Seeming to offer explanation for why the vessel of Star Trek: Voyager became so irrevocably stranded, Kate Mulgrew—best known as that show’s Captain Janeway—has lent her familiar voice to The Principle, an upcoming documentary about the belief that the Earth is the center of the universe. The film has been in the works for a while, though it’s mostly been as ignored as those who have propagated the theory of Geocentrism past the 17th century.


But that’s all changed with the release of a trailer that finds Mulgrew’s familiar voice intoning, “Everything we think we know about our universe is wrong,” before a montage of physicists offers vaguely articulated assessments of how unique our planet is, seemingly in support of the idea that everything must therefore revolve around it. Some of them stand before whiteboards with calculations written on them. The evidence is compelling.

However, one of those physicists, Lawrence Krauss, has already come forward to say he has no idea how he ended up in this stupid Geocentrism documentary. In his Slate article, titled “I Have No Idea How I Ended Up In That Stupid Geocentrism Documentary,” Krauss claims that producers must have taken clips of him that were in the public domain, purchased the rights to them from some other production company, or simply deceived him as to what their project was about—a misrepresentation that he sees no need to sue over, lest it “elevate the profile of something that shouldn’t even rise to the level of popular discussion.” Unfortunately, Captain Janeway is in it, so here we are.




But according to Mulgrew, she too was misled. In a post on her Facebook page, the actress addressed that discussion, denying any involvement beyond being a hired gun who maybe should have asked a few more questions:

I understand there has been some controversy about my participation in a documentary called THE PRINCIPLE. Let me assure everyone that I completely agree with the eminent physicist Lawrence Krauss, who was himself misrepresented in the film, and who has written a succinct rebuttal in SLATE. I am not a geocentrist, nor am I in any way a proponent of geocentrism. More importantly, I do not subscribe to anything Robert Sungenis has written regarding science and history and, had I known of his involvement, would most certainly have avoided this documentary. I was a voice for hire, and a misinformed one, at that. I apologize for any confusion that my voice on this trailer may have caused. Kate Mulgrew


Should Mulgrew and Krauss’ accusations of misrepresentation be true, they certainly wouldn’t be the first levied against The Principle’s creator and principal voice, Robert Sungenis, who has spent years arguing for Geocentrism through his website and book, Galileo Was Wrong. (Reviews with randomly capitalized words say, “If Evolution is the Trunk and Limbs of the TREE of LIES about Origins, then Heliocentrism was and is the rotten ROOT and foundation of that Satanically inspired ‘science, falsely so-called.’” Others are somewhat less fervent.) It wouldn’t even be the first time Krauss has made one; he’s on record as refuting Sungenis as far back as 2006.

Sungenis—who has a Ph.D. in religious studies from “a private distance-learning institution in Republic of Vanuatu”—has used those credentials to establish a career as a leading proponent of Geocentrism, based on an understanding of astrophysics drawn from that most esteemed of scientific manuals, the Bible. In addition to denying anyone can prove the Earth revolves around the sun, he’s also well known for denying anyone can prove 6 million Jews died during the Holocaust. He’s also claimed that Jews are in league with Satan to take over the planet. Robert Sungenis has a lot of ideas about things.


In The Principle trailer, Sungenis can be seen floating another conspiracy theory—one that posits that everything revolves around Robert Sungenis—saying, “You can go on some websites of NASA to see that they’ve started to take down stuff that might hint to a Geocentric universe.” Indeed, if you search for Geocentric websites that have been removed, you won’t find them; in the absence of evidence, it’s your faith that tells you NASA did it.

It’s unknown as of yet what sort of theory Sungenis will concoct to explain why even the people in his documentary are immediately decrying it. In the meantime, it remains irrefutable scientific fact that the best Star Trek captain is Jean-Luc Picard.