Contactees
Contactee is the name that has been given to people, especially since the 1950s, who claim contact with extraterrestrials, beings from other planets. In the wake of the citing of flying saucers by pilot Kenneth Arnold in 1947, speculation was rampant that they were possibly spaceships from a distant planet. Beginning in 1952, with George Adamski, a number of people emerged who claimed that they had met and communicated with the humanoids who drove the flying saucers. Two years later, contactee George van Tassel began to host an annual convention of contactees and those who believed their message at a place called Giant Rock, in the desert of Southern California, near Lucerne Valley. A contactee movement was born that has persisted to the present.
While a number of contactees have claimed direct physical meetings with the space beings—most notably a few of the more famous of the 1950s contactees, with a few even trying to produce hard evidence of their contact—overwhelming, the contact was by way of telepathy (or in some cases by out-of-body travel ). Contactees have received messages from the space beings much as mediums in earlier generations received messages from spirits of the dead or ascended masters. A new term, channeling, a metaphor referring to the then-new phenomenon of television, was coined to describe their reception of extraterrestrial communications. When ufology almost disappeared after the very negative Condon report in 1969, channeling from extraterrestrials continued and found a new home as a major subtheme within the New Age Movement.
Pre-Adamski Contacts
Although George Adamski launched a new era of extraterrestrial contact, it was soon evident that he was by no means the first to claim contact, and that in fact claims of contacts had periodically appeared over the previous two centuries. In the middle of the eighteenth century, Swedish seer Emanuel Swedenborg, who had made a career of absorbing and publishing communications from angels, claimed to have taken an out-of-body trip through the solar system. He left a record of his discoveries in a small book, Earths in the Solar System (1758). As he moved from planet to planet, he discovered each to be inhabited by races not unlike humans and he described each in turn, usually in very positive terms. It is also the case that he limited his visits to the then-known planets. He did not discover the asteroids between Mars and Jupiter or note the existence of any planets beyond Saturn.
Occasional contacts would be reported over the next century, especially after the emergence of Spiritualism, but a clustering of such claims would appear toward the end of the nineteenth century after astronomer Percival Lowell reported to have seen canals on the surface of Mars. Such unnatural structures crisscrossing the face of a nearby planet offered hope (or provoked fears) that a nearby neighbor was inhabited with rational beings.
One of the Martian contactees of the 1890s, Catherine Elise Muller, was studied in depth by Swiss psycholo-gist Theodore Flounoy in a now-classic work of parapsychology, From India to the Planet Mars, originally released in 1899. Operating as a medium in Geneva, Helène Smith (as Muller was called by Flounoy in his book) allowed the psychologist to sit in and observe her as she took her followers on various flights of fantasy. She actually visited Mars in out-of-body-like experiences and described in some depth the Martian civilization, especially the fabled canals. In the end she even produced a Martian language, which, when analyzed, showed a remarkable dependency on French.
As with later contact claims, the material reported by both Swedenborg and Smith/Muller raise the central issue that must be faced in analyzing contactees. Contact is made by psychic means, it most often occurs in a religious/spiritual context, and the information derived from the contact is a mixture of reputed observation about the science and culture of the alien’s planet with an emphasis on their philosophical/theological and moral/ethical teachings. The literature draws upon the current state of popular knowledge of science (with little understanding of or appreciation for the scientific endeavor). While appearing to report observations in a somewhat objective fashion, in the end, the conclusions drawn are metaphysical.
When contactees initiated their activity outside of a religious setting, following any measurable response, they have tended to form a religious organization as a vehicle for communicating the message of the extraterrestrials. [Many contactees avoid any mention of religion, preferring to distinguish their work from traditional church organizations by using the alternate term “spiritual.” However, the great majority of contactee organizations provide their adherents with all of the functions that churches and other religious groups commonly offer their members. These services would include fellowship with like-minded believers, wedding and funeral services, some contact with a transcendent realm, information on the nature of ultimate reality, a means of coming into contact with the transcendent, moral guidelines, and some advice for the adherent’s personal life.]
Through the twentieth century, the number of claims of extraterrestrial contact increased and at times in the 1930s and 1940s blended imperceptibly into science fiction literature. Most contacts were made in the context of one of the metaphysical religions, either Spiritualism or Theosophy. Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (1831-1891), cofounder of the Theosophical Society, for example, proposed the existence of a group of evolved masters she termed the “Lords of the flame,” who resided on Venus. Blavatsky, who had formerly operated as a Spiritualist medium, claimed to have regular contact with a large group of evolved beings believed to guide the evolution of human life.
Contact was normally through the materialization of messages reputedly from these ascended masters, though clairvoyant/telepathic contact also occurred. Blavatsky was plagued the last years of her life with significant charges of fraud. During the twentieth century, those who established contact with the Masters did so as more traditional mediums/ channels. However, they tended to use self-descriptive terms that served to separate them from Spiritualist mediums. Most notable of the Theosophical channels were Alice A. Bailey and Helena Roerich. Both established with one of the masters originally named by Blavatsky as members of the spiritual hierarchy, the Great White Brotherhood, and later published a series of books containing the communications from that master.
In the 1930s, a new contact with the masters was made by Guy W. Ballard. Unlike Bailey and Roerich, who confined their contacts primarily to a single master, Ballard claimed to be in touch with the whole range of ascended masters, including a group of masters from Venus, though the majority of messages came from either the master saint Germain or the master Jesus. Ballard, who described himself as a messenger of the masters, also held public meetings during which he allowed one or more of the masters to speak through him. These sessions appeared much like the spirit discourses that had been delivered by Spiritualist mediums in previous decades. Although Ballard described himself, his wife Edna Ballard, and his son Donald as the only authorized messengers of the Masters, soon after the formation of the “I AM” Religious Activity, others came forward to claim contact with the same masters, to offer supplemental revelations and eventually to create competing organizations.
