UFOs: The Physical Evidence by Michael Jordan

Human Levitation by Simon Harvey-Wilson

The Leeds UFO Conference by Morley Legg

Honouring Multidimensional Reality by Mary Rodwell

Animal Mutilations by Brian Richards

Soul and Spirit by Judy Bryning

My Abduction Experiences by Geoff Evans

‘Magnetic’ People by Simon Harvey-Wilson

Western Australian UFO Sightings by Brian Richards

UFOs and the National Security State (book review) by Mike Jordan

Adventures of a Suburban Mystic (book review) by Morley Legg

UFOs: The Physical Evidence

Overwhelming – But As Elusive As Ever

By Michael Jordan

Any scientific study of the UFO enigma seems inevitably to result in frustrating ambiguity and contradiction. Really worthwhile UFO reports are frequently characterized by high strangeness, evasiveness, resistance to scholarly investigation and a seemingly unavoidable, bewildering array of conclusions. Writer K. Phillips, in an essay on The Psycho-Sociology of Ufology, notes that in addition to this elusiveness, "it can be shown that the UFO phenomenon has a religious, historic and folkloric dimension, the implications of which are only just beginning to be appreciated by those who are willing to sift the evidence.... moreover, by inspection of the tens of thousands of reports from all over the world, it would seem that ¾ paradoxically ¾ while the UFO phenomenon gives every indication of being impossibly remote from us, at the same time it displays facets that indicate that it is intimately close."

We may well ask the question: why is it, if UFOs leave real, quantitative physical evidence, as many cases seem to indicate, that there is still little understanding of their physical qualities? One explanation is that the irregularities and seeming inconsistencies of these many reports have not come under the scrutiny of cross-disciplinary study until relatively recent times. Of course any such study is beset by the differences in the way that physical and social scientists tend to view the application of scientific methods in their respective fields. The special nature of the UFO subject raises subtle and often unique problems that members of either group might see in differing perspectives.

So, does this mean that our hunt for explanations and solutions ends in smoke? Hardly, as we shall see. Where possible, the separation of physical evidence into defined categories, followed by interdisciplinary examination, slowly but inexorably yields a degree of clarity to our still murky understanding of what it is we are dealing with, or more correctly, is dealing with us. After many years of bitter experience, we know that, as far as this subject is concerned, recorded data of an event, even from an official source, is simply not acceptable. An accumulation of such evidence has had little impact on the sceptics. Again, a large part of the problem is brought about by the only filters and hurdles acceptable in the eyes of orthodox science. In order to be convinced of the reality of phenomenon, science requires that it should be capable of reproduction and prediction in a laboratory. We all know that there are many aspects of our world which cannot be understood within accepted terms of reference.

In this context, UFO historian Richard M. Dolan, in his monumental UFOs and the National Security State, writes, "Not only must we ask what constitutes proof, but who is authorized to deem it so. This is not so easy to determine. Certainly, an acknowledgment of aliens would have to come from a major spokesperson of official culture ¾ the President, perhaps. The matter is more political than scientific. UFO evidence derived from a grass roots level can never survive its inevitable conflict with official culture (fifty years of failure have borne this out). An acknowledgment about the reality of the UFO phenomenon will only occur when the official culture deems it worthwhile or necessary to make it. Don’t hold your breath. As a result, the easiest thing to do with UFO evidence is to ignore it, which is what most people do."

It would appear that the best prospect for achieving a meaningful evaluation of relevant hypotheses is likely to come from the examination of physical evidence. Setting out with this objective in mind, a review panel composed of nine scientists of diverse expertise and interests, convened a four day workshop in New York, from 30 September to 3 October, 1997. More on this undertaking later, but for now let’s look at the categories of physical evidence that were presented to these scientists by UFO investigators. The evidence was associated with particular UFO reports and included: photographic evidence; luminosity estimates; radar evidence; interference with both automobile and aircraft functioning; apparent gravitational or inertial effects; ground traces; injuries to vegetation; physiological effects on witnesses; and analysis of debris. An American space science textbook in use at the Air Academy up to 1970, listing classification systems common to UFOs, included : electro-magnetic effects; radiation; ground disturbances; sound; vibration; smell; debris; inhibition of voluntary motion by observers and the sighting of creatures or beings.

One can only wonder why the category of ‘debris’, was left out of the material presented to the 1997 panel. According to Timothy Good in Beyond Top Secret, Canadian government official and engineer Wilbert Smith, admitted that a number of fragments from UFOs had been recovered and analysed by his research group, including one that had been shot from a UFO near Washington, DC, in July 1952. Smith reported that, "A glowing chunk flew off and the pilot saw it glowing all the way to the ground. He radioed his report and a ground party hurried to the scene. The thing was still glowing when they found it an hour later. The entire piece weighed about a pound [454 grams]. The segment that was loaned to me was about one third of that. It had been sawed off.... There was iron rust... the thing was in reality a matrix of magnesium orthosilicate. The matrix had great numbers ¾ thousands ¾ of fifteen-micron spheres scattered through it." Smith was asked if he had returned the piece to the US Air Force when he had completed his analysis. "Not the Air Force. Much higher than that," he replied. "The Central Intelligence Agency?" asked the interviewers. "I’m sorry gentlemen, but I don’t care to go beyond that point," said Smith.

Good writes that according to information supplied to science journalists, NASA may be in possession of physical evidence relating to extraterrestrial materials. In 1974 a Polish biophysicist and engineer contracted to NASA, was a member of an international team of English, French and Italian scientists which was given some odd metallic and plastic-like material, supposedly originating from the Soviet Union, to analyse. Under analysis with an electronic microscope, the team found small pyramid structures in the nanometre range (ie: one thousand millionth of a metre), showing a kind of super reflectivity. They found alloys that could only have been made in conditions of weightlessness. Other tests showed traces of unusual Kapton and Kevlar-type synthetics. This was in the early 1950s and those materials had not existed at that time. The melting point of the metal samples was above two thousand degrees centigrade, and tests using helium, neon and ruby lasers had no effect. The foil seemed to possess a ‘memory’, like current memory metals, but to a factor of one thousand or better. (Several witnesses of the Roswell crash described a metal with similar qualities.)

So much for alleged debris. Rather than looking at UFO cases highlighting individual categories of physical evidence, let us instead move on to look at three of the best documented and researched events, each involving not one, but a number of physical effects. Let’s begin with one of ufology’s classic cases, that of fifty-two year old mechanic and quartz prospector, Stefan Michalak, who, just after noon on 19 May 1967, saw two cigar-shaped objects, glowing red and flying at high speed above the wilderness of Falcon Lake in Manitoba. The objects became more disc-shaped as they came closer, when suddenly one stopped in mid-air, before departing towards the west, while the other landed behind some bushes at a distance of about 160 feet [fifty metres] from Michalak. Assuming it to be an experimental American aircraft, he estimated it to be about thirty-five feet [ten metres] in diameter and about twelve feet [three and a half metres] high. He observed the object through welding goggles for a period of about half an hour, noting a smell of sulphur. He then decided to approach closer and at sixty feet [eighteen metres] distance heard the muffled sound of voices and the sounds of a motor and a rush of air. He first called out in English, but when there was no response, Michalak, who was multilingual, tried Russian, German, Italian and French and Ukrainian without any success. He decided to look inside the craft. In his own words, "the inside was a maze of lights. Direct beams running in horizontal and diagonal paths and a series of flashing lights, it seemed to me, were working in a random fashion, with no particular order or sequence. I took note of the thickness of the walls of the craft. They were about twenty inches [fifty centimetres] at the cross section." Suddenly the opening was sealed by three panels, so Michalak began to examine the craft’s exterior.

He noticed no welding joints and that the surface was highly polished like glass. When he touched the surface with his glove, he found that the rubber coating melted. Suddenly the craft changed position slightly and a blast of hot air struck his chest, setting his shirt and vest alight and causing severe pain. He tore these off and the object began to ascend in a rush of air, leaving a fifteen foot [four and a half metre] diameter circle on the ground. Michalak felt dizzy and vomited for a number of days and lost twenty pounds [nine kilos] over the next few weeks. Admitted to a hospital in Winnipeg, he was treated for minor burns to his face and severe burns to his chest. His hands swelled considerably and he experienced intense headaches and rashes. Tests by the Whiteshell Nuclear Research Establishment showed no radiation above the background level.

