By David Wharton | 6 years ago

UPDATE: Find out what Mulgrew had to say about her part in the documentary right here.

One of the great things about Star Trek over the years is that it’s helped inspire passion for science in fans both young and old. So it makes sense that various Trek actors have lent their talents to films and programs promoting astronomy, biology, math — you name it. But one place I never expected to run across Star Trek: Voyager’s Kate Mulgrew was narrating a trailer for a movie arguing for a geocentric model of the universe. As in “the Earth is the center of the universe and everything else revolves around it.” Yeah.

The trailer above is for an upcoming documentary called The Principle, and opens with Mulgrew making the rather ballsy assertion that “Everything we know about our universe is wrong.” From there, it seems to be making the case for so-called Intelligent Design, specifically for the notion that humans were specially created by God. So, simple enough: it’s another creationist/theist/Intelligent Design movie, the sort of thing you’ll see roll though theaters and sell out to church crowds every now and then. But if you dig a little deeper then the film’s geocentric thesis becomes clear. As best as we can tell, this whole “we’re the center of the universe” thing is being presented not as metaphor, but as literal, actual, geographical fact.

As nutty as that possibility might seem, The Principle was bankrolled by a guy who believes just that. As reported by Raw Story, one of the people behind The Principle is “ultra-conservative and anti-Semitic Robert Sungenis,” who also runs the bluntly named Galileowaswrong.com. Honestly, I’m not sure which aspect disturbs me more, but my initial thought after watching the trailer and reading Raw Story’s report was that Mulgrew must have been hired on without knowing exactly what she was lending her voice to. Right?

Unfortunately, we tried to reach Mulgrew for comment, but had no luck. When we called her one-time publicist Andy Snider, we were told he no longer represents her. A call to her representatives at Viking Talent Management will hopefully prove more productive — they seemed a bit shocked when we told them what our story was about, but they promised they would call back. We’ll let you know if they do.

The Principle is due for theatrical release sometime in 2014. You can learn more on the film’s Facebook page, and you can read Sungenis’ description of the film in his own words in this forum post. Finally, here’s the official description for The Principle: