for 60 years now, that has primarily been the program pretty well in every sect of the message.

Every one of them believe that they are trying to obtain rapturing faith. And there's a variety of explanations of how that will happen. Some are waiting for the appearance of a completed fivefold ministry to finish the perfection of the bride of Christ.

Some of them are waiting on the Seven Thunders to be manifested. Some of them are trying to obtain the stature of a perfect man. Some of them are looking for some final hidden mystery to be revealed.

Some of them are writing on the return ministry of William Brannum. Some are waiting on William Brannum's successor to finish up what William Brannum left undone, right? Every sect has their unique spin on what they need to finally have the rapture as kind of the cap to these events that started in 1963.

And at all of it, all of it, though, has its genesis right here in these events of 1963. But unfortunately for the message, what happened in 1963 was a hoax. There was no opening of the Seven Seals.

There was no Midnight Cry. There was no Lord descending from heaven with a shout. William Brannum never got a commission from Seven Angels for this special purpose. And the face of Jesus never appeared in the sky.

All of it was nothing but a giant hoax perpetrated by William Brannum. And when you come to face those facts and you really look at the evidence which clearly proves it's all been a hoax, what happened?

in there in 63, the messages and time teachings largely come unraveled. They do. And you know, you said this was perpetrated by William Brannum. I grew up, you know, after William Brannum died. So I was not there during all of this thing that happened. My family was and I had multiple family members and friends who were deeply involved with this message, you know, during this time. But my only context of what happened came from the recordings of William Brannum and I listened to them over and over and over.

And as I've mentioned on the show, I was in churches from Arizona to South Carolina and everywhere in between. And there's different flavors of the message. It's like Baskin Robbins 57 flavors of the message, right? And the ones in Arizona are quite different than the ones on the East Coast. What's interesting for me, whenever I got into understanding the historical context, be surrounding what was going on during this time, which we're going to get into today.

I came to realize that the people in Arizona had a much different contextual experience of this thing that's going on than the people in the East Coast. Because during this time, as they're building up the missile defense systems and all of this testing is going on, a majority of that testing happened out west. You had Van der Berg Air Force Base, which will discuss a little bit. You had areas in Nevada where they're testing nuclear facilities, etc.

It was not uncommon to hear a blast on the west side of the nation. But on the east side, where none of this is going on, when people heard William Brannum say, I was out there and I heard a blast. They're thinking, oh my gosh, God has come down to the prophet and has blasted something.

And it's a totally different context, right? Whenever you're growing up in an area where there's continual blasting, it's not as important to you. One of my experiences growing up was on the East Coast in an area where there was an Air Force Base and they had planes that would frequently, they were testing the planes, and frequently they would break the sound barrier. So you'd hear this sonic boom every now and then, probably every couple of weeks or every month or something.

For me outside, it was nothing. When I heard a sonic boom, I was like, yeah, it's another airplane. That's what it is. It's an airplane. But to the people who aren't around this, in Kansas, where I live, for example, there was nothing like this. A kid was out playing and they heard a sonic boom, they would run inside and ask mom is the war coming to the nation, right? There's there's just so different of a context between different areas and regions of the nation. When I began to piece together what was happening happening historically with this,

I began to realize that it was not just William Brannum that was perpetrating this. Every single message leader who was out west, who knew these things were going on, knew that when William Brannum said, and I heard a blast, they knew what the blast was.

You're correct, John, and it's not very hard to just look in the newspaper articles, we can share you one right here, that at that exact same week and month that William Brannum said he heard this blast. There were reports of blasts over Tucson, Arizona, which shattered the windows of buildings. It was all well known that it was being caused by airplanes, sonic airplanes from McKinney Air Force Base over flying that region. It was just a regular frequent occurrence back then because they were testing supersonic flight, honestly for some of the first times back then. This was the origin of all that stuff. The test base for military

test aircraft was just about 150 miles away. Of course, these things are flying 2,000 miles an hour. That's a three minute plane ride away from where they're at. The plane just comes out and makes a circle. It flies right over the hunting sites in Tucson, Arizona, and stuff where William Brann would be. The sonic booms were happening on an incredibly frequent basis such that there was, like I mentioned, windows being broken in Tucson and the surrounding air communities, and they were frequently filing complaints with the Air Force to try to get them to switch to

different routes so that the sonic booms would stop damaging their property even. So that's how, you know, what was happening at that time. So yes, the blasts are very explainable, very explainable. The people out hunting looked up in the sky the day of the blast and said, and I saw a trail like a plane. No kid, right? Like that's what caused the blast, obviously.

Obviously, there's no question. You know, in our last two episodes, we showed really solid evidence to prove that on February 28, 1963, the day that that cloud appeared, William Brann was not underneath it like he claimed. He was not there. He never met seven angels under the cloud and got the commission to preach the seals like he claimed. William Brann was not under this cloud. He was not under it. Then, as we mentioned before, just that story is totally false, right? Because he claimed that he was standing under this cloud when it appeared. So he misled us about...

he'd under the cloud that day, and he misled us about the supernatural origin of the cloud too. Not only was he not under this cloud the day it appeared, this cloud is also not something supernatural that came from the portals of glory and was created by angels, right?

