Flying Saucers and the Venus Legacy

Volume VI of the Venus Rising Series: A Concise History of the Second Planet

Flying Saucers and the Venus Legacy

Raymond Andrew Keller II

Cosmic Ray and The Birth of Venus at the Philadelphia Metropolitan Museum of Art on 20 March 2017.

Dr. Raymond A. Keller, II, award-winning author and retired History professor, is the author of the Venus Rising trilogy. Final Countdown: Rockets to Venus and Cosmic Ray’s Excellent Venus Adventure are newest in the series. Dr. Keller's books explore various facets of conditions and life on Venus in many dimensions from a perspective of conspiracies, history, theosophy, ufology and current events, especially space research.

To date, Venus Rising: A Concise History of the Second Planet, won awards at the Southern California and London Book Festivals. Dr. Keller has lived and worked in 44 different countries and has been writing about UFOs and paranormal activity since 1967. He was the founder and director of the Outer Space International Research and Investigations Society (OSIRIS) of Hilmar, California, as well as the publisher and co-editor of the New Millennial Star, a monthly pre-Internet tabloid newspaper with a circulation of 7,500 copies. He received his doctoral degree from West Virginia University in 2011 focusing on various aspects of the Basque settlement of Venezuela, and received his Master's degree from the same institution in 2004 in foreign language with an emphasis on Magic Realism in Latin American literature.

Flying Saucers and the Venus Legacy

With the help of the Venusians, in the newest addition to his Venus Rising series of international awards-winning books, Flying Saucers and the Venus Legacy, Dr. Raymond Andrew Keller, a.k.a. “Cosmic Ray,” explores the astounding science behind the flying saucer enigma.

Since that momentous day in 1987 when he and seven others in the Outer Space International Research and Investigations Society (OSIRIS) first made open, physical contact with Lady Encara, an ascended master and space commander from Venus on the slopes of Mt. Shasta in northern California, Dr. Keller has become one of the most controversial authorities on the alien presence here on Earth.

Of a recent appearance of Cosmic Ray at a meeting of the Paranormal Search group in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, Tony Pugliese, that organization’s website editor, posted the following comment: “During the presentation we were given a good idea of the scope of extraterrestrial contact that we might be encountering here on Earth, including the apparent claims of a Canadian official that we are, in fact, being visited by around 80 species! Of course, it’s impossible to verify these claims, but the preponderance of evidence that we are being visited by something (or ‘several somethings’) unearthly remains overwhelming. Dr. Keller also gave great insight into extraterrestrial technology that sent everyone in the room scrambling for their cell phones to Google the information he was giving us. This was a truly eye-opening presentation that makes us all long for the days of the ‘flying saucer clubs’ of the 1950s, back when all of this was both recent national news and serious business.”

Get ready to hop aboard a flying saucer to outer space with the Cosmic Ray. We’ll rendezvous with a mothership and meet many of our brothers and sisters from Venus and other member worlds in the Galactic Confederation of Light.

Raymond Andrew Keller II

Flying Saucers and the Venus Legacy Book VI in the Venus Rising Series: A Concise History of the Second Planet

With the help of the Venusians, Dr. Keller explores the astounding science behind the flying saucer enigma.

Dr. Raymond A. Keller, II, a.k.a. “Cosmic Ray” Headline Books, Inc. Terra Alta, WV

Flying Saucers and the Venus Legacy Book VI in the Venus Rising Series: A Concise History of the Second Planet

by Dr. Raymond A. Keller, II, a.k.a. “Cosmic Ray” copyright ©2022 Raymond Andrew Keller, II All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any other form or for any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or any information storage system, without written permission from Headline Books, Inc. To order additional copies of this book or for book publishing information, or to contact the author: Headline Books, Inc. P.O. Box 52 Terra Alta, WV 26764 www.headlinebooks.com Tel: 304-789-3001 Email: mybook@headlinebooks.com ISBN 13: 9781951556679

Library of Congress Control Number: 2021944123

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

This book is dedicated to the “Truths that make free!” and to the New Space Age that we are entering.

Contents Introduction............................................................................................................................................9 Meet the Venusians: An Interview with the “Cosmic Ray” by Alan Zanjani Foreword................................................................................................................................................13 Chapter 1: Apperception in the UFO Phenomenon........................................................................16 Chapter 2: Foundations of the Aerial Phenomena Research Organization (APRO)..................20 Extraterrestrial Hypothesis Flying Saucer Landing Sky Watchers Space Spies Brazilian Saucer Turning Tide Amazing Spider-Man Menzel’s Real Agenda Counterbalance Green Monster Frank Scully and the “Little Men” George Adamski and Leftist Politics Rampant Rumors Government Insiders Media Sensation Retro-UFO/Paranormal Incident Reports (Sightings and Encounters Log), Appended to Foundations of the Aerial Phenomena Research Organization (APRO) Chapter 3: Desert Center, California: Epicenter of Flying Saucer Reports...................................58 On Being a Contactee Desert Center Gains Notoriety “Out-of-This-World Saucer” Saucer Sightings over the Colorado Desert Truck Buzzed by Flying Saucer Civil Air Patrol Spotters Befuddled On the Trail of the Flying Saucers KYOR Radio and the Flying Saucer Connection Stepping Out on Hallowed Ground Varied Local Opinions Hitting a Snag- “Cancel Culture” 1950’s Style Mr. Rogers in the Neighborhood Flying Saucer Meeting Astounding Lecture Orfeo Rides in a Flying Saucer Myriad of Questions, Few Answers Get Acquainted Program of Japan First Sighting Second Sighting Mecca for Ufologists

Chapter 4: The Mitchell Sisters and the Space People.....................................................................74 Initial Contact The Space Flight Gray Barker’s “Psychic” Interpretation Chapter 5: The Fusaro Files.................................................................................................................80 Radar Technicians and Assorted UFO Phenomena Intensification of the UFO Cover-Up Red Saucers Considering the Extraterrestrial Hypothesis Engagement with the UFO Phenomenon A Unique Friend Cooperative Ventures Endless Chain of Life Chapter 6: The Flying Saucers Are Real. The Government is an Illusion!....................................92 Early Conspiracy Theories Big Disclosures Aliens Live Among Us Chapter 7: New UFO Theologies........................................................................................................97 Japanese Flying Saucer Cult “We have received an important message from the Moon...”

The Bible and Flying Saucers Back in the U.S.S.R. Salient Points Baalbek International Festival Adapt or Perish Theological Implications of Extraterrestrial Visitations Chapter 8: Beyond Roswell: The New Mexico Flying Saucer Flap of 1963-1964.......................102 “UFOs Pose No Threat” Life on Another Planet Feasible “Stay Away from All UFOs!” Strange Occurrences Afoot in New Mexico Conversation with a Master Bad Luck Villa’s Assertions Vindicated Chapter 9: Truth of the Kecksburg, Pennsylvania “Meteor”.........................................................109 Chapter 10: Ohio as the Locus of UFO Activity............................................................................114 “It Happened in Ohio….”

An Interview with Earl J. Neff Observations of the “Cosmic Ray” Chapter 11: Lessons Learned from a Contactee: Woodrow W. Derenberger (1916-1990)......122 First Encounter Disrupted Domestic Life Second Encounter Lanulos and the Extraterrestrial Life Style NASA Knows All About the Space People

Further Visitations by Indrid Cold More on Indrid Cold Time Traveling Extraterrestrials At Derenberger’s Home Amazing Son State Police Involvement Reporter’s Sympathy Local Ufologist Defends Derenberger Gray Barker’s Role A “Very Sincere” Man No Ulterior Motives Barker Is Angered Charges News Suppression Urges “Open Mind” Claims of Hucksterism Continue Politics of Ufology Derenberger’s NICAP Woes Book Promotion Conclusions Chapter 12: Origins of the Public UFO Controversy in the USSR..............................................145 Lively Discussion on UFOs Signals Received Strange Aerial Encounter Radical Reassessment Chapter 13: Gray Barker’s “Lost Interviews” with John W. Dean, Interplanetary Traveler......149 Background First Interview Second Interview Chapter 14: Disco Ufology (1971-1973)..........................................................................................157 Life in the Cosmos Soviet Conference on Intelligent Life in Outer Space Flying Saucer Formation UFO Reconnaissance Earth Has Rings Like Saturn, Just Weaker Jet Fighters Scramble with UFO Report Martians Thwart Mariner 9 Probe Findings UFO Photographed Over Brazilian Coast Ancient Greeks Knew of Other Worlds Message of Hope Transmitted by Cosmic Civilizations UFO Report Over London, UK, Suburb UFO Landing Marks USA vs. UFOs Radioactive Footprints Found in Norway Magnetic Moon Von Braun Retires from NASA

The Dawn of a New Age by Professor J. S. Yajnik, Banaras Hindu University United Nations Statement on Space Exploration, Extraterrestrial Life Your Neighbor May Be an “Illegal Alien,” of the ET Kind Disappearing Aircraft Invisible UFO Secret Grid System Alien Couple Alien Presence Among Us American Corporate Scientist Speaks Out on Outer Space Life at European Astronautical Conference Mars Not as Inhospitable as Previously Imagined Radiation Belts Around Earth Predicted by California Contactee UFOs Over Asia Top Scientists Agree, “UFOs Are Real!”

Bermuda Triangle a UFO Operations Area “Football-Shaped” UFO Sighted in India New Zealand Officials Baffled by a UFO South African Farmer Shoots at Flying Saucer Swift-Moving “Shining Ball” in Japanese Skies Multi-Colored Saucer Over Pordenone, Italy “Strange Thing” Plummets into Lake Victoria, then Shoots Skyward On the Plurality of Inhabited Worlds Optimistic Look at Alien Contact

Introduction

Meet the Venusians: An Interview with the “Cosmic Ray”

by Alan Zanjani

At all of his appearances along the lecture circuit, Dr. Raymond A. Keller, a.k.a. the “Cosmic Ray,” follows up his power point presentations with a question and answer session. At that time, he addresses various issues brought up in all his award-winning and best-selling Venus Rising trilogy of books. No question seems to be too difficult for the Cosmic Ray. At one program in the Philadelphia area, an attendee asked about some radio transmissions apparently coming from the surface of the cloudy planet Venus; and the doctor rattled off a complete list of frequencies that the questioner, and the audience, could check out for themselves.

I verified them in my own copy of Venus Rising, and he was spot on to three numbers past the decimal point.

Later, when visiting the Cosmic Ray at his home in Morgantown, West Virginia, I asked him some more questions about the alleged telegraphic signals from the radio station on the surface of Venus. At that instant, the doctor went into his Venus vault of documents and pulled out a now faded newspaper clipping. The Venus radio transmissions were first announced on the front page of the Tuesday, 5 June 1956 edition of the Chicago Daily Tribune in no less than a banner headline, “Navy Gets Radio Signals from Venus, Astronomers Hear Planet on Ham Wave,” by Phillip Warden, a staff reporter at the Daily Tribune. The Cosmic Ray talks about people and incidents from over fifty or sixty years ago like they just happened yesterday afternoon. Even people who initially scoff at the idea of flying saucers from Venus buy a set of the doctor’s books before the meeting is over.

Harrisburg, Pennsylvania On 9 May 2018, I went along with the Cosmic Ray to attend the monthly meeting of the Science Evaluating Anomalies Research Center of Harrisburg (SEARCH), held at the Lower Paxton Township Municipal Building at 425 Prince Street in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. It was a fantastic meeting, to be sure, as I and all in attendance were totally blown away by the doctor’s presentation. But rather than take my word for what happened, here is a summary of the meeting provided by Tony Pugliese for the paranormal group’s official website, www.harrisburgsearch.wordpress.com/: 9

Flying Saucers and the Venus Legacy “Greetings, lovers of the paranormal: This month at SEARCH we were pleased to have with us a special guest lecturer: The ‘Cosmic Ray’ himself, Dr. Raymond Keller, II, renowned author of the Venus Rising trilogy, a series of nonfiction books chronicling the history of the planet Venus, and including mythology, fact, and everything in between. Hailing from nearby West Virginia, Dr. Keller has been a longtime investigator of the paranormal, especially anything related to UFOs and other forms of extraterrestrial visitation.

“It’s rare to have a veteran of the early years of UFO investigation here, and his presentation did not disappoint. It focused mostly on his third book, entitled Cosmic Ray’s Excellent Venus Adventure. The book chronicles Dr. Keller’s own experiences with the extraterrestrial, including a purported contact between himself and several Venusians at a recent paranormal festival.

It sounds quite bizarre of course…but Cosmic Ray, ever the consummate investigator, has reams and reams of documentation and photographs from a wide variety of sources to back up his claims.

“During the presentation we were given a good idea of the scope of extraterrestrial contact that we might be encountering here on Earth, including the apparent claims of a Canadian official that we are, in fact, being visited by around 80 species! Of course, it’s impossible to verify these claims, but the preponderance of evidence that we are being visited by something (or ‘several somethings’) unearthly remains overwhelming. Dr. Keller also Dr. Raymond Keller, the “Cosmic Ray,” manning a Venus booth at gave great insight into extraterrestrial a recent street fair in Shepherdstown, West Virginia. The doctor answered many questions about his controversial life and the Venus technology that sent everyone in the Rising series of books. Photo courtesy of the Shepherdstown, West room scrambling for their cell phones Virginia, Chronicle newspaper, 29 June 2018. to Google the information he was giving us. This was a truly eye-opening presentation that makes us all long for the days of the ‘flying saucer clubs’ of the 1950s, back when all of this was both recent national news and serious business.”

Insofar as I have enjoyed the opportunity of accompanying the doctor to quite a few meetings, I can honestly say that Tony’s impressions reflected a similar response by nearly all who have taken the opportunity to attend one of the Cosmic Ray’s intriguing Venus presentations Here the doctor provides some answers to a few of the commonly asked questions about the planet Venus and the Venusians: Questions and Answers about Venus and Venusians Q. In your Venus books, frequent mention is made of reincarnation. How does this esoteric subject relate to the Venusians?

A. Many souls of Earth and other planets in the solar system and beyond reincarnate on Venus, having reached the highest plateau of spiritual mastery in this density, preparatory to

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Raymond Andrew Keller II their transition into the higher dimensions. In turn, after several lifetimes on Venus, some souls return to the spheres of lower degree in order to serve the inhabitants of these worlds as teachers, or avatars of a cosmic gnosis essential for guiding their students in making their own transitions to Venus; onward and upward, as it is.

Most of the brothers and sisters of Venus working here on Earth have been here before, in prior incarnations. Essentially, they are attempting to awaken us to the reality of our own misguided thinking in so many avenues. They long ago succeeded in honing their intellects and setting aside their individual egos. Those that are reincarnated here on Earth are always to be found channeling their energies into service on behalf of others. Of course, they are interested in accomplishment, but never for themselves. They are always working for the betterment of all.

Should one arrive at the point of being reincarnated on Venus, there is a hall of records there that can be freely accessed to reveal all previous incarnations in the denser realms. This hall of records has a machine that taps into a crystal ice cave below the wind-swept surface of the planet Uranus. You can literally find out anything you want to know about any prior lifetime.

There are a few individuals who have bypassed the so-called “Wheel of Life,” however; and these are the ones who have been “translated” to Venus for their worthy deeds on Earth in behalf of their fellow beings. Annalee Skarin of American Falls, Idaho, was taken up bodily from Mt. Shasta in California. She never experienced a physical death and went straight up to Venus. She now looks like a beautiful teenager. The key to this bodily translation is found in her nine esoteric books. I can’t praise Annalee Skarin enough. Her books constitute a marvelous work and a wonder.

Q. You have frequently mentioned the concept and state of happiness in many of your lectures. Can you elaborate on this, from a Venusian perspective?

A. Of course, it would be my pleasure. I want the people attending my lectures to know that the Venusians are a happy people. This is the type of happiness that should not be equated with emotionalism, and the drama that accompanies it here on Earth. The Venusians possess an inner joy that comes from carrying out a well-done task. Everything the Venusians do carries an imbedding of their own individual and collective life force. Suffice it to say, the Venusians have the utmost respect for everything. This is because they recognize the Divine Spark in all of creation, and especially other sentient beings that they share the cosmos with.

Q. What about fears? Are the Venusians afraid of death, as we are?

A. The Venusians realize that the material body is something akin to a garment. When it wears out, they know that the time is fast approaching when they can simply exchange it for a new one. Having an assurance of reincarnation, there is no guess work about the afterlife. It is no longer necessary for the Venusians to live by faith. They passed that stage of their cosmic evolution countless millennia ago.

The Venusians have attained to an awareness that when they move on to some other sphere of existence, they will be provided with a material body constituted of the elements of their new planetary environment. Their body will be perfectly adapted to the physical conditions that they will find there, in their new celestial home.

Q. How many inhabited worlds are there?

A. In the Gnostic Gospels, Jesus the Christ explained that the inhabited Omniverse was so vast that not even the angels were privy to the knowledge pertaining to the ends of it, if it even has any points of demarcation. The great esoteric teacher Helena Blavatsky also declared that “the immensity of space was filled with intelligences.”

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Flying Saucers and the Venus Legacy Our space sector includes the planets and their attendant moons in the solar system as well as the planetary systems in orbit around the closest stars. There are also 50 other solar systems with habitable planets composing what can best be called the Galactic Federation of Light.

Venus is the governing planet in our local star sector.

Q. Do the space people worship God as we do? Do they have any religion?

A. They do not worship God, per se, as we understand God to be, but recognize that there is an Infinite Creator constituted of Spirit that permeates the entire fabric of the cosmos. They see the Divine Spark of the Infinite Creator in everything and everybody. There is no religion higher than truth. Manifesting kindness assures one’s continual progress up the celestial ladder to cosmic perfection. There is no need for religious laws and ordinances when kindness is the prime motivator in life. They do recognize Jesus the Christ as the supreme manifestation on Earth of the God consciousness. They also greatly esteem the Buddha, Luther, Mary, Muhammad, Rumi, Annalee Skarin and other avatars that have incarnated from Venus and other celestial orbs to redeem us from the darkness and lead us onto the path of further illumination.

(Editor’s note: Alan Zanjani is an Army veteran and a medical student at a prominent university in West Virginia.)

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Foreword Dear Readers of Cosmic Ray’s Flying Saucers and the Venus Legacy: Various books have been written about the spacecraft being seen in every age. This suggests that the UFOs have been with us for a long, long time. They were seen by people of all races. Of course, the explanations of the ancient peoples to account for these objects were based on their limited understanding. However, that does not prevent the modern discovery of their electromagnetic propulsion systems, enabling space flight. Some authors of UFO books have even attributed the origin of the flying saucers to a German “secret weapon” developed late in World War II and now being dispatched from hidden bases in Antarctica, or even a contemporary secret weapon being deployed by Russia or Communist China. Well, with all of this demand for UFO disclosure intensifying around the world, we take heart that eventually that day will come relatively soon when the truth will be outed.

Was Zechariah Sitchin correct when he speculated that the “sons of God” who mated with the “daughters of cavemen” (Genesis, Chapter 6), were really spacemen? Did these spacefarers thus speed up the genetic evolution of humanoids at that time? By thus bringing the potency of a higher intelligence, and hence consciousness, to their offspring, their descendants can tune in on this heritage to help them control their animal nature, provided that they have cultivated and thereby strengthened that Higher Part. Without that higher control, the faster frequency just ignites the bestial. Were the spacemen so much taller than the aborigines that some of their descendants were seen as “giants, men of renown,” because of their recently inherited brain power and wisdom learned from their godly sires? Is that the explanation of the so-called “fallen angels?”

The word “angel” means “messenger,” in the original Hebrew. My late friend and fellow contactee, Dr. Frank Stranges (1927-2008) of Van Nuys, California, once wrote a booklet on the missions assigned to various contingents of angels: the ministering angels, the guardian angels, and the angel reapers from the Hierarchy of Light; and from the dark side, Dr. Stranges also recognized that there were fallen angels working against the interests and progress of humankind from the very beginning of civilization on Earth. For more information on this angelic array, please see Dr. Frank E. Stranges, Ph.D., Danger from the Stars (Venice, California: International Evangelism Crusades, Inc., 1965).

The Old Testament’s “cloud by day and pillar of fire by night” (Exodus 13:21) that led the Israelites through the wilderness could have been one of the “motherships” that can ionize the air around them to form “clouds” in which to conceal themselves. The colorful lights that play 13

Flying Saucers and the Venus Legacy around them could have been mistaken for “fire.” Moses stayed on top of Mount Zion for many days, where he received the Ten Commandments. Maybe during some of that reported time that he was away from the camp of Israel, he was a guest inside that spaceship. Also, Ezekiel’s “wheels within wheels,” with “eyes around the rims” (Ezekiel 1:15-21) were definitely spaceships. The “eyes” I attribute to the portholes of a scout ship.

The New Testament’s descriptions of the “star of Bethlehem” (Matthew 2:9) that led the three wisemen and hovered over the birthplace of Jesus was probably a spaceship, as stars don’t do that. The “cloud” that Jesus ascended into was probably a spaceship, lifting him up with a transistor ray. During this incident, the “angels” also told his disciples that Jesus would return in the same way at his “second coming” (Acts 1:9-11). I know of a case where the extraterrestrials lifted a plane in midair up into a sliding door at the bottom of their craft, and later released it for the aviator to report it. Their transparent helmets looked like “haloes;” and their shimmering silvery spacesuits like “shining garments,” thus matching the description attributed to the appearance and raiment of the angels and other supernatural beings.

For the objective and insightful investigator of the flying saucer legacy, all of these indications add up to the confirmation that many of us are hybrids, with inheritances from below through the evolving animals; and from above, whereby we homo sapiens are lifted beyond our human stage of development into the divine, eventually through enlarging the inheritances bestowed upon us by our “sons of God” ancestors. Through the struggle of these two natures in humankind, one will eventually triumph over the other. Either humans will devolve down to the animal level, or they will evolve up to the angelic level completely.

Bryant Reeve, a graduate of Yale University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was working as an engineer in the automobile industry in Detroit in 1953, when he began to doubt the official Air Force proclamations that UFOs had nothing to do with interplanetary spaceships, and that they could all be explained away as misinterpretations of astronomical or other natural phenomena, misidentification of conventional aircraft or just outright hoaxes. To get the other side of the story, he secured a copy of the contactee George Adamski’s then newest book, Flying Saucers Have Landed, co-authored with Sir Desmond Leslie from the British Isles (London, United Kingdom: British Book Centre, 1953), which detailed Adamski’s encounter with a Venusian in the California desert. Bryant was so impressed with the book and the sincerity of Adamski’s testimony, that he took $1,200 out of his savings account to rent a hall and invite the contactee to Detroit to give a presentation on his meeting with the extraterrestrial at the Masonic Temple there in the Motor City.

Bryant and his wife Helen would become fast friends with Adamski, and even traveled with him on his lecture tour to Mexico in 1955. The Reeves also became good friends with many of the other contactees throughout the 1950s scattered the world over; and after two years of investigation, in 1957 Bryant wrote his own book presenting a positive viewpoint about the whole contactee, flying saucer scene of that early era, particularly with esoteric research on the enigma being conducted by various professional individuals and civilian groups. The book, Flying Saucer Pilgrimage (Amherst, Wisconsin: Amherst Press, 1957), has become a classic in the field of ufology, one which I heartily recommend.

I found a fitting quote from Bryant and Helen Reeve on page 119 of their Flying Saucer Pilgrimage for the foreword of Cosmic Ray’s Flying Saucers and the Venus Legacy. Here it is:

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Raymond Andrew Keller II “When we found out that the flying saucers led us right out of this world, we ourselves had to face a decision- whether to follow them into supra-physical realms or retreat to the physical.

We decided to go ahead. But we cannot make this decision for you. Each one must decide for himself or herself.”

From Venus with Love, -Lady Columba 31 May 2021

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Chapter 1

Apperception in the UFO Phenomenon

Our interpretations of worlds beyond will be shaped by what we already know, or assume to know. British retro sci-fi art from the 1950s romanticizes the exploration of outer space. See http://www.darkroastedblend.com/2014/03/exceptionalbritish-scifi-artwork-from.html.

In my 54 years of UFO investigations, it has become clear to me that people interpret what they hear and see in terms of what they already know. Psychologists understand this interpretive mechanism as being one of “apperception.” Lacking any new knowledge requisite for the interpretation of any new phenomenon encountered, an experiencer would be hard pressed in developing any clear and concise descriptions, let alone explanations, for anything out of the ordinary impinging upon their physical senses. Formulating ideas about such phenomena might prove to be difficult. Without a proper “gnosis,” or base of knowledge, the best an experiencer can do is take some theorizing “stabs in the dark,” so to speak, about the nature of any newly encountered phenomenon.

The phenomenon may thus be thought of as being “alien” to the experiencer, but not necessarily in the context of extraterrestriality. The closest parallel could be made with a foreign tongue. The apostle Paul, when writing to the saints at Corinth (I Cor. 4:11), once declared that, “If I do not know the meaning of the language, I shall be a foreigner to the speaker, and the speaker a foreigner to me.” Therefore, one could say that in cases of close encounters of the third kind (CE III), the word “other” might be appropriated to serve in place of the term “alien.”

Where intelligence is operative behind the phenomenon, manifesting as some type of entity, the otherness may or may not be of extraterrestrial origin. Nothing should be assumed.

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Raymond Andrew Keller II Unfortunately for the experiencer, whether an abductee or a contactee, they will, in all probability, remain as “foreigners” to their own experiences precisely because they lack the proper language that “registers” appropriately in the minds of the people not sharing in any experiential way with the otherness the experiencer is trying to communicate with them. On the other hand, symbolic language can serve to bridge this communications gap. Some figures of speech often evoke mental pictures of things people are familiar with in daily life. The best examples come from the master teacher, Jesus, The Christ. In the Synoptic Gospels, Jesus employed 164 metaphors, implanted in parables, to describe celestial realities or highlight spiritual principles.

As we read the parables of Jesus, pictures of objects and people form immediate connections in our mind’s eye.

Jesus adeptly suggested pictures of things that the people were familiar with in their daily lives. By means of such vivid illustrations, the master teacher was able to impart an immediate understanding between his mind and the minds of his hearers. While Jesus spoke of the Kingdom of God and sundry things celestial, the experiencer attempts to relate an account of something un-Earthly, perhaps originating from another planet, another time, another dimension, or maybe a spiritual realm, or a combination of any two or several of the above. Keeping this in mind, in all of my Venus Rising trilogy of books, frequent allusions are made to situations in comic books, movies, television shows and other elements of pop culture familiar to most of us. The otherness of the contactee experience requires no less than this. People need something they can get a grip on if they are ever going to begin to understand concepts and ideas pertinent to the presence of such powerful beings here on Earth.

Prominent Theosophist John Anthony West, writing in his groundbreaking book examining the high wisdom of ancient Egypt, Serpent in the Sky (Wheaton, Illinois: Quest Books, 1993), 127, takes note of the overall importance of myth as a vehicle for the transmission of knowledge: “Myth is a whole. It transcribes a fundamental knowledge of the laws of genesis, which applies to everything. Myth is a deliberately chosen means of communicating knowledge. While it is possible, even probable, that the ancients could not have expressed that knowledge in modern philosophical language, this is no shortcoming. It is we who are at the disadvantage. To make sense of the myth, we must first convert it to a form the intellect will accept. Thereafter, it may or may not work upon our emotional center and allow us to arrive at understanding.”

But even apart from the entities involved, the UFOs themselves exhibit a “fade-in/fade-out pattern.” Otto O. Binder (1911-1974), a prominent comic book and science fiction writer, as well as the author of five books about the UFO enigma, once declared that, “In numbers too great to be ignored, many UFOs are reported not to fly away, but simply to ‘fade away’ and also to ‘materialize’ before the eyes from thin air.” Binder described three impressive cases of such “UFO phantoms” to illustrate this fact:1 1. Winter 1952, near Stockholm, Sweden. Six witnesses saw a disc-shaped object about the size of the full moon. (This would be about the size of a dime, in appearance, if you were to hold it arm’s length. –R.K.) As it sped over fields, it slowly disappeared in a strange way. “It just went out,” one girl said, insisting it was not like an object vanishing in the distance, but more like a light being turned off.

1

Otto O. Binder, What We Really Know About Flying Saucers (New York, New York: Fawcett Gold Medal Books, 1967), 160.

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Flying Saucers and the Venus Legacy 2. September 8, 1958, Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska. A group of military personnel caught sight of a cigar-like UFO, surrounded by tiny black specks; and “as it continued on its westerly path…. It never did drop below the horizon- just faded away.

3. December 24, 1960, near Durango, Colorado. A family on a ranch saw a disc with a big dome on top, which remained stationary above them for 15 minutes. Then its glow brightened, turned light green, and finally “faded out slowly, like a gas flame.”

Perhaps these UFOs faded out of view due to flying through some haze in the distance.

However, in these cited cases and a plentitude of others, the witnesses have adamantly declared that the objects did not decrease in diameter. Ergo, the UFOs were not moving away when they faded from sight. Rather, they remained hovering in a stationary position, just projecting a false image of darting away from the observer.

Binder came to the same conclusion that J. Allen Hynek, John A. Keel, Jacques Vallee, and others eventually arrived at, namely that, “There may be something deeper to this phenomenon than we suspect.” Very few there were who recognized that the future of humankind on this planet may well depend not only upon our acceptance of the presence of the flying saucers in our skies, but an embracing of the messages imparted by their occupants to the growing number of contactees, followed up by an implementation of political and social policies in conformity to the celestial order of advanced civilizations on Venus and other inhabited planets.

Juan Posadas, an Argentine Trotskyist politician as well as a serious student of the metaphysical sciences, was in Paris, France, on 26 June 1968, addressing these very concerns to an assembly of the Fourth International. His discourse was titled, “Flying Saucers, the Process of Matter and Energy, Science, the Revolutionary and Working-Class Struggle and the Socialist Future of Mankind.” Later that year, it was published as a pamphlet in the French language by Éditions Réed in Paris. Basing his talk on the experiences of UFO contactees such as George Adamski, Truman Bethurum, Gabriel Green, Howard Menger and others, he essentially explained how our adoption of the celestial style of managing the resources of the planet would lead the human race into communist utopia, and in the process garnering us membership into some type of galactic confederation of planets.

Posadas asserted that life can exist on other planets, no matter where we find them. He noted that, “The passage of matter from the inorganic to the organic state could take place in a different manner to how it does on Earth, such that energy could be used in a more effective manner.” Posadas lamented that Earthlings barely knew how to make the best use of coal, oil, or even the nuclear energy that we have at hand. On the other hand, the political theoretician said that, “The extraterrestrials may be on the way to exploiting all energy existing in matter. They can use all the energy that we still do not know how to employ on Earth, and transform it into light. It could be that matter is organized differently in other planetary systems or galaxies, in infinite combinations and in totally different forms to those that we know on Earth. We cannot imagine what it is like; but we can imagine very well that there may be an organization of energy infinitely superior to what we have here.”

As to the UFOs, Posadas placed them in Friedrich Hegel’s dialectical conception of history.

Speaking for the Fourth International in this regard, the theoretician declared that, “All the news of UFOs around the various parts of the world coincides. There are many coincidences, not all of which are exaggerations. We believe and accept that these beings exist. The majority of people who have seen them say that they are normal beings….”

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Raymond Andrew Keller II As to why the governments of the Western world were doing little to study these objects, Posadas mused that, “Capitalism has no interest in UFOs and, as such, makes no research into them. It has no interest in occupying itself with these matters because they cannot reap profits, nor are they useful to capitalism. But people see in UFOs the possibility of advancement and progress.”

Accounts provided by the contactees bear this out. Highly advanced civilizations exist on Venus and other planets in our solar system and beyond. They are organized along collective lines, much like a beehive. For example, the astrologers and magicians of ancient Persia, the Magi, who served as the chief custodians of an older Zoroastrian tradition, knew all about such a complex and organized society on our sister planet Venus. The Magi banded together in a mystical society known as the Sarmoung; and just like the pharaohs of Egypt, they took for their group’s symbol the humble honeybee. Interestingly, Armenian and Syrian legends also confirm that the honeybee was associated with the mysterious power transmitted down from the time of the prophet Zoroaster that finally became manifest in its fullness with the appearance of Jesus, the Christ, at the very meridian of our planet’s timeline. Recall that Jesus self-identified with the “Bright and Morning Star” of Venus in Revelation 22:16. The beehive, ruled by a queen, is emblematic of a matriarchal order and the divine feminine. The Sufi prophet Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī (1207-1273, Our ancestors in ancient civilizations recognized C.E.), taught his disciples that the honeybees are indigthe honeybee as a gift from the Venusians. See enous to Venus and were brought to Earth millions of http://katracraft.tumblr.com/. years ago as a gift for our ancestors.

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Chapter 2

Foundations of the Aerial Phenomena Research Organization (APRO)

Coral Lorenzen (1925-1988) Founder of APRO

Extraterrestrial Hypothesis

By July 1952, many of the leading, most widely-read publications in the United States, such as Argosy, Life, Look and Reader’s Digest, were getting on the “Flying Saucers are Interplanetary Spaceships” bandwagon. In the estimation of Coral Lorenzen, the National Director of the then largest civilian UFO research group in the world, the Aerial Phenomena Research Organization (APRO) in Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin, these aforementioned periodicals were “printing articles dealing with what has heretofore been regarded, by them, as a controversial subject, and with the sanction of the Air Force have planted the seed that the saucers could very well be interplanetary or interstellar vehicles.”2 Lorenzen believed that the United States government was stepping up its program of the “slow enlightenment” of the American people to the idea that extraterrestrial entities have somehow “beat us to the punch” insofar as the development of interplanetary space travel is concerned. Clearly, Lorenzen and the APRO membership were of the opinion that those in the Air Force hierarchy were knowledgeable about the existence of the flying saucers as real, physical spaceships, dispatched to Earth and manned by intelligent beings from other planets. But for reasons of their own, the Air Force brass were of the mind to leak this information at a snail’s pace, perhaps to avoid another panic such as occurred back 2

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Coral Lorenzen, “The Saucer Bandwagon,” APRO Bulletin, July 1952, vol. 1, no. 1, Box 358, Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin

Raymond Andrew Keller II in 1938 with Orson Welles’ famous Halloween Martian invasion of New Jersey “War of the Worlds” broadcast.

Flying Saucer Landing The imminence of such a flying saucer disclosure on the part of the Air Force seemed highly probable. On 2 July 1952, the Mutual Broadcasting Company’s primary news reporter, Walter Winchell, quoted a rumor on air to the effect that scientists from the Mt. Palomar Observatory in Southern California were on hand to watch the predicted landing of a flying saucer from Venus out in the Mojave Desert. Four alien cosmonauts allegedly disembarked, looked around, re-boarded the ship and then just blasted off. Winchell informed his radio audience that a source deep inside the Air Force had assured him that the military organization would be making some kind of an “official announcement” concerning this later that fall.

In 1952, APRO director Lorenzen was but 27 years old. She had sighted many unknown objects in the sky throughout her young life, and prior to the arrival of the age of flying saucers in the summer of 1947, as inaugurated by the Kenneth Arnold sighting over Mt. Rainier in Washington state, had classified these strange lights and objects as typical manifestations of Fortean phenomena. Lorenzen became more interested in the flying saucers, particularly, and their possible extraterrestrial origin, when she and her husband, Jim, lived out in Los Angeles in 1950 and 1951. While there in Southern California they had the opportunity to visit the famous contactee, George Adamski, who by then had gained considerable prominence and notoriety because of his claims of having photographed flying saucers close up, which he referred to as Venusian space ships. His followers called him a “professor of the mystic arts,” for he studied esoteric knowledge in Tibet when he was a ten-year-old boy, living there with his uncle Sydney.

The Lorenzens and Adamski became fast friends; and they found him to be a charming man.

The advantage of being in Adamski’s inner circle, however, was that the Lorenzens got to know many of the astronomers from Mt. Palomar who would come down the mountain observatory for breakfast, lunch or dinner in Alice K. Wells’ roadside diner, where he worked as a chef. In between serving customers, Adamski would show these astronomers some of the photographs he had taken of the space ships and share some of the telepathic communications that the Venusians had transmitted to his mind.

Besides participating in the diner conversations with Adamski, the Lorenzens also made friends with most of the Palomar astronomers. One of these scientists told the couple that he had reliable information to prove that the space ships come from three planets in our solar system: Mars, Saturn and Venus, as well as a planet in the Wolf 359 system, about eight light years distant. This astronomer, besides authenticating Adamski’s claims, said that the extraterrestrials from this Confederation of Planets “range in size from three to six-and-a-half feet in height, depending where they come from, and are well developed physically and mentally. They can speak the major languages of Earth, learned by monitoring our radio broadcasts, and have their own personnel spotted here and there all over our planet, undetected by Earthlings.”3 The assertions of this astronomer certainly lend credence to Winchell’s speculations about a saucer landing in the Mojave witnessed by a scientific team dispatched from Mt. Palomar Observatory.

I believe that I uncovered this leaking astronomer’s identity, with all the substantiating details published in my second Venus book, Final Countdown: Rockets to Venus (Terra Alta, West Virginia: Headline Books, 2017), pages 110-113.

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Coral Lorenzen, “Grapevine,” APRO Bulletin, July 1952, vol. 1, no. 1, Box 358, Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin

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Flying Saucers and the Venus Legacy Of further interest, Lorenzen writes concerning the rumor circulating throughout Southern California of a mysterious planetoid some 300 miles in diameter that had been discovered by astronomers at the Palomar Observatory back in 1950, entering our solar system from above the plane of the ecliptic. The rouge planetoid dipped behind the Sun and was never detected since. The APRO director wondered if this wandering orb may have served as a base for the intense flying saucer flap that took place in the past two years. As the planetoid had changed its course, Lorenzen speculated that it might have been artificial, some kind of huge outer space station positioned behind the Sun to avoid observation by Earth-based telescopes.4 Sky Watchers No one could say in 1952 that the Air Force was close minded when it came to the subject of UFOs. Air Force brass were even inviting the public to become involved with UFO research, playing the role of “spotters” in the vicinity of strategic air and missile bases in the United States.

This program of recruitment came to be known as Project Skywatch and was instituted by the Air Force on 15 July 1952. Project Skywatch was originally set to go into effect on 17 June 1952, but the Air Force hierarchy determined that slightly more time would be required to coordinate the program with the national defense grid, thereby ensuring that any spots where the country’s radar blanket was incomplete could be appropriately filled. Besides, Project Bluebook personnel noted that “Saucers have a tendency to be sighted in July, August and September with more frequency than at any other time of the year;” so waiting another month to “dot every i and cross every t” wasn’t going to hurt anything.

The emphasis of this program was on 27 of the then 48 states, these being the ones where most UFO sightings had been reported in previous years, as determined by Project Bluebook.

Air Force administrators of Skywatch had sent out invitations to members of APRO and other flying saucer/UFO civilian investigations groups, attempting to recruit reliable spotters who could dedicate two or three hours in their community each week in manning a UFO observation post. It was a wonderful opportunity for budding ufologists, for in doing so, they would not only serve the national defense interests of protecting the country, but also be in a position to actually see a flying saucer with their own eyes, and actually be believed after reporting it. Lorenzen was encouraging the APRO membership to take advantage of this Skywatch program.

Of course, in these early days of UFO investigations, there was always that fear of ridicule. To overcome this, Lorenzen wrote that, “You can bet if a saucer is sighted by an observation post, the information will not be made public.” Besides the data being protected under the aegis of the Air Force, Lorenzen noted that, “If you are on the job, you will at least have a chance through inquiry among other members of the watch to get the details.”5 One of the greatest benefits of working on the inside with the Air Force on Project Skywatch was described by Lorenzen: “The evidence at hand seems to indicate that the Air Force, having had dead specimens from the saucers (the Mexico crash-landing and the New Mexico crash-landing referred to by Scully), are now concentrating on shooting down a ‘live one’ for the purpose of contact.”

Back in the early 1950s, of course, the possibilities of using radar as a UFO tracking device, or even an anti-UFO air defense weapon, were just beginning to be explored. Therefore, until 4 5

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Coral Lorenzen, “Explanation Needed,” APRO Bulletin, July 1952, vol. 1, no. 1, Box 358, Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin.

Coral Lorenzen, “Public Apathy Fouls Skywatch,” APRO Bulletin, July 1952, vol. 1, no. 1, Box 358, Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin

Raymond Andrew Keller II such a time as these emerging radar technologies could be perfected to cover the whole of the United States air space, having active civilian UFO spotters in place to augment the defense grid would be ideal for both the Air Force and the Skywatch enlistees. As to radar systems, Frank Edwards, a Mutual Broadcasting news analyst sponsored by the American Federation of Labor, noted on the air during his 14 April 1952 reporting that, “I have it from the authority of the big brass at the Pentagon (Air Force) that the general belief among them is that the saucers are interplanetary vehicles and that contact has been attempted.” Edwards also declared that, “Last September an attempt was made to contact a saucer hovering over an undisclosed military base in Maryland. The attempt was made by means of ‘shooting’ into the saucer with a radar beam.

The saucer was at a very high altitude; and when the beam was trained on it, it wobbled.”

The radio broadcaster further explained the situation: “Military men present could not discern whether the movement was a sign of recognition or whether the radar beam affected the controls or power supply of the craft.”

Lorenzen, although a patriotic American, came to question some of what she deemed an overly aggressive policy toward the UFOs being pursued by authorities in the Air Force, especially since the extraterrestrials, at least in the past, had displayed no signs of hostility toward humankind. As one of the roles for the spotters was to alert anti-aircraft installations along the projected route of a saucer, Lorenzen thought of issues inherent in this that even the Air Force personnel had not contemplated. The APRO director mused that, “Some of the things the Air Force evidently hasn’t considered, or are too thick-headed to give much thought to, is the rumored toughness of the skin of the saucers, their high altitude flying, rendering inaccessibility to anti-aircraft, and the probable consequences involved in shooting one down, should we somehow succeed in doing so. Besides, do you think they’ll hold still for that kind of ‘greeting’?”

While Project Skywatch never truly sparked the imagination of the American public, it did with the UFO community and members of APRO were among the first to sign up for it, being so urged to do so by Coral Lorenzen. While there was an evident downside, she and the membership found it difficult to pass up an insider’s pass to the workings of the Air Force’s ongoing UFO investigations and research.

Space Spies The closer that APRO got to working in tandem with the Air Force, the more it seemed that other-worldly powers were taking an interest in the organization’s members. By the summer of 1952, Coral Lorenzen was aware of at least two of her APRO field investigators that were approached by so-called “space spies.”

An active APRO member and field investigator living in New York City told Lorenzen that he had reasons to believe that he contacted one such “space spy” at an atomic energy exhibit held in Manhattan in 1951. He said that the man gave him some sort of written message at the convention that he could not comprehend. In the ensuing year, he had shown the message to numerous linguistic experts at various New York colleges and universities; but none of these were able to make even an ethnic identification of the script. The APRO representative decided to keep the mysterious note writer under observation and promised to inform Lorenzen if any unusual behavior was evidenced by the possible spy.

Lorenzen became even more concerned when APRO’s Canadian representative reported the receipt of a letter from an airman stationed at Wright-Patterson Field in Dayton, Ohio. In his letter, the airman said he had overheard a rumor making the rounds on his base that the Air 23

Flying Saucers and the Venus Legacy Force believes “space spies have landed and some on Earth are actually working in close conjunction with them.” The Ohio letter writer also wanted APRO to know that, “Those suspected of interplanetary espionage are being watched by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).”

Keep in mind that other civilian flying saucer and UFO investigators were under surveillance by the FBI Counterintelligence Program around the same time. Some like Albert K. Bender, founder of the highly successful International Flying Saucer Bureau (IFSB) in Bridgeport, Connecticut, reported several visitations by agents whom he described as the “three men in black.” These dark figures from the pages of ufology’s history allegedly threatened Bender’s life if he published some information in the IFSB’s monthly Space Review that he and his organization uncovered about the origin of the flying saucers and the aims of the alien operatives here on Earth. By 1953, Bender and other members of the IFSB had become so afraid of these visits by these three men in black that they unanimously decided it would be better to disband the group. After disassembling the IFSB, Bender warned fellow ufologists that, “We (he and the editorial staff of the Space Review) advise anyone involved in saucer work to please be very cautious.” The silencers had won the day.

And from the very start of his career as an author of UFO articles for Fate magazine and other periodicals, George Adamski of Mt. Palomar fame was the subject of intense FBI surveillance and intimidation. You can read all about Adamski’s run-ins with the FBI and its director J. Edgar Hoover in my second book of the Venus trilogy, Final Countdown: Rockets to Venus (Terra Alta, West Virginia: Headline Books, 2017), pages 46-76.

Brazilian Saucer On Wednesday, 7 May 1952, a flying saucer, blue-gray in color, was witnessed by hundreds of people passing over Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Fortunately, a cameraman and a journalist from the ever-popular O Cruzeiro magazine were in the area to faithfully record this spectacular event, hanging out, as it were, on the Tijuca Beach (Barra da Tijuca) when the object first appeared out over the ocean, heading toward Cropped and enlarged photograph number four of five in series the city at a fast clip. O Cruzeiro’s staff pho- taken by Ed Keffel on Tijuca Beach, outside Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on 7 May 1952. tographer, Ed Keffel, took five snapshots of the saucer. In the photographs, the UFO looked akin to a pot lid with a knob-like protuberance in the center. Keffel described the saucer as “coming in from the sea and passing several hundred feet over our heads. It appeared to be rocking like a slowly falling leaf, moving in a type of swooping motion.” The cameraman added that, “The object made a slow curve, picked up speed, headed back to sea and disappeared.”6 Keffel estimated that the object he saw and photographed was larger than a commercial airplane. It was round and wingless, definitely conforming to the traditional image one has of a flying saucer. The journalist accompanying Keffel, Joao Martins, wrote the original two dispatches for the International News Service (INS) about the incident that appeared in the cited Rio de Janeiro newspaper and other periodicals throughout Brazil, and a more detailed account in the 24 May 1952 issue of O Cruzeiro weekly magazine.

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International News Service dispatch in Dario da Noite newspaper, dated 8 May 1952, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Raymond Andrew Keller II The second INS dispatch by Joao Martins declared that on Friday, 9 May 1952, a military attaché at the United States Embassy in Rio de Janeiro got involved in this case. United States Air Force Colonel Jack Worley Hughes, in the company of Brazilian Air Force officials, paid a visit to the offices of the news magazine O Cruzeiro to examine and study the series of five photographs taken by Keffel of the flying saucer, as well as to interview the photographer and the journalist Joao Martins. Martins noted that at first glance, the object “looked like an airplane coming at us, while we were in the outskirts of Rio. As the contraption neared, however, it looked like a plane flying sideways.” Martins then added that, “As it approached even closer, it was definitely an object, perfectly round, wingless and absolutely noiseless.”

Colonel Hughes, upon hearing Martins’ rendition of the UFO incident, expressed a special interest in the noiseless feature of the flying saucer, as well as its tremendous speed. The colonel told the editors of O Cruzeiro, “Frankly, I have no doubts on the authenticity of the photos taken

by Keffel. There is no trick in them.”7 Despite the colonel’s vouching for the authenticity of the Keffel UFO photographs, Lorenzen was dismayed to discover that “generals of the blue-blooded, arm-chair Pentagon type”8 were now asserting that they were all fraudulent, just part of a publicity stunt carried out on orders from the editors of O Cruizeiro magazine, seeking an angle to boost circulation.

Lorenzen somehow managed to get hold of an actual set of these photographs. Speaking for APRO, the director declared that, “We have seen and examined the pictures of the Rio saucer; and they are the clearest photos giving exact detail as to physical characteristics. The side view, as the saucer came in from the sea, showed a knob on top as if it were the cabin, another circular raised portion encircling the entire object, the rim or airfoil, and another circular protuberance on the bottom.”9 Lorenzen followed up by contacting a member of APRO engaged in aerodynamic research and involved in certain TOP SECRET experimental work for the United States government. This expert, who preferred to maintain anonymity because of his sensitive employment, provided APRO with a sketch of the object, which is reproduced here. He declared his opinion that, “The object in the drawing and the original pictures would be aerodynamically feasible.”10 The diligent APRO member and researcher even went further and built a small mahogany model of the Rio saucer that the Lorenzens hung from the chandelier of their home office that was serving as the headquarters for all organizational activities. Coral Lorenzen said that when she and her husband open the window to this room, the model “swings and sways with the breeze off Sturgeon Bay and is a graceful, but weird sight, to say the least.” This sketch of the Rio flying saucer that appeared in the September An interesting aspect of this case is an oblique connection to 1952 issue of the APRO Bulletin George Adamski. Following the successful public reception of was provided by an APRO member and specialist in aerodynamic their Tijuca Beach story, the team of Keffel and Martins would design.

International News Service dispatch in Dario da Noite newspaper, dated 9 May 1952, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Coral Lorenzen, update on Rio de Janeiro saucer sighted 7 May 1952, APRO Bulletin, September 1952, vol. 1, no. 2, page 4, Box 358, Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin 9 Coral Lorenzen, “Recent Sightings,” APRO Bulletin, July 1952, vol. 1, no. 1, Box 358, Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin 10 Coral Lorenzen, Op cit.

7 8

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Flying Saucers and the Venus Legacy go on to write many more articles about the UFO situation on a global scale for O Cruzeiro.

One of the more important events they covered was the flying saucer convention held at the Skyline Lodge on the slopes of Mt. Palomar, California, on the 7-8 August 1954.11 The featured speakers were the prominent contactees George Adamski, Truman Bethurum and Daniel Fry. At the assembly, quite a stir was caused by the presence there of three persons, one young lady and two young men, believed to be Venusians by many in attendance insofar as the woman, Dolores Barrios, looked remarkably like a painting unveiled by Adamski of the Venusian flying saucer pilot called Orthon, who he claimed that he had talked to standing outside a Venusian scout ship that landed in the Mojave Desert back on 20 November 1952. All three remained aloof throughout the convention. Despite their shyness, Martins was able to interview Dolores Barrios and her two male companions, Donald Morand and Bill Jackmart, on 7 August 1952 at the convention; and on the following day, with the conclusion of the event at noon, Keffel was able to take a series of photos of the mysterious Dolores Barrios and her escorts standing along a tree line at the edge of the Skyline Lodge parking lot. A swarm of bees besieged those curiosity seekers streaming down a hill into the parking lot, coming after the trio. The bees kept the throng at bay long enough for Keffel to snap the now famous photographs of the “Venusian trio” before Dolores and her posse dematerialized in a luminous column of ionized air. For a more detailed history of Dolores Barrios and her friends Morand and Jackmart, in addition to viewing other never-before-published photographs of her at other locations in Southern California, some with myself, please check out my three books in the Venus Rising trilogy.

It now becomes clear that Martins and Keffel had their contacts in the American ufology community with Coral and Jim Lorenzen at APRO, who were also friends of George Adamski. Over the years, the Lorenzens’ connections with Brazilian ufologists would only intensify, with Brazil becoming the locus of APRO’s attention in the Western Hemisphere. Coral and Jim Lorenzen even wrote a groundbreaking book about UFO sightings and encounters with flying saucer occupants in our neighboring countries to the south, UFOs Over the Americas (New York, New York: Signet, 1968), which also highlights the involvement of the Central Intelligence Agency in the UFO cover-up in Latin America.

Intelligent Life on Other Planets Besides the proliferation of flying saucer and UFO articles in mainstream publications, such as Life and Look, Coral Lorenzen took note that the subject was also catching on mightily along the fringes of pop culture, i.e. in science fiction novels, the tabloid press, men’s magazines, etc.

As odd as it seemed in the early 1950s, it was the outlying currents of the pop culture that would carry a consciousness of the flying saucer occupants as interplanetary emissaries to the fore in the emerging contactee movement, largely focused in Southern California. This, of course, would lead to a plethora of science fiction movies being produced in Hollywood that were subconsciously addressing the dire issues brought forth in the Cold War as well as the implications that any possible extraterrestrial disclosure would have on the future of American society in the atomic and space ages. Lorenzen, for her part, was greatly impressed with an article buried in the August 1952 issue of Man to Man, “There is Life on Other Planets,” authored by Leslie Lawrence (New York, New York: Volitant Publishing). She highly recommended that all APRO members go out and secure a copy of the August issue of Man to Man, then just hitting 11 Joao Martins, with Ed Keffel, photographer, “Discos Voladores,” O Cruzeiro, 16 October 1954, pertinent pages seen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUdCl2n-DWI.

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Raymond Andrew Keller II the newsstands, insofar as it completely embodied her vision of the cosmic powers behind the flying saucer phenomenon and the direction, along scientific lines of exobiology, where she wanted to steer APRO.12 Here are some of the excerpts from Lawrence’s article that Lorenzen felt were of significant import for the APRO membership: “Fred Hoyle, scientist at Cambridge University in England, states that there are at least 100,000 planets capable of supporting life such as we know it within our Milky Way….

“No recognized scientists have denied the existence of flying saucers. Reports of these vehicles were hushed only by official government agencies. Leading astronomers advance the following theory: Human civilizations exist elsewhere on planets similar to Earth. On older planets, this civilization is vastly superior to ours. There, human beings, much in appearance such as we are, have undoubtedly learned to live in peace; and to preserve their peace they have approached Earth in flying saucers in an effort to assure the safety of our futures. Until now they have failed. But some day they will arrive in sufficient numbers and they will force us to be sane.

Scientists welcome this strange invasion. They do so for one important reason: They realize our need for the lesson that has already been learned on some other world.”

The revolutionary and visionary perspective of Coral Lorenzen saw a wider role for the enlightened membership of APRO in developing a more expansive and planetary consciousness in the world at large. I am proud to have been a member of APRO and to have known and worked with such APRO luminaries as Coral and Jim Lorenzen, Krsanna Duran of the Timestar website, Dr. James E. McDonald of the University of Arizona at Tucson, Earl J. Neff, Director of the Cleveland Ufology Project and Ohio APRO Representative; Dr. Frank Salisbury of Utah State University and Dr. Leo Sprinkle, now professor emeritus of the University of Wyoming at Laramie, who wrote the introduction to my first book in the Venus trilogy, Venus Rising: A Concise History of the Second Planet (Terra Alta, West Virginia: Headline Books, 2015).

Turning Tide

Dr. Donald H. Menzel (1901-1976), Harvard astronomer “Revenge of the Nerd”

Beginning in the summer of 1952, Coral Lorenzen, Director of the Aerial Phenomena Research Organization (APRO) in Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin, remained perplexed over a series of statements made by Dr. Donald H. Menzel, the famed astronomer and astrophysicist serving as the then Acting Director of the Harvard University Observatory in Cambridge, Massachusetts, to the effect that there was nothing of note to be gained from any study of the so-called “flying saucers” appearing in our skies. In the midst of a huge flying saucer flap gripping the nation, Menzel came out with an article in the 17 June 1952 issue of Look magazine dismissing the majority of extant UFO reports as the result of unusual atmospheric conditions that could produce “saucer-like light inversions.”13 Menzel thought that all UFO reports could easily be explained in the context of misinterpretations of atmospheric or astronomical phenomena, the misidentification of conventional

12 Coral Lorenzen, general commentary, APRO Bulletin, July 1952, vol. 1, no. 1, Box 358, Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin, page 9.

13 Look magazine, biweekly from Des Moines, Iowa, published 1937-1971.

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Flying Saucers and the Venus Legacy aircraft, or just outright hallucinations or maybe even hoaxes. There were no substantial reasons for astronomers to believe that life existed on other planets, let alone that alien life forms were visiting the Earth in flying saucers.