For several days after the incident, Michalak was unable to eat, his blood lymphocyte count was down from twenty-five to sixteen per cent and he continued to feel weak, dizzy and nauseous. Timothy Good reviewing the case in Above Top Secret, writes that, "A haematologist’s report indicated that Michalak’s blood had ‘some atypical lymphoid cells in the marrow plus a moderate increase in the number of plasma cells’." Altogether Michalak was examined by a total of twenty-seven doctors, most from official sources including the departments of Health and Social Welfare and National Defence. They were unable to offer a full explanation for the cause of his symptoms.

An investigator for the Department of Health and Social Welfare found a small contaminated area at the landing site, no larger than one hundred square inches [twenty-five centimetres square], that gave a significant level of radium 226. On 30 June, Michalak, searching with another person, found the landing site complete with outline of the landed object and the remains of his shirt. When the Royal Canadian Air Force searched the site on 28 July to collect samples, their representative described ‘a very evident circle’. They also found a high level of radiation in some samples, considering the site to be ‘a possible health hazard.’

In March 1983, GEPAN, France’s equivalent of NASA, submitted a sixty-six page report put together by a committee of seven scientists on a UFO landing near the village of Trans-en-Provence, on 8 January 1981. This proved over time to rank as one of the most convincing physical evidence cases ever studied. Not only were physical traces collected by the gendarmerie within twenty-four hours, but several government laboratories were involved in their examination.

Farmer Renato Nicolai saw a flying object making a whistling sound descend rapidly to land in his yard. Shortly afterwards the object rose to tree height, emitting a whistling sound and headed in a north-easterly direction. Nicolai, who was close to the site, saw four small openings on the underside of the object, which had been on the ground for some ten seconds. He examined the landing spot and noticed a six foot [1.8 metre] diameter circular imprint, with several abrasion areas prominent in the circle. He noted that the object was metallic grey in colour, had a thick band around it and had a diameter of eight feet [2.4 metres] and a height of six feet [1.8 metres].

The gendarmerie in Draguignan took photographs and samples on the morning of 9 January. The French National Centre for Space Research was immediately alerted and the samples delivered to GEPAN, while samples of vegetation from the landing area and surroundings were sent to the National Institute for Agronomical Research. It is important to know that, as the taking of samples is naturally critical to any study. In this case GEPAN had been able to provide law enforcement officers with detailed instructions for the gathering of samples, which were then divided amongst several French laboratories for double-blind study. Their tests included physico-chemical analysis, electron diffraction, mass spectrometry by ion bombardment and biochemical analysis of vegetable samples.

The summary of these analyses confirmed that strong mechanical pressure had been applied to the soil by a heavy weight, causing erosion, striation and heating (not exceeding sixty-six degrees centigrade) and chlorophyll pigment in the leaf samples was weakened from thirty to fifty per cent. Importantly, the GEPAN result stated that attempts to duplicate these changes were unsuccessful. A strange result of the analysis of alfalfa leaves at the landing site prompted INRA to report: "From an anatomical and physiological point, they had all the characteristics of leaves of an advanced age ¾ old leaves! And that doesn’t resemble anything that we know on our planet."

Beyond the effects of the phenomenon on soil and plants, scientists are left to consider the impact on human witnesses. In the case of Stefan Michalak we looked at the dramatic physiological effects that he suffered as a direct result of his close encounter. Our final case, which Jacques Vallee described as, "the best-authenticated close encounter incident in continental Europe", includes not only hard traces, botanical data and physiological data, but detailed descriptions of beings associated with the UFO. It came to be known as ‘The Valensole Case’. Not only is it one of the most thoroughly investigated close encounters on record, but examination by French government agencies began on the day of the event.

During early morning of 1 July 1965, Maurice Masse, a French lavender farmer, was working in his field in the village of Valensole, near the lower Alps, when he suddenly noticed an object that had landed in his lavender field. At first glance from a distance, he thought that it was a helicopter or some sort of experimental prototype, but as he approached closer to the object, he saw that it was oval shaped and rested on six curved legs and some type of central pivot. Through an opening in the craft he thought that he could see two back-to-back seats. Suddenly he saw two beings, less than four feet [1.2 metres] tall, wearing grey-blue-green suits but without any type of breathing devices. One of them pointed a small tube at the farmer, which immediately paralyzed him. Although lying on the ground, he remained fully conscious, noting that as they looked at him, with what he later described as ‘concerned expressions’, they made strange gurgling sounds from deep within their throats as they communicated with one another. Masse saw that the two beings had large hairless heads, smooth white skin, large eyes that slanted away, pointed chins and small mouths without lips. After their brief dialogue, they entered the craft through a sliding panel and the object took off, leaving a deep crater and an area of moisture that later became as hard as concrete.

After about twenty minutes Masse was able to move his arms and legs, but four days after the incident he collapsed and his sleep pattern was dramatically altered for several months. Rather than his usual five or six hour sleep break, he was sleeping for periods of twelve hours or more and his wife and father noted distinct behavioural changes. Masse was a former Resistance fighter, an astute farmer and regarded as ‘absolutely trustworthy’ by police investigators. Lieutenant-Colonel Valnet, Maitre Chautard, leading the gendarmerie and the Mayor of Valensole, in fact everyone who investigated the case, concluded that Maurice Masse was telling the truth.

Investigators found that the ground where the craft had landed was soaked with moisture, although no rain had fallen. Geometrically spaced indentations covered the area and the plants were affected by the proximity of the phenomenon, appearing to decay in direct proportion to their distance from the central column of the craft. The calcium content of the soil at the landing site was found to be much higher than in samples taken from other areas in the field.

Famous UFO writer and researcher Dr Jacques Vallee, returning to the scene of the incident in 1979 and meeting with Maurice Masse and two of his close friends, makes a number of interesting observations. He notes that Masse was reluctant to give all the details of his experience to investigators as well as to his own family at the time, including the fact that he believed that some type of silent communication took place between himself and the beings. From the beginning he wanted to minimise the impact of the experience, not wanting publicity, amongst other reasons. Like many experiencers of this phenomenon, he had changed in many ways as a result of the experience, including the belief that some form of contact, once established, continued in subtle forms. Vallee concludes, "Throughout these discussions with Mr Masse I had the feeling that I was in the presence of a very intelligent man, capable of deep emotions and rational thought. He is also quite humble; he has declined to appear on a television documentary with a nationally known journalist.... I had brought with me a photograph of similar traces left after another case. Mr Masse looked at me with a mixture of amazement and relief that someone else was aware of these particular marks. He told us that he sometimes found them in his field; that’s how he knows that ‘they’ have come back. He always erases the traces immediately."

As promised, let us now return to the 1997 workshop, with a panel of nine scientists reviewing purported physical evidence associated with UFO reports and funded by Mr Laurance S Rockefeller. Unfortunately the panel was extremely limited by the time allocation of just three days. Compare this with, for example, the two year long Colorado Project that was supported by both the Air Force and the Central Intelligence Agency. Chairperson Professor Peter Sturrock quite rightly points out in his report, with respect to the limiting time allocation, "It would certainly be highly unreasonable to expect such a panel to solve, in only a few days, a problem that has remained unsolved for fifty years."

Time was only one of the limitations that the panel faced that would hinder their progress in reviewing evidence in this whole area. UFO research teams have long been familiar with these difficulties. For example, with respect to photographic evidence, the panel noted, "photographic evidence can contribute to a better understanding of the UFO phenomenon.... it is highly desirable that the photographic evidence be accompanied by strong witness testimony, but it is very difficult to meet these requirements (as in the case of remotely operated scientific monitoring stations) because of the unpredictable nature of UFO events." Again, on the subject of radar records, "the panel concludes from these presentations that the analysis of radar records requires the service of radar experts. The panel also notes that information from military radar can be obtained only with the cooperation of military authorities, and that most military authorities do not offer this cooperation." Surprise surprise!

On the subject of cases involving vehicle interference, the panel found, "these reports to be intriguing. In order to contribute to the analysis of such cases, however, scientists would wish to have available evidence of a variety of types, certainly including narrative accounts, but also involving more concrete information such as radar records, tape recordings, etc." One can only ask the obvious question, as these records exist in enormous quantities, why were they not made available?

As a final example of the difficulties inherent in marrying UFO events to the requirements of orthodox science, we note the panel’s report on one of the better documented cases involving a helicopter of the US Army Reserve en route to Cleveland, Ohio, on 18 August 1973 at 11.00pm. The four man helicopter crew were returning from Columbus at approximately 10pm on a clear, calm night with fifteen mile [twenty-four km] visibility. The helicopter was cruising at ninety knots at an altitude of 2500 feet [760 metres]. Suddenly the crew saw a single, steady red light which appeared to be pacing the helicopter. The light continued its approach and the commander took over the controls from his copilot and put the helicopter into a powerful descent of approximately five hundred feet per minute. He made contact with Mansfield control tower but, after initial radio contact, the radios malfunctioned on both VHF and UHF. When the red light increased its intensity and appeared to be on a collision course at a speed estimated to be above six hundred knots, the commander increased the rate of descent to 2000 feet per minute.