Ballard and the “I AM” would become important to the contactee movement as it finally emerged in the 1950s because it offered an alternative model to Spiritualism in which individuals could structure their encounters with extraterrestrials. In fact, in the same way that theosophists spoke of the masters as being organized into a spiritual hierarchy, so contactees would speak of their contacts as being members of a space or interstellar hierarchy. That hierarchy would, strangely enough, often be inhabited by beings who had the same names as the ascended masters originally mentioned by Blavatsky or Ballard.
The New Era
A new era of contact with extraterrestrials began in 1952 with the announcement of George Adamski (1891-1965), an amateur astronomer from Southern California, that he had established communication with the beings who inhabited the spaceships that were being popularly referred to as flying saucers. Actually, Adamski claimed to have first seen a space ship in 1946; in 1950 he had produced two pictures which he claimed to have taken of flying saucers. These were published in Fate, the original periodical featuring news of UFOs. However, on November 20, 1952, he and six companions drove to a location in the desert in southeastern California where Adam-ski, now separated from the others, claimed to have seen a saucer land. A handsome blond humanoid figure disembarked from the saucer. Through a mixture of telepathy, sign language, and gestures, the extraterrestrial communicated that he was from Venus and that he had come to Earth out of concern over the destructive potential of atomic weapons.
Adamski’s contact story was published in a book, Flying Saucers Have Landed (which also included a text on historical UFOs by Desmond Leslie). He would go on to write two further accounts of his interaction with visitors from Mars and Saturn and his own travels in outer space, capped by a view of the thriving life on the backside of the moon. Adamski’s success quickly called forth additional stories from Truman Betherum, Orfeo Angelucci, Howard Menger, and Daniel Fry, all of whom claimed to have also met benevolent humanoids from space. Their reports were met with enthusiastic acceptance from one group while receiving across-the-board rejection from serious students attempting to understand the flying saucer phenomena. Ufologists had little sympathy for the religious feeling that the contactees aroused, and believing the stories detracted from their scientific endeavor, tended to dismiss contactees as frauds and kooks.
The contactees went about the business of organizing followers into proto-religious groupings. Thus, while leading critics and supporters of Adamski conducted a public debate on the truth of his contact claims and the accuracy of his information about the planets, Adamski quietly invited his supporters into study groups and gave them copies of lessons he had authored on such topics as cosmic philosophy and telepathy. Eventually people would become aware of Adamski’s career prior to his becoming a contactee as an occult teacher and founder of the Royal Order of Tibet.
The great majority of the contactees organized spiritual/ religious groups. Some, such as the New Age Foundation established by Wayne Aho or the Sanctuary of Thought launched by Truman Betherum, had little success and folded soon after the death of their leader. More successful were Unarius, founded by former Spiritualist mediums Ruth and Ernest Norman, the Aetherius Society, founded by British contactee George King, and the I AM Nation, founded by a group of contactees in Florida. Each of these organizations produced a large body of occult literature and have survived to the present under a second generation of leadership.
Among the most interesting of the contactee myths was that of Ashtar, the spaceship commander originally contacted and introduced to the world by George Van Tassel (1910-1970). Van Tasel enjoyed some success as the organizer of the annual convention of contactees, the Giant Rock Interplanetary Spacecraft Convention, but less success with his College of Universal Wisdom and his attempt to build the Integratron, a large building that would contain a rejuvenation machine. Today, the Integratron building stands unfinished at Giant Rock. However, as Van Tassel faded from the contactee scene, other contactees began to claim contact with Ashtar and in the 1980s, speaking through Tuella (public name of Thelma B. Turrell ), the founder of Guardian Action, Ashtar would enjoy success never experienced even at the height of Van Tassel’s career in the 1960s. Today, the Ashtar Command exists as a set of contactee groups, each continuing the themes initiated four decades previously.
The progress of the contactee community was not affected by the ups and downs of the Condon Report that almost destroyed ufology, and the contactee groups continued their spiritual relationship to the space brothers and could wait for the rest of the world to finally discover their truths. While the structures of the older contactees would persist through the remaining decades of the twentieth century, the contactee phenomena would experience a significant growth in the 1970s and 1980s from two unexpected sources.
Contactees and Abductees
As early as 1965, ufologists were entertained with accounts of people who claimed to have been abducted by the entities from extraterrestrial craft. The first of importance was the story of Brazilian Antonio Villas-Boas, who in 1958 claimed that he had been taken aboard a landed flying saucer, had blood drawn from him, and was forced to engage in sex with an alien female. The account of the case did not circulate until 1965, when John G. Fuller was researching the similar story of Barney and Betty Hill. His book, The Interrupted Journey (1966), told how the Hills, driving home through the mountains of New Hampshire, saw a UFO, made note of their sighting, but then arrived home two hours later than they should have. In the weeks following the sighting, their life filled with stress that finally led them to a psychiatrist. He hypnotized the pair, and they told the story of encountering a group of entities, with gray skin and large heads with large eyes, diminutive noses, and almost no ears.
They were taken into the saucer and underwent a medical examination (including the insertion of a needle in Betty’s stomach). An abridgement of Fuller’s book appeared in the October 1966 Look Magazine, but the relative dearth of other similar cases meant that the Hill case was placed on the shelf for a decade.
