by Timothy Good
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 aw
ake 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….”
Sketch by Frederic S. Aber
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.