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She Captained a Starship on ‘Voyager’ and Runs a Tough Prison Kitchen on ‘Orange Is the New Black,’ But Actress Kate Mulgrew Says She Was Duped Into Taking Part in Controversial Documentary

Apr 9, 2014  •  Post A Comment

The actress who captained a Starfleet ship in "Star Trek: Voyager" and runs a tough prison kitchen in "Orange Is the New Black" says she was duped into becoming involved with a new documentary that claims the Earth is the center of the universe.

TheWrap.com reports that Kate Mulgrew, who provides narration on a trailer for the film, took to Facebook to let fans know she was a “voice for hire, and a misinformed one” on the project, "The Principle."

Mulgrew’s voice is heard at the start of the trailer, when she says, “Everything we think we know about our universe is wrong.” The film promises to introduce “new discoveries of Earth-oriented alignments in the largest structures of our visible universe.”

“The Principle” argues that Copernicus was wrong about the Earth revolving around the sun. The man behind the project, Robert Sungenis, is “a noted Holocaust denier, creationist, geocentrist, and crazy person,” TheWrap reports. Sungenis is the author of a book called “Galileo Was Wrong: The Church Was Right, Volume I, The Scientific Evidence for Geocentrism.”

Mulgrew addressed her participation on Facebook, telling fans, “Let me assure everyone that I completely agree with the eminent physicist Lawrence Krauss, who was himself misrepresented in the film, and who has written a succinct rebuttal in Slate. I am not a geocentrist, nor am I in any way a proponent of geocentrism.”

The actress, who plays kitchen boss Red on the Netflix series “Orange Is the New Black,” added, “More importantly, I do not subscribe to anything Robert Sungenis has written regarding science and history and, had I known of his involvement, would most certainly have avoided this documentary.”

Krauss, director of the Arizona State University Origins project, also distanced himself from the program, writing in a Slate article, “The notion that anyone in the 21st century could take seriously the notion that the sun orbits the Earth, or that the Earth is the center of the universe, is almost unbelievable.” He added that he had no idea how he ended up in the film, writing that he would have refused to appear in it had he known.

“So, either the producers used clips of me that were in the public domain, or they bought them from other production companies that I may have given some rights to distribute my interviews to, or they may have interviewed me under false pretenses, in which case I probably signed some release,” he writes.

Krauss’ suggestion: “Let’s all stop talking about it from today on.” He added, “Maybe then it will quickly disappear into the dustbin of history, where it belongs.”

Here's the trailer for "The Principle":

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