In the Look magazine article, Menzel asked, “Why have so many civilized individuals taken such an uncivilized attitude toward flying saucers?”

To this, Lorenzen opined that, “He (Menzel) was assuming that the system of mechanized barbarism which constitutes the world’s way of life is civilized.” She added that, “He also assumes by that question that the obvious explanation, that the flying saucers are interplanetary and controlled or manned by a superior intelligence, is an uncivilized attitude.”

The APRO director clarified her remarks, noting that, “Pages of newsprint could be used to disprove Menzel’s theory; but being that it is not worth the time or effort, let the following suffice: Menzel’s light inversions do not account for flying lights (Gorman case); New Mexico’s green fireballs, double-decked ships trailing flames (Chiles-Whitted case); and hundreds of saucers with a red leader (Farmington, New Mexico, case); and that’s just naming a few.”14 Lorenzen wondered what was really going on in academic circles. In the 1 July 1952 issue of Look, members of the Air Force were interviewed who clearly left the idea that some flying saucer reports, like the ones noted above, could very well be representative of a type of extraterrestrial technology. These interviewed Air Force personnel created the impression that the government planned on slowly educating the public to the idea that the flying saucers were manned or remote-controlled vehicles from outer space, but not coming out with a direct disclosure until such a time as the planet of origin of these objects could be determined, as well as the intentions of the extraterrestrials in conducting their surveillance of our planet. What the APRO director did not know, at the time, was that Menzel opted not to become the director of the Harvard Observatory because he was already fully committed to working with the United States Navy on a TOP SECRET project in improving radio wave propagation by tracking the Sun’s emissions and studying the effect of the aurora on radio propagation for the Department of Defense. He continued with this project until 1955, when he resumed the directorship of the Observatory until 1966.15 Whereas the airmen were basically stating their personal opinions, Menzel was working on a lucrative government contract and needed to be quite circumspect in anything he said about flying saucers or any other subject reflecting national security concerns.

Amazing Spider-Man Moving on to the 9 September 1952 issue of Look magazine, correspondent Chester Morrison does a follow-up piece on the flying saucer phenomenon, interviewing the eminent Dr. Donald H. Menzel. In this article, Morrison upholds Menzel’s debunking theory, that being that the UFOs aren’t really “unidentified,” but easily identified in the context of being “any one of several explainable natural phenomena and definitely not of extraterrestrial origin.” In a rather creepy but quixotic turn of events, Menzel illustrates his theory with an experiment using cobwebs that reflect sunlight to create eerie saucer lighting patterns on the wall of his Harvard basement laboratory. He even allowed Morrison to take a photograph of his pet spider who collaborates with the professor in conducting his web ventures. Do you suppose Peter Parker was anywhere on campus at the time, covering the story for the Daily Bugle?

14 Coral Lorenzen, “The Saucer Bandwagon,” APRO Bulletin, July 1952, vol. 1, no. 1, Box 358, Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin, pages 1 and 9.

15 L. G. Boyd and Donald H. Menzel, World of Flying Saucers: A Scientific Examination of a Major Myth of the Space Age (New York, New York: Doubleday, 1963), 5.

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Raymond Andrew Keller II

Cartoon by Coral Lorenzen chides Dr. Donald H. Menzel, the prime UFO skeptic, on page five of the September 1952 APRO Bulletin.

Our friendly neighborhood Spider-Man’s antics did not go unnoticed overseas, however, for Dr. Frank B. Crane of Frankfurt, Germany, took Menzel to task in a rebutting article that appeared in an unspecified issue of the Sioux City, Iowa, Journal, published sometime in midto-late September 1952 and referenced by Lorenzen in the September 1952 issue of the APRO Bulletin.16 According to Lorenzen, “Crane believes Menzel finds it too easy believing things which he can prove no more easily or thoroughly than the ordinary, uneducated man. Crane cited the Link (sic) sighting in Germany, and admitted that although he had been almost indifferent to saucers previous to that, he began to sit up and take notice after hearing about it.”17 The following page explains how you can access an exact copy of an “unevaluated” document from the archives of the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). This referenced document comes from that section of the CIA that works with “military and scientific information from foreign documents or radio broadcasts,” as indicated on the first page banner letterhead and subject line. This is important to keep in mind, because Coral Lorenzen was probably as close as she was going to get, at that time, to the heart of the vast UFO conspiracy.

Of course, Lorenzen was perturbed by Dr. Donald H. Menzel’s gnawing skepticism, undermining the credibility of the extraterrestrial hypothesis for the flying saucers wherever he spoke or whenever he wrote an article. But little did she realize Menzel’s key role in the then relatively new but TOP SECRET machinations of the flying saucer cover-up taking place behind the backs of millions of Americans.

Please open I. Kithirmerini, CIA Report 00-w-23682, dated 23 August 1952, based on report from an Athens, Greece, newspaper about the flying saucer encounter of an East German defector when he lived behind the Iron Curtain: https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/DOC_0000015464.pdf.

16 Coral Lorenzen, “The Saucer Bandwagon,” APRO Bulletin, vol. 1, no. 2, Box 358, Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin, page 4.

17 This refers to Oscar Linke’s flying saucer sighting in East Germany. A report on the Linke observation is archived in the files of the United States Central Intelligence Agency.

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Flying Saucers and the Venus Legacy Menzel’s Real Agenda With the passing of time, we have come to realize that the astronomer Menzel played a key role in the United States government’s great flying saucer conspiracy since its very inception.

Menzel, a hardcore, “nuts-and-bolts” expert in the physical sciences of astronomy and astrophysics, was called upon in 1951 by the director of the Psychological Strategy Board (PSB), a special committee under the auspices of the Executive Branch, to serve as an initial consulting member and advocate for skepticism concerning the existence of genuine UFOs. The PSB was formed on 4 April 1951, during the Truman administration, and was composed of the Under Secretary of State, the Deputy Secretary of Defense, and the Director of Central Intelligence, or their designated representatives. The board’s first director was Gordon Gray, later National Security Advisor during the Eisenhower administration.18 While it had only been four years since the civilian pilot Kenneth Arnold reported nine disc-like objects zooming over Mt. Rainier in Washington State like “saucers were skipping across water,” and thus inaugurating the age of the “flying saucers,” the phenomenon had already attained a worldwide scope and interest.

The PSB was originally created to carry out psychological warfare against the Soviet Union and its communist satellite countries. The PSB defined psychological warfare as “any nonmilitary action which influenced public opinion or the foreign policy and national security interests of the United States.” This included, but was not limited to, the creation of propaganda designed to foster trade and economic aid; cultural and educational exchange; threats to use force, where deemed appropriate by the Executive Branch of the United States; generating peaceful diplomacy; and of course, shaping minds to downplay the subject of UFOs as mere “science fiction,” having nothing to do with anything in the real universe. The inclusion of UFOs under the prevue of the PSB was probably due to the national security aspects evident in the phenomenon. Any significant advancement in Soviet aerospace technology might be quickly obtained through the analysis of some UFO reports. In addition, there were some indications in the mass of contactee reports that visiting extraterrestrials might have their point of origin on a planet organized along communist lines, some sort of collectivized society hundreds or maybe thousands of years in advance of our own.

Cultural memes against the existence of flying saucers were generated through the creation of various “buzzwords,”19 such as branding the witnesses of UFOs as “crazy” or the contactees with the flying saucer occupants as “delusional” or “hoaxers.” After President Dwight D. Eisenhower was sworn into office in January 1953, the PSB was integrated into the Operations Coordinating Board (OCB) of the Central Intelligence Agency, where the group organized and dispatched psychological warfare operatives at home and abroad. Throughout his life, Menzel remained a government consultant and spokesperson on all matters that were UFO and exobiology-related in sundry capacities within the PSB-OCB organizational hierarchy.20 18 Office of the Historian, Foreign Relations 1964-1968, Volume XXVI, Indonesia; Malaysia-Singapore; Philippines: Note on United States Covert Action Programs (Washington, D.C.: United States Department of State, information released online from 20 January 2001 to 20 January 2009. See https://2001-2009.state.gov/r/pa/ho/frus/johnsonlb/xxvi/4440.htm (Retrieved 9 June 2020).

19 John Prados, Safe for Democracy: The Secret Wars of the CIA (Chicago, Illinois: Ivan R. Dee, 2006), 150.

20 Coinciding with his consultancy on UFO matters, Menzel also served as a United States Department of State consultant on Latin American affairs from 1964 until his death. One of the PSB-OCB missions was to coordinate the transmission of anti-communist radio programs through the Voice of America to Latin American countries. Menzel, with his expertise in radio engineering and the propagation of radio waves, must have been an outstanding asset in this regard.

He would have also been in an opportune position to intercept UFO information coming out of Latin America as well as to filter information on the UFO enigma emanating from the United States, thus keeping groups like APRO, with strong Central and South American connections, in check. See Michael Nelson, War of the Black Heavens: Battles of Western

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Raymond Andrew Keller II Menzel was noted as the world’s foremost skeptic in those early days of ufology. He went on to write three books about UFOs: Flying Saucers (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1953); World of Flying Saucers: Scientific Examination of a Major Myth of the Space Age (New York, New York: Doubleday, 1963), co-authored with Lyle G. Boyd; and UFO Enigma: Definitive Explanation of the UFO Phenomenon (New York, New York: Doubleday, 1977); this latter book co-authored by Ernest H. Taves. In all three of these books, the Harvard astronomer argues that all UFO sightings can ultimately be explained as nothing more than the misidentification of prosaic aerial phenomena such as airplanes, clouds, planets or stars. Usually, according to Menzel, these conventional objects are seen through the haze of “unusual atmospheric phenomena” that they normally would not be acquainted with. Menzel was the frequent guest on many of the prominent radio and television interview programs of the 1950s and 1960s, and is counted among the first to pooh-pooh the entire flying saucer phenomenon as a “myth of the space age.”

Being the director of an observatory and the Harvard University Department of Astronomy, Menzel’s eyes were frequently focused on the heavens. Therefore, it should not come as any surprise that Menzel has seen his share of the so-called “UFOs.” One of his more spectacular sightings took place while he was onboard an Air Force weather patrol plane on one of that agency’s regular “Ptarmigan” flights over the North Pole. The date was 3 March 1955. The entire crew became highly agitated, witnessing a flying saucer out the starboard side of the airplane.

Menzel took a look at the object and immediately deduced that it was not a flying saucer, but a mirage of the ringed planet Saturn, as it was being projected through a dense, atmospheric haze.

Such temperature inversions could distort the image of stars or planets, making them appear to be larger than they really are, i.e. unusual in their shape, and in their apparent motion. Naturally, Saturn with its rings might easily assume the shape of a typical flying saucer.

For Menzel, it was apparent that his access to insider information from the CIA, PSB-OCB and other agencies of the United States government, gave him a totally different perspective on the UFO phenomenon than what his public persona projected.

Interestingly, in his off-duty hours, Menzel was an accomplished writer of science fiction stories. He wrote and even illustrated several stories for Galaxy in the mid-1960s, a popular science fiction magazine published by World Editions in New York City, New York, from 1950 to 1980. His articles and water colors featured alien creatures and spaceships, as well as humans and exCover art by Dr. Donald H. Menzel traterrestrials passing through inter-dimensional star gates. Peron September 1969 issue of Galaxy science fiction magazine. His haps this was some small way in which he could get out of the fictional art and writing expressed more truth than all three of his UFO straight jacket he was forced into by the powers-that-be, thereby books and many articles on UFOs in dropping a hint to the public-at-large that of the truth that is purely scientific journals. waiting to be discovered in outer space.

Broadcasting in the Cold War (Syracuse, New York: Syracuse University Press, 1997), for more detailed information on the Voice of America.

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Flying Saucers and the Venus Legacy Counterbalance Lorenzen had no idea of the emerging power of the vast flying saucer conspiracy she was up against, just what agencies were behind Dr. Donald H. Menzel’s push against the extraterrestrial hypothesis for the origin of the UFOs suddenly populating our skies in such large numbers since the summer of 1947. The APRO director took note of an editorial appearing on the possibility of intelligent alien life in the pages of the Green Bay, Wisconsin, Press-Gazette newspaper, date unspecified. The editorial writer concluded that because we, as a human species, are still in the process of progressing, then beings of other worlds could have progressed to the point where travel in space is already realized, instead of a mere dream, as it is with us Earthlings.21 Apparently, the drumbeat of Menzel and the other skeptics was already catching on in the extant news media of the early 1950s. The Ottawa, Illinois, Daily Republican newspaper of 6 August 1952 carried a notice that it was henceforth going to “ban all news of flying saucers;” and it even encouraged the editorial boards of other newspapers to take similar actions. Lorenzen wrote a letter of complaint to the editorial staff of the Daily Republican, arguing that the arrival of extraterrestrial visitors on our planet would be the biggest news event in the history of the world, since God parted the Red Sea and allowed the Israelites to cross over to freedom from the wicked Egyptian pharaoh. It would be such a shame for any newspaper to lose a scoop on the first case of public extraterrestrial contact and disclosure.

Mt. Palomar Revelations Perhaps the biggest UFO revelation wasn’t that far off. In the September 1952 issue of Sir, a man’s magazine, Dr. R. S. Richardson, an astronomer from the Mt. Palomar Observatory in Southern California, mused about the possible physical characteristics of beings from other planets in our solar system, particularly Mars.22 Lorenzen commented that the article, “Meet the Men from Mars,” was “well written, and well thought out beforehand.” Lorenzen went on to declare that “We (of APRO) believe as Richardson believes that beings from other planets will be very much like we humans.”23 Green Monster It was a Saturday night, 13 September 1952 that the course of UFO investigations forever changed. Up until that time, the case was being made by Coral Lorenzen, the Director of APRO, Original drawing by New York sketch artist of monster seen by multiple that the flying saucer occupants looked very much like we huon mountain ridge in Braxton man beings, hailing from an extraterrestrial civilization that witnesses County, West Virginia, 12 September arose on a planet having evolved under similar environmen1952. Source: Flatwoods Monster Main Street, Sutton, West tal conditions as those that existed all along Earth’s biological, Museum, 208Virginia 26601. developmental history. For on that night, Mrs. Kathleen May of Flatwoods, West Virginia, along with her three children, two other neighboring youths, and National Guardsman Gene Lemon, climbed a hill to the immediate northwest of the nearby rural community of Sutton, West Virginia, attempting to get a good view of an alleged flying 21 Coral Lorenzen, “The Saucer Bandwagon,” APRO Bulletin, vol. 1, no. 2, Box 358, Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin, page 4.

22 R. S. Richardson, “Meet the Men from Mars,” Sir, September 1952, Volitant Publishing Company, New York, New York.

23 Coral Lorenzen, Op cit.

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Raymond Andrew Keller II saucer that had crashed into this densely wooded area. The guardsman, having a flashlight, led the way through the brush, up a mountain path. After the party crossed over the peak of the mountain to the farther side, they found that the area was still smoldering from an apparent fire, but saw no alleged flying saucer. What they did see was a “monster, ten feet high, four feet wide, with bulging eyes a foot apart; sweaty, blood-red face, and a green, glowing body.”

When Lemon shone his flashlight on the creature, it slowly started toward them in a floating, bouncing motion. The whole group became hysterical, panicked and fled the area, abandoning any previous notion of remaining in the vicinity and looking for the saucer. When they got back to Mrs. May’s Flatwoods home, Lemon used her residential telephone to call the West Virginia State Police and report the incident the frightened party had just experienced up on the mountain. After Lemon finished with his brief rendition of the incident, Mrs. May picked up the telephone and added that the mysterious being made a “hissing noise” as it moved and seemed to be emitting a “sickening, metallic odor.” Following this horrific encounter, Mrs. May calmed down her children as best she could, putting them to bed until a doctor showed up along with the state police to check them out. The guardsman watched over the neighbor’s children and escorted them home after the state police took their testimony and the doctor checked them out as well.24 The second issue of the APRO Bulletin, published on 15 September 1952, ran this exclusive “Green Monster” article on its first page. The incident took place only two days before the editorial board of the APRO Bulletin had put their issue “to bed,” as they say in the world of journalism.25 This meant that all copy was edited and ready for publication. The information in the article came directly from the former high school English instructor and Clarksburg, West Virginia, drive-in movie operator Gray Barker, who was then working with the Connecticut ufologist Albert K. Bender, Director of the International Flying Saucer Bureau (IFSB), as an associate editor of that group’s Space Review newsletter. Barker was the first ufologist on the scene to have investigated the creature that has since come to be known as the “Flatwoods Monster,” so the APRO Bulletin’s reporting of the incident even trumped that of the West Virginia local newspapers.

For Lorenzen and the APRO hierarchy, the existence of the Flatwoods Monster created new paradigms for looking at the nature of the flying saucer occupants. Previously, the APRO director expressed a belief in extraterrestrial life as needing to be akin to “life as we know it,” here on Earth. In other words, it has to be readily identifiable as humanoid in appearance. But now more possibilities were opening up. Surely, the number of different types of beings visiting our world would no longer be limited to coming from planets possessed of limiting life-sustaining conditions and parameters. Extraterrestrial life need not be humanoid, or even carbon-based.

And in some cases, the ufonauts may prove to be something other than purely physical, i.e. they might be inter-dimensional, robotic or even synthetically-produced life forms. And then there always remained that sneaking idea that the flying saucer occupants may in some way be connected to the occult realms. Perhaps they hold some linkage to angels, demons, ghosts or sundry other types of so-called “spiritual phenomena.” It was a whole new ball game.

24 Coral Lorenzen, “Green Monster,” APRO Bulletin, Vol. 1, No. 2, September 1952, P.O. Box 358, Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin 25 APRO Bulletin staff consisted of Coral Lorenzen, APRO National Director and Editor; Ronald Larsen, Assistant Editor; with assistance from Jack Moody, APRO Vice President; Richard Haislet, APRO Secretary and W. T. Hagen, APRO Treasurer. APRO members from around the globe served as correspondents.

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Flying Saucers and the Venus Legacy Frank Scully and the “Little Men” One of the premier books on flying saucers as manned extraterrestrial vehicles in the early years of ufology was Frank Scully’s Behind the Flying Saucers (New York, New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1950). In the book, Scully provides an account of an alleged flying saucer that crashed atop a desert mesa about twelve miles northeast of Aztec, New Mexico, on 25 March 1948, whence the UFO debris and the remains of the dead bodies of its alien crew were recovered and transported to various TOP Earthlings fear what they do not understand. A SECRET government facilities for further analysis. Venusian observation patrol craft crashed near Aztec, Frank Scully (1892-1964), was a regular columnist New Mexico, on 25 March 1948. See https://www. for the Los Angeles, California, entertainment jour- popscreen.com/prod/MTYyNjA1MjUz/Behind-TheFlying-Saucers-Hardback-by-Frank-Scully-1950. nal, Variety, at the time he wrote the flying saucer epic. According to Scully, what the United States government learned about the saucer and its occupants could be summed up as follows: 1. The saucer was approximately 100 feet in diameter and operated in accordance with “magnetic principles.”

2. The occupants were human in appearance, although slightly shorter than the average American. Various experts contracted by the government speculated that the aliens most likely hailed from our nearest planetary neighbor, Venus.

Two years after the publication of Scully’s controversial Behind the Flying Saucers, a reporter for the San Francisco, California, Chronicle, John Philip Cahn, looked into the case and wrote an extensive article about it in the September 1952 issue of True magazine.26 This article caught the eye of Coral Lorenzen’s husband, Jim, who took Cahn to task in the September 1952 issue of the APRO Bulletin.27 Jim L. vehemently disagrees with Cahn because, “Somehow, somewhere along the way, Cahn decided to embark on a voyage of character assassination” when it came to writing about the backgrounds of Frank Scully and the two expert personalities whom Scully interviewed while originally investigating the saucer crash, instead of the details of the actual incident that took place out on that remote New Mexico mesa four years previously.

Jim L. writes, “Instead of showing that proofs of this report do not exist, he (Cahn) tried to demonstrate that Scully’s alleged proofs are not reliable. These are two entirely different propositions.” Jim L. further states that he has personally seen “some corroboration of Scully’s main thesis,”28 although he would not recommend that Scully’s or anyone else’s book be relied on as 26 J. P. Cahn, “Flying Saucers and the Mysterious Little Men,” True, September 1952, New York City, New York 27 Jim Lawrence (pen name for Jim Lorenzen), “How True is True?” APRO Bulletin, Vol. 1, No. 2, P. O. Box 358, Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin 28 For the testimony of Dr. George C. Tyler, the President of the Colorado Shale and Metal Company, based in Denver, whom the United States government contracted a huge crane and heavy equipment to transport the saucer out of the Aztec crash site and over to Los Alamos Laboratories; his correspondence with Sir Desmond Leslie, the premier English ufologist, attesting to the reality of the crashed saucer at Aztec; as well as the first-hand accounts of the incident by some of the police officers, soldiers and civilians who were at the crash site; in addition to an interview with Dr. Baron Nicholas Von Pappen, the Lithuanian refugee who took photos of the saucer and its interior at the Los Alamos research facility at the behest of the government, please see “Chapter VI: The Real X-Files,” in my second book of the Venus Rising trilogy, Final Countdown: Rockets to Venus (Terra Alta, West Virginia: Headline Books, 2017). Another excellent resource regarding this incident is Scott Ramsey, Suzanne Ramsey and Dr. Frank Thayer’s Aztec UFO Incident (Wayne,

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Raymond Andrew Keller II the “Bible of Saucerianism.”

Jim L. considered True to be an objective publication when it came to reporting on flying saucers in the past. “By and large,” he penned, “we (the members of APRO) consider the general attitude of the True magazine a healthy one, containing less than the usual amount of journalistic bigotry. The policy of reporter Cahn is another matter, however. We would find his alleged facts and conclusions much more palatable if he did not constantly garnish them with cute-type aspersions concerning the personal habits of his villains, namely Scully, Newton29 and GeBauer.”30 Jim L. provides a jesting conclusion, “These villains are all neurotic paranoiacs while each interviewee who supported this theory was an honest, stable, respectable, red-blooded American-type individual. Of course, anyone who constantly inserts the word ‘see’ into his conversation for no apparent reason can’t be trusted. Anyone who has seen a Hollywood gangster picture knows that, see?”

George Adamski and Leftist Politics George Adamski was a member of APRO and concerned about the political direction the group was taking. In a letter to Coral Lorenzen and the APRO Board of Directors dated 6 August 1952, Adamski expressed two objections about APRO: Its staunch anti-communist position and its militant rhetoric.

Its propagation of rumors in the expanding circle of flying saucer enthusiasts worldwide.

Of his first objection, Adamski wrote, “Your constitution is very fine, with one exception, which I quote, ‘Communists, parlor pinks, or fellow travelers….’31 This is bad phrasing for any organization to use; for do you know that Frank Scully has been called a ‘pink?’ And many great souls in the world have been called that because they were misunderstood in their statements.

“In place of your communist, etcetera, why don’t you put the following in? It will take care of all that: “The organization should not support any phase of thought which would have a tendency to undermine its members, its society, its nation or any other nation, be it of this world or another.”

Lorenzen stated that for her part, she did not consider this a valid objection because there was nothing in the APRO Constitution that was singling out any specific individual and labeling her or him as a communist, parlor pink or fellow traveler. She did concede in the September 1952, APRO Bulletin editorial, however, that, “We consider the assertion that misunderstanding leads to false accusations a good point. Witness the fact that the Professor apparently misunderstood our intentions in including the qualification concerning ‘pinks.’” She further declared that, “Our comment is this: Our wording was purposely crude, blunt and to the point. We don’t want to play footsies with anyone who would attempt to use our organization for subversive purposes. We’ve given them fair warning. Could we do no more?”

She then proceeded to criticize Adamski’s proposed substitution: “An organization like ours will always attract a certain number of phonies. Any member who attempts to perpetuate a fraud in our name or dangle red herrings in our collective path is not welcome. We would support a phase of thought which would undermine such a member.”

New Jersey: New Page Books, 2016).

29 Silas Mason Newton, Denver oil executive 30 Leo A. GeBauer, scientist referred to by Scully as the mysterious “Dr. Gee” 31 Adamski was referring to Article Nine in the APRO Constitution.

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Flying Saucers and the Venus Legacy Up to this time Adamski had only received telepathic communications from various extraterrestrials. However, the perceptions he received from them and conveyed to the public in his speeches and writings seemed to provide some indications that the economic and political structure of their interplanetary societies developed along collective and communal lines, somewhat akin to “socialism,” in a general sense. Given the intense anti-communist feelings that were engendered during this period of the Cold War between the United States and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, it is not unreasonable that Lorenzen and the APRO Board of Directors were enacting measures to limit the infiltration of communist and socialist ideology on many levels. To her credit, though, Lorenzen did leave the matter of an amendment to Article Nine of the APRO Constitution open with respect to the aforementioned wording and actively solicited the membership’s comments.

Rampant Rumors George Adamski was also concerned about the proliferation of rumors generated in the APRO Bulletin’s “Grapevine” column. Of this section of the newsletter, Adamski considered it to be outright “slanderous.” In addressing this matter, Coral Lorenzen wrote, “I believe his (Adamski’s) reaction stems mainly from his misinterpretation of the abbreviation SF that was used in the second part of the Grapevine. Its intended meaning was SCIENCE FICTION. However, in the Professor’s interpretation, a science fiction magazine became a San Francisco magazine; and as a result, it appeared that a personal friend of his was unjustly accused.”

In the July 1952 issue of the APRO Bulletin, under the Grapevine column, Coral Lorenzen wrote: “The old axiom, ‘Where there’s smoke, there’s fire’ is our reason for including the Grapevine in the APRO Bulletin. Many rumors regarding the saucers have come to our ears; and sometimes rumors can be more interesting than actual facts.

“For instance, the rumor that the editor of an SF magazine is in contact with space spies, and because of this, is under constant surveillance by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), is an interesting tidbit.32 Our informant, a well-known man in his vicinity, asserts that this is true, and that said editor will soon have his personal freedom greatly curtailed. One indication that this may be partly true is that there has been a large influx of saucer sightings in the vicinity of that editor’s home town since he moved to that location. Of course, names cannot be given for obvious reasons. We are checking.”33 Lorenzen understood why Adamski was upset, and quotes the contactee in his letter of complaint to APRO headquarters: “The man is not a space spy. This is slander, if anything. I am sorry to see your first bulletin come out with the slander of an individual…. Therefore, I believe that your Grapevine, which is rumor, should not be in the bulletin. For a rumor most always leads to malicious action; and if we want the truth, rumors should not be supported.”

Lorenzen found it somewhat difficult to reconcile Adamski’s allegations with the facts on hand, especially since the rumor of the space spy first came to APRO’s attention through Adamski himself in a letter dated 1 April 1952. Lorenzen explained that she justified the existence 32 I believe that the science fiction editor referred to here by Coral Lorenzen was none other than Raymond A. Palmer, the editor of the well-known Other Worlds and Fate periodicals in 1952, published out of Amherst, Wisconsin. Since the late 1940s, Palmer had launched an all-out campaign against atomic testing in all publications under his prevue, alerting the public to the dangers of radiation fallout. Fred Nadis, Raymond A. Palmer’s biographer, writes in Man from Mars (New York, New York: Penguin, 2013), page 202, that “Palmer’s criticism of militarization left him vulnerable to the era’s Communist hunters….” Nadis provides substantial proof of this allegation, demonstrating how the FBI continually harassed Palmer and maintained a constant surveillance of his publishing activities.

33 Coral Lorenzen, “Grapevine,” APRO Bulletin, July 1952, P. O. Box 358, Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin

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Raymond Andrew Keller II of the Grapevine column based on her belief that it was better to pin down a rumor to spike or verify it than to let it fly around unchecked. She felt that, “Spiking a false rumor contributes as much to the truth as the verification of a true one.” Also, she took into account that the absolute exclusion of all material lacking conclusive verification from the APRO Bulletin would result in the elimination of the bulletin itself. After all, the purpose of APRO was the eventual attainment of the same conclusive verification. Following up on rumors was just another way of getting at the truth.

The APRO director did agree that a “clarification of concept” was required with respect to the newsletter in light of Professor Adamski’s “constructive efforts.” To this end, Lorenzen declared that, “Beginning with this issue (Vol. 1, No. 2), no rumor or hearsay will be carried without the simultaneous inclusion of the channel through which the report reached us. This, we believe, will prevent our bulletin from being used by anyone as an organ of vicious, malicious or idle gossip. In the case of a confidential source, the reasons for requesting confidential status will be carefully weighed and no information will be carried that could reasonably be considered slanderous or libelous toward any individual.”

She cited the example of a Reserve airman who reported seeing the space suits of extraterrestrial astronauts in a hangar at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio, when he had been on active duty and where such a policy would be followed. In this case, the disclosing of the airman’s name might jeopardize his position in any planned return to active service.34 It would also lend itself to severing APRO from what appeared to be a valuable source of information from inside the Air Force. The revelations of the airman certainly supported the contentions of Frank Scully, but attacked no one. Therefore, the story could be carried in the pages of the APRO Bulletin without “naming names,” so to speak.

“In closing this little treatise,” wrote Coral Lorenzen, “we (of APRO) wish to commend Professor Adamski for his sincere concern, and invite the comment of all members on this and other matters.”

Government insiders have long known the truth about flying saucers as interplanetary spaceships. See https://www. theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/04/us-military-wants-pilots-report-ufos-despite-stigma/588232/.

34 Continued in the next section, “Government Insiders,” this chapter.

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Flying Saucers and the Venus Legacy Government Insiders One of the more interesting government insider reports was brought to light in the pages of the APRO Bulletin35 by an anonymous young man, formerly of the United States Air Force, who in September 1952 was serving in the Air Force Reserves but planning on reenlisting for active duty soon to finish his military career in the United States Army. He presented his article in person to Coral Lorenzen, APRO Director, and a corroborating witness, who remained unidentified.36 The airman’s report follows: “In November of 1949, I was on my way to the West Coast to see my mother, who was ill. I went by way of Wright-Patterson field and had a three-hour layover there. Upon arriving at the field, I met a long-time friend of mine then stationed at Wright-Patterson. One of the current topics of the day was flying saucers; and I displayed my skepticism when he mentioned them.

“My friend became pretty disgusted with me, and got a pass to take me to a certain building at the field. He said, ‘I’ll prove to you that saucers are real. They are interplanetary spaceships, and manned by human beings.’ Of course, I laughed at him; but I went along. He took me to the building and showed me a number of suits which were similar to the apparel worn by jet pilots.

They were thick, and green in color. The helmets that went with them were similar to divers’ helmets. I was also shown diagrams of the saucers that showed that the ships carried oxygen, and gave information as to the location of the controls, showing that the cabin of the ship was round.

“The funny thing about the suits was that they were in sizes ranging from what a two-yearold child would wear up to the size that would fit a six to six-and-a-half- foot tall man. I don’t remember how many suits there were. Three, I think.”

Coral Lorenzen questioned the Reserve airman closely, attempting to trip him up on his story. For instance, she asked him how he could have gotten in to see these artifacts when they were all classified TOP SECRET; but he replied that the only thing he could figure out was that the “lid had not yet been put down” on it; and his friend had been working on the project. Also, the Reserve airman believed that his own military job classification while on active duty at that time may have lent the impression that he was somehow affiliated with the project and had a “need to know,” given that he was accompanied into the secure area by a authorized worker in that building. From the Reserve airman’s testimony, the APRO director concluded that since he made no reference to the “little men” story of the Hollywood journalist Frank Scully, he was not an ardent flying saucer enthusiast. His referring to the space suits as being tailored for “men of radically different sizes” gave his account a ring of truth. The color of the space suits did not jibe with the color of the suits in Scully’s rendition, either, which tended to make his story more credible, at least in the mind of Coral Lorenzen.

Whereas John P. Cahn’s scathing article in the September 1952 issue of True magazine, previously cited, cast serious doubt on the character of some of the key figures in Scully’s book, Coral Lorenzen could find no character flaws that gave any indication that the Reserve airman was lying. In her “Grapevine” column in the September 1952 issue of the APRO Bulletin (Vol. 1, No. 2), Lorenzen wrote: “He (the Reserve airman) had a steady look and was glad to tell his story. However, he stated over and over his wish to remain anonymous, because he has a good career coming up in the Army when he goes back on active duty; and if he were to be nailed 35 Coral Lorenzen, “Grapevine,” APRO Bulletin, Vol. 1, No. 2, September 1952.

36 Most likely it was Jim Lorenzen, Coral’s husband. –R.K.

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Raymond Andrew Keller II as giving out ‘classified’ information, it could very well be the end of his military career in his chosen field.”

Another insider revelation came to Coral Lorenzen’s attention through the auspices of a dependable business man who secured information through his son-in-law who, in 1949, attended the United States Army Institute of Technology at Tucson, Arizona, where he was called out with a group of scientists and instructors to examine a saucer that had crashed landed in the high desert country of New Mexico.37 According to this gentleman, the object he saw and examined was round like a saucer; and the only evidence that the scientists could find that would serve as a clue to its means of propulsion was a “ring of a series of magnets.” The metal of the ship was extremely hard and light. However, there were no bodies in the saucer. The businessman’s son-in-law had taken for granted that if there were any alien bodies in the saucer at the time it had crashed, they had been removed before the party of scientists had arrived at the scene. Coral said that the witness to this downed disk “must be kept secret because he is still in the service.”

Based on the analysis of crashed flying saucers retrieved by the Air Force, government-contracted scientists readily determined that their propulsion system was based on the harnessing of electromagnetic forces, much as Nikola Tesla had predicted that future aircraft would surely incorporate into their designs. During World War II, it seems that American scientists had already begun to make strides in this area. Of this, Frank Scully surmised that any blank spaces left in the development phases of an electromagnetic propulsion system were going to be filled in by the back-engineering of crashed disks. In Chapter 2 of Behind the Flying Saucers,38 Scully quoted Newton as declaring in his famous Denver, Colorado, lecture given on 8 March 1950 that, “They (the scientists) had come to the conclusion that everything existing owed its shape and being to magnetic lines of force. There are 1,257 such magnetic lines of force to the square centimeter.” Ufologists have long maintained the saucers are a type of scout craft that utilize these electromagnetic lines of force generated by the planet to power up and operate in our atmosphere or in the vicinity of the magnetic field generated by the larger carrier ships, when in outer space.

In the September 1952 APRO Bulletin “Grapevine” column, Lorenzen also relates a yarn spun by a man who claimed that he has two brothers working in the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) who told him that the flying saucers are interplanetary vehicles coming from Venus, Mars and Saturn. According to this gentleman, these interplanetary ships, when they land, burn off from the “rim of a circular rotator” an area two hundred feet in radius. He also noted that the flying saucer occupants never appear outside of their ships without their visors down.

In addition, these extraterrestrials look quite human in appearance, except for their eyes being “receded deeply into their skulls.” He also maintained that some of the “green fireballs” reported over military installations in the United States and abroad, were actually manned orbs conducting reconnaissance missions on behalf of an alleged “Confederation of Planets” that has prevue over our solar system.

The APRO director, after hearing this strange account, consulted a Wisconsin medical doctor as to what kind of evolutionary factor would cause the recession of the eyes into the sockets.

The doctor didn’t believe there was any biological process that would push the evolution of the human species in that physical direction. However, he did note that any corpse, after two or 37 Coral Lorenzen, Op cit.

38 Frank Scully, Behind the Flying Saucers (New York, New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1950)

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Flying Saucers and the Venus Legacy three days, would take on such an appearance with the marked recession of the eyeballs into the sockets. If this account is to be believed, the man’s brothers, the CIA agents, most likely viewed the corpses of the alien bodies from a crashed disk, rather than live extraterrestrial beings. Since the visors were down on the disembarked flying saucer occupants, we can speculate that if the doctor is right, they look very much like we humans of Earth do.

Media Sensation The flying saucer phenomenon became a media sensation in the summer of 1952. The 27 July 1952 issue of Parade magazine39 included an article promoting the Air Force’s new civilian sky watcher program, “Saucer Mystery- How You Can Solve It,” detailing how the average citizen could, by simple observation, secure important information about flying saucers and thereby be of great help to the national security interests of the United States. Coral Lorenzen lamented, however, that Parade used a fake photograph of a flying saucer on its cover as its “come-on” to attract readers.

And then on 4 August 1952, three national publications, Life (New York City), Quick (Minneapolis) and Time (New York City), simultaneously came out with articles about the enigmatic flying saucers. Life and Time featured brief histories of the enigma, winding up with the conclusion that, for the time being, flying saucers would have to remain a mystery. Life, however, focused its attention on the radar blips that were noted in the course of the now famous Washington, D.C. UFO sightings that occurred on 19 and 20 July 1952. The Life reporter hinted that radar technicians probably know more about radar than the “armchair generals who are going around loudly stating that saucers are mirages, hoaxes, hallucinations, etc.” Quick, for its part, commented lightly on the rash of flying saucer reports coming in that year from Boston, Columbus, New York City, and Sutton, West Virginia. The article, titled “Saucers, Saucers Everywhere,” informed Quick readers that during an average month in 1952, the Air Force’s Project Bluebook at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio, was receiving and processing about 100 flying saucer reports, of which only 75% could be satisfactorily explained.

One week later, in the pages of the 11 August 1952 issue of Life, the editors ran a follow-up piece on flying saucers in its “On the News Fronts of the World” section. This article displayed some photographs of flying disks hovering over a Coast Guard station on the East Coast. The APRO director was pleased that this issue of Life upheld their previously offered theory that the flying sauMysterious lights photographed, through a window screen, moving in cers, or at least some of them, are V-formation over Coast Guard station at 9:35 a.m., 16 July 1952, in Salem, Massachusetts, from the files of Project Bluebook at Wright-Patterson Air interplanetary spaceships.40 And Force Base, Dayton, Ohio.

39 Published in conjunction with the Chicago, Illinois, Sun Times newspaper as Sunday supplement.

40 Coral Lorenzen, “Saucer Bandwagon,” APRO Bulletin, September 1952, Vol. 1, No. 2.

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Raymond Andrew Keller II on the same day, an issue of Look (Des Moines, Iowa) magazine hit the newsstands with the photo of a flying saucer sketch made forty years back, in 1912, by Amos A. Wychoff, then 79 years-old, of Oakland, California. According to the caption, Wychoff was the supposed inventor of this “disk-shaped thing with wheels.” Allegedly, the airship was filled with inflammable gas and exploded soon after it took off, fortunately unmanned. Even Newsweek (New York City) jumped onto the flying saucer bandwagon. In its 11 August 1952 issue, an anecdotal piece was run rehashing cases, but poking fun at the saucers and those who sight them. The article upheld tenaciously the beliefs and theories of those who pooh-poohed the existence of flying saucers, after all the while never having seen one. These vocal skeptics were quick to dismiss reports of flying saucers as due to hallucinations, hoaxes, mirages or even “illuminated cobwebs,” as Dr. Donald H. Menzel seemed to think they are. Coral Lorenzen jested that perhaps these cobwebs were “carried aloft by the hot air issuing from the mouths of the Air Force mouthpieces in the Pentagon.”41 RETRO-UFO/PARANORMAL INCIDENT REPORTS (SIGHTINGS AND ENCOUNTERS LOG), Appended to Foundations of the Aerial Phenomena Research Organization (APRO)

Illustration from article in the 19 November 1896 San Francisco, California, Chronicle newspaper, detailing the great airship flap of November 1896.

41 Ibid.

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Flying Saucers and the Venus Legacy Date of Incident: 22 November 1896 Location: Various, Northern California, United States Subject: Mystery Air Ship Source: Tribune, Oakland, California, 11 May 1952 Archival Group: Morgue files, Oakland Tribune Report Follows: These reports are based on articles culled from the back files of the Oakland, California, Tribune newspaper. The first report was of a huge, “birdlike” form which was sighted on 22 November 1896 at around 7:30 p.m. From the head of the object a stream of light projected several hundred feet. Witnesses said that when the object was first seen, it seemed to be floating over San Leandro, moved rapidly, “at least 20 miles per hour.” That was considered a “fantastic speed” back in 1896.

It shot across the sky in a northwesterly direction and disappeared somewhere over Hayward. Later, it was discovered that none of the witnesses knew each other, but their stories were startlingly similar.

On the same day, residents of Red Bluff, Chico and Leesville saw the mystery object. It was sighted at Red Bluff at 7 p.m., moving southwesterly over the mountain sands and shortly thereafter was seen by the residents of Chico. It returned to Red Bluff and then continued on to Leesville, where it was seen to make several turns and then go back toward Red Bluff again.

Commentary: Astronomers of the day rejected the theory that it was a star because of its distinctly rocking motion. However, they didn’t rule out that the observers could have been looking at the planet Mars or Venus, which were in the sky that evening and do present themselves with a “wandering” or “rocking” motion. The object was also described as “moving in the teeth of the wind,” which was impossible for a balloon to do in those days. However, between 8 and 8:30 p.m. three men claimed to have seen the object and did not recall any lights shining off of it, just seeing “its weirdly peculiar body” silhouetted against a clear sky. The men described the object as being “like a cigar with a fish tail at least 100 feet long in all.”

The sightings across disparate areas create cause to wonder if there were more than one object being observed, but several objects being seen around California as part of a UFO flap.

Or the first explanation about a planet being viewed under unusual atmospheric distortion in the Hayward area may be valid; but the physical description of the silhouetted object over the Butte County area would rule out a planet, meteor or other astronomical phenomenon, since the UFO had a cigar-shaped fuselage and birdlike, extended tail with no emitted lights.

Coral Lorenzen included this 1896 report in the premier issue of the APRO Bulletin (July 1952) because she realized that Kenneth Arnold’s 24 June 1947 sighting was not the real beginning of the flying saucer saga, merely a footnote in the history of the UFO phenomenon that marked increased public awareness.

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Raymond Andrew Keller II ***** Date of Incident: Sometime in July 1951 Location: Sister Bay, Wisconsin, United States Subject: Orange-Red Fireball Source: “Old, Hitherto Unpublicized Saucer Sightings,” APRO Bulletin, July 1952 Archival Group: Aerial Phenomena Research Organization, P. O. Box 358, Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin Report Follows: In July 1951, Mr. Harlow Nelson of Sister Bay, Wisconsin, observed an orange-red fireball going in an easterly direction, about noon. The object was round, appeared to be about ten inches in diameter, with binoculars, and two inches without. The speed of the object was very fast and the thing was easily seen against a clear, blue sky.

Commentary: Specific date required to correlate with air traffic reports or sightings of similar aerial anomalies. Director Lorenzen in initial stages of setting up APRO, constantly reminded field representatives and members bringing UFO reports to her attention, to always write down names of newspapers, dates of publication, or in the case of personally-investigated cases, to provide the dates of the actual UFO sightings.

This object was probably a meteor, at least insofar as the object did not change course while seemingly plummeting to Earth at a “very fast” speed before dropping into Lake Michigan. ***** Date of Incident: 10 October 1951 Location: Skies over area 10 miles east of St. Croix Falls, Wisconsin, United States Subject: Pilot Sighting of UFO Source: Journal, 12 April 1952, Milwaukee, Wisconsin Archival Group: Aerial Phenomena Research Organization, P. O. Box 358, Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin Report Follows: J. J. Kaliszewski, the supervisor of balloon manufacture for the General Mills Research Laboratories in 1951, said that, “I’m not going to say what the objects I sighted were because I haven’t the slightest idea. I can’t say they were flying saucers and I can’t say they were space ships. All I can say is that they were strange. I had never seen them before and, so far as I know, they have never been identified.”

Kaliszewski actually had two sightings. The first occurred at 10 a.m. on 10 October 1951, while flying his plane about ten miles east of St. Croix Falls, Wisconsin. With Kaliszewski was Jack Donaghue, a member of the General Mills flight operation crew. Kaliszewski saw an object crossing the skies from east to west, higher and beyond the balloon they were tracking.

Kaliszewski’s plane was at 6,000 feet; and he said the object crossed above and beyond the balloon, from east to west very rapidly. First, it came in on a slight dive, leveling off for about 43

Flying Saucers and the Venus Legacy a minute and slowing down, then going into a sharp left turn accelerating, and then it disappeared. Kaliszewski and Donaghue observed the object for about two minutes and it crossed through an arc of about 40 to 50 degrees. The thing had a peculiar glow and no vapor trail.

Commentary: From past experience, Kaliszewski knew that this object was not a balloon, jet, conventional aircraft or celestial star. ***** Date of Incident: 11 October 1951 Location: In plane flying east a few miles north of Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States Subject: Pair of Haloed UFOs Source: Journal, 12 April 1952, Milwaukee, Wisconsin Archival Group: Aerial Phenomena Research Organization, P. O. Box 358, Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin Report Follows: The pilot for the General Mills Research Laboratories, J. J. Kaliszewski, made his second sighting at 6:30 a.m., 11 October 1951. He was accompanied at the time by Dick Reilly, a crew member. They were flying at 10,000 feet, observing a balloon when they saw a brightly glowing object to the southwest of the university airport. Kaliszewski and Reilly were a few miles north of Minneapolis, Minnesota, and heading east. The object was moving from east to west at a very high rate of speed and very high. They tried keeping the ship on constant course and using the reinforcing member of the windshield as a point. The object moved past this member at about five degrees per second. It seemed to have a halo around it and a dark undersurface.

The object crossed rapidly and then slowed down and started to climb in lazy circles, slowing down even more. It was like a falling oak leaf inverted. It went through these gyrations for a couple of minutes. Kaliszewski and Reilly watched it for approximately five minutes. They could not describe its size because at the time they did not have the balloon in sight for comparison.

Shortly after this sighting, Kaliszewski and Reilly saw another saucer which approached from the west and disappeared to the east. It left no vapor trail. The tracking station at the university airport was called and the observers there got a glimpse of the objects; but they couldn’t keep the theodolites going fast enough to maintain the objects in the field of their instruments.

Kaliszewski concluded, “I realize the people have been calling such objects flying saucers; but I think they use that term for the lack of a better word. The fact is, we don’t know what they are.

The United States Air Force was notified of our observations; but I don’t know what the Air Force has to say about them.”

Commentary: Pilots and air crew working with balloons all the time in conjunction with their employment at the General Mills Research Laboratories would have no difficulties in distinguishing any other airborne object from a balloon.

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Raymond Andrew Keller II ***** Date of Incident: Sometime in October 1951 Location: Somewhere between Lincoln and Algoma, Wisconsin, United States Subject: Saucer-Shaped Object Source: “Old, Hitherto Unpublicized Saucer Sightings,” APRO Bulletin, July 1952 Archival Group: Aerial Phenomena Research Organization, P. O. Box 358, Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin Report Follows: In October 1951, Mr. John Schopf of Algoma, Wisconsin, observed a saucer-shaped object about 8 p.m. It was a dark night and Mr. Schopf was going from Lincoln to Algoma, Wisconsin, and coming down a hill which overlooked Lake Michigan. He had a visor down on his automobile, so the object was quite low to be seen at all by him. He said it was going northeast very slowly and banked at a 30-degree angle. The color, according to his testimony, was aluminum; and Mr. Schopf further described the thing as having the “appearance of a light bulb painted silver, with light shining through.” It just disappeared out over Lake Michigan.

Commentary: Specific date required to correlate with air traffic reports or sightings of similar aerial anomalies. Director Lorenzen in initial stages of setting up APRO, constantly reminded field representatives and members bringing UFO reports to her attention, to always write down names of newspapers, dates of publication, or in the case of personally-investigated cases, the dates of the actual UFO sightings. ***** Date of Incident: 30 December 1951 Location: Los Angeles, California, United States Subject: Fast-Moving Blue Light Source: Ross Graham, APRO member, Burbank, California in APRO Bulletin, July 1952 Archival Group: Aerial Phenomena Research Organization, P. O. Box 358, Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin Report Follows: At 11:30 p.m. on 30 December 1951, at the intersection of Venice Blvd. and Flower St. in Los Angeles, California, Ross Graham, an APRO field representative from Burbank, California, saw a fast-moving, blue light flash on and off, once only. The speed of the object was greater than an airplane. Graham thinks it could have been moving as fast as a meteor. It appeared as a line, due to visual persistence. Its color was a clear, intense blue exactly that of a blue neon tube as could be seen from half-a-block away. It had a noticeable width.

Graham declared that, “The turning on and off was sharp. There was no fading out. The length of the path, while lit, was about eight degrees, or about the same as a four-inch pencil held at arm’s length or 27 inches. There was no curvature of path observed. The apparent angle of path was about 30 degrees from the horizontal, downward to the right. The direction was 45

Flying Saucers and the Venus Legacy from the southwest and 45 degrees above the horizon. Nothing was heard from the object, although city noises were very low. A subsequent flash would be hidden by buildings if the object were more than about 15 degrees beyond the end of the observed flash; and there might have been a previous flash unobserved if it were outside the angle of vision, that is to say if I was looking directly below the location of the flash.”

Commentary: Practiced observer with keen eyes for detail makes this more than a mere “lights in the sky” sighting. This is a credible UFO report. ***** Date of Incident: Sometime in April 1952 Location: Airspace 70,000 feet above Benson, Arizona, United States Subject: Large, Luminous UFO Source: Frank Edwards, Mutual Broadcasting System, 17 April 1952 Archival Group: Aerial Phenomena Research Organization, P. O. Box 358, Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin Report Follows: On his American Federation of Labor sponsored news program on 17 April 1952, Frank Edwards of the Mutual Broadcasting System reported the sighting of a strange, huge, bright oval object by two pilots at Benson, Arizona. The object was estimated to be at 70,000 feet, five times larger than a B-29, wingless and very luminous. It hovered in the sky for one hour and was seen by hundreds of observers.

Commentary: Coral Lorenzen noted that, “The above report was one of many ‘exclusives’ in the saucer mystery brought forth by Mr. Edwards and which received little or no play in the newspapers.”

This was clearly a time in which the initial phase of the great UFO cover-up was being put in place. ***** Date of Incident: 21 May 1952, Wednesday Location: Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin, United States Subject: “Shiver-causing” Flying Saucer Source: APRO Bulletin, July 1952, Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin Archival Group: Aerial Phenomena Research Organization, P. O. Box 358, Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin Report Follows: On Wednesday, 21 May 1952, Coral Lorenzen, director of the Aerial Phenomena Research Organization (APRO), had the honor of viewing the Sturgeon Bay flying saucer which brought shivers to the backs of many who observed it.

First spotted by a tavern owner at Fish Creek, Wisconsin, at 6:30 p.m., it was officially re46

Raymond Andrew Keller II ported to theDoor County Advocate, a semi-weekly newspaper, at 7:05 p.m. by Bill Beckstrom, Superintendant of the Peninsula State Park at Fish Creek. Lorenzen was just rounding a corner at Michigan and 3rd Street and noticed a group of people in front of the Advocate watching the sky to the northeast. One person in the crowd said, “Here comes the flying saucer expert. Ask her what it is.”

Lorenzen stated, “I didn’t commit myself until I had called the man at the police transmitter and had him notify county officers in the northern part of the county. The officers, Dan O’Hern of the Door County Police and Harry Londo of the Sturgeon Bay City Police Force, reported back that the thing was at a 60-degree angle northeast of them, but fairly clear. With the aid of a pair of binoculars, they observed the object and described it as being almost round, with a pair of what appeared to be round ports- omitting brilliant red light that hurt the eyes when watching them. At Sturgeon Bay the thing was at a 45-degree angle, oval in shape with a red glow along the belly of it. The object was proceeding northeast.”

Coral Lorenzen continued with her report: “Mr. L. J. Lorenzen (her husband), a radio engineer and no slouch at math, made the conservative estimate of the size and altitude of the object, using Sturgeon Bay and Fish Creek as angles by which to compute, and arrived at a conclusion of about 350 feet in diameter and at least 25 miles up above Earth. Lorenzen said that the size of the thing and its erratic movement, a zigzag northeast course, takes it out of the balloon realm.”

Commentary: Coral Lorenzen notes that, “On Thursday, 22 May 1952, Louis Champlain, publicity mouthpiece for General Mills in Minneapolis, issued a statement that the object was ‘probably’ a balloon, for one had been sent up that morning and ‘could’ have been over Door County at the time it was observed here.” The ufologist wasn’t surprised at Champlain’s feeble attempt at an explanation, adding, “Nothing definite, of course, just the usual bunk.”

Since then, however, Mr. Lorenzen had recomputed the angles involved, using Washington Island as the new point of the triangle; for it was probably a lot farther north than previously assumed. His new estimate put the altitude at 32 miles and an approximate 500 feet in diameter.

This was too high and too big for a balloon, even a General Mills job.

Coral Lorenzen pointed out an interesting sideline to this sighting: “As if someone is trying to prove we’re nuts up here, a balloon-shaped thing, of flimsy plastic composition, landed in Sturgeon Bay Wednesday, 2 July 1952, two weeks after the saucer was seen. No identification marks, just a big blob of plastic full of what looked like bullet holes. Is the Air Force sending out cheap imitations just to lend credence to their hackneyed explanation that the saucers are in actuality just big balloons?”

At the time of the very founding of APRO, the sincerity of the Air Force in UFO investigations came to be questioned by Coral Lorenzen. ***** Date of Incident: 31 May 1952, Saturday Location: Tsugaru Strait, between islands of Hokkaido and Honshu, Japan Subject: Indestructible Mine Source: Post, 1 June 1952, Denver, Colorado 47

Flying Saucers and the Venus Legacy Archival Group: Aerial Phenomena Research Organization, P. O. Box 358, Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin Report Follows: The Associated Press (AP) reported from Tokyo, Japan, on 31 May 1952, that Japanese maritime officials were puzzled over a strange, round floating mine that 66 bullets from a mine sweeper could not penetrate. According to the AP report, information about this incident first appeared in the pages of the Japanese newspaper Yomiuri.

The mine was found bobbing in the Tsugaru Strait between the islands of Hokkaido and Honshu. Oblong-shaped mines found there in the past had been exploded by rifle fire. This newly discovered object was towed to the port of Hokodate, after bullet-after-bullet simply bounced off it. Maritime officials have ventured no opinions on the origin of any floating mines discovered, except to say they are not Japanese.

Commentary: Coral Lorenzen, the director of the Aerial Phenomena Research Organization, opines that, “The foregoing may or may not be related to the saucers, but was included (with the anomalous object reports) because of its odd nature.” ***** Date of Incident: 14 June 1952 (estimated) Location: Los Angeles, California, United States Subject: “Out-of-this-world” Craft Source: People Today, 17 June 1952, New York City Archival Group: Aerial Phenomena Research Organization, P. O. Box 358, Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin Report Follows: Vincent Sonsini of Los Angeles pushed away his dinner plate some nights ago, went outside to water the lawn, looked up and saw a flying saucer.

With fireballs and other mysterious objects littering the sky, this sighting might not have caused comment if it hadn’t been for one thing. Sonsini, a tool designer for the AiResearch Manufacturing Company of Los Angeles, California, specialists in advanced aviation electronic equipment, grabbed a pencil and promptly sketched the “out-of-this-world” craft as he observed it. Says Sonsini, “It was about 6:40 p.m. when I spotted it. It was about 4,000 feet up, about a mile, a mile-and-a-half northwest. It was so definite it stuck out like a sore thumb. It made no noise. I called my wife Anne; and she came out and saw it, too. I went to my see my brother Joe at his house. He’s a job analyst for Hughes Aircraft and lives nearby, and borrowed his binoculars. He and his wife, Julia, came along, and some friends from Rome, New York, Mr. and Mrs. Alfonso Mangino. He is an Air Force veteran and civilian technician at Griffiths Air Depot, near his home. We all saw the craft. I put the binoculars on it and there was no doubt about it. It dove, climbed and hovered. What maneuverability! Then there was this dull glow around the fuselage and leading edges. There was no Sun then.”

