Part 2 : Earth Alien Enterprise ...Eisenhower and the Extraterrestrials ... Public Landings ... Tales From the Vienna Woods... Infiltration ...

Earth - Alien Enterprise

by Timothy Good

Chapter Four 

EISENHOWER AND THE EXTRATERRESTRIALS 

Why don’t aliens contact our leaders? My reply to this frequently asked question is that they have done so on a number of occasions, as attested by witnesses. Several such meetings involved President Dwight D. (“Ike”) Eisenhower and others in the mid-1950s, such as at Edwards/Muroc Air Force Base in February 1954, discussed later. There is also lesser-known related evidence supplied by Antonio Ribera, a distinguished Spanish researcher, citing an earlier visit to a base by Eisenhower—at that time U.S. Army Chief of Staff. 

In Mexico in 1970, the publisher Guillermo Mendizábal Elizalde told Ribera that while attending a gathering during which a title was presented to Miguel Alemán Valdés, President of Mexico (1946– 1952), the subject of flying saucers came up. Alemán listened in silence. But on being asked for his opinion, he revealed that when General Eisenhower had visited Mexico shortly before becoming president, he told Alemán that he had once been taken to an air base in the Southwest United States, where he had been shown “a flying disc and the cadavers of several of its crew members.” 1 

This report was confirmed by Leonard Stringfield, a former U.S. Air Force intelligence officer, who learned from Dr. Robert S. Carr, a University of South Florida professor, that in 1948 General Eisenhower had been taken to see a craft and bodies captured at Aztec, New Mexico in March 1948, and it was on his command that the secrecy lid was clamped down on the subject, and rigidly enforced. 2 Since another crashed disc had reportedly been recovered that same year just across the Mexican border from Laredo, Texas, it is likely, in my view, that this might have prompted Eisenhower’s revelation to Alemán. Until several years ago, I remained unaware of another incident involving Eisenhower and extraterrestrials, reported to have occurred in February 1955. The noted researcher Art Campbell has been responsible for my education regarding what I now regard as compelling new testimony. 

Campbell served his country during the Korean War at naval shore installations and with a fleet electronics unit aboard the aircraft carrier USS Boxer (CV-21). After leaving the Navy in the mid-1950s, he became active in UFO investigations, working with Major Donald E. Keyhoe’s National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena (NICAP). Campbell is the author of an illuminating book on the recovery of a crashed disc on the Plains of San Agustin, New Mexico, in July 1947, in addition to several books on northwest pioneer history. 

More recently, Campbell has uncovered a great deal of evidence that in 1955, President Eisenhower had another meeting with extraterrestrials, which took place at Holloman Air Force Base, New Mexico (currently home of the 49th Fighter Wing, Air Combat Command). The following is summarized from Campbell’s investigation reports, 3 as well as voluminous additional material which he has kindly furnished me over a lengthy period. 

QUAIL HUNTING 45s

On February 9, 1955, Eisenhower announced to the press that he was going to Georgia for a few days’ quail hunting, staying with the Secretary of the Treasury, George H. Humphrey, a millionaire industrialist who owned a plantation near Thomasville, Georgia. Others included in the trip were Humphrey’s wife, the First Lady and her mother, and Clifford Roberts, a Wall Street banker. 

The party left Andrews Air Force Base, Maryland, on February 10 at 13:00 in Eisenhower’s Air Force One, Columbine III, a new Lockheed VC-121E four-engined Super Constellation, with a crew of fourteen, piloted by Major William “Bill” Draper, who also had been Eisenhower’s pilot during World War II. Preceding the flight by about thirty minutes, a chartered plane-load of journalists from all the major networks flew to Spence Field, Moultrie, Georgia, some twenty-five miles north of Thomasville. Columbine III landed there two and a half hours later. 

With its two thousand acres of prime bird-hunting land, Milestone Plantation suited Eisenhower’s requirements for privacy. With the exception of a previously arranged photo op, none of the media was allowed on the grounds. “The plantation was so secure,” Art told me, “that Ike was able to go there four times in the 1950s. This was his second trip. The press was housed some eight miles away at Scott Hotel in Thomasville. James Hagerty, Ike’s press secretary, gave daily international news and briefings in the hotel lounge.” 

Many commentators wondered why the president had taken a few days’ hunting trip at a time when international tensions were mounting. Fear of a nuclear exchange with the Soviet Union was paramount—and a very real threat. As the British journalist and historian Sir Max Hastings succinctly puts it: “A younger generation finds it hard to believe that it was plausible that America and the Soviet Union would come to nuclear blows. Armies and navies, together with fleets of bombers and batteries of missiles capable of destroying civilization many times over, confronted each other at instant readiness….” 4 

The hunting party reached the lodgings at Milestone, changed quickly, and reached the hunting area at about 17:30. Media attendees included well-known journalists Ed Darby of Time, John Edwards of ABC, and William Lawrence of The New York Times. Why all the prestigious press for a quail shoot? Perhaps the reason lay in the fact that a week earlier, Josef Stalin’s replacement leader, Georgi Malenkov, had been forced to resign and was replaced by Marshal Nikolai Bulganin. “A famous military leader taking over an aggressive Cold War government gave the world a severe case of the jitters,” Campbell believes. 

ARTHUR GODFREY 

Campbell questions the presence of Arthur Godfrey on the trip. A famous television personality at the time, Godfrey’s shows were watched by millions and helped define the first decade of 1950s television and radio. “What was the one and only indomitable Arthur Godfrey doing on the president’s plane?” asks Campbell. “He was not seated with Ike or his social guests in the main passenger section, but in the forward crew compartment with about a dozen others, including the flight crew and some Secret Service agents.” 

According to news sources years later—including Ted Gup of Time magazine—Godfrey and Ed Murrow were part of a huge civil defense effort to assist the government in making pre-recorded taped messages to be transmitted on television and radio in the event of a nuclear attack. Campbell continues: 

“Gup said in his article that a number of newsmen had taken oaths of secrecy and had agreed to accompany the president to the relocation site of his choosing, to lend their familiar names and voices to help calm the surviving audience. Recalling the separate press plane that accompanied Eisenhower to Spence air base and Thomasville, one wonders if any of these spokesmen were also along on this strange trip. Was this trip a true potential national emergency? Or another trial run of apparently many in those days? 

“There were a number of facilities in the mid-1950s where government could relocate to in the event of a national emergency. One was an underground bunker named Mount Weather, near Godfrey’s home in Berryville, Virginia, and another was a facility named Raven Rock, near Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, where Eisenhower and his cabinet convened on a number of ‘practice occasions.’” 

Of incidental interest, Godfrey had flown for the Air Force and Navy in World War II. In 1965 he reported on his own show that he had been buzzed by a UFO while flying a light plane. 5 

THE WITNESSES 

On the day following the arrival at Thomasville, James Hagerty reported that Eisenhower had come down with “the sniffles” and would be staying in for a while. He was not seen again for some thirty-six hours, having secretly been taken to Spence Field and flown in Air Force One to Holloman Air Force Base, New Mexico, together with a team of Secret Service aides and supervisors. 

One of the many witnesses to the presence of Air Force One was Airman 2nd Class Manuel W. Kirklin, stationed at Holloman and assigned to the base hospital under the Flight Surgeon, Captain/Dr. Robert N. Reiner. Kirklin held clearance to Secret material at that time. 

“In late February 1955,” relates Kirklin, “we heard that the president was coming to Holloman. I knew there was going to be an honor parade for him, scheduled for early in the morning. The day before it was due to take place, it was called off. Not only that, but I heard through the grapevine that the base commander [Colonel Frank D. Sharp] had requested leave covering the time the president was visiting. I thought this was unusual—I would have stayed on the base if I was the commanding officer and the president was visiting.” (Kirklin later realized that going on leave would allow Col. Sharp to give Eisenhower his undivided attention.) 

Later, at the hospital, Dorsey E. Moore, the enlisted men’s leading airman, asked Kirklin if he had seen a disc hovering over the flight line. Kirklin replied in the negative. “I’m thinking, a disc that you can throw,” he reports, “but the only thing that I knew that hovered was a helicopter and the Navy’s hovercraft.” He asked what it was made of. “Metal,” said Dorsey, “like polished aluminum or stainless steel.” 

“How big is it?” 

“Twenty to thirty feet in diameter. Do you want to see it? Go out to the front of the hospital and look down at the flight line.” 

“With my luck it wouldn’t be there.” 

“I took my wife to the commissary and it was there thirty minutes later. Go out to the front of the hospital and take a look.” 

Concerned at leaving his post without permission, Kirklin asked the head nurse if he could go. She consulted the doctor, but permission was refused. Later, the airman happened to be walking behind two pilots and overheard their conversation regarding the event. One of the men, an Officer of the Day, was responding to questions from the other pilot relating to Eisenhower’s visit. Kirklin asserts that the officer explained that after Air Force One landed, it had turned around and remained on the active runway. The base radar had then been turned off, after which two discs had approached the base at low altitude via the White Sands National Monument. 

“One hovered overhead like it was protecting the other one,” explained the officer. “The other one landed on the active runway in front of [Eisenhower’s] plane. He got out of his plane and went toward it. A door opened, and he went inside for forty or forty-five minutes.” Asked by the other pilot whether he had seen the aliens, the officer replied that he had not: they stayed inside. Eisenhower then returned to his plane. 

Later, at about 11:15, Kirklin went to pick up the mail, where he encountered a new 2nd Lieutenant supply officer who asked him if he had seen anything on the flight line. Kirklin replied in the negative. 

“After work [about 16:30–16:45], I was in my barracks room when I was called out to see Air Force One fly overhead. It flew over the residential area of the base. This is a no-flying zone for all military aircraft—only the president could get away with it.” 

After supper, Kirklin noticed that the lights were still on in the Flight Surgeon’s office and went over to turn them off. There he saw and heard Dr. Reiner talking to a lieutenant colonel, who mentioned that the Commander-in-Chief (Eisenhower) had addressed 225 men, on two consecutive sessions, in the supply hangar and/or the base theater. Eisenhower spoke only for a few minutes on each occasion. 

Asked by Reiner what had been discussed, the lieutenant colonel replied that the subject matter was classified “higher than Secret.” I share Art Campbell’s opinion that since Eisenhower was supposed to be hunting in Georgia, base personnel were ordered not to mention his presence at Holloman. The actual purpose of the visit would obviously never have been disclosed to so many “uncleared” personnel. 

Three months later, while serving in Japan, Kirklin was talking to some airmen, one of whom confirmed that he had heard Eisenhower talk at the base theater. The subject matter was not discussed. Kirklin also said that a mutual acquaintance had learned from a man who had been stationed at Holloman that people were still talking about Eisenhower’s visit two years later. 

Captain Joseph W. Kittinger, Jr. (retired), who was well acquainted with Kirklin at Holloman, is best known for his daredevil leaps from high-altitude helium balloons as part of research into high-altitude bailout, known as Project Excelsior, culminating in August 1960 when he jumped from Excelsior III at 102,800 feet (31,300 meters). In freefall in his pressure suit for four and a half minutes, he reached Mach 0.9—almost the speed of sound. He served three combat tours in the Vietnam War, during which he commanded the F-4 Phantom 555th Tactical Fighter Squadron and vice-commanded the 432nd Tactical Reconnaissance Wing. He was shot down by a MiG fighter in 1972 and spent eleven months as a prisoner-of-war in the notorious “Hanoi Hilton.” 6 

What is much less known about Kittinger’s background, as I discovered, is his extensive professional contact with Dr. J. Allen Hynek, a scientific consultant on UFOs to both the Air Force’s Project Bluebook and the CIA’s Office of Scientific Intelligence (OSI). 7 I noted that part of their professional relationship involved, in 1962, Project Stargazer, a balloon-borne project to carry out astronomical studies at high altitude, Kittinger as balloon pilot and Hynek as astronomical adviser. In The Roswell Report: Case Closed—the Air Force’s second book attempting to deny the July 1947 incident—Kittinger’s sworn testimony states as follows: 

“I worked very closely with Dr. Hynek over a period of five years from 1958 to 1963. Dr. Hynek would typically spend a half day working on Stargazer and then the rest of the day participating as one of the consultants on the UFO study, Project Bluebook, that was also conducted at Wright-Patterson AFB. [He] was very familiar with the techniques and capabilities of the Air Force high altitude balloon program[and] once approached me and we discussed at length the possibility that Air Force high altitude balloons were responsible for many UFO sightings…. I was therefore ‘flabbergasted’ when Dr. Hynek appeared to believe that some of these sightings were of extraterrestrial origin.” 8 

During this period at Wright-Patterson, Captain Kittinger also worked at the U.S. Air Force Aerospace Medical Research Laboratory in connection with Project Excelsior, mentioned earlier. In 1959 and 1960, the laboratory collaborated with the Holloman Balloon Branch for Excelsior, the culmination of high altitude free-fall studies that began in 1953 using anthropomorphic dummies 9—the same dummies cited in The Roswell Report as probably being responsible for the alien bodies reported by witnesses to the Roswell events in 1947! 

Interestingly, according to June Crain, who worked in the Rocketry Section Lab at Wright-Patterson with top-secret clearance at the time, the deceased alien bodies were brought to the Aero Med Lab (as it was widely known). “They had been flown in to the base during the night and were in a freezer locker in one of the hangars and Aero Med Lab had charge of them for examination,” she told investigator James E. Clarkson. “The people doing the telling seemed to know what they were talking about….” 10 

In 2007 Kirklin wrote to Colonel Kittinger—who had been transferred to the Air Force Missile Development Center at Holloman in 1954—asking if he recalled the Eisenhower visit, avoiding specifics. “First of all,” replied Kittinger, “I remember you and the flight that we made in the Beaver [a bush plane] looking for the downed balloon equipment which we found on the rancher’s field. I remember that you were one of the only ones that didn’t get air-sick…. I do not remember President Eisenhower visiting Holloman but it may have been after I left in 1958 when I transferred to the Aero Med Lab at Wright-Patterson AFB, Dayton, Ohio….” 11 

So, no confirmation from Kittinger. We can surmise, however, that, though well aware of the Eisenhower visit, he remains loath to violate his security oaths. Other witnesses, however, have been forthcoming. 

