The Original Star Trek Was Actually Sending Coded Messages To Viewers
Star Trek is an intrinsic part of pop culture now, something everyone in the Western world has heard of. But it almost never made it to the small screen at all. Gene Roddenberry, the show’s creator, wanted to push the boundaries of Star Trek way further than the networks would allow. So when the show eventually did air, it contained multiple hidden messages — ones he hoped would help shape the future.
Flight
Before he created Star Trek, Roddenberry was a military pilot who served in World War II. He won two medals for his service: the Air Medal and the Distinguished Flying Cross. You can see how this feeds into Star Trek, a show in which every single character is essentially “flying” through space, albeit in the safety of the Starship Enterprise.
Plane crash
And Roddenberry very much knew the dangers of flying, because before he wrote Star Trek he was in a major plane crash that he was lucky to survive. Following the war, he’d become a commercial pilot, and in 1947 he was working on board Pan Am Flight 121 when it suffered a malfunction and began plummeting to the ground. Thirty-six souls were on board.
The burning wreckage
We can only ever guess at what was going through Roddenberry’s head as the plane smashed into the unforgiving ground. But we do know that as soon as he crawled out of the wreckage, he and other survivors set about pulling people from the burning plane. Against all odds, Roddenberry was able to save many, though the last person he tried to rescue passed away while he was carrying them to safety.
Heroes
It’s easy to see how such a traumatic life experience could have inspired aspects of Star Trek. Though the story of the Pan Am crash is a tragic one, it’s also a tale of heroism, as Roddenberry and others risked their lives to bring people out of the blazing aircraft.
