Chapter

and back under the influence of Hunrath. Wilkinson’s decision sealed his fate—and that of Hunrath, too—in ways scarcely imaginable.

Snatched from the Skies

November 10, 1953, was the date on which Hunrath and Wilkinson disappeared—never to be seen again. In the weeks leading up to their vanishing act, the two had allegedly contacted an extraterrestrial entity that, in essence, was downloading information into the minds of both men. George Hunt Williamson claimed to have personally seen this—late one night in his own Prescott, Arizona, home—and said it was downright eerie. It was, said Williamson, as if the pair, in almost complete darkness, was receiving messages from the great beyond, as one might when using a Ouija board. In one such session, in which Wilkinson and Hunrath almost appeared to be tripped out, said Williamson, they received directions that were destined to take them to a small airstrip near Gardena, Los Angeles County. The final curtain was about to come down on Hunrath and Wilkinson. According to Williamson, Hunrath and Wilkinson were soon to meet with aliens at a remote location in California—but where, exactly, he never knew.

On the morning of the day in question, the two men rented a car and headed to the airstrip. Why they didn’t take one of their own cars, we don’t know. Anticipation and excitement were rising quickly. Those levels increased as the airstrip finally came into view. Hunrath was a skilled pilot who had been flying for several years. They had rented a plane just a couple of days earlier and, on arrival at the airstrip, filled out the necessary paperwork; it was all going just fine. It failed to stay that way.

One of the staff recalled, later, that Hunrath had told him they were headed out to a specific area in the California desert, to meet with “friends.” That same employee said that the plane had enough gas for about three hours of flight time and that the pair had planned to be back by late afternoon. He told the Feds there didn’t seem to be anything unusual and that everything seemed in order. It was clearly not in order, though.

Wilkinson and Hunrath got in the plane and took to the skies, with that same employee looking on—at least, until he was sure all was good, which it seemed to be (seemed being the important word).

When, however, no further word was heard from either man by late afternoon—and with the staff at the airstrip getting panicky about their overdue plane and missing customers—the emergency services were called. After all, a missing aircraft was no small affair. Two missing men was even worse. Local pilots—chiefly, friends of the staff at the airstrip—offered to scour the area from above, and in just about every direction. No luck. No distress calls. No signs of billowing smoke or flames. No wreckage. There was nothing at all. Hunrath and Wilkinson had allegedly headed out to the desert and, in the process, had seemingly vanished into oblivion. Both the FBI and the local police dug into the matter. They too came up completely blank. Abducted from the skies? That was the rumor in the local UFO community. It’s not at all surprising that the local media was soon on the trail of Hunrath and Wilkinson.

The Los Angeles Press Gets Involved

On November 20, ten days after the incident occurred, the Los Angeles Mirror ran a story on the missing men, the vanished plane, and the UFO connection. Since Hunrath was a bachelor, there was no one for the press to speak with. But it was a very different story when it came to Wilkinson. The media came knocking on the door of the Wilkinson home, looking to speak to Mrs. Wilkinson. Obviously concerned about the whereabouts of her husband—she didn’t care too much at all for Hunrath—she agreed to have the story splashed across the pages of the newspaper, in the event that it might shed some light on things. It didn’t. It just added to the mystery and the intrigue.

George Hunt Williamson, worried about the fate of his colleagues, followed the media’s coverage of the story and noted the following to Frank Gibson:

Wilkinson’s den was lined with flying saucer pictures, weird signs and formulas, which Mrs. Wilkinson said were supposed to be the new interplanetary language. “Of course, I don’t quite go for all the Flying Saucer talk, but Karl convinced Wilbur they actually existed,” said Mrs. Wilkinson. She then said, “Karl had tape recordings of conversations with men from other planets who landed here in Saucers.” She showed reporters messages tacked on the wall of the den which were supposedly received by radio from the interplanetary visitors. One was from Regga of the planet Masar.

The search for Hunrath and Wilkinson went on for weeks, but with not a shred of luck. Despite careful checks in just about every direction (calls were even put in to both Mexican and Canadian authorities), not a single piece of data or physical evidence was ever found. They weren’t just gone; they were really gone. Out there, so to speak. Eventually, and inevitably, the investigation came to an end. Mrs. Wilkinson and her children finally moved on with their lives. And no one else ever heard from those mysterious figures Mr. Bosco or Dr. Nagata again.

George Hunt Williamson, however, continued to look into the matter—he was, after all, one of the last people in the UFO research field to have seen Hunrath and Wilkinson before they vanished. Or were kidnapped. Williamson pondered the possibility that the two had flown to Mexico, but for what reason no one knew. There was no evidence that either man was involved in criminal activity. Plus, there were no problems with the Wilkinson’s marriage.

Williamson added: “It has also been reported that Karl is in England and will reappear shortly and also that he has been seen recently in Los Angeles with his hair dyed! [Author’s note: he did not reappear—ever.] He has been called a spaceman, a man possessed of evil spirits, an angel, a member of the FBI, and a Russian spy. What he really was no one knows— but we can guess.”

We certainly can guess. Mrs. Wilkinson certainly did. She told the Los Angeles media something that got right to the heart of the conundrum: “I just can’t help but think that flying saucers really had something to do with their disappearance.”

A Bad Outcome for Karl Hunrath and Wilbur Wilkinson?

For us, for the FBI, and for the Wilkinson family, the story was over—albeit in completely unresolved fashion. But for Hunrath and Wilkinson, maybe it wasn’t over. Perhaps they really were abducted by friendly alien creatures, maybe even living out the rest of their lives on a faraway, paradise-like world. Or perhaps their fates were far worse, which brings us to a 1962 episode of The Twilight Zone, “To Serve Man.”

The story tells of a visit to Earth from a race of what appear to be benign extraterrestrials, the Kanamits. There is, quite naturally, some distrust on the part of world governments as to the motives of the aliens. So the United Nations gets involved, including one of its employees, Michael Chambers, a cryptographer. When a colleague of Chambers—Patty—decodes a large Kanamit book, she finds that its title is To Serve Man. This all sounds fine: the aliens are here to help us, after all. I should say that it all sounds fine until the final moments, when, as Chambers is about to board one of the Kanamit spacecraft, Patty finally decodes the rest of the book and screams: “Mr. Chambers, don’t get on that ship! The rest of the book To Serve Man, it’s . . . it’s a cookbook!”

Food for thought. Or maybe, for Wilbur Wilkinson and Karl Hunrath, food for the aliens.