THE ANDREASSON AFFAIR
THE ANDREASSON AFFAIR
THE TRUE STORY
of a
CLOSE ENCOUNTER of the FOURTH KIND
By
RAYMOND E. FOWLER
Foreword by J. Allen Hynek
Copyright © 1979, 2015 by Raymond E. Fowler and Betty Andreasson
All rights reserved under the Pan-American and International Copyright Conventions. This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, in any form or by any means electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system now known or hereafter invented, without written permission from the publisher, The Career Press.
THE ANDREASSON AFFAIR
EDITED BY JODI BRANDON
TYPESET BY EILEEN MUNSON
Cover design by Howard Grossman/12E Design
Printed in the U.S.A.
Transcripts of hypnotic and debriefing sessions © 1978 Raymond E. Fowler, Joseph Santangelo, and Fred R. Youngren.
Excerpts from UFO Report No. CE111/MA-77 (67-41a), “A Close Encounter of the Third Kind: UFO Report Involving Betty Andreasson and Her Family,” © 1978 Raymond E. Fowler and Fred R. Youngren. All rights reserved.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Fowler, Raymond E., 1933-
The Andreasson affair: the true story of a close encounter of the fourth kind / by Raymond E. Fowler ; foreword by J. Allen Hynek.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-60163-346-0 -- ISBN 978-1-60163-440-5 (ebook) 1. Alien abduction. 2. Luca, Betty A. (Betty Andreasson), 1937- I. Title.
BF2050.F678 2014
001.942--dc23
2014021301
Also by the Author
UFOs: Interplanetary Visitors
The Andreasson Affair: Phase Two
The Melchizedek Connection (A Novel)
The Watchers
The Watchers II
The Allagash Abductions
The Andreasson Legacy
UFO Testament
Synchrofile
Dedicated to the
memory of Betty Andreasson’s father,
Waino W. Aho,
and of her two sons,
Todd and James Andreasson, Jr.
Raymond E. Fowler
Acknowledgments
Harold Edelstein, Joseph Santangelo, Jules Vaillancourt, David Webb, and Fred Youngren, for their direct participation in the investigation, and for providing significant data for use in this book.
Ernest C. Reid, for providing his services as Psychological Stress Evaluator Analyst.
Faith Youngren, who, with her father, Fred Youngren, developed the clay bust of Quazgaa shown.
Waino Aho, Eva Aho, and Rebecca Anderson, for their cooperation during the investigation.
Michael Andolina, George J. Bethoney, Susan Caddy, Nancy McLaughlin, Eugene Mallove, Peter Neurath, Virginia Neurath, Joseph Nyman, Merlyn Sheehan, Joan Thompson, Debbie Vaillancourt, Janet Walbridge, Evelyn M. Youngren, William Zarr, and the psychiatrist (who has requested anonymity), for providing valuable services to the investigators.
George Briggs, Gary Lehman, and Frank Pechulis, for reading and commenting on the manuscript.
Special acknowledgments to Dr. J. Allen Hynek for his kindness in providing the Foreword to this book; and to my dear wife, Margaret, who spent many hours proofreading the manuscript and providing encouragement when needed most.
Contents
Foreword by J. Allen Hynek
Chapter 1: Prologue to the Incredible
Chapter 2: Uninvited Visitors
Chapter 3: On Board
Chapter 4: The Examination
Chapter 5: Trip to an Alien Realm
Chapter 6: A Vision of the Phoenix
Chapter 7: The Return
Chapter 8: Quazgaa’s Farewell
Chapter 9: Messages for Humankind?
Chapter 10: The Blue Book
Chapter 11: Preliminary Correlations
Chapter 12: Hints of an Earlier Encounter
Epilogue: A New Investigation
Appendix A: Additional Biographical Data for Principals in the Andreasson Affair
Appendix B: Rekindled Memories
Appendix C: Fred Youngren’s Reconstructions
Appendix D: A Fifth Entity?