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Raymond Andrew Keller II According to Sonsini’s wife, Anne, “It was so beautiful to watch. It gave you an awfully funny feeling. It looked like something humanly manufactured. I ran outside and called the police; but they came too late, for it disappeared over the horizon after about twenty minutes.”

Sonsini’s sketch shows the sky ship’s profile in a climb and it is bat-like, with a full view in a dive. A competent observer and no stranger to late model planes, Sonsini knows a delta-wing job when he sees one. “This was not one,” he insists. “We’ve taken a lot of ribbing,” says Sonsini, “but we have also been asked a lot of serious questions by engineers and other people. I think the public should be alerted to look skyward. One day people are going to see something that will give them an awful jolt.” ***** Commentary: That the object was viewed through binoculars by persons in-the-know about advanced aerodynamic designs adds a high level of credibility to this report.

Date of Incident: 23 June 1952 Location: Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin, United States Subject: Object Makes “Queer Maneuvers” Source: APRO Bulletin, “Sightings,” July 1952, Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin Archival Group: Aerial Phenomena Research Organization, P. O. Box 358, Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin Report Follows: At 11 p.m. on 23 June 1952, four young people driving along the Bay Shore Drive just out of Sturgeon Bay observed a brilliant blue light and a red one going through “queer maneuvers” in the sky. The persons who made the observation said that the lights, which appeared in the southeast, were hovering together in the sky when they were first spotted; and at minute-and-ahalf intervals (they timed them) would separate, go to opposite horizons (northeast and southwest), disappear and then reappear again.

This procedure kept up for about 20 minutes; then the lights just “went out.”

Commentary: Coral Lorenzen writes that, “Members of National Headquarters have questioned the witnesses to this phenomena, and as nearly as can be ascertained, the only deviations in the stories of the young people, ages 17, 18, 18 and 19), were that one of them maintained that one light was red and one light white, which can be accounted for the difference in color comprehension among different individuals.” *****

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Flying Saucers and the Venus Legacy Date of Incident: 24 June 1952 Location: Chicago, Illinois, United States Subject: Flying Discs Source: Daily News, 25 June 1952, Chicago, Illinois Archival Group: Aerial Phenomena Research Organization, P. O. Box 358, Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin Report Follows: The flying discs are reported back again. John Olivero, 30, a federal revenue agent, reported that he saw two “silver discs” flying above his home at 2917 N. Nordica Tuesday evening (24 June 1952). “They were about 10,000 feet up, going straight up and made no noise,” Olivero said. “It happened about 7:30 p.m. I was lying on my back on the front lawn when I saw them. I shouted to my wife and neighbor to look what was going on,” Olivero said, also noting that his wife, Frances, age 27, and their neighbor, Mrs. Alberta Gregory of 2915 N. Nordica, also saw the objects. “They were cylindrical in shape and showed no vapor trail,” Olivero affirmed.

Commentary: The objects were almost two-miles up. That they were originally described as “discs” and later as “cylindrical in shape” is the cause for some confusion. Perhaps the objects tilted to one side in flight, thus giving them a more elongated, cylindrical appearance. Or they could have been conventional aircraft simply viewed under unusual glinting light or erratic weather conditions at the higher altitudes. ***** Date of Incident: Wednesday, 25 June 1952 Location: Texarkana, Texas, United States Subject: “Two Silvery, Round Discs” Source: APRO Bulletin, Vol. 1, No. 2, September 1952 Archival Group: Aerial Phenomena Research Organization, P. O. Box 358, Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin Report Follows: Two silvery, round discs were reported over Texarkana, Texas, at 6:15 p.m. on Wednesday, 25 June 1952. Mrs. John Spear, a resident of the city, said her daughter Pat first sighted the discs.

Pat then called for her mother to come and see them. The discs were also observed by Mr. and Mrs. Thomas McFadden, who were residing with the Spears at the time. The discs flew in a northerly direction and were spaced about 200 feet apart. They made no sound and emitted no flame. Mr. McFadden estimated that they were flying at a height of 5,000 feet. The discs were observed by the four witnesses for about two-and-a-half minutes before they sped out of sight.

Commentary: There were other sightings in the Texarkana, Texas, area throughout the week, giving evidence of a regional flying saucer flap. Please note entry for Friday, 27 June 1952, subject: “Double-decker” Flying Saucer.

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Raymond Andrew Keller II ***** Date of Incident: 26 June 1952 Location: Northern Wisconsin, United States Subject: “Fireball” Source: Press Gazette, Saturday, 28 June 1952, Green Bay, Wisconsin Archival Group: Aerial Phenomena Research Organization, P. O. Box 358, Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin Report Follows: A “fireball” seen from Milwaukee and Stevens’ Point, Wisconsin, has been causing considerable speculation throughout Wisconsin of late. The Green Bay Astronomical Society, in cooperation with several other groups, is attempting to trace the movement of a fireball reported Thursday, 26 June 1952, at approximately 11 p.m. In connection with its survey, the society asked anyone who saw the meteor to communicate with Edward Halbach at 2971 South 52nd Street, Milwaukee, 15, Wisconsin.

Commentary: Coral Lorenzen, the National Director of APRO, contacted Halbach by phone immediately upon reading the article and learned that the society members were not sure just what the thing was. She also learned that the society members did consider the theory that some of the space phenomena seen are space vehicles to be a sound one. Mrs. Lorenzen offered the cooperation of APRO in any of the future sightings; and by means of radio and newspaper tried to contact anyone who might have seen the fiery object. This brought no results and leads one to the conclusion that the fireball was controlled, for it came over Milwaukee from the northeast and would have passed over the Door Peninsula and should have been seen by someone in the vicinity. The object was large, as indicated by the fact that was seen from Stevens’ Point, which is about 60 miles northwest of the Door Peninsula. The National Director planned to make a trip to Milwaukee to confer with Halbach in the coming days on several sightings in and around Door County.

Such liaisons with experts in the scientific community would become a hallmark of APRO and set it apart from other UFO research groups in the years to come. ***** Date of Incident: Friday, 27 June 1952 Location: Texarkana, Texas, United States Subject: “Double-decker” Flying Saucer Source: Gazette, 28 June 1952, Texarkana, Texas Archival Group: Aerial Phenomena Research Organization, P. O. Box 358, Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin

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Flying Saucers and the Venus Legacy Report Follows: Texarkana was visited by a “flying saucer” at 5:59 p.m., Friday, vows eyewitness Clifton Spears of 1409 W. 4th Street, and, “It wasn’t just one of those ordinary kinds, either,” he maintained. “It was a double-decker type, composed of two separate, gleaming silver oblong shapes one on top of the other; and it traveled at a terrific rate of speed. It just beat everything I ever saw,” he said. Spears added that he and his wife were sitting in their parked car at 8th and Elm Streets when he happened to notice the strange object in a south-by-southwest direction, about 40 degrees up in the sky.

He said that the object appeared to be about six feet from end-to-end and the two halves about 20 to 30 inches in thickness. He had only a moment in which to view it and when he shouted for his wife to look, “the weird thing was gone.” Spears said he knew he would be in for a lot of ribbing from disbelievers, but he was convinced that what he saw was no illusion.

Commentary: George Adamski, the famous contactee from Southern California, called these small objects “registered disks.” They seem to be some type of unmanned probe launched from larger ships like the scouts, patrol craft or carriers. ***** Date of Incident: 3 July 1952 Location: Ajax, Ontario, Canada Subject: “Flaming-red Disc” Source: APRO Bulletin, September 1952, Vol. 1, No. 2, Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin Archival Group: Archival Group: Aerial Phenomena Research Organization, P. O. Box 358, Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin Report Follows: Two housewives, Mrs. Lloyd Stoneman and Mrs. E. McAllister said a “flaming-red disc” flashed across the sky shortly after 6:30 a.m. on 3 July 1952, leaving a vapor trail. It came in from the north and passed over the town of Whitby before it vanished out of sight in the skies above Lake Ontario.

Commentary: The object’s disc-shape and vapor trail lend credence to it being a real, physical aircraft rather than a meteor. The Perseids are a prolific meteor shower associated with the comet Swift– Tuttle. The meteors are called the Perseids because the point from which they appear to hail lies in the constellation Perseus, but said meteor activity does not peak until mid-August. *****

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Raymond Andrew Keller II Date of Incident: 5 July 1952 Location: Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States Subject: “Silverish Cigar-Shaped Object” Source: APRO Bulletin, September 1952, Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin Archival Group: Aerial Phenomena Research Organization, P. O. Box 358, Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin Report Follows: Donny Reimer, an APRO member in Minneapolis, submitted the following report of his personal sighting: “About 7 p.m., Saturday, 5 July 1952, I saw an unfamiliar object cruising across the sky not far from my house, which is located on the outskirts of Minneapolis. I could not discern the height, but it was silverish in color and was more cigar-shaped than disc-shaped.

It was going southeast and made no sound.”

Commentary: Lack of estimated altitude prevents further evaluation of this report. ***** Date of Incident: 6 July 1952 Location: Richland, Washington, United States Subject: “Perfectly Round Disc” Seen Near Atomic Plant Source: APRO Bulletin, September 1952, Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin Archival Group: Aerial Phenomena Research Organization, P. O. Box 358, Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin Report Follows: An object described as a “perfectly round disc, white in color and almost transparent, with small trails off it like the tentacles of an octopus,” was seen over the Hanford Atomic Plant at Richland, Washington. The object was seen by Captain John Baldwin of Coral Gables, Florida; Captain George Robertson of Miami, Florida; D. Shenkel of Miami, Florida; and Steven Summers of Hialeah, Florida. All of these men are qualified pilots with plenty of air hours between them. Baldwin declared, “The object was perfectly round and still at first, then seemed to back away from us and change shape. It became flat, gained speed and disappeared quickly. Definitely not a cloud formation or weather instrument.”

The object was spotted between Ellensburg and Yakima, Washington, around 6 a.m. on 6 July 1952, about 75 miles east of where the first discs were seen by Kenneth Arnold near Mt. Rainier in the Cascades on 24 June 1947. Of his sighting, Baldwin also noted that, “We passed the object as it stood suspended in space. We couldn’t pick it up on our radar; so we reversed our course and went back but couldn’t spot it again.”

The pilots made their report to the Civil Aviation Administration (CAA) office in Seattle, Washington.

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Flying Saucers and the Venus Legacy Commentary: A spokesperson for the CAA office in Seattle refused to say anything about the report. None of the pilots would publicly speak out after filing their report with the CAA. The proximity of the UFO to the Hanford Atomic Plant in Richland, Washington, posits national security concerns in this case. ***** Date of Incident: Monday, 7 July 1952 Location: Brockville, Ontario, Canada Subject: “Floating Light Bulb” Source: APRO Bulletin, September 1952, Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin Archival Group: Aerial Phenomena Research Organization, P. O. Box 358, Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin Report Follows: Observers reported a “floating light bulb” over Brockville Monday night. The object was estimated to be at altitude of some 5,000 feet and moving in a northwesterly direction. It stayed in view from about 8:30 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. Just as it was about to disappear from view, it was joined by a second light.

Commentary: This object could have been a well-lit weather balloon. The appearance of the second object, at a distance, leaves room for speculation in this case. ***** Date of Incident: Sometime in early July 1952 Location: Somewhere in Texas, United States Subject: Rumored Flying Saucer Landing Source: APRO Bulletin, July 1952, Aerial Phenomena Research Organization, P. O. Box 358, Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin Archival Group: Aerial Phenomena Research Organization, P. O. Box 358, Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin Report Follows: Rumors were being circulated in Walter Winchell’s 2 July 1952 syndicated newspaper column about the landing of flying saucers. Coral Lorenzen, the director of the Aerial Phenomena Research Organization (APRO), stated that she believed Winchell’s story may have a basis in fact, at least insofar as an APRO member in Texas informed her that, “A saucer of some type had landed in Texas and that people had disembarked.”

Commentary: Lorenzen reported that as of 15 July 1952, APRO was “still checking” into this incident.

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Raymond Andrew Keller II ***** Date of Incident: 8 July 1952 Location: Western United States Subject: “Fiery Ball” Source: APRO Bulletin, September 1952, Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin Archival Group: Aerial Phenomena Research Organization, P. O. Box 358, Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin Report Follows: A fiery ball was observed streaking across the sky by residents in Utah, Idaho, Oregon, Washington and Nevada. The object left a trail that “sizzled like a sparkler.”

Witnesses said that it was red, orange, white, green and black. An astronomer at the University of Utah, Dr. R. N. Thomas, opined that it might have been an unusually large meteorite.

However, many of the witnesses across the Western United States speculated that it could have been a flying saucer. Dozens of persons in Oklahoma also reported a bluish ball of flame moving in from the east.

Commentary: Insofar as none of the witnesses reported a change of course in the trajectory of the object, Dr. Thomas’ opinion rules the day in this case. ***** Date of Incident: 8 July 1952 Location: Ottawa, Canada Subject: “Fiery Round Object” Source: APRO Bulletin, September 1952, Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin Archival Group: Aerial Phenomena Research Organization, P. O. Box 358, Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin Report Follows: Two members of the Corps of Commissionaires watched a fiery round object come in on an unwavering straight line from the east at around 10:15 p.m., turn slowly towards the south and then, when almost directly overhead, make a slow circle and disappear back into the east.

The witnesses described the UFO as bright and perfectly round with light emanating from it. It made no noise and the commissionaires, then on duty at the Army’s Central Ordinance Depot in Ploufee Park, said they estimated its altitude at about two miles and its speed as 200 miles per hour. The observers, Milton Tierney of Westboro and Alexander Factor of 105 Guiges Street, seemed convinced that the object was intelligently controlled because it traveled in such a straight line and did not alter its altitude.

Commentary: The unusual maneuvering capability of the object and its presence over a military depot add credibility to this report.

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Flying Saucers and the Venus Legacy ***** Date of Incident: 14 July 1952 Location: Airspace over Newport News, Virginia Subject: Airline Pilots Sight Eight Flying Saucers Source: APRO Bulletin, September 1952, Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin Archival Group: Aerial Phenomena Research Organization, P. O. Box 358, Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin Report Follows: W. B. Nash and W. H. Fortenberry of Pan American Airways reported seeing eight flying saucers on their run from New York City to Miami on Monday night, 14 July 1952. They described the objects as “about the color of automobile taillights, brilliant and glowing like hot coals.” The objects came towards the DC-4 that Nash and Fortenberry were flying, out of a clear southwest sky, somewhere over Newport News, Virginia. Six of the UFOs appeared first at about 8,000 feet and passed underneath the airliner, flying in a diagonal, straight line; and as the DC-4 passed over them, the objects turned westward and were joined by two more saucers. At that point, all eight zoomed up to about 10,000 feet. Their glowing lights pulsated off and on repeatedly as the saucers disappeared from sight. Both Nash and Fortenberry reported that the UFOs were traveling more than 1,000 miles per hour and maneuvered too sharply for human endurance.

Captain Edward J. Ruppelt, USAF (19231960), Director, Project Grudge (1951) and Project Bluebook (1952-1953), kept an open mind about flying saucers and credited with coining the term, “unidentified flying objects,” acronym “UFOs.”

Commentary: At Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio, Lieutenant Edward J. Ruppelt of Project Bluebook, the Air Force investigative group for UFOs, said 60 sighting reports had reached his desk so far during 1952, and that was already twice as many that he had received during the first half of 1951. He noted that the Air Force was looking into the Nash and Fortenberry sighting but had nothing to report at that time. ***** Subject: Date of Incident: 16 July 1952 Location: San Anselmo, California, United States Subject: “Bright Yellow Saucer” Source: APRO Bulletin, September 1952, Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin Archival Group: Aerial Phenomena Research Organization, P. O. Box 358, Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin

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Raymond Andrew Keller II Report Follows: Charles Stevenson, 16, of 14 Brookmont Circle, and Theodore Cirul, 14, of 84 Berkeley Avenue, both of Anselmo, saw a bright yellow saucer fly over Marin, come to a dead stop and zoom off again. The object then backtracked, making a U-turn and leaving the area in a southwest direction. According to the young men, “The UFO was bigger than a star and too high for a jet.” They reported no sound and no trail. And when the saucer came to a complete stop, it emitted luminous smaller objects in all directions. Shortly thereafter, two jets circled the area and flew off in another direction.

Commentary: Attempts to contact a spokesperson at Hamilton Air Force Base for a confirmation of jets over the area of the sighting were made by an APRO field investigator, but operators at the base switchboard would not patch his telephone call through.

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Chapter 3

Desert Center, California: Epicenter of Flying Saucer Reports

“Honey, I think you missed the Desert Center turn-off.” - Hugh Marlowe as Dr. Russell A. Marvin and Joan Taylor as his wife Carol Marvin get buzzed by a flying saucer on a desolate Southern California desert highway in Columbia Pictures’ 1956 scifi classic, Earth vs. the Flying Saucers. To see the exciting trailer, click here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2o4fdX8gUMY.

On Being a Contactee As a contactee with our friendly neighborhood Venusians, I follow in the footsteps with many of the pioneering lights in the UFO community. There is much that I have learned from such illuminated ones as Orfeo Angelucci, Albert Coe, Gabriel Green, Dana Howard, Gloria Lee, Howard Menger, Omnec Onec and many others. But probably the most well-known of all the contactees, and the mentor to them all, and myself, was none other than the amateur astronomer from Valley Center, California, George Adamski (1891-1965). While Adamski was not the first contactee to arrive on the scene in the previous century, he was certainly the most well-known due to the popularity of his three bestselling books about the planet Venus as the point of origin for the flying saucers which cruise our skies: Flying Saucers Have Landed, coauthored by Desmond Leslie (New York, New York: British Book Centre, 1953); Inside the Space Ships (New York, New York: Abelard-Schuman, 1955) and Flying Saucers Farewell (New York, New York: Abelard-Schuman, 1961).

Desert Center Gains Notoriety It took the landing of a spaceship from Venus to put the small town of Desert Center, California, on the map. As with the rest of the United States in 1952, there were sightings galore 58

Raymond Andrew Keller II of the flying saucers since 1947, and maybe a little before that; but as far as most people were concerned, none of these objects had ever landed with any of its occupants getting out of the craft and meeting a regular human being of Earth.

Then, at 12:30 midday on 20 November 1952, a then 61-year-old amateur astronomer and metaphysical instructor, George Adamski, was visiting from Valley Center, California, with four friends packed in his car, where they encountered a landed flying saucer on the desert floor north of Blythe and Desert Center, California. Adamski understood from the barrage of Southern California newspaper clippings he had read throughout 1952 about a massive flying saucer flap taking place in this area that he and his group’s best chance of actually getting close to a landed saucer would come about by being situated right at the spot they now found themselves. Adamski expressed a feeling that extraterrestrials had guided him to this very location, albeit such a remote one.

Adamski was the only one in the group to approach the landed saucer, availing himself of the opportunity of speaking with its pilot, who self-identified telepathically with Adamski as a Venusian named Orthon. According to Adamski, the extraterrestrial looked human, having straight blonde hair and being about 5’4” in height. The Venusian was clad in a light tan jumpsuit and took on an androgynous appearance, having a slender figure and delicate fingers, as well as a lack of any discernible facial hair.

Adamski’s four companions signed sworn affidavits that this meeting actually took place.

One of them was a prominent archaeologist from Prescott, Arizona, Dr. George Hunt Williamson, who made plaster of Paris impressions of Orthon’s footprints. The true story of what happened to those plaster casts, and the result of their analysis by a Livermore Labs atomic scientist, are found in my recent book, The Vast Venus Conspiracy (Terra Alta, West Virginia: Headline Books, 2020).

Source of Adamski saucer model below: https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/308144799477661848/

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Flying Saucers and the Venus Legacy “Out-of-This-World Saucer” Adamski himself took a series of photographs of the Venusian “scout ship” with two of his special cameras he brought along on this excursion, a Hagler-Dresden Graflex and a Brownie, just in case they ran into a real flying saucer. Pev Marley, the cameraman for Cecil B. DeMille’s movie classic, Greatest Show on Earth (Paramount Pictures, Hollywood, California, 1952), took the time to examine all of Adamski’s photographs taken of the scout ship on 20 November 1952, during a special closed-door meeting of the Air Force Reserve Officers held at an officer’s club in Los Angeles, California, on 1 June 1953. Of the photographs, Marley informed the assembled officers that, “If the pictures were faked, they were the cleverest I have ever seen.” The minutes of the Air Force Reserve Officers also records that, “The Air Force has agreed, unofficially, that these saucers come from out of this world.”

Saucer Sightings over the Colorado Desert The Southern California towns of Blythe and Desert Center are located in the Colorado Desert, an area covering the eastern side of Riverside County. Blythe is about 4 miles west of the Arizona-California state line. Back in 1955, what is now Interstate 10 was known as U.S. Route 60-70; and if one were to continue due west along that route for a distance of 48 miles, they would find themselves in the small community of Desert Center, where Adamski and his contingent encountered the landed Venusian scout ship and its pilot Orthon.

In 1955, Blythe had a population of approximately 4,100. Being the hub of the agriculturally-rich Palo Verde Valley, from the air Blythe appears as a vast green-and-white checkerboard of alfalfa and cotton, hugging the Colorado River in the southeast corner of California. The town is encircled by 30 square miles of windswept dune and rugged mountain country, an extension of the Colorado Desert, the 17th largest desert area on Earth. The village of Blythe began one hundred years ago, in 1920, after a consortium of Arizona farmers spent $40 million in diverting the unpredictable waters of the Colorado River, thereby transforming the barren wasteland on the California side into a second “Valley of the Nile.” Blythe’s Main Street in 1955 consisted of a conglomeration of tourist courts, used-car lots and mercantile establishments.

However, there were quiet and shady side streets that stretched out toward the lush, green farms and open cattle range to the west.

Investigative journalist Paul C. Benard, who wrote an article about the growing popularity of Blythe and Desert Center as UFO hot spots, “Who Believes in Flying Saucers?” in the July 1955 issue of Bluebook magazine (New York City, New York), provided a rundown on unusual UFO sightings by residents of these two desert communities that took place prior to Adamski’s contact with the Venusian. The journalist began by visiting science classes at Blythe High School, where he conducted a survey among the students, soliciting their opinions about flying saucers. What he discovered was that since 1951 to 1955, 123 of the students had actually testified to seeing the flying saucers over Blythe. And among the student body at large, there was a near-unanimous opinion that the flying saucers were real, physical objects that came from outer space.

Truck Buzzed by Flying Saucer Frank Hines was a mechanic at the Desert Center Garage when, on the night of 14 June 1952, he claims that he was buzzed by a flying saucer as he was driving a tow truck along Highway 60-70. Apparently, he was spotted by the occupants of a flying saucer, who directed their 60

Raymond Andrew Keller II ship at him, swooping down from the sky and hovering over his truck for the space of about two miles, before the saucer just flew off.

Civil Air Patrol Spotters Befuddled In mid-July 1952, Tom Jewel, a Civil Air Patrol (CAP) spotter stationed at Blythe, reported four flying saucer sightings throughout a ten-day period. In every instance, there was a flying saucer that rose up in a straight line from behind a nearby mountain range. The object would then turn in a sharp, right-angle and fly across the sky at an estimated speed of 900 miles per hour. Then it would just disappear over Arizona skies off in the eastern horizon.

Within the same ten-day period, another CAP spotter, Frank Draper, also out of Blythe, reported three similar flying saucer sightings.

On the Trail of the Flying Saucers Our intrepid reporter Paul C. Benard was hot on the trail of the flying saucers. For three weeks in the spring of 1955, he spoke with people from “all walks of life” in the “Flying Saucer Country” of the Colorado Desert and particularly in its two prominent towns of Blythe and Desert Center. He wanted to know everything that the townies of Blythe and Desert Center could recollect and tell him about George Adamski, the interest of the Air Force in their sightings of fireballs and flying saucers, and anything else the residents might have to say about Nordic-looking Venusians wearing tan jumpsuits or arrayed in metallic gear and poking around in the desert.

“I talked to scrawny cowboys in skin-tight Levis and wealthy ranchers in overgrown Stetsons,” said Benard, adding that, “I talked to Mexican and African-American farmhands, desert rats and high school kids.” As to his time in Blythe, the larger of the two towns, the journalist noted that, “I talked to the mayor, the chief of police, the newspaper editor and the manager of the radio station. I talked to the high school principal, the superintendant of schools and the Chamber of Flying saucer photographed over Southern California desert area. Photo source: https://www.theguardian.com/ Commerce.” But most importantly, Benard emworld/2018/sep/21/what-is-behind-the-decline-in-ufophasized that, “Everyone talked right back.” sightings.

In the next section of this chapter, we examine just how the residents of Blythe and Desert Center, California, felt about the massive presence of the flying saucers over their fair communities. Back in 1955, New York’s Bluebook magazine investigative reporter, Paul C. Benard, was the first on the scene to solicit the opinions of the denizens of Southern California’s Colorado Desert with respect to the elusive objects in their midst that had so attracted the world’s attention to their area. Frankly, even in 2020, both Blythe and Desert Center continue to serve as huge draws for the burgeoning UFO tourism industry.

KYOR Radio and the Flying Saucer Connection Reporter Benard was looking to speak with someone “in the know” about flying saucer sightings in eastern Riverside County, and who better than John M. Wages, the manager of Blythe’s then sole radio station, KYOR.Benard had written to Wages and told him that he would 61

Flying Saucers and the Venus Legacy be coming out to the Colorado Desert for the purpose of finding out about flying saucer sightings in the area and asking the radio station manager if he could provide him with a few leads and perhaps introduce him around the community. Benard’s first stop would be meeting with other employees of KYOR Radio.

When Benard first arrived in Blythe, he went directly to the radio station. He was greeted

by Wages, who pumped his hand, inquiring, “How are you? It’s nice to see you. But what in hell have you got me into?” The station manager further added that, “I got your letter; and I thought I would give you a hand. I put an item on the air last night, saying that if anyone had definite ideas about the saucers, they could contact you here at the station. Well, they sure as hell contacted!”

It turns out that Paul Lyman, one of KYOR’s announcers, was alone in the radio station when the pitch went out over the air; and for the next two hours, KYOR’s telephone lines were jammed. “I knew people were interested,” said Lyman, “but I didn’t know they were that interested.”

Bernard wondered what Lyman thought about flying saucers, and asked him as much.

“Well,” the announcer hedged, “I don’t really know. But when everybody, including the government, gets so worked up about something, it can’t be nothing!”

The Bluebook magazine reporter also spoke with KYOR’s continuity chief, Robin Hill, who was more definite about the flying saucers. “Don’t ask me what they are,” he asserted, “but one thing is certain: they sure as hell are.”

Even Mrs. Wages opined on the flying saucer craze sweeping the desert communities. “No matter where you go,” she said, “the talk always comes around to saucers.” She explained that even local service clubs were inviting UFO “authorities” to come and speak at their luncheons; and a local minister devoted his Sunday sermon to the whys and wherefores of the saucers’ arrival. The wife of the radio station manager also noted that the science classes at Blythe High School devoted much of their time to studying UFOs and the possibility of intelligent life existing on other planets. There was a group of teachers and students that met every two weeks to study recent sightings and flying saucer reports from throughout the area.

John M. Wages affirmed what his wife stated about the enthusiasm for UFO research being generated at the local high school. He pointed out to Benard that, “George Wixom, the science teacher, has even organized a citizens’ committee; and they have scheduled a meeting at the high school auditorium to hear a tape recording by an aircraft worker who he The radio station manager’s wife wanted to take the reporter to the exact spot in the desert where Adamski met the says he’s made several contacts with saucers.” Venusian cosmonaut Orthon. Picture source: https://www. pinterest.com/pin/329888741426129064/.

Wages added that, “If you want to study reactions, stick around for that meeting; and if your schedule is not too full, Mrs. Wages wants to take you out to Desert Center to see where Adamski says he met the man from Venus.”

Benard spent an entire day with John M. Wages at the radio station, even staying with him as he put KYOR’s broadcast operations to bed for the night. Wages introduced the reporter to 62

Raymond Andrew Keller II literally all of the station personnel, the last one being a part-time station employee, Bill Tucker.

This gentleman’s full-time, day job was working as a Civil Aeronautics Administration engineer, so if anyone would be knowledgeable about the maneuvering and operational characteristics of the flying saucers, this would be the “Johnny on the Spot,” so to speak.

No sooner did Benard tell Tucker why he was in Blythe, that the aeronautics engineer was ready with an amazing flying saucer story: “A buddy of mine up in Elko, Nevada, spotted three UFOs cruising along beside his plane; and he took photos. I helped him develop them. We figured the saucers were 30 to 50 feet in diameter and flying about 100 feet from his plane.” Tucker related that he and his friend notified the Air Force Intelligence in San Francisco, California, and an officer flew out to Elko the very next day. The Air Force investigative officer looked at the UFO phoModel of flying saucers from The Invaders television program (1967-1968). Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vi_ tos and said they were nothing. “But before he sABa21QM. left,” noted Tucker, “he confiscated the prints and negatives and suggested that we forget the whole thing.” The aeronautics engineer smiled wryly and commented, “Tell me, really, how does a guy forget nothing?”

In the following section of this chapter, we pile into the car with Dr. Raymond Keller, a.k.a.

“Cosmic Ray,” correspondent Paul C. Benard, Mrs. Wages and her ten-year-old son, Johnny, Jr., who take us directly to the spot where Adamski met Orthon, a Venusian flying saucer pilot, just off a remote road 10.2 miles from Desert Center.

In 1955 a special meeting was called in the sunbaked desert community of Blythe, Riverside County, California, to discuss the 1952 George Adamski contact case as well as an intense flap of flying saucer sightings and close encounters of every kind that ensued ever since. Photo Source: https://www.wired.com/story/how-ufo-sightings-became-an-american-obsession/.

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Flying Saucers and the Venus Legacy Stepping Out on Hallowed Ground On the day following the Bluebook magazine correspondent’s series of interviews conducted with the personnel of Blythe, California, KYOR Radio, Paul C. Benard continued where he left off, driving out to the station manager John M. Wages’ home to pick up Mrs. Wages and their 10-year-old son, Johnny, Jr., who were scheduled to direct the reporter to the exact spot where the now famous contactee, George Adamski, claimed to have photographed a Venusian scoutship and communicated with its pilot, telepathically at first and then vocally.

No sooner had Benard pulled into Wages’ driveway, than he was greeted by John, Sr., who introduced him to his wife and son before heading off to work in his own car. The mother and son then situated themselves comfortably in the back of Benard’s car while Mrs. Wages gave directions from the back seat as to the route that the journalist should take to get to the small and sunbaked settlement of Desert Center, some 48 miles to the west of Blythe off U.S. Route 60-70.

While Benard was driving the long stretch, Mrs. Wages talked incessantly about George Adamski and speculated on how life might be on Venus, the Moon and Mars. She even brought a copy of the book that Adamski co-wrote with the British nobleman Sir Desmond Leslie along with her, just in case they needed to reference anything once they arrived at the site. She was proud to have a copy that Adamski personally autographed for her. John, Jr., rolled down the window on his side of the car and put his head down on his mother’s lap. “Just wake me up when we get there,” he declared. Apparently, he had been to the site on a few occasions.

When Benard pulled off Route 60-70 and into Desert Center, there wasn’t that much to see: a small diner, a service station and a handful of houses. “So, this is the flying saucer mecca of the world” mused Benard.

“Actually, Paul, we have a little way more to go. The landing site is somewhere in the vicinity of the mile marker at 10.2 miles from this state road that we are now on. It cuts across the Colorado desert to the northeast, leading out to Parker Dam,” explained Mrs. Wages.

There was nobody else on this desolate road. Benard was glad that he took the time to fill up his car, as well as check the battery and oil, as soon as they exited the U.S. route. Mrs. Wages, with ample foresight, packed and brought along a picnic lunch of fried chicken, potato salad and soda pop.

No sooner than Benard and party arrived at the marker, than another car was seen parked alongside the road. At least they knew that they weren’t alone anymore and somebody else was out there checking out the situation. Little Johnny poked his head out the window and scanned the horizon. “Look!” he shouted. “There’s a Venusian over there!” Johnny brought a pair of binoculars along with him, just in case any extraterrestrials or flying saucer occupants were to show up. He focused the field glasses on the small being slipping and sliding down the lava-strewn slopes about a quarter of a mile away. “Aw, shucks!” declared Johnny, Jr. “It’s only another kid.”

“So, who drove the car?” wondered Benard. “Can I see your binoculars, Johnny?” asked the reporter.

“Sure, Mr. Benard. No problem,” said Johnny, Jr., handing them over.

“Hmmm, there are two women out there. They look to be elderly, maybe in their late 60s or 70s.” They were making their way down a treacherous hillside. Benard and Mrs. Wages walked over to talk to them. One was the frolicking boy’s grandmother and the other was her lady friend. They drove all the way from Portland, Oregon, a whopping 1,345-mile trip, just to see this place where a Venusian had allegedly come to Earth in a flying saucer.

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Raymond Andrew Keller II The expanded party then reconnoitered the area for about an hour until they came across a spot that matched the descriptions provided by Adamski in his book. It was a vast clearing, surrounded by wind-worn sandhills, just as Adamski clearly stated in his epic Flying Saucers Have Landed. There was also an abundance of other evidence that we had found the right spot.

Hundreds of other “saucer researchers” had come to this God-forsaken locale during the past year or so and set up camp, wistfully hoping that Orthon and the Venusian scout ship would return. The clearing was littered with tin cans and the charred remains of campfires. There were even old mattresses with protruding bed springs and crude, wooden tables. The camp sites had clearly been abandoned, however; and Benard pondered what new saucer landing zone they might have flocked to. After all, there were plenty of new contactees emerging on the saucer circuit, with lots of them right there in California. He heard rumors about a Venusian flying saucer base being located right under Mt. Shasta, in the north of the state.

Varied Local Opinions Later that afternoon, Benard, Mrs. Wages and son were back in Blythe. After the correspondent dropped them back at their home, Benard spoke once again with the Blythe High School science teacher, George Wixom, at his residence. “What do you think of this Adamski fellow, George? You’re of a scientific mindset. Is he legit?”

“Well, Paul, human belief is a strange thing. No matter how strongly you believe something that hasn’t actually been proved, there is always a tiny, recurring doubt in the back of your head.

Normally, I would dismiss Adamski’s claims out of hand, since Venus is probably too hot to support any life as we know it. However, he does have lots of witnesses who have signed affidavits attesting to the reality of his encounter, and the mysterious being Orthon apparently said he was from Venus.”

Wixom then informed Benard that his arrival in Blythe was fortuitous, for there was to be a citizen’s meeting later that night, where a San Diego newspaperman, F. E. Rogers, was to play a tape- recorded message about Venusians coming to Earth in their flying saucers. Wixom was slotted to emcee the event. “Do you know Rogers and have you heard this tape?” asked Benard.

“No, I haven’t,” declared Wixom. Then he smiled and added, “But I think you have to keep an open mind when you are trying to get at the truth.”

Benard realized that he had arrived in this desert area at a most opportune time. News of Rogers’ forthcoming presentation had spread far and wide. Grady Setzler, the editor of the Palo Verde Times, had also arrived in Blythe to cover this story. Benard and Wixom met up with the editor in a local café, the Blythe Coffee Shop, prior to the big meeting. Setzler seems to be keeping an open mind about flying saucers and Venusians, too. “Mine is only a layman’s point of view,” he related to Benard and the science teacher, “but I don’t rule out the saucers. Only an ignorant person would do that.”

Others were hanging around in the local restaurant waiting for the arrival of Rogers and the start of the momentous meeting: Blythe mayor A. J. Alexander, on the other hand, refused to commit himself one way or another. Like the typical politician, all he had to say was, “Anything is possible; but that is all I will say.”

A local minister opined that, “Church-going folks are sometimes afraid to admit that the saucers may be a reality;” but he had to question, “Does God have so little ability that he couldn’t have created other worlds and humans to populate them?”

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Flying Saucers and the Venus Legacy Even Lois Kumer, a waitress at the café, shared a hunch she had that the flying saucers come from another world. “But I’d sure like to know,” she told Benard, “because my husband Jerry, a radio-installations man, has seen those saucers time-and-time again. He told me that their speed and method of flight defy anything on this planet.”

Hitting a Snag- “Cancel Culture” 1950’s Style People from everywhere were showing up at the café, crowding all the tables, standing room only. They were all waiting for the green light to move over to the high school auditorium for Rogers’ flying saucer presentation. Suddenly the boys from KYOR Radio burst into the Blythe Coffee Shop with some bad news. Permission to use the high school for the saucer meeting had been revoked by the school board.

Benard managed to catch up with the Superintendent of Schools, Murrell M. Miller, who proclaimed, “The board cannot afford to go out on a limb. We can’t have it appear that we are sponsoring this meeting and officially endorsing Rogers and his tape recording.”

At that moment, a local rancher, Clyde Cowan, offered the use of his home for the meeting, partially solving the committee’s problem.

The last-minute change, plus the fact that the new meeting venue was seven miles outside of Blythe, might cut down the attendance substantially. Surprisingly, when the Bluebook magazine correspondent actually reached the ranch house, there were more than 70 people crammed into the sprawling living room.

The local science teacher served as the emcee and announced that the meeting would be delayed for about twenty minutes, allowing sufficient time for any stragglers to arrive. By the time the meeting was convened, there were more than eighty in attendance and even more were expected.

In the next section of this chapter, “Desert Back in 1955, San Diego’s Talk of the Times news magazine editor, F. E. Rogers, introduced this amazing Center, California: Epicenter of Flying Saucer Re- photograph of a space alien to those assembled on Clyde ports,” we attend the controversial flying saucer Cowan’s Blythe, California, ranch for a special meeting meeting in search of the truth about the Venusian on the subject of flying saucers. The editor maintained that this photo depicted “one of the little people found in visitations to Earth, and Southern California par- a crashed spaceship near Mexico City.” The men on both sides of the aliens are allegedly members of the Mexican ticularly. government’s Federal Ministerial Police.

Mr. Rogers in the Neighborhood Flying Saucer Meeting After the short delay to allow for the stragglers to arrive at the ranch house meeting on flying saucers, it was the local Blythe High School science teacher, George Wixom, who called the meeting to order and introduced that night’s speaker, the editor of the San Diego, California, news magazine, Talk of the Times, F. E. Rogers.

Before this gentleman started his lecture, however, he distributed a four-page photo offset program, announcing that he, Rogers, would be presenting a tape-recorded interview with a Southern California aircraft plant worker, Orfeo Matthew Angelucci, concerning his 35-minute 66

Raymond Andrew Keller II flight in a flying saucer taken right there in the Golden State. One of the inside pages displayed the opening photograph of this article depicting a tiny man in a shiny, skin-tight silvery suit.

Of the strange clothing worn by this entity, Rogers wrote that, “He was dressed in a mixture of metals wound tightly around his body to help withstand the Earth’s atmospheric pressure. We, of course, do not have any such material on this planet.” According to Rogers’ pamphlet, this being was supposedly an alien whom Mexican federal police authorities had saved from a flying saucer crash that took place on the outskirts of Mexico City just a few months previously, in the Spring of 1955.

Rogers, a white-haired older gentleman, fiddled with the dials on his tape- recording device. He then adjusted his green eyeshade and cleared his throat. “You people out here should be very interested in flying saucers,” he began speaking in a thin, quavering voice, continuing, “Of course, the saucer people have shown great interest in your part of the country….”

The owner of the Blythe Music Shop, Leonard Ullom, was skeptical from the git-go. “Just a moment,” he interrupted; “What about this picture of the spaceman? Where did you get it?”

The San Diego editor replied that, “Someone in the know sent it to me.”

“Who?” the inquiring Ullom demanded.

“I am a newspaperman, sir,” Rogers retorted; “so you understand that I have to protect my sources.”

Local resident Robin Hill, however, wanted to know more about the space suit. “Just how do you know, sir, that we do not have any metal like it?”

“I’m sorry that I am not authorized to answer that question, sir. If I were to do so, I might inadvertently supply a clue as to the classified source.”

“Understood,” noted Hill.

Astounding Lecture Many other locals started to raise their hands with yet more questions. The science teacher came to the rescue, however, declaring that, “Perhaps Mr. Rogers should get on with the recording. There will be a question period later on.”

Rogers affirmed that the tape all were about to hear was “backed up by the facts.” He pointed out that while Adamski’s story was well written, it wasn’t scientifically documented, like Angelucci’s was. Orfeo Matthew Angelucci was a Lockheed Aviation worker from Los Angeles, and at least had some idea of the technical aspects of certain contemporary aircraft. He had a weighted opinion about the power and maneuvering characteristics of these flying saucers, that largely remained enigmatic to the public at large.

Rogers then flicked the on switch of his tape record- Orfeo M. Angelucci (1912-1993) was a frequent presenter at the Giant Rock Interplanetary er; and for the next hour the people of Southern Cali- Spacecraft Conventions held at Landers Field, fornia’s Saucer Country enjoyed the opportunity of lis- California, about 17 miles northeast of Yucca Valley, from the mid-50s to the late 70s. tening to Angelucci’s expert testimony concerning flying Angelucci claims to have contacted ethereal saucers and his ideas of where they come from. beings from the Confederation of Planets that took on the appearance of normal humans The tape reel began to run: when operating on Earth.

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Flying Saucers and the Venus Legacy “On May 23, 1952,” declared Angelucci in his recorded testimony, “a hazy, burgundy-colored glow led me through heavy Los Angeles traffic to a desolate spot outside the city where the glow was suddenly transformed into a green disc, only two-and-a-half feet in diameter.”

The aircraft worker believed that the small disc was remote controlled, some kind of probe.

“I got a message from the disc,” he stated, adding that, “They (the intelligences behind the flying saucers) somehow informed me through this disc, by mental telepathy, that they would return to me on an urgent matter.”

Orfeo Rides in a Flying Saucer As the tape recorder continued to play, the assembled Californians heard Orfeo Angelucci’s astounding account of his 35-minute ride aboard a flying saucer on 27 May 1952, just four days after his initial encounter with the drone. The aircraft mechanic said that the space people looked just like us, in most outwardly visible aspects. They related to him how scientists in the Soviet Union were in the process of developing a more lethal type of atomic bomb; and that when they achieved this objective, they would launch a first strike against the United States.

He further declared that the Venusians and beings from other member worlds in the Confederation of Planets were even then working behind the scenes in both the Iron Curtain and the United States to put a stop to this perilous trend, thereby averting World War III. According to this contactee, the extraterrestrials were also urging Americans to support the efforts of concerned scientists to stop the proliferation of atomic weapons and yet more powerful rockets to deliver these devices and to write their elected representatives in Washington, D.C., clearly expressing their concerns on these critical matters. They also gave Angelucci numerous revelatory verses from the Old Testament book of Isaiah to back up their words of warning.

Myriad of Questions, Few Answers After the presentation, the emcee opened the floor for questions and almost every hand went up. Here were some of the questions asked of Rogers: “Who has heard this tape before?”

“Has the Air Force shown any interest in this tape?”

“Have recognized scientific authorities listened to this tape?”

Such questions continued to bombard Rogers’ ears for the next two hours. For most of the questions, all the presenter could say is that he was “not at liberty to answer them at this time.”

Also, since Orfeo Angelucci could not be present at the meeting due to personal engagements, and speak for himself, Rogers hesitated to put words in his mouth. The San Diego editor concluded the Q and A session with some harsh words. “I didn’t come out here from San Diego to be tricked!” he shouted. These are the facts. You can take them or leave them.”

These remarks did not go over to well at the crowded ranch house. One gentleman in the assembly identified himself as Robert Dwyer. He was a soft-spoken, horn-rimmed college type, and began to address Rogers in a steady voice. “You’re insulting our intelligence, sir. Most of us out here have a hunch that the saucers are real. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have come here tonight.

But statements about saucers, like statements about everything else, have to be backed by some kind of proof.

“We’re not trying to trick you; and we are not saying that Angelucci’s a crackpot. But we do not take anyone’s word, including from government representatives, unless it is backed up by facts or, at least, by common sense.”

In my second book in the Venus Rising series, the Final Countdown: Rockets to Venus (Terra 68

Raymond Andrew Keller II Alta, WV: Headline Books, 2017), I publish all of the FBI files pertaining to the surveillance of George Adamski and some of the flying saucer club meetings where he appeared as the guest speaker. At some of the smaller gatherings, it was estimated that there were probably more FBI agents in attendance than actual individuals with a sole interest in the subject of flying saucers.

Mr. Dwyer’s overall professional bearing, snappy dress and eloquent words not common to most of the desert saucer observers in attendance that evening, give me an unsettling feeling that he may have been a government plant. Interestingly enough, at the recent Meet the Venusians conference up at the Masonic Lodge in Mt. Shasta, California, 26-30 August 2020, numerous attendees reported seeing FBI surveillance vans parked in the back of some local motels.

There was an enthusiastic round of applause and the meeting broke up noisily. Bluebook magazine correspondent Paul C. Benard went back to his motel to get some rest before departing Blythe the next morning. Of his experiences in the Colorado desert areas of Southern California, the journalist noted that, “I took two things along: a notebook bulging with names and dates, personal opinions and hastily-scribbled impressions, and a renewed respect for the down-to-Earth reasoning of the average American.”

In the next section of this chapter, we’ll meet some of the members of Japan’s premier contactee organization, the Get Acquainted Program (GAP) of Tokyo, who back at the end of 1996 embarked on a magical mystery tour to Desert Center, California, in search of the truth about George Adamski, his sightings and his encounter with the Venusian saucer pilot.

Let’s Get Acquainted with Japanese Friends of Venus Get Acquainted Program of Japan Hachiro Kubota, director of the Gap Acquainted Program of Japan, a group studying the works of the late George Adamski (1891-1965) and other contactees from around the world, has led many excursions from Japan to the outskirts of the small town of Desert Center, California, located just off Interstate 10 in the center stretches of the Colorado Desert in Riverside County. On his first visit to Desert Center on 21 January 1989, Kubota led his party of Japanese UFO tourists to the exact spot of Adamski’s first contact with a Venusian saucer pilot on 20 November 1952, that was also attested to by six witnesses, among them the famed anthropologist Dr. George Hunt Williamson (1926-1986). Since that time, Kubota has led semi-annual tours to the remote desert site. But on 31 December 1996, the director of this prominent Japanese flying saucer group, embarked on his most remarkable of all pilgrimages to Desert Center.

Within the Get Acquainted Program central chapter in Tokyo, a study group was formed for the benefit of the From Keller Venus Files comes this painting of a more stalwart, younger members. Called the Reimei-kai, beautiful woman from Venus known to project a kind, lyrical voice telepathically to some of the or “Party of Wisdom,” the director of the national promembers of the Party of Wisdom flying saucer gram presided over the weekly meetings of this group, study group of Japan’s Get Acquainted Program that consisted of twelve members. They were all quite (GAP), headquartered in Tokyo. The painting excited when they were invited by Kubota to accompagraced the cover of the Summer 1988 issue of UFO Contactee, the quarterly GAP Japanese ny him on his next trip to California. They had worked language edition.

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Flying Saucers and the Venus Legacy part-time after school for an entire year, saving their money for the excursion. Onboard the plane from Tokyo to Los Angeles on 31 December 1996, Kubota and the young people watched the in-flight movie of Independence Day (Twentieth Century Fox, 1996), thoroughly enjoying it. Kubota had pointed out that according to the teachings of George Adamski, there are both good and bad aliens. In fact, there had even been wars fought in outer space, with the some of the devastation still evident on the surface of the Moon and some of the planets visible through telescopes or space probes. Kubota assured the youth that if hostile aliens were to attack the Earth, he felt confident that the Venusians and other friendly extraterrestrials would come to help us repel the invaders.

Having arrived at the Los Angeles International Airport, the group boarded a chartered bus and head headed south toward Palm Springs, California. Kubota noted that, “The night view of that famous resort city was fantastic. Holiday decorations were still up; and countless small lights were shining and twinkling everywhere. We stayed at a motel called Travelodge of Palm Springs, with a number of separate buildings dotted across vast grounds. There we were joined

by Daniel Ross. He had driven 800 kilometers from the city of Concord, in Northern California, to be part of our tour.” Ross, a former nuclear power technician on active duty in the United States Navy from 1970-1974, served onboard the submarine USS Pintado (SSN-672), for the last three years of his enlistment. Being well-versed in the subjects of nuclear physics, reactor plant technology, chemistry, radiation principles and fluid mechanics, he wrote a definitive book in defense of George Adamski and other contactees titled UFOs and the Complete Evidence from Space: The Truth About Venus, Mars and the Moon (Walnut Creek, California: Pintado Publishing, 1987). In the late 1980s through the 1990s, Ross was a frequent speaker on the international UFO lecture circuit, particularly with worldwide chapters of the Get Acquainted Program.

From the Files of the Get Acquainted Program of Japan: One of several photographs of a UFO flying over Palm Springs in Southern California, the object was snapped as it appeared suddenly at a low altitude a little after 9 a.m. on 1 January 1997.

This particular photograph was taken by Futoshi Nishikawa from the terrace of the Palm Springs Travelodge using a Pentax Z-50p with an 80-200mm zoom lens. It was also observed simultaneously by Party of Wisdom UFO study group members Kato, Tsuda, Kitami, Obara, Shiro, Aida, Fukui, Takahashi and Mishima.

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Raymond Andrew Keller II First Sighting During the first morning in California, the group was to rendezvous on the terrace at nine.

As the chaperone of the group, Kubota felt that he should be the first to arrive, so he went down a little early. To his surprise, most of the tour members were already there. The youth were very excited and animated as they informed Kubota about a UFO they had just observed in the sky over the open area in front of the motel. It was a saucer-shaped object hovering at a very low altitude and some in the group were even able to snap photos of it. Everyone in the party took the appearance of this UFO as a good sign that they were all off to a wonderful start. One student blurted out, “The space people are encouraging us,” and everyone heartily agreed. Now being duly inspired by this first appearance of a flying saucer, the visiting Japanese students were henceforth expecting to see many more extraterrestrial spaceships during the duration of their trip.

On the way to the exact site of Adamski’s contact location about ten miles northeast of town, the group went to lunch at a local truck stop restaurant in downtown Desert Center, which wasn’t much to speak of. Kubota noted that in his many years of conducting tours to Desert Center, “It seems to be deteriorating rapidly these days.” Having driven through the town on several occasions myself, I would have to say that of late it has become something of a ghost town. But as this was the same dining establishment where Adamski and his six friends stopped before their legendary encounter with the Venusian pilot self-identified as “Orthon,” a little more than 44 years ago, Kubota and his party felt it obligatory to stop there. While it was cloudy during that morning, when the group left their motel in Palm Springs, by the time they arrived at Desert Center, the skies were clear and everyone was basking in the beautiful sunshine. In fact, the conditions were perfect for photography.

Commenting on this unique excursion, Kubota remarked, “The first thing I did after getting off the bus was to take a lot of pictures of the open desert land from the highway with a medium-format camera. From the ‘desert,’ most people imagine an ocean of beautiful, fine sand, like the Sahara Desert in Africa. But this desert is not that kind.

Part of the great Mojave Desert covering a large portion of the American Southwest, it is barren land with a hard surface, scattered low shrubs, and stones everywhere. The temParty of Wisdom tour members at the alleged spot that George Adamski first encountered a Venusian cosmonaut at Desert Center, California, on 20 November perature in summer reaches 1952. In the back row at far left is Hachiro Kubota, the tour group leader, and to more than 40 degrees Celsius. the far right is American nuclear energy and outer space expert, Daniel Ross of Walnut Creek, California. Photo from April 1997 issue of UFO Contactee, the GAP But we were there in winter; newsletter English language monthly edition. and it was a very comfortable 71

Flying Saucers and the Venus Legacy 14 degrees (Celsius). We began walking together toward the contact spot. The distance to the spot from the Parker Highway, where we got off the bus, is 600 meters.” Kubota knew this because he had measured it precisely with a measuring tape a few years back, while conducting a previous tour.

Second Sighting When Kubota first discovered the original contact spot on 21 January 1989, he was accompanied by Daniel Ross and his wife, who had brought with them duplicates of the photographs that identified the location in Dr. George Hunt Williamson’s classic UFO book, Other Tongues-Other Flesh (Amherst, Wisconsin: Amherst Press, 1953). Frankly, Kubota admitted that it was truly a miracle that he was able to find the location. The area is vast, and for anyone to find a specific point by chance is most improbable. Because of this, the director of the UFO group acknowledged that, “I strongly believe that I was guided somehow by a UFO high in the sky above.” Insofar as Dr. Williamson, one of the six witnesses to Adamski’s original encounter with the Venusian, was the one who made the famous plaster casts of the footprints of Orthon from the imprints left by the soles of that flying saucer occupant’s shoes in the desert soil, there were photographs of him making these casts that appeared in the above-cited book. Kubota used the mountain ridges in the background of these photographs to find the site of Adamski’s extraterrestrial contact. Incidentally, Akinori Endo, a gentleman who serves as both a staff member and scientific consultant at the Get Acquainted Program headquarters in Tokyo, has studied the figures depicted in the photographs of the plaster casts and believes that they provide some clues to the principles of electromagnetic propulsion pertaining to the Venusian scout ships. Back in Japan, Endo has presented his findings in numerous public forums.

As the tour group finally reached the contact location, the members lined up for Kubota to snap a souvenir picture. At the moment that he was about to take the photograph, however, a strange feeling came over him. Kubota turned his head to the west, looking high up in the sky.

“Wow!” the director exclaimed. “There it was! Suddenly, I could see the shining saucer and I shouted, ‘Look at that!’” Everyone turned at once, focusing their eyes on the UFO; and a collective cry of joy arose among all. Taking the souvenir photograph was instantly forgotten as many with cameras in the group began to photograph the flying saucer. “This is the greatest souvenir,” one of the members gleefully exclaimed. There was definitely a magic about that place of Adamski’s initial contact experience; and after the saucer fly-by, no one was in a hurry to leave the area. For almost four hours, everyone just hung around, watching the skies and waiting for another UFO to show up. Once again, no one was disappointed. Far away on the eastern horizon, many reported seeing what looked like a white, cigar-shaped object. Kubota, who was watching the bags and other items the members had left at the bus, also saw what he thought was a slender, cylindrical object away off in the eastern sky. It was most likely the mothership for the other smaller saucers the group had been looking at and photographing. Kubota and his Party of Wisdom UFO study group packed up and left the site in the late afternoon. Tomorrow they were headed to the slopes of the near-mythic Mount Palomar.

Mecca for Ufologists On 2 January 1997, Kubota led the entirety of the Party of Wisdom group up the slopes of Mount Palomar, the literal Mecca for ufologists the world over insofar as the late George Adamski lived there and worked part-time as a cook in the Palomar Gardens café for tourists visiting 72

Raymond Andrew Keller II the observatory. The café was owned by Adamski’s secretary Alice K. Wells. In between munching on hamburgers, French fries and sipping coffee or Coca-Colas, the tourists would listen to the contactee tell of his encounters with extraterrestrials, both on the physical plane and psychically, and sell them postcards of the various types of spaceships that he had photographed from the back steps of his home. As it was the day after New Year’s, there were no other tourists in the area. Even the famous astronomical observatory was closed that day. It was lonely up there.

The members of the Japanese UFO tour group strolled the grounds of the observatory; and then at noon Kubota took them over to the Oak Knoll Campground, where the Palomar Gardens café was once located, and they ate their pre-packed lunches on mist-soaked picnic tables under a pavilion. Group leader Kubota pointed out some rock work that was done on the grounds by Adamski back in the late 1940s, and everyone was giddy with excitement. The place where Wells’ restaurant once stood was covered with cement. Kubota thought it would probably stay that way into the foreseeable future; unless more of the general public started looking into Adamski and his claims, finding him and his stories to be credible. Ross, the nuclear power and outer space specialist tagging along with the group, pointed out that new information about intelligent life on the Moon, Mars and Venus is always leaking out, albeit slowly, and that one day, he was sure, Adamski would appropriately be recognized as the visionary UFO prophet that he was.

Kubota remarked, “I heard that a noble Native American Indian lady who was once one of Adamski’s students bought this land to make it into a memorial park, a reminder of him.”

On the following day, everyone was back at the Palm Springs motel, where Kubota and Ross supervised the third and final question and answer session with the Reimei-kai members.

Junichi Kato, the chief secretary at the Get Acquainted Program headquarters in Japan, was assisting Kubota with making arrangements throughout the California trip. In the concluding question and answer session, Kato asked Kubota, “What did the UFOs we saw on this trip, and the space people who were probably on those ships, want to tell us?”

Group leader Kubota replied, “Space people help not only those who believe in what George Adamski told us. They pay their respects equally to everyone, even those who don’t believe in Adamski’s experience, because they know every human being is a child of the Creator of the Universe. They are helping all Earthlings as a group to improve ourselves and become a true member of this solar system. Thus, in essence, they are not helping individuals on Earth, but the society called Earth.”

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Chapter 4

The Mitchell Sisters and the Space People

Source: Cover art of Betty and Helen Mitchell’s We Met the Space People (Clarksburg, WV: Saucerian Press, 1959).

“Meet me in St. Louis, Louis.

Meet me at the fair.

Don’t tell me the lights are shining Any place but there....”

—Billy Murray (1904) Meet Me in St. Louis, Louis Initial Contact It was Thursday, 2 May 1957 when Betty and Helen Mitchell of 1415 Bernadette Street in Florissant, Missouri, were in St. Louis doing some shopping. They were looking for some new summer outfits. At about the noon hour, the Mitchell sisters were getting a little hungry and tired on their feet. They went into a nearby sandwich shop and placed their lunch orders, with Cokes as their beverages. The previous customer had left a newspaper on the bench where Helen was seated. Helen picked it up and there was an article about extrasensory perception that caught her attention. “Look at this, Betty. The article says that we all have extrasensory abilities; but some have a little more of them than others. Do you think we have any kind of powers like this?”

“I just don’t know, Helen. But I am pretty sure that I can read your mind about fifty percent of the time, especially when it comes to boys.” Both of the young women, in their early twenties, chuckled. Helen was about two years older than Betty.

There were two young men at the next table; and both of them glanced in the Mitchell sisters’ direction when they heard them laughing. Betty and Helen realized that they were being observed by the men and decided to just ignore them. After all, they had no idea who they were 74

Raymond Andrew Keller II or what their intentions were. Suddenly, one of the lads walked over to the Mitchells’ table. The sisters, being quite beautiful, were apparently accustomed to receiving wolfish attention. They were getting ready to give the approaching fellow the proverbial “brush off ” when they noticed that up close, the fellow looked somewhat odd, even out of place. Helen couldn’t determine in her mind’s eye just what it was about the gentleman that she found so disconcerting, so strange.

Perhaps it was his dark complexion. He looked Sicilian, or of some type of Mediterranean ancestry.

The olive-skinned man finally spoke up. “I am Velas from the planet Mars; and my friend is Elan from Venus.” Elan had light blond hair.

The sisters thought this must be some kind of joke. They thought that it would be prudent to just keep their mouths shut and wait to see what would happen. Then the blond man came over to their table. The Mitchells noticed that both were dressed alike, but in a rather ordinary fashion. By the way they were dressed they certainly did not come across as space farers like Buck Rogers, Commander Buzz Corry or Flash Gordon. Both wore gray business suits, white shirts, dark-colored, conservative ties and the usual accessories. This was the late 1950s, so accessories would include such items as cuff links, tie clasps and wristwatches. The young ladies did wonder why they weren’t wearing a hat. Even President Dwight D. Eisenhower would always sport one when he went anywhere.

As the gentlemen exhibited an excellent appearance and were courteous of manner and speech, being deferential to the young ladies, the Mitchell sisters listened attentively to their unique come-on. The two men spoke in all seriousness about themselves and their lives on Mars and Venus. “I’m sure you’ve heard a lot about flying saucers on your radio and television programs,” said Velas.

“Oh, yes,” replied Helen, adding that, “but frankly I haven’t given it too much thought, up until this time.”

“The only reason I am telling you any of this,” said Velas, “is because I saw that you two are interested in such esoteric subjects as extrasensory perception.”

“Why yes, we certainly are,” chimed in Betty.

“Well good then, Betty. Then we’ll be seeing both of you again in one week, right here at this same time,” interjected Velas as they turned to head out the door.

After the alleged spacemen left the sandwich shop, Betty and Helen turned to face other, each with their mouth agape. “What just happened, Helen?” inquired Betty.

“Heck if I know. I really don’t know what to make of this. Perhaps it is some kind of elaborate hoax. But whatever it is, I kind of like Velas and want to get to know him better. You can have the blond guy.”

“Why do I always get your leftovers?”

“Don’t be so silly, Betty. I mean, Elan is from Venus, the planet of love. You might be getting the better deal with this one!”

Later that night, after the sisters turned off the Bob Cummings Show at 9 p.m. and nestled down for the night, they both dreamed about what surprises the following week might bring.

As 2 May was the National Day of Prayer, Helen mulled over the possibility that their space friends might really be angels in disguise, coming to Earth in answer to her heavenly petitions.

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Flying Saucers and the Venus Legacy The Space Flight A week had passed. Betty and Helen returned to the same coffee shop during the lunch hour. They laughingly wondered if the self-proclaimed “space men” would keep their promise and show up. After having an entire seven days to ponder the matter, the young ladies began to think that perhaps Elan and Velas might really be from Venus and Mars, respectively. Helen remarked, “Betty, I don’t think they were joking about being from other planets. They seemed to have a genuine knowledge of conditions in outer space and life on our neighboring planets.”

“I was thinking the same thing, Helen,” replied Betty and adding, “Of course, it could have been contrived. On the other hand, they both had that obvious seriousness. Frankly, I was really impressed. Anyway, I hope they come back today.”

Just as Betty finished her sentence, the small bell above the door tinkled as Elan opened it, entering the coffee shop followed by his friend Velas. They walked over to the young ladies’ table. Velas reached into a suit pocket and handed Helen what appeared to be an electronic device of some kind, about the size of a small powder box. “What is this?” inquired Helen.

Velas explained, “Dear Helen, this is actually a telephone. You can use it to call us or anyone aboard our ship, at any time you need to talk. We know your hearts are pure and we trust you not to abuse it or to reveal this communicator to anyone else.”

Velas then showed both of the young ladies how the cosmic telephone worked. “Well, it sure doesn’t look like any telephone I’ve ever seen. How is it powered?” inquired Helen.

Velas further explained that, “Just like with our ventla, or scout ship, the device works on the principle of magnetic lines. Let’s just say it’s a type of technology similar to your transistor radio and leave it at that.”

Elan interjected, “We wanted you to have this device so that you would know for a surety that we aren’t making up a story about being from other planets.”

“Crazy!” declared Betty.

“Yeah, just far out!” noted Helen, followed by, “You can be sure that we’ll keep this space telephone a secret. You can depend on us.”

“How would you like to…. shall we say, ‘beat it out of here,’ girls?” asked Velas. “We can take you to our ship. It’s parked just outside of town, hidden from view, parked next to a large barn.

We have a safe house on a farm not too far from here.”

Betty and Helen turned to each other and then in unison spun around toward the space men and declared, “What are we waiting for? Let’s go!”

The gentlemen followed the young ladies out the door of the coffee shop and onto the street, where a red and white, four-door Chevrolet Bel-Air hardtop was parallel parked. Both of the space men opened the back doors for their respective girl friends to seat themselves comfortably on the back seat.

“You know we’re not into any kind of ‘back seat bingo,” said Helen.

“Oh, yes,” said Velas, as he positioned himself behind the wheel. “No funny stuff. I guarantee it.”

Velas drove through East St. Louis; and about fifteen minutes later the car was outside the city limits, into Illinois. He drove off the main road until coming to a stop in front of a large barn. Elan got out of the front passenger seat and opened the door of the barn, whence Velas drove the Chevrolet into the structure and parked it near some empty horse stalls. The sisters stepped out of the car. Then Elan opened another big door in the back of the barn that led into an adjacent clearing, enclosed by a large corral, at which time he pulled a huge tarp off of a 5076

Raymond Andrew Keller II foot, bell-shaped flying saucer that was parked about ten feet from the back wall of the barn.

The ship looked similar to some other photos of flying saucers that the young ladies had seen in the newspapers, except this one did not have any of the familiar portholes. There were also no apparent seams or even a door on the flying saucer.

“How do you see out of that ship to know where you are going?” asked Helen.

“Well, as you shall soon see for yourself,” replied Velas, “the walls become transparent when the saucer is in flight. It’s a little disorienting at first, but you’ll get used to it.” The Martian then clicked a button on the telephone-like device and a portal mysteriously opened up on the side of the object, whence a ladder descended to the ground. “All aboard, ladies; it is beauty before age.”

Betty hesitated, stuttering, “I, I, I don’t think so. I’ve ch…. changed my mind. I can barely ride in a car for half an hour before getting nauseated.” She paused and then turned toward her sister and asked, “Helen, are you seriously going to get into that thing?”

Before answering Betty, Helen asked Velas, “If I go with you, you are going to bring me back, sometime today?”

“Of course, my dear Helen; I will have you back this very day.”

“OK, then,” said Helen, as she ascended to the top of the ladder, lingering by the portal.

Velas said to Betty, “Don’t worry, dear; we shall have your sister back in about half an hour.

Are you still sure that you don’t want to go for a ride into outer space?”

“Oh, I’m sure. Helen has always been the adventuresome one. I prefer to keep my feet on the ground. I wouldn’t even get into it if it were a regular airplane.”

Velas said, “In that case, Elan will stay behind with you, Betty, until I return with Helen. Elan can take you around the farm and show you some of our other wonderful mechanisms. He can also run a sort of brief documentary movie for you on the special color and three-dimensional television set in our parlor so you can see what Venus really looks like.

Velas then joined Helen at the top of the ladder and they stepped into the ventla. “Where are we going, in just half an hour’s time?” asked Helen.

“I thought I’d take you up to our mother ship, the Aregon, and then bring you right back here, just so that you could have the experience of traveling in space.”

With that Helen took a seat next to Velas, who was seated in the command chair at a navigation control panel. The ship lifted off the ground and the walls immediately became transparent from the inside out. The lack of visible walls made her feel as though she were on the merry-goround in an elementary school playground. She gripped the arm rests on her chair tightly and tried in vain to dig her brittle fingernails into their hard, plastic composition.

During her short ride, Helen recognized the skylines of Chicago and Boston. When over Boston, Velas cut a sharp left and soon the ventla was hovering over the North Pole. A small and magnifying lens opened up in the floor so that Helen could get a better look at polar region. The Earth was shrinking right under her feet, or at least appeared to be. “We are now entering the realm of outer space,” said Velas. “Off to your starboard side you will see our mother ship, the Aregon, commanded by Targon of Abejar. Abejar is the name of the planet you know as Venus.”

Helen was surprised that when they were in close vicinity to the Aregon, the Earth exhibited a reddish hue. “What happened to the beautiful blue orb of the Earth?” she asked Velas.

“Do not fear, dear Helen. You are viewing your world through the ionization flux curtain of the scout ship and upper atmospheric particles activated when we passed through the magnetic field of the mothership. There is nothing wrong with the Earth or the space vessels.”

“That’s a relief,” said Helen.

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Flying Saucers and the Venus Legacy Having glimpsed the mothership, Helen was immediately returned to the farm in Illinois, to be reunited with her sister. While Helen was up in space with Velas, Elan showed Betty the documentary about Venus, its majestic cities and many natural wonders. She also viewed on the special television a scene from a Venusian spaceport where various types of craft were landing and taking off. She paid particular attention to the landing of a traditional flying saucer with portholes in the temple city of Azure. As that scout ship first came in under the cloud cover, it was accompanied by a swarm of large bees. Elan explained that the bees were harmless, and that Venusians and the bees were intimately connected at many levels.

Pioneer ufologist and researcher, editor of the Saucerian Bulletin, Gray Barker interviewed the Mitchell sisters about their experience in August 1959. He asked Helen why she and Betty, as well as so many others, were being contacted by the space people. Helen explained that at least as far as the Martians and Venusians were concerned, that there was a definite problem insofar as the military antagonisms on Earth might be carried to the extremes, resulting in all-out wars and even atomic conflagrations. Not only would this keep our entire solar system from ultimately moving into yet higher vibratory planes, it might reduce our entire planet to a smoldering, radioactive cinder. Helen declared that she and other contactees were spreading the words of our brothers and sisters from other planets in order to prepare the people of Earth for mobilization in creating a better world for everyone and a future filled with many wonderful sights and events as we all transition into the new age of Aquarius.

Gray Barker’s “Psychic” Interpretation Gray Barker popularized the contactees in all of the publications of his Saucerian Press, headquartered in Clarksburg, West Virginia. Barker believed that there was some basis to all of the accounts provided by the contactees.

The ufologist mused, “There must have been some stimulus, probably a meeting up with the unknown, such an alien and complex meeting that the contactees may have built a mental framework around the experience which would allow them to explain it in everyday terms. They probably did not consciously make up the framework. Instead, their subconscious minds may have provided some basis of reality with which to make the experience understandable.”

When referring to the Mitchell sisters’ encounter with the space men, Barker noted that insofar as he and the editorial staff of the Saucerian Bulletin were concerned, they made a lot of sense, especially since Helen and Betty asserted that our entire solar system was moving into a higher Pioneer ufologist Gray Barker, 1925-1984. vibratory plane. In the September 1959 issue of the Sauce- Photo courtesy of Harrison County Public Library, Clarksburg, West Virginia. rian Bulletin (Vol. 4, No. 2), Barker wrote, “If that were true, could it not account for many of the strange things man has been witnessing in such great numbers since 1947? Some of the saucers just don’t seem to be genuine material craft. Some of them are obviously amorphous, appear as strange masses which can change shape and even vanish before your very eyes.”

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Raymond Andrew Keller II Barker began to think that other researchers like Meade Layne of the Borderland Sciences Research Associates of San Diego, California, or New Zealand’s Trevor James Constable, the author of the popular flying saucer book, They Live in the Sky (San Diego, California: Book Tree, 1958), might not be talking through their proverbial hats after all. Both of the referenced researchers had stated unequivocally on numerous occasions that they believed that some UFOs were indeed of an ethereal composition and came from other dimensional planes. They also believed that there were other physical objects intelligently controlled and directed to Earth from other planets on our own third-dimensional plane of existence.

In the November-December 1958 issue of the Borderland Sciences Research Associates’ Round Robin newsletter, Layne profoundly took note that, “Our planet, our culture, our philosophy, religion and science are (so to speak) rushing headlong into an incredible ‘psychic’ adventure. We are knocking at the doors of all mysteries, not without hope, and not without apprehension and imminent danger. Now the keys to these doors (many of them) have been known from old times, though the West has disregarded them; they are found in occult studies and the concept of oriental metaphysics--- distasteful as this truth may be to Western scientism, is not science.”

“So,” opined Barker, “if the Mitchell sisters and their spacemen friends are right, we can expect to see more saucers, and even weirder things, as time goes by. Maybe it’s because I am interested in such things, and read more about them; but it seems to the editor that there has been a definite step-up in man’s interest in the borderland sciences, such as telepathy, spiritualism, reincarnation, and other strange subjects; and that this interest has been intensified or maybe brought about by flying saucers.”

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Chapter 5

The Fusaro Files

Gladys Fusaro (1912-1977) of Long Island, New York, a correspondent for Gray Barker’s Saucerian Bulletin, was a contactee and one of the first women recognized as a world authority on all aspects of the UFO phenomenon.

Radar Technicians and Assorted UFO Phenomena Gladys Fusaro of Huntington, Long Island, New York, was one of the many correspondents for the premier ufologist Gray Barker and his noteworthy Saucerian Bulletin, which he published out of his office located in the back of a drive-in movie theater in Clarksburg, West Virginia. Fusaro was convinced that the flying saucers were piloted by advanced beings hailing from other planets in our solar system, and possibly from beyond. She constantly scanned newspapers at every opportunity looking for accounts of UFO sightings and occupant reports.

Fusaro began mailing reports to Gray Barker on a regular basis beginning in December 1958. A series of articles on UFOs by John Lester of the Newark, New Jersey, Star-Ledger, were among the first pieces to catch her eye. Fusaro concluded that Lester’s articles offered objective evidence that the mysterious objects that many believed to be flying saucers were being tracked by highly trained United States government radar personnel stationed throughout the country at both civilian and military installations.

Radar experts were in control of the nation’s air traffic. Many had pointed out that some of the unknown objects were performing maneuvers that no known aircraft of the time could be capable of executing. Also, no human could possibly withstand the tremendous G-forces associated with such maneuvers. The UFOs were traveling at fantastic speeds. Sometimes the objects were moving at speeds calculated in thousands of miles per hour. These enigmatic objects were known to make perfect ninety degree turns, steep vertical climbs, and even abrupt, hovering stops. This was all in defiance of the then extant laws of aerodynamics. When asked if the UFOs were flying saucers from outer space, one of the radar men declared, “If it looks like a duck, waddles like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it’s probably a duck.” He also added, “Sorry, that’s all I can say about it for now.”

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Raymond Andrew Keller II Fusaro contacted Lester at the Star-Ledger newsroom. “What else can you tell me about the flying saucers that didn’t appear in your newspaper articles?” she inquired. “Well, when more than one of the saucers was involved, they flew in a pattern. And when there were a lot of them, they were in a pattern within a pattern, if you catch my drift.”

“You mean they were intelligently controlled.”

“You got it, sister. What the authorities said about the UFOs flying in formation down in Texas, the ones that were photographed, being a flock of birds, well that’s just a cover-up. These things are physical, hard metallic space ships. They’re just like that Polish guy (George Adamski) describes them on the Long John Nebel Party Line radio program.”

In the articles Lester noted that, “The UFOs invariably stay just ahead of the Air Force planes sent up to intercept them. This has led most of these skilled technicians, Civil Aeronautic Authority employees with the official title of Airways Operation Specialist, to conclude that flying saucers do exist. At the very least, they say there is ‘something out there’ that just can’t be explained in any conventional manner.”

About 1,000 such technicians were polled by Lester during the first week of December 1958 concerning the presence of flying saucers in our skies. Of this 1,000, approximately eight out of every ten radar technicians opined that flying saucers were real and coming to Earth from somewhere in outer space. Lester concluded this information is reliable because the 1,000 polled was considered a “fair cross section of the 12,000 currently on duty at airfields in New York, Newark, Boston, Miami, Chicago, Los Angeles, Fort Worth and other major cities throughout the country. Some were from airfields in the Hawaiian Islands.” The remaining 200 or so were undecided or noncommittal, but not outright dismissing the idea of visitors from the stars.

Lester’s articles were certainly groundbreaking in the emerging field of ufology. Each one of the technicians that he polled were expert operators of the super-sensitive electronic “eye” known as radar. Radar is a device employed to ensure the precision-safe take-offs and landings of all aircraft. They are employed in a constant search of the sky for unscheduled or unidentified planes, or “anything else” that might interfere with the normal flight plans or somehow endanger national security.

Slightly over 500 of the 1,000 polled report that they had seen or “tracked” UFOs on their radar screens one or more times. And in many instances, the objects were observed simultaneously by people in the vicinity of the radar station, sometimes by the thousands. All 500 were certain that the UFOs tracked were not meteors, weather balloons, cloud formations, hallucinations, or anything else of a similar nature. About sixty percent of the remaining 500, or three out of every five for 300 more technicians, had never personally tracked a UFO but were of the same considered opinion of those that had tracked the objects largely because of their confidence in radar as well as the high degree of confidence they shared in the knowledge and skills of their co-workers.

Lester informed the Star-Ledger readers that the Air Force has consistently “pooh-poohed” reports of flying saucers ever since that military branch began a study of the UFO situation back in 1948. The reporter also commented that the Air Force’s debunking policy had often been criticized by several civilian groups investigating UFOs. The largest and most vocal of these in 1958 was the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena (NICAP), which was headquartered in Washington, DC. NICAP’s directorate included Major Donald E. Keyhoe, a retired Marine Corps pilot, as director, with other board members General Albert Wedemeyer, Rear Admiral Delmar S. Fahrney, “the father of the Navy guided missile,” and General William 81

Flying Saucers and the Venus Legacy E. Kepner, formally of the Air Force. This powerhouse team did much to keep both pressure and a spotlight on the Air Force’s UFO investigative unit, Project BLUEBOOK. NICAP also conducted its own UFO investigations and published the results in a monthly newsletter, the NICAP UFO Investigator.

Concerning official UFO investigations in other nations, Fusaro wrote Barker that Saucerian Bulletin subscribers might want to know that, “Many foreign countries, including England, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Japan and Russia have shown interest in exploring UFO reports. These countries have already established or are planning to establish UFO observatories very soon. They have invited the United States to join them in pooling all findings.”

Fusaro considered the optimistic attitude of Canada in respect to the UFO phenomenon as being typical of the other nations’ approaches.

Wrote Fusaro, “When Canada’s UFO observatory was established at Shirley’s Bay, near Ottawa, several years Following her interview with Lester at the Star-Ledger, Fusaro drew some of the ago, an official government UFOs based on descriptions provided to Lester by the actual witnesses to the aerial phenomena. Above is her original artwork along with typed comments. statement explained that its defense research scientists have never discredited or discounted the existence of flying saucers.”

In returning to Lester’s article, the journalist questioned the Air Force’s “standing pat on its original policy,” but all the while greatly intensifying UFO investigations.

Intensification of the UFO Cover-Up High Flight “Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth, And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings; Sunward I’ve climbed and joined the tumbling mirth of sun-split clouds and done a hundred things you have not dreamed of wheeled and soared and swung high in the sunlit silence.

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Raymond Andrew Keller II Hovering there I’ve chased the shouting wind along and flung my eager craft through footless halls of air….”

—Pilot Officer John Gillespie Magee, Royal Canadian Air Force (1941) Gladys Fusaro of Huntington, Long Island, New York, was one of the many correspondents for the premier ufologist Gray Barker and his noteworthy Saucerian Bulletin, which he published out of his office located in the back of a drive-in movie theater in Clarksburg, West Virginia, from the mid-1950s to the late 1960s. In the last section, Fusaro explained why she was convinced that the flying saucers were piloted by advanced beings hailing from other planets in our solar system, and possibly from beyond. She constantly scanned newspapers at every opportunity looking for accounts of UFO sightings and occupant reports. One of the first females to approach ufology from a purely scientific standpoint, she began her investigations by analyzing reports of aerial phenomena submitted by radar technicians from coast-to-coast in the late 1950s. In this second rendition of the Fusaro Files, the intrepid Saucerian correspondent tackles early attempts by the brass of the United States Air Force to muffle the voices of both commercial and military pilots in regard to the mysterious objects they encountered when on active flight status.

Fusaro’s attention was drawn to another article by John Lester that appeared in the Monday, 22 December 1958 edition of the Newark, New Jersey, Star-Ledger newspaper. Fusaro was convinced that Lester had an inside track with the Air Force on their UFO investigations, especially considering the amazing revelations about the radar tracking of the elusive flying saucers that previously appeared in Lester’s Friday, 19 December 1958 column.

Lester’s newest article in question was titled, “Pilots call Air Force secrecy on flying saucers ‘ridiculous.’” The news piece relates that a group of more than 50 top commercial pilots, all veterans of more than 15 years with major companies, on 21 December 1958 blasted as “bordering on the ridiculous” the Air Force’s new policy of tight censorship, brush-off and denial in regard to any past, present or even future UFO reports made or to be filed by civilian pilots. One of the pilots told Lester that the Air Force’s policy was, in his opinion, nothing more than “a lesson in lying, intrigue and the ‘Big Brother’ attitude carried to the ultimate extreme.”

The article related that all 50 of the pilots had sighted at least one UFO while in the process of flying a commercial airliner. When Fusaro contacted Lester about this, the Star-Ledger journalist informed her that, “The majority of these pilots actually sighted several UFOs while on duty,” adding that, “These flying saucers are serious business.”

Previously, the Air Force restricted itself to interrogating only its own and other military branch pilots who had officially filed reports of UFO sightings. Now the civilian pilots were subject to the same Air Force interrogation procedures as the military personnel. All of the fifty commercial pilots questioned by the Air Force as to their respective UFO encounters expressed disgust and frustration over the methods employed by the Air Force inquisitors and the conclusions that these same arrived at, largely dismissing the pilots’ observations as “misinterpretations of natural phenomena.”

One pilot informed Lester, “We are ordered to report all UFO sightings; but when we do, we are usually treated like incompetents and told to keep quiet.” The civilian pilot continued, “This is no fun, especially after many hours of questioning, sometimes all night long. You’re tired. You’ve just come in from a grueling flight, anxious to get home to the wife and kids. But 83

Flying Saucers and the Venus Legacy you make your report anyhow, and the Air Force tells you that the thing that paced your plane for 15 minutes was a mirage or a bolt of lightning. Nuts to that! Who needs it?”

Another civilian pilot opined that he was certain that many other pilots simply “forget” to report UFO sightings, rather than undergo Air Force quizzing and ridicule. He said he is sure that much valuable information was lost as a result. Lester took note that although the civilian pilots had expressed themselves freely in the interview, all of them insisted that their names be withheld. This was because in most instances, employers had directed them, at the insistence of the Air Force, to say nothing for publication. This would avoid legal complications for all concerned.

Fusaro asked Lester if this lack of authentication would diminish the validity of the UFO reports in the eyes of the public. Lester told her not to worry because, “The Star-Ledger has their names; and it was agreed that they could be released if and when the ‘strict silence’ ban is lifted.”

One of the pilots didn’t care if his name got out there, however, and despite being refused permission by his airline company to appear on a recent nationwide telecast, went on the air anyway with his UFO report. Another pilot was ordered to “cease and desist” by the Air Force after he appeared on two recent national network telecasts, even though he had his airline company’s express approval to talk about the UFO sightings.

One of the pilots harkened back to Lester’s previous article about the UFO tracking being done by the Civil Aeronautics Authority radar personnel stationed around the United States.

The pilot emphatically declared that, “The Air Force can’t afford to admit radar is correct, without also admitting that its own attitude has been incorrect from the beginning.”

This same pilot also pointed out that the Joint Chiefs of Staff recently issued an order assigning top radio priority to UFO reports anywhere in the world. The order specified that any pilot who failed to maintain absolute secrecy after reporting a UFO through official channels would be subject to a maximum of ten years in prison and a fine of ten thousand dollars. Concerning this, Fusaro wrote Gray Barker, editor and publisher of the Saucerian Bulletin, that “If the Air Force wants this whole UFO business to be taken lightly, then why is the Joint Chiefs of Staff so serious and obviously so concerned about it? And why are they going to all that trouble?”

Red Saucers Fusaro realized early on that UFOs were a global phenomenon. They could not be fully understood within the context of only the United States. In December 1958, Newsweek magazine reported that tourists returning from Lapland in northernmost Finland had witnessed Soviet tests in the sub-Arctic, nightly skies involving circular craft that “loomed larger than the Moon.” In other words, if you held a Franklin half-dollar at arm’s length, that’s how big the object would appear to you off in the distance.

The female pioneering ufologist mentioned this concern to Gray Barker. The West Virginia Saucerian editor, in turn, requested his correspondents from around the world to forward any information regarding UFO reports in the northern climes to him. The London correspondent came upon a new edition of Jane’s All the World’s Aircraft announcing that the Soviet Union was planning on building a “jet-powered flying saucer.” The reference book depicted a prototype glider known as the Sukhanov. “It has a single, almost circular wing, 11 feet, 6 inches across,” notes the Jane’s entry on the aircraft.

There was a “streamlined cabin” in the form of a cup-shaped cockpit. It was mounted under the saucer’s leading edge. The entry stated that the glider model was first previewed by the Sovi84

Raymond Andrew Keller II ets at the Tushino Airport early in 1958 and was tested “prior to production of a light-powered jet aircraft along the same lines.” The Soviets maintained that their glider was “extremely maneuverable.”

Did the existence of saucer-type aircraft in the fleets of military powers on Earth preclude the extraterrestrial hypothesis for the origin of UFOs? Barker and Fusaro came to believe that the countless reports of extraterrestrial spacecraft in our skies, and possibly the recovery of crashed saucers, facilitated engineering programs to fabricate the prototypes for advanced aerospace vehicles and a race between the then two extant superpowers of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and the United States of America to break the surly bonds of Earth.

In the next section we shall see where the Saucerian Bulletin’s correspondent examines the possibility of intelligent life without end scattered throughout the Omniverse. By 1960, the Space Race was in full-throttle. The subject of exobiology, or life on other planets, was no longer restricted to the realm of science fiction.

Considering the Extraterrestrial Hypothesis Gladys Fusaro of Huntington, Long Island, New York, was one of the many correspondents for the premier ufologist Gray Barker and his noteworthy Saucerian Bulletin, which he published out of his office located in the back of a drive-in movie theater in Clarksburg, West Virginia, from the mid-1950s to the late 1960s. Later in the early 1970s, Fusaro would serve as an associate editor for Barker’s Saucer News, a journal of scientific ufology. Fusaro had always been a big fan of science fiction since her high school days, so she was always open to the possibilities inherent in the proposition that intelligent life exists on other planets in our own solar system and beyond.

Engagement with the UFO Phenomenon It wasn’t until the retired Marine Corps Major Donald E. Keyhoe, Director of the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena (NICAP) of Washington, D.C., was not allowed to make public on the 22 January 1958 Armstrong Circle Theater special UFO television program, the existence of four detailed United States Air Force documents authenticating the reality of the flying saucers as extraterrestrial spaceships, that she not only became interested in the UFO phenomenon but actually joined the ranks of scientific ufologists as a crusader for full government disclosure on the subject.

Fusaro was watching the UFO program when all of the sudden her television screen displayed an announcement indicating the transmission was temporarily suspended due to “technical difficulties.” Pressure from Air Force brass forced the television network to censor any mention by Major Keyhoe of the following four documents from interview: A 23 September 1947 secret conclusion by the Air Technical Intelligence Center (ATIC) in Dayton, Ohio, that the flying saucers were real.

A 1948 top secret ATIC document concluding that UFOs were interplanetary spaceships.

A secret ATIC analysis of UFO maneuvers that also concluded that the UFOs were of interplanetary origin.

A secret report by a panel of top scientists in the United States convened at the Pentagon in January 1953 which urged that the Air Force quadruple its UFO investigative efforts and they provide the American people with all UFO information, including secret Air Force conclu-

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Flying Saucers and the Venus Legacy sions, unsolved sightings and photo analyses. The recommendations of this scientific panel were officially rejected.

Fusaro recalled a public statement made in November 1957 by Air Force Major General Joe W. Kelly to the effect that UFOs did not involve the security of the country. But now Major Keyhoe’s censored interview provided the evidence that the Air Force did possess UFO information that it was purposely withholding from the public; therefore, the big question was “Why?”- especially since the UFOs did not represent any kind of “national security threat,” so-called. If the UFOs were harmless enough, as Major General Kelly said they were, then why the cover-up?

Fusaro wondered what the Air Force was afraid of. After all of the thousands of UFO sightings investigated by Project BLUEBOOK up to the time of the Keyhoe interview, had there ever been any signs of panic exhibited on anyone’s part?

A Unique Friend Fusaro was a close friend of the popular female science fiction writer, Evelyn E. Smith of Indianapolis, Indiana, and her 12-year-old daughter Rita. Smith had attended a few flying saucer conventions out at Giant Rock in Landers, California, in various capacities. Both Smith and her daughter had many unique experiences with the phenomenon. One of these went back to May 1956, when the mother and daughter were at home listening to some music on their radio set. Suddenly the music stopped and a mysterious voice blurted out, “You are the masters of the Earth!” Immediately after that, the music program continued as before. Both the mother and daughter ran outside the house to see if a UFO was in the area. They were not disappointed; for two of them were passing over their home. The From Dr. Raymond A. Keller’s “Venus Files”: This series of photographs was taken by New York City attorney objects were described as being like the “typical Jules St. Germain of popular science fiction writer Evelyn flying saucers.” They circled the neighborhood E. Smith, a.k.a. “Space Commander Aura Rhanes,” at twice and then disappeared to the southeast. A the Giant Rock Interplanetary Spacecraft Convention, Landers, California, while she was visiting the booth of friend and next-door neighbor of the Smiths also fellow contactee Dana Howard, on 12 November 1957. heard a strange voice and even a “code” come See also Dr. Keller’s article, “Dominick Lucchesi Meets the Space Girl.” over the speakers of both her radio and television sets throughout 1956.

Around Christmas in that same year, Evelyn’s father and mother, who lived out in the country in the outskirts of Indianapolis, observed an enormous domed object hovering above their residence and tilted on its side. This flying saucer seemed to have a metaphysical quality. Allegedly, it simply “dissolved” and reappeared in the opposite direction. According to the father, “It was as big as the house and the dome seemed to be as big as a court-house dome.” Evelyn’s sister also observed this UFO and became so startled that she just ran into the house along with her mother.

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Raymond Andrew Keller II Prominent UFO investigator, archaeologist Dr. George Hunt Williamson of nearby Noblesville, Indiana, interviewed Evelyn E. Smith’s neighbor and family members about these incidents and many others and concluded that not only was Evelyn the focus of these unusual events, but that she was some kind of “visitant” to Earth that was attracting and drawing extraterrestrial phenomena around her, wherever she went. Wrote Williamson about Evelyn and others similar to her, “that Webster informs us that a visitant is one who, or that which, visits one as if from without one’s own sphere.” He added that, “A visitant is a visitor, but specifically a migratory bird which appears at intervals for a limited period. The occupants of the UFOs can certainly be called visitants, for they are definitely ‘from without our sphere’ and they ‘appear at intervals for a limited period.’ Therefore, we are going to discuss a few of those appearances and periods as they have been reported….” (G. H. Williamson, Road in the Sky (London, United Kingdom: Neville Spearman, Ltd., 1959), 145, 151-152. For additional information about the extraterrestrial connections of Evelyn E. Smith, please see my chapter, “Dominick Lucchesi Meets the Space Girl,” in my book, Vast Venus Conspiracy (Terra Alta, WV: Headline Books, 2020).

Being of big fan of Evelyn Smith’s science fiction writing and knowing of her interest and active participation in the flying saucer movement, Fusaro had high confidence in any of opinions that her Indiana friend may have with regard to the Keyhoe television censorship and suppression. Said Smith to Fusaro: “We’re not dealing with a bunch of monsters as most science fiction movies and magazines would have us believe; the intelligences in control of the UFOs have had ample opportunity in the last eleven years- and much longer, as the evidence suggests- to have either leveled our planet or made slaves of us all, if that had been their intention. Panic just isn’t a very logical answer.”

“What then?” inquired Fusaro.

“I suspect loss of face might be the reason,” replied Smith. “After all,” she added, “no inferior fighting force ever wants to admit they are obsolete and outdated, or more to the point, loss of power.

“Just imagine,” Smith continued, “what would happen to the Air Force? All over the world, the armed forces of every nation would have to begin the process of complete disbandment.

Then the governments of the Earth could get together and openly invited these visitors to land and help us. There would be no need for the Air Force or any armed services, here or anywhere.”

Fusaro opined, “That would certainly be a shocking situation for all of the ‘let’s have a war’ boys! No wonder the women of this nation make up such a big percentage of our flying saucer clubs.”

To that Smith added, “Oh, Gladys, God speed the day when these stiff-necked men realize that we mothers, wives and sweethearts want homes, not bomb shelters!”

Local Connections In her own “neck of the woods,” so to speak, Gladys Fusaro sought out others with an abiding interest in the UFO phenomenon. On a visit to her local library in the first week of February 1958, Fusaro took note of a pamphlet on the information desk announcing the formation of the New York Saucer Information Bureau (NYSIB). Conveniently, at the bottom of the pamphlet, the organization’s director, Douglas Deane, had stamped his home telephone number.

The pamphlet was dated 1 January 1958, so the group was in existence for only a little more than one month. Nevertheless, Deane described the rationale for the organization’s formation as follows: “At this significant time, when mankind is on the threshold of stepping out into space- the greatest adventure ever contemplated- there is a tremendous need for scientific, so87

Flying Saucers and the Venus Legacy cial and spiritual enlightenment…. There is little or no doubt that we are being visited by extraterrestrial intelligence. It is up to us to see that our red carpets are spotlessly clean and ready to be rolled out with love and understanding. We cannot hope for contact when hate, fear and greed are apparent in our minds. To this end we dedicate this organization, forgetting personal conflicts and ambitions and striving for the elevation of mankind to its rightful heritage.”

When Fusaro got home to her Long Island home, she immediately called Director Deane to ask him a plethora of questions about the New York Saucer Information Bureau. Deane explained that the group had about 40 members and that while they were currently meeting on a bi-weekly basis in members’ homes scattered throughout the greater metropolitan New York City area, collections had been taken up to rent halls for special UFO presentations by UFO contactees Arthur Aho, Dan Martin and George Van Tassel. Also, prominent scientific ufologists Frank Edwards and George Hunt Williamson signed on to give presentations about the Air Force cover-up and the ancient aliens connections, respectively. Deane said that the NYSIB was in the process of composing the first edition of a monthly newsletter and that they were also exchanging information with Gray Barker of the Saucerian Press and Gene Duplantier, editor of Saucers, Space and Science in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

Fusaro was delighted to find out about the NYSIB and its local activities. She was in attendance at the group’s first sponsored presentation on Thursday, 6 March 1958, held at the Palm Garden Ballroom at 306 West 52nd Street in New York City. The meeting convened at 8 p.m.

There was a one-dollar donation collected at the door to help defray expenses incurred by the club in renting the hall and bringing the speaker Wayne S. Aho (1916-2006) in from California, where he was then residing.

Aho, a native of Washington State, was a distinguished military pilot during World War II and became a civilian charter pilot afterwards. Sometime after flying his small private airplane into the Giant Rock Airport at Landers, California, on 12 November 1957 to attend George Van Tassel’s Fourth Annual Interplanetary Spacecraft Convention, Aho claims that he began to receive telepathic messages from the “space brothers” directing him to proceed to a remote site in the Mojave Desert where he met up with his new friends from the stars who had landed nearby in a golden-glowing, egg-shaped reconnaissance craft. In the desert, the visitors from space imparted revelations of a spiritual nature to Aho and further instructed him to return to Washington State and preach the galactic gospel of the “New Dawn” to anyone who would listen, sharing valuable information about life on other planets in our own solar system and beyond.

Aho followed through and established the Church of the New Age in Seattle, Washington, as well as a flying saucer spaceport to welcome the arrival of the space people on land he purchased at the foot of Mt. Rainier, also in Washington State. This is what he discussed at the New York meeting attended by Fusaro, in addition to elaborating on the “Science of the Saucers,” which was the title of his discourse. It lasted for about an hour and a half and was followed by thirty minutes of a questions and answers discussion period. Evelyn E. Smith had assured Fusaro that Aho was legitimate, so despite his astounding claims, she gave the contactee her rapt attention and the benefit of the doubt.

Fusaro asked Director Deane why Aho was chosen as the first speaker for the NYSIB. “The Earth is surely facing many ordeals that lie ahead,” said Deane, adding that, “From the contactees like Aho, we can learn to arm ourselves. I’m not talking about guns, atomic missiles and other life-destroying properties, but with clear heads, incorruptible knowledge and the ability to love and forgive. This is the message of Aho and the other contactees. This is the truth that 88

Raymond Andrew Keller II must be the spearhead of our exploration into outer space.”

“That is so profound, Douglas. It’s a great pleasure to be affiliated with the New York Saucer Information Bureau.”

“If only more shared in your insight, dear Gladys, this world would be a far better place.

Of course, without the truth of the contactee message, we cannot hope to keep in step with the immutable laws of the Universe. Each and every one of us on Earth has the right, and even the duty, to help in the vital search for the truth that is out there. This is the purpose of the New York Saucer Information Bureau.”

“Oh, yes,” interjected Fusaro, “We have to do what we can to break the chains of ignorance, to stimulate the thinking and reasoning powers of an underestimated citizenry. I see the NYSIB in this role of encouraging the desire in each individual to know themselves better and come to the cosmic realization of the unity and oneness of all creation.”

The NYSIB, of course, was tacking divergently from NICAP’s more “nuts and bolts” position with respect to UFO research. It seemed strange to Fusaro and other NYSIB members that while Keyhoe acknowledged the existence of advanced forms of extraterrestrial life as being behind the appearance of flying saucers in our skies, that none of these alien beings would bother to step out of their space vehicles and communicate directly with any Earthlings, especially after travelling millions or billions of miles through the trackless void of the cosmos to arrive here. To highlight their more open position, the NYSIB unanimously adopted a drawn depiction of Adamski’s Venusian scout ship as its official logo to appear on all letters, promotions and publications.

Cooperative Ventures Gladys Fusaro took on the position of liaison for the NYSIB with other flying saucer organizations and researchers spanning the globe. She struck up an especially friendly and productive relationship with Gray Barker and his Saucerian Bulletin. Of Barker and others associated with the Saucerian Press, Fusaro was impressed with Barker’s editorial policy, stated as follows: “Opinions expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors, nor do the editors vouch for the authenticity of such material. We keep an open mind and consider all theories and all sides of every question.” This was quite a refreshing change from the stodgy, closed mindedness of the NICAP team. Fusaro correctly reasoned that in attempting to research the UFO phenomenon, why preclude any possibilities?

Endless Chain of Life Thanks to her new position as a liaison for the NYSIB with sundry saucer groups, as well as being a correspondent for Barker’s Saucerian Bulletin, Fusaro was receiving news reports from all around the world with respect to all things of an extraterrestrial or UFO nature. Fusaro was different from other correspondents for UFO groups and periodicals in that she would actually follow up on news clippings sent her way.

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Flying Saucers and the Venus Legacy Ufologist Peter Baker of Andover, Massachusetts, sent Fusaro a report from the 4 January 1960 issue of Time magazine simply titled, “Life Without End.” Apart from the genres of science fiction and ufology, no one was taking the subject of extraterrestrial life seriously. Most astronomers and theologians in 1960 were of the opinion that life existed solely on Earth; and either God put it here or it evolved here under fluke conditions, emerging from the muck and mire millions of years ago. The Time article was important because it dealt with a scientific paper recently presented by the renowned Cornell University astronomer Thomas Gold at a Los Angeles, California, meeting of space scientists sponsored by the newly created National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Fusaro was surprised that this article would appear in such a prestigious publication as Time, but then the government space organization was established just two years ago, so protocols had not yet been thoroughly set in place regarding the release of information pertinent to the discovery of extraterrestrial life.

The gist of Dr. Gold’s discourse gave credence to the claims asserted by Major Donald E. Keyhoe regarding the existence of advanced civilizations on other planets, not just the more primitive forms of life. Dr. Gold suggested that life most likely has existed elsewhere in the universe for “uncounted billions of years,” long before it ever took root here on Earth. Dr. Gold seriously opined that, “Perhaps life reached the Earth and began its long climb toward human consciousness being brought here by spaceships.”

According to Dr. Gold, “Life has existed on Earth for about one billion years. It began with very simple forms of microscopic size, having developed slowly until only now it is reaching a level of physical development and technological competence that will allow descendants of these microbes to travel outside their own solar system. Certainly, within the next few hundred years, man will be visiting planets of other solar systems.

“Most of these planets will have unsuitable conditions for us to live there freely; but if they have no life on them, it is still possible that they can be contaminated with some form of microbiology brought along by the space travelers. Low forms of life are adaptable to a great variety of conditions, and so it is likely that they will stay on the planets while the space travelers will not.”

As Fusaro interpreted Dr. Gold’s hypothesis, after billions of years, the seeded planets may have evolved creatures intelligent enough to travel deeper into outer space, visiting fertile but virgin planets and seeding them, in turn, with adaptable microbes. Fusaro reasoned that, “This contamination by life is probably the normal beginning of life on any planet, including the Earth.”

The Cornell astronomer Dr. Gold said as much in the Time article: “Space travelers may have visited the Earth a billion years ago; and from their abandoned garbage, forms of life have proliferated so that microbes will soon have another agent (space-traveling humans) capable of spreading them farther afield.”

Fusaro took it upon herself to make an appointment with Dr. Gold and discuss these matters further with him at his office in the Astronomy Department at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.

Fusaro: “What about the other galaxies floating in space far beyond the limits of the Milky Way? Could life have evolved there, too?”

Dr. Gold: “I certainly think so. I am one of the proponents of the steady-state universe theory, which holds that as old galaxies move apart, new galaxies form between them out of freshly created matter. Planets in new galaxies may be lifeless for a while, but eventually the

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Raymond Andrew Keller II contamination will reach them, too. All they need is a single visit from an inter-galactic, germspreading spaceship.”

Fusaro: “Well, then, when did life begin?”

Dr. Gold: “The steady-state theory holds that space has no boundaries, and time has no beginning or end. If life spreads from old to new galaxies with the flow of time, its history may extend backward forever. It may live forever, too, renewing itself at intervals of many billion years by planting its seeds on planets in galaxies not yet created.”

After the interview with Dr. Gold, Fusaro began to understand the overarching significance of the UFO phenomenon for the people of Earth. The human species is on the verge of moving from the category of the seeded to that of the seeders. Almost everything we know about history, philosophy, religion and science is about to become obsolete. Once we jump down this rabbit hole, there’s no turning back.

Fusaro recalled some of the deeper conversations with her friend and associate in UFO research, Evelyn Smith, who often incorporated such esoteric themes in her science fiction writing. Smith once declared that, “When acquainting oneself with esoteric knowledge, whether from Eckankar, Theosophy, some other religion or school of higher consciousness, the student will eventually come to the realization that not all of the teachers of these exalted truths are masters. There are evolutions of teachers who eventually become masters. The masters will evolve to saints and after this become angels or heavenly spirits and ultimately merge into the body of an even higher plane deity, or perhaps remain in His or Her presence. Eventually, if they so desire, they return to the spiritual stream of life as the highest form of consciousness which is taken into the consciousness of a being somewhere else, be it on a planet other than the Earth.”

“That’s the high message of the contactees. I’ve heard George Adamski talk in a similar vein,” replied Fusaro.

“Yes, Gladys, that is the message of the contactees with respect to the hierarchy of light on other planets,” continued Smith, adding that, “For your knowledge, the graduated masters, if you wish to use this term, for identification, often go to places like the Moon base Clarion, on the far-side, or the nearby planet Venus, or other orbs where higher evolved souls are living. At these locations, remote from the constant turmoil found on the Earth, they help carry out the work of illumination throughout the universe. Hence, we can think and believe in the flying saucers or other phenomena from the other worlds.”

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Flying Saucers and the Venus Legacy

Chapter 6

The Flying Saucers Are Real.

The Government is an Illusion!

Flying Saucer in hangar at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio: The late Senator Barry Goldwater believed that the United States government had succeeded in back-engineering its own UFO, or possibly a flying saucer fleet. See https://proofofalien.com/10-evidences-to-prove-the-alientechnology-reverse-engineering-is-real/.

Early Conspiracy Theories By early 1959, and based largely on newspaper clippings from around the United States and the world, ufologists were already beginning to suspect that the United States Air Force had captured at least one flying saucer from outer space, and possibly two. There was also speculation that the United Kingdom, France and the Soviet Union had crashed UFOs in their possession. In addition, rumors abounded that there existed a “distinct possibility” that the Brazilian Air Force had another.

A highly-placed Washington, D.C. source, who refused to be identified, informed John Lester, a correspondent for the Kansas City UFO Study Club’s monthly newsletter, Spaceviewer (February 1959), that, “A rumor to the effect that the United States Air Force has a saucer stashed away at a secret base has persisted for quite some time; but no one has been able to confirm or run it down, at least as far as I know.” However, the source took note that the Air Force was known for having designed its own saucer-type craft. This certainly lent a definite credence to the rumor that the Air Force actually secured a crashed UFO. After all, the government informant did say that, “It would be virtually impossible for the Air Force to duplicate such a craft, unless it had one in its possession.”

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Raymond Andrew Keller II With regard to the Air Force’s own saucer prototype, the Washington source said that, “It has been undergoing tests and experiments at the Wright Patterson Base at Dayton, Ohio; but to date it hasn’t been able to come anywhere near the high speeds and fantastic maneuverability of UFOs sighted by competent pilots and others, and tracked by skilled government radar men thousands of times.” From this, the undisclosed government informant came to believe that further credence was given to the crashed saucer rumor, largely because Air Force personnel had repeatedly demonstrated to him an “original anxiety to get a UFO by any possible means.”

What this meant, in the source’s estimation, was that, “Military pilots were ordered to accomplish this by shooting one down or, if necessary, even ramming it and bailing out.”

Big Disclosures The diligent correspondent and investigative reporter looked into this matter even further.

Going through back issues of the Pulitzer award-winning Kansas City Star newspaper, what he discovered was that William Lear, a world authority on aerodynamics and the 1950 winner of the coveted Collier Trophy, presented by the then President Harry S. Truman for outstanding contributions to aviation, had not too long ago made public statements about the UFO reality.

According to wire service reports and a string of newspaper articles in the Star from late 1958, the aviation pioneer declared that, “This country soon will be turning out saucer-type craft that eventually will attain speeds up to 10,000 miles per hour.”

Another great flying saucer revelation came from Lord Louis Montbatten of the United Kingdom. The English lord maintained that military authorities in his realm did, in fact, possess a flying saucer of their own making. However, no one was willing to come forth and be quoted on any comments regarding reports that Brazil, France and Russia also had flying saucers in their possession. Nevertheless, it should be noted that in the first few days of February 1959, there were wire service stories from London stating that the Soviets were planning to build a jet-powered saucer in the near future. One Soviet military spokesman even admitted in a Tass article that, “In recent tests a model of the planned craft has proved ‘extremely maneuverable.’”

John Lester also learned from the high-placed Washington informant of the existence of a special Senate sub-committee recently formed, the purpose being the investigation of UFO reports increasingly pouring into Air Force bases throughout the country. In 1959, it was little known that the Congress also had two committees working on space legislation and related matters. One was concerned with space exploration and the other with the development of advanced rocketry. The news of the Senate UFO sub-committee, however, was quite a startling revelation. Lester was told that the Senate sub-committee was headed by Senator John N. McClellan, a Democrat from Arkansas, and had been looking seriously into the UFO phenomenon for the past 18 months. According the source, the Senate sub-committee members were sharing UFO information with a Congressional committee then studying the United States government’s guided missile program. As this was all taking place in the midst of the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union, the fear persisted that flying saucers might be some type of Soviet reconnaissance aircraft patrolling our skies and monitoring military activities at our airfields, military installations and research facilities.

Gladys Fusaro of Huntington, Long Island, in New York, a correspondent for Gray Barker’s Saucer News of Clarksburg, West Virginia, checked into some of the controversies surrounding the development of the United States missile program, from its very beginnings. It appears that a feud had broken out between Wernher Von Braun, the chief scientific consultant for the 93

Flying Saucers and the Venus Legacy program, and Defense Secretary Neil McElroy, about both the short and long-term objectives of the missile program.

Fusaro opined, “There was a general confusion about the direction the missile program was going. Von Braun was delaying the schedule of firings and wanted to divert missile development into rocketry for the peaceful exploration of outer space. Von Braun and some of the other German scientists working with him were convinced that flying saucers were real and very concerned about plans to launch armed missiles beyond our atmosphere. He thought we might be on the verge of interplanetary war with civilizations on other planets in our own solar system. McElroy was convinced that the UFOs were really of Soviet origin and that the United States should develop a space force to challenge these objects and bring them down, if necessary.”

Fusaro believed that the Washington informant might very well be Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona; therefore, she wrote him an extensive letter about the UFO controversy then hanging over America’s skies. This letter to Goldwater was written on behalf of Saucer News.

On 28 February 1959, she wrote to Gray Barker, “I have received a letter from a Washington, D.C., source. Unfortunately, he has not yet given permission to release any of this information about a disc previously referred to by Roy Johnson and many others. The government disc is called PROJECT ANSWER, and certain details were divulged. Apparently, this project is our answer to the presence of the flying saucers over the United States. Whether this is true or not, I have no way of knowing.”

The intrepid Saucer News correspondent continued: My source wrote me about many of the salient details: “In all confidentiality, I was reluctant to share this information because charges could be made if true; and I don’t know why it was leaked to sundry people in high places who didn’t necessarily have a need to know. This information that came to my attention was unasked for, in the first place. I don’t recall the whole thing; but the letter stated that a man was supposed to be placed aboard the disc. It carried the latest developments in communications gear and electronics, as well as food and water. Apparently, the disc could fly to Venus, and would take a much shorter period of time than any had previously imagined, or reported. The power source for this disc was only hinted at, as ‘something to astound the scientific world….’”

There was more, but more of a technical nature concerning the orbital paths of Earth and Venus and a projected trajectory for a spacecraft launched from Earth to Venus. Fusaro reported to Barker that she had “rewritten the party.”

Therefore, Fusaro’s initial guess that Lester’s source was none other than Senator Barry Goldwater had proven correct. What we have since learned about Goldwater was that he was a staunch believer in the extraterrestrial origin of the flying saucers and an ardent supporter of UFO research, both civilian and government-sponsored. His full involvement with the phenomenon remains unknown, but indications of an extensive interest in UFOs continue to surface. For example, Freedom of Information Act archives indicate that on 28 March 1975, Goldwater wrote the following to Shlomo Arnon of the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) Experimental College: “The subject of UFOs has interested me for some long time. About ten or twelve years ago I made an effort to find out what was in the building at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio, where the information has been stored that has been collected by the Air Force, and I was understandably denied this request. It is still classified ABOVE TOP SECRET.” The Arizona senator further wrote that there were rumors the evidence would be released, and that 94

Raymond Andrew Keller II he was “just as anxious to see this material as you are, and I hope we will not have to wait much longer.” Clearly, here is another letter where the frankness of the senator regarding the UFO enigma can be truly appreciated.

Senator Goldwater was also one to not sit on his laurels with respect to any questions about the UFO phenomenon. Thirteen years later, in the 25 April 1988 issue of the New York Times, Goldwater revealed that he had repeatedly asked his friend, Air Force General Curtis LeMay, if there was any truth to the rumors that UFO evidence was stored in a secret room at WrightPatterson, and if he (Goldwater) could gain access to this room. Goldwater further explained that upon hearing his question, General LeMay “gave me ‘holy hell’ and said, ‘Not only can’t you get into it; but don’t you ever mention it to me again.’” And a few days later, when interviewed about this article on the Larry King radio show, and as to whether or not Goldwater really felt that the United States government was withholding the UFO evidence, the senator courageously replied, “Yes, I do.”

