The Mammoth Encyclopedia of Extraterrestrial Encounters

by Story, Ronald

  The society bases its beliefs upon the contact Dr. King is said to have had with highly evolved “Masters” on other planets—mostly within this solar system—and the more than six hundred communications, or “Transmissions,” he has allegedly received from them. King claims that he was first contacted, one morning in May 1954, by a “voice from space” that said. “Prepare yourself! You are to become the Voice of Interplanetary Parliament.” Thus, the thirty-five-year-old Englishman became the “Primary Terrestrial Mental Channel” by authority of the voice which (he later discovered) belonged to a thirty-five-hundred-year-old Venusian Master called Aetherius (a pseudonym meaning “One Who comes from Outer Space”). Aetherius and other members of the “Hierarchy of the Solar System” had an urgent message to give to Earth through the unique Yogic mediumship of George King, and in 1955 a series of “Cosmic Transmissions” began, which continued throughout his life.

  To receive them, King would go into a samadhic trance in which the consciousness is supposedly raised to a high “Psychic Center.” A telepathic beam of thought was placed on him by the communicator, and the message was received and transmitted through King’s brain and voice box, emerging in the form of slow-spoken, resonant English. All messages are preserved on audio tape.

  The messages include warnings against the use of nuclear energy in any form and exhortations to put the world in order by returning to the “Cosmic Laws” as taught by great Masters such as Jesus, Buddha, and Krishna—all of whom are said to have come from other planets.

  Life on the other planets is described as free from war, hatred, disease, want, and ignorance. The inhabitants have perfected spacecraft that can traverse the galaxy and beyond. Some of these craft, engaged in metaphysical operations around the Earth, have been termed “flying saucers.”

  Among their supposed missions were the following: to protect us from outside interference from hostile races, to monitor all changes in the environment and geophysical structure of the planet, and to help clear up harmful radiation in the atmosphere.

  King stated that without flying saucers the world would be lifeless. Messages from the commanders of some of the craft indicate that mankind is the “problem child” of the solar system and an area of vulnerability in an otherwise well-protected sector of the galaxy. This is of special importance to the Aetherius Society in view of its belief that an intergalactic conflict is now in progress.

  The society also believes in reincarnation and teaches that mankind itself originally came from another planet in this solar system, which is now the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. Our original home planet is said to have been destroyed by a total atomic chain reaction, and mankind was reincarnated on Earth some 18 million years ago.

  According to the society’s beliefs, two previous civilizations on Earth, Lemuria and Atlantis, also perished due to an atomic war, and the Cosmic Masters are now actively concerned with preventing a third such catastrophe. It is further maintained that specially trained interplanetary Adepts are on Earth engaged in a cleansing operation to eliminate the centers of evil, which have dominated the world for eons and seek to eventually enslave all of mankind.

  The plan will culminate with the arrival of an extraterrestrial Master from a flying saucer some time in the not-too-distant future. When this happens, all people on Earth will be offered the choice of following the laws of God and entering a New Age of peace and enlightenment, or rejecting the laws and passing through death to a younger planet where they will relearn the lessons of life.

  The Aetherius Society has published many texts of the Transmissions and also produces a full range of cassette tapes explaining the theory and practice of Cosmic metaphysics. The society organizes lectures, seminars, and other events to publicize the Teachings of the Cosmic Masters.

  Address:

  6202 Afton Place

  Hollywood, CA 90028 U.S.A.

  757 Fulham Road

  London SW6 6UU

  England

  Web site:

  www.aetherius.org

  AFR (Air Force Regulation) 190-1 Issued on August 30, 1991, by the Secretary of the United States Air Force to update the official USAF policy on Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs):

  a. The following statement may be used in response to queries: Project Blue Book, the Air Force study of UFOs, ended in 1969, after 22 years of scientific investigation. More than 12,500 reported sightings were investigated; the vast majority—about 95 percent—were explainable. They were caused by such natural phenomena as meteors, satellites, aircraft, lightning, balloons, weather conditions, reflections of other planets, or just plain hoaxes. Of the very few that remained unexplained, there was no indication of a technology beyond our own scientific knowledge, or that any sighting could be considered an extraterrestrial vehicle. Most importantly, throughout Project Blue Book, there was never a shred of evidence to indicate a threat to our national security. Project Blue Book was ended based on these findings, as verified by a scientific study prepared by the University of Colorado, and further verified by the National Academy of Sciences. All of the Project Blue Book materials were turned over to the Modern Military Branch, National Archives and Records Administration, 8th Street and Pennsylvania, Wash DC 20408, and are available for public review and analysis.