With a collision seeming imminent, the light suddenly decelerated and hovered in front of the helicopter. The crew reported seeing a cigar-shaped grey metallic object that filled the entire windshield. It had a red light at the nose, a white light at the tail and a distinctive green beam that shone from its underside. This light swung over the helicopter bathing the cockpit in green light. There was no noise or turbulence from the object. Suddenly the object made a forty degree course change and left. While the object was still visible, the crew noted that the altimeter read 3500 feet with a rate of climb of 1000 feet per minute, despite the fact that the main power control was in the full down position. The commander raised the controls and the helicopter climbed nearly another three hundred feet before positive control was regained. Radio contact was then immediately resumed. In other words the helicopter ascended from 1800 feet to 3800 feet even though its controls were set to descend.

The Mansfield helicopter case involved not only the testimony of the helicopter crew but that of five ground witnesses, plus related evidence from an airline pilot, who before the event, reported unidentified traffic and a strong blue-green light source. The panel’s comment: "The panel finds reports of this type quite interesting, but without any existence of any solid physical evidence (such as analysis of the magnetic compass might have provided), it is difficult for a panel composed of physical scientists to draw any conclusions." The panel also found it curious that the commander did not know where to report such an extraordinary event. Yet again, we see how another strong case with impeccable witnesses, can be dismissed by some scientists because they will always find some filter through which it will not fit.

Despite the enormous limitations imposed by the brevity of its meeting time, Professor Sturrock and his panel of scientists were introduced to enough evidence to induce them to make a number of recommendations and suggestions in their Summary Report which are of extreme importance to UFO research. Some of these suggestions are: that the UFO problem is not simple and should receive more attention, with an emphasis on physical evidence; that regular contact between UFO investigators and the scientific community would be helpful, as also would institutional support; and that the possibility of health risks associated with UFO events should not be ignored.

The panel was greatly impressed by the work of GEPAN and there is no doubt that the best prospects for real advance in our understanding of the UFO problem would be the creation of similar projects in other countries. The most important change that could be made by scientists is to become curious. In view of the fact that modern UFO reports began in 1947, in view of the emergence of clear patterns in UFO reports and in view of great public interest, it is remarkable that some members of the scientific community have exhibited so little curiosity in the past.

It is likely that more scientists at universities would take an interest in the problem if they felt that their activities would receive the same recognition and level of support as their more conventional research. Moreover, students would become better informed if there were occasional lectures or seminars on this subject. Investigators could help this process by developing resource material for such seminars.

The UFO problem is very complex and it is impossible to predict what might emerge from research into this area. But the same is true of any real and exciting area of scientific research. As the panel remarked, "Whenever there are unexplained observations, there is the possibility that scientists will learn something new by studying those observations." What is learned may bear no relation to the concepts that were entertained when the research was undertaken. We venture to hope that more scientists will take an interest in this curious subject so that there will be more progress in the future. There could hardly be less. In conclusion, one can only applaud the panel’s recommendations, but also wonder how they could be so unaware of the fact that many scientists, mostly connected to secret programmes, have indeed been closely involved with the UFO phenomenon since early July 1947.

Barclay, David & Therese. (1993) UFOs: The Final Answer. London: Blandford.

Dolan, Richard M. (2000) UFOs and the National Security State. New York: Keyhole Publishing.

Fowler, Raymond E. (1979) UFOs: Interplanetary Visitors. New York: Prentice-Hall.

Good, Timothy. (1996) Beyond Top Secret. London: Sidgwick & Jackson.

Saunders, David R. & Harkins, R. Roger. (1968) UFOs? Yes! Where the Condon Committee Went Wrong. New York: Signet Books.

Spencer, J. (1994) Gifts of the Gods. London: Virgin.

Sturrock, P.A. Physical Evidence Related to UFO Reports. Available at: <http://www.scientific

exploration.org/jse/articles/ufo_reports/sturrock/l.html>

Vallee, Jacques. (1990) Confrontations: A Scientist’s Search for Alien Contact. New York: Random House.

Vallee, Jacques. (1991) Revelations: Alien Contact and Human Deception. New York: Ballentine Books.

Human Levitation

By Simon Harvey-Wilson

Levitation has evoked awe, bewilderment or disbelief throughout history, and has a surprising number of links with the UFO and alien abduction phenomenon ¾ anti-gravity being the most obvious one. Human levitation occurs when a person hovers or moves through the air with no visible means of support, seemingly in defiance of the force of gravity. Despite its fascinating and anomalous nature levitation has seldom been the subject of serious research. Few people today claim to have seen someone levitating and science currently has no explanation for it, except to say that, if it occurs at all, it seems to be paranormal or miraculous. It is understandable, therefore, that human levitation has traditionally been regarded as a religious phenomenon with numerous saints from various religions being reported to have levitated. But a closer examination reveals that levitation reports come from a variety of settings, some of them with little religious flavour.

Most encyclopedias of the paranormal refer to human levitation, but I have only been able to locate three complete books on the subject, one of which was written in 1928. Apart from its controversial nature, one reason for this neglect may be because it is unclear who should study human levitation. Even today most physicists would be unwilling to jeopardise their reputation by researching anything to do with the paranormal. Parapsychology would seem the most appropriate approach, but I have been unable to find a single parapsychologist who is currently researching levitation anywhere in the world, let alone in Australia. If anyone out there is studying human levitation, I would be interested to hear from them.

UFOs are often reported to use anti-gravity. I am not a physicist, but it seems to me that there is a difference between a propulsion system and a device that shields you from the force of gravity. If, for example, it was possible to put on a futuristic space-suit that shielded you from gravity, surely all that would happen is that you would become weightless, which would not be much help if you wanted to fly to the next suburb. Being weightless is not the same as having a propulsion system, although they may be connected. For example, if a jumbo jet, which weighs about three hundred tonnes, had an anti-gravity device on board that reduced its weight to fifty tonnes, imagine how much less fuel it would use. And how much faster could a jet fighter go if it only weighed one tonne? There are other aeronautical considerations such as sonic booms and wind resistance, but there is no doubt that the military and aviation industry would be very interested in any anti-gravity device, even if it were only twenty or thirty percent efficient. However, in cases of human levitation we have people who hover in the air and cannot be moved, some who seem to float around like leaves in the breeze, and others who levitate a specific trajectory as if their intent were controlling their flight-path. This suggests that whatever facilitates human levitation may involve a sophisticated combination of weightlessness, propulsion and consciousness. How that might work is, at this stage, anyone’s guess but will obviously involve research into fields such as consciousness and parapsychology as well as physics.

There apparently exists a video called Journey Into the Beyond (1992), part of which shows a shaman or witch-doctor called Nana Owaka (or Dwaku) levitating in a remote village in Togo, West Africa. The sequence was filmed by a German documentary crew who insist that it is genuine. The video is made by Burbank International Pictures. It is directed by Frank Martin Lang (later known as Rolf Olsen) and narrated by John Carradine. (I have searched unsuccessfully for this video, so if any readers have seen it, possess it, or know where to obtain it, I would love to hear from them.)

This appeared to be the case in the 1977 Enfield poltergeist outbreak in England, which is perhaps the best documented case in modern times. Colin Wilson describes the investigation in his book Poltergeist: A Study in Destructive Haunting (1981). There were four children in the family concerned, but the activity appeared to centre around eleven-year-old Janet. All sorts of strange things happened in the house and many were witnessed by various psychical investigators who tried to assist in ending the chaos surrounding the family. "On one occasion, with a photographer in the bedroom, Janet was hurled out of bed" (Wilson, p.241). The resulting photo shows her in midair with a look of horror on her face as she flies across the room. Another time, before several witnesses, Janet was thrown off her chair about two and a half metres across the room (Wilson, p.240). Researchers visiting the house found that they could communicate out loud with the various spirits or ghosts causing the haunting. On one occasion an investigator, called David Robertson, challenged it (or them) to levitate Janet. While standing outside the bedroom, Robertson "heard Janet being bounced up and down on the bed." When he eventually managed to get the door open, Janet "claimed that she had floated through the wall of the next house." When they asked for a repeat of this, it didn’t happen, but a book (ironically called Fun and Games for Children) that had been in Janet’s bedroom a few minutes earlier was found on the floor next door (Wilson, p.243). A neighbour walking by outside testified that, when looking at Janet’s window, she had seen "books and cushions striking the window, and Janet rising into the air ¾ in a horizontal position ¾ and descending again, as if being bounced on a trampoline" (p.244). To test for fraud, the researchers tried bouncing on Janet’s bed to see if they could replicate this feat but were unable to do so.