In 2007, Art Campbell interviewed retired Master Sergeant Robert Boord, one of the former security guards who served on Columbine III, who said that although the usual complement of Secret Service agents was five or six, if they were flying to somewhere the president had not visited before, two agents would go ahead but five or six were usually on the plane. He learned from Master Sergeant Leo Borega, a colleague and friend, that one trip down to South Georgia had involved “a dozen or so going to this tiny little town [Thomasville]” and that at about 03:00 hours the following day (February 11), the crew received word that the president would be leaving in about an hour (from Spence Field). “We were always ready for this kind of thing,” said Borega, “and sure enough, the plane left one hour later.” He added that about half an hour before the plane left, two Air Force cars pulled up and six more agents went on board to accompany the flight “to somewhere out West.” 

Art found another witness to Eisenhower’s arrival at Holloman, Albert D. Wykoff (pseudonym), whose military background included assignment as a tail-gunner to a B-29 bomber squadron with the 20th Air Force in the Pacific during World War II. As a staff sergeant on a U.S. Air Force cargo plane that flew into Holloman in February 1955 (he does not recall the exact date), he and the other crew members watched as Ike’s Constellation landed. They had no idea that the president was in it until the following morning. 

As Wykoff and the rest of the crew were preparing to leave, an officer approached and told them to stay where they were. “But we have to leave,” Wykoff protested. “Well, President Eisenhower is here and you can’t leave the field until he’s gone,” retorted the officer. Wykoff and his colleagues were therefore required to kill time at Holloman until they had clearance to leave. 

“While in the sergeants’ mess at lunchtime,” Art recounted to me, “a general invitation was given by an officer to hear the president speak at a nearby hangar. When Wykoff and several of his crew went there, they were denied entry as they did not have a proper Holloman badge. An officer overheard the badge discussion and was able to get them in to hear Ike at another presentation given at the base theater.” 

Campbell also cites testimony he received from a lady whose father (pseudonym Bill Larson) had been a civilian electrician at Holloman. Larson and his crew worked from a pickup truck that had a Bell Telephone bed and many compartments for electrical gear, including a large spool of wire. From time to time, her father had discussed the day Eisenhower came to Holloman with his family and others. Here follows part of a letter he sent to his daughter a few months before his death: 

“… Sometime after Christmas 1954 we were told President Eisenhower was coming, so George, our boss, went to a meeting to find out more. He would not be inspecting anything, they said, and [we should] just carry on as usual. ‘If you see the president, don’t gawk, wave or anything—just carry on.’ 

“So the day the president came, we went out in the truck to a job where we were replacing some wire down the flight line. It was really old stuff, put there in the Second World War. We heard the president’s plane in the morning line up for an approach, and watched it land on the far runway. We waited for it to taxi over to the flight line so we could see him. But we didn’t hear it anymore, and it had shut down somewhere out there. We went ahead and pulled wire for a while, and one of the men—I believe it was Charlie—said he could ‘see out there from that pole over there, so why doesn’t one of us go up the pole and see where the plane is?’ 

“Well, I had my climbers on and I started to unbuckle them and was waiting to give them to the first volunteer when someone said I should do it, as people were used to seeing me up the poles anyway. So, I started up, with my back to the sun—a safety measure—which also put my back to the runway where I thought his Connie [Constellation] was. As I started up, some of the guys reminded me not to gawk, and I heard them laugh. A few minutes later, I heard someone shouting, and some guys tarring the hangar roof nearby started to run, pointing out to the runway. Then I heard our truck start up and some of the crew jumped in, with one or two running after it, and they were pointing out to the flight line. And so I decided to turn around on the pole to see what the ruckus was about—and I could not believe what I saw. 

“There was this pie-tin-like thing coming at me about 150 feet away. I thought it was remote-controlled or something, twenty-five to thirty feet across. And I started down the pole as fast as I could go. I was up about forty feet, and I threw my climbing rope out, gave it slack and only touched the spike on each side of the pole three or four times even before I got to the bottom. While I was running toward the big hangar, I looked back and it had stopped, and was just sitting there. 

“Well, when we all got back to the shop, and we had a good laugh, one of the guys that saw me come down said, ‘He got down that pole a whole lot faster than a fireman!’ Apparently, soon after this incident, the saucer just stopped and hovered about three hundred feet over the flight line while the meeting took place on the far runway, near the UFO. 

“Dad said that once the people there got over the initial shock, many just stood and watched it. He said it was a beautiful sight. It had an occasional wobble. He recalled that later that day many neon lights needed replacing….” (Art Campbell believes this was apparently the saucer that hovered over the flight line, which Dorsey Moore and his wife saw around 08:45-09:00.) “They all thought it was one of our secret aircraft that the president had come to see. Dad said he never considered it was anything but ours until years later when [the subject] got publicized more—in the 1960s or so. It was only then that he understood what was so secret….” 

COLLATERAL EVIDENCE 

There is, of course, no official evidence that Air Force One ever left Spence Field, Moultrie—or returned there from anywhere else—during Eisenhower’s trip to Holloman, as stated in the official “trip narrative” (see p. 62). Art believes nonetheless that at least one diversionary tactic was employed. For instance, on February 13, the Thomasville Times-Enterprise reported on a special dinner for the president’s entourage and numerous other guests, held at the Glen Arven Country Club on the evening of February 11, by invitation of Secretary George Humphrey. “About 30 visiting newspapermen, photographers and movie men were on hand for the delicious dinner,” noted the paper. “Entertainment [included] several amusing pantomime selections at the conclusion of the dinner.” 

Art told me that in 2008 he had tracked down a bartender who had been in attendance that evening. “He said it seemed that every divorcee in the county had been invited to meet the lonely reporters: eight to ten had been invited, but sixteen showed up. The pantomime did not go over nearly as well as the southern belles in their strapless cocktail dresses…. We believe that Ike and Air Force One slipped into Moultrie at about 20:30 while the party was in full swing. This was the trip that no one knew about—and the party that everyone remembered!” 

In May 2010, retiring New Hampshire State Representative Henry W. McElroy, Jr., revealed in a speech that President Eisenhower had been briefed about the presence of extraterrestrial intelligent beings on Earth. McElroy also stated that the document he viewed made reference to the opportunity for Eisenhower to meet the alien visitors. Here follow extracts from the transcript of his speech: 

“… When I was in the New Hampshire State Legislature, I served on the State Federal Relations and Veterans’ Affairs Committee. It was, apparently, important that as a Representative of the Sovereign People who had elected me to this honorable office, that I be updated on a large number of topics … some of those ongoing topics had been categorized as Federal, State, Local development, and security matters. 

“The document I saw was an official brief to President Eisenhower. To the best of my memory, this brief was pervaded with a sense of hope, and it informed President Eisenhower of the continued presence of extraterrestrial beings here in the United States of America. The brief seemed to indicate that a meeting between the president and some of these visitors could be arranged as appropriate and if desired. 

“The tone of the brief indicated to me that there was no need for concern, since these visitors were in no way causing any harm, or had any intentions whatsoever in causing any disruption then, or in the future. 

“While I can’t verify the times or places, or that any meetings occurred directly between Eisenhower and these visitors, because of his optimism in his farewell address in 1961 I personally believe that Eisenhower did indeed meet with these extraterrestrial, off-world astronauts….” 12 

There is some confusion regarding the dates of the prearranged meeting/meetings between Eisenhower and aliens at Edwards/Muroc in 1954. Former Royal Air Force fighter-pilot and author Desmond Leslie (who co-authored Flying Saucers Have Landed with George Adamski) learned from a U.S. Air Force officer that “on a certain day” a 100-foot-diameter disc landed on the runway and was housed under guard in Hangar 27. Eisenhower was taken to see it. 13 

Gabriel Green, another researcher, spoke to a military officer who claimed to have witnessed the arrival over the base of five UFOs, on February 20. A general ordered all anti-aircraft batteries to open fire—which they did, but with no effect. The men then held their fire and watched as one of the craft landed close to one of the base’s large hangars. Two other witnesses, Don Johnson and Paul Umbrello, also claim to have seen one of the discs near the base on the same day. 14 

A retired USAF test pilot reported to the Earl of Clancarty (better known as the author Brinsley Le Poer Trench) that three saucer-shaped and two cigar-shaped craft landed at the base (presumably on the same day). “The aliens looked human-like, but not exactly,” he said, adding that they had the same proportions as humans and were able to breathe our atmosphere. They did not say where they came from. In English, they explained to the bemused president that they would like to start an “educational program” for the people of Earth in order to make mankind more aware of their presence here. 15 

Unnerved, Eisenhower responded that he didn’t think the world was ready for such a revelation. The aliens seemed to appreciate this, though they indicated that they would continue making further isolated contact with humans. They then demonstrated their ability to overcome gravity and to make their craft invisible. “This disturbed the president greatly,” said the test pilot, “because now none of us could see them, although we knew they were there.” 16 

But it seems that another, related event took place. In a letter sent in April 1954 to N. Meade Layne, director of a quasi-occult group called the Borderland Sciences Research Associates (BSRA)—photocopy reproduced on p. 63—associate Gerald Light revealed details of events which—if true—must have occurred that month. 

“My dear friend,” begins the first part of the letter, dated April 16, “I have just returned from Muroc. The report is true—devastatingly true! I made the journey in company with Franklin Allen of the Hearst papers and Edwin Nourse of Brookings Institute (Truman’s erstwhile financial adviser) and Bishop McIntyre of L.A. (confidential names, for the present, please). 

“When we were allowed to enter the restricted section, (after about six hours in which we were checked on every possible item, event, incident and aspect of our personal and public lives) I had the distinct feeling that the world had come to an end with fantastic realism. For I have never seen so many human beings in a state of complete collapse and confusion as they realized that their own world had indeed ended with such finality as to beggar description…. 

“During my two days visit I saw five separate and distinct types of aircraft being studied and handled by our air force officials—with assistance and permission of The Etherians! [a term used by BSRA]…. It has finally happened. It is now a matter of history. 

“President Eisenhower, as you may already know, was spirited over to Muroc one night during his visit to Palm Springs recently. And it is my conviction that he will ignore the terrific conflict between the various ‘authorities’ and go directly to the people via radio and television—if the impasse continues much longer. From what I could gather, an official statement to the country is being prepared for delivery about the middle of May. 

“I will leave it to your own excellent powers of deduction to construct a fitting picture of the mental and emotional pandemonium that is now shattering the consciousness of hundreds of our scientific ‘authorities’ and all the pundits of the various specialized knowledges [sic] that make up our current physics. In some instances I could not stifle a wave of pity that arose in my own being as I watched the pathetic bewilderment of rather brilliant brains struggling to make some sort of rational explanation which would enable them to retain their familiar theories and concepts…. I shall never forget those forty-eight hours at Muroc!” 17 

Gerald Light makes no reference to the presence of Eisenhower at this meeting, though he makes the statement about “spiriting” Ike to Muroc just above. It is a matter of record that on the evening of February 20, 1954, while on a golfing vacation during which he stayed with his friend Paul Roy Helms at his ranch in Palm Springs, the president went “missing.” Nobody seemed to know where he was, and the press corps was left to speculate. United Press suggested there had been a medical emergency, while Associated Press wired that Eisenhower was dead. At a near-hysterical press conference, the “truth” was finally revealed: the president had simply knocked a cap off a tooth chewing on a chicken leg and had been taken by Helms to a local dentist. Officially, there is no record of such a visit. 18 

A handwritten note from Meade Layne on Gerald Light’s letter references both Miramar and Gillespie airfields, with an asterisk on the third paragraph seemingly indicating where the intensive security checks had been carried out prior to the Edwards/Muroc visit. The airfields are currently known as Marine Corps Air Station Miramar (San Diego) and Gillespie Field, El Cajon, California. 

In Need to Know, I allude to information revealed to me that sometime after one of the Eisenhower encounters, two scientists were taken by jeep to a meeting with aliens “somewhere in the desert.” A friend of the source rode “shotgun” in the jeep, together with his buddy in the military. At the rendezvous point was a landed disc, and the scientists went aboard, where a “transfer of technology” ensued for a couple of hours. The source’s friend, who held “Alpha” clearance at the time, later became a CIA officer.

In April 2012, Henry W. McElroy, the retired New Hampshire State Representative cited earlier, posted an update on the Internet, part of which relates to the foregoing meetings. “My research and observation of the records,” he writes, “suggest that perhaps the information that Eisenhower and possibly others may have received in such alleged meeting(s) with the Off World Astronauts is what motivated President Eisenhower and his administration in 1958 to convert NACA (National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics) to NASA (National Aeronautics and SPACE Administration) which enabled us earth-based Humans to speed up our learning in order to better develop and utilize ‘Outer Space Exploration Technologies.’ Enlightenment on these Space Technologies may have been given us by the Extraterrestrials for the purposes of more effectively moving into Outer Space on a more timely basis via the Moon, the Space Stations and Mars….” 19 

Art Campbell describes his correspondence with a man who claimed to have had access to highly secret archives of the U.K. Security Service—commonly known as MI5—who asserted that Eisenhower had had meetings with two or three separate groups of aliens during his presidency. “In the 1953–1955 timeline,” wrote the source, “the ET visitors had landed at several places and asked for a meeting with the leader of the most powerful country on Earth. The top item on the meeting agendas was continued nuclear research and testing with more and more powerful weapons.” 

Regarding the nuclear agenda, Campbell’s MI5 source alluded to a Russian nuclear weapon test in 1951 (September 24) that was almost double the size of the first weapon in 1949 (August 29), adding that the visitors showed particular concern about the first hydrogen bomb in 1952. (On October 31, 1952, U.S. Operation Ivy began with the detonation of Mike, the world’s first high-yield two-stage thermonuclear device, at the Enewetak Atoll [formerly spelled Eniwetok] in the Pacific. At 10.4 megatons, the experimental liquid deuterium device exceeded the explosive power of all ordnance detonated in World Wars I and II combined.) 20 The MI5 source indicated that there was considerable pressure on Eisenhower to exert influence over his government’s accelerated nuclear testing programs. 

If President Eisenhower had managed to exert any influence on his military commanders regarding the arms race, there’s no evidence of it. And ironically, a few days after the Holloman event, Operation Teapot commenced at the Nevada Test Site on February 18, 1955, with a total of fourteen tests conducted to further the development of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) with thermonuclear warheads. 

George Adamski, who features in several later chapters, was among the first to claim regular contacts with aliens. He was also closely associated with certain high-ranking military and political personnel. According to a friend of mine, the late Madeleine Rodeffer, sometime in 1959–60 Adamski was taken by military limo to a base in California for a meeting with Eisenhower. 21 No further details are available. 