Barry Goldwater (1909-1999) was a businessman and fiveterm United States Senator from Arizona, as well as the Republican Party’s nominee for president in the 1964 election, but losing to Democrat Lyndon Johnson. An articulate and charismatic figure during the first half of the 1960s, Goldwater was a retired Air Force two-star general, and he continued piloting B-52 aircraft until late in his military career. Goldwater, a member of the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Former Senator Barry Goldwater Phenomena (NICAP) Board of Directors, was always frank in (1909-1999), believed that flying his answers to questions about flying saucers and the UFO consaucers were manned observation vehicles from other planets. Photo spiracy. He and General Curtis LeMay and “Butch” Blanchard of courtesy of NICAP Archives. the Roswell, New Mexico, UFO crash fame, were close friends.

Aliens Live Among Us As to the existence of the extraterrestrials themselves, Goldwater wrote that, “I certainly believe in aliens in space. They may not look like us, but I have very strong feelings that they have advanced beyond our mental capabilities.... I think some highly secret government UFO investigations are going on that we don’t know about—and probably never will unless the Air Force discloses them” (28 March 1975, previously cited letter to Shlomo Arnon of UCLA).

Near the close of 1959, about one year and five months before the Soviet Union’s first successful launching of a cosmonaut into outer space (Yuri Gagarin on 12 April 1961, making one complete orbit of the Earth), it was reported in the American press that visitors from other planets were landing in the outskirts of Romeo, Michigan. The United Press International wire service ran a story on 18 November 1959 with the headline, “Those Spacemen Sure Can Cause a Lot of Trouble,” wherein it was reported that a old farmer in the township of Romeo, Michigan, about 40 miles due north of Detroit, was being plagued by extraterrestrials that could materialize or dematerialize at will.

According to the report, a flying saucer had landed near the farmer’s barn and its occupants came out of the craft and into the barn to urgently discuss some matter of apparent importance.

The farmer thinks they were having some mechanical difficulties with the ship and talking 95

Flying Saucers and the Venus Legacy about ways they might affect repairs on it. When the farmer followed the aliens into his barn, the startled beings just vanished into thin area. The farmer ran back into his house to call the state police and get a camera to at least take a picture of the flying saucer. “I’ve got about half a dozen visitors from outer space here,” complained the elderly gentleman. “They are in my barn and just disappeared when I went in after them. I know they are still here, because I can still hear them arguing.”

The state police dispatcher did not know what to make of this call. Nevertheless, he dispatched some officers to the farm. Upon arriving, they went out with the farmer and his camera to his barn and saw nothing but a steaming circle in the melted snow, about 50-feet in diameter, adjacent to the structure. The farmer was worried that the saucer may have become invisible, too, and that the aliens were still in the area. The officers assured the gentleman that he would be alright; and they stayed with him for about half an hour before returning to their normal patrol. At first one of the officers thought that the farmer had been drinking and was suffering from an alcoholic episode; but the huge, melted circle in the snow remained difficult to account for (Post and Times Star, Cincinnati, Ohio, 18 November 1959).

In 1959, as we began to take our first baby steps in the exploration of outer space and the development of weapons of mass destruction, the alien presence on Earth was significantly being augmented. Incidents like this merely formed the tip of an iceberg. The extraterrestrials were here to stay. The largest number were Venusians, of course, as they hailed from the closest inhabited planet to our own, and stood the most to lose from our careless deployment of nuclear-armed rockets into outer space.

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Chapter 7

Toward New UFO Theologies

“Got religion?”

On 5 April 2018, theologians Dr. Diana Pasulka of the University of North Carolina at Wilmington and Dr. Jeffrey Kripal of Rice University met in Columbus, Ohio, as coordinators of the Ohio State University Center for the Study of Religion’s Fourth Symposium on Religion, Narrative and the Media. Previous symposiums had been relatively uneventful, attracting little media attention, insofar as the discussions focused on rather obscure theological talking points.

But this year’s symposium was different, for the focus was on possible extraterrestrial visitations and their religious significance in human evolution.

The symposium was titled “Taking the UFO Phenomenon Seriously, that is, Religiously.”

At this groundbreaking event, the assembled theologians from diverse religious backgrounds, considered the implications that extraterrestrial contact would have on society at large, and organized religions in particular. In Pasulka’s soon to be published book, American Cosmic: UFOs, Religion, Technology (New York: Oxford University Press, 2019), the esteemed theologian noted that according to a recent national poll, more than half of American adults and more than seventy-five percent of younger Americans believe that highly intelligent and technologically advanced extraterrestrials not only exist, but have been visiting the Earth for countless centuries in their flying saucers. This is a matter of great concern to theologians, because the poll clearly demonstrates that the number of Americans believing in ETs rivals the number that believe in the existence of God. To acknowledge the existence of advanced extraterrestrial civilizations and the actual, physical presence on our planet of their respective emissaries, visiting us in their flying saucers, is a monumental step in both an individual’s and the cosmic evolution of consciousness. The taking of this step implies that new paradigms needs emerge in order to facilitate the appropriate individual and societal adaptations. The ways in which we intellectually approach religion will certainly have to change. This is something I have attempted to initiate in my Venus Rising series of books; but much more is required on my part and through the efforts of others to do whatever we can in expanding both human awareness and acceptance of the extraterrestrial, and in some cases, ultra-dimensional presence.

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Flying Saucers and the Venus Legacy Faced with technological innovation in areas of artificial intelligence, machine learning, neuroscience and the integration of physical research and practical occultism in mainstream scientific investigations, in addition to a heightened focus in multi-media on the physical aspects of the UFO phenomenon, theologians are fast coming to the realization that the ways in which we individually and collectively consider, approach and deal with religion is already beginning to fundamentally change. This process may have started in the early 1950s, with the dawning of the atomic and space ages and the emergence of the contactee movement in the United States, most notably in Southern California. But by the end of that same decade, the impact of the contactee cults on religion had already started to show signs of going global.

Japanese Flying Saucer Cult At the end of the 1950s in the United States, very few were following the divergent path taken by ufologists in Japan. This was largely due to the Japanese use of a non-Western alphabet.

Nevertheless, word gradually made its way to ufologists in the Americas, Europe and Oceania that a small, semi-religious cult calling itself the Group for the Association with the HighGrade Spacemen had popped up in Japan and was attracting a seemingly inordinate amount of attention and interest. The group was started by a middle-aged woman of small stature who maintained that there were both bad and good space people scattered throughout the universe.

Some of the best beings come from our own solar system, most notably from Venus, while the definitively worst extraterrestrial specimens were arriving on our planet from somewhere in the constellation of Orion, the Hunter.

“We have received an important message from the Moon….”

According to a report that appeared in the Sunday, 1 November 1959, Mainichi newspaper in Japan, every newspaper and broadcasting station in the country were surprised to receive by special delivery the following notice on 11 September 1959 from Sumi Harada, the prophetess of the flying saucer cult: “We have received an important message from the Moon. Please come forward at 6 p.m. on 18 September….”

Unfortunately, only one reporter showed up at the headquarters of the flying saucer cult, being dispatched to the location by the editor of Mainichi. Upon arrival, the newsman was escorted into a spacious room. There he found a round mirror, about one foot in diameter. It was hanging from the ceiling and there were two branches of the sacred Sakaki tree strategically placed in front of it in an alcove. And on the wall beside the alcove, a large notice was posted, entitled “Rules for the High-Grade Earthlings.” The very first rule declared that, “You must purify your mind, know the laws of the universe, learn the science of the three dimensions and understand the world of God, the world of spirits and the world of stars.”

Harada seemed relieved that at least the editorial department of the Mainichi newspaper had taken her seriously, dispatching a reporter to cover her major announcement. She frankly spoke to the newsman, informing him that, “I received a message from the Moon when the Soviets shot a rocket into it, for the Soviets to stop their launches at once. Imagine what would happen if a rocket would be shot into the heart of Tokyo. It is not good for the three-dimensional beings on Earth to act as the four-dimensional beings, they say.” “They,” of course, was referring to the extraterrestrials that maintain bases on the Moon.

The prophetess maintains that there are both good and bad extraterrestrials that are interacting with people all over the Earth. She noted that, “The beings in the constellation of Orion 98

Raymond Andrew Keller II are bad; and those of Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn are good….” Sumi Harada was concerned because the Earth’s political leadership was “slanting toward the constellation Orion and is being polluted,” or clouded in their thinking. “So the Earthlings are becoming exclusive and bellicose, and are always contending one with another. If they will not purify their minds,” she warned, “then misfortunes will come over the globe. The typhoons will come….”

When the reporter asked her about her own group, that so many judged as cultish, Sumi Harada stated that, “We really have no members in this group. But interested individuals gather on a regular, monthly basis. I am the only relaying apparatus between humankind and the saucer men. The real director of this group is the God of the Cosmos….”

In the reporter’s write up of this meeting, he took note that the special delivery message arrived at the newspapers, radio and television stations just three days after the Soviet rocket struck the surface of the Moon, apparently, and fortunately, exploding in an uninhabited sector.

The Mainichi correspondent wrote that, “The public relations technique of this group was very timely and excellent. In fact, we never imagined that such a group would crop up here in Japan.

This kind of group might be typical of California in the United States.

“Oh, well,” he added, “this is a very extravagant world we live in!”

The Bible and Flying Saucers The famous California contactee George Adamski (1891-1965) once wrote in his third book detailing his experiences with Venusians and other extraterrestrials, Flying Saucers Farewell (London, United Kingdom: Abelard-Schuman, Limited, 1961), that: “Careful research of the Bible brings to light many reports of the visitors. In fact, a minister told me that he had found over 350 such references. Not only our Bible, but other great records mention the coming of the visitors. Most of the people who wrote asking why they were not mentioned were simply uninformed as to the actual reports and records. It is with this idea in mind that I will attempt to show how the visitors from space are mentioned in the Bible and that it was a common practice for space people to offer guidance to the peoples of the world in ancient times, just as they are attempting to do now.”

Adamski also pinpointed two scriptural verses of great significance for those seeking to reconcile the Bible and astronomy. The first was Hebrews 1:2, which declares, “God hath in these last days spoken unto us by His Son whom He hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also He made the worlds.” Here the Bible asserts the existence of more than one world. The plurality of worlds is also stressed in Hebrews 11:3, that proclaims that it is “Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.” From these pertinent verses, it is plain that the existence of other worlds was known in Biblical times. It was assumed that these worlds were inhabited by various ranks of angels and other celestial beings. After all, in John 18:36, Jesus said to Pontius Pilate, “My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now is my kingdom not from hence.”

Adamski taught and wrote about the Biblical connections to the flying saucer phenomenon extensively throughout his public career as the most well-known of the contactees. His last book, referenced above, sparked an extensive controversy throughout the world. Insofar as Adamski was not a degreed theologian or a scientist, his speculations were not taken seriously by most of the world’s academic community, except in the Soviet Union, of all places. There, Adamski was held in the highest esteem as a true prophet and visionary. The idea of physical Venusians and 99

Flying Saucers and the Venus Legacy other extraterrestrials being mistaken in ancient days for gods or angels fitted nicely into the Communist Party’s materialist view of the universe.

Back in the U.S.S.R. In the United States of the early 1960s, and in the heat of the emerging “space race,” coverage of astronomical research and rocket developments in the Soviet Union were sparse in our newspapers. However, in our neighbor to the north, Canada, coverage of the outer space achievements of the Soviet Union were commonplace. In the 25 April 1960 edition of the Sarnia, Ontario, Journal, there appeared an article by Terence Davidson, titled “Spacemen Here Before, Says Soviet Scientist.”

The article provides us with an account of the noted Soviet physicist Matest Mendelevich Agrest (1915-2005) proposing a theory that space beings landed in Lebanon as far back as one million years ago. Professor Agrest was in Beirut, Lebanon, having been invited there by the organizers of the Baalbek International Festival, which was scheduled to open later in July 1960.

The Soviet scientist also shocked the world’s authorities on the Holy Land from many different disciplines, to include theologians, when he announced earlier in February 1960 that the ancient cities of Sodom and Gomorrah were most likely destroyed by an atomic explosion. In his argument for this speculation, Agrest said that Lot’s wife was probably not turned into a pillar of salt, but reduced to a pile of ashes and scattered over the surrounding countryside in form of radioactive fallout.

Salient Points Professor M. M. Agrest, in an article published in the April 1960 Soviet journal, Litteraturnaya Gazeta, cited two salient points to bolster his speculations about the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah: The existence of vitreous structures on the Earth’s surface, notably in the deserts of the Middle East, in which radioactive aluminum and beryllium isotopes have been discovered, indicate that these structures, or tektites as they have come to be known, were formed at a very high temperature and under a powerful radiation bombardment. Agrest offered the suggestion that these may have been created when exploratory projectiles were shot from an exploratory spaceship into the Earth’s surface as its crew sought for a good landing place.

The scientist also conjectured that the Dead Sea scrolls contained a description of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah that could reasonably be compared with a nuclear explosion. It could signify that before the space beings left the Earth, they destroyed their surplus stocks of atomic fuel after serving a warning to the local inhabitants to flee the area and not to watch the blast for fear of blindness or even death.

Baalbek International Festival The Roman ruins near Baalbek have been the setting each year since 1955 to the present for the Baalbek International Festival. During this special event, orchestras, ballet companies and theater groups arrive from all parts of the globe to perform before big audiences. 1960 marked the first year in which extraterrestrials became associated with the festival’s program. The eyes of the director of the Lebanon Tourist Department, Michel Touma, lit up at the mere mention of Professor Agrest and his unique theories. “A little imaginative, perhaps,” noted Touma, adding that, “At least it puts Baalbek in the news. Yes, it is excellent publicity.”

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Raymond Andrew Keller II Adapt or Perish Some theologians could smell the coffee. Unless the Christian church could responsibly address the latest findings of the scientific community with respect to the possibilities of intelligent life existing on other planets, the congregants would continue to walk away, not finding any logical reasons to believe in the mere fables proffered by the clergy. One of the theologians that recognized the need for Christians, generally, to adapt to science or perish, was the associate editor of the Catholic magazine, America, Rev. L. C. McHugh, a Jesuit father. Just eight months after the article about Professor Agrest appeared in the Canadian press, Rev. McHugh addressed the presence of rational life in other parts of the universe in the December 1960 edition of his periodical, America.

Rev. McHugh not only declared that life exists beyond the Earth, but that it was quite a “common” phenomenon. In the Monday, 26 December 1960, edition of the Buffalo, New York, Courier-Express, the priest was reported as acknowledging that “At this moment, there is not one scrap of hard evidence to support my case.” However, he did go on to say that he thinks there are both sound scientific and theological arguments to be made for the extraterrestrial hypothesis.

In the America article, McHugh wrote that, “Organic life on Earth evolved toward a specialized animal form that in God’s design was apt material for the infusion of a spiritual soul; while at the same time, the lower forms were ordained to serve as a substratum for rational existence and its needs.

“Why should these things not be generally true in a physical universe characterized by uniformity of law and process?”

The Jesuit father concluded, “God made the universe for His glory, not as something to be gained, but as a benefit to be bestowed. And above all, it consists in sharing His happiness with rational creatures. Does it not seem strange to say that His power, immensity, beauty and eternity are displayed with lavish generosity through unimaginable reaches of space and time, but that the knowledge and love which alone give meaning to all this splendor are confined to this tiny globe where self-conscious life began to flourish a few millennia ago?”

Theological Implications of Extraterrestrial Visitations In the pages of the Bible we come to an understanding that we can become like Jesus Christ and even accomplish greater things than he did while he was dwelling on the Earth. Jesus was the “firstborn of many brethren,” and at some future time we can enjoy the benefits of a celestial existence with him (Romans 8:29). Adamski once stated that a Venusian master explained to him that, “The Earth was like the first grade of a grade-school. As we progress higher and higher, we move up through the planets as one going from the first to second and third grades, and so on. We climb from grade to grade and from planet to planet.”

The Venusians have affirmed that we can become like the space visitors, if we so desire. As the latter-day prophetess Annalee Skarin has pointed out, in Psalms 82:6 and John 19:34 it is written, “Ye are gods.” Thus, while we are yet gods in embryo, we have the potential to climb back up to the realms whence we have fallen, or higher. The Venusians and some of the other extraterrestrials are here to help us fulfill that divine destiny.

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Chapter 8

Beyond Roswell: The New Mexico Flying Saucer Flap of 1963-1964

Air Force brass dispatched Dr. J. Allen Hynek of Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, to investigate the great New Mexico flying saucer flap of 1964 and calm public fears, in the process. See https://secure.action.news/watch?v=GjByxf7XOU0.

“UFOs Pose No Threat” At the close of 1963, the United States Air Force Project Bluebook investigative personnel had checked out 8,128 reported cases of unidentified flying objects (UFOs) in the United States. This special Air Force program was established 16 years prior for the express purpose of determining whether the UFOs represented some threat to our national security. Of these reports, 7.7 percent of the cases remained classified as “unidentified.” The other 92.3 percent of the objects reported turned out to be misinterpretations of celestial or natural phenomena, conventional aircraft or aerospace vehicles seen under unusual atmospheric conditions or outright hoaxes.

From the start of 1964 and through the following six months, however, there was an intensification of UFO activity over the state of New Mexico. The Air Force’s leading civilian consultant was the chief astronomer at Northwestern University’s Dearborn Observatory, Dr. J. Allen Hynek. For the most part, Dr. Hynek would stay behind on Northwestern’s Chicago, Illinois, campus and just wait for the investigative team to bring in all the amassed data for correlation.

Nevertheless, the epidemic of strange sightings over New Mexico skies required that the Air Force brass dispatch Dr. Hynek to the state, as one of their “big guns,” in order to calm down the local populace and find out what was really happening with the UFOs. The first case that Dr. Hynek investigated in New Mexico, the “Land of Enchantment,” involved a highway patrolman’s encounter with an egg-shaped UFO that landed a little distance off the main state route in the vicinity of his hometown of Socorro. The officer, Sergeant Lonnie Zamora, was just about to wrap it up for the day. It was 5:45 p.m. on the evening of 24 April 1964; and his shift was about to end in 15 minutes. Out of the blue, a speeder raced by Zamora’s position, moving like a “bat out of hell.” The patrolman was about to chase the speeder when suddenly there was a loud explosion coming from the rear. Also, when Lonnie Zamora heard 102

Raymond Andrew Keller II the fierce clapping noise, he turned around just in time to catch sight of an eerie light blue flash of light that washed over him, his patrol car and the surrounding desert shrubbery.

Zamora followed in his patrol car a dirt path to a small shack about 200 feet back from the highway, whence the blue flash and the explosion emanated. That’s when he spotted the source of all the commotion, a shiny, ovular object descending from the sky with a smokeless blue and orange flame emitting from its underside. The officer described the object as resembling, “a car turned upside down…. standing on its radiator or trunk.” At this point, Zamora got out of his vehicle and started to approach the now landed object to within 100 feet on foot. Two personages in white coveralls had disembarked from the strange object. “One of these persons,” noted the highway patrolman, “seemed to turn and look straight at my car and seemed startledseemed to quickly jump somewhat.”

Patrolman Zamora described the UFO occupants as “normal in shape, but possibly they were small adults or large kids.” The officer radioed for backup but continued to keep his distance from the object and the beings that descended from it. The oval-shaped UFO had no visible windows or even the seams for a doorway. It sat upon girder-like legs. The craft was marked, however, with a red insignia that was about two-an-a-half feet wide. The UFO occupants, on the other hand, were not going to remain in the area for long insofar as the armed patrolman was there observing their activities. In the next five minutes, the two aliens quickly terminated their activities, got back into their craft, and took off. Zamora witnessed the UFO quickly ascend and then move over a mountain in the distance, whence it quickly sped out of sight, but not out of mind. Just a few minutes after the aliens’ departure, fellow officer Sergeant Sam Chavez of the New Mexico State Police arrived at the scene in response to Zamora’s radio call for backup. Officer Chavez, while he did not see the object, did observe the still-smoldering brush the UFO had landed and taken off. He also noted four burn marks and four V-shaped depressions pushed into the ground where the object had rested. These impressions were between one and two inches deep and each one measured eighteen inches in length.

One of the chief skeptics of the era, Dr. Philip J. Klass, the editor of Aviation and Space Technology magazine, opined that Zamora had simply made up the whole story in order to increase tourism in the area. However, in a report submitted to the Central Intelligence Agency by the then director of the Air Force’s Project Bluebook, Major Hector Quintanilla, the highest military authority on the UFO phenomenon declared that, “There is no doubt that Lonnie Zamora saw an object which left quite an impresSergeant Lonnie Zamora witnesses landing and takeoff of ovalsion on him. There is also no question shaped UFO, to include its occupants. The officer also noted a bright about Zamora’s reliability. He is a serious red inscription on the side of the alien object. See https://i.ytimg. com/vi/ZUA_etT1GVI/hqdefault.jpg. officer, a pillar of his church, and a man well-versed in recognizing airborne vehicles in this area. He was puzzled by what he saw, and frankly, so are we.” Keep in mind that the Bluebook director came to these conclusions based on the field research conducted by Dr. J. Allen Hynek on his behalf.

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Flying Saucers and the Venus Legacy The revelation of Dr. Hynek’s involvement in the Zamora case was leaked in the 30 April 1964 edition of the News-Sun newspaper of Hobbs, New Mexico. Despite the official pronouncements by Project Bluebook personnel that there was no evidence linking UFOs to extraterrestrial spaceships, the Air Force’s overwhelming interest in this Socorro, New Mexico, UFO landing incident suggested otherwise. The “genie was out of the bottle,” so to speak, and getting him back in was not going to be an easy task.

Life on Another Planet Feasible Clearly, the nation, if not the entire world, was electrified by Sergeant Zamora’s account of a UFO landing, complete with a sighting of occupants. In the very day following the news of Hynek’s arrival in New Mexico to investigate the Socorro event, an article appeared in the Salt Lake City, Utah, Deseret News and Telegram newspaper titled, “Life on Other Planet, Researcher Claims: Let’s Contact Them, Meet Told.” Remarks made by Dr. Bernard M. Oliver, the vice president in charge of research and development at the Hewlett-Packard Company, at a three-day regional conference of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) held in downtown Salt Lake City’s Hotel Utah, affirmed the feasibility of intelligent life existing on another planet.

“Man is not alone in the universe,” said Dr. Oliver, adding that, “If we make the effort, we can contact other life. Mankind now has the capability to contact life on other planets.”

Sergeant Zamora’s New Mexico desert encounter with unusual beings emerging from a UFO was certainly causing many to reconsider the extraterrestrial hypothesis. In Dr. Oliver’s opinion, the universe was abounding with life. To the crowd of electrical engineers, he offered the belief that life is common in the universe; and that, “The density of life is such that there are, no doubt, several populations within the present radio range.” Dr. Oliver, when asked why there had been no contacts with life of any significance on these other nearby worlds, speculated that it was “because no real, concerted effort has been made to do so.”

Dr. Oliver felt that, “Such a contact would have as profound an impact on our world culture as did the voyage of Columbus on the culture of the Old World. With our present sending and receiving equipment, our chances of contacting other intelligent civilizations are really quite high.” He mused that the cost of such a program would be negligible, at least when compared with the overall impact it would have. Dr. Oliver was the featured speaker during the banquet session of the IEEE, as well as the recipient of a research award. Also recognized during the same session was Dr. Obed C. Haycock, director of the University of Utah Upper Air Research Laboratory, for his contributions to research on the upper atmosphere and to engineering education. Not surprisingly, Dr. Haycock’s considered opinions about extraterrestrial life coincided with Dr. Oliver’s.

“Stay Away from All UFOs!” In the weeks before and after Sergeant Lonnie Zamora’s close encounter, sightings of UFOs all over the Land of Enchantment had risen to a fever pitch. The New Mexican newspaper of Santa Fe, New Mexico, dated 29 April 1964, reported a sorry and unusual incident at an Albuquerque elementary school, where a young girl was out on the playground at recess when an egg-shaped UFO swooped down over the swing sets. The lass was standing right under the object; and while looking up at it, suffered burns on her face and the exposed portion of her arms. Upon hearing about this incident, the Santa Fe, New Mexico, police chief, A. B. Martinez, 104

Raymond Andrew Keller II decided to issue a warning to all students and residents of his city to, “Stay away from any mysterious objects.” The top law enforcement official added that, “I don’t know what these objects really are; but if any are sighted by local residents, they should be treated with respect and caution until more information as to their identity is available.”

Strange Occurrences Afoot in New Mexico While the attention of the United States was focused on New Mexico because of this flying saucer flap and particularly Lonnie Zamora’s amazing encounter, news of yet another alien contact case emerged in the pages of the 1 May 1964, Albuquerque, New Mexico, Journal newspaper. Apolinar A. Villa, Jr. (1916-1982), who described himself as “just an ordinary working man- just a mechanic,” was puzzled as to why the extraterrestrials chose to contact him and establish direct communications. “They said there was a purpose,” Villa told Journal reporter Martin Paskind, adding that, “What it is, I don’t know.”

Apolinar Villa’s friends just call him “Paul.” They don’t know what to think about his claims, however, that he has been visited by extraterrestrials at least five times over the past five years; that’s once a year on average. On several occasions, he even enjoyed the opportunity of talking to the alien visitors; and he was even allowed to take pictures of the flying saucer that brought them to our planet. Following one close encounter of the third kind, Villa filled up an entire roll of film with Kodacolor photos of the aliens’ spacecraft.

At the time that reporter Paskind interviewed Villa about his close encounters, the still relatively unknown contactee was 47 years old and lived with his son and daughter-in-law in a trailer behind 601 Niagara Avenue in the northeast section of Albuquerque. Born in Tijeras, New Mexico, the young Villa attended Longfellow Elementary School and Lincoln Junior High School. He dropped out of high school in his freshman year to work in his family’s gas station and garage. After a few years, Villa then enlisted in the Army Air Force, where he served as a mechanic in a motor pool on a base in California. Receiving an honorable discharge, Villa stayed out on the West Coast for a couple of years, securing a job with the Los Angeles Department of Power and Water, before returning home to New Mexico where he began working as a mechanic for N. C. Ribble and Company, where has been employed ever since.

Villa showed the reporter some of the photos of the flying saucer. “The pictures are authentic,” the mechanic asserted, adding that, “They’re the real thing.”

The mechanic told Paskind that there were a lot of things he just could not talk about because he did not think that anybody would believe him.

For example, Villa talked about an encounter with the aliens that allegedly took place on 16 June 1963.

From 2:30 to 4:00 p.m. on that day, the contactee supposedly conversed with extraterrestrial men and women aboard their spacecraft that was hovering above the New Mexico desert a few miles to the northwest of Albuquerque. The space people allowed Villa to bring his Japanese camera along Original photo of flying saucer taken by Paul Villa with him in order to take some clear photographs on 16 June 1963 in area to immediate northwest of Albuquerque, New Mexico. Photo from files of Gabriel of their interplanetary conveyance.

Green, President of Amalgamated Flying Saucer Clubs of America, Yucca Valley, California.

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Flying Saucers and the Venus Legacy Onboard the flying saucer, Villa’s extraterrestrial friends explained to him that while they were not gods or even superhuman, they were generally superior to our species in physical qualities and quantity of knowledge. The UFO crew members also informed him about coming volcanic activity along certain ridges in the Pacific Ocean’s so-called Ring of Fire and commented on the growing economic and military power of the People’s Republic of China, of which they warned that wise politicians should not ignore. It seemed to Villa that the flying saucer occupants had some inkling of future events. After his conversation with the aliens, Villa took a rather fatalistic attitude, declaring that he had come to learn that, “We can’t get away from what God has decreed for us. Even they (the extraterrestrials) know that there is a Super Intelligence that governs the universe and everything in it.”

Villa sighted his first UFO in 1953 when he was working out on the West Coast with the utilities company. While he was looking up at the object, he was approached from behind by an androgynous being in a blue jumpsuit with long, blonde hair. The being tapped the utility worker on his right shoulder. Startled, Villa turned to see who it was and what was wanted. “Now you know that the flying saucers are real,” is all that the mysterious entity said before disappearing in a glint of light. When he first moved back to New Mexico and settled in Albuquerque, he lived at 4187 Edith St., on the northeast side. On two occasions, UFOs hovered directly over his home. On the second pass over his home, the roof caught fire from the intense radiation emitted from the underside of the flying saucer. And once on his way back from attending a rodeo in Lindrith, New Mexico, the mechanic came across a disc-shaped UFO that he estimated to be about 900 feet in diameter. This was by far the largest object that Villa had observed. In second place in this category was a saucer viewed outside Peralta, New Mexico, that he estimated to be about 160 feet in diameter. This craft landed; and from it stepped several crew members. In their blue jumpsuits they all had an androgynous appearance, so Villa could make no determination as to their sexes. Their uniforms displayed no rank; but the one who spoke to Villa emitted an aura of authority and seemed to be in charge. The being explained that they had just returned from an important mission in a distant elliptical galaxy visible from Earth in the Coma Berenices star cluster and were on their way home to a neighboring planet in our own solar system. The smaller UFOs were all like the typical flying saucer so commonly reported, about 50 feet in diameter and sometimes referred to in ufology circles as scoutcraft. Over the years, and through his physical and telepathic communications with the extraterrestrials, Villa gradually acquired fragmentary knowledge of the star people and their operations on Earth.

Conversation with a Master On one occasion, Villa asked the extraterrestrials why evidence of their civilization in our solar system had not been detected, now that the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has sent probes to some of the nearer planets. “Paul, we are about two million years more advanced than the highest pinnacles of your civilization on Earth; therefore, we understand your inadequacy. Even if you were to land astronauts on our planet, there would be scarce evidence for our civilization. In a thousand years, humans from Earth may begin to reach out and meet some of us; but it will take thousands more before you can approach our civilization on something like equal terms. To you of Earth, our planet is nothing more than a world of dreams. While it has the texture of reality, it is quite tenuous. We can modify its presentation at will in terms of color, quality or even shape. We live just outside your own spacetime continuum. We can take you to realms of the universe that you have not even imagined 106

Raymond Andrew Keller II and even to parts of it where life is just beginning to form and set out on the path of evolutionary progress. The best way I can put this is that we exist at a slightly higher vibrational frequency than you of Earth.”

“From your description, it seems like you are gods and live in Heaven,” remarked Paul Villa.

“I wouldn’t go that far, Paul,” replied his extraterrestrial contact. “We were humans much like yourselves, once upon a time; but we went on to master the subtleties of the inner dimensions. One day you will reach the point of cosmic evolution where we are now, provided you don’t go the way of the dinosaurs and bring about your own extinction through warfare or the disregard of your natural environment.”

“OK, so what brings you to New Mexico, if I might ask?” queried Villa.

Our other-worldly visitor retorted that, “We star people are interested in New Mexico because of a magnetic fault in Farmington…. Our ships travel along magnetic lines. They put a lot of stress on New Mexico and parts of Arizona and Utah. In fact, one of our ships crashed in 1948 near this area when the magnetic lines were warped by atomic testing out in the Nevada desert. The commander of our Moon base was dispatched to see what she could find out and do something about it.”

Bad Luck Like the words of a country music song, “If it weren’t for bad luck, I’d have no luck at all,” Paul Villa’s life was not an easy one. Many of his acquaintances gave up on him altogether, at best thinking he was eccentric and at worse, thinking him insane. He suffered a great steak of misfortune. By the time of the interview, his home burned down to the ground and he didn’t have fire insurance. He accidentally shot himself in the arm during a hunting trip; and he had to file for bankruptcy. For a while, Villa wondered if the extraterrestrials were working some sort of mischief in his life, maybe for something that he should not have said, or something that he did to displease them. But then he mused, “No, they were a very friendly sort of people. Their opinion is not that we are good or bad; but they are not about to save us from ourselves.” This caused me to think that such, I suppose, are the travails awaiting most of us who inhabit this entropic universe.

Villa’s Assertions Vindicated News of the New Mexico flap, along with the close encounters of Zamora and Villa, while becoming the butt of jokes in many quarters of the United States, where certainly being taken with a higher degree of gravitas in the United Kingdom. UFOs were always a hot topic on the airwaves of radio and television news programming of the British Broadcasting Company (BBC). Many of the contactees like Howard Menger of New Jersey and Paul Villa in New Mexico were claiming that the flying saucers originated from bases on planets in our own solar system. At the same time, spokespersons for NASA were adamant in pressing their claim that conditions on planets like Venus or Mars were just too unlike those on Earth to support any kind of life, at least as “we know it.”

On 28 April 1964, however, the BBC featured an interview with Professor H. Bruck, the Scottish Astronomer Royal, who was attending a conference of the Royal Astronomical Society in Edinburgh and made time to drop into the BBC studios there in the evening to discuss the timely subject of the existence of intelligent life on other planets. When asked about intelligent life in other solar systems, or even other galaxies, Professor Bruck did not dispute that it prob107

Flying Saucers and the Venus Legacy ably exists, but argued that if the current laws of physics are correct, it would take many of our lifetimes for a spaceship to reach Earth if it were emanating from such a far point. On the other hand, the question about life in our own solar system brought the quite unexpected answer that not only does it exist, but that Venus and Mars are likely to have human populations and that, “It is very likely that they are visiting us now.” A complete transcript of the program was published in the May-June 1964 edition of Spacelink, the official organ of the Isle of Wight UFO Investigation Society in the United Kingdom.

Robert C. Gribble, the director of the Aerial Phenomena Research Group (APRG) in Seattle, Washington, of which I was a member at the time, lamented that space researchers in the United States were not as forthcoming as their counterparts on the “other side of the pond,” so to speak. Gribble commented that, “It is hoped that other astronomers, in professional and amateur circles, will take note of this enlightened viewpoint, publicly expressed by the Scottish Astronomer Royal.”

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Chapter 9

Truth of the Kecksburg, Pennsylvania “Meteor” In these coronavirus-plagued times, with even small gatherings being limited to no more than ten persons or completely curtailed, the usual forums available for me to answer pertinent questions that readers of my books have about the planet Venus and its inhabitants specifically, or the UFO phenomenon in general, have been closed off. Many thanks are extended to Lon Strickler of phantomsandmonsters.com for the opportunity of tackling some of these issues in his website. Should you wish to contact me for the purpose of sharing information about Venus, Venusians, flying saucers or other outer space phenomena, or asking questions about these same topics, please do not hesitate to send me an e-mail to rkeller1@mix.wvu.edu, and I will try my best to find some answers for you and publish them in Lon’s internet pages.

Kecksburg “Meteor” and Project WHITE STORK

Military personnel allegedly hauled off the bee-hive shaped UFO to Wright-Patterson AFB in Dayton, Ohio. The UFO crash is frequently referred to as “Pennsylvania’s Roswell.” See https://www.youtube.com/ user/TheTop5ss.

At approximately 4:45 p.m. on 9 December 1965, a so-called “meteor” was observed streaking across the northeastern skies of the United States and the southeastern skies of Canada, descending at a steep angle, whence it crashed on the outskirts of the small town of Kecksburg, Pennsylvania. The incident, and the town, which have come to be known collectively as “Pennsylvania’s Roswell,” has been the subject of ongoing speculation in the UFO community, even becoming a meme of pop culture. A movie about the incident, appropriately and simply titled Kecksburg, premiered at the State Theatre Center for the Arts on Main Street in Uniontown, Pennsylvania, on 12 September of last year. For additional information about the movie, directed by Pennsylvania native Cody Knotts, please see https://www.kecksburgufomovie.com/.

Last summer, on 27 July, I enjoyed the privilege of attending the annual Kecksburg UFO Festival, being one of the many vendors of UFO-related products at the event, i.e. Venus Rising books and bumper stickers. World Kecksburg UFO authority, Stan Gordon, provided an 109

Flying Saucers and the Venus Legacy outstanding power point presentation on what happened on the fateful day of the UFO crash at that location nearly 54 years ago. Other presenters discussed various aspects of ufology, in general. A fellow ufologist, S. W. from Michigan, and I, were examining many of the original drawings, photographs, testimonies in UFO reports and Pennsylvania newspaper articles about the incident that Stan Gordon had spread across his table.

S. W. wanted to know what my take on the event was. I explained that there was a definite Venus connection to the Kecksburg UFO that needed further investigation.

A few hours after the crash, Air Force personnel were dispatched to the debris site to cordon off the area and collect all they could of what remained of the UFO, then transporting it to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio, for analysis by National Reconnaissance Office and Project BLUEBOOK personnel.

Apart from the Air Force brass and President Lyndon Baines Johnson, nobody had any knowledge of what this object was or where it came from. Speculation was running wild. Astronomers speculated that it might be some kind of “bolide,” a meteor as bright as a full moon that impacts the Earth, causing a big explosion. Ufologists said it was a crashed alien spacecraft, and there were even rumors of several four to five-foot extraterrestrial occupants being reported as disembarking from the object and disappearing in the dense woods.

What fascinated me about this case was the possible connection with one of the many Soviet Venus space probes. In December 2005, just before the 40th anniversary of the Kecksburg incident, a spokesperson for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) released a statement reporting that experts had examined metallic fragments from the area and determined they were from a Soviet spy satellite that re-entered the atmosphere and broke up, but records of their findings were supposedly lost in the 1990s.

For Leslie Kean, an investigative reporter for the Sci-Fi Channel, this was totally unsatisfactory. Therefore, he sued NASA under the Freedom of Information Act to obtain the so-called “lost” NASA records. On 26 October 2007, NASA, being ordered by the court, agreed to search for those records. Not surprisingly, it wasn’t too long before Steve McConnell, NASA’s public liaison officer, testified that two boxes of papers from the time of the Kecksburg incident were missing. As with the original tapes of the Apollo 11 Moon mission, the Kecksburg files just “disappeared” from NASA’s prevue with no chain of custody for tracing their disposition.

The Venus connection with the strange object that crashed in that rural area outside of the village of Kecksburg in Westmoreland County starts with an eyewitness’ account of the event.

In the Wednesday, 9 September 1998 issue of the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Post-Gazette, staff writer David Templeton reports that almost immediately after the UFO came down, “Local residents headed toward the landing site.” He added that, “James Romansky and others trailed the object into the woods by observing the arc-wielding flames and bluish sparklers evident through the trees after the landing.

“The object was 12 feet long and six to seven feet in diameter, and shaped like an acorn. It had a ring around the base, just like an acorn, that bore what Romansky described as backward letters…. The craft had no doors or windows. The metal was seamless, with a dent, but bearing no rivets or welds.

“The local men soon were chased away by United States military officials who announced that the landing site was off-limits to all civilians.”

In 1993, James Oberg, a 22-year veteran NASA engineer and specialist in orbital mechanics, as well as an American space journalist and historian, regarded as the foremost expert on 110

Raymond Andrew Keller II both the Chinese and Russian space programs, weighed in on the Kecksburg controversy and declared that it was his opinion that the object was part of the Soviet Venus probe known as Kosmos 96. While the United States Space Command reported that the Kosmos 96 crashed landed in Canada shortly after 3 a.m. on 9 December 1965, more than 12 hours before the Kecksburg crash, Oberg believes that the spacecraft broke up into two sections in orbit before falling down to Earth.

As the author of Final Countdown: Rockets to Venus (Terra Alta, West Virginia: Headline Books, 2017), I explore the vast array of space probes sent to Venus by the United States, Russia/former Soviet Union, Japan and the European Union. To my mind, Oberg is correct in his assessment because Kosmos 96 matches the Kecksburg object in many aspects. It was shaped like an acorn and possessed the ability to maneuver and land on Venus. As a Venus probe, it also was equipped with state-of-the-art heat shield technology so designed to survive a plummet through the electrically charged ionosphere of the second planet, estimated to be around 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit. That could have allowed the craft to survive the long passage through Earth’s atmosphere before landing in Kecksburg. The writing on the spacecraft would have been the Russian Cyrillic alphabet; and all Venera probes from the former Soviet Union were fitted with plaques proclaiming the glories of their country and staking a territorial claim on Venus.

After analyzing all the data, Oberg concluded that the fragments that came down in Canada were most likely the “jettisoned rocket stage of a large piece of space junk, while the probe itself could have headed off toward Kecksburg.” That explains why the United States military would lie, or at least not divulge everything it really knew about the Kecksburg crash.

Back in the 1960s, the United States military intelligence agencies were interested in collecting as much of the Soviet military space debris as possible, dispatching operatives of the National Reconnaissance Office to all parts of the free and nonaligned countries to recover these downed objects, or what was left of them. Stanton Friedman, the famed nuclear physicist from the University of Chicago and prominent UFO investigator, was even dispatched on orders from the Central Intelligence Agency, to West Africa in 1962 to recover a downed Soviet satellite. While international law required that such debris be returned to the country of origin, we all know that this wasn’t going to happen until every bit of knowledge concerning the design and application of each recovered item had been determined. Therefore, in the midst of the Cold War, it was clear that hardware from the Kosmos 96, with all of its missile-warhead shielding, would have been much too valuable to return to the Soviet Union.

When it comes down to what crashed in Kecksburg, as far as the former Soviet authorities, and now Russian Space Agency Kosmos 96 Soviet Venus probe spokespersons are concerned, they would only speculate that anything that crash-landed in American turf was probably American spy technology that the United States was too embarrassed to acknowledge.

In May 1998, Stan Gordon interviewed Russian Cosmonaut Viktor P. Savinykh, who then served as rector of Moscow State University of Geodesy and Cartography. Gordon said, “I took the opportunity through an interpreter to ask him whether he could help solve the Kecksburg 111

Flying Saucers and the Venus Legacy mystery. He, too, suggested rather emphatically, and with some laughter, that whatever plunged into Kecksburg surely was some faulty American technology.”

But none of this takes into account one of the United States Air Force’s most top secret programs during the 1960s, Project WHITE STORK (United States Air Force Foreign Technology Division, Soviet Effort to Contact Extraterrestrial Life, Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama, USAF Historical Archives, 1967) whose very purpose was to monitor and report on the Soviet Union’s progress in searching for and establishing communications with extraterrestrial life. The majority of the space probes dispatched to other bodies in space by the former Soviet Union were targeted for Venus. In my second book in the Venus Rising series, Final Countdown: Rockets to Venus, a fuller extent of the WHITE STORK Venus revelations is presented.

The Kosmos 96, officially designated 3MV-4 No. 6, was a space probe launched as part of the Soviet Venera program, supposedly intended to make a flyby of Venus. Allegedly, however, there was a launch failure that forced the spacecraft into a low Earth orbit. TASS, the Soviet News Agency, reported that the Kosmos 96 was launched on 22 November 1965 on a Molniya 8K78 rocket. In light of the WHITE STORK revelations, however, I wonder if the Kosmos 96 may have actually been sent up during a much earlier launch window, as part of the Soviet Union’s clandestine space program, whence it skimmed samples from the Venusian atmosphere pushed off as a long tail from the planet’s North Pole by the strong solar wind, to be followed by a return voyage to Earth. The actual samples could then be analyzed by experts from the Soviet Academy of Sciences to prove the existence of a suitable atmosphere for the later human exploration of Venus, and possibly the presence of primitive life forms, like microorganisms, on our sister planet.42 42 Seth Shostak, Ph.D., Astrophysics, Caltech, is a frequent guest on the Coast-to-Coast A.M. radio program, hosted by the paranormal guru of the airwaves, George Noory. Shostak is a big drawing card for the millions of Coast-to-Coast A.M. listeners because he serves as the current director of the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) Institute in Mountain View, California. Due to his long history of research into the search for ETs via radio astronomy, Shostak is always in demand as a commentator, guest or speaker for any event or program that has anything at all to do with the possibility of discovering life on other planets. But there is nothing new under the Sun with this idea. As early as 1898, electrical wizard Nikola Tesla had built a special radio that he called a “Teslascope,” the purpose of the device being to establish contact with intelligent beings on Mars and Venus. Interestingly enough, Tesla asserted that his radio actually worked and that he spoke with some sort of intelligent life on the surface of Venus that sounded like a bumblebee. See my book, Venus Rising: A Concise History of the Second Planet (Terra Alta, West Virginia: Headline Books, 2015), for more information about Tesla and his intriguing invention of the Teslascope. Strange that we don’t hear too much more about the life and research of Nikola Tesla and his connections to the cloud-shrouded planet Venus; but we are constantly bombarded by programs featuring Shostak and his SETI Institute, which have so far availed nothing with respect to evidence of life on other planets, by way of radio signals or anything else, for that matter.

But there seems to be something more going on here with Shostak, something more than meets the eye. Keep in mind that this is only a perception that I have; but it is certainly one that is worth considering. When we look back in the history of UFO conspiracies, it soon becomes apparent that the American defense, intelligence, political, religious and scientific establishments have long known that we have visitors to Earth from planets within our own solar system.

Yet officially, it seems that these visitors do not exist. Major H. C. Petersen of Denmark’s Defense Forces wrote in the January 1972 issue of UFO Kontakt of Vejle, Denmark, that, “We could imagine the attitude was taken up that since visitors from our neighboring planets have no hostile intentions, a disclosure is not urgent, insofar as it would suppress such ‘indispensable’ things like war, church and money--- everything that equals POWER in this world! But in order to ‘show good will’ to the idea of research for the benefit of humankind, while all the while continuing to reap in billions of dollars from space research grants, the solar system is considered to be too close to us to be included in the category of space.”

What Petersen is saying is that if we are focusing on solar systems or galaxies far, far away in our search for ETs, then we don’t have to pay any attention to the flying saucers that are constantly arriving at Earth from planets or other celestial bodies in our own solar system. “Consequently,” opined the Danish major, “you may say that you are seeking contact with intelligent beings in space and you do not have to debate flying saucers.”

As the fan of Coast-to-Coast A.M. hears Shostak ramble on about ETs in distant realms of the universe, so far away as to pay little attention to our small Earth on the fringes of the Milky Way Galaxy, all the while he denies the existence

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Raymond Andrew Keller II We must always keep in mind that as far as space exploration and the search for extraterrestrial life, primitive or advanced, the official policy of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union has always reflected the Marxist-Leninist materialist philosophy that, “Life is a normal and inevitable consequence of the development of matter, and intelligence is a normal consequence of the existence of life.”

Until next time, keep in mind the words of the Venusian Commander Aura Rhanes of the Moon Base Clarion, “Work, study, meditate.”

of UFOs, or perhaps admits that maybe one or two alien spaceships will reach the Earth every 20,000 years or so. Big deal. This has zero effect on improving extant conditions on Earth. I am not impressed.

I want to know who is pulling the strings. Back in Major Petersen’s day, the United States government was sponsoring Projects Ozma (1960-1971) and Ozma II (1972-1976) out at the Green Bank Observatory in West Virginia, at the same time that flying saucer reports were peaking in the United States and around the world. For all the bally-hew that these radio searches for ETs caused, and all the billions of taxpayer dollars spent, nothing was detected that could be properly authenticated as coming from intelligent sources. Also, keep in mind that the Air Force’s UFO investigation, Project Bluebook, was shut down in 1969 at the recommendation of Dr. Edward U. Condon’s government-backed University of Colorado Report on Unidentified Flying Objects (1966-1968).

Recently, a prominent UFO website pooh-poohed the idea that the discovery of phosphine molecules (PH3) in the Venusian atmosphere was a true indicator of life on our sister planet, despite the fact that no one organism can stand alone. It would need to interact with other organisms in a complex eco-system. This website then had the nerve to deride others in the UFO community seeing possibilities for the existence of more advanced life forms on Venus, calling this a “woo-woo” type of thinking. Let’s explore the history behind this rift in thinking about ETs, focusing the search for them beyond the solar system and negating the possibilities that they exist right here under our noses, right here in our own solar system.

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Chapter 10

Ohio as the Locus of UFO Activity Ohio has long been considered a locus for UFO activity over the United States. Leonard Stringfield of Cincinnati (1920-1994), when he was not working as the advertising manager for Du Bois Chemicals, served as the director for his home town’s Unidentified Flying Object Society, back in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Stringfield first became interested in ufology in 1945. At that time, he was on active duty in the Army Air Corps, the predecessor of the now independent branch of the armed forces, the United States Air Force, when he spotted a formation of flying saucers from the window of a bomber.

As World War II had ended slightly before this sighting, he initially thought that the elusive UFOs might be some kind of Soviet experimental aircraft. With the intent of doing his part to stem the red peril, Springfield continued to serve as a spotter for the Air Defense Command. In that capacity, the Cincinnati pioneer ufologist discovered that many more service members and veterans had sighted these objects both during the war and after.

By 1960, however, Stringfield began to reassess his Soviet origin hypothesis. The technology exhibited by the UFOs evidenced a science far beyond anything of this world. In the Saturday, 4 June 1960 edition of the Cincinnati Post and Times Star, the UFO Society director opined that, “I believe the UFOs are from outer space and that they are controlled by intelligent beings who are observing the Earth.” He added that, “I don’t believe there is any hostile intent; but I believe they have been using planets in our solar system for bases, even the Moon. Astronomers for years have observed shifting spots on the Moon.”

Stringfield was also held the considered opinion that the United States Air Force’s secret files contained evidence, or “near evidence,” at the least, bolstering the so-called extraterrestrial hypothesis, i.e. that the flying saucers originated from somewhere in outer space. The ufologist did not think that the Air Force was going to make any disclosures about this anytime soon, however, insofar as government officials were probably afraid that this kind of information, if it were released to the general public, would cause mass panic. He also came to the conclusion that foreign governments, especially the communist regime in the Soviet Union, also have evidence that UFOs are arriving at our world from other planets but are keeping it secret, for the very same reason and in the interest of their own national security.

It is interesting to note that Stringfield, in the midst of the Cold War at a time when the United States was rushing to close the missile gap and catch up in the space race with the Soviet Union, told the reporter from the Cincinnati newspaper that, “I believe it is time we took the space spotlight away from Russia by opening up secret files on unidentified flying objects. It could be the start of co-operation See https://www.phantomsandmonsters.com/2014/04/ among all governments of the world.” the-1966-ohio-pennsylvania-ufo-police.html for additional Perhaps it was wishful thinking on String- information on this amazing encounter. This case was used by Steven Spielberg to model the police pursuit of a UFO scene in field’s part, but he concluded that, “If all gov- his classic movie, Close Encounters of the Third Kind (Columbia Pictures, 1977).

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Raymond Andrew Keller II ernments would pool their information on UFOs and work in unison on this, it would help to ease world tensions.”

“It Happened in Ohio….”

Perhaps one of the more interesting UFO cases of all time also took place in Ohio. This involved an encounter with a flying saucer in Ravenna, Ohio, by on duty Portage County Sheriff ’s deputies Dale Spaur, the senior officer, and W. L. “Barney” Neff, the special deputy, around 5:00 a.m. on 17 April 1966. Spaur was driving patrol car number 13, accompanied by Neff in the front seat. The deputies ended up chasing a UFO 86 miles through Ohio and on into Pennsylvania.

It all began under unusual circumstances. While on patrol, the deputies noticed a red and white 1959 Ford sedan parked alongside the road. Naturally, the officers stopped to check it out.

The Ford had a strange emblem on its side. There was an inverted triangle with a bolt of lightning in its center, along with an overriding inscription, “Seven Steps to Hell.” And in the front and back seats of the automobile, the deputies could see dozens of walkie-talkies and other apparent electronic gear of an undetermined nature.43 All of a sudden, Spaur heard a humming sound, like a swarm of bees, emanating from behind him. He turned and saw a huge, saucer-shaped craft rising out of the woods. The officer, accustomed to gauging the size of vehicles on the road, estimated that the flying saucer was about 50 feet in diameter and perhaps 15 to 20 feet high. The object had a dome and antenna on top; and the underside gleamed with an intense, purplish-white light.

The officers became transfixed and immobile. The saucer rose to about 150 feet and moved directly above the Ford and the officers standing next to it. Both Spaur and Neff felt a warm, pleasing heat as the object hovered over them. However, the light from the underside of the UFO was so intense that tears were streaming down from the eyes of the deputies. At one point, Spaur felt as if he was regaining mobility, but hesitated to make a move toward the nearby parked patrol car. He thought that it would be wiser to play a wait and see game before taking any abrupt actions.

Neff looked over to Spaur, seeking guidance. Spaur nodded his head in the direction of the patrol car. Then the two deputies made a mad dash for their cruiser. The officers jumped in their vehicle and Spaur radioed in, telling headquarters about the UFO. Other reports from local residents were made of the object and these, too, were flooding into the sheriff ’s office. The dispatcher responded to Spaur’s report with the command to “Shoot it!” However, the experienced Spaur reasoned that getting out of his vehicle to fire at the object would be foolhardy and most likely would get him and his partnering deputy killed.

In the interim, the object was now hovering over the patrol car. Back at headquarters, the night sergeant grabbed the microphone from the dispatcher. “Try to find out more about the thing. And if it moves away from there, just chase it,” said the sergeant to Spaur. At that, the large saucer drifted slowly away. Spaur followed and then the object picked up some speed.

Spaur put his foot on the cruiser’s accelerator to keep up with the UFO. He was now driving at a good clip of 100 miles per hour in pursuit of the strange craft.

Whatever intelligence was behind the flying saucer seemed to let Deputy Spaur follow it in 43 Bill Moore, “It Happened in Ohio….,” Limbo, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, Vol. 1, No. 1, January-February 1971. Paranormal researchers like the late John A. Keel (1930-2009), would attach great significance to the appearance of this unusual Ford sedan with its strange emblem. The design may provide some indication of a supernatural significance to the UFO encounter. –Cosmic Ray

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Flying Saucers and the Venus Legacy on its eastward path, even waiting for the cruiser to catch up at intersections. Once, the object even appeared to have doubled back when Spaur was forced to veer away from the easterly direction. The officers in patrol car number 13 actually crossed over into the neighboring state of Pennsylvania in their high-speed pursuit. The deputies actually drove as far as the outskirts of Pittsburgh following the UFO. Only running out of gas prohibited them from continuing the chase.

This UFO case was first investigated by the then Director of the Cleveland Ufology Project (CUP), Earl J. Neff (not related to the deputy). The CUP director appreciated the frankness of Sheriff ’s Deputy Spaur in forthrightly answering all the questions that he put to him about the UFO encounter. Deputy Neff, however, refused to talk about the incident. Apparently, the unfavorable news coverage was creating some problems for him at work and in his home environment.

CUP Director Neff (1902-1993) remarked that other law enforcement officers on duty that morning also saw the UFO moving across the sky in an easterly direction, thus confirming Deputy Spaur’s report. Among the other observers were Patrolman H. Wayne Huston of East Palestine, Ohio; Police Chief Gerald Buchert of Mantua, Ohio; and Patrolman Frank Panzanella of Conway, Pennsylvania. Shortly after this historic encounter, both Earl Neff and Donald E. Keyhoe, the director of the then largest civilian saucer group, National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena (NICAP) in Washington, D.C., regretted that so many law enforcement officers and other credible witnesses remain clammed up about their UFO encounters due to the aura of ridicule that had come to surround all aspects of the phenomenon.

Saucerian Press publisher Gray Barker of Clarksburg, West Virginia, made a special trip to attend the 10 November 1973 flying saucer presentation by Cleveland, Ohio, ufologist Earl J. Neff, held in the Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Hall in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Neff investigated hundreds of UFO reports from around the United States and Canada and came to strongly believe in the extraterrestrial hypothesis. He also funded two teenagers in Northeast Ohio, Alan T. Weston of Maple Heights and Raymond A. Keller of Bedford, to publish the famous Flying Saucer Report.