  b. Individuals alleging current sighting[s] should be referred, without comment, to local law enforcement officials.

  —U.S. AIR FORCE

  airship wave of 1896 The first major UFO wave in recorded history took place in 1896 (several years prior to any officially documented flights of airplanes or powered airships of any kind in the United States), beginning in November, with reports mostly confined to the state of California but involving also Washington State and Canada to a lesser degree.

  This woodcut appeared in an 1896 newspaper

  to illustrate the phantom “airship” that

  was seen before its time.

  A mystery light was first reported in the night sky over the capitol city of Sacramento on the evening of November 17, 1896. Local newspapers ran such headlines as: A WANDERING APPARITION, A QUEER PHENOMENON, and WHAT WAS IT? It was said that due to a heavy overcast on the evening of the first sighting, very little detail could be observed. The majority of alleged witnesses reported only a light source, but a few were said to have seen, in addition, a dark body of some sort above the luminous point (according to newspaper accounts).

  The strange flying light appeared a second time, so the story goes, on the evening of November 21st, at which time the public and press are said to have taken the phenomenon much more seriously. Reportedly, witnesses to the second passage included a sizable number of the citizens of Sacramento, but, as before, a dark, cloudy sky masked any detail that would explain how the light was being carried through the atmosphere.

  Soon after the light passed out of sight, it was reportedly seen over the city of Folsom, some twenty miles to the west. Later that night, reports of lights in the heavens came in from the San Francisco Bay area.

  Unexplained flying lights and the story of the sighting of an airship by one R. L. Lowry prompted a San Francisco attorney to “disclose” that a man had supposedly contacted him some months earlier for legal advice concerning the “world’s first practical airship,” a craft that the supposed inventor asserted he had nearly completed. Flashing impressive blueprints and boasting of strong financial backing, the inventor convinced the attorney that the airship would soon be operational. The attorney, a George D. Collins, told the press that, in his opinion, the phenomenon in the skies over Sacramento must have been his client conducting nocturnal test flights before making an official announcement of his secret invention. This suggestion, a reasonable one in the minds of many, was given extensive publicity by San Francisco newspapers, stirring up imaginations all over California. Rumors and wild stones soon began to spread. For a while, the. ”phantom airship” was the biggest news story in northern California.

  As more reports of strange lig
hts in the sky were tallied, enhancing the mystery, attorney Collins became so tormented by reporters and curious busybodies that he regretted his earlier bragging and fled into hiding.

  Cities reporting airship sightings after November 23 included Stockton, Lathrop, Sebastopol, Santa Rosa, Red Bluff, Chico, Auburn, San Jose, Modesto, Woodland, Fresno, Visalia, Hanford, Bakersfield, Tulare, Delano, Los Angeles, Redlands, and Anderson.

  As to the exact nature of the mystery light, many reports were vague, mentioning only a bright light in the western sky early in the evening, indicating possible confusion with the planet Venus. Reported velocities of the light as it passed overhead were slow by modern standards, and if one considers the testimony of a number of witnesses that the light moved in an undulating fashion, this might indicate that some sightings were due to wind-blown balloons with a lantern attached. Again, some witnesses said they saw something large supporting the light but very few details were given. The most common terms used to describe the “supporting structure” were: “dark body,” “misty mass,” “cigar-shaped,” “eggshaped,” and “barrel-shaped.”

  In spite of the difficulties involved, about a half-dozen reports can be explained satisfactorily. These were the sightings of three strange fights in the heavens a month before the passage of the mystery light (or lights) over Sacramento. There is a good possibility that people were confusing the “phantom airship” with the passage of a triple-headed bolide that had crossed the night sky with majestic slowness several weeks previously.

  However, all things considered, there were still some puzzling episodes that took place in November 1896:

  (1) A fiery object displaying three points of light was spotted resting on the ground near Knight’s Ferry, California. Two witnesses, both Methodist ministers, said the thing suddenly took off as they approached, flying away in a shallow climb.

  (2) A fast-moving cigar-shaped object surrounded by a shifting luminosity and making small explosions was reported by the captain of a steamboat.

  (3) According to hundreds of citizens of Tulare, California, of which fifteen are named in news accounts, something in the night sky came down quite a distance, and then went up and took a straight, quick move westward. Red, white, and blue lights were seen in succession.

  4) A resident of Tacoma, Washington, said he watched something strange in the sky over Mount Rainier one night. For over an hour, he said, an object emitted various colored rays, which shot out from the thing’s center in every direction like spokes of a wheel. The “object” reportedly moved about with a waving motion, swayed back and forth, and darted from one position to another.

  The Canadian press, which reported on the puzzling events taking place in California, seemed to take the airship possibility very seriously, even though one of the most intriguing reports of the year came from Rossland, British Columbia, on August 12, 1896. It told of a strange aerial body that approached the town, paused momentarily above a nearby mountain peak, made several wide circles in the sky, and then sped away on a straight course. The thing was described as a “luminous ball of fire that glowed amidst a halo of variegated colors.” The object took a quarter of an hour to complete its maneuvers and was watched by many citizens of Rossland.

  It. is interesting to note that even back in 1896 the extraterrestrial hypothesis was suggested by some to account for the appearance of the nineteenth-century UFOs. In a letter to the editor of the Sacramento Bee, published in the November 24th issue, one citizen who gave his initials as “W.A.” stated his conviction that the observed phenomenon could only be due to the visit of a spacecraft from the planet Mars on a mission of exploration. He expressed his belief that the alien ship was made of very light metal and powered by some sort of electrical force, giving the Martian vessel the appearance of a ball of fire in flight. The speed of such an interplanetary craft he imagined to be a “thousand miles a second.”

  Perhaps even more intriguing is this early report of a “close encounter of the third kind”: Two men told the Stockton Evening Mail that they had met three “strange people” on a road near Lodi, California. According to the story, the strange beings were very tall, with small delicate hands, and large, narrow feet. Each creature’s head was bald with small ears and a small mouth, yet the eyes were big and lustrous. Instead of clothing, the creatures seemed to be covered with a natural silky growth. Conversation was impossible because the “strange people” could only utter a monotonous, guttural, warbling. Occasionally, one of the unusual beings would breathe deeply from a nozzle attached to a bag slung under an arm and in each hand the creatures carried something the size of an egg that gave off an intense light. The weird encounter ended with an attempted kidnap of the two Californians, but failing to overpower the two men, the creatures fled to a cigar-shaped craft hovering nearby, jumped through a hatch, and zoomed away.

  The California UFO wave of 1896 was over by December, but in February of 1897 reports of mysterious starlike bodies moving about the skies over western Nebraska marked the beginning of an even bigger UFO wave that would involve the greater part of the American Midwest.

  —LOREN E. GROSS

  airship wave of 1897 The California airship reports of November and December 1896, while recounted in some newspapers around the country, attracted relatively little attention in the Midwest and East. The arrival of 1897 saw the end of the California flap, with only isolated sightings at Lodi and Acampo in mid-January. Curiously enough, Delaware farmers, three thousand miles away, also reported airships during January.

  By mid-February, unknown craft and mysterious lights in the night skies were reported in many areas of Nebraska. Sightings continued throughout March, with reports now coming from neighboring Kansas as well. To the north, in Michigan, late March brought stories of “balls of fire” moving through the darkness.