“Apparently,” writes Art Campbell, “those in government who knew of the alien concerns decided to form a committee to advise the president concerning these matters. My source believes this group was initially called the ‘Alternative Committee.’ Might this have been the beginnings of the group that, today, is believed to be the extremely powerful worldwide special interest entity which exerts considerable influence on UFO secrecy? 

“It is obvious to me that our government is not merely covering up whether UFOs exist, but also that we have had contact with ETs and that they have objected strenuously to our nuclear testing and stockpiling….” 22 

Chapter Five 

PUBLIC LANDINGS 

In mid-July 1955, England suffered a heat wave for a week, with temperatures in some areas soaring to 100°F (38°C) or more. Toward midday on Sunday, July 17, Margaret Fry was at home in Bexleyheath, Kent—part of the London Borough of Bexley—with three of her four children and her sister. Her husband, who worked in Middlesex, was away at the time. Shaun, the eldest child, had a high temperature, so Margaret walked down the road to call her general practitioner (GP) from a public phone box, as relatively few families had telephones in those days.

“My GP was on holiday, but his relief was a young Indian, Dr. Thukarta,” her account continues. “He examined my eldest and said we should go to the surgery immediately to get him medication, as he had sunstroke. I arranged with my sister to take care of the children and brought my second son Steve [eight and a half years old] with us, as he used to be rather naughty. He sat in the back of the doctor’s brand-new Austin car, and we set off.” It was now midday. 

“The road I lived on, Hythe Avenue, was quite a long one, and from the outset the car was spluttering and stopping. After a while we became aware of a heavy shadow over the car. The rest of the sky was bright blue and cloudless, the sun blazing to the left of us. We kept peering through the windscreen, wondering what was causing the shadow engulfing the car. Eventually I asked the doctor if we could stop. ‘No fear,’ he said, ‘I’m no mechanic!’ 

“We turned right onto Ashbourne Avenue and then right into Chessington Avenue, and amazingly this shadow turned at right angles with us. By now we definitely knew something was above the car, which then spluttered and stopped. ‘Can we get out now?’ Once out of the car, we looked up and were horrified to see a concentrated mass of gray cloud-like material barely eighteen feet above our heads. 

As we watched, this oval mass started spinning. It then slowly solidified, and we saw three ball bearing-like ‘wheels’ come down from what I thought was a smooth underside. I did think it was landing and would squash us, but we were so shocked, we did not think to move away from under it. However, the ‘wheels’ retracted, and it continued to spin and hum like a top, combined with a slight whooshing sound like the sea. There was absolutely no down-draft, as would be under a helicopter. It then flipped on its side, then righted itself again, then flopped down at the crossroads ahead of us. ‘My God,’ we exclaimed, ‘it’s one of those flying saucer things!’” 

Margaret told me that the craft had landed by the corner house on Chessington/Ashbourne avenues, which now has a garage, but then had only a wooden fence along the Chessington Avenue side. 

“In 1955, few working-class people had cars, so road traffic on a Sunday in a suburb was nil. The few cars that people had were parked on the road, and children were playing hopscotch on the pavement. They were around eight to ten years of age. I yelled out to them and they all came and stood around the craft with their mouths open. I then realized it was in fact maybe four or five feet off the ground: maybe it had risen. It seemed huge, although when we measured the spot years later we found it must have been just less than thirty-five feet in diameter. 

“It was a typical bell-shaped craft. The surface seemed like pewter; dull, yet at times it shone as well. It could have been described as silver, gray, blue, metallic, yet not really quite like any of these hues. In fact, it looked literally just out of this world. We all knew instinctively what it was. We were aghast. Steve had his face pressed to the car window, watching. The craft had indents or moldings, that I thought must have been portholes, around the center, and below this was a wide ledge, and above, a rounded dome which had further moldings—for a door? What impressed itself in my memory was that the lower circular part was in sections—or so it seemed—with distinct seams and what appeared to be rivets.” [A sketch by Margaret is reproduced here.] 

“After five or six minutes of being absolutely still near to the road, it then tilted toward us slightly, and in that position went up. It wobbled from side to side, then at about a hundred feet it stood still and a porthole opened up. For the first time, I felt real fear, thinking there had to be people in it: when it was near to the ground and we were standing at arm’s length, we were so utterly amazed at the craft itself that we did not think of aliens or anyone being in it. 

“It then ‘swished’ upwards to about thirty thousand feet, which took about seven minutes (for some reason we timed it with our watches). We got back into the doctor’s car, still dazed. All the way to the surgery, the doctor kept repeating that he did not believe in flying saucers. He was sure it was a secret American prototype aircraft. ‘What sort of secret aircraft would come down in the middle of the day in a built-up suburb?’ I replied. We did not even notice that the car was now running perfectly. After getting the medication, the doctor dropped us off at my house. 

“I do recall every small detail of this, as does my son Steve. Although I related every detail in a letter to my aunt the next day and wrote notes and drew sketches into a diary one year later, I always refer back to these.” 1 

Years later, Margaret gave me a copy of Steve’s official report sent to Contact UK, a UFO research group, from which I cite: 

“… It was a small, two-door car, and right away it seemed to be starting and stopping. We turned on to another road and then it stopped. I remember the doctor and my mother got out and were looking in the sky, so I looked through the side window. I could see a silver or metallic craft which had an inner circle of light which was rotating and appeared to me to be flashing orange and red lights. There were some children about my age playing on the pavement and my mother shouted to them to look up at ‘the flying saucer.’ They all did. The doctor was shaken up [and] it took him ages getting medicine for my brother. I still remember that he was upset…. The whole thing has stayed very clear in my memory.” 2 

“When we got home,” Margaret continues, “both Steve and I were excited in telling our family about the flying saucer. ‘What use was that?’ said my sister. ‘Why didn’t they come out?’ Shaun was aggrieved, complaining he was feeling so ill, and we were talking rubbish, whereupon Steve wanted to punch him, insisting we had seen a flying saucer.” 

At the time, Margaret’s father was working as a scientist with the Atomic Weapons Establishment at Aldermaston, Berkshire, and lived nearby with his wife. “When they came to visit me the following weekend at Bexleyheath, Dad informed me rather kindly that I had been mistaken; the object I had seen was only the sun! ‘Yes, of course,’ I said patiently, ‘but this thing had come down in front of us while the sun was to the back of us.’ Mother promptly went to purchase the Erith Observer & Kentish Times, to see if anyone else had reported the object. She returned in triumph, waving the newspaper before Dad…. An Erith policeman and several others, it transpired, had also seen this craft fairly low to the ground, just after it left us at midday on 17 July 1955.” 3 

Margaret Fry is now a well-known UFO researcher, living in North Wales. We first met at her Bexleyheath house in 1972 and have kept in regular contact ever since. I can vouch for her total integrity and dedication to the subject. Thanks mostly to John Hanson, a retired police constable and UFO researcher, further information has come to light that not only seems to vindicate Margaret’s account, but also indicates that another, similar event occurred a short distance away, in the same week, involving numerous witnesses. 

In 2002, in an attempt to track down further witnesses, John, together with his partner Dawn Holloway, began making inquiries in the Bexleyheath area, first at newspaper offices. This led to an article about the event, including two sketches by Margaret of the craft, appealing for additional witnesses, which appeared in the News Shopper, a local newspaper. 4 Two weeks later, an article in the same newspaper published testimony from Rodney Maynard, 62, a former serviceman. Fifteen at the time, Maynard had been working as a labourer on a building site in nearby Streamway. 

“We were on our lunch break when we heard something was happening in King Harold’s Way, so we went up there to have a look,” Maynard told the News Shopper following the appeal. “This thing had landed in the roadway. It took up the whole width of the road and overlapped onto the pavements. It wasn’t on the ground. It had about eight massive suckers [underneath]. The center was still, but the outer rim was spinning slowly and it had white lights flashing, like a camera flash,” he recalled. (Evidently, this craft was different from the one reported by Margaret and others and, as it transpired, the landing had occurred several days earlier.) 

“There were about thirty of us staring at it. We could hear it humming. It had what looked like windows but the glass was concave and molded together so you couldn’t see in. A couple of us went forward to try and touch it and it began to spin faster. Then the craft lifted slowly off the ground and hovered above our heads, tilting slightly.” The craft moved slowly until it was over Bedonwell Primary School, where it stayed for about a minute, then shot up into the sky. 

Maynard, whose sixteen-year-old brother was also present, described the craft as “black, sleek and streamlined with a surface like polished metal. It was beautiful…. I have never forgotten it…. We used to talk about it among ourselves but our mums kept telling us we hadn’t seen anything.” Maynard also listed several other pals who were present: Ron Deadman, Tony Savin, Vic Clarke, and Tommy Staggs. 5 

Margaret told me that this craft had landed close to the junction of King Harold’s Way with Orchard Avenue. Maynard provided further information to John and Dawn. He said that the event had occurred “one hot summer’s day in July 1955” when he and his mates and about thirty other youths—all aged between fifteen and seventeen years—were working on a culvert to carry stream water underground, at the base of King Harold’s Way. When they heard a commotion up the hill, they had run up the road with other people to see what was happening. 6 Maynard’s description given to Ron and Dawn is at variance in several respects with that given earlier to the News Shopper—in particular the length of time the craft hovered above Bedonwell School: 

“It just lay there on the ground, making no noise, surrounded by at least sixty people, including many children. We stood there watching as it flashed with light, at one-second intervals—so bright, it hurt to look for too long. On top of the object was this oval-shaped protrusion that reminded me of a nipple. I decided to get closer to the structure, which looked like beaten silver, with tiny dots all over it [and] with these massive ‘suckers’ underneath. I shouted out to my brother. 

“We were so close to it, we could have touched it. The object began to wobble from side to side, the suckers drawing in slightly. People started to shout, now alarmed. In the blur of movement, too fast for the eye to catch, it left, leaving an image on the retina, which lasted for a few seconds. I looked across the sky and saw it tilt before coming to a halt in mid-air, over Bedonwell School, where it stayed for about two hours.” 

Maynard said that, some weeks after the incident, he received a call from the local police constable, warning him not to discuss it with anybody. He says he complied for nearly a half century, until reading the 2002 local newspaper appeal, at which point he reported his own experience. As for the witnesses he names, despite publicity and their own research through electoral rolls, John and Dawn were unable to find them. 

Another witness who came forward was David Philips, a retired postman. “I was living on a council house estate in Bexleyheath during July 1955, about a mile away from your publicized incident in King Harold’s Way,” he told John and Dawn. “It was a beautiful hot summer’s day, with patchy cloud, when I noticed a disc or saucer-shaped object hovering a few hundred feet above the ground, about a mile away. Suddenly it tilted, revealing what looked like three ball-bearing-shaped lumps set into its underside. I was so excited I ran to the house, shouting for my mother and father. As they came running out, whatever it was shot off across the sky, like a black streak of lightning, toward the London area, and was gone.” 7 

Since this craft is described as having “three ball-bearing-shaped lumps” set into its underside, as opposed to the “eight massive suckers” described by Maynard, it is a fair assumption to suggest that it was the same, or similar, craft as that seen by Margaret and the other witnesses on July 17. The craft reported by Maynard and others is evidently related to another event which occurred a few days earlier. 

On the afternoon of Thursday, July 14, as Doris Jacques glanced out of the open French windows at the back of her house in Hythe Avenue, Bexleyheath, she observed a glowing orange half-moon-shaped object in the sky, just above the roof of the house behind her back garden. On the underside of this craft could be seen small gray oval-shaped objects (one of Doris’s sketches appears below). These flew off in all directions, returning shortly afterward to the larger craft, which then headed toward Bedonwell Primary School, where it hovered over the playground. 8 

Doris Jacques’s daughter Pamela—then a pupil at that school, behind Brabourne Crescent—arrived home, excited, at 15:30. “Mummy, did you see the flying saucers?” she asked. 9 

“We were all in the playground, which is right close to Hythe Avenue, and we were all looking up,” Pamela Rossiter told me. “What I saw were lots of little cigar- or oval-shaped objects, like bright lights —and there were so many of them. They were very high up, and they were there for quite a long time. And then they all disappeared into one much larger one, and it was gone. I remember how we were all so excited. And then I went home and told my mum—and she said she’d seen this as well.” 10 

In 2005, Margaret Fry received an anonymous letter with an Erith, Kent, postmark: 

“… I was one of a group of children playing in the bottom end of Bedonwell Road when we became aware of a commotion on King Harold’s Way, involving lots of people. I ran to see what was going on and had to push my way between a man and a woman. The man said, ‘Stay back, we don’t know what it is.’ I looked and saw on the ground an object in shape similar to a soldier’s tin hat, but the dome part more streamlined. It was on the ground I don’t know how long, but then the rim started to slowly spin. You couldn’t see the join between the rim and the dome. It appeared as one whole thing…. 

“Its appearance seemed to be fluid, a translucent, silver color. The sun that day was blazing so [that] could have caused the glare from the object, distorting its color. It then rose about a foot off the [ground]. A few seconds later, it rose twelve or fifteen feet. Underneath the craft were nodules. They could have been lights, but [were] the same color as the UFO. All of a sudden, it sped off and hovered over Bedonwell School, but quite high up—then suddenly it sped silently away, but I remember feeling a low hum vibration. There were grown-ups taking children’s details, so all us kids took off at this point….” 

Through a helpful source at one of the police stations he visited, John Hanson met a retired officer, JimStreek, a young police constable at the time who had heard about the King Harold’s Way incident: 

“I was on duty and assisting in the return of some property to some women when I overheard [their] conversation about a ‘flying saucer’ that had landed in King Harold’s Way. I told the Station Sergeant what I had heard. He laughed at me [but] my curiosity was aroused and, after completing my shift, I changed into ‘civvies’ and went to have a look, as the women had seemed serious. 