Notes
Bibliography
Index
About the Author
Foreword
The UFO phenomenon, in its totality, is surprisingly complex. Understandably, this is not recognized by the general public. Although various opinion polls indicate that the majority of the population feel that “UFOs are for real,” only patient study, and—even more important—direct involvement with the witnesses to this greatly perplexing phenomenon can demonstrate the extent of the complexity. The man on the street’s simple opinion that either UFOs are all nonsense or that visitors from outer space do exist is brutally destroyed by close study. But this is not a new insight: In science, it is well recognized that investigations into many subjects spawn more questions than they answer. In the area of UFOs, deeper acquaintance reveals a subject that has not only potentially important scientific aspects but sociological, psychological, and even theological aspects as well.
The Andreasson case involves all these aspects—so much so, and in such bizarre fashion, that in the past I frankly would not have touched an invitation to write the foreword for a book treating “contactees,” abduction, mental telepathy, mystical symbolism, and physical contact and examination by “aliens.” But across the years I have learned to broaden my view of the entire UFO phenomenon, and I now realize that it is a composite of many “inputs.” It does not seem to be just one single thing, but—as has often happened in science—what at first seemed to have just one component has turned out to have several.
This book really started with a letter to me from the principal witness. At that time I had neither the spare hours nor, I confess, the inclination to follow it up, and I let the letter lie for some time. Then one day I reread it. Here was a sincere person asking assistance, not knowing where to turn, and I felt I could not be callous and consign the long-unanswered letter to the “circular file.” It occurred to me that because Ray Fowler and his associates were not too far from the witness, they might do the Center for UFO Studies and me a favor and discharge the obligation that the letter implicitly imposed. I am glad that Mr. Fowler undertook what at first must have seemed an unwelcome task. But he and his associates did, and there has resulted a most interesting book. No, “interesting” is not sufficient; it is a book that will captivate, bother, intrigue, and even frighten as one pursues it and contemplates its implications.
Fowler is to be complimented on his perseverance in the investigation of this case of very high “strangeness.” It leads down many paths that make Alice’s wanderings in Wonderland pale by comparison. And those who still hold that the entire subject of UFOs is nonsense will be sorely challenged if they have the courage to take an honest look at the present book. For whatever the UFO phenomenon is (or are), it is not nonsense. It would take an imagination of the highest order to explain the reported happenings described herein as mere misidentifications of balloons, aircraft, meteors, or planets! Neither is the
re the slightest evidence of hoax or contrivance.
The present work will also challenge those who consider UFOs solely synonymous with physical craft that transport flesh-and-blood denizens from distant solar systems. A former book by Mr. Fowler, UFOs: Interplanetary Visitors, upholds this more popular concept of UFOs, and many of the cases he describes tend to give strong support to that hypothesis. But here we have “creatures of light” who find walls no obstacle to free passage into rooms and who find no difficulty in exerting uncanny control over the witnesses’ minds. If this represents an advanced technology, then it must incorporate the paranormal just as our own incorporates transistors and computers. Somehow, “they” have mastered the puzzle of mind over matter.
Of course, all this is predicated on the premise that this entire series of adventures is not the result of some complex psychological drama played in concert. If so, it would still be a fine case study in abnormal psychology. But more and more of these high-strangeness cases are surfacing. Like the Andreasson case, they outrage our common sense, and they do constitute a challenge to our present belief systems. Readers who become intrigued by the Andreasson narrative would be well advised to acquaint themselves with accounts of other Close Encounters of the Fourth Kind—not only those in which regressive hypnosis is the chief source of information, as in the present case. One can dismiss the hypnosis reports as unreliable and fanciful, but this is much more difficult to do where the data source is the witnesses’ conscious mind. Such information is available through serious UFO organizations like MUFON (Mutual UFO Network) in Seguin, Texas, of which Mr. Fowler is one of the directors, and CUFOS (Center for UFO Studies) in Evanston, Illinois.