In fact, this cloud is, it's a man-made cloud. This cloud is a man-made cloud. It was caused by the explosion of a rocket carrying a classified spice satellite into orbit. And we're gonna talk about the evidence of that today.

And before we look at that evidence, I think we should share just a couple of quotes from William Brannum, just to give a sample of what William Brannum told us about this cloud, okay?

The first one I'll read is from a sermon called Works is Faith Express, which William Brannum preached in 1965, and he says here, and that day, when that happened, it went up. And then you turn the picture sideways.

Okay, you turn the picture sideways. If you've got look magazine or life magazine, turn it sideways. That's what I got right here in my hands. He, there he is, just perfectly. You've got to look, you've got, there he is just perfectly, Hoffman's head of Christ looking down where I was standing.

There it is in the magazine. How many's ever seen it? Of course you've all seen it. There, looking right back, proved exactly the revelation was correct. So, right there, you notice, William Brannum told us he was standing directly under this cloud, right?

He said, let me read that party, he said, there he is, just perfectly, Hoffman's head of Christ looking down where I was standing. He is telling us plainly, he is standing right under this cloud, right?

I mean, there's, there is no question that that is what he's telling us, okay? But he wasn't, he wasn't there. He was in Texas. He was in Texas, he's lying to us, right? Okay, okay, now here's the next, let me get you another quote with what he said too.

So, he also said, it's Hoffman's head of Christ. Let me get you one more quote, tell you how this, this angel, how this cloud was created. He says, life magazine, this is from the 1963 sermon, Christ is the revealed mystery of God.

He said, life magazine then packed the circle of the cloud and the light that they could not understand and don't know it yet. And I'll say, actually, he's incorrect, they had already figured it out by the time that he said that.

They already knew by July what made this cloud. Life magazine then packed the circle of the cloud and the light that they could not understand and they don't know it yet. But here, telling, go there and wait for these mysteries to be revealed and hear months before it happened.

And then it happened at exactly the way he said it would do. Do you notice that picture? Even that angel on the... the right when he was being materialized, coming down with his wings back, his head sideways, there it is right there in the picture, just exactly.

So somewhere in this picture is, this is an angel with his wings back materializing out of thin air, okay? That's what William Brown is telling us, right? He's holding that picture up when he says that.

So that's what he said many, many times, right? Those are just two examples of many, many times that William Brown have told us very plainly. This picture is the face of Jesus, looking down on him where he was standing, and this picture was created by angels that materialized out of thin air.

So however you take it, what he said is unmistakable, right? William Brown have told us this was a supernatural cloud, it was something divine from the portals of glory. My favorite quote of all Charles, because again, the people on the West Coast had a different context for this thing than the people in the East Coast.

People in the East Coast, many of them did not know that this happened until William Brown held up the magazine article. It had made mainstream news, but I'm certain not everybody was aware and in the message until he began talking about it, but that was entirely different for people in Arizona because this was not just one cloud, it was multiple rings that were not even clouds.

It was multiple rings that floated across the Arizona sky and they captured photographs of the multiple rings, but to the people standing below, they saw these things and you could see it for miles and miles.

So the people in Arizona had a different context. And this quote of William Brannum, he talks about how science could not prove what the cloud was and he uses a bit of science to prove that science couldn't prove it, but it clearly displays how people had fully shut off critical thinking in the cult.

It's the best example of mind control and brainwashing. Brannum says, 26 miles high. Why vapor can't even go over four or five miles high? Moisture, any kind of fog or anything you see, planes fly at 19,000.

That's to get up above the cloud, you see. And 19,000 is about four miles high. This is 26 miles high and 30 miles across it in the shape of a pyramid if you've looked at the picture.

Now, we're going to analyze all the many things that are wrong with this later, but for this one instance, just to pick it apart, everybody who understands how the plane, the jet stream, the jet trail's work in the airplane, when they fly through the moisture, the moisture forms and it creates a trail, William Brannum is saying here that it's above that, that no plane, Ian could have created this moisture and like you read in the quote, he's talking about the angels coming and they snapped the photograph of the angel and people who weren't there in Jeffersonville and they heard him say this, they imagined that suddenly this thing

appeared and the angels came and then it disappeared because that's what he said. The people in Arizona would have been like, wait a minute, I saw that thing float across the sky man, it was not angels coming through so out west they began to propagate this theory that when the angels broke through the moisture barrier it created the cloud ring and the result of that floated across the Arizona skies.

The problem is, William Brannum said it's above this and even scientifically this was not the result of moisture. This was a smoke explosion from these rocket blasts higher than the moisture. So if you take a step back and you just critically think about what this is, people would have just shut them off immediately but we clearly see that people were under his mind control and had fully shut off critical thought.

You have, there's lots of articles that you can get on this cloud. I have, for example, Science Magazine which let me just pull out, I think I've got an example that one right here, maybe, yeah here, the cover of Science Magazine, it was on the cover of Science Magazine and there's a long multi-page article in there where it gives all of the details about where the cloud appeared, its altitude, its height, its where it's moving.

