Question

[james_davis_nicoll]

Can anyone tell me anything about the Ocean Living Institute, which I believe was active in the 1970s and whether or not there were two companies or more by that name at that time?

Comments

[agent-mimi.livejournal.com]

What I found was really long so I cut and pasted it into my own journal, it might be of some use.

ETA: Links here and here, but they're friends-only, just FYI for anyone else who happens to click on them.

[rainbow.livejournal.com]

There was a book "Sea City" published by the OLI out of Arlington, NJ. And there was the pedophile ring that "Adam Starchild" was associated with that the same name is linked to.

And it looks like they're the same people/person.

Undercurrents 10 Mar-Apr 1975 (http://www.scribd.com/doc/8832354/Undercurrents-10-March-April-1975), pages 8-9 has this blurb:

A LIFE 'NEATH THE OCEAN WAVE? IF LIFE amid the polluted atmosphere of planet Earth is getting too much for you, don't despair. An 'Ocean Living Institute' has been formed to promote research into "independent, selfsufficient forms of community living on the ocean". It will encourage "individuals and business firms to fund the construction and operation of oceanbased industries", and serve as "a clearinghouse for ocean living contacts". Information will be published on legal and other aspects of oceanic settlement, and on new concepts in oceanography, aquaculture, and oceanic settlement. The Institute says it will also "conduct tests on new concepts and devices". Including, we hope, a technique to enable 'independent, selfsufficient' ocean dwellers to exist without imports of oxygen. Further information from the Ocean Living Institute, c/o Adam Starchild, 23 River Road, North Arlington, New Jersey 07032"

eta: if you have a newspapers.com subscription, there are several newspaper articles from the 70s about Adam Starchild, etc. I can only see the OCR versions, and some are hard to make out. But I can pm them to you if you like.

[beamjockey.livejournal.com]

I see ads for it placed in Space World, Saturday Review, The Commercial Fish Farmer & Aquaculture News, Technology Review, Sierra Club Bulletin, Catalyst, and Galaxy.

Some of the ads say this:

One of the first projects will be an anthology tentatively titled, Ocean Living — The New Frontier, which will include articles on underwater habitats, aquaculture, ocean architecture, and ocean law.

I don't think that ever happened. Did it?

[carloshasanax.livejournal.com]

Let's review:

The Ocean Living Institute was named in a Senate hearing as a front for the sexual exploitation of children and a tax dodge by someone in a sister corporation.

There are four individuals who can be identified as members of this corporation. Three others have denied it; two of those are dead.

The incorporator of the Ocean Living Institute, Adam Starchild, born Malcolm Willis McConahy, was a pedophile and felon who left the United States following a prison term. He is probably dead.

Dyer Grossman was an officer of the Ocean Living Institute. He disappeared in 1976/7 due of his involvement in the North Oak Island child pornography ring, becoming the subject of an FBI manhunt. His current status is unknown.

Francis D. Shelden was a wealthy financial backer of the Ocean Living Institute. He was central to the North Oak Island child pornography ring, and despite an FBI manhunt, he successfully fled the United States to the Netherlands, where he established a new identity as "Frank Torey", a pedophilia advocate. He's dead.

Jerry Pournelle, the science fiction writer, was by his own statements an active board member of the Ocean Living Institute.

Yeesh.