The Mammoth Encyclopedia of Extraterrestrial Encounters

by Story, Ronald

  UFOlogists are a heterogeneous bunch, and lack of full consensus is always to be expected. Donald Hanlon felt UFOnauts “do comparatively little harm” even if one counts a case of a use of knockout vapor. Charles Bowen spoke of the pointlessness of alien activity and thought it all “diversionary play to give us a giggle.” Otto Binder, Cleary-Baker, and Mervyn Paul emphasized the paradox over why aliens didn’t wipe us out years ago if they had bad things planned now. John Keel called for an investigation unhampered by petty UFO cultists and lamented the absence of a suitable psychiatric program to serve those being made insane or attempting suicide from the confusing antics of the UFO phenomenon. Such differences as these do nothing to inhibit calling the period of the sixties as overwhelmingly dominated by fears that UFOs were a danger to individual humans and to mankind collectively.

  SHAMS AND SHEPHERDS

  The last significant expression of the fear of invasion of this period appears in Raymond Fowler’s UFOs—Interplanetary Visitors (1974). It is casually presented as a possibility among a range of intentions that aliens might possess. The idea of friendly contact is raised, but it is muted by concerns over loss of national pride as allegiance is transferred to a superior force. In a chapter archly titled “The Impact—Disintegration or Survival?” the existence of unprovoked hostile acts is pondered as either unwarranted aggression or an amoral act comparable to the swatting of a fly. Fowler believed the American military complex had treated UFOs as a threat, but would be helpless if they proved to be enemies. The blackouts, abductions, attacks and burns associated with UFOs help to demonstrate that super-intelligent aliens are becoming an intimate part of our environment to which we will have to adapt.

  Ralph and Judy Blum’s Beyond Earth (1974) asserts UFOs may be the “the biggest story ever,” but they are not sure if they are extraterrestrial or “living holograms projected on the sky by the laser beams of man’s unconscious mind.” The tone is decidedly upbeat with suggestions that UFOs might represent “an almost unimaginable energy source for mankind.” They also have a habit of unorthodox healing, a converse of all the ills alleged in the prior decade. The Blums quote Hynek’s opinion that UFOnauts indulge in “seemingly pointless antics,” and they include James Harder’s response to a question about whether UFOs pose a threat: “If you pick up a mouse in a laboratory situation, it’s very frightening for the mouse. But it doesn’t mean you meant the mouse any harm.”

  Robert Emenegger’s UFOs: Past, Present, and Future (1974) also took an upbeat view of UFOs. Contacts were friendly and he concurred with the Air Force that they posed no threat. Understanding UFOs could lead to the discovery of a new energy source and a new relationship to life throughout the universe. Fantastic revelations to questions that have puzzled philosophers throughout history were near, and he hoped a reputable organization like the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics and the National Academy of Sciences would move forward to study the phenomenon. “The immediate future looks promising.”

  In a December 1974 editorial for Flying Saucer Review, Charles Bowen warned that people should endeavor to avoid physical contact, because UFOs have been shown to cause harm. There is perhaps a struggle for possession of our planet between good and evil forces, but UFOs may not be greatly concerned with the ultimate welfare of the human race. Noting how much the phenomenon trades in gibberish, Bowen laments “Hoaxing, we feared, was not the prerogative of earth men.”

  Hynek and Vallée’s The Edge of Reality (1975) posits that “there appears to be no desire for involvement with the human race.” While UFOs are documented as causing harm, it is observed that electrical outlets also cause harm without being innately hostile. The study of UFOs is regarded as an opportunity to move to a new reality. New departures in methodology will, however, be needed. The Center for UFO Studies (CUFOS) will be set up to serve those ends.

  The same general sentiment appears in Vallée’s The Invisible College (1975). UFOs are indifferent to the welfare of the individual and pose no threat to national defense. The primary impact of UFOs appears to be on human belief. Could it be someone is playing a fantastic trick on us?

  The Lorenzens answer with a big yes. “Somebody is putting us on!” UFO encounters are in sense a charade. They also, however, appear to involve coldly scientific experiments on some humans. They may be trying to stock some distant exotic zoo. There is a threat from UFOs after all, despite government assurances, but not from invasion. Fortunately this threat is avoidable, according to the Lorenzens. Stay away from lovers’ lanes and isolated camping sites. They argue the time has come to “educate the aliens” with radio broadcasts inviting them to visit openly.

  John Keel decides in The Mothman Prophecies (1975) that the battle cry of the phenomenon is “Make him look like a nut!” He muses after Fort, “If there is a universal mind, must it be sane?” The “worldwide spread of UFO belief and its accompanying disease” fills him with great consternation.

  In The Eighth Tower (1975) the dangerous character of the UFO phenomenon is played up with talk of a high rate of death among contactees and UFO hobbyists. Keel adds, “Any force that can sear your eyeballs, paralyze your limbs, erase your memory, burn your skin, and turn you into a coughing, blubbering wreck can also maim and kill you.” It is dispassionate and ruthless. We are puppets to the superspectrum.

  In bizarre contrast, Hans Holzer rejects “monster” theories of aliens bent on destroying us. They may regard themselves as potential saviors. Their attempts at crossbreeding suggest we are “not totally unworthy.” Brad Steiger believed UFOs would be a transformative symbol that will unite our entire species into one spiritual organism. They would be the spiritual midwife that brings about mankind’s starbirth into the universe. Paris Flammonde, on the other hand, takes the view that man will never achieve inter-communication or a symbiotic relationship with extraterrestrials.

  The Hynek UFO Report (1977) reflects the emerging consensus. UFO study could perhaps “be the springboard to a revolution in man’s view of himself and his place in the universe.” Yet, they also appear to be “playing games with us.” D. Scott Rogo similarly felt UFOs demonstrate that our world plays host to a force that seeks to mystify us.

  Bill Barry’s account of the Travis Walton controversy evaluates the phenomenon as having never expressed hostility towards its alleged victims. Abductees are merely treated as guinea pigs.

  As in his book in the fifties, Leonard Stringfield’s Situation Red—The UFO Siege (1978) is a portrait of confusion. Looking at airplane accidents, disappearances, and persistent spying, he admits to being stumped by the pointless harassment. UFO activity resembles a military strike force, but the randomness and absence of widespread destruction falls short of open hostility. If they wanted to destroy our civilization, clearly they could. Their effects are sometimes deleterious and sometimes beneficial. The paradox may be sinister or profound, but the main point is that it remains unresolved.

  Art Gatti’s UFO Encounters of the 4h Kind (1978) focuses on sexual incursions and he feels they, at minimum, show aliens are questionably motivated. Maybe they are curious. Maybe they are milking our emotions like cattle. Maybe they involve two forces; one benevolent, the other wicked. Maybe they are seeding Earth with warriors for a future Armageddon.

  Brad Steiger’s Alien Meetings (1978) comes across as a curious regression to the fears of the sixties. One chapter head warns “UFO Encounters May Be Hazardous to Your Health!” After a survey of the usual troubles, he offers motives like invasion, domination, territorial acquisition, and commercial exploitation, but manages to dismiss the “War of the Worlds” idea as “paranoid mutterings.” Perhaps this indicates some progress over his books of the sixties, given that he did pose the possibility seriously then. Whether they are on some spiritual mission or merely pursuing history lessons, aliens at least seem to be intensely interested in us.

  Rogo and Clark’s Earth’s Secret Inhabitants (1979) sees the phenomenon as a source both of good thin
gs like raised IQs and healings, plus bad things like burns and radiation effects. It provides us with visions of things humans want to believe. “In fact, up to a certain point it may be a good thing for us to believe in these things—providing, of course, that we don’t become so superstitious in the process that we lose our grip on common sense. Maybe they are clues to some larger truth.” Vallée’s Messengers of Deception (1979) essentially shows that losing one’s grip on common sense is the usual result of UFO belief. As such, he felt it could be a useful political tool and agent of social control. On the brighter side, UFO study might clarify exciting theoretical and practical opportunities to understand energy and information.

  In 1979 Yurko Bondarchuk foresaw imminent contact with extraterrestrials (before the year 2000). “It is inconceivable that their journeys to a peripheral planet are merely haphazard or mindless.” They are surveying our self-destructive capabilities and our resource base. He expects contact to lead to the emergence of a “new world order” in which existing territorial and ideological conflicts will be gradually eliminated. Creation of a restructured world economic order eventually follows. A universal reevaluation of spiritual convictions could also be expected. Raymond Fowler similarly speculates UFOs represent a “much-needed bridge between science and religion.” The events of The Andreasson Affair (1979) strike him as a stage-managed religious experience by interstellar missionaries. Betty Andreasson and others like her have been primed subconsciously with information that might burst into consciousness all over the planet.

  FUN OR RUN

  Rogo, in UFO Abductions (1980), confesses the whole UFO abduction syndrome appears to be “slightly ridiculous.” There is too much misinformation that appears designed to makes abductees look like “total fools.” His guess is that these experiences are an elaborate façade, a camouflage forcing the individual to confront a secret aspect of himself. Rogo’s book includes Ann Druffel’s article “Harrison Bailey and the Flying Saucer Disease” that chronicled the medical misadventures of a man who said he was told his internal organs were three times older than they should have been. Druffel diagnoses his problems as resulting from microwave radiation in an UFO encounter. Druffel doesn’t know if Bailey was harmed accidentally or deliberately, but Bailey thinks it was unintentional. In The Tujunga Canyon Contacts (1980) she opts for a view of UFOs as looking after man’s continuing evolution. They take a special interest in our procreative activities or they are interested in expanding our consciousness.

  The Proceedings of the First International UFO Congress (1980) presents views typical of the seventies. Leo Sprinkle thinks contact messages are seemingly reliable because of their similarities to each other and thus offer information on the scientific and spiritual development of humankind. Berthold Schwarz thinks the messages are garbage. Frank Salisbury remarks that UFOs seem too irrational and perverse—they verge on the truly diabolical. Jim Lorenzen characterizes the phenomenon as an insult to human intelligence, but Stanton Friedman begs to disagree.

  In their study of several abductees, Judith and Alan Gransberg reported there was not one where the extraterrestrials were cruel to humans. Indeed, one abductee thought they were angels. They conclude, in contrast to Vallée, the concept of extraterrestrials is doing man no harm and could potentially be helpful.

  Raymond Fowler continues ruminating on the Andreasson affair in Casebook of a UFO Investigator (1981), but in a somewhat larger context. He thinks that super-intelligent beings have possibly been nurturing man along his evolutionary way. We are under intense attention, perhaps as potential candidates for the intergalactic community. They love mankind. In The Andreasson Affair—Phase Two, he reaffirms the religionist slant of phase one, and this includes the millennial expectation that the Second Coming of Jesus Christ will happen during the adult lives of Bob and Betty Luca.

  UFO by Milt Machlin with Tim Beckley is an interesting minor work having some regressive concerns. An odd case of a UFO murder is recounted in which people were killed either because they knew too much or they were being experimented upon. It closes with a flying saucer health warning that is charming in its simple tone: “Do not approach UFOs. People get shocks or even end up in the hospital. You could also get hit by a ray gun.”

  The appearance of Budd Hopkins’ Missing Time (1981) represents a significant albeit ambivalent return to the UFO menace mindset. Hopkins regards abductions as an epidemic, but because people are protected by an induced anmesia it may be almost entirely invisible. He writes: “I do not believe the UFO phenomenon is malign or evilly intentioned. I fear, instead, that it is merely indifferent, though I fervently hope to be proven wrong.” He adds, “For all any of us knows the whole UFO phenomenon may be ultimately blissfully benign—there is firm evidence for this position—and so having been abducted may turn out to be a peculiar privilege.” Even so, he is “thoroughly alarmed” and calls for the establishment of a UFO investigatory arm to the United Nations, so that everyone would recognize UFOs as a serious reality to the governments of the world. The contradiction between his alarm and the consensus of the prior decade he has trouble abandoning is unresolved.

  Brad Steiger’s Star People (1981) and The Seed (1983) is basically contactee literature for the eighties crowd. John Magor’s Aliens Above, Always (1983) also has the paternalistic quality of contacteeism: they are watching us for our benefit. Cynthia Hind offers the speculation in passing that aliens are here to be entertained or to blow our minds a little in African Encounters (1982).

  Larry Fawcett and Barry Greenwood in Clear Intent (1984) say the human race could be in danger, but the laconic counterpoint that we haven’t been conquered yet seems a call for ennui rather than concern.

  In Extraterrestrials Among Us (1986), George Andrews returns to the sixties mindset and comes up with an extraordinary variation of the viral metaphor: “It is an odd fact that among the viruses there are some that look like UFOs, such as the virus T. Bacteriophage.” Some UFOs may have the ability to operate in either the macro-dimension of outer space or the micro-dimension of viruses, switching back and forth. He frets that our survival as a species may be at stake. “Have we been transforming our planet into a cancer cell in the body of the galaxy instead of making it the garden of the universe?” Terry Hansen, in a 1981 article, offered a more appropriate somatic metaphor for the period. He suggested UFOs may be a sort of “liver medicine” to make us function normally as part of a cosmic organism.

  Night Siege (1987) chronicles power blackouts, surges, interference, and pain associated with an UFO flap, but offers no generalizations of their significance.

  Intruders (1987) shares the same quality of unresolved contradiction as the prior Hopkins book. Aliens are committing a species of rape, their activities related to an unthinkable systematic breeding experiment to enrich their stock, reduce our differences and acquire the ability to feel human emotions. What they do is “cruel” and each case is “a personal tragedy.” Yet he also avers: “In none of the cases I’ve investigated have I ever encountered the suggestion of deliberate harm or malevolence.” They don’t realize the disasters they are causing because of an ignorance of human psychology.”

  Richard Hall titled his 1988 book Uninvited Guests. It is one of the more flaccid titles in the literature and more connotative of pushy salesmen than an alien menace. Hall finds little evidence of overt hostility and suggests harm is accidental or a matter of self-defense. Encounters probably represent mutual learning experiences. There is a strong interest in us and he hopes this means we are beginning a new phase and maturity, and perhaps a new relationship to the universe.

  Steiger, in The UFO Abductors (1988) decides there must be at least two types of aliens. One is “genuinely concerned about our welfare and our spiritual and physical evolution.” The other is indifferent to our needs and is sinisterly programming people for an Armageddon, a mass invasion of Earth so imminent it would have already taken place had not an Interplanetary Council intervened. The Forces of
Light and Darkness “are about to square off” and humankind could find itself an unwilling pawn in this ultimate battle.

  When Tujunga Canyon Contacts was reissued in 1988, Ann Druffel modified her views in the light of new developments on the abduction scene. Aliens were now malevolent and traumatizing, wily and harmful. The good news was that humans have the ability to battle them off.

  The eighties saw another significant development. Paul Bennewitz introduced the story of The Dulce Base: a secret facility in the southwest that was populated by aliens called Grays. They had a secret agreement with the government that allowed them to abduct humans in exchange for technological advances. Grays were devious and should never be trusted. “This particular group can only be dealt with no differently than one must deal with a mad dog. They have invaded our country, our air, and they are freely violating the personal and mental integrity of our people.”

  In late 1987 John Lear released a statement giving his support to the Dulce Base story. He indicates people are killed to serve as sources for biological materials and to protect secrets. Females are impregnated to secure crossbreed infants. “The EBEs claim to have created Christ,” but Lear warns this is disinformation “to disrupt traditional values for undetermined reasons.” They have “obviously hostile intentions.” In a finale he asks:

  Are the EBES, having done a hundred thousand or more abductions—possibly millions worldwide—built an untold number of secret underground bases getting ready to return to wherever they came from? Or from the obvious preparations are we to assume that they are getting ready for a big move? Or is the more probable situation that the invasion is essentially complete and it is all over except the screaming?