by John A. Keel
The big picture for 1957 is awesome in scope. There were apparently reliable contact reports earlier in the year from South America; Professor Guimaraes in Brazil early in July; Signore Galli in Italy, also early in July; the Argentine Air Force guard on August 20; Mr. Cook of England on September 7. And remember, both Cook and the Argentine airman claimed that they had been warned about our upsetting the balance of the universe. Cook had never heard of the Argentine report that preceded his alleged experience by about only three weeks.
The Argentine airman said that “the voice” told him that flying saucers would soon be showing themselves all over the world. That prediction certainly came true in November 1957.
The Contactee Hoax
I have now met and interviewed in depth more than 200 silent contactees who, unlike most of those already named, have never publicly revealed their experiences. They do not write books or go on lecture tours. They show little or no interest in UFO literature. Some of them begin to experience personality deterioration after their initial contact. Others find their previously normal lives disrupted by nightmares and peculiar hallucinations. Poltergeists (noisy, invisible ghosts) invade their homes. Their telephones and television sets run amok. My own educated guess is that there may be 50,000 or more silent contactees in the United States alone. And new ones are being added to the list every month.
Nevertheless, a complex and frightening hoax is involved in all this. But it is not the product of run-of-the-mill practical jokers, liars, and lunatics. Quite frankly, many of these contactees lack the imagination to make up their stories or to construct the complicated “hoaxes” that develop. They are well-meaning, honest people who have undergone an experience that seemed very real to them. In case after case, such people are able to come up with details that correlate and which have received little or no publicity. This would be absolutely impossible if they were simply making up their stories.
No, the real truth lies in another direction. The contactees from 1897 on have been telling us what they were told by the ufonauts. The ufonauts are the liars, not the contactees. And they are lying deliberately as part of the bewildering smoke-screen that they have established to cover their real origin, purpose, and motivation.
In recent years we have been informed by seemingly sincere contactees, several of whom have undergone psychiatric and lie detector tests and passed them with flying colors, that the saucers come from unknown plants named Clarion, Maser, Schare, Blaau, Tythan, Korendor, Orion, Fowser, Zomdic, Aenstria, and a dozen other absurd places. There have also been contactees who talk freely about the people of Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Uranus, Saturn, and the moon.
Chances are excellent that the UFOs do not come from any of these places, any more than the great airships of 1897 came from a secret lab in Nebraska. These names are plants, not planets. Whatever the UFOs are up to, they are doing it on a very large scale all over the earth, and it is inevitable that they should come into contact with some of us from time to time, either accidentally or by design. When such contacts do occur, they deliberately hand out ridiculous false information. They exploit our beliefs and hide safely behind the limited credulity of our scientists and governments. It is time that we got wise to this simple psychological trick. They’ve been pulling it on us for centuries.
Can we really blame the contactees?
Suppose a strange metallic disk covered with flashing colored lights settled in your backyard and a tall man in a one-piece silver space suit got out. Suppose he looked unlike any man you had ever seen before, and when you asked him where he was from, he replied, “I am from Venus.” Would you argue with him? Chances are you would accept his word for it. And if you decided to tell the world the news, you would naturally proclaim that the mystery had been solved. The flying saucers were from Venus. You were certain because this very sincere stranger had told you so.
Buried within the context of all the contactees’ messages there are clues to an even more complex threat. A direct threat to us. Each contactee has been able to pass on a small fragment of the real truth. The endless descriptions of peaceful far-off worlds and shining cities of glass are only subterfuges. Before I can extend this further, I must present you with some of the other evidence. You must be aware of all the pieces in the puzzle before they can fall into place and make sense. Already you can understand why so many people have been in total confusion for so long. This whole mystery has been designed to keep us confused and skeptical.
Somebody somewhere is having a good laugh at our expense.
12
The Cosmic Jokers
Demonology is not just another crackpot-ology. It is the ancient and scholarly study of the monsters and demons who have seemingly coexisted with man throughout history. Thousands of books have been written on the subject, many of them authored by educated clergymen, scientists, and scholars, and uncounted numbers of well-documented demonic events are readily available to every researcher. The manifestations and occurrences described in this imposing literature are similar, if not entirely identical, to the UFO phenomenon itself. Victims of demonomania (possession) suffer the very same medical and emotional symptoms as the UFO contactees. Demonomania is so common that it has spawned the minor medical and psychiatric study of demonopathy.
Throughout most of history, the manifestations of demonology and demonopathy have been viewed from a religious perspective and explained as the work of the Devil. The bizarre manipulations and ill effects described in the demonological literature are usually regarded as the result of a great unseen conflict between God and the Devil. In UFO lore, the same conflict has been observed, and the believers have explained it as a space war between the “Guardians” (good guys from outer space), who are protecting our planet, and some evil extraterrestrial race. The manifestations are the same, only the frame of reference is different.
The Devil and his demons can, according to the literature, manifest themselves in almost any form and can physically imitate anything from angels to horrifying monsters with glowing eyes. Strange objects and entities materialize and dematerialize in these stories, just as the UFOs and their splendid occupants appear and disappear, walk through walls, and perform other supernatural feats.
