Investigations

Darryl Anka's staff ejected All Gas No Brakes crew from Sedona event

All Gas No Brakes correspondent Taji entered despite a no-filming rule; host Andrew Callaghan already holds a lifetime ban from Bashar gatherings.

In Sedona, Arizona, All Gas No Brakes correspondent Taji infiltrated a Darryl Anka channeling event held at a high school campus after organizers barred filming. Staff ordered the crew out when cameras stayed up, and one attendee threatened a lawsuit. Channel 5 with Andrew Callaghan posted the field report on Oct. 16, 2026.

For 34 years Anka has performed as Bashar, an extraterrestrial persona he says speaks through him in an altered state. Followers pay hundreds of dollars for live sessions. Attendees at this weekend's Intergalactic Download said general admission ran about $300 and VIP packages reached $450 to $500. Anka's team has advertised a Sedona transmission next summer with conference tickets near $1,700.

Taji said he would go in without a press pass while a colleague who already had a wristband stayed close at the door. Staff checked bands and at least one worker looked at his companion and waved them through anyway. Inside, Anka shifted voice and posture when the Bashar persona took over, and the crowd cheered.

Three staff members told the crew filming was not allowed. A woman identified on tape as Desiree ordered them off the property and refused a request to stay as a paid guest without recording. The crew disengaged. Taji said Bashar followers and staff were more hostile than at other subcultures he had covered.

Callaghan said he could not attend this year's download because Anka's organization banned him for life from all Bashar and Darryl Anka events. He said that ban followed covert filming at the Conscious Life Expo in Los Angeles a few years earlier, when he approached Anka without a ticket and recorded their exchange.

At that expo Anka declined to summarize an hour-and-a-half session and said Bashar does not speak English. Callaghan said the interaction still included practical advice about confidence.

Outside the auditorium a flutist played for a field meditation as hundreds gathered. Attendees described guided visualizations, meet-and-greets with Anka rather than Bashar, and paid staff working the floor in cash. Callaghan compared the following to earlier channeling subcultures Louis Theroux documented in the 1990s, including ticketed trance sessions and trance speakers who mixed belief with income.

Staff removed the crew after repeated warnings. Callaghan said the lifetime ban from Bashar events still applied to him after the Los Angeles recording.

Source video: Bashar's Alien Cult