“When I arrived in King Harold’s Way, after cycling there, I noticed a small group of children talking to two smartly dressed men, one of whom had a clipboard with him, standing next to a large black car. They looked like officials from a government department. I decided not to announce myself and left. It was only after all those years later, when I read the article in the newspaper, [that] I realized the connection.” 11 

Streek assumed these men to be Air Ministry officials from the Royal Arsenal, Woolwich. “This made me wonder how long after the event the Air Ministry officials arrived at King Harold’s Way, to take statements from any people still standing on the pavement,” Margaret Fry ponders. “Of course, the Air Ministry officials would not have knocked on people’s doors, thereby adding to the significance of the event, which as always Officialdom wants kept secret.” 12 

Following the incident, Margaret had an attack of paralysis affecting her lower limbs. “I could not move and was very frightened,” she recalls. “My sister came home from work about 6 P.M., fed the children, and sent for our GP, Dr. Lobo, who thought I had polio. These symptoms lasted only a short while and I recovered.” 

Had being in close proximity to an alien craft had an adverse affect? Dr. Thukarta, the young Indian doctor who together with Margaret and her son witnessed the landing, died young of a brain tumor a few years later. 13 

“Some years later, when I decided to investigate this, our own astonishing sighting, my GP, Dr. Lobo, told me that Dr. Thukarta had reported the incident to the British Medical Board. How much notice did they take, I wonder: they did not bother to interview me nor those children. I have in fact tried to contact them over the years, periodically, without success, as I no longer live in North Kent. 14 

“I calculate that, with the ninety residents of King Harold’s Way, plus the thirty teenagers, then the ten or twelve children on Ashbourne Avenue plus Dr. Thukarta, Steve, and myself, approximately 130 people had witnessed these amazing events,” Margaret told me. This estimate may be unreliable, bearing in mind that so many could not be traced—or chose not to come forward. Nonetheless, numerous witnesses were present at these events. Close encounters with landed craft reported by large groups are rare. The Bexleyheath incidents, for me, are the most convincing. 

And yet, apart from the report in a local newspaper, why did such a momentous story not appear in the national press? “In 1955,” Margaret explains, “we were not a publicity-conscious nation of people. I do not suppose that it occurred to any one of those people to contact a [national] newspaper. In addition, the remaining witnesses still on King Harold’s Way when the Air Ministry officials had arrived must have been told not to talk about the incident; no doubt later they also informed their neighbors.” 15 

And why were no photographs taken? Cameras were not that common in 1955, and it is likely that those who possessed them did not have them to hand when the incidents occurred. In the unlikely event that any photos had been taken, it is also feasible that they would have been confiscated by the Air Ministry officials. 

How did Margaret feel in the ensuing weeks after her encounter? “Well, firstly an elation that we are not alone in this vast, vast universe,” she explains. “I think almost every human being who has the ability to think must yearn to feel that at least some of the myriad upon myriad of stars we see in the night sky, which represent suns with perhaps planets revolving around them, such as in our solar system, are also teeming with life as we know it. So, I was elated. I felt as though I had my feet striding two worlds—wherever that other world may be. And the link had been that strange object. However, with these feelings of elation came loneliness. My son was too young to share these sentiments with, and it isolated me from the rest of my family….” 16 

AUSTRALIA 

The Bexleyheath event is not an isolated case. In 1966, for instance, several hundred Australian witnesses, including students, teachers, and residents in Clayton South—a Melbourne, Victoria, suburb—witnessed an astonishing series of events. The following synopsis is based on an article in an educational magazine by Tina Luton, who interviewed researcher Shane Ryan, an English lecturer at the University of Canberra who has spent five years investigating the case, interviewing hundreds of residents as well as former staff and pupils from three schools in the area to complete his documentary, Westall ’66: A Suburban UFO Mystery, which aired on SBS television in late 2010. 

At about 10:15 on the morning of April 6, a group of Westall High School students were completing a sports session when a silvery gray saucer-shaped craft, about twice the size of a family car, overflew the school and descended behind some trees on the Grange Reserve in front of Westall State School. One girl, Terry Peck, was playing cricket when the craft approached. She chased after it into the reserve. Two other girls were already on the scene. “One was terribly upset, and they were pale, really ghostly white,” Terry recalls. “They said they had passed out. One was taken to hospital in an ambulance.” 

Other staff and students, alerted by cries of astonishment, rushed outside to see what all the commotion was about. “There are flying saucers in the sky!” said one boy as he came in and interrupted a Year 8 science lesson. “We all burst out laughing, but the teacher said, ‘Let’s go and have a look,’” Joy Clarke recollects. “It took a minute or two to sink in what I was looking at. There were three of them, flying saucers like you see in comic books.” 

Suzanne Savage, another pupil, was present with Joy and their teacher, Andrew Greenwood, as they observed the objects. One, seemingly larger than the others, disappeared behind some trees and then reappeared, hovering a while before banking on its side and disappearing in seconds. 17 

At one point, five light aircraft, presumed to have come from Moorabbin Airport, arrived on the scene. “They flew low, down toward the flying saucer, as if trying to get closer to it,” Shane Ryan reports. “And every time they seemed to edge toward the strange craft, it just flitted away, as if playing a game with them of cat-and-mouse…. 

“By this stage, about 300 of the high school’s 485 students had amassed on and around the oval, many climbing the high wooden fence on the school’s western boundary, and the wire fence at the foot of the huge high-tension electric power pylon that stood on the school’s southwestern corner.” Two such pylons were located at either end of the boundaries of the school property. “The flying saucer had lifted off and over these power lines as it ascended into the sky from the school and moved south toward the Grange [reserve]. At the sight of the flying saucer disappearing behind the pine trees, a huge chunk of kids who had been watching did what they all knew to be clearly against school rules [and] jumped the low wire fence that separated the school from the drainage ditch [and then] ran toward the Grange.” 18 

The craft, apparently, had landed. Pauline Kelly, in Year 9 at the time, currently the school’s bursar, did not see the craft, but she and two friends saw where it had landed. “There was a perfect circle burned into the grass,” she confirms. 

Unlike Bexleyheath, the Westall event made the front page of the local Dandenong Journal for two weeks running, as well as Channel Nine evening news. But there were repercussions. “The film canister from this coverage was recently found empty,” Suzanne Savage reported. And following the incident, she also noted the presence of people in uniforms, including police. “The next morning the principal, Mr. Frank Samblebe, called a special assembly and said he never wanted us to speak of it again … and that there was no such thing as flying saucers.” Science teacher Andrew Greenwood and others, including students, were warned against speaking about the matter by officials who visited them either at their homes or in the principal’s office. 

Jacqueline Argent, then in Year 9, was one of the first students over the fence, looking for where the larger saucer had landed. The following day she was called into the principal’s office and interrogated by three men. “They had good quality suits and were well-spoken. ‘I suppose you saw little green men?’ they said.” 19 

Although a number of parents—such as those who viewed the circle in the grass—believed their offspring, others did not. “To this day,” says Shane Ryan, “after forty-five long years have passed, many are still hurt that their own parents and siblings refused to believe them, or at least were reluctant to….” 20

Chapter Six 

TALES FROM THE VIENNA WOODS 

In Alien Base, I cited at some length the remarkable encounter with aliens in the Vienna Woods in October 1962, reported to me by Bobby, a Filipino pianist then studying at the Vienna Akademie. Bobby had been “guided” to a certain area, where he noted a sudden “strange, sinister stillness” (as in the Monguzzi case). “I looked up and saw the leaves and branches of the trees shaking, disturbed by the sudden rush of air coming from a strange object,” he reported. “I could hear the whistling sound the object made as it glided smoothly and nearer to where I stood.” 

The craft landed on three legs about a hundred feet from him. Three humanoid occupants, with lean, strong-looking bodies, dressed in tight-fitting black-brown suits extending from their shoes to their head, alighted. Around their faces—which appeared human—they wore a glass visor with two tube-like devices attached from under their chins to their back, ending in what looked like an oxygen tank. 

“Someone said something that seemed like a question, but I couldn’t understand a word,” said Bobby. One of the group—presumed to be the leader—then pressed something on a small box he was carrying and a beam of red light fell upon Bobby’s eyes, inducing a soothing effect. The box also acted in part as a translating device, since the leader asked Bobby a question in English, with a slight accent, similar to that of Germans. The device also was able to detect Bobby’s eyeglasses, before he took them out of his pocket. 

Asked by the leader if he would like to be with them or visit their place, Bobby declined. There followed a lengthy discourse on the iniquities of mankind, and a number of dire warnings, such as the following: 

“Observe carefully the great mass of humanity killing each other through centuries of war and strife…. There are thousands of good people on your planet, but the mean and selfish humanity outnumbers the good by millions and millions…. Some day you will all be wiped out by your own greediness, and if a few good people live through that, then they will propagate and breed an unselfish humanity and no longer will there be continuous strife…. There is a great and possible danger, too, that your humanity’s intense desire to conquer, eventually seeking power and domination over the other planets, will mean only a complete massacre for Earthmen, because other planets will retaliate with terrifying power and force…. This is our message. Transmit it and let humanity beware.” 1 

Assuming substance to this story, as I do, since Bobby was a friend at the time, one can only wonder at the apparent lack of discrimination shown by these extraterrestrials regarding their choice of contact. Though deeply affected by this encounter, and other related experiences which ensued, Bobby was reluctant to tell even a few people about it, much less humanity at large. And even if he had transmitted the message to all and sundry, would it have made the slightest difference? 

Bobby believed that most people who have had similar encounters suffer from depression and other sequelae, owing to the futility of proving their experiences to others. But at least the story was published. 

A REVERSAL OF ROLES 

Josef Wanderka must be the only person on this planet who claimed not only to have ridden a motorbike into a flying saucer but—in a refreshing reversal of roles—lectured its occupants on the iniquities of humankind. Born in Vienna in 1929, he became an active member of an anti-fascist sabotage group in 1944, until Austria’s liberation from the Nazis the following year. A jeweler by trade, Wanderka’s first sighting of an unknown flying craft occurred in 1954. The following is extracted from an account he wrote in 1975, 2 from my interview with him in Vienna, 3 and ensuing correspondence. 

Wanderka had bought a Fuchs FM40S 1.5hp single-cylinder engine to attach to the left side of the rear wheel of his bicycle, the better to enjoy recreational trips in the forests surroundings Vienna. On a late summer night in 1954, he was riding his roadster on high ground near Hördl forest in Vienna’s 13th district, admiring a magnificent view of Vienna, when suddenly he noticed a cigar-shaped silver object hovering over the city, moving from north to south: 

“Its metallic, shining outer skin was so bright that I thought it was reflecting an anti-aircraft defense searchlight, which I recalled from wartime. But I could see no sign of any such searchlight. The distance between me and the craft must have been at least five miles, which made it seem the size of a medium sized modern airliner, moving at about the speed of a sports plane.” 

Wanderka dumped his roadster in a ditch and dashed to a nearby field that afforded a better view. There he encountered some Soviet Army soldiers who had a base nearby (part of Austria was under Soviet occupation at the time). They too had been observing the craft, and one joked that it might be a secret Soviet weapon. But Wanderka’s definitive close encounter—in late August or early September of 1955—had a much greater impact. It was to change him forever. 

On this occasion, he was riding in woodland about fifteen miles from the city, toward Arbesthal. It was between 14:00 and 15:00. “Suddenly, I saw a dull metallic silver light shining through the shrubs. I rode toward the shrubs to find a gap where I could get through [and] when I did, I found myself in a glade. 

“On the grass stood a metallic, disc-shaped object of about 2.5 meters height and 10–12 meters width, with a group of people in front of it [see photo section]. I couldn’t see any windows, portholes, or lights on its even and arched surface. Neither could I make out any wheels or undercarriage, but there was a ramp of about four meters in length and two meters width [extending from] a roughly rectangular opening [with] half-moon-shaped frames to each side of the opening. The distance between me and the disc was about twenty meters. I decided to enter the disc….” 

“What on earth persuaded you to take such a dare-devil risk?” I asked him, when we finally met in Vienna. 

“At that time, I didn’t care so much what would happen to me,” he explained. “I was tired of life, and also had private problems with my girlfriend. I wasn’t even that concerned about dying. I already thought the disc was from another planet, and that perhaps they’d come to rescue me!” 

His report continues: “The inside of the disc-shaped object was illuminated by an indirect yellow light. It resembled the ideal illumination for an ‘intimate’ living-room atmosphere, which we try to achieve today. The short, arched walls seemed to continue infinitely in the background. I could see neither levers, instrument boards nor panels, seats, or beds for the passengers. 

“The inside of the disc was illuminated in an inviting way, giving me no reason to be afraid. I switched my engine off and freewheeled onto the ascending ramp and into the disc. When I stopped, I found myself in front of a group of five or six beings, about 1.80 meters tall [with] unblemished, beautiful faces that one can only find with children between the age of six and ten. 

“Their clothes consisted of overalls of a grayish color without any signs of seams, pockets, or any openings. The shoes were incorporated into this clothing and didn’t show any outline of toes. The hands were covered with mitts, also incorporated in their overalls. Since these overalls were loosely covering their slim figures, I couldn’t make out the sexes, for example contours of breasts. Their necks came out of a sort of silk frill. Their hair was mid-length and blond, and they wore a close-fitting cap on the back of their heads.” 

Remaining seated on his bike, Wanderka introduced himself, saying where he lived and apologizing for having intruded in such a fashion. The aliens said they came from “the highest part of the Cassiopeia constellation, from Earth’s perspective.” Asked how they could speak German, they replied simply that they’d learned it. Their voices were similar to those of female adult humans, with a high pitch. “They pronounced the individual syllables similar to the accent of English people speaking German. Although I didn’t know much about astronomy at that time, the distance between our Earth and Cassiopeia sounded enormous to me. However, it seemed more important to ask them what type of society they lived in.” 

Wanderka—a committed and evidently fanatical socialist at the time—went on to explain Earth’s various types of societies and the iniquities of mankind. As leading researcher Gordon Creighton noted wryly in his résumé of the case: “Herr Wanderka [delivered] a summary account of the conditions prevailing upon our planet, delivering himself of a splendid and heated left-wing harangue well larded with all the usual clichés, and directed primarily against inequalities and privileges. Maybe the visitors found this a trifle boring, for after a while their attention seemed to rivet onto the odor of warm oil coming from his little motor.” 4 

“Oil was dripping out of the valve near the cylinder, which was also covered with an oily skin and now smelled owing to the heat,” Wanderka’s report continues. “I changed the subject and explained how my little engine worked—which evidently met with great interest. 