Indian yogis, fakirs and Tibetan lamas have also been reported to levitate, often as a result of meditation and breathing exercises (pranayama). One of the eight great supernatural powers (siddhis) associated with Hinduism is called laghima or weightlessness and supposedly enables the adept to levitate or move about at tremendous speed. Another is called garima or weightfulness, which is the power to become so heavy that one cannot be moved (Walker, 1968, p.394). The Tibetan yogi Milarepa is reputed to have been able to levitate over large distances (Rogo, 1991, p.29).

There is a third levitation connection with ufology. In an article called "The Entities" in the MUFON Journal (1994, p.3), Dan Wright, who was then the manager of the MUFON Abduction Transcription Project, tells us that forty-one percent of the project’s abduction transcripts that mention how aliens move, describe them as levitating or gliding. Is it possible that some aliens have mastered the esoteric art of levitation and use it to move themselves and abductees around when in unfamiliar gravitational conditions? If this is so, we perhaps have an additional reason for researching levitation more seriously than has been done in the past.

There are a few religious groups who claim that aliens are actually demonic entities intent on corrupting or subverting the human race (Downing, 2001; Ritchie, 1994, p.56). In other words, they believe that alien abductions are a form of spirit possession. This is a delicate subject, but there is no doubt that many abductees report that initially they are completely unable to prevent or resist their abduction experiences. It is as if their body and/or consciousness has been taken over by a force greater than themselves. Repeat abductees may become more relaxed about their experiences and may even look forward to further encounters, while others report becoming familiar with various aliens and being able to negotiate the circumstances of future encounters.

If we think about this, we can see that there is not that much difference between, firstly, a shaman learning to interact with or be temporarily possessed by beings from the spirit realm, and, secondly, a spirit medium allowing the spirit of a dead person to temporarily inhabit his or her body during a seance. In some cases both these are similar to someone being abducted or interacting with an alien who has paranormal or spiritual qualities from some seemingly spiritual or interdimensional realm. The difference may be largely a matter of cultural definition and can perhaps be measured by how much control the shaman, spirit medium, or abductee has, or learns to have, over the initial and subsequent encounters. In indigenous societies a person who cannot get rid of a spiritual entity that has possessed him or her is regarded as mad rather than as a shaman. Likewise, in Christianity for example, a person who becomes involuntarily possessed and starts to display paranormal abilities and/or levitates is definitely not regarded as a saint, although some saints claim to have encounters with spiritual beings and may also levitate. The historical accounts suggest that some mystics were most reluctant to reveal instances of spontaneous levitation in case they were thought to be possessed. The Catholic researcher Olivier Leroy in his book Levitation: An Examination of the Evidence and Explanations (1928) makes it quite plain that he believes that saints that levitate are divinely blessed, while spirit mediums are just being duped by demonic entities. Leroy is clearly biased, but one wonders what he would have thought about alien abductions if he were still alive.

Religion and science have always had an uneasy relationship, as for example in the still ongoing debate about evolution and creationism. While not so important perhaps, research into levitation is also hampered by centuries of prejudice about witches, possession, and spiritual taboos about paranormal abilities. In his book The Hindu World (1968), Benjamin Walker writes that, "Patanjali speaks of siddhis as ‘impediments to the attainment of true perception’, and other great thinkers of India also deprecate the pursuit of siddhis, since they are frequently rooted in desire and involve one in material things. The magician or wonder-worker is not regarded as a true adept and his performances are frowned upon by enlightened minds" (p.395). In my opinion, such taboos, and sceptical claims that levitation does not even exist, should not be permitted to obstruct open-minded research into human levitation, especially in the light of evidence that aliens may be using a mastery of this and other paranormal talents to abduct people, sometimes against their will.

As if being levitated wasn’t bizarre enough, one might wonder how a person or solid object could move through a wall or ceiling without breaking it. We do not currently know the answer to this question, but at least someone appears to be doing some research into it. In his book Psychic Wars: Parapsychology in Espionage and Beyond (1999), the German parapsychologist Dr Elmar Gruber reports that during experiments by the Chinese government into the extraordinary abilities of one of their star psychics, Zhang Baosheng, scientists used a four hundred shots-per-second high-speed camera to film while he transported or teleported a pill from inside a sealed glass container. "On one exposure the pill can be seen as it is penetrating the glass wall, on the next it is half inside and half out, and on the third it is completely outside the container" (p.120). During these experiments, most of the pills and glass containers were undamaged. This appears to suggest that, under the right conditions, solid materials can interpenetrate each other. This may not seem quite so amazing if we recall that physicists tell us that, down at the atomic level, so-called solid matter is largely made of empty space. If human science has demonstrated that such things are possible here on Earth, then it seems quite feasible that an advanced extraterrestrial species might be using such a technology in their space program ¾ if that is what we could call alien abductions. What I would like to know is; how does it work?

In The Metal Benders (1981), John Hasted also reports that: "In 1977 a young Soviet physicist, August Stern, defected to the West and related some of his experiences in parapsychology. He had worked in the Siberian science city of Novosibirsk" with about fifty scientists who induced levitation by enclosing a subject "within a cube of mirrors. The multiple images, apparently stretching in all directions to infinity, have the effect of disorienting the subject, who then levitates if he has the ability." Hasted tried the same experiment using Stern as the subject but was unsuccessful. I am not aware of any reports of experiments into human levitation appearing in popular science magazines, so we might speculate that, if they are taking place, such research is classified for reasons of national security.

On the other hand, some people claim that they alone are responsible for their levitation. Seenath Chatterjee (1887) describes meeting "a Lama from Tibet" who was not only happy to demonstrate his capacity to levitate at will but pointed out that, "this sort of ‘commonplace Siddhi’ could be performed by even Lama-pupils in his Guru’s monastery who were not very far advanced" (p.726). Paul Dong (1984, p.167) describes two doctors of Chinese medicine who are able to levitate as a result of their mastery of ching gong (lightweight gong), which is a specialised aspect of the traditional Chinese breathing technique called qi gong. While both these examples do have some spiritual connotations, they appear to illustrate that, after sufficient practice, a few people can learn to levitate at will and are then less inclined to blame invisible spiritual entities. This suggests that an analysis of the similarities in behaviour and beliefs of people who are reported to have levitated, and the various cultural and religious settings in which it is reported to occur, may lead to a clearer understanding of how human levitation works. It may be particularly relevant to discuss the training and beliefs of those who have claimed to be able to levitate at will.

It may be discovered that genuine instances of levitation, from for example spiritualism and Chinese qi gong, have different explanations. Perhaps aliens and invisible spirits do exist and can levitate people, but, with the right training, a person may learn to levitate at will without the help of spirits. The energy involved in human levitation ¾ if that is what it is ¾ might, like electricity, be accessible to anyone who has the appropriate motivation, resources and expertise to use it. We might discover that blaming levitation on invisible entities (saints blame god; the possessed blame demons; shamans and spiritualists blame spirits; and abductees tend to blame aliens) is just a natural but misguided human tendency when faced with anomalies that appear to derive from unknown dimensions of consciousness. We might even discover that some sort of anti-gravity force does actually exist and that writing about it, in addition to the popularity of movies like Harry Potter, helps remove the current taboos and psychological barriers about levitation, with the result that eventually a few people in the community might start to levitate as a means of getting about or climbing over things.

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Guiley, Rosemary. (1989) The Encyclopedia of Witches and Witchcraft. New York: Fact On File.

Harvey-Wilson, Simon. (1998) Phasers and UFO light beams. Journal of Alternative Realities, 6 (1), 15-22.

Harvey-Wilson, Simon. (2001, August) Similarities found between shamanism and abductions. MUFON UFO Journal, (400), 3-4.

Hasted, John B. (1981) The Metal Benders. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

Journey Into the Beyond [Film]. (1992) Burbank International Pictures.

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Mack, John. (2000) Passport to the Cosmos. London: Thorsons.

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Ring, Kenneth. (1992) The Omega Project. New York: William Morrow.

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Rogo, Scott D. (1991) Miracles: A Scientific Explanation. London: Aquarian Press.

Thompson, Richard. (1993) Alien Identities. San Diego: Govardhan Hill Publishing.

Vallee, Jacques. (1990) Dimensions: A Casebook of Alien Contact. London: Sphere Books.