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An Interview with Earl J. Neff On the morning of 16 October 1971, Cleveland, Ohio’s “Dean of Ufology,” Earl J. Neff, arrived at the Toronto International Airport, where he was met by Gene Duplantier, the editor of Saucers, Space and Science, Canada’s preeminent UFO magazine published in the Toronto suburb of Willowdale, Ontario. Duplantier was to drive Neff to Barrie, Ontario, where he was scheduled to give a lecture on the UFO phenomenon later that evening. Barrie is about an hour’s drive due north of Willowdale, so Duplantier took Neff to his Willowdale home so he 117

Flying Saucers and the Venus Legacy could rest up first, before proceeding on to Barrie. Neff slept to about 11:30 a.m.; and Duplantier fixed him some lunch. After getting some good food in their stomachs, and since they still had some time to kill before heading up north for the meeting, Duplantier asked Neff, one of North America’s outstanding UFO lecturers, if he wouldn’t mind being interviewed for a future article in Saucers, Space and Science. Neff consented.

Here is the transcript: Gene: Can you tell me what has become of Major Donald E. Keyhoe since his retirement from the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena (NICAP)?

Earl: I talked to him just recently on the phone; and his book was scheduled for August. He said he’d like to bring it out in October; but now it probably won’t be out until January, because January is a good month for publishers. He is still working on it. The delay is probably due to the fact the publishers had other ideas than Keyhoe’s, and probably they were about his stand.

He has conformed to their particular wishes.

Gene: Major Keyhoe propounded the extraterrestrial hypothesis as the source of UFOs. Do you think the statement is still valid, considering the technological and scientific advances of today?

Earl: On 6 April, the Cleveland Ufology Project (CUP) had its big banquet at Esterhurst; and in time for that, Major Keyhoe wrote me exactly what he felt about UFOs. He said, “I believe that UFOs are extraterrestrial probes or observation devices controlled by a more advanced civilization carrying out a long survey of our world for some important reason which has not yet been determined.”

Gene: Do you feel the same way?

Earl: Yes, definitely.

Gene: There is an upsurge of thought among scientists and investigators that UFOs are a paraphysical-psychic manifestation, rather than from other planets. How do you view this? Are these compatible to your way of thinking?

Earl: No, they are not. In fact, I don’t discount that there are coronas and visual sightings that are definitely of a very materialistic nature and that there are others that are mystical and the type that Jung and Freud referred to. But I frankly feel that when you take a 22-calibre rifle, aim at one of these, as has been done on numerous occasions, and you hear it go ping when it hits, you’re not hitting an illusion or a mystical thing.

Gene: So probably they could have not just one origin, but two or more.

Earl: Yes, that is quite possible; and I think quite frequently people had a visual experience and others, with all sincerity, had something of a more psychical nature…. I’m not belittling that angle of it; but I do say, like Phillip Klass (a noted aviation authority and skeptic of the time- R.K.), that these are all of a corona, etc., etc. type.

Gene: Do you feel that the United Nations (UN), if given the go-ahead, could reasonably solve the UFO mystery?

Earl: Well, if the UN did the same with us that they have done with most of the others, I’m afraid it would be longer than my lifetime.

Gene: According to researchers, UFOs seem to have been here since time immemorial. If this is so, do you personally think the mystery will be solved by the end of the century?

Earl: Well, I’m not a Jeane Dixon (a well-known psychic of the time- R.K.); but I know her well, and think greatly of her. She said to me on a program one night, that by the year 2000, we would take them for granted. We would look at the sky and look at them as we look at aero118

Raymond Andrew Keller II planes today. They would be so numerous we would no longer bother to get excited.

Gene: Accepting the proposition that the mystery is solved, what developments can you see in store for us as inhabitants of Earth? Would the results be beneficial or repugnant to us?

Earl: Frankly, I’m very worried. I don’t try to express this thought too generally because if I do, too many people go home and have to take an Exedrin tablet. Major Colman Von Keviczky, whose group appointed me their American representative, when questioned on something of this kind, feels that this is something we should be very much concerned about; and this is the reason we are trying to get Canada, and all of the nations interested and involved in the UN, to consider this very seriously, because we should not have a shoot-down order. We should look at them in a friendly way, which we are not doing at the present time.

The Merint Report, which took me from six to eight months to obtain, is the poster that is on all United States naval vessels and tells what to do in case there is a warship, other than ours, within our territory: an aeroplane, a rocket or a submarine other than ours…. or a UFO. We take this very seriously; and yet we have this ridiculous shoot-down order. Even Albert Einstein pleaded with Harry Truman when he was president, not to let our planes shoot at them when 52 monitor-type devices were over Washington, DC. One was hit. Admiral Herbert B. Knowles was with your own Canadian WilExcerpt of Merint Report from files of Cleveland ufologist Earl J. Neff clearly bert Smith in Washington demonstrate that in the early 1970s, the United States Navy considered UFO sightings at the time. This piece of to be a serious matter and a concern for national security. metal, this chunk, fell. This is something that has been of great interest to everyone who was involved in it. It was metal unknown to us.

Gene: Were you disappointed that the Apollo astronauts did not find life on the Moon or any evidence of alien visitations?

Earl: I was contacted by a television personality immediately following Apollo 15 and was asked if I’d learned anything further on this particular flight; and I said “No.” He said, “Don’t you feel they’re highly indoctrinated, the same as the Air Force boys are?” and I said, “Yes, I feel that.” In yesterday’s news (15 October 1972), a big statement was made for the first time publicly, that in March of last year the Moon had a big geyser erupt. That proves that under the surface of the Moon there is water, something that never before has been known.44 I wouldn’t be 44 An Associated Press report dated 27 October 2020 from Cape Canaveral, Florida, reported that, “The Moon’s shadowed, frigid nooks and crannies may hold frozen water in more places and in larger quantities than previously suspected. And, for the first time, the presence of water on the Moon’s sunlit surface has been confirmed, scientists reported Monday (26 October 2020).” This is especially good news for future astronauts inhabiting lunar bases that will be able to tap into these sources of water for drinking and making rocket fuel. Dr. Paul O. Hayne, an astronomer from the University of Colorado at Boulder, writing in the 26 October 2020 issue of Nature Astronomy (Springer Nature, Berlin, Germany), noted that while previous observations have indicated that there are millions of tons of ice in the permanently shadowed craters at both the north and south polar regions of the Moon, the new discovery of more than 15,400 square miles of

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Flying Saucers and the Venus Legacy surprised that Mr. Kaltenborn was censored off the air- at least that is what we think happenedbecause he was stopped in the middle of a sentence when he said that he had something very important to say, relative to the flight before the last.

Perils of Neo-colonialism Department Gene: A proposed future Apollo Moon shot would be to the crater Gassendi. Do you think the so-called “city street layouts” in the crater were made by intelligent beings, or is it mere fantasy on the part of some UFO buffs?

Earl: I’m inclined to think it is fantasy. One night I had George Van Tassel on the air with me from his home at Giant Rock, California. I said, “George, you claim you have a photograph of the city on the Moon. Would you like to tell us about it?” He said, “Yes, I got that photograph.” When we asked him to send us a copy of the print, he said, “Now, I really wouldn’t know exactly Source: Dominion Post, Morgantown, West Virginia, 1 November 2020. where it is.” Well now, if I was asked if I had a piece of UFO metal, I wouldn’t say, “Yes, I have piece of UFO metal. It’s in my garage; and I’ve got so much metal out there, I wouldn’t know where it is.” I think I would prize this very highly. And so when we checked this thing out, I think it was more imagination than anything else. He did have something and he showed it on his Proceedings journal; but when we checked with Mt. Palomar, Palomar was very, very ignorant about it.

Gene: The United States’ funding of space exploration has been slowed down considerably.

Do you think this will have any effect on our meeting aliens or spacecraft?

Earl: Frank Edwards (prominent radio personality and UFO investigator) said that within the next five years (just before his death – 23 June 1967), we will have contact with an actual spacecraft and person, and that will be by one of our astronauts. Edwards died on the day before the twentieth anniversary of Kenneth Arnold’s sighting. I certainly feel that every time we go out there in space, they are highly concerned; and I made public for the first time anywhere in the country that when our experimental shot took place years ago at Cape Kennedy, the object leaving the pad was followed by four UFOs- two above it, one below it, and one behind it. They followed the capsule in that order for one complete orbit of the Earth; and as suddenly as they arrived, they disappeared. This apparently meant that their mission was accomplished. What it was, I don’t know. But they are concerned with what we are doing, unquestionably so. One of the slides I have, given to me by Leonard Stringfield, shows an actual UFO- a controversial onejust on the outside edge of the smoke-ball of an experimental hydrogen bomb. lunar terrain having the capability to trap water in the form of ice, “take the availability of lunar surface water to a new level.” This represents an area of ice 20% more expansive than previously estimated by astronomers. See “Moon holds more water than ever thought,” Associated Press article in the Dominion Post newspaper, 27 October 2020, Morgantown, West Virginia.

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Raymond Andrew Keller II Gene: You were the first to interview Woodrow Derenberger (a contactee from West Virginia) on the air. Can you tell us briefly any latest developments in his contacts with Indrid Cold or others of like nature?

Earl: Monday night, 18 October, on the Alan Douglas Show, he will tell all his latest stories.

He says he is not crazy. He really had an experience. I had not bought the story hook, line and sinker. I feel that he has elaborated too much. He may have had an original experience; and I am not saying he didn’t, because I wasn’t there. I have interviewed him at length and have had him on two shows. Fifty percent of his story does check out.

Gene: People are still questioning the whereabouts of George Hunt Williamson (1926-1986; an archaeologist and witness to George Adamski’s original encounter with a Venusian in the California desert). Do you know what happened to him?

Earl: I really couldn’t say. Someone said that he was in Europe, another said in South America and still another said he was in the country (USA). But I do believe that he is very much alive. (Williamson was a veteran of the Army Air Corps in World War II. In the early 1960s, he legally changed his name to Michel d’Obrenovic and was ordained a priest in the Assyrian Church of the East, sometimes referred to as the Nestorian Church. He died at his home in Santa Barbara, California, on 25 January 1986 and is buried in Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia, memorial identification 99822446. –Cosmic Ray) Gene: In the book, Interrupted Journey, by John G. Fuller, when Betty Hill was under hypnosis, she mentioned a map relating to where her captors came from. Did you find something interesting about that?

Earl: John Fuller may have known the following, but if he did, he left it out of his book. I don’t believe he did, because I can’t imagine an author as fine as he, not putting this in. When Betty was regressed (put under hypnosis) by Dr. Benjamin Simon, she told how she had seen a map which was relative to the trade routes, the places where the people (the ETs) were going most frequently, and those routes that were seldom used, etc. Now what he didn’t say was- what seems of foremost importance to me- was that this map was not a map on a wall. It was not on a piece of paper. It was not on a two-dimensional ground. This was a three-dimensional map.

Apparently, it’s like when we take a laser beam. Down in Akron, Ohio, just a number of months ago, there was a very beautiful exhibit there. I didn’t see it; but it was described to me. It was all about laser beams. You can really think you are seeing something in three dimensions and you can walk right through the blamed thing. This was apparently the type of map she saw.

Observations of the “Cosmic Ray” While Neff was directing the investigations of the Cleveland Ufology Project (CUP), he was also the Ohio state representative for Donald E. Keyhoe’s National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena (NICAP), an organization which did not recognize the validity of any direct extraterrestrial contact claims. Neff, when apart from NICAP, was more open to the idea of direct contact. However, he was always cognizant that he needed to temper his enthusiasm and remarks about both George Van Tassel and Woodrow Derenberger when making statements for public record. At the CUP meetings and in the gatherings that followed in a local Parma diner, Neff was more open about the contact incidents and some of his investigations in this area, as well as sharing some of his own personal “metaphysical” experiences. Working with Earl J. Neff on saucer investigations was one of the greatest blessings in my life. Godspeed to you, Earl, wherever you are in this vast and intriguing Cosmos!

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Chapter 11

Lessons Learned from a Contactee: Woodrow W. Derenberger (1916-1990) First Encounter Woodrow Derenberger’s extraterrestrial contact case came to the attention of the UFO community, and the world, when his story was picked up by the wire services in the second week of November 1966. Before that month was out, investigators from both the Air Force and the planet’s largest civilian UFO group, the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena (NICAP) in Washington, D.C., were interviewing Derenberger and searching for evidence of the alien presence on Earth in the alleged landing zone of the flying saucer, just outside of Parkersburg, West Virginia.

His initial experience with the flying saucer and a being from another planet took place on the night of 2 November 1966. Derenberger, a salesman for a sewing machine company, completed his sale in Marietta, Ohio, and was on the road, driving his pick-up back home to Mineral Wells, West Virginia, on the outskirts of Parkersburg just off Interstate 77.

About halfway between Parkersburg and his home, a big saucer-shaped craft nestled down on the South Hill Road in front of Derenberger’s pick-up truck. The object literally covered the width of the highway from berm-to-berm. Surprisingly, Derenberger was more curious than anxious about the UFO landing.

Derenberger noticed a hatch opening up on the side of the object. There was an intense light pouring out from the open portal, and out stepped a slim, seemingly fit specimen of a man, dark-skinned and middle-aged. Derenberger estimated him to be about 40 years old, plus or minus five years.

The ufonaut started walking over to Derenberger’s pick-up truck. The mysterious craft suddenly rose about 50 feet in the air, hovering overhead while the visitor approached Derenberger’s truck, mentally transmitting the thought to him that he desired the experiencer to roll down the window and have a friendly chat with him.

Derenberger complied, rolling down the window. The extraterrestrial self-identified as “Indrid Cold, a searcher of the cosmos.” Derenberger hesitatingly gave him his own name. Cold could sense that Derenberger was now getting a little edgy. At first, the Earthling thought the craft might be some kind of experimental aerial platform from the Air Force or the space agency, but now he was worried about his physical safety. Cold reassured him, declaring, “Have no fear. I am the same as you are. I sleep and breathe and bleed as you do. I wish you no harm, only happiness.”

Derenberger also answered other telepathic questions from Cold about his employment and his home. Derenberger mentally engaged the ufonaut and projected the thoughts that he needed to work for a living and that he lived not too far from the landing zone. The contactee also let the alien know that the lights off in the distance were the city of Parkersburg in the state of West Virginia. Cold relayed some information about the social structure of his planet, as well. Derenberger received a mental image from the ufonaut projecting a scientifically advanced settlement on a distant world that was referred to by the local inhabitants as simply a “gathering spot.” He also garnered from Cold’s thought transmission that his native planet was 122

Raymond Andrew Keller II called Lanulos, but that it did not orbit our Sun and hence could not be found anywhere in our own solar system.

After a few minutes, the ship then descended just a few feet above Derenberger’s pick-up truck. Cold backed away from Derenberger’s vehicle while the saucer landed back over at its original position on the roadway. Another ufonaut then opened the portal again, and Cold got back inside the ship, slamming the hatch behind him “just like a car door,” as Derenberger later explained to a magazine reporter.45 The contactee didn’t wait around to watch the UFO take-off, but revved up his pick-up and sped home as quickly as possible.

Derenberger would later remark that, “The papers said the ‘flying saucer took off with tremendous speed;’ but it really didn’t. I was the one who took off with tremendous speed!”

Disrupted Domestic Life As many a contactee can attest, a close encounter of the third kind may do quite a bit in expanding one’s cosmic consciousness, but it wreaks havoc with the maintenance of a peaceful home life. “You should have seen him when he got home,” Derenberger’s wife, Ruby Nettie, proclaimed. “He looked awful. I thought he’d struck and killed somebody with the truck. He loves to play with the children, but not that night. I had to shoo them out. He just sat there in the kitchen, grey-colored and saying, ‘You’re going to think I’m crazy,’ and ‘you’re going to laugh at me.’ Then he told me what had happened.”

“I was in shock,” said Derenberger, adding, “That’s what the doctor told me.”

After Derenberger arrived at his home following the first encounter, Mrs. Derenberger states that, “He tried to make a report to the police and he couldn’t even hold Taunia Bowman, Woodrow Derenberger’s the phone. I had to make the call and when I reported daughter with photo of her famous father, it, the officer said it was the third call like that they’d had maintains that the stress caused by media harassment caused her parents to divorce. See that night.” http://www.ghosttheory.com/2011/06/12/theCity and state police, as well as an Air Force sergeant strange-case-of-indrid-cold-alien-from-planetlanulos. and representatives from local media swarmed about Derenberger on the day following his encounter. “I consented to a TV appearance,” said Derenberger; but if I had to do it over again, there would be none of that. As a matter of fact, Cold appeared two nights later and we had another talk. I never mentioned it around here.”

No doubt, a seemingly unending stream of pressure and confusion has been brought to bear on Derenberger’s wife since her husband’s extraterrestrial encounter began to be the focus of a media blitz. Ever since the contactee’s appeared in the newspapers, the Derenbergers’ telephone has rung around at all hours of the day and night. The beleaguered couple had to have their phone number unlisted; but still inquisitive people kept calling. Mail keeps coming in on a daily basis from all over the world. Mrs. Derenberger clutched a fistful of letters from Germany, 45 M. Spohn Marling, “Across the U.S.A. with UFOs,” Flying Saucers UFO Reports (October 1967), New York, New York: Dell Publishing.

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Flying Saucers and the Venus Legacy Japan and Okinawa that still remained unopened, as neither she nor her husband could read or write in any of the languages pertaining to those countries.

Derenberger himself also lamented that there were ten to fifteen callers almost every night, “just driving right up, some making all-night trips to get there, coming in the house. They think they’ll see the ship. It comes in often. Some of them see it, some don’t. We had one NICAP investigator out there who was carrying so much equipment, cameras, tape recorders, etc. he could scarcely get through the door. He didn’t see the ship.”

As time rolled on, however, it appears as though Derenberger paid a steep price for all the media attention his case had brought down on his household. The ongoing invasion of the Derenbergers private life was enough for Mrs. Derenberger to leave her husband, taking their two children (a son Greg and a daughter Taunia) with her. Taunia Bowman, Derenberger’s daughter, once remarked that, “Out at our farmhouse I was scared to go to sleep at night because there were guys with guns in the trees wanting to see what was going on and wanting to see the spaceships.”46 Second Encounter The inquisitive ufologist M. Spohn Marling from Flying Saucers UFO Reports asked Derenberger to provide an account of his second meeting with the mysterious Indrid Cold. Derenberger related the following: “That night, 4 November 1966, I was driving home from Pomeroy, Ohio, with a friend. I got these messages telepathically that Cold was there and then I saw the ship. My friend saw it, too, and several people in the area saw it that night; but nobody knew about my talk with Cold.”

Derenberger continued, “You see, Mrs. Marling, I wasn’t the person Cold planned to contact the first time. He’s told me since that he was really homing in on a car ahead of me, a fellow he’d kept under watch for several days and believed would be a good communicant. But the man’s car was so close to a busy intersection that Cold was afraid there might be an accident if he dropped down in front of him, so he chose me instead. He wasn’t sorry. He told me I’m receptive, a good communicant.”

Then Mrs. Derenberger interjected, “They aren’t making contact only around here. They are doing this all over the country. But they find the people in West Virginia more receptive.”

Lanulos and the Extraterrestrial Life Style For the article in Flying Saucers UFO Reports previously cited, Derenberger opened up much more about conditions on the planet Lanulos, as well as the life styles of that distant world’s indigenous inhabitants. Perhaps this was because he realized that the readers of the UFO magazine weren’t going to laugh at him, since a good many of them had seen the mysterious objects zipping across the skies or maybe a few even experienced direct physical contacts with the ufonauts. This was evidenced in the letters to the editor which appeared in the previous two issues of that publication. Or then he could have considered the softer touch of the interview afforded by the female journalist, M. Spohn Marling, who didn’t press him as hard to answer questions he felt uncomfortable with, especially concerning his wife and children.

“It was at the second meeting, the night of 4 November, that Cold told me about himself,” explained Derenberger. The contactee continued, “He’s from a planet called Lanulos, orbiting 46 Xavier, “Strange Case of Indrid Cold. Alien from Planet Lanulos,” Ghost Theory (12 June 2011), Retrieved from http:// www.ghosttheory.com/2011/06/12/the-strange-case-of-indrid-cold-alien-from-planet-lanulos (Accessed 5 May 2020).

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Raymond Andrew Keller II a sun much like our own in the Genemedes star cluster. They have woods, streams, fields and oceans, the same as we do. They’ve taken samples of our vegetation and animals. Ours are much like theirs.

“Cold is married. His wife is named Kimi and he had two sons at that time. He has three children, now; one was born right around Christmas time, a little girl.”

At that point in the conversation, Mrs. Derenberger added that, “They’re time travelers.”

“That’s right,” Derenberger affirmed. “They’re in the fourth dimension. One reason they can’t stay here too long at a time is because they get younger down here instead of older. Their life span is 125-175 years; but if they stayed here too long, I think they’d go back in years so far that they might possibly forget how to manipulate their craft.”

Mrs. Derenberger told Marling that, “They have nine scout ships in this area,” providing the lead in for her husband to follow up with the details.

Taking the cue, he replied, “Yes, two men to a craft, except one ship that had four. On one craft there is a husband-wife team, Jitro and Elvara Cletaw.”

Marling wanted to know if Cold was still insisting that his visits to Derenberger were of a friendly nature, and that Cold had promised that no harm would come to him or his family in the future. “He reassured me,” said Derenberger. He’s told me on several occasions that the people on his planet travel and trade with other planets all the time; and that’s what they want to do here. Lanulos has many things that would be of value to us and we have many things that would be of value to Lanulos. Cold wants to have a friendly exchange.

The reporter/UFO investigator wondered if the Earth and our solar system weren’t too far away for a working trade agreement to be set up with the planet Lanulos. Derenberger replied that, “There is a landing base on the Moon, which is shared by many interplanetary civilizations. Those from Lanulos also have a mother ship up there, big as a football field and nine stories high, equipped with berthing docks. The scout ships land there and are taken aboard the mother ship.”

NASA Knows All About the Space People Somewhat skeptical, Marling opined that, “If there’s something like that up there, I should think that scientists over at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) would be interested in it.”

“Oh,” exclaimed Derenberger, “NASA knows all about this, knows more about it than I do.

I took my family down to Cape Kennedy not long ago and we were talking with some of the NASA people. I told them Indrid had seen all the devices we have put on the Moon, has even waved at the cameras. He’s seen every astronaut who’s ever gone up and has waved at them and they’ve waved back. NASA said they knew all about it. I’d told them nothing new.

“And when I told them there were people on Venus and Mars just like us, they knew that, too,” the contactee affirmed.

“You remember that space probe to Mars, when we went off course?” Derenberger questioned his interviewer. Marling nodded and then Derenberger explained that, “Cold was responsible for that. You see, our scientists down here had stocked that with unsterilized equipment and the people of Mars couldn’t risk germs and foreign matter being brought in. Cold had to misdirect the craft.”

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Flying Saucers and the Venus Legacy Further Visitations by Indrid Cold Derenberger explained that Cold frequently visited his home when the weather was bad, or it was snowing or pouring rain. The extraterrestrial timed his visitations during these times because most of our aircraft were grounded. Reporter Marling wanted to know if there was a lot of Air Force activity around Derenberger’s home, to which he replied that, “We’re told the authorities and the Air Force aren’t out there; but we’ve seen some uniformed and armed men there often. We don’t know who they are.”

As far as anyone else being in touch with Indrid Cold, Derenberger replied, “Yes, there is a group that gets together. They know him. There’s a doctor, a minister and several businessmen. You see, Mrs. Marling, Cold comes here often. He’s brought me bread from his planet. It’s richer and coarser than ours, like old fashioned biscuits. He even brought some spirits, Yucatan brandy in a wooden bottle.

“I’m not a drinking man, mind you, but I drank some of this. My father-in-law said it was like eggnog. But I thought it was syrupy.”

“How did you react?” Marling inquired.

“I really got high.

“I tried to keep that wooden bottle. I’ve tried to take things several times to have the evidence that Cold was here. I even tried to steal something; but I never got away with it.”

More on Indrid Cold Journalist and ufologist Marling wanted to know if Indrid Cold was as friendly as Woodrow Derenberger said he was, then why didn’t the extraterrestrial let the contactee take his picture, or give him something that he could show to satisfy the curious and the skeptics, or at least make an appointment with the Air Force or NASA or some other government organization that could “really pin this thing down?”

“He says it is not the right time, Mrs. Marling,” declared Derenberger, adding that, “He’s been in touch with the head of our government and our military forces agreed to show up at any place agreeable to them. But our government laid down certain stipulations, telling him we’d have to determine when they came, when they could leave and when they could have their ship back. Cold wouldn’t hear of it.”

“Do you see him anyplace other than your home?” the inquisitive Marling asked.

“Oh, yes,” explained Derenberger, “but I never indicate that I recognize him. I’ve seen him on the streets of Parkersburg. We just barely nod. He wears clothes he’s bought right here, at a local department store.”

“Hmm,” Marling mused. “What did he use for money?”

“That’s just what I asked him,” said Derenberger. “He told me that someone around here had something of great value. I could only guess he’d hocked something, but I don’t know.”

Time Traveling Extraterrestrials Since the space people from Lanulos inhabit the fourth dimension, that of time, just like my friends the Venusians, I am speculating that it would be easy for them to go back into the past, retrieve rare silver and gold coins, and then return to the present where they could secure cash for these items from pawn shops. And without being too obtrusive and knowing the outcome of horse races and lotteries that took place in bygone days, it wouldn’t be too difficult for them to time travel to the past and place bets, winning sufficient money to meet their needs without 126

Raymond Andrew Keller II attracting too much attention from the Internal Revenue Service or law enforcement agencies.

They could easily blend into our society without the need of obtaining Social Security cards under false pretenses.

Back in the 1990s my friend and fellow contactee Rob Potter of the Promise Revealed from Mt. Shasta, California, was driving down in Southern California in Yucca Valley, on his way to Gabriel Green’s house for a strategy meeting of the inner circle of the Amalgamated Flying Saucer Clubs of America, when he went into a Seven-Eleven convenience store, after tapping off his gas tank, for the purpose of buying some sandwiches, snacks and soda pop for the road.

As he entered the store, he turned around, his eyes catching a gleam of sunlight glancing off the highly polished chrome of a two-toned, sky blue and white 1955 Custom Bel Air convertible, pulling in to a parking space in front of the establishment. There were three in the car, two young women who looked like teenagers and a gentleman who seemed to be in his early twenties. The man was driving and the two girls were snuggled up in the front seat with him.

The male just jumped over the driver’s door and ran around to the passenger side of the vehicle, showing courtesy and opening the door for the two female teens. The radio in the car was playing an oldie from the 1950s, “Maybellene,” by Chuck Berry.

Rob waited a moment and held the door open for the three. They thanked him for his kindness and then proceeded directly to the cash register. Rob’s “proverbial spider senses were tingling,” so he held back in the store to watch the three and observe. Rob somehow knew that he was in the presence of some extraterrestrials.

The young women were wearing bobby socks and poodle skirts, with white blouses; and the gentleman driver was wearing high-riding blue jeans, white socks and a Seeing a classic car like this 1955 Custom Bel Air convertible clean, crisp, white tee-shirt, with no breast pull up into the parking lot of a Southern California convenience store, Rob Potter of Mt. Shasta wondered if the driver and its two pocket. He purchased three Milky Way passengers might be visiting extraterrestrials. candy bars and a pack of Camel cigarettes, which he promptly stuffed under the right sleeve of his tee-shirt.

Rob telepathically projected a question to the gentleman, asking if he was a Venusian or some other kind of extraterrestrial. The young man immediately turned his attention to the back of the store and said, “Great day for touring, isn’t it?” On a telepathic level, however, Rob received a message from all three, “Yes, friend, we are from Venus!”

Rob, although somewhat stunned, acknowledged the gentleman and said, “Sure is. Have a nice trip.” Then the young man and his two girlfriends waved to Rob as they left the store, got back into the Bel Air and drove off down the highway.

After going to the cooler to get some soda pop, and then picking up some chips and snacks from the aisles, Rob went over to the cash register to pay for the items. “Are they regulars in your store?” he asked the clerk.

“No, I’ve never seen them before. But nice car, that’s for sure,” the clerk replied. “Oh,” he added, “Here’s something interesting. He paid me with these old silver certificates and silver Franklin half dollars. I bet they are worth a lot to a coin and bill collector.”

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Flying Saucers and the Venus Legacy I am only presenting this information because it confirms what Woodrow Derenberger was saying about some extraterrestrials being time travelers. Wouldn’t it be something if the Custom Bel Air was itself a time machine, much as Doc Brown’s De Lorean in the Back to the Future movies? And while I wouldn’t walk a mile for a pack of Camel cigarettes, I wouldn’t put it past an inhabitant of Lanulos, Mars or Venus to bridge the expanse of space and time to do it.

At Derenberger’s Home In the October 1967 issue of Flying Saucers UFO Reports, Marling described her visit to the home of Woodrow Derenberger thusly: “That night I went out to the Derenberger home, Woody was certain I would see something.

It was a good night. He didn’t promise me Cold, but he promised me something. When I arrived, he shook his head. ‘Nothing’s coming tonight,’ he said. ‘Look at the crowd. There must be 50 people out there.’

“Cars were driving in from every direction. One young man told me he’d heard the ship came every Tuesday night so he’d brought his girl over to see it.

“Many of the people were strangers to the Derenbergers, walking through their home and drinking coffee as fast as Mrs. D. could make it. ‘We lose a lot of stuff,’ Mr. Derenberger confided. ‘Little things are missing all the time.’”

Amazing Son Amidst all the confusion that night, the reporter asked Derenberger’s then eight-year-old son Greg if he was going to make a special drawing for her. Greg’s mother told Marling previously about her son’s remarkable talents, all acquired since her husband’s close encounter on 2 November. Greg, who used to be an average third grade student, was now on the Honor Roll, receiving straight A’s on his report card in place of the C average he held before. Now Greg could draw a sketch of the mystery ship, the planet Lanulos, explain advanced concepts like gravity compression and time travel, as well as list all the names of the visitors from outer space who had come over to the house to see his daddy.

He would draw pictures of these all day long and talked of nothing but his father’s new friends from numerous planets, some of which local West Virginia folks never heard of.

“When I take him out for dinner, and we go out a lot now Greg Derenberger’s drawing and explanation of the time-traveling spaceship from Lanulos conforms nicely to the theories advanced by the prominent because it’s the only peace I can astrophysicist Dr. John Archibald Wheeler dealing with the creation of artificial wormholes for spacecraft to not only cover the vast distances get,” Mrs. Derenberger explained, between solar systems, but also break the time barrier in the process. See Dr. “Greg keeps right on talking about Raymond A. Keller’s Venus Rising: A Concise History of the Second Planet Cold and Kimi and Mars and Ve- (Terra Alta, West Virginia: Headline Books, 2015), under the section, “NASA Encounters the Venusian Mothership,” pages 190-197 for a more detailed explanation.

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Raymond Andrew Keller II nus and Demos. I’ve told him he can do that at home, but he will have to talk about other things outside. This is all he knows.”

The following is the sketch that Greg Derenberger made for reporter M. S. Marling that night as it was later published in the October 1967 issue of Flying Saucers UFO Reports.

State Police Involvement On the night that Marling was interviewing the Derenbergers at their Mineral Wells home, Woodrow Derenberger needed to make a telephone call to the West Virginia State Police requesting assistance in dispersing a crowd. It was Sergeant S. P. Vandevender who came out to the Derenbergers’ residence to assay the situation and take charge. The police sergeant informed Marling that this had been the first time he was needed to direct traffic out at the Derenberger property, although the area had been attracting ever-larger crowds for months. He also confirmed that there was a sort of UFO flap going on around the city of Parkersburg and the surrounding vicinities.

Vandevender let Marling know that he was also working closely with Larry Murphy, a reporter for the Parkersburg News that had been assigned to covering the Derenberger story from the very beginning. One night, the state policeman drove up to Dry Ridge with Murphy following call-ins of several UFO sightings. The reported objects were flashing alternating white and yellow lights, moving from the south in a due north direction. By the time they got from the state police headquarters to a prime viewing location up on the ridge, the policeman and the reporter only had the UFOs in view for about 60 seconds. Murphy got a better look at them with a pair of binoculars. According to his testimony, one of the UFOs emitted a “funnel-shaped beam of light” that came straight down. This light beam lasted for the whole minute that the UFOs were under observation. The UFOs were noiseless and could no longer be seen once the beam went out and they disappeared over the northern horizon.

Marling wanted to know from Vandevender if anybody else reported UFOs on the night of Derenberger’s first encounter. The state policeman informed her that there were no unusual incidents coming to his attention that night, other than the Woodrow Derenberger episode.

When Marling asked the officer if he believed in the existence of flying saucers from outer space, Vandevender could only reply with, “I think there’s something up there, but I’m not going to make any pronouncements as to what that might be.”

Reporter’s Sympathy The journalist and ufologist for Flying Saucers UFO Reports found that her time spent with the Derenbergers was rewarding. She reported, however, that she “felt more sympathy than anything else for a family that had been practically displaced by the circus atmosphere that attended Woody’s experience.”

Even Mrs. Derenberger agreed with that assessment and told Marling that, “It’s really all too much.” Later, the entire Derenberger family had to move out of the area, settling in at 25408 Butternut Ridge Road in North Olmsted, Ohio, a suburb of Cleveland. Even though they had an unlisted phone number at their new location, they continued to be pestered with calls day and night.

Of this turn of events, M. S. Marling could only conclude, “An unlisted number wasn’t enough. They really needed an unlisted planet. I hope these two likable people, genuinely trying

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Flying Saucers and the Venus Legacy to return to normalcy, can make it.” Unfortunately, as with so many other UFO experiencers, their relationship was not strong enough to withstand the constant strains.

Local Ufologist Defends Derenberger Almost from the beginning, normally police beat reporter Larry V. Murphy of the Parkersburg News found himself assigned to cover the ongoing Woodrow Derenberger extraterrestrial contact case as well as the plethora of UFO reports emerging from the region. Locals from Parkersburg and the surrounding area were experiencing a wave of UFO reports from November 1966-March 1967, as these are amply documented in the personal files of John A. Keel, the premier paranormal investigator of the mysterious Mothman sighted on numerous occasions in nearby Point Pleasant, West Virginia, on the east side of the Ohio River. Keel was a frequent visitor to West Virginia investigating numerous reports of strange occurrences. Sometimes on these excursions he would team up with Gray Barker, the editor and publisher of the Saucerian Press in Clarksburg, West Virginia.47 From the above-cited cache of Keel’s files, comes a report on his first meeting with Barker to discuss the Derenberger case: “On Saturday, March 25th, 1967, I spent several hours with Woodrow Derenberger of Mineral Wells, West Virginia. Mr. Gray Barker of Clarksburg accompanied me on my visit to Mr. Derenberger’s home. On November 2, 1966 (a Wednesday), Mr. Derenberger was allegedly stopped on Highway 77, just outside of Parkersburg, West Virginia, by a UFO and was engaged in a brief conversation by the object’s occupant. His story has already been widely reported and I won’t retell it here.”

Keel does go on to report his first and general impressions of the UFO experiencer: “Derenberger is a charming, outgoing man with a sincere, ingratiating manner. There were several witnesses to the original contact, people who were driving along Highway 77 and who claim they saw him actually “talking” to the UFO occupant. Since that experience, Mr. Derenberger has been frequently visited by the UFOs and has been taken for trips to the Moon, Jupiter and Saturn.”

Of Derenberger’s wife, Keel opines that she is “a very attractive lady who blandly backs his stories and claims that the UFO occupants have visited their home, which is located on a hilltop surrounded by wide fields. She is somewhat afraid of the occupants.”

Keel then describes the alien: “His original contact was with a man named ‘Indrid Cold,’ he says, and he came from the planet Lanulos. He has also been contacted by Jitro Cletaw of Venus and his wife Elvane. Dodd Hendricks and Vina of Mars have also been in touch with him.”

Perhaps Keel became a wee bit skeptical of Derenberger as he considered some of his more fantastic claims: “On Wednesday, March 8th, 1967, Mr. Derenberger was taken for a four-hour ride to several planets. Like most of the contactees of the old school, he seems to have an answer for every question. He is also able to reply with manufactured ‘facts.’ Yet he tells his story with incredible conviction and sincerity. Since he is planning to write his story for Dell’s new flying saucer magazine, I will not go into full details here.”

47 John A. Keel, “Special Report on Incidents in Ohio and West Virginia (2),” John Keel : Not an Authority on Anything blog, 8 May 2016, http://www.johnkeel.com/?p=2808 (Retrieved 8 May 2020): In his introduction to the original letters and correspondence of John A. Keel pertaining to his investigations in the counties of Southeast Ohio and the counties of Northwest West Virginia, the administrator of this blog writes: “In the second part of this ‘Special Report,’ intended for other researchers rather than for publication, John lists more UFO sightings, contact reports, odd visitors, strange footprints, and fires around Point Pleasant. He visits Woodrow Derenberger with Gray Barker, and tries to figure out why the local naval station is stockpiling slag. Point Pleasant was certainly a hotbed of weirdness in 1967.”

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Raymond Andrew Keller II Gray Barker’s Role As Gray Barker was the one who wanted to bring Keel and the Derenbergers together, in person for this interview, it was clear to the paranormal journalist that Barker put a lot of stock in Woodrow Derenberger’s contact claims. In the next paragraph of Keel’s Derenberger summation, he notes that, “Gray (Barker) insisted that he had not spoken with either Derenberger for months.” Thus taking Barker’s word for this, Keel assumed that nothing in the Derenbergers’ responses to his and Gray’s questions were in any way rehearsed.

Since Barker and Keel interviewed the Derenbergers in the last week of March 1967, and since Barker maintains that his last meeting with the Derenbergers took place months ago, that means that Barker probably spoke with the Mineral Wells couple not too long after Woodrow Derenberger reported his initial contact with Indrid Cold back on the night of 2 November 1966. Equipped with this information, I made a trip to the Gray Barker Collection at the Waldomore House on the grounds of the Harrison County Public Library in downtown Clarksburg, West Virginia, to see if I could find some evidence of the initial meeting between Gray Barker and the Derenbergers. What I found was an article written by none other than the staff reporter of the Parkersburg News, Larry V. Murphy, confirming that Gray Barker was one of the first prominent ufologists on the scene, proving himself early on to be a staunch defender and promoter of Derenberger and his claims of contact with a cosmonaut from the distant planet Lanulos.

Murphy’s article was titled, “Ufologist Urges ‘Open Mind;’” but the clipping from the Gray Barker Collection did not have a date penciled in, like most of the other newspaper stories saved by the Clarksburg ufologist and assiduously cataloged and maintained in his files of the Saucerian Press. But based on the contents of the article and Gray Barker’s comments to Keel, I would estimate that the article was written and published sometime in mid-to-late November or early December 1966, within one month of Derenberger’s initial encounter on 2 November 1966.

The following is my preamble to Murphy’s rendition, followed (word for word) by the article itself: Larry W. Murphy spoke extensively with premier ufologist Gray Barker, editor and publisher of Spacecraft News in Clarksburg, West Virginia, about his investigations into the alleged extraterrestrial encounter of fellow West Virginian and salesman, Woodrow Derenberger, from Mineral Wells, outside of Parkersburg. Barker was one in the first contingent of UFO investigators on the scene to interview Derenberger and document his claims of alien contact. Barker comes to believe that Derenberger is a “sincere man” and defends him against the assertions by some in the UFO community that he is just another fraud and huckster.

A West Virginia author and ufologist (unidentified flying object “expert”) has conducted his own private investigation in this area and personally interviewed Woodrow Derenberger at his home this past week, and has concluded that the Mineral Wells salesman’s story of meeting a spaceman on I-77 near Cedar Grove on the night of November 2 is “entirely plausible.”

At the same time, he decried investigation methods allegedly employed by a group he refers to as a “Pittsburgh flying saucer club.”

Gray Barker of Clarksburg, editor of the staff of Saucerian Publications, which recently released its second Fall issue, of a publication known as Spacecraft News, in disclosing his con131

Flying Saucers and the Venus Legacy clusions following his personal and somewhat hasty investigation of the Derenberger case, said: “They (the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena) are not an official organization, as their name implies. Instead, they are people just like me, private individuals who are fascinated by the subject of flying saucers.”

A “Very Sincere” Man Barker, an audiovisual consultant for a Clarksburg school equipment firm, stated: “I found Mr. Derenberger a very sincere man.”

Barker claims he has in his files hundreds of cases of people who have seen mechanical craft of various shapes close up, many with “windows, doors, antenna, and other apparently logical configurations.”

According to Barker, “Creatures appearing humanoid, sometimes not, often reportedly have been seen in connection with these unidentified flying objects.”

In reference to Derenberger’s claim that he had engaged in telepathic conversation with the spaceman he encountered on I-77 near State Rt. 47, about two miles southeast of Parkersburg, Barker pointed out: “A few other persons have claimed to have made various sorts of contact by radio, by voice communication, and even by telepathy.”

No Ulterior Motives Barker said that since Derenberger told his incredible story to city and state police, an Air Force recruiter, and a number of news media representatives, he has suffered from ridicule and financial losses as a result of harassment by various teams of investigators.

Derenberger, according to Barker, “has no ulterior motives, and has displayed no interest in benefitting financially from what happened to him. Instead, it has caused him to lose valuable work time.”

Incidentally, Derenberger on more than one occasion since November 2 has told a staff reporter of The News: “This didn’t happen to me for any personal profit. And, if I can help it, I’m not going to sit by and see somebody else gain personal profit from my experience.”

Barker Is Angered The Mineral Wells salesman, who was employed as a welder at the Union Carbide Corporation mining and metals division plant in nearby Ohio, until the union went on strike there several weeks ago, indicates that he believes he is some sort of “middleman,” who is helping to pave the way for closer contact between inhabitants of the Earth ad intelligent creatures from elsewhere in the universe.

Barker seemed to be particularly angered by the “suggestion” by a group of investigators that Derenberger undergo hypnosis and various psychological tests.

“I think those investigators should take those tests themselves,” Barker stated. “I also think they plan to come up with a very negative report. And the people of the Parkersburg area should be righteously angry at the treatment afforded one of their citizens by this innuendo.”

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Raymond Andrew Keller II Charges News Suppression According to Barker, Derenberger had told him that the “Pittsburgh group” insisted that he tell his story only to them and give it to nobody else.

“That is definite attempted suppression of the news,” Barker remarked.

Barker, incidentally, is the author of several books about Unidentified Flying Objects,48 and a member of the Congress of Scientific Ufology, which plans to hold its next annual meeting in New York next year.

The Congress last year adopted a resolution censuring NICAP, and made several suggestions for NICAP’s improvement, including the use of computers in evaluating and studying the hundreds of flying saucer reports which reportedly have been received at the rate of 700 reports per week by the U.S. Air Force’s “Project Bluebook,” at Dayton, Ohio, during part of 1965.

Barker, incidentally, has been expelled from NICAP, which refused to renew his membership, according to Spacecraft News (Fall, 1966 issue), of which Barker is editor.

Urges “Open Mind” “I do hope that the local people will keep an open mind about Derenberger’s experience,” Barker stated.

“After all, everybody laughed at the Wright brothers, and for years reputable scientists scoffed at meteorites and said they were hoaxes.

“Today people scoff at mental telepathy, such as Mr. Derenberger said he experienced. Yet a recent story described how electronic impulses can be directed at the brain and influence human behavior.

“Within 25 years,” Barker continued, “we will be able to transfer brain waves into greatly amplified electronic impulses and affect such communication. Right now, the Russians are experimenting with telepathy on a scientific basis.

“Within a few years,” Barker added wryly, “I predict that Mr. Derenberger will be laughing at us!”

Claims of Hucksterism Continue In the previous article by Murphy, it became clear that many believed Derenberger was some kind of fraud and huckster. Barker was disappointed that the directorate of the then largest civilian ufology research organization, NICAP, was leading the charge in leveling these accusations against his fellow West Virginian and UFO experiencer. The same NICAP group had even removed Barker from its membership rolls, perhaps for giving a platform to others like Derenberger who claimed contact with extraterrestrial beings.

Barker’s friend and research associate in New York City, paranormal expert John A. Keel, felt that UFOs were just one of many facets to a “super spectrum” of strange phenomena that manifested throughout the universe. In his personal reference notes that Keel used for writing books on such phenomena, he tries to fit where UFOs belong in this vast cosmic puzzle.

Once upon a time, Keel was an adherent to the extraterrestrial hypothesis, i.e. that the Earth was being visited by beings from other planets in outer space. In a letter written to Gray Barker’s Newsletter #5, dated March 1976. Keel points out some of the weaknesses in the extraterrestrial hypothesis.

48 Gray Barker’s most well-known and controversial book, They Knew Too Much about Flying Saucers (New York, New York: University Books, Inc., 1956), details some of the first encounters with the mysterious Silence Group known as the “Men in Black” by UFO witnesses and experiencers from all walks of life.

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Flying Saucers and the Venus Legacy Wrote the assiduous Keel: “On the other hand, if the ETists (proponents of the extraterrestrial hypothesis) are right, if UFOs are real machines from some other planet, then the historical record suggests only one proper avenue of approach. The subject is a matter exclusively for a highly trained, highly secret group of intelligence agencies, and not a matter for amateur investigators. If UFOs are real, then the situation is so grave that all amateur groups should be ruthlessly crushed, all UFO news should be censored, and the general population should be kept in total ignorance as long as possible. Apparently, the government did try to implement such a program on a modest scale in the 1950s but it was fragmented, poorly financed and inefficient.

The phenomenon itself has so many built-in contradictions it doesn’t need any outside help.

If the government had found a real cause for alarm, you can be sure that people like (Major Donald E.) Keyhoe, Coral Lorenzen, Jim Moseley, etc. would have been jailed on trumped-up charges and no civilian UFO movement would have ever had a chance to organize.”

With all of these doubts about the extraterrestrial hypothesis, what would Keel make out of Derenberger’s claims? Like a good many of the contactee’s neighbors, would Keel just write off Derenberger’s story as some kind of publicity stunt, a fabrication hyped up by and for him to hit the UFO lecture circuit and sell some books? Or was Derenberger simply deranged?

Some clues to the development of Keel’s UFO philosophy are also garnered from this same letter to Barker’s Newsletter #5. We see it in his assessment of the state of ufology in 1976, wherein he classifies the belief structures of various prominent ufologists along the philosophical lines of a cosmic super spectrum, rife with possibilities. As to the extraterrestrial hypothesis, Keel notes that all who believe this is the only tenable explanation should be lumped together.

He sees no reason to separate the contactees from the hardcore scientists since they are all saying the same thing about UFOs. Among the more well-known proponents of the extraterrestrial hypothesis he lists the Mutual UFO Network, NICAP, Dr. Stanton Friedman, an astrophysicist; Major Donald E. Keyhoe, USMC, Ret.; as well as all the leaders and followers of the so-called “contactee cults.”

Politics of Ufology Basically, and for the sake of convenience, Keel assigned the various UFO philosophies to a space along a political continuum. On one extreme was found the Radical Left; and moving toward the right the next was the Conservative Left, followed by the Middle, followed by the Conservative Right, and ending up at the other extreme of the Radical Right, which is where the astute Keel lumped all the adherents of the extraterrestrial hypothesis.

In justifying this amalgamation, Keel informs Barker and his newsletter’s readers that, “The extraterrestrial hypothesis has always been the core of the UFO belief and is therefore the best criterion for assessing the various factions of the so-called Ufological Movement. NICAP, for example, has always claimed to be ‘conservative’ because it excluded all other explanations.

Actually, its basic position is the same as the contactee cults. Those who have dismissed the extraterrestrial hypothesis in favor of more complex concepts belong at the opposite pole, or the Radical Left. Eccentric theories such as those of (Raymond) Palmer, (Richard) Shaver, various religious groups, etc., cannot be fitted onto this scale.”

In maintaining his movement from right to left on the scale, Keel brings us to the Conservative Right. In this category are all of those who believe that the extraterrestrial hypothesis is probably the “most likely explanation.” Here we would find such luminaries as Coral and Jim Lorenzen of the Aerial Phenomena Research Organization of Tucson, Arizona, that so carefully 134

Raymond Andrew Keller II considered all UFO occupant reports, and Otto Binder, the famous comic book and science fiction author who also wrote non-fiction books and magazine articles about UFOs49 and various aspects of space exploration. Binder is also crediting with developed the extraterrestrial hybrid hypothesis slightly before Erich von Däniken came along with his Chariots of the Gods?50 Of the over 200 comic book and science fiction characters created by Binder, he is most noted for Supergirl and Ms. Marvel.

As one continues to drift leftward along this continuum, the questing ufologist will come to the Middle of the UFO universe. According to Keel, it is here that we find the moderate and cordial seekers, operating from the premise that, “All possible explanations should be equally considered.” Here we find some of the giants from the field of ufology, like Dr. J. Allen Hynek of Northwestern University, as well as all of the editorial staff and writers over at the Flying Saucer Review in the British Isles,51 which in 1976 was considered the epitome of UFO publications for both its accuracy and objectivity.

For the category of the Conservative Left, Keel placed first and foremost the United States government. Also included were some of the more vocal proponents that the extraterrestrial hypothesis was untenable, like the Aviation Week and Space Technology editor Phillip J. Klass, and the Harvard astronomer Dr. Donald H. Menzel, who wrote one book on his own, two others with co-authors, as well as numerous scientific journal and magazine articles, all debunking any possible extraterrestrial connections with the UFO phenomenon.

And at the Extreme Left, Keel finds himself most comfortable. Here we find those who subscribe to the notion that while the extraterrestrial hypothesis is untenable, the UFO phenomenon itself is very real. By this, Keel expounds that, “All UFO manifestations can be explained in philosophical and psychological terms as part of an environmental mechanism for producing beliefs and myths.”

Here Keel places himself in the company of such pronounced personalities in the UFO community as Dr. Jacques Vallee, a French computer scientist and author of many UFO books, Jerome Clark, similarly a UFO author and editor of the prestigious Fate magazine, and Gordon Creighton (1908-2003), a regular contributor to the United Kingdom’s Flying Saucer Review.

The magazine was started in 1955; and Creighton became its editor in 1982 until his death.

There was some criticism of the Flying Saucer Review after Creighton took the editorship, as many in the UFO community believed that the new editor’s penchant for conspiracy theories diminished the overall objectivity, and hence credibility, of the publication.52 Please keep in mind that as Keel was formulating this philosophical continuum in 1976, Creighton was still only an occasional writer for the periodical.

Derenberger’s NICAP Woes Even though John A. Keel classified Derenberger and Keyhoe in the same philosophical camp when it came to UFOs and the extraterrestrial hypothesis, the NICAP organization never could embrace the West Virginia sewing machine salesman’s story of contact with Indrid Cold of Lanulos as well as other alien beings from more familiar planets in our own solar system. On 49 Otto O. Binder, Flying Saucers Are Watching Us (New York, New York: Tower Publications, 1968). Otto O. Binder and Max H. Flindt, Mankind: Child of the Stars (New York, New York: Fawcett Publications, 1974).

50 Erich von Däniken, Chariots of the Gods? (New York, New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1968).

51 For an insider’s view, check out Roger Perry and Stephen Holland, The Men Behind the Flying Saucer Review (London, United Kingdom: Self Published, 2013; Bear Alley Books, 2017).

52 Mark Townsend, “UFO spies vanish into black hole,” Guardian, U.S. edition, New York, New York, 13 March 2004.

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Flying Saucers and the Venus Legacy 3 June 1968, Woodrow Derenberger of 25408 Butternut Ridge Road in North Olmsted, Ohio 44070, wrote a letter which he included in a package to Gray Barker at P.O. Box 2228, Clarksburg, West Virginia, no zip code given, providing him with a manuscript for his forthcoming book, along with some additional material. Below the letter is reproduced for the benefit of you, the inquiring reader.

Letter from Woodrow Derenberger to Gray Barker, 3 June 1968, reveals something of the nefarious tactics employed by NICAP against the contactees.

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Raymond Andrew Keller II Please pay special attention to the third paragraph of this letter: “Also, the story of Alan Roberts, M.D., is the story of Robert Jenkins, the psychiatrist who examined me for NICAP who also didn’t want me to use his name in relating his own personal experiences with the space people.”

There are several important conclusions that ufologists can glean from the paragraph above: First, NICAP was dismissive of Derenberger’s case from the very start of any investigation insofar as the first person they send to check into the matter is a psychiatrist, and not a physical trace chemist or other expert from the hardcore, “nuts and bolts” sciences. After all, there was a huge burn mark across the road where Indrid Cold’s flying saucer had allegedly landed and taken off. But the only thing NICAP officials were concerned about was finding some maladjusted character traits in Woody Derenberger that could be used to bring down his credibility.

Second, the psychiatrist, although engaged by NICAP to analyze Derenberger, admits to the contactee that he, too, has had his “own experiences with the space people,” and this in spite of NICAP’s director Keyhoe and the organization’s board making public statements disavowing any support for claims of contact with any of the UFO occupants.

Third, the psychiatrist’s frank admission to Derenberger underscores the growing rift that existed between the membership of NICAP and its leadership. Just one year after Derenberger’s letter, NICAP went into a gradual decline in its membership, starting with the expulsion of the retired Marine Corps Major Donald E. Keyhoe as its director, replacing him with retired Air Force Colonel Joseph Bryan, III, who was also an employee of the Central Intelligence Agency.

The preponderance of federal government employees, active and retired military personnel, as well as scientists contracted through federally-funded research grants at major universities, in the leadership positions in the UFO group, lent itself to the UFO community’s suspicion that NICAP was a puppet organization of the Silence Group, infiltrated at every level. It was no surprise to anyone that NICAP was dissolved in 1980 and its files transferred to Dr. J. Allen Hynek’s Center for UFO Studies in Chicago, Illinois. Dr. Hynek was, of course, the Air Force technical consultant on UFO research for over twenty years, up until Project Bluebook dissolved in 1969 upon the recommendation of Dr. Edward U. Condon’s Committee for the Scientific Study of Unidentified Flying Objects,53 conducted out of the University of Colorado at Boulder during the period 1966-1968.

It comes as no small wonder why Gray Barker was ejected from NICAP not long before he met Woody Derenberger. There is some speculation in the UFO community today that this same type of scenario is repeating itself with the Mutual UFO Network. One prominent ufologist in Pennsylvania confidentially informed me that, “I’ll give MUFON another five years before it becomes defunct.”

Book Promotion Since their first meeting in November 1966, the friendship between Gray Barker and fellow West Virginian Woodrow Derenberger continued to grow ever stronger. It is clear that Barker respected Derenberger for his courage in coming out to the public-at-large about his alien encounters, despite the ridicule that sometimes was heaped upon him and his family members. Derenberger wasn’t the most prolific writer that ever came down the pike; but Barker 53 See the final report under Edward U. Condon, Dr., Scientific Study of Unidentified Flying Objects (New York, New York: New York Times/Bantam Books, 1969). There are a whopping 965 pages in the UFO-debunking report. Sadly, many of the case files in this so-called “scientific study” were supplied by NICAP to the skeptical Dr. Condon.

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Flying Saucers and the Venus Legacy encouraged him to write a book and promised the contactee that he would do an outstanding job in the editing of the final manuscript, much as he had done with the manuscript of another contactee, Howard Menger of High Bridge, New Jersey, whose book, From Outer Space to You, ultimately became a UFO classic and bestseller, after being picked up from Saucerian Press for a mass paperback published by Pyramid Books.54 Visitors from Lanulos is the one and only literary product of Woodrow Derenberger, which was co-authored by an associate ufologist, Harold Hubbard, the director of a local UFO discussion group that met during the evenings on the third Saturday of each month in a pancake house off Route 62 in Sebring, Ohio. In the book, Hubbard shares some of his own experiences with UFOs and the space people. The book also contains an introduction by John A. Keel dated 12 October 1968, but wasn’t self-published until three years later by Vantage Press in New York City. Although the company went out of business in 2012, in 1971 it was considered the largest self-publishing company in the entire world.