“During my explanation of the types of terrestrial societies, the crew appeared to be very open-minded and interested. They told me their system no longer had different classes and that they knew all about the old-fashioned social structure on Earth. This I took as an opportunity to point out the miseries, diseases, and famine which kill millions of people. The surprising reply by the crew was that I myself should lead some attempt to overcome these problems; that I would be the best to understand how to start such a reformation on Earth. I abruptly refused this idea, telling them about the huge number of government officials who only serve a privileged class instead of the whole nation.” 

Wanderka told the extraterrestrials that they themselves should initiate a type of society on Earth in which everyone is equal, because (he assumed) interplanetary beings were not corrupted by the temptations of Earth and had an overwhelming technological advantage. Such was the strength of his passionate delivery that the crew apparently was moved to tears! 

“I therefore decided it was time to leave the spaceship as informally as I had entered it about twenty minutes earlier. I briefly waved my hand and wished them a pleasant day, whereupon they bowed, in a far-eastern style. I turned my roadster, upon which I had been sitting all the time, through 180 degrees, managing it as easily as if on a smooth icy surface, then rolled down the ramp and out onto the grass in front of the spaceship.” 

Wanderka was puzzled by the ease with which he turned the bike. “The pattern of the floor looked like a Belgian waffle, which normally has grooves—though I can’t say there were any,” he recalled for me. 

“The only way I can explain my being able to turn around so easily—bearing in mind the weight of my bike (30 kg) and myself (80 kg)—is that I was under the influence of the same energy which propelled the craft. This was the most impressive part of my encounter. I was rather disappointed with the rest, since I’d expected the crew to be more helpful. They didn’t tell me how to overcome the social problems on Earth, and I didn’t feel up to taking a leading part in a revolution. For this reason, I didn’t even look back to see the craft taking off, but took the nearest way home … also I didn’t want to be questioned by any possible witnesses.” 

Wanderka told no one about his experience for many years. 

INSIDE THE CRAFT 

“The inside of the flying disc corresponded basically with its outer form, whereby the edge of the inner disc didn’t seem to be as curved as the outside, which was probably due to a cavity. When I entered the object, I noticed thick half-moon-shaped corners on both sides of the entrance opening. The ceiling inside seemed to be highly arched at the top—like the outer surface. Because of this, the ceiling and walls gave the optical illusion of blending into each other. 

“From my seated position, I was unable to see any instruments—they might have been covered by the crew standing in front of them. Due to the diffused illumination, I couldn’t see anything to sit or lie on. It might have been that seats or beds were installed in the walls or floor, or that they were hovering inside the disc during flights. 

“I reckoned that the propulsion and guidance instruments were located underneath the floor and between the gaps of the inside and outside walls. As far as I remember from the crew’s explanation, they operate by manipulating gravity and antigravity.” At that time, Wanderka didn’t understand the meaning behind all the technical terms they gave him, but later worked out that they somehow shrank space and time. As he explained to me: 

“They told me that a ‘cyclotronic aggregate’ caused a rotating energy field which puts the whole craft into a ‘self-gravitating field.’ This form of energy is known to us as gravity and antigravity energy. The direction of flight could be determined by an oscillating frequency. Due to the motive power, it was possible to overcome the distance of light years, which is beyond our terrestrial physical concept of time and space. In nuclear science on Earth, the cyclotronic aggregate creates heavy matter by making atomic particles heavier than their original weight so that they subsequently rotate.” 

I asked Josef Wanderka for his overall impression of the visitors. “They had a child-like appearance,” he replied, “and I got the impression they didn’t want to come too close to us. They see us perhaps as we see primitive savages.” 

“How do you feel now, more than forty years after this extraordinary encounter?” I inquired. 

“It was a mental elation for me, and it led me to study technical terms, for example. The whole experience still lurks in my subconscious. It’s always there, and it replaces for me what others call religion.” 

Was he aware that some encounters with extraterrestrials had been less than benevolent? 

“There’s been a lot said about them being bad,” he answered, “but I don’t see it that way—at least, not from my own experience. In any case, I don’t think there’s a civilization anywhere that’s as bad as ours. I can hardly imagine them organizing a holocaust like the Nazis did….”

Chapter Seven 

INFILTRATION 

According to Harold T. Wilkins, a pre-eminent British author and researcher at the time, an unnamed friend of his who served as a pilot in the U.S. Air Force reported to Wilkins in the summer of 1953 that he had heard sensational rumors purporting that the chiefs of the U.S. Air Force had secret information that “mysterious individuals in the U.S. were known to have had contacts with some of the entities on one type of flying saucer. These individuals were alleged to be meeting flying saucer entities in remote places, in regions of the U.S. that are still unmapped, had taken orders from them, and were going round in parts of the west and middle west on some secret purpose connected with these mysterious objects. Nor, said my friend, did the U.S. Air Force believe that any foreign power was concerned in the matter….” 1 

Reports of flying saucer sightings in California’s Mojave Desert were rife in early April 1954. In hopes of a sighting, Carl Anderson, together with his family and some friends, set off for a camping trip near Desert Hot Springs. As the convoy of three cars neared a dirt road on their left, an “uncontrollable unseen force” started to turn Carl’s driving wheel. 

“I immediately thought that something had gone wrong with the steering mechanism,” he reports. “And then a voice whispered in my ear: ‘Turn here, drive three miles and stop.’” Had his wife Stella, sitting beside him, been responsible? She said not. “It seemed,” he explained, “as if I had suddenly been bathed from head to foot in lukewarm water, and the voice had actually seemed to come from inside my head, neither in my right nor my left ear, but from somewhere inside my brain.”

At the end of the three-mile drive, Carl and Stella set up a tent, which they shared with their daughter Betty-Ann and son Bobby. A stove was lit and a snack meal consumed. It was a beautiful starry night in the clear desert air. But alas, no flying saucers, so the group retired some time after midnight. Brothers-in law Jim Stewart and Harold Spencer, and their respective wives Terry and Eleanor, bedded down in their cars. 

“How long I slept I do not know,” said Carl. “Suddenly I was wide awake and sitting upright. Stella and Betty-Ann were also sitting up, but Bobby was still sleeping. As the three of us sat there wondering what had awakened us, a miracle happened. 

“The tent slowly began to disappear until it became absolutely invisible and, looking out across the desert, apparently hovering a few inches off the ground, was a large shining disc. The diameter of this craft was about sixty feet…. Five windows, or portholes, were visible from where we were. The unearthly vehicle glowed all over with a dull fluorescent light [and] a sort of halo seemed to surround the entire craft. I could not tell whether it had any landing gear. It appeared to hover about eighteen or twenty inches off the ground. 

“I tried to move toward this object. I wanted to go over and touch it, but I found that I could not move an inch. I was completely paralyzed. Stella and Betty-Ann later said they had the very same experience…. I did however manage to roll my eyes enough to glance at my wrist watch. The luminous dial read three o’clock (A.M.). We did not know at the time just how long we remained in this paralyzed condition while we continued to watch and listen. We could now hear voices mumbling in a low tone, but could not tell, however, if the conversation was in English, as the sounds were very faint. 

“After what seemed hours, we began to hear a slight humming sound like a generator running—a low droning, pulsating hum. The dim glow surrounding the saucer slowly took on an orange cast, then a bright red color. Then it started to rise straight up, very slowly at first, then faster and faster as it got higher and higher. The red light changed to a brilliant blueish white. Then slowly the tent began to reappear [and] we were free to move about. 

“We sprang to our feet and looked out through the tent flap. The brilliant blue-white light was streaking across the sky and soon disappeared over the horizon near Mt. San Gorgonio. Betty-Ann’s first words were, ‘Daddy, where did the tent go? And why couldn’t I move?’ Harold and Eleanor had also been paralyzed and the car in which they were sleeping rendered invisible. But strangely enough Jim and Terry, being farther away in their car, had not even been awakened, and were dumbfounded when told of the saucer’s visit. 

“The next morning,” said Carl, “the clock in my car, which had been at some distance from the saucer, was fifteen minutes faster than my wrist watch, indicating that it had stopped at three A.M. for a period of fifteen minutes. The paralyzing rays had evidently stopped it. Since my watch is self-winding, it must have started again when the craft took off.” 

In the late summer of 1955, while working at the U.S. Navy Yard near the No. 1 Dry Dock in Long Beach on an electrical installation, Carl suddenly felt suffused with a familiar warmth. A huge silvery disc appeared in the blue sky, observed also by his workmates. “It was of tremendous size and hovered perfectly motionless, [then] seemed to turn on its side and roll across the sky like a gigantic wheel. It stopped abruptly and shot straight out of sight [then reappeared], slowly circled, then started to descend [and] made several right-angle turns. 

“As we watched, a jet fighter appeared, streaking swiftly toward this huge shining saucer, which was now hovering. On rushed the jet until it seemed it would crash into this monster from another world. Then quick as a flash the disc shot to one side and the jet missed it by a very wide margin. The speed of the jet took it way off over the city before its pilot could finally circle and start back. The first performance was repeated [and] the saucer avoided the plane. Making another side circle, the jet returned. This time its tactics were different. It went into a steep dive, then started to climb straight up [to] beneath the space visitor, and a third time it was a complete miss, as the saucer darted to one side then shot straight up and disappeared…. But as usual, not a word appeared in the press.” 

On October 2, 1955, eighteen months after the first encounter, Carl felt compelled to drive to the desert. Accompanied by his wife and Jim Stewart, they decided to spend a night under the stars in sleeping bags. They had planned to head for Desert Hot Springs but, again, the car seemed to have a mind of its own. “Upon rounding a sharp bend,” said Carl, “we once more came upon what appeared to be a small dry lake-bed [and] we were surrounded by huge boulders. As I sat there wondering if this were my appointed destination, the motor stopped [and] I discovered to my amazement that the ignition key had been turned off. This we immediately took to be our answer—this was the spot where we would camp.” 

Shortly before midnight, a brilliant blueish-white light came streaking soundlessly toward the group and began circling overhead. Very slowly, it started to descend. “We were all now on our feet. The moon shone on this huge craft, and we could look up from beneath. It looked like a plate slowly falling…. 

“The great craft was now scarcely two hundred feet overhead. We could now make out three round ball like objects, equally spaced near the outer rim of the ship, from which the fluorescent glowing light appeared to emanate. The craft seemed to bounce up and down slightly, as if the Earth’s gravity were gradually being canceled out. We could hear the pulsating hum. Each time the craft bounced, the hum would increase, then decrease….”

Suddenly panic-stricken, Stella ran toward the car. The craft immediately climbed rapidly but descended again when the others signaled to it with a flare. Jim burned his hand severely on the flare, whereupon the craft emitted a bright glow and disappeared. And then something miraculous occurred, as testified in his affidavit: 

“This is to certify that I, James R. Stewart, did on or about the 2nd day of October in the year 1955 witness a huge object hovering above me on the California desert in a remote spot south of Victorville. I also had the uncanny experience of having a severe burn which I had suffered from a burning flare, miraculously healed, as this object changed color….” 2 

The other witnesses also signed affidavits testifying to these extraordinary events, one of which—by Stella Anderson—is reproduced on p. 112. 

CONTACT 

Further encounters ensued, including a contact in February 1960. I have condensed the following report from a lecture given by Anderson in 1966: 

“On the night—or I should say morning—of February 14, 1960, I was ushered personally aboard a 200- foot craft on the Mojave Desert, some ten to twenty miles north of the town of Yucca Valley. I remained on board this craft for two hours and twenty minutes, during which time I was given some very important information. And I was told that I was to take this information to some great scientists. And when I questioned this, the man who told me this informed me that the way would be made clear, that all expenses would be taken care of, and that I would go to Germany and talk with some noted scientists and physicists in that country. 

“I asked why I had to go to another country [and] why I couldn’t see physicists in my own country, because it so happens that in 1932 or 1933 I was employed by none other than Dr. Vannevar Bush [a pivotal pioneer of nuclear weapon technology]. At that time, he was with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. I lived with him in his house in Belmont, Massachusetts, for two years. I was very well acquainted with him—he’s one of our noted physicists and scientists. And I asked why I had to go to a foreign country to impart this knowledge [and] I was told that scientists here in my own country would turn a deaf ear to what I had to say, therefore I would have to go where people were capable of listening and understanding, and would accept the truth.” 3 

Anderson flew to Germany on October 17, 1960, and participated in a UFO conference at Wiesbaden. Another participant was Dr. Hermann Oberth, one of the true pioneers of astronautics (whom I met in 1972 at his home in Germany). In 1955 Oberth had been invited by Dr. Wernher von Braun (his former assistant) to go the United States, where he worked on rockets at the Army Ballistic Missile Agency, and later with NASA at the George C. Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. Oberth returned to Germany in 1958. 

PROPULSION TECHNOLOGY 

The information imparted by Anderson at the 1966 Reno conference included much data relating to alien propulsion technology, based on the information imparted to him by his alien friends in February 1960: 

“Most everything we read about the craft—the way they’re propelled—we read it in terms of an electromagnetic field. This is not entirely true. There are two forces involved. There is an electromagnetic force field; however, there is also a very, very high-voltage static charge involved…. And it is this static charge that has caused the scorched bushes and the scorched grass, where these craft have landed and made contact. This is from the static charge, which contains billions [and] billions of volts. But as such, it is not actually a danger to human life because there is no amperage involved. 

“Now many people wonder why these craft have been seen going through the sky at terrific rates of speed that have been clocked on radar and by other means, and being able to negotiate the seemingly impossible maneuvers and turns that they make—instantaneous stops and starts—traveling near the speed of light and making 90- and 45-degree turns. And they say these people cannot be human people inside these things, they must be machines, they must be robots, they could never stand the pressures that are being brought about during these quick turns and quick stops and starts. This [would be] very, very true, provided they use Earthmen’s means and methods. But we know they are much more highly evolved—not only spiritually, morally, physically, but also mentally and electronically, and in every other thing that you can name they are much, much further advanced than we are. 

“This is what they have done: they have made a vehicle and they have harnessed the forces of nature; they have copied a real planet. Now, the planet Earth that we know spins on its axis, which is nothing more in itself than a static generator—a huge static generator.” 4 

During a Chamber of Commerce luncheon in Pueblo, Colorado, on July 22, 1952, Joe Rohrer of Pikes Peak Radio Co. recounted an interesting story relating to early knowledge of alien propulsion technology which endorses some of Anderson’s claims: “A Californian air pilot told me that, in 1942, he had been right inside a giant saucer and seen giant flywheels sheathed in metal skins, and found that the motive force came from electrostatic turbines, whose flywheels create an electromagnetic field of force, creating tremendous speeds….” 5 

Anderson learned that part of the propulsion system of the spacecraft he went on involved a “wheel within a wheel,” the principal process by which they derived their motive power. “This in essence is nothing more than a gigantic static generator,” he explained. “One of these wheels turns in a counterclockwise direction, the other in a clockwise direction. And when these two counter-rotating forces reach a speed equivalent with the [rotation] of the Earth or of the planet involved, and in direct relation to its mass, then a static charge is forthcoming to the extent that it is repelled away from the Earth. 