So this cloud did not suddenly appear over Tucson, Arizona. It drifted into the state of Arizona from hundreds of miles away, right? So it did not suddenly appear up over the place that William Brannum was hunting.

That's not true, right? That is also just made up story by William Brannum, okay? And when this cloud was first photographed and appeared in the magazine, yeah, they're calling it a mystery cloud, they don't know what caused it.

But you have to remember, it takes time to figure things out, right? So let's look here at some of the evidence that really proves what created this cloud because it is something that was really unusual, right?

And this appeared, it was like you mentioned big news in Arizona. The cloud was at a really high altitude, 26, 27, 28 miles high, something like that. And it was a huge cloud, I think it was like 50 miles wide.

And so it intrigued the local scientists to launch an investigation. And a man named James McDonald, he was a scientist at the University of Arizona Institute of Atmospheric Physics. He spearheaded the effort to try and figure out what created this cloud.

And he published a number of articles on this cloud, which we have, right? Here's one of them. He published a number of... of them and it only took a few months to figure out what it was and here this article publishes his findings in Weatherwise magazine and this is June of 1963 okay and in this article he discovered the cloud was at the exact same height as an exploded Thor rocket that had been launched from that same day from Vandenberg Air Force Base okay which is in California and so he also then got wind readings from the mountain weather stations to establish that the wind speed between Arizona

and California was just about a perfect match for what it required for that rocket debris cloud to naturally drift from California to Arizona on the wind currents and so between those two things right there he had a very solid lead on what created this rocket this cloud right so after publishing that information in that magazine there in June of 1963 James McDonald he then went on and obtained even more proof conclusive proof that ultimately determined that this cloud had been produced by this rocket launch from from California and we have we have a letter here let me just

hold this up we have a letter here from this letter is from the University of Arizona and in this letter the director of the Institute of Atmospheric Physics at the University of Arizona confirms that the faculty and the team of scientists were all convinced that the cloud had been produced by this Thor rocket so it wasn't just James McDonald's who was convinced by the evidence but the other scientists including the director of the institute himself is saying that he personally was also convinced by the evidence that a Thor rocket is what created this mysterious cloud

so science did investigate it science did determine what it was and science did put out their findings and here we have the scientists confirming their findings okay black and white okay yeah you know the whole problem here the underlying problem is a slight of hand technique William Brannum condemns education because of the white supremacy's rise against the school systems he condemns science and you know claims that God's not in science that science came from you know Cain's lineage but then he uses science and scientists for every one of his boisterous claims and in things like this when he actually uses the science or the scientist he mentions the

scientists don't even know what this is and he's using a slight of hand technique in what every you know even like middle school kids who are in science class understand this but a lot of people in the message believe it or not do not that it is the way science works and progresses is through scientific theory. A true scientist will never give an absolute when they're investigating something. They won't say, oh yeah, we know this was a rocket blast because we're in a state where there's all of these rocket blasts, right?

They're going to say, we don't know what it is. We have a theory that it's x, y, and z. and now we're going to go try to prove that theory. Then once they establish enough evidence to support the theory, they still won't say that it's absolute because if they say that it's absolute and they find more information that sways the research in a different direction, they've closed that door. So they'll never say fully, yes, it was this, they'll say, it is a it is probably whatever is the theory because that's what the evidence supports and what you've just described is exactly what a scientist would do. They have a theory,

they find the evidence and the evidence suggests that because we have this wide range of rocket testing and blasts and window shattered out of the buildings because of it, yes, it's probably a rocket. This is this is the very beginning of the space program. And when this rocket exploded up so high in this cloud, this was one of the very first times, I think this might have been the only the second or third time that a rocket had ever been detonated at that height before. This had never happened before. So this was a new phenomenon that had never been seen before by people.

So the curiosity about this 1963 event makes sense. This was something new, right? But today clouds like this are well understood because they are launching multiple orbits and rockets into space every single day pretty well, you know. And they very clearly understand that rockets are the source of these really high clouds that form at the edge of space. And especially when they when they something goes wrong and they explode the rocket propellant, the rocket propellant freezes as it spreads out. And that's what's creating this. It's not water vapor. It's frozen rocket propellant spreading out from the, you know, the site of the launch. And if you look, you can

actually find articles like this one from the National Geographic Society that explain how these clouds are created, how, why they glow, how they get up so high. And when you look at the pictures of these clouds, I mean, there's there's lots of them. You can find lots of news articles on them when they appear. They tend to form ring shapes, information, right? They tend to look just like this. Okay. So that is, you know, again, just really obvious to me, right? And so it's true that this cloud was a mystery when it first appeared.

because this is the first time anyone ever saw Cloud like this, okay? But the mystery was very short lived and the scientists and the rocket engineers were very quick to figure out what made this Cloud and others like it.

Yeah. And I think of everything that we're going to mention in this episode, what you just said is probably the most important for somebody who is trying to deprogram from the message because when you hold that Cloud up, it is so embedded in our inner being, from being brainwashed with this stuff.