Walker, Benjamim. (1968) The Hindu World. New York: Praeger.

Wilson, Colin. (1981) Poltergeist: A Study in Destructive Haunting. London: New English Library.

Wilson, Colin. (1994) The Giant Book of the Supernatural. Sydney: The Book Company.

Wright, Dan. (1994) The entities. MUFON UFO Journal, (310), 3-7.

Zlatko Sudac. (2002) Interview with Fr. Sudac. St Jerome Croatian Catholic Church of Chicago website. <http://www.stjeromecroatian.org/eng/frsudac.html>

The Leeds UFO Conference

By Morley Legg

Our first stop-over on the way to the 20^th Leeds International UFO Conference in England was Oslo, Norway, on 4 September 2001. I had contacted Norwegian ufologists on the Internet and arranged to visit Odd-Gunnar Roed, the editor of UFO Norge. A reason for this diversion was that I had lived and worked in Oslo for three years (1955-58) while in my mid-twenties. I then settled in England, married in Nottingham, and returned to Perth in 1963, with Sheila and a daughter. Arriving in Oslo again, for probably the last time, was poignant but also challenging.

Odd-Gunnar lives about two hours drive south of Oslo where he owns a company and manages the Tonsberg cinema. He proved to be charismatic, divorced, with three daughters. He drove me to his home where we spent three hours talking about the similarities and differences in our approach to ufology. ‘UFO Norway’, which he joined in 1974, is a nation-wide organisation with ten leaders and forty investigators, now tabling its two thousandth case. What had led him into UFOs? He said it was probably a near-death experience as a child ¾ he fell through ice while skating. He had discussed this in San Marino with two American ufologists who had also had NDEs. One of them, Linda Moulten Howe, was driving and found she was winding up the window, not knowing why. Seconds later a deer-buck smashed into the window causing her to crash into trees. A.J Gevaerd had survived a car crash in Brazil.

We touched on Norway’s most prolific UFO site at Hessdalen, a valley in the far north, one hundred and twenty kilometres south of Trondheim. Hundreds of UFO sightings have been made there; at one time as many as twenty a week. Different committees were formed in the 1980s to study the phenomena. One was made up of people from the Norwegian Research Establishment (NDRE) and the universities of Oslo, Bergen and Trondheim. A team of Italian radio astronomers had just concluded their study of strange lights in August and it was claimed they had encountered new phenomena.

I had brought with me Mary Rodwell’s video, Expressions of ET Contact, and I showed Odd-Gunnar copies of abductee Tracy Taylor’s paintings. In exchange for our latest Journal of Alternative Realities he gave me four UFO Norge magazines (a forty page quarterly with over eight hundred subscribers) and a video of the recent UFO Conference in Oslo. We talked about crop circles; he suspects the more complex ones are man-made. His English ufologist friend, Philip Mantle, plans to settle in Norway. Odd-Gunnar said he lectures all over Norway, in schools, clubs, and also on oil rigs in the North Sea. He tries to keep a low profile examining close encounters of the third kind and has a US psychologist regressing Norwegians who claim abduction experiences. He hopes to visit Australia. It was a great meeting that sharpened expectations for the Leeds Conference.

We flew to Manchester, where at first we ignored the television highlights of planes exploding into the twin towers of the World Trade Centre in New York, thinking it was a new film. But during the following ten days before the Conference the significance of the catastrophe and our vulnerability, began to sink in. ‘Heathrow May Be Next’ rang the headlines.

Sheila and I introduced ourselves to Graham Birdsall (editor of UFO Magazine), reminding him of our meeting in Fremantle. He was delighted to see us and insisted on taking us upstairs to meet a number of people. After an hour of the important social activity of intermixing, the crowd gradually moved upstairs to take seats in the auditorium. The speakers, assisted by a giant back-projection screen, gave short introductory talks about what they would be covering on Saturday or Sunday. An ‘Armchair Forum’ followed where they answered questions from the audience. Would the UFO conference, with its usual focus on anomalous undercurrents behind surface appearances, throw any light on September 11, or on what might happen next? Ten days had passed since the catastrophe, and many were hoping for insights. My original interest was to hear the latest news and theories, but I had Mary Rodwell’s abduction video and five Journal of Alternative Realities to give to the most appropriate recipients. Learning about other UFO groups was another priority, and it proved stimulating to meet and share viewpoints with the internationals: Koreans, Burmese, a Jamaican, a Swede, Americans, etc.

We stayed at a nearby hotel which provided bed and breakfast to over thirty international students. This proved another unique setting to gauge the mood of the world. We talked to Africans, Indians, Singaporeans, and a Greek lady studying (too much it seems) the philosophy of science, who knew nothing about the destruction of the World Trade Centre when I brought the matter up. "What ... when? Where? Why?" On Saturday morning at eleven Graham Birdsall opened the program and first set a minute’s silence in memory of the thousands of victims of the September 11 attack. He then announced the first speaker, Professor John Mack of Harvard Medical School.

He mentioned Steven Greer’s Disclosure Project which began with twenty key figures from the military, science and technology, who spoke of their experience with UFOs, and yet America remained disinterested. He stressed the importance of sensing the interconnectedness of everything, and added that, "Once people come to terms with the trauma of their abduction experience they sense that they are ... one with all the peoples of the Earth, with Islamic peoples, with Hindus, with Sikhs."

During the breaks Graham Birdsall was always a master of ceremonies. He brought up news, topics of interest and liked to use humour. He welcomed the visitors from overseas in the audience. Each nationality was asked to stand and received applause. But I and others wished we were given name and country tags, as MUFON does at its conferences in the USA.

Three of the many military witnesses who saw the craft experienced forty minutes of missing time, and now Jim Penniston admits he saw human-looking aliens by the craft. Numerous drawings by witnesses were shown on the screen. Records show that people experienced similar lights in the same area in 1947, 1956, and one was seen in Oliver Cromwell’s day, in 1646. Georgina’s book probes into every aspect of the case and is a revelation in disclosure. If the claims are of no importance why are pages of the account missing from so many log books? Lord Hill Norton, after persistent questioning in the House of Lords about the case, was recently given some files. But six files were held back.

Budd’s closing assumption was that the aliens envy our diversity, but he hopes they can learn from us. Monsignor Balducci of the Vatican was said to accept aliens as a theological issue, saying, "It has all been discussed at the highest level." It makes one wonder if the World Trade Centre catastrophe is linked to other dramas going on behind the scenes and whether the top echelons of wealth, knowledge and power are keeping to themselves what they prefer to keep from us.

I had been looking forward to hearing Graham Ennis as he was reputed to have sound connections with mainstream science. According to UFO Magazine he had been organising a gathering of international scientists for a workshop on gravitational physics and had agreed to be a speaker at the conference. It would be interesting to have some of the disparities between mainstream minds and UFO enthusiasts clarified. But he failed to arrive. Professor John Mack’s ‘politics of knowledge’ came to mind. The risks of studying UFOs can curtail funding and ruin a career. Richard Haines also failed to arrive, but he had understandable difficulty in getting a flight out of New York.

The speculation was raised that perhaps it was already known that ETs existed, and programmes like SETI were designed to give humanity time to evolve or adjust to new religious sensibilities. One wonders if the controversial Bishop Spong’s A New Christianity for a New World (2002) has gone far enough to help us replace the fundamentalism we have been caught in. A quip was made: "Will they send missionaries to other planets to save them?" But it was a talk that got everyone thinking. Graham feels that the Vatican, by building a powerful astronomical observatory in Mount Graham in Arizona, opening with ten scientists but now having twenty, will be able to maintain its authority and "indoctrination process" over followers by using its scientific knowledge, its handing down of proof of what the Pope has called "the fingerprints of God".

He commented that Professor Frank, chief designer of the Galileo spacecraft instruments, saw Martyn Stubbs’ smoking gun video and admitted that the anomalous phenomena in the NASA footage were not easily explained, adding that scientists were reluctant to examine such material. Graham said that an aerospace engineer had agreed to offer Martyn’s video to Dr Ian Morrison, the head of the Jodrell Bank Observatory in the UK. But Dr Morrison had replied, "I refuse to look at it. It’s more than my budget is worth ... NASA could pull the plug." Graham received a long applause for a talk that was full of behind-the-scenes intrigue.

After brief chats with Nick Pope, I gave him Mary Rodwell’s video, and a copy of our Journal of Alternative Realities to his friend Bridget Grant. The remaining five journals were given to Shauna Jones and Steven, who were just starting their own UFO group in Leeds; to two Welshmen who come to the Leeds Conference every year; and to Jostein Molde, an historian from Norway who by chance happened to be the last person sitting next to me. He and I had much to talk about.