In the 1970s, a series of abduction stories began with the abduction of Charles Hickson and Calvin Parker in 1973 in Pascagoula, Mississippi. It was unusual in that it occurred during a wave of UFO sightings (commonly referred to as a flap). Other less publicized cases also occurred at the same time. A Utah woman, Betty Roach, would be the first of many who had no conscious memory of what had happened to her, but like the Hills would later recount the story of an abduction and medical examination under hypnosis. In 1975, six woodcutters saw a fellow worker, Travis Walton, taken aboard a UFO. Walton disappeared for five days and told a story later turned into a Hollywood movie.
During the late 1970s a number of cases of abduction were reported and a few, such as Betty Andreasson ‘s, were taken seriously by ufological investigators. During the 1980s, the study of abductions emerged as the wave of the future in UFO studies, a discipline that survived only with the hope that it might lead to the discovery of an extraterrestrial causation behind the varied phenomena.
Amateur researcher Budd Hopkins took center stage with the first published study of the abduction accounts, Missing Time (1981). The legitimacy of these stories was significantly boosted by the 1987 book Communion by horror fiction author Whitley Strieber, who told of his multiple abductions, medical examinations and memories recovered by hypnosis. His account hit the bestseller lists and brought the discussion of abductions into the popular culture. UFO debunker Philip Klass finally felt the abduction phenomenon deserving of a comprehensive refutation. He dismissed them as a combination of fantasy and hypnotic confabulation.
However, Klass wrote just as the abduction dam was about to break. Folklorist Thomas Bullard released his massive study of 300 abduction cases which established the overall patterns of the cases. Historian-turned-believer David Jacobs published the study of cases he had personally investigated in 1992, the same year a number of ufologists and others interested in abductions met in Cambridge, Massachusetts, called together by psychiatrist John E. Mack, an adjunct professor at Harvard University. For several years Mack had been counseling abductees and gave some credence to their stories. The conference proceedings were published along with a shorter journalistic summary of the papers and discussion, both leading to Mack’s important 1994 book, Abduction, which joined Budd Hopkins’ writings as the prime statements of the abduction case.
Abductions continue to be investigated by ufologists, though the enthusiasm for the accounts definitely peaked in the mid-1990s. Although abduction stories continue to provide a rich mine of material for social scientists, they have not produced the hoped-for breakthrough in unraveling the UFO mystery. The physical evidence—items recovered from the abductees— cited in the early 1990s failed to produce any meaningful data.
An additional important factor deflating interest in abductees among ufologists was the growing association of the abduction stories with contactee stories. In 1980, counseling psychologist and hypnotherapist R. Leo Sprinkle of the University of Wyoming began holding annual gatherings of contactees, those people who believed themselves in contact, telepathic and otherwise, with benevolent space beings. The gatherings were conducted in a positive, accepting environment. However, through the decade, as word of the gathering circulated, abductees began to make their way to the gathering and the boundaries between those who initially had positive contacts with extraterrestrials and those who had negative contacts began to fade. There was a marked tendency for abduction stories to transform into contactee accounts.
The popularity of Whitley Strieber’s account of his abduction became a two edged sword for the UFO community. Strieber began to see his interaction with the space people in a more positive light, and in spite of the trauma he had initially experienced, he began to interpret his multiple contacts as part of an effort to educate humanity. By the end of the 1980s, he and the ufologists had parted company, and he established an organization, the Communion Foundation, to work toward a productive relationship with the alien visitors. Subsequent books, Transformation (1988) and The Secret School: Preparation for Contact (1996), document his own transformation into a contactee.
As the life histories of abductees became known, and the stories such as Strieber’s of a lifetime of contact that began in childhood surfaced, investigators searched for larger meanings. Those with psychological training saw the transformative and initiatory nature of the experiences and the manner in which they forced people into a more cosmopolitan view of their place in the universe. By the time John Mack’s long-awaited book appeared in 1994, it went on the shelves of the New Age bookstores next to the shelf of contactee books. Through the 1990s a variety of people began to look at the metaphysical and philosophical implications of the abduction phenomena and seriously began suggesting paranormal explanations for the phenomena surrounding the stories. Such approaches did away with extraterrestrials and had no need of physical space craft. They quickly returned to the warnings of the 1950s contactees about the apocalyptic conditions facing humanity, now rushing to destruction at breakneck speed. Alien contact was an urgent message for humankind to reverse its course.
The New Age Movement
At the same time that ufologists were discovering and reorienting their work around the abduction phenomenon, the New Age community emerged as the nurturing community for a new generation of channelers. New Age channelers brought forth a mountain of material, from a variety of transcendent entities from ascended masters to the spirits of the recently deceased, to vague entities masquerading as the channeler’s own higher self. However, it became evident to those who began to survey the channeling literature that the largest recognizable block of channeled literature derived from entities who described themselves as extraterrestrials. Much of this literature continued contact with the space commanders who had made their original appearances in the 1950s, and the members of the redefined theosophical hierarchy now seen as administrators of an immense intergalactic government.
Within a few years after Ashtar and members of his command had been introduced to the world through George Van Tassel, he began to speak through other channelers. The messages received by Trevor James Constable and published in his 1958 volume They Live in the Sky were among the first. Through the 1970s a variety of channels from around the English-speaking world heard from Ashtar, and in the 1980s his most prominent voice, Thelma B. Turrell, had no problem assembling representative messages from him in her compilation, Ashtar: A Tribute. Turrell went on to head Guardian Action, the most prominent post in the Ashtar Command, though in the wake of Turrell’s death, a number of competing outposts have arisen.