“We know that the Earth has a magnetic field surrounding it. Now, when you are inside a magnetic field, you are in truth inside of a gravity field, because gravity, electricity, and magnetism are one and the same…. When you go into a gravity field, every atom, every molecule, every electron of your body is acted upon simultaneously with every atom and molecule of everything around it. And therefore, these people, being inside a gravity field, have no sense of motion, no knowledge whatsoever of quick turns, of stops and starts, because they in reality, from an atomic standpoint, are a part of the craft itself…. 

“Now, another thing that our scientists do not understand is how these craft can travel with such fantastic speeds in our atmosphere without getting hot and disintegrating and burning up. Well, here again, it’s because the forces of nature have been harnessed in this vehicle, and an ionization effect as such takes place with this static charge surrounding the craft—the skin of the craft—whereby you have several inches of complete insulation on the outside of the craft by means of a vacuum, in which your craft travels through a vacuum and carries its vacuum along with it all the time. It can never get hot, it can never get cold; it remains the same temperature always. 

“So, you see, they have thought of everything. And they tell us that our science knows this, but it’s being kept from us…. Now, when I took this information to Germany, I was received with open arms [by] various other physicists and scientists who were associated at that time, or who had previously been associated in one way or another—with the teaching staff or in an advisory capacity—with Heidelberg University, and who were in complete accord with what I had to tell them. And checking it out mathematically, Dr. Hermann Oberth said, ‘My God, it will work! Why haven’t we thought of this?’” 6 

Oberth was one of the few scientists to have the courage to speak out on the controversial UFO topic. In 1962, he wrote an illuminating article in which he refers to the Wiesbaden conference in general—and to Anderson in particular: 

“As far as the so-called ‘contact’ persons are concerned (those persons who allege they have been passengers in UFOs or have spoken to space people),” he wrote, “I had expected to encounter swindlers, hysterics, or schizophrenics. But I must say that among these contact persons, Carl Anderson, particularly, made quite a congenial, reasonable, and clean-cut impression. Skeptics should understand that I studied medicine and began my professional career as a doctor in a military hospital for three years, where I also had the care of mentally ill persons and I would bet a hundred to one that some of the contact persons are normal and have seen and experienced something. …” 7 

Oberth was skeptical that aliens would look like us. But it is interesting to note that in the article his technical explanations for UFO propulsion parallel many of those revealed by Anderson in his 1960 presentation (which Oberth translated into German after the conference) and, more comprehensively, during private meetings with Oberth and other scientists. “We cannot take the credit for our record advancement in certain scientific fields alone; we have been helped,” conceded Oberth some years later. When asked by whom, he replied, “The people of other worlds.” 8 

Regarding UFO sightings per se, Oberth calculated that 11% of reports resisted conventional explanations. “They cannot be hoaxes or lies because they involve responsible men such as senior air force officers, or radar readings, or photographs from responsible sources…. Furthermore, the reports check out against each other so well that a common origin is to be concluded from them….” He then proceeds to describe the “state of the art”—at least, as it was in 1962: 

“The discs always fly in an attitude as if the driving power were effective vertically with the plane of the disc; when they hover steadily over a certain area they are in a horizontal position; if they want to fly fast they tilt and fly with the broad side facing forward. 

“In sunlight, which is stronger than the luminosity of the discs, they appear to have a metallic sheen. At night they appear dark orange or cherry red if their maneuvers are such that little driving power is required—such as hovering. Under such conditions they emit very little light. If more driving power is required, the luminosity increases and they appear yellow, then yellowish green, then green like a copper flame, and at the highest speeds or accelerations glaringly white. They also may suddenly light up brightly or darken, even disappear…. 

“If we establish the working hypothesis that the UFOs are machines, we also have to assume the following: 

“… They are flying by means of artificial fields of gravity. This would explain the sudden changes of directions. If an apparatus built by humans were capable of changing its direction and speed as suddenly as do UFOs, the passengers would be pressed against the wall so violently they would be crushed to death. Artificial fields of gravity, however, would mean that the occupant would be rushing forward along with the vehicle and that between him and the vehicle no tractive force [the pulling force exerted by a vehicle, or machine or body] would even come into being. The hypothesis also would explain the piling up of the discs into a cylindrical or cigar-shaped mother ship upon leaving the earth because in this fashion only one field of gravity would be required for all discs. 

“They produce high-tension electric charges in order to push the air out of their paths, so it does not start glowing, and strong magnetic fields to influence the ionized air at higher altitudes. First, this would explain their luminosity. Even the poles of our electric influence or induction machines glow in the dark. Secondly, it would explain the noiselessness of UFO flight. Our jet aircraft have a high noise level because they move through the calm air and create violent turbulences. The UFO, however, does not create turbulences near it because the air has the same speed it has, and the speed of the air decreases gradually with distance from the UFO…. Finally, this assumption also explains the strong electrical and magnetic effects sometimes, though not always, observed in the vicinity of UFOs….” 9 

COLONIZATION 

Anderson’s particular alien contacts, who said they had come from Mars, explained that Earth had been colonized thousands of years ago by two extraterrestrial races which had amalgamated. These races supposedly had been responsible for the great pyramids. “Primarily, the pyramids were constructed for means of generating a huge amount of energy which was used to charge their crafts when they came here from outer space,” he explained in his 1966 lecture. “The cosmic energy rays of the universe came down upon the pyramids [and] these rays, upon striking these sides of the pyramids—the sides being constructed at the perfect angle—were radiated off the apex and shot for many, many hundreds of miles out into space, just like a beam from a huge searchlight, only in this case being an invisible beam. And their craft would hover over this beam and re-charge their units. 

“This was the reason why pyramids are built all around the earth—you can follow a circle around the earth. They’re in China, they’re in South America, they’re in various places, [constructed] for the purpose of charging their units when they came here, and their energy was getting to such a low ebb that they needed charging [when they] had to go back again. Now, I was told that the ‘wheel within the middle of a wheel’ was, as I said before, an electrostatic generator. And this obviously has to have a means of turning it—a motive power. I was told that the central shaft, or column, of the craft, on which these two wheels were pivoted, was the true energy source. This was a type of battery with which we are not at this time familiar which would last for perhaps fifty or a hundred years, or more. But eventually they did have to be recharged. 

“It’s also been noted that many of these craft have been seen hovering over mountains—and the Rocky Mountains in particular—places where it is known that there are large deposits of quartz, or granite containing quartz crystals. And quartz crystals are a source of energy that never dissipates; it’s like a battery that will never run out. And so when the energy source is harnessed from these millions of quartz crystals contained in a mountain, and especially a mountain whose peak is shaped more or less like a pyramid, so that this energy will radiate off the apex of the peak of the mountain, then they can do pretty much the same by charging a unit as they used to do from the great power-house of the pyramids.” 10 

Another contactee from this era was George Van Tassel. Though I retain misgivings about some of his claims, his report of an encounter in August 1953 with a landed craft and its occupant—“Solgonda”—may be worth citing here. 

Following the demonstration of a small device about two by two inches square and around a half-inch thick, with rounded corners, carried around the neck and alleged to make the aliens invisible when necessary, Solgonda demonstrated how the device was periodically charged: 

“Suddenly he opened two opposite ends of it and pointed it at the granite rocks of the mountain. I saw a pencil lead-size stream of light between the object and the mountain…. Later he explained that he was charging the device. He said they charge various other pieces of their equipment over granite mountains. This is due to the piezoelectric effect set up by quartz in its granite matrix. 

“When they discharge the ‘crystal battery’ by pressing on either side of it, it releases the charge into their electric body, or aura, and causes light to bend around them; therefore appearing to disappear to the limited physical vision of anyone who is watching them….” 11 

Anderson said that the three aliens who befriended him—two men and a woman—looked identical to Earth people. “If you met them walking down the street or if you sat beside them in a restaurant, you wouldn’t know any difference,” he stated. Except for telepathy, that is. “They know all languages because they are the greatest telepaths. As you go to ask a question, before you can form the words on your lips, they have the answer.” 12 

In Alien Base, I cited the fascinating case of Albert Coe, another of many claiming extensive contacts with aliens, in this case dating back as far as 1920 in Canada. Coe was informed by his alien friend (who claimed to live on both Mars and Venus) that Earth was colonized over fourteen thousand years ago by his race after their home planet—orbiting around the star Tau Ceti, some eleven light years from Earth—dehydrated. The only solution was mass migration to another solar system with a similar star—ours. Following a successful exploratory mission to Earth, during which contact was briefly established with Cro-Magnon humans, the expedition returned to their home planet. It was decided to colonize Earth. Tragically, only one of their huge spaceships survived the journey, the rest having been drawn into our sun, and were forced to settle on Mars. They overcame its harsh environment, then established bases on the high land of Venus, but mostly on Earth. 13 

Mars and Venus have frequently been cited by “contactees” as alien abodes or bases. Most astrophysicists, however, point out that the Martian atmosphere is too thin and cold, while Venus’s atmospheric pressure is reported to be about ninety times that of Earth, with a temperature averaging around 464°C (867°F), a massive carbon-dioxide atmosphere (97 percent)—and no water. These findings are disputed by some, as we shall learn. 

Probably the first person publicly to claim contact with aliens from Venus was Samuel E. Thompson, a retired railroad worker, who told a reporter that while driving to his home in Centralia, Washington, on the evening of March 28, 1950, he encountered a large flying saucer in a wooded area between Morton and Mineral. Two naked, deeply tanned children with dark blond hair which came to their waists were seen playing near the craft’s entrance ramp. Thompson approached to within about fifty feet of the saucer, which emanated strong heat. Several naked male and female adults—humanoid, attractive, with refined features and also deeply tanned—then appeared at the craft’s entrance. They beckoned Thompson to come closer. 

Thompson claimed to have spent the next forty hours with the crew of twenty adults and twenty-five children. He found them “oddly ignorant, yet happy, cheerful, and gentle,” as researcher Jerome Clark reports. They said their craft served as homes on Venus. They had stopped by on Earth, even though other Venusian saucers had been shot at by our military. Before leaving, Thompson explained that he wanted to go home to collect his camera. On his return, and prior to leaving, he tried to photograph the craft, but it was “just like trying to take a picture of the sun.” The aliens themselves refused to be photographed. They told him he could contact them at any time, but that he had to keep certain information to himself. “If I’d tell everything I knew,” he explained to Kenneth Arnold (the pilot who observed nine flying saucers over Mount Rainier, Washington, on June 24, 1947) and his wife Doris, “I never would get to see the ship again. I’d be watched every minute.” 14 

Much of the additional information revealed in this case, unfortunately first published on April 1, 1950, 15 is seemingly absurd. But despite their understandable reluctance to accept a literal occurrence of the events described by Thompson, the Arnolds were impressed by his evident sincerity. 16 (Incidentally, Kenneth Arnold was a contractor at the time for Los Alamos National Laboratories, assigned to find out as much as possible about “flying discs,” following the Maury Island incident of June 21, 1947, when several witnesses observed six craft circling above Puget Sound, Washington, spewing molten “slag”—much of which was collected—that occurred three days prior to Arnold’s sighting.) 

MARS 

Fred Steckling, who had emigrated to the United States and worked with the U.S. Air Force in Germany, was a former chef and private pilot (with whom I flew on one occasion) and close associate of George Adamski, one of the first to claim regular contacts with aliens from Venus, Mars, and elsewhere in the solar system. Regarding the Martian climate, Fred pointed out to me a number of inconsistencies when we met in California a month after the Viking 1 lander had touched down on Mars in July 1976. 

“On Mars,” he began, “they’ve photographed sand dunes, and there’s an area there that is the same size and same height as the sand dunes of Colorado. The scientists are baffled by this, because with one-tenth of the atmosphere, which is supposed to exist on Mars, these sand dunes could never be there, because the winds wouldn’t be strong enough to produce this kind of sand dune.” 

The winds vary from as low as 4 mph, gusting up to 50 mph, with occasional windstorms as high as 300 mph, apparently. Maybe, given the latter speed, sand dunes can be formed in such extremes? Fred made another point about the atmosphere, which seems harder to contest: 

“In the Martian morning, they’ve photographed large patches of fog in the valleys. Now, in my standard pilot’s book, it says that fog is a product of the temperature and humidity being nearly at the same point—called the dew point. So if the temperature is below freezing, there’ll be no fog: it has to be above freezing to create fog, and the temperature has to be the same as humidity, so that if the temperature is, say, 40°—which is above freezing—and the humidity is 40%, you have fog…. If the temperature is below freezing, and the humidity is high, you still have no fog, because it will not be created. Consequently, if there are large patches of fog, there must be areas on Mars that warm up sufficiently to produce it. And from what they’re telling us from the Viking Lander, so far, temperatures are too cold—it’s always 20, 30, and 40 degrees below zero.” 17 

A 2012 article on Mars in Air & Space gives the average temperature as –81°F (–63°C), 18 while the NASA Quest Mars current Web site states that temperatures may reach a high of about 70°F (20°C) at noon at the equator in summer, or a low of about –243°F (–153°C) at the poles. “In the mid-latitudes, the average temperature would be about –50° Celsius with a nighttime minimum of –60° Celsius and a summer midday maximum of about 0° Celsius.” 19 

Contactee Apolinar (Paul) Villa, who took many fine color photographs of alien craft in New Mexico in the 1960s and had a series of encounters with their occupants, told me in 1976 that Mars was used as a base by his alien contacts. They said that the atmospheric pressure at ground level was equivalent to that at 12,000 feet on Earth. Life is sustainable there: cacti and other plants, for example, thrive. 20 

Dr. Lloyd V. Berkner had been executive secretary of the Joint Research and Development Board in 1946 (under Dr. Vannevar Bush) and, later, a member of the top-secret Majestic-12 group and an adviser to the government and other agencies on the space program—including the alien situation. Carol Honey, another close associate of Adamski, revealed to me that while working at Hughes Aircraft, he sneaked into a closed lecture by Berkner. The subject was Mars. “Berkner said that the atmosphere was a shirtsleeve-type southern California environment. He very definitely believed that you could walk around on Mars and breathe. And this guy was Eisenhower’s space adviser….” 21 

VENUS 

As for Venus, in 1921 Albert Coe’s alien friend explained that although the planet was younger in evolutionary processes than Earth, “its higher regions are not too drastically different than the environment here.” Only ten percent of the Venusian terrain is highland, and the highest point on the planet is the mountain known as Maxwell Montes, towering 35,400 feet above the planet’s “sea level” and 27,000 feet above a huge highland region the size of Australia known as Ishtar Terra. In any event it seems likely that, with their highly advanced technology, aliens are capable of converting the hostile environment—which in any case may be less extreme in the highland regions than we have been led to believe. 