The conference was wonderful. Now it had ended, still leaving a huge difference, a potential resonance, between the mainstream and ufology ways of perceiving the world. We did have the high of running into John Mack at the Leeds Railway Station an hour or two later. We exchanged comments and said goodbye. I suddenly remembered to ask if there was a chance of his coming to Perth to talk to us at the Australasian Society for Psychical Research. He turned and said, "Just call me." These days, with any speaker, it could be almost as simple as that.

Bruni, Georgina. (2000) You Can’t Tell the People. London: Sidgwick & Jackson.

Hopkins, Budd. (1996) Witnessed. NY: Pocket Books.

Rodwell, Mary, (2000) Expressions of ET Contact [video].

Spong, John S. (2002) A New Christianity for a New World. Pymble, NSW: HarperCollins.

Strieber, Whitley & Bell, Art. (2000) The Coming Global Superstorm. New York: Pocket Books

Stubbs, Martyn. (2001) The Secret NASA Transmissions: The Smoking Gun [video].

UFO Magazine [UK]. <http://www.ufomag.co.uk>

UFO Norway. <http://www.ufo.no>

Honouring Multidimensional Experiences

By Mary Rodwell

"In this culture there may be a very small group of scientific, governmental, religious, and corporate elite that determine the prevailing bounds of reality. People know their experiences, and what they have undergone does not fit with the prevailing mechanistic world-view. Large percentages of people seem to know there is an unseen world or hidden dimensions of reality…. The Abduction/Contact phenomena challenge the sacred barrier we have created between the unseen and material world. It undermines the fundamental world-view of the Western mind." Prof John E. Mack, Sept 1995.

This article is about awakening to our multi-dimensional nature through Contact experiences. The Australian Close Encounter Resource Network, ACERN, honours all realities but specialises in Contact experience (interaction with non-human extraterrestrial beings). The classic form of Contact is immortalised in Whitley Strieber’s book Communion (1987). These experiences incorporate such things as unexplained marks and scars on the body, and the trauma of night visits by strange beings. But my research suggests that other far less tangible and esoteric forms of Contact exist, and this has led me to conclude that classic Contact may be just part of a fairly broad spectrum of multi-level Contact experiences. It is possible that far greater number of people experience the more subtle forms of Contact, with none or just a few of the classic indicators. This subtle form is even less tangible in third dimensional terms than the classic form. To explore these experiences more fully we may need to redefine what we now understand about Contact experience, and also what makes these experiences a reality for so many.

From my seven years of research into this phenomenon I have collated data that show many indicators to suggest Contact. These indicators are far broader and require openness to the reality of strong emotion, creativity, psychological and spiritual focus. Indicators, which although less concrete, can have a profound effect on the lives of those who experience them, and which require an openness to the exploration of our multidimensional nature.

I was in touch with Whitley Strieber recently when inquiring about his book The Communion Letters (1997) in which he discusses the vast spectrum of Contact experiences and in which he confided that some of the most unusual came from Australia. In his book, which is a compilation of letters he has received, he remarks on such diversity of experiences: "One particular type of letter we get, describes journeys with the visitors. These letters have very similar characteristics in that their authors have usually had many years of conscious contact experience. They are generally people who have been interacting comfortably with the visitors for most of their lives, so these may be stories, in a sense, from the future of mankind." Whitley continues, "Issues of fear and consequent traumatic amnesia generally don’t enter into these narratives. How real are these stories? As incredible as these are, there is no more reason to dismiss them than any of the others. One of the main problems with the visitor experience is that anything that doesn’t fit expected patterns is generally ignored." (Strieber, 1997, pp.141-142).

We know that Contact can manifest through intangibles such as symbolic images and strange sounds, as mentioned by Strieber in his books. But, with all forms of this experience, there may be inexplicable emotions and strong drives within the psyche that create confusion for the individual. The classic Contact experience leaves tangible evidence, but the individual still experiences huge conflict as it challenges his or her reality paradigm. Television programs such as The X Files have made this experience recognisable as ‘night visitor’.

"The light, the light … the loud humming sound, your body stiffens, paralysed, a creeping dread ... panic ... as your eyes carefully scan the room while your heart pounds. You want to call out, but can make no sound, and it becomes the inner scream, no, not again! You have no control, as you hear the familiar low buzzing sound, something is about to happen. You sense ‘them’, bizarre shadows, feeling someone is close. Suffocating, misty shapes ... strange, elusive, they edge closer, panic fills you, and your mind screams ... as your worst nightmare unfolds once again. Please, please, don’t touch me. And then the deep knowing ... this has been happening all your life."

Julia (pseudonym), who has experienced this classic form of Contact many times, says: "Phew! The first bit sounds like an excerpt from the film Psycho" and then continues, "Yes, yes, I know, my experience was psycho! I had no idea what was going on with me, but, whatever it was, it never left me and I was literally terrified witless on a regular basis all my life. By the age of forty, I used to put it into the too-hard basket and get on with life. I felt I had ‘phenomena’ tattooed on my forehead. Things like audio tapes that played back to front, Earth disaster dreams, sleeping problems, eating disorders, strange rashes, violent nose bleeds, anxiety, and night clothes found back-to-front and inside-out. A constant presence would sit on my bed, tap me on the shoulder, produce footsteps up the path and in the house, and call my name. There was paralysis and strange smells. My animals would behave strangely; electric lights would flicker and flash. The old weatherboard house I lived in literally shook so violently I thought it would collapse. Strange events with black dogs and endless sagas of the unexplainable with nowhere to put them mentally!"

"People around me also saw these things going on, so I had proof, but I couldn’t put it down to a night visitor because I never knew what would happen next. I went to psychic development classes that I thought would sort it out. Nope! But I learned to distinguish what was what, and it gave me my interest in healing and let the floodgates open for manifestations beyond my wildest nightmares, as now I knew it was ET. And now my world collapses a thousand times plus with the realisation that this was what I had been dealing with alone all my life."

Julia continues: "When I met my partner, something began to stir again, more phenomena, but now we were both in it, he was having his own individual experiences on his way to work, and when we were in the same house. I called you. It was beyond our abilities to deal with it without help! It’s all around us, Mary, people just don’t know, that’s all. So what has taken me all this time to say is, are you going to give the other scenarios, the not so commonly known ones, which would make people think?"

Despite the amazing array of physical and psychic phenomena, Julia struggled to acknowledge that it was a reality, as she comments: "And now my world collapses a thousand times plus!" How much harder to validate experiences which have no physical Contact markers. It is a huge misconception that experiencers are gullible, fantasy prone, space cadets. Most are extremely sane, normal individuals who may have never seen a science-fiction movie, let alone believe in little green men. And, contrary to what most may believe, no one is more sceptical of their experiences than they are. After all, they need to be, as they need to prove to themselves that they are not crazy! With constant questioning of their personal reality, those who have the more subtle indicators often struggle even more as their multi-level experiences challenge their reality in an identical way, but without the more tangible physical markers.

The more subtle forms of Contact can incorporate identical symbology, such as owls and clowns, but other indicators may be psychological, emotional, and spiritual. But they can have enormous impact on the psyche with feelings of confusion, isolation and continual questioning of reality. I have documented this information into a soon-to-be-published book called Awakening in which I explore all forms of Contact, and have isolated over one hundred indicators of these experiences. A few of these indicators are:

• Experiences that suggest a multi-reality.
• A strong sense of mission or life purpose.
• High intuitive senses, such as clairvoyance, precognition, out-of-body experiences or psychokinetic ability.
• Memory of past lives, with deep spiritual awareness.
• Feeling that "I am not from here" (meaning not from Earth), and that they find the human body uncomfortable and too dense.
• Previous feelings or memories of being something or a life-form that was not solid.
• Dual consciousness; feeling part human and part extraterrestrial.
• Feeling alienated from humanity, outside of society, and reluctant to conform to what they perceive as a senseless, materialistic or cruel environment.
• Feeling very drawn to alternative lifestyles, with vegetarian leanings.
• Passionate environmentalism: some people involved in conservation may have acquired this passion from an otherworld intervention.
• Awareness of knowledge that they have not consciously learnt, that may contain concepts that are foreign to their conscious mind.
• Creativity: feeling impelled to create drawings or paintings of strange landscapes, or symbolic drawings and scripts.
• Having the ability to sense presences, beings, or spirit forms.