Did ancient man misinterpret UFO manifestations by placing them in a religious context? Apparently not. The literature indicates that the phenomenon carefully cultivated the religious frame of reference in early times, just as the modem manifestations have carefully supported the extraterrestrial frame of reference. Operation Trojan Horse is merely the same old game in a new, updated guise. The Devil’s emissaries of yesteryear have been replaced by the mysterious “men in black.” The quasi-angels of Biblical times have become magnificent spacemen. The demons, devils, and false angels were recognized as liars and plunderers by early man. These same impostors now appear as long-haired Venusians.
All of the major religions, and most of the minor ones, accept the God-Devil conflict, and their scriptures outline some possibly real episodes in which human beings have had some direct experience with this conflict. A large portion of all holy literature consists of material purportedly dictated to men by supernatural beings, and a good part of this seems more allegorical or metaphorical than real. The phenomenon may have passed along information about man’s origin and purpose carefully disguised in terms and fictitious episodes that could be understood by the minds of the people during the period when the messages were transmitted. Thus, the story of Adam and Eve might not be the actual truth but merely a great simplification of the truth.
In the Forgotten Books of Eden, an apocryphal book allegedly translated from ancient Egyptian in the nineteenth century, we are told that Satan and his hosts were fallen angels who populated the earth before Adam was brought into being, and Satan used lights, fire, and water in his efforts to rid the planet of this troublesome creature. He even disguised himself as an angel from time to time and appeared as a beautiful young woman in his efforts to lead Adam to his doom. UFO-type
lights were one of the Devil’s devices described in the Forgotten Books of Eden. Subtle variations on this same theme can be found in the Bible and in the numerous scriptures of the Oriental cultures. Religious man has always been so enthralled with the main (and probably allegorical) story line that the hidden point has been missed. That point is that the earth was occupied before man arrived or was created. The original occupants or forces were paraphysical and possessed the power of transmogrification. Man was the interloper, and the earth’s original occupants or owners were not very happy over the intrusion. The inevitable conflict arose between physical man and the paraphysical owners of the planet. Man accepted the interpretation that this conflict raged between his creator and the Devil. The religious viewpoint has always been that the Devil has been attacking man (trying to get rid of him) by foisting disasters, wars, and sundry evils upon him.
There is historical and modern proof that this may be so.
A major, but little-explored, aspect of the UFO phenomenon is therefore theological and philosophical rather than purely scientific. The UFO problem can never be untangled by physicists and scientists unless they are men who have also been schooled in liberal arts, theology, and philosophy. Unfortunately, most scientific disciplines are so demanding that their practitioners have little time or inclination to study complicated subjects outside their own immediate fields of interest.
Satan and his demons are part of the folklore of all races, no matter how isolated they have been from one another. The Indians of North America have many legends and stories about a devil-like entity who appeared as a man and was known as the trickster because he pulled off so many vile stunts. Tribes in Africa, South America, and the remote Pacific islands have similar stories.
Mystery men with strange persuasive powers, sometimes good but more often evil, are described and discussed in many books with no UFO or religious orientation. A dark gentleman in a cloak and hood is supposed to have handed Thomas Jefferson the design for the reverse side of the Great Seal of the United States (you will find this on a dollar bill). Julius Caesar, Napoleon, and many others are supposed to have had enigmatic meetings with these odd personages. These stories turn up in such unexpected places as Madame Du Barry’s memoirs. She claimed repeated encounters with a strange young man who would approach her suddenly on the street and give her startling prophecies about herself. He pointedly told her that the last time she would see him would serve as an omen for a sudden reversal of her fortunes. Sure enough, on April 27, 1774, as she and her ailing lover, King Louis XV, were heading for the palace of Versailles, the youthful mystery man appeared one final time.
“I mechanically directed my eyes toward the iron gate leading to the garden,” she wrote. “I felt my face drained of blood as a cry of horror escaped my lips. For, leaning against the gate was that singular being.”
The coach was halted, and three men searched the area thoroughly but could find no trace of him. He had vanished into thin air. Soon afterward Madame Du Barry’s illustrious career in the royal courts ended, and she went into exile.
Malcolm X, the late leader of a black militant group, reported a classic experience with a paraphysical “man in black” in his autobiography. He was serving a prison sentence at the time, and the entity materialized in his prison cell:
As I lay on my bed, I suddenly became aware of a man sitting beside me in my chair. He had on a dark suit, I remember. I could see him as plainly as I see anyone I look at. He wasn’t black, and he wasn’t white. He was light-brown-skinned, an Asiatic cast of countenance, and he had oily black hair.
I looked right into his face. I didn’t get frightened. I knew I wasn’t dreaming. I couldn’t move, I didn’t speak, and he didn’t. I couldn’t place him racially—other than I knew he was a non-European. I had no idea whatsoever who he was. He just sat there. Then, as suddenly as he had come, he was gone.