And you say, no other Cloud looks like this. Immediately, the critical thought is going to be suppressed and people are going to say, well, no, that looks just like the face of Jesus. But take a step back from all of that.

If you had never ever seen this and you're living in today's world, not the world of the 1960s when all of this stuff's in its infancy, in today's world, if you take any school child and you show them, like the example that you had, and I'll put it up on the screen for the video, but the example of the Cloud rings, the new ones that you see commonly.

I mean, it's nothing new to see these things. Well, I've seen them, you know, multiple per year since I've left the message. When a school child sees that today, they'll say, yes, that looks like a rocket blast or something exploded in the sky because it's in a circle because they've not been manipulated to believe that it was seven angels piercing through the sky.

And more to the point, they're not going to look at any of it and say, oh, yeah, that looks just like a pyramid because they weren't manipulated by the initial quote unquote prophecy that five angels would come in the form of a pyramid, which transitions to seven angels in the form of a cloud.

And oh, by the way, this cloud ring that everybody in Arizona saw float across the sky in the form of a cloud ring in a circle, they're not going to say it's a pyramid because it looks nothing like a pyramid.

When you look at this cloud, okay, so there's obviously the big picture that we're all famed, you know, familiar with because when you turn it this way, it looks supposed to look like Jesus, right? But there, there is other pictures, you know, of this cloud in this magazine, and not just here, but in all the others.

And when you look at the other pictures of this, right, it's very clear that it's only a ring Jesus shape from, from this, from this picture's angle, right? All of these other angles, like, for example, you take this, this picture right here, right?

Like it very clearly is kind of more like a U-shaped, right? And it's heading off in that direction, it's very clear that this was produced by something exploding in a particular direction, right? When you look at all of these others, because it's actually not a perfect circle of a, of a cloud ring.

out. Anyway, I think to me, it's just so obvious what made this cloud. And there's even more evidence, right? So, John, if you notice in that letter from the University of Arizona, it mentions that James McDonald, I want to talk about this too, James McDonald had been really troubled by religious fanatics who were trying to say the cloud had been made by angels. Wow. I wonder who that was. I want to make sure our listeners were aware of what happened to James McDonald, right? Certain people from the Tucson Tabernacle, which is Perry Green's Church, were involved in a really nasty harassment campaign against James

McDonald because he refused to go along with the idea that this cloud was made by angels. And Perry Green himself was involved in the harassment campaign, John. And as you come into 1970, James McDonald was going through a rough patch in his life. He had had some setbacks in his career, his wife had left him. And at the same time, he was facing those personal difficulties. These people from the message were conducting a campaign of harassment against him. And James McDonald committed suicide. There was a brother from Sweden, their Switzerland one. I can't remember which one it was. He came to my home out at Grace Ranch

and he went to see Dr. McDonald at the at the University of Arizona. And Dr. McDonald told him he had 87 photographs of that cloud and other clouds. And he mentioned that being two clouds. And then there was a brother from California came to see Dr. McDonald.

And Dr. McDonald told him more or less the same thing. And he, he, Dr. McDonald asked both of them, what is all this religious significance being put on this cloud? There's nothing religious about this. It's just a mystery. We don't have an answer to it. And each time Dr. McDonald called me because they told him, well, if you want to know anything about it, you call Reverend Green. And Dr. McDonald did call me. And I reminded him that we had met on the airplane and over at the bar. Then I met David Davies. He was a newspaper reporter that

lived in Phoenix. And he wanted to feature article in this and sell it to the Phoenix newspaper for their Sunday magazine. He did. He came down and spent time with Dr. McDonald. He interviewed me. And again, they, it was repeated that there was two clouds. And when it was published in the newspaper in Phoenix, distributed all over Arizona, Dr. McDonald got very angry. And he called me and told me, he said, all this is...

superstition. And he even says in the article, Reverend Green should keep the superstition in the 14th century where it belongs. Well, I called Dr. McDonald again and I asked him if the things that the newspaper had quoted him and saying was true and he said, no, they misquoted me. I said, well, is it possible?

They misquoted me. And again, he told me I was just a superstitious preacher. Well, the next thing I heard about Dr. McDonald was that he was in the Veterans Hospital where he had endeavored to commit suicide. And then I heard he'd been released and he had succeeded in committing suicide. And there was going to be a memorial service for him and the Unitarian Church over here on 22nd Street. Brother Sidney Jackson was in town. And I got brother Jackson and brother Morkonda and we went to that memorial service. You can't say that the people in the message are totally responsible for that. But in my book, James

McDonald is one of the many suicides that the message contributed to, right? That hateful harassment that they were doing against him, calling him on the phone, interrupting his interviews, just all of this stuff they were doing, tracking him down at restaurants and stuff to harass him. It's outrageous, right?

And there's a substantial number of people in the message who have committed suicide in the midst of really hateful and nasty harassment campaigns that were carried out by message people. And Perry Green and the Tucson Tabernacle, they absolutely bear some responsibility for the really terrible way that they treated James McDonald. And what's really sick, John, is after he committed suicide, those people actually made a whole lot of hay out of his suicide.