Readers who delve further into the fascinating world of the UFO phenomenon will come to understand for themselves the worldwide scope of the phenomenon, and the problems and challenges that it presents.
J. Allen Hynek
Northwestern University
Evanston, Illinois
Figure 1: The Andreasson house and property as they appeared in 1967.
CHAPTER 1
Prologue to the Incredible
In retrospect, Betty Ann Andreasson considered herself something of a tomboy. The minute she arrived home from school, she’d change clothes and head for pond or brook, field or wood, of rural Massachusetts. “I’d stick my feet in the pond edge or walk through the brook’s thick mud. Every season felt so alive to me. I felt as if I was part of it. Even now, I feel total recall. The joy of standing by the cool rushing stream, with soft white dew-covered flowers, and skunk cabbage clustered in the swamp close-by.” Betty loved to feast on wild blackberries, blueberries, plums, hazelnuts, and elderberries. “I used to climb large hemlock trees and pick lady’s slippers, jack-in-the-pulpit, trilliums, mountain laurel. I would go deep into the woods and stay almost ‘til dark. I was never afraid there. It was so peaceful.”
At 17 she became engaged to James Andreasson, 21, who had been in the Navy for four years. They were married on June 13, 1954, in Fitchburg. A year later, their first child, Becky, was born, and six other children followed swiftly after.
Finding a house to accommodate their family had been no easy task. Finally they bought a “handyman special,” for no money down, in South Ashburnham, a small town in northern Massachusetts. James, although a pipe fitter by trade, used his natural expertise in carpentry to make the former farmhouse comfortable for the bustling family. They tore down a crumbling wraparound porch and repainted the walls inside and out. (See Figure 1 on page 19.)
South Ashburnham is typical of many New England towns. Rolling wooded hills and bordering lakes have gradually surrendered to the Cape Cod houses, ranches, and mobile homes that have usurped their territory, but remnants of a once-active farming community are still evident. Abandoned orchards, tottering barns, and ivy-covered, gray stone walls all bear silent witness to another day. The Andreasson children—Becky, age 11; James, age 10; Mark, age 9; Scott, age 7; Todd, age 6; Bonnie, age 4; and Cindy, age 3—became accustomed to the neighborhood, enjoying the company of their newfound friends.
Secure in her vibrant Christian faith that had grown stronger over the years, Betty sought to instill the same faith and ideals within her own family. Each Sunday, Betty marshaled her well-scrubbed children to the local community church. “The house and yard were always filled with children. We would sing songs and tell stories from the Bible and have fresh-baked cookies and milk.”
But 1966 had been a disrupted Christmas for the Andreasson family, and prospects for the new year of 1967 did not look bright. On December 23, two days before Christmas, a woman had pulled out of a blind side street and collided with the rear of James’s gray Volkswagen sedan, sending him into a head-on collision with an oncoming automobile. Severely injured in the crash, James would need weeks in intensive care in the hospital, followed by months in traction.
Eleven-year-old Becky was a great help to her mother in dealing with the many needs of her younger brothers and sisters. But with the prospects of James Andreasson being hospitalized for many months and of Betty being faced with a host of responsibilities her husband had usually shouldered, extra help was desperately needed. Such were the circumstances that prompted Betty’s parents to join the busy household to lend a helping hand.
Betty’s father, Waino Aho, had immigrated from Finland as a young child when his family, seeking better opportunities in the United States, bought and worked a dairy farm in Massachusetts. Later, while on Army leave from Fort Devens, Massachusetts, Waino had met his future wife, Eva, a native New Englander. Betty was the second-to-youngest of Aho’s five offspring.