Forming a link between the ufological community and the New Age was Swiss contactee Eduard Albert Meier, a contactee whose career has paralleled that of George Adamski. In 1979, Meier’s coffee-table book, UFO… Contact from the Pleiades, was released in an English-language edition. While ufologists were offended by what they quickly came to see as an elaborate hoax, a number of amateur UFO buffs were attracted to the evidence of the impressive pictures. Meier’s basic claim was that on the afternoon of January 28, 1975, he had seen a flying saucer land. From it a beautiful woman named Semjase came forth and engaged him in conversation for an hour and a half. She told him that she was from a people that had originated on a planet in the constellation Lyra, but that a war had driven her people to Pleiades. Along the way, the Pleiadians had discovered Earth and periodically visited it. In fact, some had settled here and intermarried with humans, then in a rather primitive state. In subsequent visits with Semjase, Meier would take many photographs and even rides in the space ships. Inventor/ consultant Fred Bell would also claim meeting with Semjase from which he derived plans for the flying saucers and other bits of advanced technology.
From the very beginning, Semjase’s message had distinct religious overtones. She denounced the established religions and called Meier’s attention to the Laws of Creation, an interplanetary alternative to the Ten Commandments. Meier went about building a classic contactee spiritual community, the Freie Interessengemeinschaft für Grenz und geistes Wissenschaften and Ufologie Studien (Free Community of Interests in the Border and Spiritual Sciences and UFO Studies), the American branch of which was known more simply as the Semjase Silver Star Center. Amid the many books designed simply to present his claims for contact, a lesser-known set of books, designed primarily to circulate among his followers, outlined his moral/ religious message. Basic to that message, known as the Ten Bids (analogous to the Ten Commandments) are the ten things Creation bids us to do.
The attacks upon Meier’s credibility were somewhat lost amid the flood of material supportive of his claims, including more than a dozen books, most beautifully illustrated with photos. Meier also released several amateurish videos. Through the 1980s these materials circulated among UFO buffs, but found an even larger audience within the New Age community. They associated the Pleiades as the home for the visitors from outer space, and thus it is not surprising that by the end of the 1980s, a series of books otherwise unconnected to Meier and his supporters began to appear containing messages channeled from entities from the Pleiades. Among the first was from astrologer channel Barbara Hand Clow, Heart of the Christos: Star-seeding from the Pleiades (1989), though by far the most popular item was Barbara Marciniack ‘s Bringers of the Dawn: Teachings from the Pleiadians, which appeared in 1992. Other channelers who claim to be in touch with the Pleiadians include Susan Drew, Amorah Quan Yin, Nina Jenice, and Australian channel Jani King.
Quite apart from channels united by their contact with the Pleiadians, a popular community of channelers has been brought together by Sedona Magazine, a channeling-oriented monthly with issues built around short excerpts, arranged by topic, from a host of channelers. Here, messages from the space brothers mix harmoniously with messages from ascended masters and other entities who have taken the lead in the post-New Age era of spiritual emergence. Frequently, flying saucer entities will speak through the same channeler who, at other times, might channel ascended masters from the Great White Brotherhood. Prominent among the extraterrestrial entities in the current generation are Zoosh and Jopah (channeled by Robert Shapiro), and Zwoosh (Bob Fickles). Also, collective voices speak from groups such as the Assembly of Light, the Council of Twelve, and the Planetary Council. Lyssa Royal, who channels a variety of different entities, has emerged out of the group as possibly the most successful of the Sedona cadre.
As the New Age Movement faded in the early 1990s, a new wave of contactees have come to the fore amid a new generation of prophets offering guidance for the twenty-first century and claiming revelation from a range of paranormal sources. In spite of challenges to the entire channeling enterprise from the skeptical community, they are enjoying a popularity never dreamed of by the first wave of contactees. They have built a community of support upon the broadly held belief that extraterrestrial life exists somewhere and the still significant community of people who believe that UFOs may be extraterrestrial craft. Contactees channel beings who originate on planets far beyond the reach of contemporary science and speak messages of religious and moral guidance. They have almost nothing to say about the science behind their extraterrestrial travel and even use a most nontechnical language when discussing the process of channeling itself. Like the words of the angels who visited past generations, the spiritual admonitions of the extraterrestrials must be accepted upon faith (there being no evidence to back up the claims of the channeled entities). Most importantly, their accounts of life on their home planet is not susceptible to possible falsification, a major flaw of the early contactees whose descriptions of Venus, Mars, and the Moon were disconfirmed even in their lifetime.
Sources:
Flounoy, Theodore. From India to the Planet Mars: A Study of a Case of Somnambulism with Glossalalia. Reprint, New Hyde Park, N.Y.: University Books, 1963.
Klimo, Jon. Channeling Investigations on Receiving Information from Paranormal Sources. Berkeley: North Atlantic Books, 1998.
Lewis, James R., ed. The Gods Have Landed: New Religions from Other Worlds. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995.
Meier, Eduard “Billy.” Decalogue, or the Ten Bids. Alamogordo, N.Mex.: American Office: FIGU/Semjase Star Center, 1975.
Melton, J. Gordon. “Religious Reflections on UFO Stories: Contactee to Abductee.” In Andrea Pritchard et al., eds. Alien Discussions: Proceedings of the Abduction Study Conference. Cam-bridge, Mass.: North Cambridge Press, 1994.