You know, they say, that's his proof he was an evil man because he was possessed by the devil because he would admit this cloud was made by angels, right? That's the way they treated him. And worst of all, Perry Green took a group of people, including Sydney Jackson, who was a polygamist in case you guys didn't know that. And they went to James McDonald's funeral and they mocked and made fun of James McDonald at his own funeral, right? And you can even get Perry Green on tape, bragging about them all doing this, right? And I just want

to make sure everyone knows this happened because people in the message, including key leaders, have engaged in some really ugly, reprehensible behavior, wicked stuff over the years, and they do not hesitate to mercilessly harass anyone who gets in their way.

They don't feel the least bit bad of pushing their victims even towards suicide. And then they celebrate, they actively celebrate when their victims commit suicide. These things happen in the message. It's horrific. You know, and the mental health problem in the message is so significant. I know we've talked about it before, but think about James McDonald. This was during an era whenever there They did not even know the extent of the testing and all of the arms race.

They were preparing for what they thought to be an imminent Russian invasion. And they were building up defenses, especially on the West Coast, because the theory was that Russia was going to send missiles or something in attack from the West Coast.

So they're building up the missile defense system so that they can protect the people in the West. And James McDonald would have had no idea at the time the extent of all of that testing.

And so there were all of these strange occurrences happening. And he believed that they were UFOs. He thought that the Martians had come and they were assessing the Earth for imminent takeover. Whatever was in his head, it was kind of weird.

But it made him the laughing stock of the scientific community because at that time the scientific community knew that something else was going on. They did not think it was UFOs. But James McDonald wanted to know what it was.

And his theory was that something out of earthly control was causing all of these weird cloud formations. Not knowing again are they extent of all of the testing. And so he became somewhat infamous in the scientific community for this.

Well, while he's suffering with being the laughing stock of the scientific community, not only is he dealing with that, now he's got all of this instant pressure from these message people who are like you say just harassing him.

And it's a mental health problem once he enters into the depression, especially from being the laughing stock in the light in the scientific community. Now he's got the additional pressure of the message people who, you know, he knows that the thing it's not an angel, right?

But he can't take both sets of harassment at the same time. It's more than he can bear. And like you said, it resulted in his death. Yeah, terrible. So on February 28th, the day that that rocket was launched from the Vandenberg Air Force Base, later that same day the cloud appeared over Arizona.

And the recorded wind speed was just about perfect to account for the cloud drifting from California to Arizona. The altitude of the cloud matches the same altitude at which the rocket exploded. So from that alone, you could conclude that this cloud was created by the rocket just from that.

But there is more evidence that actually I think seals the deal, I mean, conclusively. So the rocket that was launched from Vanneberg Air Force Base on February 28th was carrying a classified spy satellite into orbit.

And it was not until the 1990s that the government declassified those records. And I want to share this letter here. This letter is from the chief of the Office of History of the United States Air Force.

And in this letter, the Air Force officially confirms that a rocket that they launched on February 28th, 1963, created that cloud. And when they shared this letter, they also sent the requester copies of the declassified launch records, which we also have, that confirm the precise location, the altitude, which the rocket exploded.

And it all aligns perfectly with the appearance of this cloud, right? Same altitude, same everything, wind speed matches, this is the Air Force themselves said, the Air Force themselves said, we made this cloud, okay?

Okay, so the people who launched the rocket, the Air Force said, we made that cloud. But that's not all, John, there's, there's, again, there's even more conclusive evidence. So here's another letter I would like to share.

But in this letter, it's from a man named Aiden Maynell. And Aiden is the engineer who launched the Thor rocket on February 28th, 1963. And he confirms in this letter that the cloud was created by the rocket, he personally helped launch.

And he says that he personally knew the rocket created the cloud the same day it appeared, right? He personally knew that. He confirms he was the person also who shared the launch details with James McDonald, right?

Because it was classified. So how did James McDonald get it? Aiden's the one who gave him the information. So John, it don't get any clearer than this, right? I mean, the guy who launched the rocket says he visibly confirmed his rocket created the cloud.

I mean, he was an eyewitness to what actually made the cloud. And the Air Force was eyewitnesses to what actually made the cloud. And they say they made the cloud, okay? And so I think when you examine all of the evidence, it really does not get any more conclusive.

I don't know how you get more conclusive than this, right? That the cloud was man-made. And what takes your breath away, right? It just takes your breath away. I should say, as a message believer.

Because this means William Brannum was knowingly deceiving us when he said this cloud was made by angels. And it means that every single thing William Brannum told us about this cloud is pure deception.

Do we believe William Brannum was who was out hunting on- that day? Or do we believe the engineer who launched the rockets, right? I'm going to believe the engineer who launched the rocket and said, yeah, my rocket made that cloud.