Why Derenberger did not go with Barker’s Saucerian Press is unclear. Barker did a commendable job in editing Woodrow Derenberger’s text, as you can see from the first two pages of his original manuscript which I have provided for you below. I can only speculate that the climate in the UFO community in 1968 through 1971 was turning against the contactees. Attendance at the annual Interplanetary Spacecraft Conventions at George Van Tassel’s Giant Rock Airport in Landers, California, was at an all-time low, finally shutting down completely in 1978 with Van Tassel’s death; and the dismissive findings of the Condon Committee with respect to the authenticity of UFO reports overall in 1968 led to the closure of the Air Force Project Bluebook in the following year. Derenberger, initially taken aback by all the negative publicity engendered by the media with regard to his revealed contacts, most likely decided it would be beneficial for himself and his family to just let things cool down for a while. Interestingly, when Derenberger and Hubbard finally opted on self-publishing the book, its distribution and sale was limited only to their appearances at UFO and metaphysical club-sponsored events. Apparently, Derenberger garnered from his initial public speaking engagements that it would prove more fruitful to just “preach to the choir,” so to speak, and thereby dodge any flack that might be coming in his direction.

Gray Barker, who briefly taught English at a Maryland high school, lent an aura of credibility to many of the contactees through his professional editing of their personal accounts of alien contact.

Woodrow Derenberger’s received global attention following the publication of his interview by M. S. Marling in the October 1967 issue of Flying Saucers UFO Reports. Barker realized that in order to capitalize on this type of free publicity, Derenberger would have to strike while the iron was hot, and urged the contactee to write his story of the encounter so it could be published in book form. In the following article, Frank C. Walosin of the Bachelor News underscores many of the credibility issues Derenberger faced in getting his book published, even though one of Barker’s associates, his UFO photographic consultant at the Saucerian Press enterprises, had a demonstrative inside track with the editor of the Bachelor News.

54 Howard Menger, From Outer Space to You (Clarksburg, West Virginia: Saucerian Press, 1959) and (New York, New York: Pyramid Books, 1967)

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Flying Saucers and the Venus Legacy

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Raymond Andrew Keller II There is really nothing to add to the editor’s note introducing Walosin’s “Derenberger” article. The Bachelor News editor succinctly states his case, casting reasonable doubt on Derenberger’s assertion that he met an alien being on a lonely country road in West Virginia and communicated with the entity through mental telepathy. It is clear that the editor believes that while Derenberger is sincere, he is also self-deluded. The editor also opines that the contactee is probably being exploited by the book promoters interviewed by his reporter, Frank C. Walosin.

Article: “Derenberger A Fraud?”

Author: Frank C. Walosin Publication: Bachelor News, Paterson, New Jersey Date: 11 May 1968 (Editor’s Note: The Bachelor News (BN) is interested in Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs) and possible space exploration, as are the majority of Americans. It is our position that UFOs do exist; but we also don’t know where they come from or to whom they belong. It is in the interest of solving this mystery of our times that the BN staff is exploring or attempting to explore the UFO and space civilization contactee reports.

It was in this spirit of exploration that contact was made with Woodrow Derenberger, a Parksburg, West Virginia, salesman who claims to have been in contact with saucers and space people.

Derenberger, currently engaged in a lecture tour in Cleveland, Ohio, and the author of a book on his experiences that will soon be published, is represented by Harold Salkin, president of Space Age Communications of Washington, D.C. Our offer to Derenberger was sincere. The results of our efforts are printed below. It is our conclusion that Mr. Salkin is an overzealous promoter and that Derenberger is a truthful, sincere man who is a subject of self-hypnosis, telling a story that he firmly believes is true but is actually more of a dream than factual.)

Woodrow Derenberger, a former West Virginia salesman who is firmly convinced that he has seen a flying saucer and has spoken on many occasions with its occupant, is a product of our times…. a period when our civilization UFO contactee Woodrow Derenberger tells with beings from the is reaching out into space with the same degree of urgency of close encounters planet Lanulos. that led to the founding of our nation by explorers of the Old World.

The BN came into contact with Derenberger and his story, which has been published in a national magazine and which will soon be in the book stores in book form, early this month, when a phone rang.

The voice on the other end of the line introduced himself as Harold Salkin of Washington, D.C. 141

Flying Saucers and the Venus Legacy “I’m in Paterson, New Jersey, and would like to stop at your office to pick up several copies of the March 30, 1968 issue of the BN in which the Joseph Ferrierer story was printed,” Salkin said.

The editor said that he would like to have Salkin meet the BN UFO expert, August C. Roberts, at 2 p.m., and that Roberts would pick him up and drive him over to the office.

That afternoon Roberts came to the BN office with Salkin and Gordon F. Shandley of Philadelphia, who introduced themselves as president and vice president of Space Age Communications of 1737 De Sales Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C., a UFO promotion agency.

The conversation covered flying saucers and the government’s apparent attempt to keep the facts from the people; and then the name of Derenberger came up, Salkin said. Derenberger has just spent six weeks working at his home in Washington working on a book in which he related his experiences with space people, represented by one identified as Indrid Cold.

Salkin, who has Derenberger as a client, said the former West Virginian had many contacts with space people, and said one group of fifteen people from a town in Ohio had watched as a saucer landed and Derenberger went out and talked to a man who got out. None of the fifteen persons who made the trip to the landing site in anticipation of seeing the saucer land a spaceman talk with Derenberger had a camera, according to Salkin.

Salkin said Derenberger was in Cleveland, Ohio, working as an appliance salesman on commission. He said Derenberger was not financially exploiting his space adventure and, in fact, was finding times a little rough.

In the interest of UFO research, we offered Derenberger a sales position on salary. We also asked: “Why is it that space people always are reported contacting a salesman, milkman or common citizen, instead of making contact with responsible officials of our government or the United Nations (UN)?”

“They don’t like densely populated areas, where those kinds of officials could most likely be found,” is the response that Salkin said Derenberger had given.

We asked if Derenberger would be able to contact his spaceman and arrange a meeting with responsible people, like Dr. J. Allen Hynek, former head of the Air Force’s UFO research project, and a representative of the UN, if a site was selected away from cities.

The BN offered to meet the expenses of flying the officials to the site, an undeveloped tract of woodland in Sullivan County, Pennsylvania.

Salkin and Shandley said they would have Derenberger call the BN. On Wednesday, April 24, Salkin phoned to say that Derenberger had accepted the offer of a sales position.

“What about the meeting in Pennsylvania?” we asked.

“Oh, Woody said that U Thant, UN Secretary General, met with the spaceman twelve days ago in Washington, D.C.,” Salkin said. He said Derenberger had told him that the spacemen were interested in arranging a trade agreement with Burma and that U Thant had said he would have to check with other officials before replying.

The matter of checking on the possible meeting in Washington, D.C. on April 12 was simple, Salkin was informed.

On the morning of April 25, BN called the first secretary to the Secretary General at UN headquarters in New York City, speaking to Mr. Lucian Lumieux.

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Raymond Andrew Keller II “Mr. Thant was not in Washington on April 12,” Mr. Lumieux said. “He was in Paris, and then flew back to New York. He was not in Washington.”

Conclusions Other contactees, such as I, have much to learn from the Woodrow Derenberger case. From the BN article, we come to understand that Derenberger had fallen on hard economic times. In the few years following his encounter with the alien Indrid Cold, From left to right, UFO promoters Gordon F. Shandley and Harold he went from job to job, and even had Salkin of Space Age Communications in Washington, D.C., look to move out of his home in West Virover a recent edition of the Bachelor News (BN) in the offices of that Paterson, New Jersey, newspaper. They wanted the BN’s editor to help ginia because of the undue amount of them publicize their client, Woodrow Derenberger, and his soon-to-be negative publicity generated in the mepublished UFO book about his encounter with extraterrestrials from the planet Lanulos, which is outside our solar system. dia. This forced him to start all over as a salesman in a suburb of Cleveland, Ohio. Perhaps this was the primary factor that impelled him to write his book. However, he should have put more time and research into writing it.

He could have considered hiring a ghost writer to do it correctly. It surprises me that when the book was finally published in 1971, the introduction by the prestigious paranormal investigator John A. Keel was not even listed on the cover.

From the likes of the BN article, it appears as though Derenberger’s situation was such that he could not afford to self-publish his book in 1968, nor could Barker afford to finance the undertaking at the Saucerian Press. With Barker’s UFO photographic consultant having an inside track at the BN, it seems that the meeting with the Space Age Communications representatives may have been somehow engineered by Roberts, staged for the sake of generating a publicity campaign for Derenberger’s book in the pages of the tabloid BN, that had covered other UFO events and contactees in its pages.

It is clear that Woodrow Derenberger lost control of his own narrative. I, for one, believe his story to be true. However, lacking any higher academic background, he failed to document the information in his book, either in the text or with applicable footnotes. In addition, he was too generous in providing information in sundry media outlets. Lacking discernment, he initially would speak to anyone who wanted to know about his experiences.

There are profoundly esoteric implications in Woodrow Derenberger’s contacts. Insofar as much of the public-at-large is unable to assimilate such advanced celestial information, it would have been wiser for him to limit his interviews to UFO and metaphysical circles from the very start. Among these dear Cover of Woodrow Derenberger’s book, Visitors from Lanulos (New ones, Derenberger would have found an appreciative and sym- York, New York: Vantage Press, 1971) 143

Flying Saucers and the Venus Legacy pathetic audience. Sadly, it took him almost five years to figure this out. As the spiritual Master Jesus, the Christ, once taught, the teacher of such sublime truths should not find him or herself in the position of “casting pearls before swine.”

In the King James Version of the Holy Bible, this scripture is found in Matthew7:6: “Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you.”

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Chapter 12

Origins of the Public UFO Controversy in the USSR

The public UFO controversy and debate in Russia actually began back in the mid-1960s. Whatever Vladimir Putin and the Russians know about the true nature of UFOs today is due to the pioneering efforts of Soviet researchers in the mid-1960s. Photo credit: History Channel.

Lively Discussion on UFOs In the l March 1968 edition of the Aftenposten newspaper (Oslo, Norway), correspondent Johnny Flodman writes about a recent trip he made to the Soviet Union with the purpose of investigating the status of the UFO controversy in that immense nation. Flodman spoke with numerous scientists throughout the Russian Soviet Socialist Republic, most notably in the Moscow area, to ascertain their respective opinions on the existence of flying saucers as interplanetary spaceships. Most of those interviewed admitted that this was certainly within the realm of possibility; but none wanted their name to be published in any forthcoming article out of fear for any recriminations from the Soviet authorities. It was pointed out to the Norwegian journalist that the official Communist Party line regarding UFOs, as echoed in the pronouncements of the Soviet Academy of Sciences, was that, “All reports of unidentified flying objects (UFOs) are just anti-scientific sensations and speculation. The observed objects are all of well-known origin.”

Flodman arrived in the Soviet Union during a time when the communist government there was cracking down on the proliferation of UFO information from all sectors. The 27 February 1968 issue of the Pravda newspaper (Moscow) bluntly castigated those in the Soviet media who, in the past, referenced any individuals who claim to have observed UFOs or anyone acting in some official or scientific capacity making statements to the effect that some UFOs might possibly be alien spacecraft. This Pravda piece did note that the question of UFOs as being extraterrestrial vehicles of some sort was taken up in a special meeting of the Soviet Academy of Sciences’ Department of Physics. However, the panel of convening scientists had established that, “The UFO reports were nothing other than propaganda of an anti-scientific, sensational character. The speculations have absolutely no scientific basis….”

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Flying Saucers and the Venus Legacy The Norwegian reporter wondered if there was any one particular UFO incident or outspoken personality that might have sparked this barrage of censorship from the Soviet authorities. He quickly learned that the prominent astronomer, Dr. Felix Yurievich Ziegel of the Institute of Aviation in Moscow, was the prime suspect, for he had recently revealed that about 200 mysterious objects had been observed, not just with the naked eye, but also on radar-screens, all across the nation in 1967 and the first two months telescope dish. Photo credit: European of 1968. Ziegel announced that a special Kalyazin, Russia, 64-m radio Space Agency. commission had been set up to collect UFO reports and thoroughly investigate them. But most importantly, he urged Soviet authorities to establish a closer collaboration with Western researchers of the UFO enigma in the hopes of arriving at answers much sooner.

Signals Received On Monday, 12 April 1965, the Soviet Union’s official Tass News Agency reported that mysterious radio signals from outer space were regularly being received by a network of radio astronomers scattered throughout the various socialist republics. The prominent American space science writer and ufologist, Otto Binder of New Jersey, strongly felt that this was a key event in the history of the Soviet Union, and the entire planet Earth, because the Tass report indicated that the radio signals “suggested to Russian astronomers that we are not alone in the universe.”

Binder also believed that the release of the Tass report on the fourth anniversary of the first manned space flight by the Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin gave added weight to the subject of discovering intelligent life on other planets.

Empowered by a belief that outer space is populated by other intelligent beings, some of which developed the ability to transmit radio signals across the void, and perhaps even explore other worlds in spaceships, Mstislav Keldysh, the President of the Soviet Academy of Sciences, announced that, “It is now beyond doubt that man can work in space and eventually make interplanetary flights.” If humankind’s destiny was to join with an intergalactic community, it was clear that someone within the political hierarchy of the Kremlin had made the decision that the Soviet Union should be leading the way in such a noble endeavor.

The Tass report pointed out that Soviet radio astronomers took note that the signals from outer space consisted of radio waves of varying strength, repeated regularly every 100 days, without fail. The Tass journalist wrote that, “Such signals have been detected by scientists before; but the Soviet conviction that they have been created not by nature, but by reasonable beings, stems from the evidence that they are repeated at regular 100-day cycles.”

Strange Aerial Encounter It was now becoming clear that once the genie was out of the bottle, it was going to be a difficult, if not an impossible task, of putting him back. Insofar as the possible extraterrestrial radio signals, as well as Ziegel being forthcoming about the wider extent of UFO sightings across 146

Raymond Andrew Keller II the Soviet Union, more and more citizens from all walks of life, including fellow scientists and persons in authority, were coming out publicly with declarations about their own encounters with the phenomenon.

The chief navigator of Soviet polar aviation, Valentin Akkuratov, once described his encounter with an elusive flying disc in the skies over northern climes to Felix Ziegel, Doctor of Science and Technology and Assistant Professor at the Moscow Aviation Institute, in the course of an informal meeting on the subject of UFOs in May 1967, held at this same academic establishment: “In 1956, while engaged in strategic ice reconnaissance in a TU-4 plane in the area of Cape Jesup, Greenland, we dropped down from the clouds to fair weather and suddenly noticed an unknown flying craft moving on our portside parallel to our course. It looked very much like a large, pearl-colored lens with wavy, pulsating edges. At first, we thought it was an American aircraft of unknown design; and since we did not want to encounter it, we went into the clouds again. After we had flown for 40 minutes toward Bear Island, the cloud cover ended abruptly.

It cleared ahead and on our portside we saw, once again, that same unknown craft. Making up our minds to see it at close quarters, we changed our course abruptly and began the approach movement, informing our base at Amderma of the maneuver. When we changed our course, the unknown flying machine followed suit and moved parallel at our speed.

“After 15 to 18 minutes of flight, the unknown craft sharply altered its course, sped ahead of us and rose quickly until it disappeared in the blue sky. We spotted no aerials, superstructure, wings or portholes on that disc. Nor did we see any exhaust gases or condensation trail. It flew at what seemed to us an impossible speed.”

Radical Reassessment

Writing in the June 1968 issue of Denmark’s UFO Contact magazine, Ziegel proposed that the unusual characteristics exhibited in the worldwide appearance of UFOs merited a “radical reassessment” of their nature and purpose on the part of the global scientific community. As to the question of whether UFOs were transporting guests from other worlds, Ziegel opined: “The recorded observations will serve to check hypotheses. These hypotheses would not, in my opinion, attempt to explain the nature of UFOs in terms of familiar phenomena. Judging by other surprises, nature has some in store for us here too, and we must be ready for perhaps a radical reassessment of values.”

The Soviet scientist clarified that, “The hypothesis that UFOs originate in other worlds, that they are flying craft from other planets other than Earth, merits the most serious examination.

Dr. Felix Y. Ziegel (1920-1988) with Observations show that UFOs behave ‘sensibly.’ In a group fordrawing by witness of “light-bulb” UFO sighted at Sharapova Ohota mation flight they maintain a pattern. They are most often spoton the outskirts of Moscow in 1977. ted over airfields, atomic stations and other very new engineering Photo credit: Wikipedia.org. installations. On encountering aircraft, they always maneuver so as to avoid direct contact. A considerable list of these seemingly intelligent actions gives the impression that UFOs are investigating, perhaps even reconnoitering.”

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Flying Saucers and the Venus Legacy Ziegel wondered if it were more than mere coincidence that as the planet Mars was in closest proximity to the Earth, UFO reports substantially increased everywhere?

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Chapter 13

Gray Barker’s “Lost Interviews” with John W. Dean, Interplanetary Traveler

Korendorian ground scooter in John W. Dean’s 1969 UFO book may have served as inspiration for Luke Skywalker’s “landspeeder” on the Star Wars series.

Luke Skywalker was always hard pressed to find a charging station on the distant moon of Tatooine. How much of science fiction is derived from real UFO contactee lore? See https://www.pngwave.com/png-clip-art-aqqtt.

On 8 October 1968, Gray Barker, the editor and publisher of the Saucerian Press in Clarksburg, West Virginia, conducted the first of two telephone interviews with John W. Dean of Hutchinson, Kansas. Barker had recently completed reading Dean’s first book, Flying Saucers and the Scriptures (New York, New York: Vantage Press,1964), and was impressed with the author’s profound understanding of matters extraterrestrial, particularly the clandestine operations and interventions of alien beings in our various nations here on Earth going back thousands of years to the times of the Old Testament.

Background John W. Dean was born on a small farm just a few miles west of Nickerson, Kansas, in 1919 and lived for 80 years. Nickerson’s only claim to fame was that it was the home of Alexander Pearson (1895-1924), an Army aviator in World War I, who after returning to civilian life was the winner of the first cross-country airplane race. Naturally, Dean and the other boys growing up in and around Nickerson kept their eyes fixed on the sky, sharing dreams of following in the footsteps of their hometown aviation hero. As the young Dean watched the night skies, however, he began to wonder if there were any other inhabited worlds out there, peppering the vastness of outer space.

Following graduation from high school, Dean went on to attend the Kansas State Teachers College and graduate with a Bachelor’s degree denoting a dual major in art and mechanical drawing. Before embarking on a teaching career, however, Dean perfected his trade by taking 149

Flying Saucers and the Venus Legacy additional classes in his specialty areas at the Pratt Institute of Art in Brooklyn, New York,55 as well as the School of Applied Art in Chicago, Illinois. Gaining sufficient confidence, Dean taught mechanical drawing and sundry art classes at various institutions of higher education throughout the country.

Dean was also a seeker of spiritual wisdom. When he heard and read about the countless flying saucer sightings occurring all across the world in the late 1940s, he was one of the first to ponder the religious implications of the phenomenon. Flying Saucers and the Scriptures was the natural outgrowth of these musings. The book also served as the basis for his many lectures given over the years to UFO and paranormal research clubs around the world. Both the UFO tome and his presentations were highlighted by many of Dean’s own interesting illustrations and legible charts.

It was while in the process of making appearances to flying saucer groups and conventions that Dean was approached by the actual commander of the Venusian space fleet patrolling our planet, Valiant Thor. According to Thor’s words in a later edition of Dean’s book, “I eventually spoke to him (Dean) directly, as commander of the Earth fleet, and convinced him that interplanetary travel and trade are not only possible, but are already a reality.”

Dean’s meetings with extraterrestrials increased over the years. He was even invited for rides on their interplanetary spaceships and spent much time with his celestial friends on other worlds learning of their varied inhabitants, their histories, their astounding science and advanced spiritual understanding.

First Interview What I enjoyed most about the following interview was Dean’s clear command of astronomical knowledge, giving credence to his claims of extraterrestrial contact.

Gray Barker (GB): Thank you, Mr. Dean, for granting me this time to interview you.

John W. Dean (JD): It’s an honor, Mr. Barker. After all, I assume from the name of your firm (Saucerian Press) that you specialize in book about flying saucers. I have actually completed my new book, Flying Saucers Close Up, and am seeking a publishing firm that is not allergic to space ships and space people.

John W. Dean was given a tour aboard a mothership from the distant planet Korendor. See https://www.freepik.com/freevector/future-space-station_3823978.htm#page=1&query=spaceship&position=45 55 John W. Dean did earn his second Bachelor’s degree, in Fine Arts, from the Pratt Institute; but due to an administrative snafu in his transcripts, it was never credited to him by this institution until he was already retired.

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Raymond Andrew Keller II The two dismissed with formalities and from this point called each other by their first names.

GB: OK, John, tell me more about the new book.

JD: Gray, I believe it will prove to be the best ever produced, or can be written for many years to come as about three-fourths of it is directly or indirectly from friendly spacemen; and I was chosen to compile it from infinite information which they supply to their Terran (Earthling) representative. He (Gabriel Green) passes it on to me with that in mind, as he writes for the Amalgamated Flying Saucer Clubs of America (AFSCA) Magazine, and it is about three years behind the latest reports to me.

GB: What do you mean?

JD: I give a sort of preview, just in case my book is released before his experiences are published.

GB: Great, John. I also work closely with Gabe; so we have a mutual friend. But why did the space people choose you for this task?

JD: The space folk liked by first book, Flying Saucers and the Scriptures; but it was never properly promoted or advertised. And Vantage Press intended to kill it (subsidized) and keep the change. They said it was well written, the most comprehensive and fairly accurate, and by far the best illustrated. I was an art instructor and commercial artist for many years so am able to make my own pictures better than an uninformed artist. This Terran representative is a good artist himself, so he sends me sketches which I render in color or as wash drawings which resemble photographs.

GB: That’s amazing. We could always use someone with your talent as an illustrator here at Saucerian Press. I can’t wait to check out some of your art work in the new book.

JD: I have much illustrative material which I can send to show the scope of our knowledge of space people, their craft, and of other planets, stars, and of the galaxy, far beyond the total known by our astronomers and more dependable than their estimates. I am going to put in the mail to you a Xerox copy of the list of chapter headings to show the scope of our findings.

GB: I can you sum up these contents for me?

JD: Sure, Gray. My friend, Robert Renaud, was chosen as the best man on Earth to represent the Korendians who have bases on the Moon and possibly as many on the Earth, for there may be a hundred thousand of them here now. He was taken to the Moon on 3-4 December 1966 (Chapter 25) and again on 28 July 1967 (Chapter 26); and I have his full reports of 123 pages condensed to about one quarter of my book at his request.

GB: That’s definitely the type of material that Saucerian Press readers are interested in. Tell me more.

JD: Well, Chapter 13 contains a master list of stars and their planets from 4.5 to 800 light years away, with local names, population and whether colonized or indigenous or uninhabited, the day-length in hours and the comparative year-length, diameter in miles, and their allegiance to the Worlds Alliance or the Planetary Confederation, or neutral.

GB: Our scientists tell us that they don’t know if planets exist in the orbits of other stars.

What do you know about these distant worlds that they don’t?

JD: Our astronomers actually do know of the existence of one big planet in orbit around Barnard’s Star. But there are really two planets in orbit around Barnard’s Star, known as Esenho One and Esenho Two by the beings that live on these worlds. Their sun is a small red dwarf about six light years away from Earth. These are facts that will never be learned from purely telescopic study. You need a special type of radio telescope to detect these planets.

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Flying Saucers and the Venus Legacy GB: You’ve got me hooked, John. What else can send to me?

JD: Gray, I’m also going to send you a list of illustrations. The front piece is actually in bright colors; and the same picture is to be on the cover. One or two other full-page colored photos and also of black are included as plates to be tipped in so it will be attractive at first glance. There are about a dozen other, smaller colored illustrations that may be bunched together if necessary; but I hope all can be used in the chapter to which they apply.

GB: That seems just like the type of book that would really be valued by readers of the Saucerian Press.

JD: Yes, and I hope the book can be larger than average to accommodate some long charts and a map of Korendor which is absolutely unique. Also, some letters from spacemen to me reproduced, somewhat as illustrations, to show their use of English and their own alphabets.

Chapter 9 gives hundreds of words in the Korendorian language from which came our Latintheir simplified phonetic spelling and all regular verbs and word-endings to aid us in our education. However, ten of my charts went to Korendor to aid them with English, which some of them speak fluently. I admit that I found it very interesting as I proofread my script.

GB: Anything else, by way of explanation that I should know about now concerning this book?

JD: Well, Gray, something happened that the Korendorians notified our friend (Gabriel Green) that their correspondence and communications by radio would be drastically curtailed; so I closed my book with a rather ragged ending as Chapter 34. It is unclassified material and recent material by paragraphs which did not justify making changes in the manuscript. It is, however, up-to-date in this way as, just last week, I added comments about comets in our system and elsewhere and how one would look when seen by a spaceship “close up,” but still no reason for their existence.

GB: You do know, John, that while I do not have all the scientific connections of Coral and Jim Lorenzen over at APRO (Aerial Phenomena Research Organization in Tucson, Arizona) or Major Donald E. Keyhoe of NICAP (National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena in Washington, D.C.), I nevertheless do have some access to numerous journalists and UFO experts who help me clarify any of the information you present, but only so I can better edit it.

I won’t alter the content presented, only the form in which it is delivered.

JD: I understand that, Gray. You have done such a marvelous job with the books of many other contactees, that I completely trust you in this regard.

GB: Thanks, John. I appreciate your confidence in me and the Saucerian Press. We’ll try and present your book to the public in a most scientific and optimistic light.

JD: That’s what I’m looking for, Gray. I want this to be the most attractive book possible in appearance, so am not interested in it as a paperback volume. I estimate that it will run about 300 pages, if somewhat over-size. We (Dean, Green and Renaud) believe that such a book is essential if the world is ever to know who our friends in space are, who are lukewarm and who our enemies are. Also, that we will present a real hope for the future as conditions grow worse, something in which all men of good will can join together and have superhuman guidance such as has been given successfully to thousands of other wavering planets; and none has ever asked to secede though their rules permit it. If we rate at or near the bottom of those not definitely as enemies of all humankind on Earth and realize it, but cannot help ourselves, then anything that friendly space beings can do for us will be much better than the mess we are now in, commonly called the “status quo.”

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Raymond Andrew Keller II GB: In one sentence, why should Saucerian Press be the publisher of Flying Saucers Close Up? JD: Gray, I think that if you will read the manuscript carefully, you will soon realize that you can do more to bring back the paradise on Earth than all of our armies combined efforts; and in the process, you should be able to generate a little profit for yourself.

GB: Very good, John, and well-stated. I’m particularly pleased that you realize that as long as we have to contend with living under a capitalist system, profits are needed to keep businesses alive and thriving.

JD: Thank you, Gray. After you have received the manuscript and have had the time to go over it, I should like to hear from you as to what you can do, along the lines we have spoken about, and your terms, and above all, how quickly the book can be produced. We were told that the world would see far more spaceships this fall as a sign of activity designed to end the war (in Vietnam), but I have no such reports; but I have been promised a trip aloft soon, after the war is stopped. If the space folk have to do it, it will not be as pleasant for the United States as it would be if we had shown more regard for what they have already told us. That is, if the Korendorian plan had been adopted by the United States through special legislation ten years ago, as is done by other planets under Alliance guidance, we would like it better than if we were looked upon as no better than our adversaries.

GB: Many thanks, John. I’m looking forward to reading your book and will Much like the menacing robot in the 20th Century Fox 1951 science fiction movie classic, Day the Earth Stood Still, the Korendorians get back you soon thereafter. My kindwarned John W. Dean that if the politicians in the United States est regards to you, your family, Gabe could not extract American troops from the Vietnam conflict within a reasonable amount of time, the Interplanetary Alliance would be and Bob (Renaud), as well as to our forced to end the war themselves on terms that they would not like. space friends for Korendor.

Second Interview It seems that John W. Dean jumped the gun in his first interview with Barker, as much more work and editing was required on the text for Flying Saucers Close Up than he had originally anticipated. It was already in the first week of April 1969, and Barker had yet to receive anything but sparse sample pages and a few illustrations from Dean, but nothing that Saucerian Press could publish in any logical and presentable form.

Here follows a synopsis of the second telephone interview conducted by Gray Barker with John W. Dean on 4 April 1969: JD: Oh, Gray, good to hear from you. I suppose you must be wondering what happened to my book which was reported as “practically finished.”

GB: Yes, John, that is the purpose for my call. What’s going on out there in Hutchinson, Kansas?

JD: Well, things are shaping up and are very discouraging, but maybe not hopeless. First, I was denied permission to show the picture of Christ by the artist, Mrs. Nida King, who has 153

Flying Saucers and the Venus Legacy it back in her possession, all officially copyrighted. This may be based on a misunderstanding that I wanted it to produce and sell, though my letter to her was clear that I only wanted to advertise it for whoever had control. A long, sad story, but she seems to have “gone bad” after the wonderful experience of having been divinely inspired to paint a magnificent portrait; divorced and straying so far that Christ appeared to her and rebuked her and said He would do no more for her unless she repented. She “defected” so far that now she will not have any more pictures (photographs) sold.

GB: Is this religious angle important to the book?

JD: I believe it is, Gray, at least important to the message that the space people want to convey to the people here on Earth.

GB: OK, then what is being done to take care of this issue over the Christ picture?

JD: Rev. Milton Nothdurft, a Methodist minister of Sioux City, Iowa, was such a close friend of Rev. Holsworth that he took pictures and made a tape recording as a lecture, and she painted another picture for him. He offered to make negatives for me in preparation for him or his church to proceed; but she had painted into the second one that it is copyrighted. Maybe this was not filed officially in the D.C. office- but enough so her lawyers would make it hot for him.

All concerned are regarded as good Christians, so no one wants to make trouble. I wrote to him today to check with the copyright office to see if the second picture of the same subject by the same artist is automatically covered. I doubt it. I suppose it depends on the dates; but I can hardly hold back for a miracle to take place. I have an idea, but will hold it back to the last when I send the manuscript and illustrations.

GB: We can’t start to do anything for you here at Saucerian Press, John, until we have some substantial material to work with.

JD: I understand that, Gray; and I’m sorry. The list is badly altered by new pictures being added and my big job is to revise it so all run consecutively. I got the manuscript back a few days ago and am checking in the new ones. Bunching the colored ones will upset the consecutive order; but it will not matter as there is no plot or chronological order of events recorded.

GB: Sounds like you’ve borrowed a page or two from that recently released Kurt Vonnegut novel, Slaughterhouse Five (New York, New York: Delacorte, released 31 March 1969), about a contactee that becomes unstuck in time. Really, a straight chronological account would be just fine, for my part.

JD: Well, I reckon I must give up getting a few dangling items from Renaud as he seems to be through with me. Gabriel Green writes that he is married and is having troubles enough already. That would be to his Korendorian sweetheart, Astra-Lari. I presume that you have his report of how, when and where he met her at the base? The chapter on marriage and divorce that he gave me says they could not marry according to Alliance rules. She worked at the base and met him in Pittsfield once a week, I believe. I think that he may have taken her home and they had to leave. But that is not for me to guess.

GB: Anything else in the way of obstacles?

JD: Well, Rev. Nothdurft had corresponded with Bob (Renaud) until some sort of “ultimatum” stopped him. I assume that that was the letter the Three Men in Black left in the mailbox after working on him. Do you have a copy of it? I should have it somewhere. I advised him to save his life and keep his sanity; but he finally defied the Omegans for a year or more.

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Raymond Andrew Keller II GB: Sorry to hear that. No, I don’t any letter telling me about that. But if you can locate your copy and send it to me, that would be appreciated. Is there anything else going on right now in your life that I need to know about?

JD: Yes, I also got a letter from Zagga which should have told me how he, the “Superman,” reconciled his claims as a Christian to his doctrines of reincarnation; and again he let me down.

He also omitted his conception of the New Jerusalem. I was sick from disappointment for days, but finally wrote him pointedly that he had led me on for years and I still believe he is what he claimed, and the Korendorians verified. I asked if he wanted me to tell the shameful story and say that he could not or would not reply and settle the growing dispute between churches and space folk. I do not doubt that he is, or was, a great man, but must admit that he has not shown himself to be a real friend. He denounced Renaud and (Jim) Hill as secret enemies, working with the bad ones of Pluto (a planet without any indigenous life forms), who would take me up to their base there and kill me, based on a strange doctrine of one William H. Goetz, who is also building a saucer in a remote place near Mackinac Island, Michigan.

GB: I’m not really interested in publishing a book about theology, John. Saucerian Press readers want to know more about how the space people live on their home worlds and what they are doing here on Earth. But this William Goetz sounds like an interesting character.

JD: OK, All I know about that is that Goetz may have stumbled upon some secret of flying saucer propulsion, for I have been shown pictures of a saucer parked on the ground, but not actually flying. However, I am not obliged to drop my book on his whims.

GB: What about the space people?

JD: Bob and his space friends from many distant planets have sent me so much wonderful information and faithfully answered my intimate questions that it is preposterous to doubt their reliability. And Jim Hill is one of the most devoted friends I have. He expects to accompany me and my professional photographer, and I hope, the local Saturnian who lives here. It was men from Saturn who saved me in the Army hospital when I was born, when Uncle Sam with his inept doctors in the middle of an epidemic (1918-1920) was my implacable enemy, and saved me for fifty years for this work. Not to deceive me! Hill hopes they can restore his wife to health such that she can go along, for both have seen thousands of spaceships from their place in Cedar Gap, Missouri.

GB: The next time you speak with Jim, please extend my best wishes to him and his wife, especially for her speedy recovery.

JD: I’ll do that, Gray. I know the trip has been delayed and postponed for over a year and may never come; but if they (the extraterrestrials) are actively engaged in averting a nuclear war, then I must wait or miss the great honor. I try to persuade myself that some good may come in waiting, but the certainty of it surely will affect the reputation of my book; and we need to know before it goes to press. I hardly dare hint of it in the manuscript, though I do tell of it among friends. I do not seek speaking engagements at present, but did accept a second one for an astronomy class at the planetarium, as the head man seems to have become open-minded. I am getting too old and forgetful to count on long drives to speak, so really need to be rejuvenated.

GB: That is all well and good, John; but if we are waiting on material from Renaud, Green, Zagga and others, this book may never see the light of day. Just send me what you have and let us at Saucerian Press see what we can do with it.

JD: Honestly, Gray, it will be a big job to rework the manuscript and renumber the pictures, so I am estimating another month of delay. Having re-read the book months ago, I feel that it is 155

Flying Saucers and the Venus Legacy good and hope I can scatter the ragged ending so it will not be so obvious. The $3,000 is available; so that is the least of our problems. I cannot do much about original art work instead of Kodachrome prints, so will send both when I can and let you choose whichever will reproduce best.

GB: OK, John, that sounds reasonable to me. I can wait a month, and the $3000 for publication of the book will remain our estimate here at Saucerian.

JD: I will also be enclosing my latest “cartoon” based on word from Venus via Korendor.

The original was too black and the darker Xerox copies would certainly look more realistic. It was drawn from the Venus 3 probe; but I found a drawing of Venus 4 and added details rather than draw it again. I am not proud of the job, but doubt if I could do any better. It explains the reports pretty well, so I accept it, except for that of the air pressure being so great. That could be due to the speed at which it was hustled out of town.

GB: Or a more likely scenario, and simpler explanation, might be that both the Americans and the Russians are simply not telling us the real truth about intelligent life on Venus.

At this point, both Gray and John have a good, heart-felt laugh.

JD: Oh, before we sign off, Gray, did I tell you that the Kors (Korendorians), via Renaud, had given me a sort of title, “Doctor of Extraterrestrial Research” (DOER)? I thought it was to be made official the last time I spoke at Wichita University; but Dr. Pronko of the Psychology Department was out of town and two professors did not know about it. I do have the Bachelor of Fine Arts from Pratt Institute, but errors in my transcripts of grades made it useless. Corrected nine years late, when I was too old to get my certificate renewed!

GB: Thank you for updating your academic history, John. At least Pratt finally came around to acknowledge your degree. I will be sure to make sure that your author biography in the book reflects your many accomplishments, to thereby add credibility with Saucerian Press readers in regard to your account of the Korendorians.

One of the highlights of the second interview was the mention made by the contactee, John W. Dean, of an authentic-looking picture of Jesus the Christ made by a local Kansas artist, Mrs. Nida King, who produced the art following a religious vision. Apparently, the picture made quite an impression on Dean as it conformed nicely to actual photographs of the Cosmic Christ taken by the Korendorians, the Venusians and other extraterrestrials that he had seen while onboard their spaceships. Here below is a reproduction of King’s picture that was later sent to Barker by Dean.

This is the “ET Jesus,” according to John W. Dean.

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Chapter 14

“Disco Ufology” (1971-1973)

California girl or flying saucer occupant? Disco Ufology: In the early 1970s, ufologist Cosmic Ray, publisher and co-editor of the Flying Saucer Report, was living in San Diego, California. Sometimes it was difficult for him and other ufologists to distinguish the extraterrestrials living among us from the native Earthlings.

As the publisher and co-editor of the Flying Saucer Report during the period of 1967-1972, I enjoyed trading publications with the editors of other UFO periodicals from around the world.

One of my favorites was Major Hans C. Petersen’s UFO Kontakt, published out of his home in Vejle, Denmark.

Major Hans C. Petersen was a pioneer in European ufology, founding one of that continent’s first investigative groups in Denmark, Scandinavian UFO Information (SUFOI), in 1957.

Petersen first became acquainted with UFOs in 1952, when he was sent to Wright Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio, as part of an officer exchange program among allied nations in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). It was clear to Petersen that American Air Force officers took the UFO phenomenon quite seriously; and he henceforth wanted to learn more about it. In the mid-1950s, while stationed at the Skydstrup Danish Royal Air Force Base, Peterson followed a bogey moving at tremendous speeds as it streaked as a blip across the military installation’s radar screens. Now he knew for a fact that UFOs were real; and after reading some books by the prominent California amateur astronomer and contactee, George Adamski, he became convinced that the UFOs were manned interplanetary space ships.

In 1965, the SUFOI leadership made disparaging remarks about George Adamski, asserting that his claims were untrue because American and Russian space probes had “proved” that no life could exist on Venus. Peterson, for his part, maintained that if anyone was lying, it was the space agency personnel in the United States and the Soviet Union, whom he accused of foisting a vast Venus conspiracy in hiding the truth about an advanced extraterrestrial civiliza157

Flying Saucers and the Venus Legacy tion existing on our cloud-shrouded and nearest planetary neighbor. Unable to reconcile with SUFOI, Petersen left the group in 1965 and went on to create a second group, International Get Acquainted Program (IGAP) to promote the teachings of George Adamski and other contactees from around the globe. Both UFO groups still exist. While the SUFOI group has become increasingly skeptical of the topic and refers to UFOs as a myth with earthly explanations for all sightings, the IGAP group is slowly diminishing and now has very few members, mostly in Japan. Major Hans C. Petersen passed away seven years ago. May God bless his kindly soul.

For the enlightenment, and entertainment, of the readers of Lon Strickler’s Phantoms and Monsters website, I present my following synopsis of UFO activity and information from the thrilling days of yesteryear at the start of the disco era, 1971-1972, based on the pages of Major Hans C. Petersen’s UFO Kontakt magazine.

Life in the Cosmos Quotation from A. Lima-de-Faria, Ph.D., Director, Institute for Molecular Genetics, University of Lund and Research Council, Stockholm, Sweden: “Life has no beginning, but is an integral part of the structure of the cosmos. If life has evolved on other planets and in other galaxies, it will primarily be of the same kind as life on Earth.”

Major Hans C. Petersen, European UFO and Contactee Authority. UFO Kontack, Number 1, 1972, Major Hans C. Petersen, Editor, Vejle, Denmark:

Soviet Conference on Intelligent Life in Outer Space The 11 November 1971 edition of Pravda, the official newspaper of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, published in Moscow, included an extensive article about the 6-11 September 1971 First International Symposium on the Problem of Extraterrestrial Civilizations and Communication with Them, co-chaired and convened by Dr. Carl Sagan of the United States and Dr. Iosef S. Shklovsky of the Soviet Union, experts in the emerging science of exobiology, at the Byurakan Observatory on the slopes of Mt. Aragats in Armenia, a mere 40 minute drive from the capital city of Yerevan. From the observatory, the gathered scientists can see Mt. Aragats’ sister and larger mountain of Ararat, just over on the Turkish side of the border, stretching towards the sky. The Byurakan Observatory was established by the Armenian astrophysicist Viktor Hambardzumyan in 1946, whence it was placed under the prevue of the Armenian Academy of Sciences, an integral part of the Soviet Academy of Sciences since 1936.

From the conference proceedings, it was learned that American and Soviet scientists have agreed to seek contact with intelligent beings in space. The scientists came to the conclusion that highly developed civilizations from the nearest areas of our galaxy may be trying to get in touch with us. Also, the Pravda reporter declared in the article that the Soviet Union had made at least two official attempts to get in touch with the inhabitants of other planets prior to the symposium.

According to V. Troitskij, a member of the Soviet Academy of Sciences interviewed by the reporter, the first attempt allegedly took place in 1968 when the Soviet researchers decided upon conducting a systematic radio survey of objects within a distance of 100 light years from the Sun. The purpose was to listen for signals clearly differentiated from the natural background 158

Raymond Andrew Keller II radiation of the galaxy. The Pravda reporter noted that the second experiment began in 1970 in order to identify radiation sources from other planets in our galaxy. However, the journalist sadly remarked that no such impulses were detected during the designated times of observation.

At this historic conference, the assembled scientists also agreed to exchange all pertinent exobiological information concerning the monitoring of space signals as well as to work directly and together in order to obtain answers to the big question about the existence of intelligent beings on other planets in our galaxy.

At center of photo Dr. Carl Sagan standing next to Dr. Iosef Shklovsky, with batch of papers in his left hand. No mention of this momentous international SETI symposium was made in the Soviet press until one month after its conclusion.

From the Armenian website https://www.aras.am/Meetings/ceti1971.html, we read: “Competent scientists, working in various fields, concerning the considered complex problem, were present at the symposium: astronomers, physicists, radio physicists, cyberneticists, biologists, chemists, archaeologists, linguists, anthropologists, historians, and sociologists.

“32 Soviet and 19 American scientists, as well as representatives from UK, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia participated in the works of the symposium. There were 9 representatives of Academy of Sciences of Armenian SSR among the Soviet delegation, including 6 from the Byurakan Observatory.

“Three Nobel Prize winners were among the participants: biologist F. Crick (UK) and physicists F.W. Dyson and C. Towns (USA). Prominent scientists F. Drake, T. Gold, C.E. Sagan, D. Heeschen, K. Kellermann (USA), and F. Morrison (UK) also took part in the symposium.

“Many aspects of the problem of extraterrestrial intelligence were discussed at the ten scientific sessions of the symposium. Questions of plurality of planetary systems in the Universe, origin of life on the Earth and its possibility on other cosmic objects, rise and evolution of intel159

Flying Saucers and the Venus Legacy ligent life, rise and development of technological civilization, problems of search for signals of extraterrestrial civilizations and traces of astro-engineering activity, problems of establishment of communication with extraterrestrial intelligence, as well as their possible consequences were discussed in detail.”

Besides the co-chairs, Sagan and Shklovsky, here is a partial list of some of the more wellknown symposium participants in alphabetical order: • Ambartsumian, V.A., Byurakan Astrophysical Observatory (BAO), Armenia, USSR • Arakelian, M.A., Byurakan Astrophysical Observatory (BAO), Armenia, USSR • Crick, F., UK • Drake, F., USA • Dyson, F.W., USA • Gold, T., USA • Gurzadyan, G.A., Byurakan Astrophysical Observatory (BAO), Armenia, USSR • Heeschen, D., USA • Herouni, P.M., Armenia, USSR • Kellermann, K., USA • Khachikian. E.Y., Byurakan Astrophysical Observatory (BAO), Armenia, USSR • Markarian, B.E., Byurakan Astrophysical Observatory (BAO), Armenia, USSR • Mirzoyan, L.V., Byurakan Astrophysical Observatory (BAO), Armenia, USSR • Morrison, F., UK • Parsamian, E.S., Byurakan Astrophysical Observatory (BAO), Armenia, USSR • Tovmassian, H.M., Byurakan Astrophysical Observatory (BAO), Armenia, USSR • Towns, C., USA • UFO Kontakt, Number 2, 1972, Major Hans C. Petersen, Editor, Vejle, Denmark: Flying Saucer Formation It came to the Oslo, Norway Dagbladet newspaper office’s attention that a formation of UFOs was photographed at about 4:15 a.m. on 31 December 1971, by Steiner Aurmo, a police cadet from Lillehammer attending the Bergen Police Academy in the southwest of Norway.

This formation consisted of seven objects that first appeared to the northwest of Bergen, flying in an east to southeast direction. At Bergen’s Flesland Airfield control tower, the formation was spotted by the air traffic controller on duty that morning, Gunnar Skauge, as well as by the pilot and crew of a Braaten Regional Airlines plane flying from Las Palmas in the Canary Islands to Flesland. The pilot, Captain Oddmund Karlsen, estimated the formation to be flying at an altitude of some 80,000 feet. The crew agreed with his assessment. A full account of these reports, inclusive of Aurmo’s photograph, appeared in the 4 January 1972 edition of the Dagbladet newspaper.

Also, at approximately 4:00 a.m. on 1 January 1972, there were other reports of flying saucers passing over various cities in formation that were telephoned into the news desks of sundry Scandinavian newspapers. In Denmark, only a small article about the UFO reports, without any headline or other fanfare, appeared in the local Vejle weekly newspaper. On the other hand, the same 4 January 1972 issue of the Dagbladet newspaper previously cited, ran a distinct photograph of this New Year’s Day formation taken by an Oslo graduate student in engineering, Einar Hotvedt.

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Raymond Andrew Keller II This UFO flap apparently lasted for just these two days, during which time the Norwegian General Headquarters received more than 40 sightings reports from the south of their country.

The flying saucer formation was last seen leaving Norwegian air space a little north of Oslo, whence it passed over Sweden heading towards Stockholm. The formation could also be viewed from the Northern Jutland area in Denmark, with the last witnesses in that Scandinavian nation seeing seven disc-shaped objects just blink out in a tremendous flash of light over Djursland, whereby they exhibited an intense light phenomenon. Danish ground observers estimated that the altitude must have been considerable, at least insofar as the formation could be seen simultaneously from Bergen and Oslo in Norway, from Hirtshals in Denmark and from Gavle in Sweden. The prominent Norwegian astronomer Rolf Brahde thought that the UFOs could be explained away as nothing more than a meteor show; but an officer at the Flesland airfield thought the objects were under intelligent control A Norwegian aviation officer concluded, “Meteors do not fly in such since they were flying in an exact Vregular formations.” formation with three objects on each side of the V and one ahead of them, at the point of the V. “Meteors do not fly in such regular formations,” he concluded.

Major Hans C. Petersen of the International Get Acquainted Program (IGAP) and editor of the pro-contactee UFO Kontakt magazine, opined that the light phenomenon linked to the disappearance of the formation may have been due to the objects having been taken up into a mothership cruising up near the Earth’s atmospheric envelope.

UFO Reconnaissance The major also speculated that the UFO occupants may have been conducting some kind of reconnaissance mission. At least one of their craft came in for a near landing, hovering just a few feet above the ground. On 31 December 1971, the first day of the reported sightings, in the municipality of Skeberg in Norway, a driver with two passengers in his car was passing on the outskirts of the borough of Greaker when his automobile engine just stopped. The headlights dimmed, flickered and went out, too. The gauges in the car were pushed all the way forward, even though the motor was not running. Noticing an intense light in the woods, all three got out of the vehicle and stared into the glare of the UFO, adjusting their eyes and distinguishing two cigar-shaped objects as if stacked, or possibly joined together. They estimated each one to be about 40 meters long and 3 meters in diameter.

Earth Has Rings Like Saturn, Just Weaker The well-known, late California contactee, George Adamski, once declared that, “The Earth has got rings like Saturn, only they are much weaker.”

Now scientists from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have, through the deployment of a ruby laser beam, ascertained the existence of at least two bands of particles around the Earth, albeit seemingly spread rather thin. One band is situated at about 80 kilometers above the Earth, and the other at approximately 115 kilometers. Astronomers are pending satellite photographs taken of these rings to determine just how intense they are and exactly 161

Flying Saucers and the Venus Legacy how clearly, or not, they can be seen, and also to gauge just what kind of danger, if any, they might pose for astronauts in orbit.

Jet Fighters Scramble with UFO Report Members of the Norwegian Royal Air Force attached to the 336th Fighter Squadron at Rygge Airbase on the southeast coast of Norway anonymously reported to Danish Major Hans C. Petersen, editor of IGAP’s UFO Kontakt magazine, a close encounter between four “Freedom Fighter” F-5 jets and a luminous UFO in the skies high above the Bardufoss Airbase in the north of Norway, where their squadron was deployed for training maneuvers of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) on 30 November 1971. At around 2:30 p.m. local time in the northern climes of Norway, a bogey was detected on screens of the Bardufoss Airbase. This is what prompted the deployment of the F-5 jets. These are highly maneuverable, supersonic fighters manufactured by the Northrop Grumman Corporation.

Four F-5 “Freedom Fighter” jets were deployed to intercept a UFO Initially, the UFO was tracked at a very in the midst of NATO exercises in the skies over northern Norway. low velocity, about 75 knots. But when the four jet interceptors plateaued at an altitude of some 16,000 feet, just a few kilometers from the object, a radar operator at Bardufoss excitedly reported that the UFO had increased its speed substantially and disappeared from the radar screen as it headed in an easterly direction, all the while climbing. A few seconds following the radar operator’s comments, the four pilots caught sight of the object as a “bright, shining star in the polar darkness.” Presumably, it was at such an altitude as to be illuminated by the Sun. As the pilots realized that they could never catch up with the UFO, they returned to base.

Major Hans C. Petersen lamented that the Norwegian Royal Air Force authorities made no comments when asked about this incident.

Martians Thwart Mariner 9 Probe Findings Major Hans C. Petersen and J. L. Entsminger of IGAP don’t believe that a spokesperson for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in the United States was telling the truth about their Mariner 9 probe findings about the planet Mars and its two moons, Deimos and Phobos. The space probe arrived in Martian orbit on 14 November 1971, just 167 days after being launched from Cape Canaveral in Florida on 30 May. The liftoff vehicle was an Atlas-Centaur rocket.

One month after the probe arrived in Martian orbit, a spokesperson for NASA would only declare that the Mariner 9 confirmed the findings from two previous Mars missions, the Mariner 6 in 1965 and the Mariner 7 in 1969. In other words, “There’s nothing to see here. Move on.”

The UFO Kontakt editor and his associate were extremely disappointed that close-up photos of the Martian moon Deimos, which were obtained by the Mariner 9, were still being withheld from the public. When the probe was approaching Mars, it began to take pictures of Deimos, a mini-moon in a near circular orbit of Mars at a distance of some 12,000 miles above the sur162

Raymond Andrew Keller II face of the planet. In the process of orbiting Mars, the Mariner 9 maintained altitudes between 10,700 and 10,750 miles. The second Martian moon, Phobos, was at a lower orbiting altitude of some 3,700 miles above the Red Planet’s surface, taking 7 hours and 39 minutes to make an orbit. Photos were also taken of Phobos, but since it was further away from the probe, they apparently lacked the details to be found in those acquired of Deimos.

In their report on the Mariner 9 mission, Petersen and Entsminger write: “Within a couple of days, something began to happen as the cameras, which tried to take pictures through the ‘cloud of dust’ hiding the planet, showed a round object, the size of a tennis ball.

“When this object circled Mariner 9, the latter suddenly turned, the cameras pointing away from the planet. It was apparently the force field of the small gadget that made the probe turn to a position where it pointed in the direction where the object just disappeared. Later the same day, notice was given that the turn was due to a mysterious influence of gravity from Mars.

“NASA had to activate the steeringrockets of the probe in order to get it turned so that the cameras were pointing at the planet again.”

Further on in the Mariner 9 mission, the probe’s instrumentation indicated that the ice caps at the poles of Mars consist of real ice water and that the Martian clouds contained water vapor, just as clouds do on Earth.

UFO Kontakt, Number 5, 1972, Major Hans C. Petersen, Editor, Vejle, Denmark: UFO Photographed Over Brazilian Coast The Brazilian correspondent for UFO Kontakt, Dr. Walter Buhler, submitted the photograph that appears below to the editor, Major Hans C. Petersen. According to Buhler, the photo was snapped at around 9:30 a.m. on 25 January 1971 by Gunar Gruezner from Joinville, Brazil, who was visiting the beach at Ponta do Farol. The powerfully shining object that appears in the upper right of the photograph was not seen by Gruezner when he snapped the picture. “All I saw was an extremely bright

From Keller Venus files: UFO photographed over Ponta do Farol beach outside of Joinville in the south of Brazil. Actual object was not seen by photographer, only a brilliant flash of light, moving downward.

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Flying Saucers and the Venus Legacy light, a flash moving downward at great speed in the very second I took the picture,” testified the photographer.

Ancient Greeks Knew of Other Worlds Metrodoros, an Epicurean Greek philosopher in the 4th century, B.C.E., opined about the existence of other worlds teeming with life. “To consider the Earth to be the only inhabited world in the endless universe,” he proclaimed to his students, “is as much absurd as to believe that in a whole field sown with millet seeds, only a single seed is to crop up.”

Major Hans C. Petersen, writing almost four decades before the NASA Kepler space probe was launched that confirmed the existence of a plentitude of exoplanets throughout the universe, noted that, “The Sun is, say astronomers, an ordinary star in a cluster of a hundred billion stars of the Milky Way; while the Milky Way is only one of billions of galaxies in the cosmos.

The Mathematical Law of Probability, therefore, is sharply against the hypothesis that the Sun is the only star surrounded by planets. Moreover, the latest theories on stellar evolution regard as certain that the existence of planets around stars similar to the Sun is a rule rather than an exception.”

Message of Hope Transmitted by Cosmic Civilizations Readers of UFO Kontakt were of the opinion that if ever a signal from another planet would be received here on Earth, and later translated and understood, that it was quite certain that it would have immense consequences on the future evolution of human consciousness. It seems that scientists back in the early 1970s believed that cosmic missionaries, or at least their radio messages, would travel to all nations on the planet. These messages would not be spread like an infection, but rather a new hope.

The staff science writer of the weekly Nedeljne informativne novine (NIN) newspaper, published in Belgrade, Serbia (then part of Yugoslavia), wrote in the 26 December 1971 edition of that periodical, that, “Any other planet’s civilization, capable of communicating with the Earth, would certainly be older than that of humankind. It (such a civilization) would no doubt have already mastered such problems like these that are plaguing the Earth: pollution, overpopulation or the ever-present danger of war. All of that would be part of its past. And if that civilization mastered control over the terrible powers of technology which it must have developed, it might teach humans the secret of survival.”