  On the night of March 29th, hundreds of people in Omaha watched a large bright light fly over the city, hover briefly, then disappear to the northwest. An even larger audience, numbering in the thousands, witnessed the performance of an aerial mystery over Kansas City three nights later. In Everest, Kansas, the object was described as resembling an Indian canoe, some twenty-five to thirty feet in length, carrying a searchlight of varying colors.

  The airships were generally described as cigar-shaped, apparently metallic, with wings, propellers, fins, and other appendages. At night, they appeared to be brilliant lights, with dark superstructures sometimes visible behind the lights.

  Skeptics searched in vain for a conventional explanation, blaming the reports on the planet Venus (then brilliant in the evening sky) or the star Alpha Orionis. The reports also inspired practical jokers, who began sending aloft balloons of every description. The situation was further confused by “enterprising” reporters who delighted in seeing who could concoct the tallest airship tale for publication.

  As the wave of reports continued throughout April, numerous stories of landed airships were published in newspapers around the country. In many such accounts, the operators of the craft were seen and communications were established by the witnesses. The airship occupants were usually described as normal-looking human beings who engaged their wondering admirers in conversation. They generally claimed to be experimenting with aerial travel, saying their craft had been constructed in secret in Iowa, New York, Tennessee, or some other locality.

  There were exceptions to this contact pattern, such as a report by Judge Lawrence A. Byrne of Texarkana, Arkansas, who claimed to have met Oriental-looking occupants of a landed airship. These beings, three in number, spoke among themselves in a foreign language. They beckoned to Byrne, who went aboard the craft and later described some of the machinery inside.

  In one Texas case, the airship crewmen claimed to be from an unknown region at the North Pole. A West Virginia report, only discovered in the late 1970s, tells of “Martians” aboard a grounded craft.

  The people of 1897 did consider extraterrestrial explanations for the airships. Loren Gross, in
his entry on the California events of 1896, has referred to a letter, published in the Sacramento (Calif.) Bee of November 24, 1896. This was the first “Martian” speculation, but others followed. The Colony (Kans.) Free Press, editorializing on the mystery, thought the airship was “probably operated by a party of scientists from the planet Mars” Similar theories of visitors from the Red Planet were mentioned in the St. Louis (Mo.) Post-Dispatch, the Memphis (Tenn.) Commercial-Appeal, and other newspapers of the period. The concept of life on Mars had already been brought to public consciousness by the research and theories of such astronomers as Percival Lowell and Camille Flammarion. Lowell’s ideas of the Martian canals were well known, and Flammarion had speculated on possible communication with the inhabitants of Mars.

  Reports of airship sightings continued throughout May of 1897, with an isolated sighting coming from Texas during June. This particular event was noteworthy, as it told of two airships seen at the same time. Sightings of more than one object were very rare, although the airships were seen in widely separated areas on the same day. For instance, on April 15th, at the height of the wave, reports came from ten different towns in Michigan, seven towns in Illinois, and one location each in Iowa and South Dakota. It would be simple enough to quote similar instances for virtually any day in April. Nor were such sightings confined to only four states in one twenty-four-hour period, as in the above example. It should be noted also that any such statistics are based on incomplete research, as the newspaper files of several states remain virtually untouched by investigators.

  Hints of worldwide airship activity during 1897 are contained in reports from Sweden on July 17th, off the coast of Norway on August 13th, and from Ontario, Canada, on August 16th. In late September, an engineer in the town of Ustyug, Russia, observed a “balloon” with an “electric,” or phosphorescent, sheen. As a matter of historical fact, the British and the French were known to have motor-powered balloons by this time, but the American airship reports have never been satisfactorily explained. Aviation historians state that craft such as were reported were not operational in the United States during the late 1890s. Were they, then, extraterrestrial vehicles? The descriptions hardly fit the image of sleek, streamlined spaceships, designed for interplanetary voyages. To say that the airships were from a “parallel universe,” or some equally esoteric realm, is really no answer, but mere speculation. One is forced to admit that the strangers in the skies of 1897 remain as much of a mystery to us as they were to our ancestors.