and Russian governments, the channeling claimed that the space forces had assisted the planet to survive the bomb tests. Ashtar Command As the weekly channeling sessions at Giant Rock continued through the early 1950s, the concept of an "Ashtar Command" was appropriated for use by a number of prominent early contactees and channelers, based on the figure of Ashtar, originally promoted by Van Tassel. Robert Short (AKA Bill Rose), editor of the 1950s UFO magazine "Interplanetary News Digest", was a member of Van Tassel's group. He began to popularise the messages, but as Van Tassel did not agree that other Ashtar messages were authentic, Short broke away and began his own group called "Ashtar Command". By the mid-1950s, the concept of Ashtar and a galactic law enforcement agency preparing an imminent rescue of humanity had become well-established, and included various well-known, esoteric channelers of the era. For instance, Elouise Moeller predicted that a space fleet would arrive in the near future; and Adelaide J Brown claimed that flourishing civilisations existed on the other planets in the solar system. However, as time and scientific knowledge progressed, the public failure of these predictions had an enormous negative impact on the expansion of the Ashtar Command movement due to the lack of a central authority that could undertake damage control. Although Robert Short had spent a lot of time promoting the Ashtar message, he was neither the leader nor the only interpreter, as by this time dozens of Ashtar channelers were presenting conflicting messages. Derivation of the Ashtar movement With the advent of UFO religions, "Ascended Masters" from the esoteric teachings have been described as reappearing in space suits. The space concept was not entirely new however, as the more arcane teachings of Theosophy contained references to extraterrestrial masters. The concept of the Ascended Master is particularly clear in the Ashtar teachings. The very word "ashtar" appears in Helena Blavatsky's The Secret Doctrine (1888). However, this reference is to the Sanskrit term ashtar-vidya, meaning the technology of advanced warfare of the type mentioned in the Mahabharata. According to Helland, the initial account of the Ashtar message as channeled through Van Tassel was not a spiritual message as such but "an early contact account between extraterrestrials and humankind." It focused on intervention in human scientific development, and came from a real technological space being on an urgent interstellar undertaking. However, throughout the 1950s and