Part 74: Scientology as a Cult Movement – Rolling with the Squirrel Squad to End a Religion

Published January 31, 2024

An LAPD sergeant working an extra shift at the Church of Scientology of the Valley speaks with anti-Scientology protesters (GoPro Hero 11 Black).

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By Zachary Ellison, Independent Journalist

The Scientologists obviously don’t want us there, they’ve been blasting “Flag Is Here” for at least a few solid hours as the Los Angeles Police Department Officers stand guard at the entrance to the Church of Scientology of the Valley in North Hollywood. These aren’t the same cops from Hollywood Division though who recently arrested YouTuber ex-Scientologist Aaron Smith-Levin resulting in an announcement several days later of an Internal Affairs investigation. The music is an attempt to create copyright complaints against those streaming by claiming infringement on the basis of reproduction.

The Church of Scientology is estimated to have about 40,000 members, but its presence in greater Los Angeles and particularly the Hollywood area is substantial consisting of 4 major facilities as well as support buildings and residences. The protests that began weeks ago resulted evidently from one of the organization’s street recruiters insulting well-known activist William Gude, better known by his handle FilmThePoliceLA. Gude who lost his son to gun violence in South Los Angeles was insulted, and so joined by social media influencer Jessica Palmadessa and the “Squirrel Squad” they set out to protest.

Along with other ex-Scientologist influencers most notably Lara Anderson, who goes by Lara FM, and Serge Del Mar they have set out to shine a spotlight on the secretive group and in doing so created a movement that to some is controversial. If you ask me though, it’s not quite like Rolling Stone journalist EJ Dickson portrayed if you stick around and dig a little deeper, because what’s better than one good story for any journalist, two! I’m the only identifiable journalist around for at the least last week. I don’t blame these people for feeling just a little let down by the well-known publication, and skeptical of the media overall.

Most people don’t trust journalists these days, in fact, what people increasingly seem to want is confirmation bias, that the views they hold will be confirmed by “news reporters” and stripped of any analytical power that might help to expose a longer-term problem. For example, the rampant stalking that Scientology is alleged to engage in against those who leave the group and critics. So there I’m at jokingly what I called “Scientology Prom” and there are many buses, “motherships” as they’ve been popularized as across social media, and a real woman comes up to me to share her own story.

Her curly redhead shakes as she earnestly tells me, “Oh, thank God, a journalist, you’re the journalist that I’ve heard about, I want to tell you about my story leaving and how these people have been stalking me.” She goes on to tell me that after leaving the group, they’ve verbally harassed her, gotten her utilities turned off and one man has even come to her car banging on her window to threaten her into silence. It doesn’t seem to work, and I point my TikTok stream away from her to protect her identity. She just wants her story told a little bit, I give out my contact information, more days pass by and I can’t blame her for being scared.

I don’t think it’s a trick. The cult is known for being tricky, as well as elusive, and even as they welcome in the public to learn about Dianetics, the 1952 book written by founder L. Ron Hubbard presented as a form of therapy first beginning two years prior. We’ve talked a lot about this group, but at its core the notion is that traumatic events cause “engrams” in the mind that can only be removed through “auditing.” Once you’ve had that done, you’re declared by the auditor to be “clear” and adherents can take part in Operating Thetan levels for more money.

Critics call it a scam, but it’s a fairly popular and powerful scam, attracting celebrities including most famously Tom Cruise and John Travolta. This is the celebrity face and appeal that the Church leverages to mainstream its brand of belief and conduct its secretive activities. Widely un-discussed today, Scientology launched “Operation Snow White” during the 1970s to purge negative records about its founder and the group. So Scientology set out to infiltrate the U.S. Government including targeting the U.S. Internal Revenue Service including wiretapping and theft of documents. 11 people, including Hubbard’s 3^rd wife, were convicted of felonies including obstruction of justice.

Now even as the group has sought to steal and suppress information including in private organizations opposed to them, they also sought to keep their texts secret from most followers and are only revealed after followers pay thousands of dollars. Now widely available online thanks to Wikileaks, we know that they involve an alien named Xenu who was a planetary ruler 70 million years ago bringing billions of aliens to Earth before killing them with thermonuclear weapons. There’s more to it, but that’s the basic salvation myth of the group and it’s widely ridiculed including on occasion by opponents as well as in popular culture.

That’s far off though from what’s going on nightly at L. Ron Hubbard way just off Sunset Boulevard at the so-called “Blue Building” complex, a former hospital, that bears the groups sign atop its large, unusually dark and pretty creepy building. There’s a metal statue of a lion that was apparently was intended to be a tiger. The recruiters are long gone from Hollywood Boulevard where the buildings location at Ivar Street was the previous center of protest shutting down the groups street recruiting operation, the testing center for the group where they used to pull people in for a video pitch on Dianetics and its supposed benefits.

Among these benefits of associating with the group is the idea of celebrity, and of being successful beyond belief like its headliners, but for the most part, the people I see whizzing out of the parking lot at the “Blue Building” look like monied professionals. They don’t stop, and they don’t want to talk. Intermixed are workers for the group performing interior construction and maintenance within the complex that has the most oddly placed and designed security cameras including around the full perimeter. Anderson isn’t allowed to see her parents within the buildings residential section, known as “the Horseshoe” along Fountain Avenue adjacent to a bustling Middle Eastern restaurant.