Steiger, Brad. Gods of Aquarius: UFOs and the Transformation of Man. New York: Harcourt Brace Javanovich, 1976.
FROM THE ARCHIVES: UFO CONTACTEE TALK IN ALDERGROVE, BC. [SEPTEMBER, 1966]
From the archives: UFO Contactee talk in Aldergrove, BC. [September, 1966]
Aldergrove, BC, recently got some new exposure to the UFO community in 2013 thanks to an episode of Alien Mysteries, featuring the story of abuctee Corina Saebels (Watch the full episode on YouTube). However, this isn’t the first time the small town located between Abbotsford and Langley has been connected with UFOs.
Back in September, 1966 it hosted a gathering for UFO enthusiasts and featured a talk by one of the 1960’s “contactees”, Wayne Sulo Aho.
Wayne Sulo Aho, or Major W.S. Aho as he was often billed, was one of the touring contactees of the 1960s. Contactees were the name given to individuals that claimd to have met, interacted with, and in some cases boarded alien space craft. They often referred to the very human-looking aliens brothers, or space brothers, and described the meetings as peaceful and benevolent, but often with warnings for humanity to lead better lives. Many contactees went on tour giving speeches and writing books.
Aho was born in 1916 just across the border in Washington state, and claimed to have visitations since childhood. In 1957, Aho says he was summoned to the Mojave desert where he came across an egg-shaped light, released by a spacecraft. Amongst running him through a set of tests and trials, the encounter also told him to start his own convention in Washington.
In addition to his convention, Aho partnered and toured with other contactees of his generation. One of his tours was with a contactee by the name of Reinhold Schmidt, which was cut short when Schimidt was arrested for grand theft. Aho also collaborated with Otis T Carr, a man who said he was building a flying saucer. Together he and Aho toured the US, gathering money from lecture attendees to fund the spacecraft’s production. They even claimed they’d reveal and fly it in front of a crowd of thousands.
Eventually police intervened and pressed charges against the two. Aho’s charges were dropped, apparently never knowing Carr had built absolutely nothing. I guess the Space Brothers didn’t tell him how to smell a scam.
Contents of Aho’s speech at this event are likely the same as the event referenced by UFO*BC’s Historical Audio page about a talk Aho gave to the Vancouver Flying Saucer Club “about 1960”. According to the page’s summary, Aho doesn’t talk much about UFOs at all, instead focusing on conspiracy theories, what grinds his gears about society, tangents about Tesla, and even the return of Jesus Christ in the 70s.
Poor Vancouver Flying Saucer Club attendees were probably wondering exactly who they had brought out that night. Two more photos from the night are below.
Sources
Surrey Archives & Museum Online Access
Wayne Sulo Aho – Wikipedia
http://www.ufoevidence.org/Cases/CaseView.asp?section=1960s&offset=0
Chilean Navy ship encounters large UFO; tracked on radar
October, 24, 1969 – Chile
The incident involved a Chilean Naval destroyer and was witnessed by crew members and the commander of the vessel. Up to six UFOs, including one large object, were observed. The objects were verified on radar and observed visually. As the main object moved over the ship, the vessel’s power went out.” View full report
Source: Bill Chalker ID: 1016
Case Type: StandardCase Features: Military, Water-Related, Radar, Multiple UFOs, Humming, E-M Effects, Body Lights, Group Sighting
The Buff Ledge Abduction (two teenagers abducted in Vermont)
August, 7, 1969 – Buff Ledge Camp, Vermont, United States
“Michael” and “Janet”, two teenage employees at Buff Ledge summer camp were sitting on a boat dock, when a UFO approached them. Two occupants were visible inside the craft. When it was directly over them, a beam of light shone from the craft. The next thing they remembered was sitting on the dock watching the now distant light. Ten years later under hypnosis, Michael and Janet each recounted a similar detailed story of abduction, a medical examination, and being taken on board a “mother ship.” View full report
Source: Loy Lawhon, About.com ID: 658
Case Type: MajorCase Features: Abduction, Witness Sketch, Water-Related, ‘Dyad Scout Craft’, Children
Astronaut Buzz Aldrin Recounts Apollo 11 UFO Encounter
July, 18, 1969 –
Buzz Aldrin: “There was something out there that, uh, was close enough to be observed and what could it be? Mike (Collins) decided he thought he could see it in the telescope and he was able to do that and when it was in one position, that had a series of ellipses, but when you made it real sharp it was sort of L shaped. That didn’t tell us very much.” View full report
Source: The Science Channel / Dave Stone / Credit: UFO Updates – 9/30/2005 ID: 592
Case Type: StandardCase Features: Astronaut/Space, Famous Person, Witness Photo
President Jimmy Carter’s UFO Sighting
January, 6, 1969 – Leary, Georgia, United States
Jimmy Carter is one of two U.S. Presidents who have reported seeing a UFO before becoming the President. He later said, “It was the darndest thing I’ve ever seen. It was big, it was very bright, it changed colors and it was about the size of the moon.. We watched it for ten minutes, but none of us could figure out what it was. One thing’s for sure, I’ll never make fun of people who say they’ve seen unidentified objects in the sky.” View full report
Source: Grant Cameron, Presidential UFO ID: 294
Case Type: MajorCase Features: Famous Person, Witness Photo
Disc with dome hovers over car along rural highway in Tennessee
1969 – Paris, Tennessee, United States