I'm not going to believe William Brannum, who I can prove wasn't even there that day, right? New what made this cloud. So not only was William Brannum not under this cloud on February 28th, there's not a single thing supernatural about this cloud. This thing is a hoax and William Brannum is perpetrating a hoax. It's shameful. It's really even more shameful is that it's not just William Brannum. There are ministers, there are leaders in the cult who have that same copy that you have. They are aware that this exists and they try to stamp out the questions by saying,

well, there's a government conspiracy. And yes, the government's going to tell us that they created this cloud because they're all working for Satan. You don't want, they don't want you to know that Jesus Christ was looking down through the heavens in the form of seven angels that look like a cloud that was a pyramid to a prophet who was in Texas at the time. They don't, they don't want your mind to go through all of those those really, really difficult hurdles to get to. And so they say this was all a conspiracy, but Charles by that same logic, the way missile testing works,

this was again early in the infancy of this program. They had a lot of failures. They would send up a rocket knowing that it was going to explode. They would send up a rocket and explode it so that the enemy didn't get it. There was a constant creation of clouds. They were generating clouds like no man's business. By that same logic, every other one that the government has declassified and said, yes, this was us. Well, though, were those angels too? I mean, this was not the only cloud. And even during this event, you know, it mentions it in in the same article that William

Brannum held up. It mentions that there was there were two clouds because there were two rockets. We have the declassified launch history and there were two rockets. We have two clouds for the two rockets. And what were the other one was smaller. Charles, were those the little miniature angels? Well, that's a little bit of a rabbit hole, but the Vanneberg Air Force base actually launched more than one rocket that day. And actually the number of clouds matched the number of rockets. Of course, the message only focuses on the one big cloud. It's something else. It

really is something else. And John, it's so outrageous that the William Brannum would betray our trust and confidence with all these made up stories about this cloud. He took advantage of our faith. And he misled us into believing that this cloud was supernatural vindication.

of the opening of the seals, right? I mean, that's what he said in that one quote. This is proof exactly that the revelation is correct. No, it wasn't. It's a story that William Browne made up, right? It's absolutely disgusting, absolutely disgusting, right? The shout, the midnight cry, the separation of the wise and foolish versions come out of her, my people.

All that stuff is predicated on him being underneath this cloud and getting this supernatural commission, right? And it was always that way. And William Browne have said it that way. The message preachers taught it that way, right? They want to revise it now. Sure, go ahead, right?

I mean, but at this point, anybody that's got common sense knows that it's pure deception, right? They just got to revise everything somehow to make it fit once they find out that the supernatural event they built everything on turned out to be a hoax. A lot of people in the message are smart people.

You know, a lot of us, people like you and me, John, we took our time to study the message while we were in it and really understand what our faith was all about, right? And we really believe that our our faith was in the message was founded on certain realities, certain events, these things in 1963 being the most important of all. And we trusted the people who told us these stories.

We trusted them. It's not just William Browneum who betrayed our trust in our faith, but it's also the leaders who have peddled these stories to us after he was gone. Many of them knowing full well these stories were full of holes. I mean, Raymond Jackson figured this stuff out in the early 1990s. And God have mercy. He never told us the truth. God have mercy. He never told us the truth. You know, and very sadly, as we start to investigate these things, you know, we discovered that by and large, this whole thing has been a giant

hoax. And this cloud story is the biggest deception of them all. We realize we have been deceived. And for people who actually have some grasp on reality, I mean, this stuff destroys the message, right? And it's people like us who who are actually waking up, the ones who at least had one foot in reality through all of this, you know, because we see these things and we realize this totally breaks the message, right? You know, I have a preacher friend of mine who's also left the message.

And we had discovered he, when we discovered by and large, this was a hoax, you know, he would, he said to me one time, even as problems came up in the message, which, you know, there's problems in the message, right? He would always say to himself, we still have this cloud, right? We still have the seals. We still have what happened in 1963. And you could put a whole lot on your shelf because it seemed like this stuff from 1963 was iron clad, right? We really thought the face of Jesus appeared in the sky over William Brannum and endorsed this whole thing. We really thought we had

photographs. of that. We thought that the sermons on the seals really were a unique new revelation and nothing was like them anywhere else in the world, right? And we believed all that because that is what William Brannum and the other message preachers told us, right?

We thought we had a very solid grounds for our faith, right? And if you're out there and say, well, you just need to only believe, no, you are a fool. I mean, the Bible says faith comes by here in the Word. If you got faith that is not established on truth, your faith is foolishness. You're a fool. I mean, that's just, it's that simple faith comes by hearing the Word of God, not by made up stories and lies and nothingness, right?