The customers ignore us, and sometimes the neighbors walk their dogs. That night at “Scientology Prom” in NOHO, I had finally managed to come close one of the members of the group who clearly are trying avoid the protestors, the man managing the buses, and so finally after several hours, I was late, a bus pulls up, and young Scientologists, all white, come out of the Church complex and enter the bus in single file taking their seats as protestors yell and one shines a flashlight at the bus. It pulls away, and later we have a vibrant discussion as a group with a kind LAPD sergeant who readily talks with us and debates the 1^st Amendment right to protest with a woman in wheelchair who after a while asks him, “are you married?”

The LAPD sergeant laughs. We have a conversation about stalking prevention, and later Palmadessa goes to the police station to report one man who has been sending her threatening text messages for weeks. Her stream wants her to be safe, and I do too, as a journalist I never want to see the people willing to work with me to tell a story to be in danger, doing so would be unethical. She live streams the whole thing as usual. That night I go back to the Blue Building after a single protestor is there, and a 22 degree moon halo forms over the building, exhausted I finally sit along one of the numerous metal benches along L. Ron Hubbard Way with its outdoor eating area reserved for high-ranking Scientologists during the day.

He tells me that this is his first time protesting anything. That he’s gone from like zero to sixty and been out to 6:00 am running the streets of Hollywood against the cult. They’ve slashed his car tires, and I believe him, even as others on social media question the occurrence of this due to the lack of video evidence presented. There’s hardly anyone else on Sunset Boulevard at that time of night, I walk over to check his tires, they’re new looking and the car is fancy, I go back to my car, all good. Despite many predictions, it thankfully hasn’t happened yet to me, and even as I get there’s a skepticism about the retaliation. I’ve now seen two fake calls to the Los Angeles Fire Department called for both overdoses and heart attacks.

The City Attorney’s office did not return request to comment. On the first call, one of the firefighters shakes his head at me for filming, at the game. The second time, behind Jimmy Kimmel Live as we await Scientologist actress Elizabeth Moss, I press the firefighter to report the fake call to his superior. He looks back at me, like “are you serious?” I tell him again, the fake emergency calls need to stop because they take away resources from people with actual emergencies. Palmadessa looks earnest, and nods a little in agreement, she’s tired of it too, and as the most public face perhaps taking the most risk. Public servants are taught to treat people with care, but human kindness is something we all should possess!

I’ve now received the promised resources on Stalking from the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office Victims Services Bureau from their January 24, 2024 community provider forum, but they have great applicability for those who simply wish to learn more about stalking and how to prevent and counter its occurence:

Link to the recorded video of the webinar on Vimeo:

SPARC – Stalking Prevention Awareness Resource Center: https://www.stalkingawareness.org/

Link for risk assessment and safety planning: https://www.stalkingawareness.org/risk-and-safety/

Foundation RA - Foundation Ra is a survivor led, registered 501(c)3 nonprofit organization that supports children, women and men that are victims of online image-based sexual abuse: https://foundationra.com/

This is the free link with all the places to opt out: https://www.lifewire.com/remove-personal-information-from-internet-3482691

Or they can pay for this service: https://joindeleteme.com/

I hope that these resources will help whether you’ve been a victim of stalking by Scientology or in other circumstances. Please know that there are specialized units and detectives that can help put a check on this behavior, and that in Los Angeles County this is taken seriously. It’s important that you document being stalked as much as possible, and that you take that evidence with you to a police station to make a report. If you do not trust your local law enforcement, please contact another local agency or the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

It's absolutely true that Scientology goes out of its way to seek alliances with law enforcement, so if this is you in Hollywood, and if law enforcement has in the past failed you, please contact me, and I hope to hear more stories. Scarily enough, the stalking victim who approached me reported that Scientology had even gone as far as sending men in fake police uniforms to her apartment door to intimidate her into silence. For those who leave the Church, we have to do more to shield them from such behavior and expose the full truth about how those who choose to leave are targeted.

If this is you, please contact me confidentially via email at zachary.b.ellison@gmail.com or on my cell phone 310-415-4253 including using Signal or WhatsApp. I’ll be back out tonight, because the story that made Rolling Stone just the tip of the iceberg. The lessons that have been learned about the power of social media, and especially Sebastian the Scientology Street Recruiter are simply a vehicle for  larger story about an organization, that’s practices verge on being illegal, when I’m asked to describe what this all sounds like to me, it’s simply organized crime, racketeering. The operation of venues to market a product and the use of threats and violence to protect their branding.

Proving that case, taking away Scientology’s tax exemption to weaken it financially, will take time, and more voices, but for now the protests have seriously disrupted their operation despite their relatively small scale by Los Angeles standards. So I hope you’ll support this movement, and brave journalists like me willing to cover it in writing, and do the hard work of investigation and reporting, because good investigations take time, they don’t happen overnight, and it takes a combination of pressure as well as resources. If you like what I’m doing, Subscribe and Support!

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Zachary Ellison is an Independent Journalist and Whistleblower in the Los Angeles area. Zach was most recently employed by the University of Southern California, Office of the Provost from October 2015 to August 2022 as an Executive Secretary and Administrative Assistant supporting the Vice Provost for Academic Operations and the Vice Provost and Senior Advisor to the Provost among others. Zach holds a Master’s in Public Administration and a Graduate Certificate in Sustainable Policy and Planning from the USC Sol Price School of Public Policy. While a student at USC, he worked for the USC Good Neighbors Campaign including on their newsletter distributed university-wide. Zach completed his B.A. in History at Reed College, in Portland, Oregon and was a writer, editor, and photographer for the Pasadena High School Chronicle. He was Barack Obama’s one-millionth online campaign contributor in 2008. Zach is a former AmeriCorps intern for Hawaii State Parks and worked for the City of Manhattan Beach Parks and Recreation. He is a trained civil process server, and enjoys weekends in the great outdoors.