The witness was driving back to college with his roommate. Theirs was the only car on a long stretch of rural highway between Paris and McKenzie, Tennessee. Suddenly, they saw streaks of light coming from the top of their windshield; they stopped the car on the road and got out. Directly above their car was a round disc-like object with windows. It had a raised dome “cockpit” in the center of the top half. It was hovering and spinning effortlessly about 200 feet directly above them. View full report
Source: UFOEvidence.org ID: 953
Case Type: RawReport Features: Body Lights, Sound, Vehicle Encounter
Milakovic family encounter, Hanbury, England
November, 20, 1968 – Hanbury, England, United Kingdom
A large, house-sized object witnessed by a family. It had a dark bowl-shaped bottom, with a clear dome on top. In the lit dome area, several humanoid figures were seen moving. Two physiological effects were reported: heat felt as object passed over and burning of the eyes when its light intensity increased. View full report
Source: NICAP (National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomenon), ‘Strange Effects from UFOs’, by Donald Keyhoe and Gordon Lore ID: 17
Case Type: StandardCase Features: Physiological Effects, Humanoid/Occupant, Animal Reaction
UFO with ‘Michelin man’ occupants seen by farmer on Réunion Island
July, 31, 1968 – Réunion Island (Indian Ocean), France
Mr. Luce Fontaine, age 31, a farmer on Reunion Island in the Indian Ocean, was picking some grass for his rabbits when he saw an object 5 meters in diameter, standing on a “glass foot” like a goblet. It was only 25 meters away. It was dark blue and through the window could be seen two small individuals, only 3 feet tall, dressed from head to foot in bulky coveralls, something like the Michelin “tire man.” There was a brilliant flash of light and a few seconds later nothing was to be seen. View full report
Source: Excerpt from FSR, Jan/Feb 1969 ID: 692
Case Type: StandardCase Features: Humanoid/Occupant, Landing, Physical Trace
Terrified witnesses observe near-landing of UFO
July, 30, 1968 – Claremont, New Hampshire, United States
A manufacturing plant worker was carrying two buckets of water toward his garden when he saw “a bright round object float in a gentle arc low in the sky to the northeast.” It looked like a full moon but was at an extremely low altitude. Shortly thereafter and just two miles away, a land surveyor and his wife witnessed a dome-shaped object. It was about 20 feet wide and hovered approximately 10 feet above the ground, and was 230 feet away. View full report
Source: NICAP (National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomenon), ‘Strange Effects from UFOs’, by Donald Keyhoe and Gordon Lore ID: 576
Case Type: StandardCase Features: Animal Reaction, Witness Sketch, Humming
Navy ship HMAS Hobart hit during Vietnam UFO encounter?
June, 15, 1968 – DMZ, Viet Nam
On Friday, 15 June 1968, Allied forward spotters along the eastern part of the Demilitarised Zone, a 9.6km wide strip separating North and South Vietnam, reported seeing about 30 strange slow-moving ‘lights’ in the night sky. View full report
Source: AUFORN Special Report, Issue 34, April 2003 ID: 60
Case Type: StandardCase Features: Military, Physical Trace
Disc-shaped object with dome in Omaha, Nebraska
May, 12, 1968 – Omaha, Nebraska, United States
“Directly over the restaurant’s parking lot, at an altitude I estimate at no more than one hundred feet, was a UFO. The object was circular, with a flat bottom and an opaque dome on the top. I estimate the diameter of the object at 35 to 50 feet. It held absolutely still and made absolutely no noise. On top of the dome was a single, steady white light. Around the rim were solid white lights in the shape of rectangles with rounded corners, separated from each other by unlit space. The lights flashed around the rim in a counter-clockwise direction like lights on a theater marquee.” View full report
Source: NUFORC (National UFO Reporting Center), Peter Davenport, Director ID: 1133
Case Type: RawReport Features: Body Lights, Silent, Group Sighting
Three fishermen in Le Brusc, France observe oval, mirror-like object at sea
April, 1968 – Le Brusc, Var, France
In April 1968, three fishermen from the French fishing-port of Le Brusc were fairly far out at sea, “when suddenly, in a break in the clouds, a sort of ‘thing’ appeared–ovalish in shape–which was just hanging there in the sky. It looked like a mirror and it was shining, and it did not move… The thing remained stationary over the sea for two or three minutes and then vanished before our eyes as though swallowed up by the waves.” View full report
Source: Waterufo.net / Flying Saucer Review Case Histories #14 ID: 795
Case Type: StandardCase Features: Water-Related
Russia UFO crash and recovery, 1968
March, 1968 – Berezovsky , Russian Federation
The details of a Russian UFO crash on or about 1969 are sketchy and somewhat suspect. This case comes from the so-called “Secret KGB Files,” which were reportedly smuggled out of the former Soviet Union. Reportedly, $10,000 was paid for the information. The details of these secret files were first offered to the general public on 9-13-98 as part of a TNT special titled “The Secret UFO Files of the KGB.” The show featured extraordinary film and still photographs of the UFO recovery, and also a portion of autopsy film on part of an alien body. View full report
Source: UFOCasebook.com (editor, B. J. Booth) ID: 1138
Case Type: StandardCase Features: Military, Crash/Retrieval, Alien Photograph, Photo, Humanoid/Occupant
Two-hundred people observe and hear disk-shaped object overhead (Redlands Sighting)
February, 4, 1968 – Redlands, California, United States
On February 4, 1968, about two hundred residents of Redlands, California, either saw or heard what was apparently the same huge, low-flying, disk-shaped object as it passed overhead. A minister conducting services in a church in Redlands was recording his sermon at the time and obtained a recording of the sound, which many people present described as a high-pitched, modulated whining sound. View full report