Faith has to be based on something to be legitimate, right? And lo and behold, none of it was true, John. All of this is full of holes, right? And in the end, all we have left to go on is William Brannum's personal testimony. And the proof is overwhelming that his personal testimony is untrue. He was not under this cloud when it appeared February 28th. We have totally conclusive evidence the cloud was man made. And we can find the revelation of the seals word for word as he preached them in books wrote before he was born. This thing is

a total deception. And what we had was not faith. What we had was foolishness as a result of deception. Pain, knife in my heart to this day over this stuff. Yeah. I don't know if you played the game in school Charles where people kids sit in a ring and the teacher whispers something in the ear of one child and that child whispers it to the next and it goes around the room and they try to see how different the story becomes as it emerges from the other side of the room. Well, this that you're describing the face of Jesus in the cloud, this

thing, this cloud thing progressed in such a weird way that there are people and other nations who believe the message of William Brannum, who actually believe that there was a literal face staring down from heaven. And they think that everybody in the United States is completely nuts for not believing because they could look up and see the eyes of Jesus looking down. Well, the progression of this story, and we've talked about it in the previous episode, but I'll talk about it a little bit more. William Brannum claims that he's going west and he's going to he has this vision of seeing five angels in the form of a pyramid.

He goes out west, he does the thing. He's not under the cloud. He's in Houston, goes back haunting, then comes back east. By the time he gets back, it transitions from a pyramid to a, and it was a constellation initially. It was a constellation of five stars. So that constellation and the five transitioned to a cloud of seven. Well, there was a point in time in which this became just fascinating to people in Arizona.

because they all saw it. They all watched it float across the sky. And people were superimposing like faces of Jacqueline Kennedy in this thing. And today we have memes and people share them on Facebook.

Well, back then people would make these funny pictures and then pass them around on paper. And they were putting faces in this thing like Jacqueline Kennedy is looking down from the heavens on us.

Well, if I understand how it happened correctly, somebody took a Xerox copy of the cloud. And it had another face in the stack of papers above it. And so when that was produced, it had what looked like the face of Jesus through the cloud.

But it was basically the effect of something transparent through the paper. And so they could see this hint of a face. And people began spreading this around throughout the message saying that there was a face in the cloud.

And that face grew into, if you go into some of the countries in Africa, for example, you're going to see that they're producing faces of Hoffman's head of Christ in this thing. And they're actually telling people that that is what people in America saw.

Well, it's Hoffman's head of Christ looking through the cloud down at the people over Arizona. And everyone in Arizona is a complete imbecile because how could they deny the face of Jesus staring down at them?

Yeah, you know, that's well put, John. And that is exactly what many people believe. Again, this is an original. Here's the backside. Here's what's on the other side of it. I can pull all of this out here.

I keep it in. I keep it in a glass because these things are gold pretty well to the message, right? So I keep this protected. I could pull this thing out and show you the original, if you guys want to see it, what the original looks like.

But these, this is the original right here, okay? And here's the, right, like, if you notice on the back page of that is a picture of a rainbow. Yeah. And so, you know, Revelation 10.7, the Lord will descend from heaven with the rainbow above his head.

Well, if you, if you time, if you put these back to back, you even get the rainbow over his head, right? So they go revelation. Some people really believe this is the fulfillment of Revelation 10.7.

The Lord descending with the rainbow over his head from the back page. But if you, if you look at this, John, here's the original up very close. There is no facial features at all.

The only thing in this cloud and behind it is sky, okay? There's no pictures and you're exactly right. William Brannum never laid eyes on this cloud until, I believe the month of, I believe the month end of March.

Now, I think it was May, May of, May of 2000, or May of 1963, was the first time he ever saw this cloud. It was when this magazine, was published. Okay. May 17, 1963. Okay.

This is the day. This is when William Brandon finally saw this cloud for the first time. William Brown did not see this cloud on February 28. Okay. Actually, go back and listen through all of his stories. Very carefully.

It's not until after this magazine comes out and they see the picture in this magazine that they then go retrofit this back into the Seven Seals story, right? And when he does that, that's why the timeline don't match up, right?

As he's trying to fit it in in a day, it never happened, you know? And so at any rate, there's, when this happened, the first people who saw it took some photocopies of it, John, and they sent photocopies of it to him to look at. And those original photocopies as they were going around, the face-sulfed features like eyes and a nose somehow appeared. Yeah, in these photocopies that were going back and forth, not in the original, right? It's a result of whatever they were doing and they photocopied those originals. And yeah, and so then that goes everywhere.

And lots of people say, yeah, there's eyes and there was a nose. No, there wasn't. There was not. I mean, I got the originals. There was not. This is totally made up. This is a made-up story that these people come up with, John, right? And anyway, for those of us who actually had a decent grasp on the message, and it's rationale for existing, finding out this stuff from 1963 was a hoax. It just hears the fabric of the message apart, right? And you see a lot of people, John, like me and you, ones who were actually true believers in all this stuff, and who really had a

real solid grasp on what we believed. You know, we're generally the ones that wake up, but very sadly, a whole lot of people in the message. All they have ever had was only beliefism. The facts, the truth, the reality, the evidence, the true rationale of understanding everything they believed, you know, they just, how they ever had was only beliefism, I'm afraid.

