Philip Taylor Kramer
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Philip Taylor Kramer (July 12, 1952 - February 12, 1995) was a bass guitar player for the rock group Iron Butterfly during the 1970s. After this he obtained a night school degree in aerospace engineering, worked on missile guidance systems for a contractor of the US Department of Defense and later in the computer industry. His disappearance on February 12, 1995 caused a mystery lasting four years.
[edit] Total Multimedia
Kramer and his father had been working together with their company Total Multimedia on a data compression and transmission project which Kramer apparently believed could result in faster-than-light speed communications (their work also involved a long-running family effort to discredit Albert Einstein's theories). Moreover, Kramer thought he was in contact with extra-terrestrial aliens. A bankruptcy re-organization of his company resulted in the hiring of a former MCI Communications vice president, Peter Olson, who turned out to be an enthusiastic New Age practitioner who believed himself to be half human and half alien. Olson paid a Paraguayan shaman named Arbenre $30,000 to "cleanse" the "negative" energy from the corporate offices and give business advice based on his psychic powers.
Olson is said to have made The Celestine Prophecy "virtual required reading" at the company and Kramer became heavily influenced by Olson and his perceived spiritual gifts. Meanwhile Kramer's personality seemed to change. He became depressed and paranoid, believing people were plotting to steal his work. He told an associate, "We have to get off the planet."
[edit] Death
On February 12, 1995 he drove to Los Angeles International Airport to pick up an investor in his again failing company but failed to make the appointment or return home. Kramer did make a flurry of cell phone calls, including one to the police during which Kramer said, "I’m going to kill myself. And I want everyone to know O.J. Simpson is innocent. They did it."
Some people close to Kramer, and his company believe that the O.J. Simpson comment was reference to a conversation which took place in Colorado Springs where one of the attendees predicted O.J. Simpson's innocence.
He was never heard from again. This led to a massive search and many news reports, talk show segments (including an episode of The Oprah Winfrey Show) and even an episode on Unsolved Mysteries some years later.
There was wild speculation, fueled by his longtime friend and Iron Butterfly co-founder Ron Bushy, that agents from the United States government had abducted Kramer. Bushy, who had been talking with Kramer about a reunion tour for the band, told the Union Tribune, "I honestly believe that he has been abducted by our government or an agency that is part of it or maybe a foreign government or a company." Ohio Democrat Rep. James Traficant is reported to have said, "Someone may have grabbed him," suggesting he might have been brainwashed by terrorists for "nefarious purposes."
On May 29, 1999, Kramer's minivan and skeletal remains were found by photographers looking for old car wrecks to shoot at the bottom of Decker Canyon near Malibu, California. Based on forensic evidence and Kramer's emergency call to the police, his death was ruled as a probable suicide committed on the day on which he was last heard.