Carl Sagan, a world authority on planetary sciences, postulated that “terraforming”—involving in this case the injection of appropriately grown algae into the Venusian atmosphere—“would in time convert the present extremely hostile environment of Venus into one much more pleasant for human beings.” 22 

In his book Why Are They Here? Fred Steckling describes some of his meetings with aliens in downtown Washington, D.C., one of which took place on March 19, 1966. A main topic of conversation was the Russian Venera space probes, Venus 2 and 3, which had just reached the planet: an object about twice the size of a football had been ejected from the one-ton Venus 3 into the planet’s atmosphere and achieved a soft landing by parachute system on March 1—man’s first spacecraft to reach another planet. Reportedly, no transmissions were received. The alien explained, however, that the small device had been sending radio signals for some time, signals that had shaken up our scientists’ previous beliefs about the planet (thus presumably had been censored). He went on to explain that a “magnetic shield” enveloping Venus served as protection from cosmic rays and “holds a very high temperature, as well as the natural electrical layers of the upper ionosphere. The protective magnetic shield is made artificially by the inhabitants of Venus.” Fred’s unspoken thought that this shield probably cut down radiation levels to a minimum was confirmed verbally by the alien. (Venusian gravity, incidentally, is 91% that of ours, thus hypothetical Venusians would weigh a little more on Earth.) 

Shortly before this meeting, Fred had written letters to some newspapers, including The Washington Post, challenging several of the published findings regarding Venus. In late 1962, the U.S. space probe Mariner 2, during its fly-by of the planet, reported surface temperatures of 428°C (802.4°F)—above the melting point of lead. Following the later soft landing by the Soviet Venus 3 probe, the Post commented: “Our scientists were sharply critical of this landing, for they were not sure the craft was sterilized [and] feared the unsterilized spacecraft may have carried germs from Earth to Venus, which might have jeopardized the chances of finding life on the planet.” 

“I openly ask the scientists,” Fred challenged, “What life do they expect to find with an 800° surface temperature? If the boiling point of water, for instance, stands at 212°F, why does the space craft, then, have to be sterilized, if at only 212° all germs are killed automatically?” The letter was not published. 23 

I should add here that Fred Steckling’s son Glenn, currently a pilot with a major U.S. airline, also attests to a number of meetings with aliens living among us. 

Another person claiming regular contact with Venusians during this époque was an American brigadier general. In a letter to Major Hans C. Peterson, Senior Air Traffic Control Officer in the Royal Danish Air Force (1949–1976)—Adamski’s representative in Denmark—the general stated, in part: 

“In regard to the space ships and their crews, so-called ‘flying saucers,’ what I am about to impart to you I am asking you as a fellow Veteran not to divulge the source…. Let me first state that through no effort or expectation on my part, I was contacted one night eleven years ago while working late in my shop to finish a printing job. They came to my shop door, insisted on my opening it, came in, looked around a bit, spoke no word, and motioned me to come outside. As I did so I became aware of a large object, a few feet overhead. 

“I was taken aboard, and had my first experience of positive telepathy, a very informative few minutes. They left, saying they would return soon. They kept their word and they returned—I think I can honestly say a few hundred times since, in the past eleven years. 

“They have requested that I act as their contact man with quite a number of our national and religious leaders, and my identity must remain a strict secret, except with their permission as in your case. You can understand that, if my identity and work were known, I would never have a single moment’s rest, and would soon become worthless to both them and the problems I attempt to handle. 

“Now to their ability to speak perfect English. If you, for instance, had been within close vicinity of Venus for 2,000 years, as the Venusians have the Earth, and had been able to hear any conversation in any language that was spoken on Venus, do you not think you would be able to speak their language quite fluently? Among their own people they use thought only, but we of Earth, because of our habit, they have learned our language so perfectly that if one of them was to step up and speak to you in your place of business or your home or on the street, you would not recognize him from one of your own people, and in appearance, probably the greatest difference would be his handsome features and perfect proportions physically….” 

It has been twenty-five years since the Russians and Americans—or any other nation, apparently—have sent a lander to Venus. In late 2009, however, NASA awarded the University of Colorado at Boulder (CU-Boulder) $3.3 million for a detailed, one-year concept study for a lander mission to Venus “to study the history of its surface, climate and atmosphere and to predict its ultimate fate in the solar system.” The mission had been proposed by CU-Boulder Professor Larry Esposito, science team leader on the proposal. As part of CU-Boulder’s Surface and Atmosphere Geochemical Explorer (SAGE) mission, the lander would descend onto the flank of an active volcano known as Mielikki Mons, which is about 200 miles across and 4,800 feet in altitude. Once the lander was in place, instruments would dig about four inches into the surface, then “zap the soils with two lasers and a vacuum tube shooting large pulses of neutrons, which would bounce back data to the lander with information on surface composition and texture,” it was reported in 2011. The lander would be constructed to survive the harsh conditions on Venus for three hours or more. “Venus has gone terribly bad since it first formed,” says Esposito. “The surface pressure is a hundred times that of Earth and its temperature is similar to that of a self-cleaning oven….” 24 

According to Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) planetary scientist Suzanne Smrekar, at eight miles above the surface of Venus, the carbon dioxide in its atmosphere becomes so dense that it turns “supercritical.” “Supercritical carbon dioxide is a gas-liquid mix that can eat through metal, and SAGE is designed to keep this nasty stuff from entering the sealed vessel,” explains Sam Kean. “For protection from the crushing atmospheric pressure—1,300 pounds per square inch—the lander will be roughly spherical…. The one redeeming quality of the heavy atmosphere is that it cushions the lander’s descent. Terminal velocity on Venus is a leisurely 25 mph—so slow that the parachute is no longer needed after the spacecraft is 42 miles above the surface.”

“Temperature is the thing that will kill you the quickest,” claims Smrekar, who adds that to protect circuits and batteries, she and others have been testing advanced insulation materials such as lithium nitrate. But insulation, per se, would be insufficient, and planetary scientist Mark Bullock points out that such landers will require “active” cooling—that is, multi-stage refrigeration. 25 

Is Venus the veritable hellhole it’s cracked up to be? Who are we to believe—the contactees, the “Venusians,” or the down-to-Earth scientists? Could it be that official statements about Venus are deliberately distorted? In addition to Fred Steckling, others have come forward to dispute the official findings. John Lear, whom I first met in 1990, is a former pilot who has flown over 160 different types of aircraft in many different countries. The son of William P. Lear, designer of the Learjet, he is the only pilot ever to hold every airline certificate issued by the Federal Aviation Administration, and has also flown numerous missions for the CIA. He became interested in UFOs and the space program in the early 1980s. Behind the scenes, he has learned much about NASA and, in the following instance, about Venus in particular: 

“In the late 1950s NASA was formed to compartmentalize, containerize, and sanitize information from all space platforms and vehicles,” claimed Lear in an interview with Art Bell in 2003. “We sold NASA to the public, claiming that all information would belong to them, but they got very little, and even that was highly sanitized. 

“Our first efforts were to keep the public from learning about Venus—a very similar planet to Earth, and its population very similar to ours, just [more] technologically advanced…. Starting with the Russian Venera 1 and U.S. Mariner 2, we made Venus look like a lead-melting, volcanic surface, spewing sulfuric acid into a pressurized atmosphere 90 times that of Earth. And as often is the case, we overdid it, and we wondered why nobody asked how a parachute survived a descent into 800-degree air.” 26 

During my fourteen years with the London Symphony Orchestra, a fellow member learned from a scientist friend in the 1970s that the director of a top-secret U.S./German space research center in West Germany was of Venusian origin. This revelation, my colleague informed me, was restricted to a quorum of scientists at the center. The information supplied by the director proved invaluable in their research effort, which I assume was related to the liaison program. In the 1980s my friend had the opportunity of meeting the director over dinner in London, together with his scientist friend, and was satisfied as to the director’s “credentials.” Like some of the aliens in the Amicizia group (Chapter 13), the director enjoyed good food and wine. And why not? 

EARLY INFILTRATION 

In 1921, Albert Coe, then seventeen years old, was told by his 340-year-old (!) alien friend that, as early as 1904, the aliens replaced a hundred terrestrial babies and infiltrated their own. “In the base of each baby’s brain was this little thing that recorded everything that that baby saw or did, from the time they put it there,” Coe told Dr. Berthold Schwarz, a noted researcher and psychologist. “No one ever knew it was a switch.” Subsequently, as adults, the aliens became active in every major nation on Earth. Their main concern: that we were on the verge of discovering secrets of the atom, which could have disastrous consequences for our planet. 

“You’ve just finished what you call a world war,” the man explained, “and each of your wars gets a little more brutal and devastating than the preceding one. We’re here to watch and see what you’re going to do when you learn the secret of the atom. This is one reason we’re here.” Coe learned years later that in 1955 the aliens, alarmed about the escalation of nuclear-weapons tests, had set up a neutralizing screen, “in case one of these nuclear experiments of ours got out of hand—that it wouldn’t start a chain reaction.” One nuclear weapon, for example, had been exploded above the atmosphere in 1964, they said. Were it not for the neutralizing screen, the results could well have been catastrophic. 27 

PERSONAL ENCOUNTERS 

Many years ago I co-authored a book, together with Lou Zinsstag, on George Adamski, examining the pros and cons of his claims. 28 Lou—a cousin of Carl G. Jung—had been Adamski’s Swiss representative and, like most of the representatives, subsequently experienced encounters with aliens living among us. The first of Adamski’s contacts occurred near Desert Center, California, on November 20, 1952, witnessed from a distance by six companions. The alien with whom Adamski communicated on that occasion—given the name “Orthon”—asserted that he came from Venus. The witnesses, two of whom (Alice Wells and Lucy McGinnis) I knew and found totally credible, subsequently signed an affidavit testifying to this significant event 29—perhaps more significant than we realize, as I shall discuss later in this chapter. 

Although described in Alien Base and in the book on Adamski I co-authored, since both are out of print I should mention here my two encounters with presumed aliens in the United States. The first occurred on November 13, 1963, while touring with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. During the five-hundred-mile or so journey from Tucson to Los Angeles in our convoy of three buses, we stopped at a restaurant near the Arizona/California border. Seated at a table with three colleagues, I happened to survey the customers waiting in line. My attention was drawn to an extraordinarily graceful, petite girl with blond bobbed hair and delicate pale features. The thought struck me that she might be one of those aliens living among us, so I telepathically transmitted the somewhat trite question: “Are you from another planet?” 

There was no response. But as she left the line, she made a point of walking past our table, pausing to give me a lovely smile and gracious bow of acknowledgment before proceeding to another part of the restaurant, a “dead-pan” expression on her face. My colleagues shared my bemusement. Later, I was to be reminded of Adamski’s description of one of the female crew members he encountered on board a large mothership in February 1953, with her “almost transparent skin.” 30 

I do not know the precise location of the restaurant, but I do recall that as we departed in the buses, one of the highway signs nearby coincidentally indicated Desert Center. I had hoped to meet Adamski in Vista during our few days in Los Angeles, but unfortunately, owing to my schedule, it didn’t work out. 

In February 1967 I was playing with the London Symphony Orchestra in New York for a series of concerts at Carnegie Hall with Mstislav Rostropovich, the great Russian cellist. I had just returned from my first meeting with Madeleine Rodeffer, a close associate of Adamski, with whom (and others) she had observed the classic Adamski-type scout-craft at very close range in her front yard in Silver Spring, Maryland. On February 26, 1965, Adamski had taken 8-mm film of the craft as it described a series of maneuvers. Madeleine told me that she had had a number of encounters with aliens living in the Washington, D.C. area, and suggested that on my return to New York I should try to initiate a contact telepathically. So, on that late afternoon, between a rehearsal and concert, I sat down in the lobby of the Park-Sheraton Hotel at 56th Street on Seventh Avenue and transmitted a telepathic request: “If any of you people from elsewhere are in the New York vicinity, please come and sit down right next to me and prove it.” 

After about half an hour a man entered the lobby whose demeanor put me on the alert. Dressed in a charcoal-gray suit with a white shirt and dark tie, he could have passed for a businessman from Madison Avenue. He wore rimmed glasses and appeared to be about thirty-five years old and five feet ten inches in height, with slightly curly fair hair, a mild olive complexion, and perfectly proportioned features. He sat down beside me, took out a copy of The New York Times from his attaché case, and turned the pages over in a rather deliberate and superficial manner. After he had refolded the paper, I asked him telepathically if he really was from another planet, and if so, to please confirm this by placing his right index finger on the right side of his nose and—I vaguely recall—asking him to keep it there for a short while. No sooner had I transmitted the thought than he did precisely that. 

I attempted more telepathy, but no further confirmation was forthcoming. Eventually he stood up, walked over to some display windows, and then gave me a direct and serious look before walking out of the hotel into Seventh Avenue. I never saw him again. I am often asked why I didn’t try and engage him in a conversation, to which I can only respond that it seemed inappropriate. I assumed that, if conversation was to be on the agenda, he would be the one to initiate it. 

“EARTH’S FUTURE IN SPACE” 

Since that occasion, I have had two encounters reaffirming my conviction that aliens live among us, one of which occurred in Wrocław, Poland. I had been invited by the researcher Janusz Zagórski to give a presentation at the “X UFO Forum” (“X” meaning “10th” in this instance), which ran from May 6 to 7, 2006. I was also honored by an invitation to head a discussion on the UFO topic the evening before the conference, as guest speaker, at Salonu Profesora Dudka—Professor Dudek’s Salon—organized by Jósef Dudek, a Wrocław University professor well known as an outstanding mathematician and humanist. The aims of this prestigious Salon are to “integrate scientific, political, and cultural elites of Wrocław by means of organizing discussion meetings devoted to topics that are of vital interest to representatives of various disciplines and circles.” The attendees, numbering about seventy (at a guess), included medical doctors, military personnel, politicians, psychologists, and scientists, some retired. 

