Shiva outside the CERN facility
“I’m A Physicist at CERN and We’ve Done Something We Shouldn’t Have Done.” — Dr. Edward Mantill
You’re thinking, WTF? And, you’re intrigued, right? Of course, especially when you come across a YouTube video with over 5 million views, with a provocative title. If you dig a little deeper, you’ll find that Swiss-based CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, houses the Large Hadron Collider that physicists use to answer deeper questions about the cosmos. In the collider, subatomic particles zoom around and smash into each other at the speed of light in an almost 20-mile long electromagnetic racetrack, recreating conditions of the universe. This is where “science is knocking on heaven’s door,” according to a Harvard physicist.
And on this viral video posted by Paranoid Times, Dr. Mantill’s story takes on even more intrigue when you realize that the LHC is possibly the world’s largest and most expensive time machine. Using a spiffy time machine and doing something you shouldn’t have brings to mind all sorts of speculation — did they answer some existential questions by crossing over into another dimension or making contact? What did happen?
In the video, Dr. Mantill, who reportedly specializes in particle and subatomic research, focusing on quark interactions, alleges that “CERN’s main purpose for building the Collider was to, well, it was to open a doorway. Allow me to explain..."
That and its title, “I’m A Physicist at CERN and We’ve Done Something We Shouldn’t Have Done,” grabbed indie filmmaker Patrick Cheh’s always curious attention. He’s now optioned the story from Paranoid Times’ Denny Randall, and through Cheh’s WakingUp Media, a “conscious lifestyle” media company, he plans to turn this “CERN” idea into a movie and/or television project.
Cheh has produced a dozen films, as diverse as The Watcher, starring Keanu Reeves, a number one at the box office, Steven Seagal’s The Patriot and Crossing, South Korea’s official entry in the 2008 Academy Awards Best Foreign Film category.
Filmmaker Cheh helped produce Oscar nominated Crossing
Another Cheh-produced movie
The Watcher starring Keanu Reeves
But his focus more recently has been on filmed projects that “produce ‘organic’ food for the mind that’s commercial, entertaining and thought-provoking.” He notes that with the release of the recent blockbuster movie, Blade Runner 2049 and also Dan Brown’s new novel, “Origin,” that there’s a focus on asking existential questions, including: in Brown’s “Origin,” billionaire futurist Edmond Kirsch is about to unveil a discovery that “will change the face of science forever”; in the original Blade Runner, Deckard succinctly notes, “All he'd wanted were the same answers the rest of us want. Where did I come from? Where am I going? How long have I got?”; and the new Blade Runner 2049, continues asking these questions as a long-buried secret threatens to throw society into chaos.
Cheh notes that past sci-fi blockbuster movies have also posed these essential questions: 2016’s Arrival asks what our purpose is here; Avatar asks what is identity; and, The Matrix deals with another fundamental question —what is reality? Producer Cheh suggests that this enigmatic “CERN” project deals with many of these same questions.
Genial Cheh has gone through his own existential crises going from Hollywood producer of multi-million dollar movies to bankruptcy, seeing his own reality being shaken up...but, becoming the wiser for it.
With his family close, filmmaker Patrick Cheh has survived his own existential crises
Cheh now enthusiastically explains:
The CERN/physicist Mantill story is absolutely riveting, and my plan is to make a commercial project that can be seen by the widest audience possible while waking up people to different and alternate possibilities. I’ve been fascinated — who wouldn’t be about CERN and its science — and also captivated by Paranoid Times’ videos, as they provide amusement while also providing kernels of truth that might be too hard to swallow if not coated with the sweetness of entertainment.
Paranoid Times’ Denny Randall, who was inspired by the sounds of his grandmother concocting stories for Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine on her Remington manual typewriter, explains how he came onto this thrilling CERN story:
My grandmother once told me you’re not a writer until you write your own version of Mary Shelley’s ‘Frankenstein,’ a story that amazes the writer, intrigues the reader, stimulates conversation and thought. And, quite by chance I stumbled onto the CERN story, and Dr. Edward Mantill was born. Everyone loves a good conspiracy, whether fiction or containing some grains of truth, so I coined the term ‘conspiracy fiction.’ Paranoid Times is a writer’s dream, helping me bring my stories to light, and maybe readers can pick up something or find out more about the mysteries that surround us all. A physicist at CERN, simply put, is the way I view ‘Alice’ and ‘Wonderland’ — from a little box, one with tiny holes. As I write each new story, I can feel my grandmother’s long fingers on my shoulder, and whispering in my ear… some questions are better left unanswered. But, I was never one that listened.
While there’s amusing ambiguity around Mantill — is he dead, was he real, or just an avatar or tool — CERN is very real and has plans to build a super collider that would be 60 miles around and collide protons at 100 trillion electron volts. What happens at those speeds and energy levels is an ongoing mystery that is pregnant with possibility — what exactly are they using that expensive “time machine” for, and that’s what producer Cheh is aiming for.