By mid-January, Betty’s own seven children had become used to a new schedule of early suppers, designed to allow their mother a nightly visit with her husband at the local hospital. January 25 was one of those days when the warm promise of spring hung dreamily in the air. The snow that had blanketed the ground for more than a month had all but vanished. Much later, under hypnosis, Becky would recall that on that balmy afternoon, she and her girlfriend had been playing in the nearby orchard. They were climbing one of the apple trees when her mother’s call to supper echoed up into the orchard.
About an hour later, after eating and helping with the dishes, Becky went out again. But now, as the last vestiges of daylight melted into the darkness, the mild temperature of the afternoon dropped rapidly, and Becky soon returned inside. Already pools of mist were beginning to collect in the hollows around the old farmhouse, bringing the promise of a foggy night.
As on most evenings, James, Jr., Mark, Scott, Todd, and Bonnie had all been fed and dressed for bed and were watching television—on this evening, Bozo the Clown. Three-year-old Cindy was curled up on her grandmother’s lap. Betty was in the kitchen, finishing up a few remaining chores.
Suddenly the electric lights began to flicker hesitantly and then blinked out, throwing the house into darkness and confusion, and sending frightened children scurrying into the kitchen to find their mother. Almost at the same time, the family saw a curious pink light shining through the kitchen window
Ten years later, under hypnosis, Betty and Becky Andreasson would describe the scene as follows:
Betty: Suddenly the lights were off, and we wondered: What was it? And we looked over and there was a—by the window, the small kitchen window—I can see like a light, sort of pink right now. And now the light is getting brighter. It’s reddish-orange, and it’s pulsating. I said to the children, “Be quiet, and quick, get in the living room, and whatever it is will go away.” It seemed like the whole house had a vacuum over it. Like stillness all around—like stillness.
Becky: The next thing I knew, Mom was going, “Shhh! Be quiet!” There’s some huge pulsating glow that was out in the kitchen. It was outside. Like a big glow!
The Andreasson kitchen had become a kaleidoscope of reflected color and dancing shadows keeping cadence with the flashing light. As the frightened Betty herded her excited children back into the living roo
m, Betty’s father hurried into the kitchen to see what was going on. Glancing into the backyard through the pantry window, Waino Aho stared out in disbelief.
What he saw is best described in his own signed statement. Despite the shaky handwriting, the old man’s words carry a ring of conviction that is at odds with their bizarre import:
These creatures that I saw through the window of Betty’s house were just like Halloween freaks. I thought they had put on a funny kind of headdress imitating a moon man. It was funny the way they jumped one after the other—just like grasshoppers. When they saw me looking at them, they stopped…the one in front looked at me and I felt kind of queer. That’s all I knew.
The Andreasson Affair had begun.
This book you are about to read deals with what is known, in the terminology of UFO investigators, as a CE-IV—a Close Encounter of the Fourth Kind.
Close Encounters of the Third Kind, the title of the spectacular movie about UFOs, is a designation originated by Dr. J. Allen Hynek to describe specific types of UFO reports. In all, Dr. Hynek has coined six major categories:
NL—Nocturnal Light: lights seen in the night sky
DD—Daylight Discs: distant disc-like objects seen during the day
RV—Radar/Visual: UFOs seen by radar and vision simultaneously
CE-I—Close Encounter of the First Kind: a UFO seen within 500 feet
CE-II—Close Encounter of the Second Kind: a CE-I that leaves physical traces
CE-III—Close Encounter of the Third Kind: a CE-I with humanoid occupants seen
The Andreasson Affair is more than just a classic example of a CE-IV, however. It is—again to use the jargon of the Ufologists—a case of such “high strangeness” that even the most open-minded investigators were at first inclined to dismiss it out of hand. Yet it has become probably the best documented case of its kind to date, the subject of an intensive 12-month investigation conducted for the Center for UFO Studies (CUFOS) that involved, among other things, the recording of large quantities of testimony given under hypnosis, extensive lie detector testing of witnesses, detailed analysis of corroborative circumstantial evidence, careful character checks (see Appendix A), exhaustive comparison with other CE-IV accounts, and much more.1
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