These indicators can be seen as esoteric and illusive, especially those requiring evidence from a nuts and bolts paradigm. And understandably, many of the researchers in this field are still wary of this kind of data. But, like it or not, when enough individuals experience this multi-reality, we have to call into question the method of quantifying data even if that data challenges our present understanding. Through the latest research into quantum physics and consciousness, multi-level reality concepts such as scientific remote viewing, out-of-body experiences and high senses are more acceptable. But as soon as extraterrestrial beings tap into our reality space and reveal more of this multidimensional reality by travelling through space, time and solid walls, we start to panic.

Contact is often the catalyst for personal reality crises as individuals try to integrate their third dimensional principles with their multi-level experiences. Isolated by their apparent differences of perception to others, they may believe their experiences must be the products of their imagination. Many are tempted to block out this awareness through medication or alcohol. This is a consequence not of extraterrestrial trauma but trauma imposed by discrimination against anomalous personal experiences and a multi-reality which conflicts with conventional science.

Professor John Mack comments that our obsession with science has meant that we have learnt to dismiss any personal experience which cannot be explained scientifically. We are often ashamed to admit to experiences that are beyond our normal concepts of reality, believing that if science can’t explain them, they must to be suspect. Meanwhile our experiences tantalise us as we struggle to understand what they mean. And, as our experiences nag at us, we deny or ignore them. Such denial causes conflict and trauma to our psyche and promotes even more confusion as we continually question what is real. But we can never integrate or understand our experiences of an extended reality whilst our beliefs are still rooted in this present limited one. As John Mack, who is a professor of psychiatry, writes, "People know their experiences." But, if they try to verify them by seeking help, they are often confronted by the very people who are promoting these limited beliefs. They are also taught to believe that these are faulty perceptions due to their own reality programming.

Health professionals may suggest limiting your experiences through medication, which sadly further traps individuals into a denial of their experiences and the limited reality they feel they should believe in. This action may not stop the experiences; just limit their effects, and the psyche continues to question. If we are to become paradigm healthy, we have to acknowledge that our present understanding is limited and re-evaluate what makes up personal reality. It might be advisable to honour our personal experiences as one way of understanding what our reality consists of, and continually to stretch our reality paradigms by taking a quantum leap into the unknown of our own psyche. Human nature wants to understand despite the conflict of longing to put the bizarre into a deep hole within us and forget about it. But, if we do that, often another bizarre event occurs as evidence that something is happening.

Many of our spiritual masters have already challenged this third dimensional mind-set in the guise of religious events. They have manifested extraordinary behaviour which even yet is not explainable by modern science. Some events certainly are believed as a matter of faith, but maybe it’s not faith so much as understanding more of how our beliefs about our reality limit us. The so-called primitive tribal cultures have no difficulties accepting this multi-reality, and some of their experiences certainly echo Contact experiences. They talk of sky beings and how these beings have visited and taught them new things. They do not see these experiences as mental aberrations, but the experiences of an honoured and respected person, who demonstrates the abilities of the shaman. Knowledge of Contact experiences with beings from the stars features in tribes of Africa, North America, and Australian Aborigines. They believe that their ancestors came from the stars; they show amazing and detailed knowledge of the galaxy and constellations. These indigenous peoples have no access to powerful telescopes from which most of our knowledge about the universe is gained. This is indeed a mystery unless what they are telling us is fact, and indeed their understanding does come directly from our galactic visitors.

Research suggests that Contact encounters are in many ways similar to shamanic initiation experiences in indigenous societies in many parts of the world, during which the initiate shaman may be ‘abducted’ by sky gods and taken to a spiritual otherworld where he or she may undergo all sorts of challenges or indignities, but then return with paranormal gifts such as healing abilities. As in such shamanistic initiation experiences, individuals who have experienced Contact develop gifts of heightened awareness, healing abilities, telepathy and changes of perception. Ufology researcher and MUFON representative, Simon Harvey-Wilson, recently completed a thesis called ‘Shamanism and Alien Abductions: A Comparative Study’ at Edith Cowan University in Perth, Western Australia. His research demonstrates many interesting parallels between shamanism and the abduction or Contact phenomenon. This could be interpreted as evidence that for thousands of years shamans have known that some form of multidimensional, spiritual otherworld exists and ¾ on behalf of the people in their society ¾ have acted as power-brokers and travellers between that realm and this one. It may be possible that today aliens are using the extraordinary paranormal advantages of such a realm to explore the universe and interact with human beings. This suggests that it is more about the different interpretation of these experiences. What to one person may be an angel, may be a demon to another. What may be a spirit guide or alien to one culture, may be a spirit, ghost, or departed soul to another. It seems that part of the problem is modern society’s ignorance and primitive fear of this unseen world, because we have been programmed always to question any anomalous inner awareness.

If these experiences are real, regardless of their source in extended reality, then we have to honour them if we are to become paradigm healthy. Contact in its classic form has such markers, and even its trauma is a possible validation of its reality. We need to explore openly the less tangible anomalous experiences whether they are classic forms of Contact or not, not only to understand what personal reality is for ourselves, but to counter the discrimination against these personal experiences which prevents us from exploring our reality and finally becoming paradigm healthy. This discrimination means that many people live in confusion, when simply honouring their personal experiences would enable them to assimilate them and develop into a balanced multi-aware individual instead of a confused, frightened and limited one. It is possible that the Contact experience is about awakening us to our multidimensional reality, and when we do, perhaps things will finally make more sense!

Mack, John E. (1995) Abduction: Human Encounters With Aliens. London: Simon & Schuster.

Mack, John E. (1995 Sept. 16) Studying intrusions from the subtle realm: How can we deepen our knowledge? [talk]. International Association for New Science Conference. Fort Collins, Colorado.

Mack, John E. (2000) Passport to the Cosmos: Human Transformation and Alien Encounters. London: Thorsons.

Mack, John E. (2000) How the alien abduction phenomenon challenges the boundaries of our reality. In David M. Jacobs (Ed.), UFOs and Abductions: Challenging The Borders of Knowledge. Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas.

Strieber, Whitley. (1987) Communion. London: Century.

Strieber, Whitley & Anne. (1997) The Communion Letters. New York: HarperPrism.

Animal Mutilations

An Ongoing Mystery

By Brian Richards

When, in September 1976, an Appaloosan mare called Lady was found dead and mutilated in the San Luis Valley in southern Colorado, no one would have believed that such bizarre practices would continue thirty-five years later. And continue they do, not only across North America, Canada, Mexico and Argentina, but in Britain, Sweden, France, several other European countries and in Australia. Satanic cults and sadistic perverts have been blamed for removing cattle genitalia and other organs, yet not one miscreant has been arrested, let alone caught performing these evil deeds. No tracks to and from the dead animals have been found, or land vehicles seen or heard arriving or departing from these crime scenes. Coyotes and predators have been blamed for much of the grisly surgery, but it defies belief how any wild scavenger might extract teeth (even if desperate for a calcium supplement), drill perfectly circular holes to remove rectums, ovaries, mammary glands and even hearts and livers. Eyes, ears, tongues and teeth are often neatly excised. Patches of hide are often removed with such precision that the flesh beneath is never cut. An unknown cutting implement is used which seems to cauterize as it cuts. There is never any bleeding. Blood is absent from the dead animal yet there is no vascular collapse. This is sometimes referred to as exsanguination.

At the time of writing (June 2002), over two hundred animals have been found mutilated in Argentina. This is of epidemic proportions, and a three hundred percent increase in a week. What is more ominous is the extent of the problem. Now a report has come in of mutilated sheep in Mexico and the first report of a mutilated cow in Uruguay.

Cattle seem to be the prime targets of these mostly nocturnal predators, but many other kinds of animals have not escaped these vicious vivisectionists. "I have never seen anything like it," said veterinarian Marcello Erro, describing a dead horse. "It is missing its tongue, an eye, an ear and its genitals. Another vet, Jorge Robles, examined a dead cow in the Arano District. He recalled the autopsy, "When I reached the pelvic cavity, I found a hole resembling a tunnel and I couldn’t find the uterus or the ovaries. They took its eye, tongue and ear, and a patch of skin bordering the lips. The incisions on the horse and cow are identical." Robles went on to say this was not classical surgery. He was not aware of any laser technology that could cut hide in this way without cutting anywhere else. Wild animals could not make those incisions. He added, "A bird or an animal that attacks a carcass isn’t after the eye, the ear or the mammary glands. They are carnivores and feed on flesh. In this case eighty percent of what’s missing is hide. The animals are found in remote spots and all the carcasses have had their heads towards the east and the tails pointing west." Robles concluded, "What is happening here does not fit within the framework of medical science." (Thanks to Scott Corrales, from the Institute of Hispanic Ufology, and Gloria Coluchi for translation.)