And they're going to keep going on with that. And it's so sad because those are the very same kind of people who harassed James McDonald leading up to his suicide, right? Those are the same kind of people that went to his funeral and mocked him. And what's so terrible about all of this is, you know, believing fairy tales is not really a big deal. But when you're killing, and abusing, and raping, and torturing, and driving people to suicide in the name of your fairy tales, that's a problem. And that is what's going on here in some of these sex of the message. Very,

very sadly, that sort of thing has gone on in the message, and it's still going on in some groups to this day. And I think that's why some people perhaps in the message have such hard time come to terms with all of this because for a lot of people coming to terms with the reality that this is all a scam, means that they have to admit that they have been...

engaging in abusive behavior, and all of that abusive, corrupt behavior for all of these years has been totally unjustified. And that can be really hard to live with, and that is the truth as to why I think, especially a lot of people in leadership positions, find it difficult to come to grips with the truth of this.

It's so difficult, because in the scale of truth, we have all of this evidence that clearly shows that this cloud was the result of rockets. And on the other end of the scale that's being completely out of balance, you've got William Brannem's claim that this was the shape of a pyramid, which it was not, five angels that changed into seven angels, a cloud ring that initially was a constellation.

You've got all of these false facts that in the scale of truth just don't stand whatsoever. And for me, the biggest thing here, Charles, is that in a non-cult church, a church that's not covering things up, if there was a scale like this where so much evidence was unsupportive of the statement, the minister is going to say, we believe this thing that could not, is likely untrue.

There's all of this evidence that's supported, but we do believe it, and here's why we believe it, and they preach a sermon on why they believe this thing, that all of the evidence does not support.

But that's not the way it works in the message. They try to suppress every potential question before it surfaces. If somebody does question, they pounce on them, they harass them. If anybody is sharing the critical information, like you and I, they pounce on us, they harass us, constantly harass us.

That's not the way it works in a Christian church. This is a cult church. This is suppression of information. And for me, that in itself is eye-opening. More than anything that we've talked about in this episode, the fact that they try to cover this up suggests very strongly that this is a destructive cult.

Right, John. You know, the way they treat the people who leave is, and they're critics. When I left the message, John, I left quietly. I really did. I left as quietly as possible without many disturbance as possible.

And for one year and a half straight, they harassed me non-stop, John, non-stop harassment when I left the message. You know, because again, I was in a senior leadership position. And I just kept quiet.

You know, the first public thing I ever did, John, is when I come on this podcast with you. But from the moment I left until we started that, they harassed me endlessly, John. And at a certain point, you know, you just got to realize it don't matter what we do.

I mean, they're going to harass me anyway. So I might as well start telling the truth about them all, right? And if you're listening out there you better be afraid because you guys know the stuff I know about you right and you know we haven't even We've only been talking about dead people so far. So you once who are still alive you better be afraid

Anyway, but you know before we before we close this episode out right you know I want to you know just invite again anybody out there with questions feel free emailing questions to us We are going to do a Q&A episode before too much longer and we'd be glad to try and answer any questions that you that you want to send in to us um but There's so many rabbit holes you can go down with this stuff John um with the clouds and the seals This is the third episode we've done on this topic honestly and we we haven't even covered half of what could be said about 1963

But we we have definitely so far covered the essential elements William Brannum was not out hunting that day that he said he was The cloud is not supernatural And the sermon on the seven seals was not unique. It's just a restatement of other men's ideas So 1963 is totally debunked with just what we've put here so far the midnight cry did not happen The shout did not happen William Brannum never got a commission to preach the seven seals the seals were not opened in 1963 Certainly not in the manner uh that was taught by the message and the message is built on all of those ideas

You take those away. There is no message. You got to begin. There is no message. You take those away The message has been built on syncing sand and William Brannum perpetrated one of his giant largest hoaxes in 1963 and there's still some things I think are worth mentioning So we're going to have to do another episode on 1963 after this one you on I think so But let me give out some plugs if you want more information on this topic there are lots of good resources online John your website has tons of information for deeper research

um Believe the sign has some good articles if you want to go to my website christiangospelchurch.org. There's some tracks there I think actually the single best Topic or article out there on this article or on this topic that I know of is actually William Brannum. EU That website is managed by some ex-message friends in europe They have a terrific timeline on all this stuff around the cloud. So you know check that out It translates to english. There's if you use google chrome. There's a translate to english option And on youtube there is a three-part documentary series called road to sunset

There are youtube channel is christ the solid rock. So if you search that on youtube road to sunset christ the solid rock you'll find that docky series It is very well done and it's something great to check out if you want more information Um, and if you want some print material um Brian's small's book is probably the best one currently in print With a fair bit not all not even all the evidence we've talked about here But he's got a good bit of that in his book and You know if you think about all of those people we're talking about creating all those things right

That's a very good evidence that there is a thriving community of people all over over the world who have left the message, who are working to share the truth about these things, and leaving the message is not easy. But there is community to be found on the other side. And, John, I'd like to say, and I say it a lot, our prophet turned out to be fake, but it's good thing Jesus is still real. And if you leave the message, you can still be a follower of Jesus if you want to be.

If you've enjoyed our show and you want more information, you can check us out on the web. You can find us at William-Branum.org and Christian-GospelChurch.org. For an overview of the historical research of William Branum and the healing revivals, read preacher behind the white hoods, a critical examination of William Branum in his message, available on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible. Join us again next week. We've got a great episode coming.