At 19:00, after being introduced to the assembled gathering by the chairman, I delivered my illustrated slide presentation, scheduled to last thirty-five minutes. An interval of forty-five minutes followed, allowing informal talks and refreshments. 

From the beginning of the evening, I had been aware of an immaculately dressed, very composed man in the audience, sitting about ten feet from me. Slight of build, he was about five feet ten inches in height and wore a dark gray suit, waistcoat, white shirt, and dark tie. His complexion and hair were similar to the man in New York. I tried a bit of telepathy—to no apparent avail. 

As the audience returned to their seats after the interval, I began taking a few photographs, hoping to capture an image of this man. I succeeded in taking a few shots of the audience seated to my right, but as I panned to the left—where the man was seated—a voice from the back of the room said, “The speaker is not allowed to take photographs.” I apologized—to whomever. 

What followed turned out to be a lively debate. I shall never forget the moment when a psychologist launched into a diatribe against the subject, his face purple with rage (and perhaps liquid refreshment), after which Major Jósef J. Makiela, a retired Polish air force pilot, countered vehemently by stressing how seriously the subject was taken by the military, and introduced a fellow pilot who had experienced a close encounter. 

Participating contributors to the debate were encouraged not to exceed five to seven minutes. Both English and Polish were spoken. On my left-hand side sat a professional female simultaneous translator. Toward the end of the evening, the unusual man stood up and, as per protocol, announced his name (which I didn’t catch) and gave his occupation—“doctor.” He then proceeded to address the topic of “Earth’s future in space.” Obviously, I was all ears. 

At the conclusion of the debate, I approached the man, proffering my right hand, which he held briefly and limply, with no handshake. “I think you have a great deal of knowledge,” I said. He made no verbal response but continued looking at me very directly, his unblinking pale blue eyes betraying not a vestige of expression. I handed him my business card and he left the room. 

After the debate and ensuing conversations with various guests, which finished after 23:00, I was taken back to my hotel in a suburb of Wrocław, part of the fabulous Wojnowice Castle, as guest of the proprietors, Iwona and Franciszek Oborski. On the twenty-five-kilometer journey, I vaguely recall struggling to recall what that unusual man had said. 

Over drinks with a small group of attendees, we discussed the evening. I immediately alluded to the man in question. Franciszek commented that the man frequently attended the Dudek Salon, and invariably had something interesting to contribute. “Can any of you remember what he talked about?” I asked. It seemed that nobody—including myself—had a clue, other than that it had something to do with Earth’s future in space. Bearing in mind that when I approached the man I had been extremely impressed by what he had communicated to us, I remain puzzled. 

All subsequent efforts to obtain evidence were thwarted. I had asked a professional photographer who took a number of photos during the proceedings to send me some pictures. I never heard back from him. Janusz Zagórski sent copies of the photos he had taken, but unfortunately the unusual man does not appear in them. Furthermore, debates at Professor Dudek’s Salon are usually recorded and speakers are entitled to a copy. I never received one, despite several requests. (It is possible that the event simply was not taped on this occasion.) Franciszek Oborski had offered to find out what she could about the man’s background, but she was not in the best of health at the time and sadly died a few years later. 

Whatever the background of this unusual man, it seems likely to me that he was one of a number of aliens who live and work among us. I nurture the impression that subliminally he had imparted some possibly important information regarding Earth’s future, and then somehow “wiped” our memories thereof. For the time being, perhaps. 

MOUNT PALOMAR 

Many of George Adamski’s associates and friends experienced encounters and sightings when visiting his home at Palomar Terraces, Valley Center, on the slopes of Mount Palomar, California. One such was Alan G. Tolman, who had served in the Korean War with the 3rd Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division, when he had his first UFO sighting. Later he spent six years in aerospace research, including with the Douglas Aircraft Company in Segundo, California, where he worked in the Experimental Department as an electrician. In October 1955, assigned to attaching a special camera on the Douglas Skyrocket, he was approached while alone in the hangar by two intelligence personnel, one from the CIA (Henry Harvey Hennes) and the other (unnamed) from the Office of Naval Intelligence. Somehow, the men were aware of Tolman’s sightings. 

“Both men encouraged me to speak up and tell more people of my sighting experiences,” Tolman reports. “They told me that the CIA had three volumes of Intelligence Digests, which they said contained sightings and photos from all over the world [and] said that Earth was being looked over by people from other planetary systems.” The existence of the Intelligence Digests was later confirmed (in a roundabout way) in a letter to Tolman from Vice Admiral C. S. Freeman, U.S. Navy (retired). I possess a copy of that letter. 

Around the same period—1955–56—Tolman was visiting Adamski. “George had a fifteen-inch Newtonian reflector telescope in a dome, in a clearing just a short distance from his house. He also had a six-inch Newtonian telescope that he used with a German 3-inch by 4-inch plate-glass-type camera that he used to take flying saucer photos with in the early 1950s. One night, George let me use his six-inch telescope while he was in his house speaking with friends. 

“While looking through his telescope, I saw a ‘blueish’ streak that filled the field of view, going from my right to my left and toward the clearing where George’s fifteen-inch telescope dome was. I quickly looked up but saw nothing. Suddenly, I saw a blue-white flare, then a glow, near the fifteen-inch ’scope dome area. The blue-white glow was elliptical in shape. A grove of trees stood between me and the spacecraft, and the trees were sharply silhouetted by the ship’s glow. 

“I walked toward the craft, and as I got closer I could hear a soft, pleasing ‘hum’ sound. At about a hundred yards from the craft, I heard people that had just come out of a restaurant, down the hill from George’s house, yelling loudly, ‘There’s a [flying saucer] on the ground!’ From the restaurant parking area, the people had an unobstructed view of the craft. 

“Suddenly, a man from the restaurant parking area came running toward me and almost knocked me down, saying ‘There’s a [saucer] out there.’ He then disappeared. The craft increased in brightness, going from blue-white to an intense white that seemed to shimmer. The hum sound increased in frequency until I could not hear it anymore. The craft then shot straight up, making no noise, into the night stars, until it looked just like a star. It then shot off horizontally toward the horizon. 

“I then went into George’s house and told him what had just happened. He said he heard all the ‘ruckus’ outside, and then just looked at me and smiled….” 31 

Adamski wasn’t alone in photographing alien craft in this vicinity. According to Harold Wilkins, in December 1951 a U.S. Marine claimed to have overheard an interesting conversation at the Palomar Observatory, which then housed the world’s largest telescope. The Marine stated as follows: 

“I, and another Marine, were chatting to one of the Palomar professors when a friend of his arrived from Berkeley, California. He, too, is a professor. They began talking, and we listened in to what we were not supposed to hear. The Palomar man said that the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation had forbidden the publication of certain astrophysical photos taken at Palomar. ‘Why?’ asked the other. ‘Well, they show things that the U.S. government thinks it wiser people should not know. They might cause panic. There are pictures of jet planes chasing flying saucers, and disintegrating in mid-air. There are also data about strange changes in the atmosphere, and the effect on other planets of radioactive emanations after the explosion of atomic bombs.’” 

Wilkins also cites a tongue-in-cheek report by Walter Winchell, the well-known columnist: “June 30, 1952: Scientists at Palomar Observatory, Calif., are supposed to have seen a ‘space ship’ land in the Mojave Desert, in May last. Four persons stepped out, took one look, and went off again. The U.S. Army may officially announce it in the fall.” 32 It didn’t, of course. 

COLLATERAL EVIDENCE 

In Flying Saucers Have Landed, a best-selling book by Desmond Leslie and George Adamski, the latter’s famous series of clear photographs of scout ships and motherships, taken through his telescope, were first published. In the updated edition, Leslie reports that in 1955 his friend Patrick (later Sir Patrick) Moore, the iconic British astronomer who died in 2012, revealed that he too had been shown a set of photos of a “scout-ship,” even better ones than those taken by Adamski and Stephen Darbishire: 

“They were taken, I was told, by a world-famous American astronomer who desired to remain anonymous as he feared the ridicule of his colleagues. Patrick Moore has given a pledge of secrecy regarding this eminent man’s identity [so] we compromised by referring to him as ‘Dr. X.’ At my request, Moore kindly wrote to Dr. X asking if I might be permitted a sight of his photos (while preserving his anonymity), but this, to my regret, was refused. However, I gathered that Dr. X had taken some of his series through a telescope, as had Adamski, and had once, when out for a walk, practically stumbled upon a UFO rising from the ground and had managed to photograph it close at hand.” 33 

“THE NOBLE ONE” 

In an unusual book on the early contactees, author Henry Dohan reveals that the aforementioned Orthon—the name given him by his terrestrial contacts, meaning “the noble one” in Greek—lived “on and off for about three years” in the Vista, California, area, spending much of his time with Adamski. Claiming to be around 360 years old in 1952, but apparently looking like a man in his twenties, Orthon was often pursued by both the FBI and CIA, according to Dohan. 34 

During a conversation with Adamski in 1959, Lou Zinsstag asked about the well-known painting of Orthon depicting him as appearing rather effeminate and undistinguished. “Orthon did not look like that at all,” replied Adamski. “He had a very manly, highly intellectual face, but as his features were so distinct and characteristic, it would have been dangerous for him to have had them published.” To Lou’s surprise, Adamski then showed her a photo of Orthon’s face in profile. Lou revealed to me that his most striking feature was a pronounced chin. 35 

“People may wonder what kind of person He  was,” writes Dohan. “I was never privileged to meet Him, but those who did say He is a most humble person with the most incredible powers.” On one occasion while with Orthon, Adamski explained that he would need about four or five people to move a large solid oak table from a storage shed into the house. “Orthon told Adamski to go to the street and make sure that no cars were coming,” Dohan continues. “Orthon put His hands on the top of the table and it began to float. He held His hand over the table all the way as He walked alongside it and it floated all the way from the storage shed into the house.” 

Yet Orthon was evidently very down to Earth. “On another occasion,” writes Dohan, “Adamski had problems with the plumbing in the house near the foothills of Mount Palomar where he lived. Orthon volunteered to help since He [was smaller than Adamski] and He fixed the problem. I write this to illustrate the humility of such a great Man who was not too proud to go under a house to help somebody.” 

Dohan claims that Orthon left after three years and allowed people from Adamski’s house to film the departure of his craft. “I saw this movie,” he affirms. “The spacecraft rose in front of the camera to only a few feet above the ground, then it flew in a circle, returning again to the camera before it finally departed. In the beginning of that same movie was a short segment where [an object] the size of a fly kept jumping up and down in front of the windshield of the car in which Adamski was riding,” Dohan continues. “Adamski asked the driver to stop the car [and] filmed the small saucer and followed it with the camera; and then, as you look into the sky, in the background of the tiny saucer was another one, an exact replica of the first one but many miles [sic] in size. The message they wanted to give us is that these [craft] can be built in all sizes.” 36 In the Amicizia case (Chapter 13), very similar small “craft”—given the name “aniae”—were seen by various witnesses, two of whom I interviewed. 

Born in Vienna, Henry Dohan was a textile and electrical engineer who achieved fame in 1961 for his invention of ladderless nylon stockings, based on research into “mass and macromolecular structures.” After becoming an Australian citizen, he eventually moved to Southern California. He seems to have been respected, described for example in the Australian Parliament by Senator the Hon. G. Brown as “an inventive genius, with remarkable powers of concentration and unusual tenacity who finally triumphed over colossal difficulties….” 37 

Dohan’s use of the capital “H” in relation to Orthon seems to imply his belief that the latter had been Jesus in a previous life. An outrageous implication, to be sure. Yet I have often pondered on the possibility myself. In 1976 I asked Alice Wells, Adamski’s closest associate for many years, if she thought this to be the case. She replied in the affirmative, without further comment. In Chapter 19, I cite various quotes from the Bible which tend to support the likelihood of Jesus’s out-of-this-world provenance. 

Fred Steckling relates that one of his alien contacts worked for several years on Earth, in many different environments, with both rich and poor people. “I have not hesitated to do any kind of job, regardless of what kind of work was involved, ‘dirty’ or ‘clean,’ as you may classify it,” he told Fred. “The work has to be done, and without the dirty work, the clean could not exist.” 38 

Which brings me back to Carl Anderson. He recounts how a trusted friend of his, a native American chief who lived in east Los Angeles, was camping one night in 1965 at Salton Sea (a National Wildlife lake recreation area where he owned quite a lot of land) when he and his wife witnessed at close proximity the landing of an alien vehicle. “The people came over and conversed with him in his own tongue—an Indian language. They told him they were coming here to study the ways of our people. They wanted him to find them a place to live, because they wanted to mingle among us and associate with the people of Earth, to try and find out what made us do the things we do; why we have wars, why we kill one another, and why we don’t have any brotherly love…. 

“So he got them a place to stay. But first of all he told them they had to put on different clothes. ‘You’re all dressed in white,’ he said, ‘and you’ll be recognized right away as somebody different.’ So they went to the store, after [my friend] had put them up in a motel for the night—a man, a woman, and three children. And their hair, it was so red! 39 ‘You’re going to have to dye that hair a different color,’ he told them, ‘because it’ll be obvious that you’re not like people of Earth.’ 

“They’re now living in a town in the east Los Angeles area. My son-in-law was driving a bakery cart, and he delivered bakery goods to them. The three children are going to a school in the Los Angeles County School System, and they got coached almost daily by their parents to make boo-boos—to actually make mistakes on purpose so that they won’t be recognized as being out of the ordinary, because those children are such geniuses that they’re almost incapable of making any mistakes. And as far as I know, they still live in the area. The man works putting vegetables on the counters of a large supermarket….” 40 

Since the early days of the space program, we have received assistance from some alien groups—and hindrance from others. Citing the deflection from orbit of NASA’s Juno 2 rocket in 1959, Wernher von Braun is reported to have stated: “We find ourselves faced by powers which are far stronger than we had hitherto assumed, and whose base is at present unknown to us. More I cannot say at present. We are now engaged in entering into closer contact with those powers….” 41

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