Source: APRO / Ronald Story, 1980 / NICAP website (nicap.org) ID: 777
Case Type: StandardCase Features: Mass Sighting, Group Sighting, Clergy, Body Lights, Rotary/Spin Motion, Sound
Two craft flew over mobile home and landed in remote area near home
December, 31, 1967 – Bithlo, Florida, United States
Watched UFO glide over mobile home without sound. UFO was joined by another craft that came from another angle. Both crafts landed in a remote area less than a quarter-mile from mobile home. Moments later, a formation of helicoptors and two jets began flying over the general area of where the two crafts had landed. View full report
Source: UFO Evidence ID: 72
Case Type: RawReport
Circular object with dome and two ‘figures’ inside
December, 8, 1967 – Idaho Falls, Idaho, United States
The object was circular in shape, “about as big as a car.” She was able to see that it had a domed top. In the dome, which was transparent, she could make out the indistinct outlines of two figures. At its closest, the object was no more than 100 yards away, and from 50 to 100 feet above the ground. View full report
Source: NICAP (National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomenon), ID: 560
Case Type: StandardCase Features: Humanoid/Occupant, ‘Dyad Scout Craft’
Police Officer Herbert Schirmer Abduction
December, 3, 1967 – Ashland, Nebraska, United States
Sgt. Schirmer was on patrol when he encountered a UFO hovering above the road, which shot up when he flashed his high beams at the object. Soon, Schirmer realized he had experienced “missing time”, and a red welt appeared on his neck. Hypnotic sessions revealed that the occupants of the landed craft came and took Schirmer aboard, and communicated with him through some form of mental telepathy. They told him that they would visit him twice more and that some day he would “see the universe”. View full report
Source: Brent Raynes ID: 659
Case Type: MajorCase Features: Abduction, Police, Missing Time, Contact, Physiological Effects, Artifact, Polygraph Test, Witness Sketch, Witness Photo
Cases by Decade: 1960s
Cases 17 – 32 out of 92 in this section
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Small, domed UFO with two occupants seen inside
November, 2, 1967 – Ririe, Idaho, United States
Guy Tossie and Will Begay, two Indian youths, were driving south on Highway 26 just outside Ririe on November 2, 1967, when, about 9:30 p.m., there was a sudden blinding flash of light in front of their car, followed by the abrupt appearance of a small, domed UFO. The dome was transparent and in it were seen two small, strange-looking occupants. View full report
Source: NICAP (National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomenon), ID: 561
Case Type: StandardCase Features: Humanoid/Occupant, ‘Dyad Scout Craft’
‘Flying Cross’ shaped UFO hovers near witness and dogs (Moigne Downs / Angus Brooks case)
October, 26, 1967 – Moigne Downs, United Kingdom
Angus Brooks, a former flight administrative officer for British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC), was walking his dogs at Moigne Downs, Dorset, England. He saw what appeared to be a contrail high in the sky. Then the contrail disappeared and in its place, a UFO descended “at lightning speed” to 200 or 300 feet altitude. One of the dogs, back from foraging for game, stood “distraught” beside the witness. View full report
Source: NICAP (National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomenon), ‘Strange Effects from UFOs’, by Donald Keyhoe and Gordon Lore ID: 566
Case Type: StandardCase Features: Animal Reaction
The Shag Harbour Incident
October, 4, 1967 – Shag Harbour, Nova Scotia, Canada
On the night of 04 October 1967, shortly after 11:00 PM, a UFO some 60 feet in diameter was seen to hover over the water near the tiny fishing village of Shag Harbour, Nova Scotia. The UFO, which displayed four bright lights that flashed in sequence, tilted to a 45-degree angle and descended rapidly towards the water’s surface. Upon impact, there was a bright flash and an explosive roar. View full report
Source: MUFON Canada ID: 166
Case Type: MajorCase Features: Water-Related, Crash/Retrieval
Two children encounter UFO and small humanoid beings in Cussac, France
August, 29, 1967 – Cussac, France
Two children saw a sphere-shaped UFO, 2 meters in diameter, and “four little devils” on the ground. One of the humanoid beings was bending over, apparently busy with something on the ground, and another held a mirror-like object. They were observed to levitate before quickly entering the UFO and flying away. The UFO was said to make a soft whistling sound and smelled of sulphur. View full report
Source: Joel Mesnard and Claude Pavy, excerpt from FSR, Sept/Oct 1968 ID: 705
Case Type: StandardCase Features: Humanoid/Occupant, Children, Landing, Animal Reaction, Smell/Odor
Circular Object Seen and Photographed in Calgary
July, 3, 1967 – Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Of the 35 photographic cases examined by the Condon Committee, only two were judged to be “first priority” — having potential value in establishing the existence of “flying saucers.” One was the so-called Calgary case with its two photos. Dr. Hynek, who subjected the original negatives to exhaustive lab tests, called the first photo the “best Daylight Disc photograph I have personally investigated.” View full report
Source: Knight ID: 412
Case Type: SummaryReport Features: Photo
‘Capsule-shaped’ Flying Object Photographed in Wichita, Kansa
June, 27, 1967 – Wichita, Kansas, United States
On June 27, 1967, during the 1967 UFO wave, Mr. Jefferson Villar of Union City succeeded in photographing the bright silver-colored, capsule-shaped object that passed over his head. It was brilliantly reflecting the sun’s rays like metal and was making a strange noise as it flew along. View full report
Source: Devereux ID: 406