There are thousands of cases world-wide that have remarkable similarities. Linda Moulton Howe in her excellent book, Glimpses of Other Realities. Volume 1: Facts and Eyewitnesses (1997), lists hundreds of cases with eyewitness accounts and graphic photographs. The book deals with mutilations from 1968 to 1993. The thousands of additional reports since 1993 are simply mind-boggling, not just for the reports themselves but for the fact that they have been largely avoided by the mainstream media. We’re talking about millions of dollars in lost stock here, increasingly angry and frustrated ranchers and farmers, and a seeming lack of action or plausible explanation from the authorities.

In 1975, one of the busiest years across the USA for these secretive surgeons, mutilations occurred in nearly every state. Mysterious, usually black and unmarked helicopters were being reported from 1973 onwards, often flying dangerously low over private farmland. Sometimes silent lights of differing colours and sizes were reported hovering over private land and mutilated carcasses were discovered in the vicinity of the lights soon afterwards. Dead, mutilated and missing cattle were on the increase and farmers demanded action from the authorities.

Such was the outcry that in 1975 the United States Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) announced an investigation into the black helicopters, especially in the northeast of New Mexico where reports were rife. But after some time when no announcements were forthcoming, the FAA denied they had ever set up an investigation in the first place, contrary to newspaper reports at the onset of the study. Obviously they found something during their investigations that was too controversial to make public.

To reiterate, mutilations are not just confined to cattle. Sheep, dogs, cats, rabbits, goats and birds, have all fallen foul of the mystery mutilators. All carry similar hallmarks: no blood, no tracks, no signs of struggle, delayed rigor mortis, holes drilled, organs removed. Predators avoid the carcasses, at least for a few days. It is even rumoured that human victims have been found in Britain and elsewhere displaying the familiar, gory surgery. When private investigators in Britain have tried to go public, they have been threatened with the dreaded D Notice. This means incarceration without trial under provisions of that country’s national security legislation. Because no information about these allegations has been made public, such rumours should be treated with cautious reserve.

We do know that a Brazilian was found on 29 September 1988 near the Guarapiranga Dam, not far from Sao Paulo. The victim was a forty-four year old male. The lips, eyes, tongue, anus and all the pubic hair had been surgically removed, yet the coroner’s verdict was a lightning strike followed by carrion (vulture) attacks. An investigator, Encarnacion Zapata, obtained details of the autopsy from a medical contact. Some of those details are that tissue had been removed from the upper and lower jaw, as had the eyes, ocular cavities, tongue and other muscles. There was surgical extirpation of more muscle and viscera subcutaneously. There was extirpation of the umbilical scar and a circular perforation three centimetres wide through which the abdominal organs had been removed. The scrotal sac and testicles had been removed, as well as excision of the anus through a surgically opened orifice. What incredible carrion! It is alleged that files of twelve similar cases are under lock and key in the district coroner’s office to which researchers and investigators would love to gain access.

Reading like something out of the Fortean Times magazine, author and researcher, Salvador Freixedo, describes the night of 9 January 1978. Three men were driving home from work in Brazil when the upper torso of a man crashed through their vehicle’s windscreen and landed on the laps of the men in the back seat. In a state of shock the workers threw out the torso rather than carry it to the authorities. The driver was gaoled for ‘vehicular homicide’, but when the victim’s legs were later found some distance away from the torso, a judicial inquiry released the convicted driver. The judges ruled that the injuries sustained could not have been caused by vehicular impact or by any of the witnesses. The forensic evidence stated: no blood, no extruded organs, spine neatly (surgically) cut, no torn clothing. The torso was also cut cleanly, as if by a giant guillotine.

On 21 April 1990, two rabbits were found near Sound Beach, Long Island, in the United States. Both had been mutilated and one was headless. The classic signs were there: no blood, no tracks and the removal of eye tissue around an empty socket. Around all the incision lines Dr John Altshuler found evidence of high heat.

Author and investigator, George Andrews, writing from France, detailed bloodless sheep mutilations. He had reports of nearly two thousand cases and summarized more recent events. "We had a flock of about two hundred and fifty sheep mutilated and drained of blood in 1985, plus a flock of two hundred that died under mysterious circumstances in 1986. The incidents near Cajuers military base in the autumn of 1992 involved about two hundred and fifty sheep." Andrews continued, "It’s as if periodically in France someone somewhere needs a ‘fix’ of fresh blood and tissue. If it was needed for some secret government project, it would be far simpler for the government to run a flock of sheep through the local slaughter house, telling the butcher how they wanted the sheep processed."

In Canada and the USA, from 1991 to 1993, scores of mutilated cats were found. That is to say, halves of the cats were found. Cats would disappear and either the top half or the bottom half would show up, but never both halves. Vic Warren, the supervisor of Animal Control for the Vancouver City Pound, said in March 1993, "They’re clearly being butchered by someone – it’s a real surgical job. All I hope is that these cats were already dead when they were cut in half."

An even more bizarre story to emerge recently was from Heather Ratcliffe of the St Louis Post (dispatch 23 May 2002). "Eighteen Cow Eyeballs Found in St Louis Yards – Families Shocked." The gist of the story is that some children ran into their house screaming after finding thirteen eyeballs staring up at them in the back yard. Police were called in and gathered up the grisly find to send off for forensic examination. The St Louis County Medical Examiner, Mary Case, said the eyes were not human. They came from cows. The police collected eighteen eyes and left some behind. No one has managed to explain the find in a residential neighborhood. Is there a connection between this story and cattle mutilations, bearing in mind the often absent eyes from the found carcasses? The answer to this may never be known.

Another story to emerge from researcher, Scott Corrales, had these headlines, "Add Wild Boar To Mutilations in Argentina – More Lights Seen." This case is unusual because wild boar have exceptional olfactory senses and can swiftly detect humans and any other possible threats, allowing them a rapid getaway if needs be. This is the second wild animal to be found mutilated since the discovery of a mutilated guanaco (wild llama) in Chubut. The dead boar was found by rancher Nestor Soulé on Sunday 23 June 2002, near a gully some fifty-five kilometres from Rio Colorado, in the Pichimahuida District, Argentina. Soulé explained that the animal had geometrically-perfect incisions and was missing the anus, tongue and jaw. No tracks to and from the animal were found. To the surprise of the cattleman and farm worker accompanying him, the boar was still soft in spite of the minus fourteen degree temperature. The rancher didn’t file a police report, but loaded the dead animal into his trailer to show his neighbour. Soulé remarked, "I’m not a researcher or anything similar, and that’s why I don’t know what to say, but this is strange and I never saw anything like it before."

This is a sample of other recent cases to come out of Argentina. La Pampa: an Aberdeen Angus cow, found two kilometres from the town of Embajador Martini. Missing part of its tongue and mammary glands. Left maxillary sectioned off. North of the Pampan town of Rancul at the Los Caldenes Ranch: a cow had died of natural causes in the afternoon, to be found next day missing its tongue and part of its jaw. The Province of Entre Rios, an epicentre of mutilation events: a rancher found a one hundred and seventy kilogram heifer and a five hundred kilogram cow about eight hundred metres from each other. Both carried the familiar incision marks. Carhué: numerous animal deaths have occurred near this city.

Veterinarians Fernando Lopez and Horacio Volpe are baffled. Called to a property a week ago, they examined an eight month old calf and found hide and organs removed and that the animal was still flaccid. There was a total absence of blood. An employee on the property told Volpe that his brother had been cultivating at night and had seen some intense red lights, as though from a laser, moving very quickly across the countryside. Rio Negren, near the town of Choel Choel: a race horse was found dead with strange mutilations. The police report described the stud horse, of considerable commercial value, as though it had been hollowed out from within. Veterinarian Carlos Montobbio, who certified the death, reported that the animal was missing an eye and part of its tongue. It had been castrated and a considerable part of its small intestine and rectum had been removed. The vet dismissed media claims that the attack on the horse was the result of yellow-jacket wasps. "The surgical incisions presented by the animals cannot be made by insects," said Montobbio. (Thanks to Scott Corrales, from the Institute of Hispanic Ufology, Proyecto Catent and the Rense.com website)

There are more questions than answers to these puzzling events and too many cases to list here. All kinds of theories from the sublime to the ridiculous have been put forward as to who or what is behind these mutilations. And why. There certainly seems to be some kind of cover up, as illustrated by the reluctance of television stations and the Western press to take issue with the subject. Huge amounts of valuable stock are being lost. Where are the farmers’ federations and unions in all this? Why are Congres