Major Hans C. Petersen, the editor of UFO Kontakt, noted that, “Indeed, they (the advanced ETs) certainly could; but the way things are here at this moment, Earth is not at all willing to accept and incorporate any of their positive solutions.”

The major thought that the ruling economic and political forces that rule our planet would not allow the dissemination of any alien ideas that might curtail their field of profitable activities on Earth.

UFO Report Over London, UK, Suburb Miss R. S. Stebbing, a young school-mistress of Northwood, a northwest suburb of London, England, reported to her local newspaper, the Gazette, an observation that she made of a UFO hovering over a golf course not far from her residence. This incident allegedly occurred on 27 October 1971. A couple of motorists, passing by the greens, also reported witnessing the UFO to the same newspaper.

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Raymond Andrew Keller II The school-mistress informed a reporter dispatched from the Gazette to cover this story that, “The object was glistening like aluminum foil and measured about 300 meters in diameter.

The enormous object, standing still above the course,” she added, “had a tower-like construction with no less than ten windows from which there came an intense light. The lower part of the object was rotating very slowly, while the top was standing still.”

No sooner than Miss Stebbing blinked, the object had simply vanished.

UFO Landing Marks Major Hans C. Petersen filed a report on the status of UFO research in the United States.

According to the UFO Kontakt editor, a UFO physical trace case investigator for the J. Allen Hynek Center for UFO Studies (CUFOS) in Chicago, Illinois, Ted Phillips, was assisting the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) in cataloging information concerning 394 cases where landed UFOs have left evidence of their presence such as ground markings like burnt spots, pressure indentations or compressed vegetation.

USA vs. UFOs It was reported in the July 1972 issue of the men’s adventure magazine, Saga (Macfadden Publications Group, New York City, New York), that on 1 January 1972, two American F-104 jet fighters were deployed from Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma to intercept two UFOs out over the Gulf of Mexico. The Tinker Air Force Base commander was first informed of the UFO activity through alerts issued by radar stations of the North American Radar Air Defense Command (NORAD) in Houston, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio. Supposedly, there was loss of aircraft on both sides resulting from the aerial dogfight over the gulf.

The story of this UFO encounter became known to the public through a defect in the Defense Department’s communication system, whereby a married couple in the Del City, Oklahoma, area, living just outside the perimeter fence of Tinker Air Force Base, inadvertently happened to listen in on the NORAD alarm line while they were talking long-distance with some relatives out in California.

News of this security breach in the base’s telephone communications system soon reached the press in Oklahoma, that made a big story out of it. A spokesperson for the Pentagon issued an official statement declaring that the story was nothing but a rumor fabricated by the Del City couple and embellished by the local press and that there was no truth in it.

Radioactive Footprints Found in Norway The Jyllands-Posten Danish newspaper of 11 July 1972 carried a report from its correspondent in Oslo, Norway, to the effect that mysterious and radioactive footprints had been discovered along a beach in Trondelag, a region of central Norway.

The Oslo reporter, who traveled up to the desolate area where the footprints were discovered, wrote that: “In the middle of June this year, Mr. Ola Dahl from Bangsund discovered a number of strange prints in the ground on the island of Kjolsoya, where he and four others maintain weekend cottages. There are no other buildings on the island.

“Mr. Dahl had stayed on Kjolsoya in the Namsen Fjord during Whitsun (a legal and religious holiday in Norway); and there had been nothing remarkable. The prints discovered, however, were mostly triangular, with a few round ones. They are approximately 2 meters long 165

Flying Saucers and the Venus Legacy and about 30 centimeters deep.

“A laboratory examination has proved that the prints are radioactive; and the fact that they are weak, a fair distance beyond the noise limit (on a Geiger counter)- is due to the time passed from whence the prints were made until they were measured.”

Of special interest to the reporter was that one week before the prints were discovered, there were enormous disturbances occurring with the television programs broadcast to Bangsund.

However, the television station at Namsos, a little further away, experienced no problems in receiving any television signals. The Oslo journalist also commented that who or whatever made the radioactive footprints did not come by land or sea.

“Hmmm. Perhaps by flying saucer?” Petersen speculated.

Magnetic Moon On the basis of computer-processed information received by NASA from an American space probe in orbit around the Moon, scientists at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) are now of the opinion that the Moon is surrounded by a very strong magnetic field.

Additionally, the director of the UCLA Moon study team, Poul Coleman, declared that the new data indicates all lunar craters possess their own characteristic magnetic fields and electronic signatures.

Von Braun Retires from NASA On 26 May 1972, Dr. Wernher Von Braun announced that he was retiring from NASA to take a job in private industry. Von Braun was apparently disappointed that the American government was significantly curtailing appropriations for manned space flights since the public support for these programs had dramatically waned ever since the goal of landing astronauts on the Moon had been accomplished in 1969.

Major Hans C. Petersen noted that he was not surprised at Dr. von Braun’s retirement insofar as, “IGAP had on previous occasions mentioned a number of other NASA employees who could no longer stand the conditions, and consequently, chose to leave the biggest space administration in the world.” Also, the UFO Kontakt editor opined Extraterrestrials in Ancient India pilot “vimanas,” a type of flying saucer. that so many ex-NASA astronomers expressed frustration with their former employer’s insistence on them lying about the true conditions that exist on the Moon and other planets in our solar system, especially where ET life and flying saucers were concerned.

Professor J. S. Yajnik of the Banaras Hindu University declared, “The visitors from outer space are not hostile.”

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Raymond Andrew Keller II Note: The following article aptly presents the more open-minded view of the East with regard to flying saucers and their crews from other planets and the future prospects for all of humankind following more extensive contact with the celestial brothers and sisters. Please enjoy.

-Cosmic Ray The Dawn of a New Age

By Professor J. S. Yajnik, Banaras Hindu University The tremendous strides which science has made in recent times have culminated in releasing nuclear energy and sending up artificial moons to circle round the Earth. These achievements inspire hope that within measurable time, space stations may be established and interplanetary communication may become a possibility, and ultimately the dream of exploring the cosmos may be realized.

The credit for these achievements goes to the combined efforts and technical skill of a number of scientists, who, liberally encouraged an helped by their governments, made their individual contributions at different stages and thus heralded the age of nuclear energy. But this is only a prelude to a more marvelous age of space travel.

On two engrossing problems depend the fate of the world and the future of humankind.

Despite the gratifying progress made in the realm of science, it has now brought the world to the brink of utter ruin if a single false step is taken. The mounting tension among the Great Powers, armed with nuclear weapons, may at any time result in a global war, the consequences of which are too appalling to imagine. The face of the Earth would be distorted out of shape.

The human race would be wiped away; and the survivors, if any, would be reduced to the most primitive conditions of living, civilization and science becoming things of the past.

To avert such a dire calamity and colossal devastation is the most important function of the United Nations (UN) organization. It has to strive successfully for the universal acceptance of the ideal of one world; otherwise one spark will carry humankind to its inevitable doom.

The other problem equally fraught with the gravest consequences is of interplanetary communication, of space ships and flying saucers, humankind’s dream of space conquest. The UN must address itself to this problem also, on a worldwide basis, so that the conquest of space by one country may not become a menace or source of terror to other countries. And for this, it is necessary that the UN should exercise control over the development of the elemental atomic energy and its uses for humanity. This will not only ensure its use only for beneficial purposes, but help in its speedy development by the joint and cooperative effort of the world’s scientists under the auspices of the UN. It is not too late in the day now to deny the existence of flying objects from outer space. Attempts to explain them away have, to say the Learn from the ETs. The inhabitants of other worlds have long lived under least, proved simply puerile. Innuparadisiacal conditions. See https://www.facebook.com/AndyM6228/.

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Flying Saucers and the Venus Legacy merable sightings by hundreds of observers the world over, and their authentic evidence are so overwhelming that even the mighty governments can no more mislead the people or conceal the obvious facts. Political reasons may have some justification for avoiding panic among the people; but the frequency with which unidentified foreign objects have been appearing leave no room for doubt in the minds of reasonable persons that the denizens of other planets have achieved what our scientists are only striving for and in which they are still in the initial stages.

There is no remedy for the attitude of cynical skepticism. Those who are determined to shut their eyes to the obvious can never be convinced. In the highest quarters, the reality of these objects and their origin in outer space is admitted. There is now an abundance of literature on the subject, press reports and current journals, the perusal of which will convince any inquirer who cares to know the truth. The massed evidence of the flying saucers and space ships has been supported by photographs and the testimony of observers whose veracity cannot be doubted.

For ages humankind believed that the Earth was the center of the universe and that humans were at the top of the hierarchy of created beings. Entertaining such notions about their own superiority and their domain, it is naturally difficult for humans to admit readily a lower position for themselves and for the Earth in the solar system. Now, the humans have to realize that they are not the kings and queens of the universe. They did not believe that the planets of the solar system or even those orbiting other stars had any living beings. The scientist also, until recently, proclaimed that the Moon and Mars could not sustain life as known upon the Earth. It is no easy matter to dislodge such beliefs held since the dawn of civilization. And references to space flights and communication with the planets in ancient lore have always been treated as figments of imagination. Humankind will have to give up on unscientific notions and sacrifice ego when accepting the latest discoveries made by the scientist and the astronomer. In the Middle Ages, the defiance of the prevailing faith and challenge to superstition meant torture and death; but in the present age of science, one can smother truth and refuse to accept an established fact with impunity. At least this has been the case with the flying saucers, the truth about which has been deliberately suppressed by governments and very high officials. There is ample evidence to show that there is a conspiracy of silence in the United States government and crude attempts to conceal true facts from the public.

From the innumerable observations recorded by laymen, scientists and astronomers, some important features of space ships and flying saucers have been definitely laid down. In shape and form, they are entirely different from all Earth human-made flying machines. Space ships are of a very big size and contain in them smaller flying saucers, say half a dozen. The mothership can stay in the sky steady and motionless, while the saucers come down near or upon the Earth, to rise again and to be taken in by the mothership. Almost always they are silent, though at times attaining the tremendous speed of 25,000 miles per hour in our atmosphere, and yet remaining unburnt by the friction. In the outer space above the atmosphere, they may possibly attain the speed of light, 186,000 miles per second. They are undoubtedly controlled by intelligent beings who have achieved mechanical perfection for their craft yet unknown to humankind. Not only is the suppression of sound vibrations made possible, but they are converted into light vibrations of different colors. The Tibetan yogis are said to know the secret of converting sound into light, which they use when required in their dark caves. The motive power of the space ships is not the same as that used by Earth human-made craft. It is probable that they use electromagnetic power or the inexhaustible energy of the cosmic rays. No Earth human can survive at the tremendous speed of these weird machines, especially when he or she take sud168

Raymond Andrew Keller II den and sharp turns, maintaining uniform speed. It seems that the intelligent operators of the space ship command unlimited power and know how to convert atomic energy directly into electricity and have discovered the secret of freedom from gravitational attraction.

All these features conclusively prove that the luminous flying saucers cruising at fantastic speeds come from outer space and are piloted by beings of superior intelligence who have acquired mastery over UFO mothership lands atop Devil’s Tower in Wyoming from the the forces of nature yet unknown to humovie, Close Encounters of the Third Kind (Columbia Pictures, mankind. From this, it naturally follows 1977). The UFO occupants command unlimited power, being able to convert atomic energy directly into electricity. They have that some of the planets are inhabited discovered the secrets of anti-gravity. by thinking, intelligent beings more advanced than humans of Earth. There is every probability that there are distant worlds inhabited by beings whose knowledge and attainments are beyond our wildest dreams.

Not only do the flying saucers prove that some of the planets are inhabited, but the independent testimony of some astronomers supports this fact. After making thousands of observations and mapping about 700 canals, Percival Lowell, a distinguished astronomer, announced: “Mars is inhabited. We have absolute proof.” Changes on its surface have been noticed which indicate that they are artificial and made by intelligent beings. Like our Earth, other planets can also evolve life if conditions are congenial. And if life is evolved, later mind must also evolve.

Different atmospheres and other varying factors may evolve forms and features of beings different from those of Earth humans.

Astronomers have been keenly watching mysterious activities on the surface of the Moon.

Scientists tell us that there is no atmosphere there, and consequently no life can exist there.

Extremes of temperature, too, cannot allow any living creatures to survive. But these surmises are based upon the conditions required by humankind for its existence. There may be life there of some kind to which the physical conditions are congenial. In recent times, dome-like structures and a big bridge have appeared on the surface. Therefore, there may be a Moon race or a base may be formed there by the inhabitants of Mars or some other planet. If Russians claim to reach the Moon within twenty years, the more advanced denizens of some planet may already be there by their superior scientific knowledge.

Flying saucers have not only appeared in our skies, but landed, too. George Adamski has had the unique good fortune of not only photographing a flying saucer, but also meeting an occupant of it who came from Venus and seeing the inside of a space ship. Relating his extraordinary experience, he and his companions swore an affidavit before a notary public. His books, Flying Saucers Have Landed (New York, New York: British Book Centre, 1953) and Inside the Space Ships (New York, New York: Abelard-Schuman, 1955) are convincing and are of absorbing interest. Inhabitants of Saturn, Venus and Mars have been reported to have landed and safely returned to their respective planets.

The question is: Why do they come? We do not know and speculate that they come on pleasure trips with a feeling of triumphs on their achievements. They are friendly and desire contact 169

Flying Saucers and the Venus Legacy with us. They warn us that the nuclear explosions here are fraught with tragic possibilities not only to our Earth but also the entire solar system. If our world is destroyed, the rhythmic movements of the solar system are bound to be affected. They desire to help us in our effort to conquer space and give us the advantage of their superior knowledge, and draw us closer to them. At present, there is only one-way traffic. With their help, it can become a two-way traffic.

The visitors from outer space are not hostile. This is proved by the fact that they have nothing wrong to anybody. Two tragic accidents are said to have happened. In the one case, an airplane pursued a flying saucer and went dangerously near it and was destroyed on account of its close proximity to some ray or emanation from the saucer.

But it was not an intentionally hostile act.

In the other case, the pursuers were perhaps kidnapped by the occupants of the flyWhen peace prevails on Earth, we can expect mass landings ing saucer and safely carried to some other of flying saucers and profitable interchange with our brothers and sisters of other planets. See https://www.pinterest.com/ planet. There was absolutely no trace of the pin/231583605812025338/. pursuing airplane or its remnants.

Care has to be taken that no flying saucer is fired upon, lest it should provoke retaliation.

It seems that the visitors are afraid that humans her may damage their machine, making their return flight impossible, or capture the visitors and ill-treat them. It is conceivable that mass landings will take place when peace prevails on Earth and there is no danger of a global war.

Thus, we see that the UN has double role to play: Firstly, to establish peace here and eliminate the fear of war; and secondly, to organize world opinion for a friendly attitude towards the visitors from outer space and ensure their safety.

It may safely be predicted that the visitors, if properly welcomed and treated with due consideration, may show us the way to peace and prosperity such as we have never known before, and usher us into a golden age in which the conquest of space has become a reality.

UFO Kontakt, Number 6, 1972, Major Hans C. Petersen, Editor, Vejle, Denmark: United Nations Statement on Space Exploration, Extraterrestrial Life At 3:00 p.m., on Friday, 6 October 1972, the Ugandan ambassador to the United Nations (UN), Grace Ibingira, delivered a significant speech to the 26th session of the General Assembly, being the 2,075th meeting of that political body.

In a 7,000 words long speech, the ambassador touched upon the subjects of outer space exploration and the existence of extraterrestrial life. Here follows an extract of the pertinent paragraphs from this significant oration: 170

Raymond Andrew Keller II “The issue of outer space is becoming increasingly important. My delegation welcomes the efforts of those member states which engage in the utilization of outer space for the embitterment of our world. We have supported the relevant treaties on the subject and will in principle support those that are to come. While we rightly and actively engage in discussing problems indigenous to our Earth, let us not be unmindful that throughout history outer space has had a profound influence on the human race. Who among us has not been struck, on a clear night, by the stupendous majesty of the heavens? Which culture on this planet does not, directly or indirectly, bear legends of gods from outer space, influencing the great religions and mythologies of us all?

“Today, humankind moves into outer space not in imagination and thought, as before, but in physical reality. These adventures may yet hold the most profound consequences for our planet. It is now generally accepted by most scientists that we Earthlings may not be the only intelligent beings in the universe. For that reason, my delegation holds the view that those among us who explore outer space have a duty to keep us all fully informed of their findings.

“Should we, for instance, seriously believe that the American Moon program is principally designed to collect Moon dust and rocks or that the Soviet probes to Venus and elsewhere are primarily interested in ascertaining the high temperatures and related climatic matters? We say we are behind you in your explorations, but let us share all your important findings because sooner or later if they bear relevance and significance to our planet, we are surely bound to do so.”

Major Hans C. Petersen, speaking for himself and the expanded editorial staff of UFO Kontakt, thanked the ambassador for these astute comments: “Your highly intelligent approach, and the words chosen, are unveiling that you are on the right track and that your knowledge is well-proportioned to face the subject.”

Your Neighbor May Be an “Illegal Alien,” of the ET Kind Bruce Cathie is a civil aviation captain from New Zealand who has some definite ideas about UFOs and extraterrestrials. He believes that some people might be living next store to illegal aliens, from other planets, not just foreign countries. Captain Cathie also claims that there is a secret group of scientists here on Earth who have long been in direct communications with alien beings clandestinely living and working right here among us; and he even goes on to declare that he has personally met with such extraterrestrial beings on several occasions.

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Flying Saucers and the Venus Legacy Captain Cathie, a pilot on the home routes of New Zealand National Airways Corporation, in the early 1970s was considered the best expert on UFO activity and other strange occurrences taking place in the area of the South Pacific. Cathie, a member of the International Get Acquainted Program (IGAP) and a long-time subscriber to UFO Kontakt, wrote two books about the UFO phenomenon, Harmonic 33 in 1968 and Harmonic 695: The UFO and AntiGravity, coauthored by Peter Neville Temm, in 1971, both published by the A. H. and A. W. Reed Company of Wellington, New Zealand.

Major Hans C. Petersen of IGAP and the primary editor of UFO Kontakt, highlighted some of the more significant incidents of strange phenomena found in Cathie’s works: Disappearing Aircraft “On 5 December 1945, five Avenger torpedo bombers left their Fort Lauderdale base in Florida on a planned, two-hour routine exercise. However, this two-hours turned into a nightmare as neither the aircrafts or their crews were ever seen again.

“90 minutes after take-off, the flight leader, obviously worried and amazed, had sent an unusual report to the control tower: ‘We seem to be off our course. I am not sure of our position.’

“A rescue aircraft was hurriedly made ready with life-saving appliances and sent off in the direction where they hoped to find the five aircrafts and bring them back home. Meanwhile, the controllers despairingly tried to get in touch with the flight leader, but in vain.

“While anxiously awaiting new information, they tried to contact the search aircraft, but there was no answer. It had disappeared, too. A search for the missing aircraft was immediately started. 20 boats and 240 aircrafts systematically searched a huge area between Florida and the Bahamas. The search was enlarged to include a quarter of a million square miles, but the result was negative. The six aircrafts had vanished as if they had just left the Earth, or had passed into another dimension. The became the greatest mystery of our time.”

Invisible UFO Captain Cathie also took note of a case involving a seemingly invisible UFO. While not visually seen, the whole encounter was tracked on radar. Here’s Major Petersen’s abbreviated account of the story, taken from Cathie’s more detailed rendition: “Recently a submarine chaser from the New Zealand Air Force was flying on a routine mission along the coastal area of the northern island. The crew was informed that a UFO was flying from the north towards the south, just thirty miles off the coast. The aircraft was requested to check up on the intruder and flew towards the sea to cut off the course of the UFO. When approaching the object, the front radar got contact; but the crew saw no object. The UFO soon lost its height and was followed on the aircraft’s radar. The crew reported that an eddy could be seen on the surface of the sea. Whatever it was, the object seemed to have dived and disappeared like a submarine.”

Secret Grid System Over his many years of investigating UFO reports, Captain Cathie developed the theory that our planet is surrounded by a secret grid system of ley lines that directs a whole block of unusual, seemingly paranormal occurrences. The seasoned pilot is of the opinion that the UFOs follow these lines of force once they enter our atmosphere, deriving their motive power from them. In his book, Harmonic 395, he declares that certain scientists already know about the re172

Raymond Andrew Keller II ality of UFOs as interplanetary space ships; but they are inexplicably preserving this knowledge as the strictest secret within their own ranks.

The pilot and ufologist also assert that these same “in-the-know” scientists are also privy to communications with extraterrestrials by both physical and radio contact. “The discovery of mysterious, extensive aerial installations in the backyards of some of the houses of these scientists in Auckland gave me a weird sensation,” Cathie noted.

In Harmonic 395, Captain Cathie investigates the matter of these mysterious aerials and demonstrates how they are more than just ordinary parts of amateur radio stations and they seem to be connected to the grid system in the Auckland area and unaccountable explosions that had taken place around that New Zealand city in conjunction with reports of UFOs. “The aerials had obviously been placed in mutually straight lines, and they fit into the UFO grid system,” explained Cathie; adding that, “A group of electronic experts knew much more about the grid system than I; and furthermore, that they had been in possession of this knowledge for some years.

“It seemed to me,” he continued, “that some electronic material had to be built into this grid system; and ‘they’ seemed to carry out experiments on a large scale or to control such ones. But what was the intention? And who were ‘they’?”

For the New Zealand ufologist, the aerials appeared to be forming parts of a great geometrical signal system for the UFOs, perhaps guiding them in for landings in New Zealand or perhaps at bases under the sea, off the coasts but still in New Zealand waters.

Cathie ran into problems with New Zealand authorities after he began taking photographs of these aerial and antenna arrays. He describes encounters with agents of this silence group whom he believes are members of a well-organized secret society in league with extraterrestrial intelligences that are conducting a seemingly constant surveillance of him and his activities.

Alien Couple Captain Cathie relates an encounter he once had while he sat in a cafeteria at the Mangere Airport in Auckland. Near to him, at another table, sat an extraordinarily looking man and woman. They seemed to be fiddling with a camera. When Cathie glanced up at the couple, the man lifted the camera up and snapped a picture of him without his permission. Cathie was caught off guard. He wasn’t sure what to make out of this situation, not knowing if there was anything illegal about it.

The couple looked very strange to Cathie. Of the male partner, Cathie told Major Hans C. Petersen that, “He was a tall man with long, thin limbs. Most remarkable was his head. It was completely round and as bald as an egg.”

Of the female in the pair, Cathie said, “She was just the opposite to her friend. Her face was oblong, more streamlined. Her hair was coal-black, done in a strange way. Her eyes were very dark and large; and her skin was a very pale color.”

A little later on at the airport, Cathie almost bumped in to the strange, young man while passing through a gate area. “For a moment,” the pilot related, “we looked at one another in surprise. Then he turned around and disappeared like a startled hare.”

Alien Presence Among Us Of course, such an unusual encounter reinforced the captain’s perception that extraterrestrials are living among us. Cathie noted that, “Logic tells us that these events indicate that sci173

Flying Saucers and the Venus Legacy entists from our planet are connected with beings in the UFOs appearing in our sky. A direct understanding between people from Earth and the strangers must exist on some level.

“Should the strangers turn out to be here already, I think I am justified to claim that the couple I ran across in the Mangere Airport are some of those strangers.”

Optimistically, Captain Cathie opined that, “I feel convinced that the whole truth about UFOs shall be brought to light. I feel sure that the whole truth shall very soon be revealed.”

Like many before and after him, Cathie was premature in his assessment of a soon-coming big extraterrestrial UFO disclosure.

American Corporate Scientist Speaks Out on Outer Space Life at European Astronautical Conference A United Press International (UPI) report, datelined 14 October 1972, revealed that an American scientist, Bernard M. Oliver of the Hewlett Packard Corporation of Palo Alto, California, declared in the closing session of the 23rd International Aeronautical Conference held at the Hofburg Congress Center in downtown Vienna, Austria, that intelligent civilizations probably have existed in outer space for billions of years and suggested that they are currently trying to make the Earth a member of the galactic community.

“In all likelihood, intelligent civilizations have existed in the galaxy for four or five billion years,” opined Oliver, adding that, “It appears from our calculations that present-day technology is capable of mounting a very effective search for extraterrestrial signals.

“The question we must ask ourselves is: Is it worth about half the coast of the Apollo program ($11 billion) to attempt such a search?”

Oliver answered his rhetorical question with an affirmative, rationalizing that, “It seems very probable that many of these civilizations have established interstellar contact. If so, then communication has been taking place between civilizations and beacons may well exist to help young races, such as ourselves, to join this galactic community.”

There were about 1,500 scientists in attendance at the astronautical conference. The importance of this gathering cannot be underestimated, at least insofar as those in the seats would go on to influence future research directions taken among members of the global scientific community in these matters.

Mars Not as Inhospitable as Previously Imagined The 27 July 1972 edition of the Danish newspaper, Fyens Stiftstidende, ran a recent press release from the TASS Soviet information agency in Moscow about current discoveries concerning Mars. Apparently, Soviet scientists have refuted former theories about that whole planet being buried under massive sand dunes. “The surface of Mars is covered by a layer of dust of approximately one millimeter only. Isolated deserts of dust take up only a small fraction of the surface of Mars, and may be the cause of the dust storms observed there,” Soviet scientists concluded.

Radiation Belts Around Earth Predicted by California Contactee Major Hans C. Petersen pointed out that the California contactee, George Adamski, in the early to mid-1950s predicted the discovery of three radiation belts around the Earth once artificial mini-moons could be sent aloft to check it out. On 4 October 1957, with the launch of the Soviet Union’s Sputnik satellite, the existence of two of these radiation belts was confirmed.

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Raymond Andrew Keller II I might add that a third type of belt was later discovered connecting the Earth’s magnetic field to the solar wind in a process of magnetic reconnection. This is fully explained in my third book, Cosmic Ray’s Excellent Venus Adventure (Terra Alta: West Virginia, 2017), pages 41-48.

UFOs Over Asia Hsardene Bold, a state farm worker from Ulan Bator in Mongolia, made the following UFO report in the June 1968 issue of Sputnik magazine, published in Moscow in the Soviet Union: Mongolia “I want to recount an event I witnessed a few years ago. That summer we were working on the Ugtal state collective farm. On the evening of 27 June 1964, I was returning to Ulan Bator in a very crowded lorry (truck). Between about 10 and 11 p.m., the Moon, or what I took for the Moon, rose over the mountains on the northwest. Within minutes, and in full view of everybody, the object went straight up, sharply changed its course and then moved over the horizon in a northerly direction. Some 10 to 15 minutes later, the “moon” disappeared. I failed to take pictures of this strange “moon.” And here is one more detail: When it hovered into sight from behind the mountains, it was the size of the real Moon, but as it gained altitude, it looked larger and larger. The object was also seen from Ulan Bator.”

UFO Contact,56 Volume 2, Number 2, April 1973, Major Hans C. Petersen, Editor, Vejle, Denmark: Top Scientists Agree, “UFOs Are Real!”

From 17 to 20 November 1971, a special conference of top scientists from many fields was held at the University of Arizona at Tucson to discuss the existence of UFOs. Not only did they agree that UFOs are real, but that that they represent an advanced alien technology. Here follow some salient quotes from the more eminent among the presenters:57 Dr. J. Allen Hynek, Director of the Dearborn Observatory and Lindheimer Astronomical Research Center, Evanston, Illinois: “UFOs are now a respectable subject for scientific study.”

Dr. Robert F. Creegan, professor of philosophy at the State University of New York, Albany: “I’m convinced there is intelligent life in outer space. UFOs are not just illusions. Some reports show them to be controlled objects. To me, the most acceptable and realistic theory is that the UFOs are controlled by intelligent beings from outer space.

“Two trusted and highly skilled scientists- Wilbert B. Smith, in charge of Project Magnet, the UFO study of Canada’s Department of Transport, and Dr. James E. McDonald, atmospheric physicist at the University of Arizona, both came to the same conclusion: The best theory to fit UFOs is that they are controlled by beings from outer space. My own belief about UFOs is the same as theirs.”

Dr. R. Leo Sprinkle,58 associate professor of psychology and director of the Division of Counseling and Testing at the University of Wyoming at Laramie: 56 The editorial board decided to translate the title of the publication to UFO Contact for all editions to Anglophone countries beginning in 1973.

57 National Enquirer, Lantana, Florida, 6 February 1972.

58 Author of the introduction to my Venus Rising: A Concise History of the Second Planet (Terra Alta, West Virginia: Headline Books, 2015).

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Flying Saucers and the Venus Legacy “I believe the most reasonable explanation for UFOs is that they are crafts controlled by intelligent beings who want to study us- but who don’t want us to know they are doing it.

“I do not feel that there is any reason for alarm. They give no evidence of hostility.”

Dr. Emerson W. Shideler, retired chairman of the Department of Philosophy at the Iowa State University of Science and Technology: “I believe the evidence is quite clear that UFOs exist. The most probable explanation is that they are controlled by intelligence from another planet.

“There is a very real possibility that they are completely unlike our accepted ideas of normal life.

“I do not believe they are any threat to us. But their impact on our notions of culture and religion would be tremendous if their visits could be proved.”

Dr. John C. Munday, biophysicist and associate professor of geography at Erindale College, University of Toronto, Canada: “I certainly don’t think that all UFOs are How would contemporary religious authorities account for from our own Earth. One thing that conangelic aliens? See https://www.gizmodo.com.au/2020/01/ which-religion-is-friendliest-to-the-idea-of-aliens/. vinced me of their existence was a case I investigated near Chicago several years ago.

“A housewife, who doesn’t want to be named, heard a whistling sound outside her house.

She opened the front door and saw a bright orange light some distance away.

“She was frightened and shouted for her husband. He also saw the light. When the light finally disappeared, the whistling sound stopped. The next day, she felt sick and had a great thirst for fruit juices. Over the next two months, her skin continually became red, dry, scaly and peeled. I visited her two months after the incident and skin still showed these effects.

“But I gave her a lie-detector test anyway and had to conclude that she was telling the truth about her experience with the orange light.

“The thirst and raw skins the woman suffered are typical of an overdose of ultraviolet radiation. Or the high frequency energy of the whistling sound sent out by the object might also have been responsible for her condition.”

Dr. Frank B. Salisbury, head of the Department of Plant Science at Utah State University, Logan: “We just don’t know whether UFOs are controlled by space beings of intelligence- but it is a strong possibility and a theory we must seriously consider. Then what kind of beings could they be? One possibility is that they could be virtual ‘immortals.’ Certainly, there are planet cells which have never died.

“These beings could be similar. It would help to explain their survival for centuries or more if they were coming from other stars in our own Milky Way or even from other galaxies.”

Bermuda Triangle a UFO Operations Area Dr. Johnathan Wright, a physician at NASA, claims that the American space agency has built a TOP SECRET facility on an isolated island in the Bahamas to monitor flying saucer activity in the area. Speaking at a press conference at a hotel in Nassau following a three-months 176

Raymond Andrew Keller II tour at the NASA station on one of the Bahama’s outer islands, Wright declared that, “There is every indication that flying saucers have caused more than 120 ships and planes to disappear within the mysterious Bermuda Triangle.

“There is no doubt,” he continued, “and we have proofs of the fact that UFOs are also regularly landing on a tiny island about 85 kilometers from Grand Cayman.”

The doctor revealed the existence of a special NASA UFO program, of which he was named as director. The purpose of the program is to capture flying saucer occupants and examine their anatomy in comparison to that of humans. He also claimed to have participated with Dr. Edward U. Condon in the government-sponsored University of Colorado UFO study at Boulder.

Curiously, Wright’s name did not appear in the final report; but he maintains that the TOP SECRET classification of his work prohibited the disclosure.

Dr. Jonathan Wright, NASA physician: “Flying saucers have caused more than 120 ships and planes to disappear within the mysterious Bermuda Triangle.”

In late December 1970, Dr. Wright and his select NASA group were dispatched to the Bahamas after another two ships and a plane had vanished within the infamous zone of the Bermuda Triangle. “For many years,” said Wright, “we have wondered what is going on in this area; so when in December ships and a plane disappeared again, we decided to carry out an investigation.

“We set off in a small boat loaded with electronic equipment, sailed to the small islands and began waiting.”

Just three weeks following the team’s arrival, Dr. Wright reported that he and everyone in his group had sighted luminous objects descending from the clouds and hovering just above the surface of the water not far offshore from their site. And then one week later, the object appeared again and quickly disappeared in the dark of the night. The group piled into a boat and set out to sea in the direction that the UFOs were sighted in the hopes of seeing for themselves what was really going on. Nothing was discovered.

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Flying Saucers and the Venus Legacy Then after the passing of two more weeks, three similar objects had returned, actually landing on their small island. “This time we were at very close quarters,” exclaimed Dr. Wright, adding that, “We could see two small windows in these black objects. The UFOs were shaped like tins for tuna; and they were completely silent.”

Dr. Wright and the members of his group actually approached these strange machines; however, no one would come forth and describe what they saw when they got within a mere extended arm’s distance from the objects. Dr. Wright did announce that, “I hope that one day the report shall be published in full, only not now. All I can say is that when we got very close to the objects, they set off at an incredible speed and disappeared in the direction of Bermuda.”

The doctor believed that there existed some connection between mysterious radio signals heard at Cape Kennedy and triangulated to this region and the disappearance of some planes and ships in the Bermuda Triangle. A spokesperson for NASA refused to comment on the intelligence gathered from these referenced radio transmissions; but everybody can read about the countless planes and ships that have disappeared into the Bermuda Triangle year after year. Dr. Wright opines that, “Extraterrestrial intelligent beings have decided to study the inhabitants of Earth from a secure place, being at the same time relatively close to the most important scientific center of the United States. The Bahamas are such a place. From here they can keep an eye on Cape Kennedy and monitor everything happening there and simultaneously study human beings by getting hold of planes and smaller ships passing through the area.”

Dr. Wright continued, “For many years, these beings have studied the Earth from the Bahamas; and they may safely continue to snatch ships here and there as circumstances permit.

They will make the disappearances look like strange natural phenomena only, like freak storms at sea or geo-magnetic anomalies.

“My own theory is that a big mothership, several hundred kilometers above the Bermuda Triangle, is watching everything happening. When launches from Cape Kennedy or other interesting things are happening, they send out small scout crafts- UFOs- supposedly of the kind we saw on the small island. They proceed with great caution in order to avoid creating panic; and they watch the scientific developments, like the Moon program. They even take ‘human samples,’ from time to time.”

Frank Nelson, a correspondent for the then popular American tabloid newspaper Midnight, asked Dr. Wright if he had any ideas as to how the mothership can make the planes and ships simply disappear. Dr. Wright was unable to provide any technical explanation for the manner in which this happens. However, he did note that, “I suppose that the big mothership just snatches them- the ships on the water and the planes in the air. It attracts no greater attention, as small ships and planes frequently disappear in this area.”

Dr. Wright appeared very jittery in answering Nelson’s question. In his final remarks, the doctor declared that, “One thing is quite certain. I shall never go back to the small island in a small ship; and I shall never fly through the Bermuda Triangle.”

Captain Petersen was not surprised to learn that NASA had long been studying UFOs and intercepting radio signals from alien intelligences. He also informed readers of UFO Contact that he had previously flown through the Bermuda Triangle in October and December of 1972 and that it was bumpy ride both times. “I dare not do it again,” the Danish ufologist wrote, evidently having learned a lesson.

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Raymond Andrew Keller II “Football-Shaped” UFO Sighted in India The Ahmedadad, India, Times of India newspaper dated 29 April 1972, reported that, “A football-shaped luminous UFO hovered over Shrinagar for one hour and thousands of people are reported to have sighted it rotating and throwing off bright flickers of light.”

The journalist who covered the story noted that, “It certainly could not have been a satellite, for such objects move and never hover over a place, nor can they be seen for more than a few minutes.”

New Zealand Officials Baffled by UFO A glowing UFO was reported to have been “moving slowly over the Havelock Hills early in the morning of 19 May 1972 by several residents of Hawke’s Bay, including three policemen who followed it with a telescope for over one hour. Experts from many fields from around the country were baffled as to the origin of this object, according to an article on the sightings that appeared in the local newspaper, the Hawkins Bay Herald Tribune of Hastings, New Zealand.

The UFO appeared as a “bright star behaving in a peculiar fashion.” To the naked-eye, it appeared to be barrel-shaped as it moved in closer to the observers; but it was “bluntly cut off at one end and with a band around the middle” when viewed through a telescope. The UFO hovered between points of the sky in the south to east. Those viewing the object through a telescope reported that, “The band, glowing brightly on the outer edges, constantly pulsated,” adding that, “The center had a translucent appearance as the object moved in a 40-degree arc across a dark sky devoid of stars of any magnitude.”

The officials consulted by a reporter for the Hawkins Bay Herald Tribune adamantly believed that, “It was highly unlikely that the object could be identified as a weather balloon, satellite, space projectile, space junk, meteorite or any other known object.” In other words, the authorities in New Zealand recognized that this was a case that constituted an authentic UFO sighting.

South African Farmer Shoots at Flying Saucer

Alien lives don’t matter to Afrikaner farmer. A South African farmer ignorantly opened fire on a flying saucer. Brooking no interference from alien intruders attempting to change the fascist apartheid political system in his country, “Venusians go home!” the angry Afrikaner snarled at the scout ship.

Ron Schaulat, a UFO Contact subscriber and IGAP member from St. Louis, Missouri, submitted an interesting article from the 4 July 1972 edition of his local newspaper, the Globe-Democrat, titled “UFO Escapes South African’s Shots.” According to the report, police and a farmer opened fire on a flying saucer sighted in the vicinity of Fort Beaufort, South Africa. The object first appeared on the horizon as a “ball of fire, changing color frequently;” but as it closed in on the farm acreage, it could clearly be identified as a flying saucer (see photo above). The farmer was the first to take pot shots at the UFO; and since it returned no fire, the police joined in on the “skeet shoot.” Luckily for us, the saucer dodged the rifle fire and flew off. If a Venusian were shot in the melee, it may have started the first interplanetary war.

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Flying Saucers and the Venus Legacy Swift-Moving “Shining Ball” in Japanese Skies The following Associated Press (AP) dispatch appeared in the 29 September 1972 issue of Politika, published in Belgrade, Serbia (then known as Yugoslavia), concerning the report of an unidentified ball that was witnessed over Okinawa, Japan: “The crew of an American airplane belonging to Trans-World Airways have observed a UFO during their flight while about 50 miles southeast of Okinawa.

“The captain of the airplane said that the object had the shape of a shining ball and that it was moving towards the southwest with cosmic speed. The captain added that the speed of the body was too high for a comet. The crew was able to follow the movement of the object for about a minute.”

Multi-Colored Saucer Over Pordenone, Italy William F. McCord, an engineer and IGAP member resident in Pordenone, Italy, reported sighting a multi-colored flying saucer at an estimated 6 to 10 miles west of the city at an elevation of approximately 3,000 feet. With him at the time of the sighting were his wife and 12-yearold daughter. All three of these witnesses shared a pair of binoculars in looking at the UFO over a period of some one hour and forty minutes (from 12:45 a.m. until 1:25 a.m., approximately), on 5 February 1973. Of this duration of time, the saucer was stationary for slightly more than half an hour.

In a report filed with IGAP headquarters in Denmark, McCord wrote that the, “Object changed in color from red to green to blue. Light was very intense and intensity increased at different intervals seemingly when color was turning blue. Intervals of color changing were very slow and several minutes apart. Object started to move at approximately 1:15 a.m. in a northern direction and disappeared completely from view at approximately 1:25 a.m.

“As to the weather, the sky was cloudless. Bright stars were observed for comparison of light intensity and object appeared to be 15 to 20 times brighter than the brightest star observed through binoculars.”

“Strange Thing” Plummets into Lake Victoria, then Shoots Skyward From Kampala, Uganda, comes an Associated Press report dated Saturday, 3 March 1973, of a smoke-covered UFO that dropped down into Lake Victoria. The object was described by locals as a “strange thing,” for after seven minutes underwater, it was seen again as it resurfaced, rocketing off into the wild blue yonder. Among those viewing the UFO was the Ugandan president Idi Amin.

He declared that, “It was a sign Art source: Johns Hopkins University Magazine, Winter 2014. of good luck; and anyone having seen the UFO should go and offer a prayer of thanks.”

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Raymond Andrew Keller II On the Plurality of Inhabited Worlds Metrodorus, a fourth century, B.C.E. Greek philosopher, once stated that, “To believe that the Earth is the only inhabited world in the universe is as absurd as to believe that in a completely sown field only one single seed was going to sprout.”

Interesting to note that the Kepler space telescope, launched in 2009 and operational for nine years thereafter, confirmed the existence of planets around nearly every star. Many of the planets discovered by the space telescope seemed to share similar conditions conducive to the existence of life as we know it on Earth.

Optimistic Look at Alien Contact The editor of NIN Magazine, a newsweekly from Belgrade, Serbia,59 wrote in the 26 December 1971 issue that, “If ever a signal from another planet should be received, it is rather certain to exercise a decisive influence upon the development of the peoples of Earth.

“Scientists believe that extraterrestrial missionaries, or at least their messages, shall expand in all directions, spreading only hope. The civilization of any other planet able to communicate with the Earth would surely be far older than any of our world. No doubt, such a civilization would have long ago overcome the kinds of problems now plaguing us on Earth: pollution, overpopulation and war. These would all be ancient history to the aliens.

“If such civilizations have managed to control the terrible powers unleashed by technology, they can teach us how to survive.”

59 In 1971 Serbia was still considered part of Yugoslavia.

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Index Adamski, George 5, 14, 18, 21, 24, 25, 26, 35, 36, 37, 52, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 67, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 81, 89, 91, 99, 101, 121, 157, 158, 161, 169, 174 Aerial Phenomena Research Group (APRG) 108 Aerial Phenomena Research Organization (APRO) 5, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 42, 43, 45, 46, 47, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 152 Aftenposten, Norwegian newspaper 145 Agrest, Matest Mendelevich 100, 101 Aho, Wayne S. 88 Akkuratov, Valentin 147 Apperception 5, 16 Arnold, Kenneth 21, 30, 42, 53, 120 Astra-Lari (Korendorian) 154 Aura Rhanes (Venusian), see also Smith, Evelyn L. 86, 113 Aztec, New Mexico, crashed saucer in 34 Azure, Venusian city 78 Baalbek International Festival, Beirut, Lebanon 6, 100 Bachelor News 138, 141, 143 Banaras, J. S. Yajnik 8, 166, 167 Barker, Gray 6, 7, 33, 78, 79, 80, 82, 83, 84, 85, 88, 89, 93, 94, 116, 130, 131, 132, 133, 134, 136, 137, 138, 143, 149, 150, 153, 156 Barnard’s Star 151 Barrios, Dolores 26 Benard, Paul C. 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 69 Bender, Albert K. 24, 33 Bermuda Triangle 8, 176, 177, 178 Bethurum, Truman 18, 26 Bible 6, 35, 99, 101, 144 Binder, Otto O. 17, 18, 135, 146 Blythe, California 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 69 Borderland Sciences Research Associates (BSRA) 79 Bowman, Taunia 123, 124 Brazil 24, 25, 26, 93, 163 Bruck, H. 107 Byurakan Observatory, Armenia 158, 159 Cathie, Bruce 171, 172, 173, 174 Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) 26, 29, 30, 39, 40, 103, 111, 137 Close Encounters of the Third Kind, 1977 science fiction movie 114, 169 Communist Party 100, 113, 145, 158 Confederation of Planets 21, 39, 67, 68 Condon, Edward U. 113, 137, 138, 177 Creegan, Robert F. 175 Day the Earth Stood Still, The, 1951 science fiction movie 153 Dean, John W. 7, 117, 149, 150, 152, 153, 156 Desert Center, California 5, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 66, 69, 71 Duplantier, Gene 88, 117, 118

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Earth vs. the Flying Saucers, 1956 science fiction movie 58 Edwards, Frank 23, 46, 88, 120 Elan (Venusian) 75, 76, 77, 78 Esenho One, extrasolar planet 151 Esenho Two, extrasolar planet 151 First International Symposium on the Problem of Extraterrestrial Civilizations and Communication with Them, in USSR 158 Flatwoods Monster, sighted in West Virginia 32, 33 Flodman, Johnny 145 Flying Saucer Report 116, 157 Flying Saucer Review 135 Flying Saucers UFO Reports, magazine 123, 124, 128, 129, 138 Fry, Daniel 26 Fusaro, Gladys 6, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 93, 94 Galaxy, science fiction magazine 31, 112 Genemedes star cluster 125 Giant Rock Airport, Landers, California 88, 138 Gold, Thomas 17, 90, 91, 159, 160 Goldwater, Barry 92, 94, 95 Green, Gabriel 5, 18, 32, 33, 51, 58, 105, 113, 127, 151, 152, 154, 155 Gribble, Robert C. 108 Hoyle, Fred 27 Hubbard, Harold 138 Hynek, J. Allen 18, 102, 103, 104, 135, 137, 142, 165, 175 Indrid Cold (from planet Lanulos) 7, 121, 122, 124, 126, 130, 131, 135, 137, 142, 143 International Flying Saucer Bureau (IFSB) 24, 33 International Get Acquainted Program (IGAP) 158, 161, 172, 180 Interplanetary Spacecraft Convention(s) 86, 67, 88, 138 Invaders, The, television series 1967-1968 63 Isle of Wight UFO Investigation Society, in United Kingdom 108 Kansas City UFO Study Club, in Missouri 92 Kecksburg, Pennsylvania, “Meteor” 6, 109, 110, 111, 112 Keel, John A. 18, 115, 130, 131, 133, 134, 135, 138, 143 Keffel, Ed 24, 25, 26 Kepler space telescope 181 Keyhoe, Donald E. 81, 85, 86, 87, 89, 90, 116, 118, 121, 134, 135, 137, 152 King, Nida 95, 144, 153, 156 Klass, Philip J. 103, 118, 135 Korendor, extrasolar planet 150, 152, 153, 156 Korendorian(s) 149, 152, 153, 154, 155, 156 Kosmos 96, Soviet Venus probe 111, 112 KYOR, radio station 5, 61, 62, 64, 66

Lanulos (extrasolar planet) 6, 123, 124, 125, 126, 128, 130, 131, 135, 138, 141, 143 Layne, Meade 79 LeMay, Curtis 95 Lima-de-Faria, A. 158 Marling, M. Spohn 123, 124, 125, 126, 128, 129, 138 Mars 8, 21, 32, 36, 39, 42, 64, 70, 73, 75, 76, 99, 107, 108, 112, 125, 128, 130, 148, 162, 163, 168, 169, 174 Martian(s) 7, 21, 77, 78, 162, 163 Martins, Joao 24, 25, 26 McHugh, L. C. 101 Menger, Howard 18, 58, 107, 138 Menzel, Donald H. 5, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 41, 135 Moon 6, 7, 64, 70, 73, 84, 91, 98, 99, 107, 110, 113, 114, 119, 120, 125, 130, 151, 166, 168, 169, 171, 175, 178 Mothman (creature sighted in West Virginia) 130 Mt. Palomar Observatory, California 21, 32 Murphy, Larry W. 129, 130, 131, 133 National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) 6, 7, 90, 106, 107, 110, 125, 126, 128, 162, 163, 164, 166, 176, 177, 178 National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena (NICAP) 7, 81, 82, 85, 89, 95, 116, 118, 121, 122, 124, 132, 133, 134, 135, 136, 137, 152 New York Saucer Information Bureau (NYSIB) 87, 88, 89 O Cruzeiro, Brazilian magazine 24, 25, 26 Oberg, James 110, 111 Oliver, Bernard M. 104, 174 Orthon (Venusian) 26, 59, 60, 62, 63, 65, 71, 72 Pasulka, Diana 97 Petersen, Hans C. 112, 113, 157, 158, 160, 161, 162, 163, 164, 165, 166, 170, 171, 172, 173, 174, 175, 178 Phantoms and Monsters, paranormal website 158 Posadas, Juan 18, 19 Potter, Rob 127 Project Bluebook 22, 40, 56, 102, 103, 104, 113, 133, 137, 138 Project Skywatch 22, 23 Promise Revealed, website 127 Putin, Vladimir 145 Radar 6, 80, 81, 165 Red Saucers, from Soviet Union 6, 84 Renaud, Robert (Bob) 151, 152, 153, 154, 155, 156 Roberts, August C. 137, 142, 143 Russia 13, 82, 93, 111, 114, 145, 146 Russians 133, 145, 156, 169 Sagan, Carl 158, 159, 160 Salisbury, Frank B. 27, 176 Salkin, Harold 141, 142, 143 Saturn 7, 21, 31, 39, 99, 130, 155, 161, 169 Saturnian(s) 155 Saucerian Bulletin 78, 80, 82, 83, 84, 85, 89

Saucerian Press, Clarksburg, West Virginia 74, 78, 88, 89, 116, 130, 131, 138, 143, 149, 150, 151, 152, 153, 154, 155, 156 Saucers, Space and Science, UFO magazine 88, 117, 118 Science Evaluating Anomalies Research Center of Harrisburg (SEARCH) 9, 10 Scully, Frank 5, 22, 34, 35, 37, 38, 39 Shideler, Emerson W. 176 Shklovsky, Iosef S. 158, 159, 160 Smith, Evelyn E. 86, 87, 88, 91, 119, 175 Soviet Union 30, 68, 84, 92, 93, 95, 99, 100, 111, 112, 113, 114, 145, 146, 147, 157, 158, 174, 175 Space Age Communications, Washington, D.C. 141, 142, 143 Space Review, UFO newsletter 24, 33 Spacecraft News, UFO newsletter 131, 133 Spacelink, UFO newsletter 108 Spaceviewer, UFO newsletter 92 Sprinkle, R. Leo 27, 175 Star Wars, movie series 149 Strickler, Lon 109, 158 Tesla, Nikola 39, 112 Three Men in Black 154 UFO Contact, magazine, see also UFO Kontakt 147, 175, 178, 179 UFO Kontakt, magazine, see also UFO Contact 112, 157, 158, 160, 161, 162, 163, 164, 165, 166, 170, 171, 172 UFO mothership 169 United Nations (UN) 8, 118, 19, 142, 167, 170 Valiant Thor (Venusian) 150 Vallee, Jacques 18, 135 Van Tassel, George 88, 120, 121, 138 Vandevender, S. P. 129 Velas (Martian) 75, 76, 77, 78 Venus 1, 2, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 17, 18, 19, 21, 24, 26, 27, 34, 39, 42, 58, 59, 62, 64, 65, 68, 69, 70, 73, 75, 76, 77, 78, 86, 87, 91, 94, 97, 98, 99, 107, 108, 109, 110, 111, 112, 113, 125, 127, 128, 129, 130, 156, 157, 163, 169, 171, 175 Venusian(s) 1, 5, 9, 10, 11, 14, 19, 21, 26, 34, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 78, 89, 96, 99, 101, 109, 112, 113, 121, 126, 127, 128, 129, 150, 156, 179 Villa, Apolinar (Paul) A., Jr. 6, 105, 106, 107 Von Braun, Wernher 7, 93, 94, 166 Walosin, Frank C. 138, 141 Williamson, George Hunt 59, 69, 72, 87, 88, 121 Wright, Jonathan 23, 37, 38, 40, 56, 92, 93, 94, 95, 109, 110, 133, 157, 176, 177, 178 Wright-Patterson Air Force Base (AFB), Dayton, Ohio 37, 40, 56, 92, 94, 109, 110 Wright-Patterson Field, Dayton, Ohio 23 Zamora, Lonnie 102, 103, 104, 105, 107 Ziegel, Felix Yurievich 146, 147, 148

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In Memoriam Earl J. Neff Mentor and Pioneer Ufologist (4 April 1902-12 March 1993)

Acknowledgements

Many thanks to the following individuals, without whose kind assistance this book would not be possible: • Michael Constantine of Morgantown, West Virginia • David Houchin of Clarksburg, West Virginia • Michael La Riche of Rootstown, Ohio • Shari Lynn of Ashtabula, Ohio • Robert Potter of Mt. Shasta, California • Luis Fernando Mostajo Maertens of Cochabamba, Bolivia • Jenessee Roy of Aurora, Ohio • Lon Strickler of McSherrystown, Pennsylvania • Omnec Onec of Venus Etheria • Cathy Teets, Headline Books Inc., Terra Alta, WV An additional thank you is extended to the countless others too numerous to list who have assisted me in my life’s ongoing journey of discovery and enlightenment.

—Raymond A. Keller, Ph.D. Morgantown, West Virginia 2 February 2021

“Stand by for Book VII in the Venus Rising Series!”

184

Volume VI of the Venus Rising Series: A Concise History of the Second Planet

Flying Saucers and the Venus Legacy

Raymond Andrew Keller II

Cosmic Ray and The Birth of Venus at the Philadelphia Metropolitan Museum of Art on 20 March 2017.

Dr. Raymond A. Keller, II, award-winning author and retired History professor, is the author of the Venus Rising trilogy. Final Countdown: Rockets to Venus and Cosmic Ray’s Excellent Venus Adventure are newest in the series. Dr. Keller's books explore various facets of conditions and life on Venus in many dimensions from a perspective of conspiracies, history, theosophy, ufology and current events, especially space research.

To date, Venus Rising: A Concise History of the Second Planet, won awards at the Southern California and London Book Festivals. Dr. Keller has lived and worked in 44 different countries and has been writing about UFOs and paranormal activity since 1967. He was the founder and director of the Outer Space International Research and Investigations Society (OSIRIS) of Hilmar, California, as well as the publisher and co-editor of the New Millennial Star, a monthly pre-Internet tabloid newspaper with a circulation of 7,500 copies. He received his doctoral degree from West Virginia University in 2011 focusing on various aspects of the Basque settlement of Venezuela, and received his Master's degree from the same institution in 2004 in foreign language with an emphasis on Magic Realism in Latin American literature.

Flying Saucers and the Venus Legacy

With the help of the Venusians, in the newest addition to his Venus Rising series of international awards-winning books, Flying Saucers and the Venus Legacy, Dr. Raymond Andrew Keller, a.k.a. “Cosmic Ray,” explores the astounding science behind the flying saucer enigma.

Since that momentous day in 1987 when he and seven others in the Outer Space International Research and Investigations Society (OSIRIS) first made open, physical contact with Lady Encara, an ascended master and space commander from Venus on the slopes of Mt. Shasta in northern California, Dr. Keller has become one of the most controversial authorities on the alien presence here on Earth.

Of a recent appearance of Cosmic Ray at a meeting of the Paranormal Search group in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, Tony Pugliese, that organization’s website editor, posted the following comment: “During the presentation we were given a good idea of the scope of extraterrestrial contact that we might be encountering here on Earth, including the apparent claims of a Canadian official that we are, in fact, being visited by around 80 species! Of course, it’s impossible to verify these claims, but the preponderance of evidence that we are being visited by something (or ‘several somethings’) unearthly remains overwhelming. Dr. Keller also gave great insight into extraterrestrial technology that sent everyone in the room scrambling for their cell phones to Google the information he was giving us. This was a truly eye-opening presentation that makes us all long for the days of the ‘flying saucer clubs’ of the 1950s, back when all of this was both recent national news and serious business.”

Get ready to hop aboard a flying saucer to outer space with the Cosmic Ray. We’ll rendezvous with a mothership and meet many of our brothers and sisters from Venus and other member worlds in the Galactic Confederation of Light.

Raymond Andrew Keller II