Case Type: SummaryReport Features: Photo
UFO Visits Ontario Lake
June, 18, 1967 – Northern Ontario lake, Ontario, Canada
Two boaters witnessed a brilliant object simply hovering about 50 feet above tree level. As they sit in wonder, suddenly the object begins to pick up speed, racing straight toward them. View full report
Source: UFO Casebook ID: 28
Case Type: StandardCase Features: Physical Trace, E-M Effects
The Stephen Michalak Encounter at Falcon Lake
May, 20, 1967 – Falcon Lake, Manitoba, Canada
Stephen Michalak of Winnipeg, was prospecting near Falcon Lake, Manitoba, when he encountered two UFOs, one of which landed on a large, flat rock about 160 feet away from him. After having approached the object and looked inside, the object moved, and something like an exhaust vent was now in front of him. A blast of hot gas shot from these holes onto his chest, setting his shirt and undershirt on fire and causing him severe pain, and leaving burn marks in the shape of a grid. View full report
Source: Loy Lawhon, About.com ID: 376
Case Type: MajorCase Features: Physiological Effects, Landing, Injury, Witness Photo, Witness Sketch
City Youth Tells Of A Strange Ship
May, 1967 – Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
“The bespectacled 14-year-old was just going to his home at 5311 106th St., when he said he noticed the “space ship” and began the vigil which has probably resulted in the most detailed report of any UFO in the Edmonton area.” View full report
Source: The Edmonton Journal, May 8, 1967 (Edmonton, Alberta, Canada) (Credit: UFO*BC) ID: 348
Case Type: PressReport Features: Physical Trace, Children, Witness Photo, Witness Sketch
The Malmstrom Air Force Base UFO/Missile Incident (Nuclear missiles shutdown during UFO encounter)
March, 16, 1967 – Malmstrom Air Force Base, Montana, United States
From the witness Robert Salas: “I received a call from my security guard who was quite frightened as he reported that an unidentifiable flying object was hovering immediately above the front gate. The object was illuminated by a red glow…. many of our missiles became disabled… a similar incident had occurred at another site and they had all of their missiles disabled while UFOs were observed directly over the launch sites.” View full report
Source: Robert Salas, (MUFON) ID: 1017
Case Type: StandardCase Features: Military, Silent, Nuclear Facility, Witness Photo
Disc-shaped object with ‘cupola’ and windows on bottom
February, 9, 1967 – Odessa, Delaware, United States
“Mr. Guseman rolled down his left window and he and his wife studied the object more closely. It was disc-shaped with a kind of cupola under the main body. Its width was estimated at about 50 feet and its height at about 20 feet at the thickest point. Except for the top, the object was clearly visible, a dark gray silhouette against the lighter sky.” View full report
Source: NICAP (National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomenon), ID: 547
Case Type: StandardCase Features: Humming, Portholes/Windows
Two Brothers Photograph Circular Object in Michigan
January, 9, 1967 – Lake St. Clair, Michigan, United States
Two teen-age brothers, Dan and Grant Jaroslaw, made some photos of a domed object with an apparent tower on one side over Lake St. Clair, Michigan. They photographed it from the backyard of their Mt. Clemens home, about a mile from Selfridge Air Force Base. The object was moving slowly at a very low altitude. It remained in view about 10 minutes. View full report
Source: Knight ID: 411
Case Type: SummaryReport Features: Photo, Children
Copper-colored, disk-shaped craft flying low in British Columbia
1967 – Lillooet , British Columbia, Canada
From the witness: “Off in the distance I spotted what I took to be an airplane flying towards us, off to the left, about 75 or 100 feet above the telephone lines. As it got closer I saw that it wasn’t a plane at all, but a disk shaped craft. It was copper in colour and had a ridged section coming down below the main body. There was a soft red glow coming from all around this section. I would estimate the diameter to have been no more than 100 feet.” View full report
Source: UFO*BC (www.ufobc.ca) ID: 1136
Case Type: RawReport
Disc-shaped UFO with dome ‘buzzes’ automobile
October, 15, 1966 – Split Rock Pond, New Jersey, United States
“The object was directly in back and above me and followed my car along the road.” He estimated the object to be approximately 25 to 30 feet wide and five or six feet high. His diagram shows a typically flat-bottomed and somewhat domed object. Simons then noticed that his car began to act abnormally. View full report
Source: NICAP (National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomenon), ID: 546
Case Type: StandardCase Features: Vehicle Interference, Physiological Effects
Pilot ‘flees’ from giant cone-shaped UFO pacing plane
September, 20, 1966 – Near Sebring, Florida, United States
A Winter Haven, Florida, private pilot reported he fled from a giant cone-shaped UFO which kept his plane in shadow for about three minutes on the morning of September 20, 1966. “That thing had not changed in size at all, but was still with me and pacing me. It was still as big as a football field.” View full report
Source: NICAP (National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomenon), ID: 552
Case Type: StandardCase Features: Pilot/Aircrew
Burn marks and holes found after UFO seen close to ground
September, 13, 1966 – Gwinner, North Dakota, United States
Young Randy E. Rotenberger was waiting for the school bus outside his home when he saw “some flashing lights,” then an object. “It looked like two bowls put together,” the witness told an AP reporter. He saw three “pegs” on the bottom and antennae projecting from the top. Later, “some burnt marks” and tapered holes were found at the scene, each about a foot in diameter and five inches deep. View full report