This type of vision is well known to students of psychic phenomena. The immobility or akinesia experienced by Malcolm X is especially common in the “bedroom visitant” cases in which percipients awaken to sense or even see an intruder in their bedroom—an intruder who melts away after passing along a message or a warning. Psychiatrists tend to dismiss this type of phenomenon as hypnopompic; that is, the vision is thought to be a dream that overlaps into the waking state.
Solitary witnesses to UFO landings and contacts frequently complain of akinesia. They find themselves completely paralyzed until the object takes off or disappears. In some cases, the UFO occupant allegedly aimed a tube or weapon of some sort at the percipient, leading ufologists to assume that a technological device was used to induce the paralytic state. Parapsychologists, on the other hand, have long concluded that akinesia is a contributing cause; that the entity materializes by utilizing energy from the percipient himself.
If the UFO phenomenon is largely hallucinatory, and much of the evidence suggests that it is, then the parapsychological assumption may be more valid than the ufological speculation.
Charles Bowen, editor of England’s Flying Saucer Review, the world’s most respected ufological journal, recently observed: “Did these witnesses, widely dispersed on earth, and in time, all have experiences with solid creatures from another world or from another dimension of reality? Or did they suffer hallucinations of a similar kind, where the dream creatures were strikingly similar in many respects?… I pondered over the idea that the frightening, spooky creatures described by some witnesses could be some sort of psychic projection. There are noticeable dreamlike qualities about the incidents described in these cases.”
The records of demonology are filled with striking parallels. During the outbreak of vampirism in Europe during the Middle Ages, witnesses to vampires were often paralyzed, and the general descriptions of the vampires themselves are identical to the “men in black.” The dark skin and angular, Oriental-like faces were commonly reported and were immortalized in the paintings of demons and vampires by artists of the period.
In the UFO reports, innumerable witnesses have described both the little men and the normal-sized ufonauts as sharing these basic characteristics, along with unusually long, claw-like fingers. Malcolm X was not versed in UFO lore, and he assumed that his apparition was a phantom of the Black Muslim religion.
Traditionally, the appearance of one of these evil-looking entities is an ill omen. The witness frequently dies a short time after his vision, or some other terrible tragedy befalls him. Thus, we have the Grim Reaper myth.
Voodoo and black magic are also said to produce such figures. In the early 1950s, Albert K. Bender dabbled in both black magic and ufology, and he created a stir in ufological circles when he claimed that he had been visited by three men with glowing eyes, dressed in black suits. He suffered all of the classic symptoms of demonomania; the fierce headaches, the upset stomach, anorexia (loss of appetite), and lacunar amnesia. He abandoned his UFO studies after these experiences.
I have in my files hundreds of cases, some of which have now been investigated by qualified psychiatrists, in which young men and women obsessed with the UFO phenomenon have suffered frightening visits from these apparitions, been followed by mysterious black Cadillacs which appeared and disappeared suddenly, and have been terrified into giving up their pursuit of the UFOs. Many contactees report similar experiences.
The phenomenon is reflective; the more frightened the victim becomes, the more the manifestations are escalated.
Dabbling with UFOs can be as dangerous as dabbling with black magic. The phenomenon preys upon the neurotic, the gullible, and the immature. Paranoid-schizophrenia, demonomania and even suicide can result—and has resulted—in a number of cases. A mild curiosity about UFOs can turn into a destructive obsession. For this reason, I strongly recommend that parents forbid their children from becoming involved. Schoolteachers and other adults should not encourage teenagers to take an interest in the subject.
Appearances of Angels
There is a balance in nature, and the
re also seems to be a careful balance in the UFO/psychic phenomenon. People have actually died after exposure to the gamma and ultraviolet rays from UFOs. But other people have had their ailments cured by similar rays. The entities are most often mischievous and sometimes completely hostile to human beings, but there are cases in which people in trouble have been rescued by these characters.
Occult literature is filled with accounts of this type. A man is lost in a blinding blizzard high in the Himalayas, miles from the nearest habitation. Suddenly another man in khaki coveralls appears in the snow and guides him to an abandoned hut and safety, then vanishes. A pilot crashes in the Pacific a mile from a small island. A swimmer appears and hauls the injured man ashore—then vanishes. The island is totally deserted. A child is lost in a swamp, and an unusual man suddenly arrives, takes him by the hand, and leads him out. (There are dozens of these lost-children stories. New ones appear in local newspapers every year. The events are such that routine anonymous Good Samaritans can be ruled out.)
In the Book of Daniel, Chapter 3, King Nebuchadnezzar throws Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego into a blazing furnace. The trio emerges unhurt after the king observes, “Lo, I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire, and they have no hurt; and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God.”
Our mystery men have allegedly guided trapped miners out of caved-in shafts.
There are so many of these cases that once again we must ask: Who are all these people? Where do they come from, and where do they go? Could they be the same kinds of entities who were known to the ancients as angels?
Add up all these stories, and it seems as if our planet has always been overrun with angels and devils, vampires, werewolves, ghouls, and ghosts galore; sundry demons killing animals and people and lapping up blood. Good guys and bad guys struggling to hold us together or break us apart.