Jacques Vallee - Messengers of Deception - UFO Contacts and Cults (1979)

1. MESSENGERS OF DECEPTION UFO CONTACTS AND CULTS DAILY GRAIL PUBLISHING

2. llur(won.l to the 2008 Edition vlmln�uc • A Dream World Far Off IP1u·t One • The Contacts I. ·-n1e Case Against the Spacecraft 25 l. The Bandwagon from Outer Space 51 .I. The Deception 63 1. Why Do They Keep Staring at the Walls 75l111rt lwo • The Manipulations i. The Political Overtones 99 (, . The Venusian Candidate 115 7. Seraphic Transports and Benevolent Programmers 133 H. The Puppets !57Part Three • The Stratagems 9. A Cow for Notad 181 10. Intelligence Reports 201 II. The Stratagem Theories 213<:ondusion 249Epilogue • A Sociologists Reaction 253Appendix • Statement on the UFO Phenomenon 261Endmatter • Notes, Bibliography, Index 267

3. F O REW O R D TO T HE 2008 E D I TI ON · ··· Q�c0···· ·· ��:J _,_.- ._... EARLY THIRTY YEARS have elapsed since Messengers ofDeceptionN first appeared in the U.S.* Since then, the controversial viewsit expressed have been vindicated and thrown into sharp focus byshocking events that were reported worldwide. In particular, thestark warning I issued in connection with the HIM cult ("It onlycosts your life!") appears as unfortunately prophetic in light ofthe March 1997 collective suicide of Heavens Gate, as the groupbecame known. The mass killings of the adepts of the Order ofthe Solar Temple in Canada, France and Switzerland in 1994illustrated the dangerous form of mind control and the simulationof extraterrestrial contact I first described here in connectionwith the "Adventures of a Grand Master." The cattle mutilationsphenomenon remains unsolved. As for the Raelians, the cult startedby Vorilhon whose early lectures in San Francisco are recalled in thisbook, it has flourished internationally and burst into prominencein recent years with claims of human cloning. Not only have these issues continued to simmer under thesurface while UFO believers basked in their benign expectation ofaliens from the stars, but a veritable mass conversion has taken placeamong the public and the media elite. The belief in extraterrestrialvisitation is practically taken for granted among wide sectionsof the population, and especially among the young. While thehypothesis of alien contact is an exciting one, justified on the basis() Following the 1979 And/Or (Berkeley, California) edition there wasa mass paperback by Bantam (NY) in 1980, a French edition called LaGrande Manipulation from Edirions du Rocher (Paris) in 1983 and anItalian edition entitled Messaggeri di Jllusioni from Sperling & Kupfer(Milan) in 1984. The present text is the third American edition.

4. M E S S E NGERS OF DECEPTIONvzof continuing observations of unidentified flying objects, it carriesthe potential for exploitation and manipulation by deceptive groupswith their own hidden agenda. I believe that UFOs are physically real. They represent a fantastictechnology controlled by an unknown form of consciousness. ButI also believe that it would be dangerous to jump to prematureconclusions about their origin and nature, because the phenomenonserves as the vehicle for images that can be manipulated to promotebelief systems tending to the long-term transformation of humansociety. I have tried to identify some of the manipulators and tohighlight their activities, which range from apparently harmlesshoaxes such as the false professor George Adamskis meetings withVenusian spacemen to bloody expeditions that have littered theAmerican landscape with the carcasses of mutilated animals. I havefound disturbing evidence of dangerous sectarian activities linkedto totalitarian philosophies. The ease with which journalists andeven scientists can be seduced into indiscriminate promotion ofsuch deceptions is staggering. In the context of an academic attitudethat rejects any open investigation of paranormal phenomena, suchfanatical conversions must be expected. For me, that is only onemore reason for an independent thinker to remain vigilant againstfalse ideas and simplistic political notions planted by those I havecalled the "Messengers of Deception."

5. P R O L O G UE Ck:"1J0-:s2l <> A Dream World Far Off Give me the superstitions o a nation, and I care not who makes their f laws, or who writes their songs! Mark Twain Nobody Ever Jumps into the Potomac IGHT THIRTY. THE atmosphere is already warm and humid overE Washington. We dont feel it in the aircraft, but the morninghaze over the Potomac tells the whole story ofwhats awaiting us. Thehuge gray shape of the Pentagon is rising toward us as we turn to landat National Airport. Nine oclock. The taxi drives by the monuments whose names arethose of the countrys past leaders: Jefferson, Lincoln, Washington.The feeling of approaching the worlds power center increases. Sodo the humidity and the heat. Nine thirty. Within a block of the White House, I enter the NewExecutive Office Building, the modern brick structure where seniorofficials work is protected from the heat by thick glass doors. The architecthad the good idea of putting a fountain in the patio. That helps a little.The office of the Presidents Science Adviser is on an upper floor. Ten oclock. I step out of the elevator and a secretary takes myname, checks with the appointment book. The subject of thediscussion: unidentified flying objects.

6. 2 M ESSENGERS OF D E C E P T I O N UFOs: a volatile topic that can be ignited tomorrow by a NewYork Times story on a frustrating chase by military planes in Iranor by a network documentary on the abduction of some fishermanin the South. A topic nobody in this city wants to touch with aten-foot pole. A topic that I am beginning to suspect is as much apuzzle to the military, the intelligence community, and the ScienceAdviser as it is to the public and to the news media. It is amusingto watch how each sector manages to hide its ignorance behind itsown professional rhetoric. The military has a double standard. In public it keeps a stiffupper lip. Whatever they are, say the generals, UFOs cannotpossibly pose a threat to the security of the United States! Whyis it, then, that amazed witnesses continue to report the madscrambling of jet fighters every time a light wanders throughthe sky? None of the regulations that make it a duty for militarypersonnel to report UFOs and a crime to talk about them has beenwithdrawn, even after the closing of the Air Forces Project BlueBook ten years ago. The intelligence community likes to give the impression that itknows all about UFOs but, of course, cannot reveal what it knows.Its job is to pretend that it knows everything. Yet I am beginning tosuspect that the real secret in Washington, the secret that must bekept at all costs, is that the intelligence community knows nothing,although it certainly has files full of tantalizing details nobody hasbeen able to put together yet. The scientific community is far behind the times, fighting rearguard skirmishes in the name of Rationalism. Academic scholarsperiodically rally behind some luminary who has just "discovered"the final, rational explanation, and periodically the explanationhas to be withdrawn under public ridicule. Flying saucers havebeen "explained scientifically" as plasma discharges, swamp gas,status inconsistency, cognitive dissonance, refraction effects, andtemporal lobe epilepsy. But they keep right on flying, under thenoses of the explainers.

7. P(ologue - A Dream World Far Off 3 .r.Typical of the thousands of "close encounter" cases reported in the lastthirty year:s is this sighting i n Quarouble, France, which heralded the majorwave of sightings in Europe in 1954. The witness, railroad employee MariusDeWilde, saw a craft that had landed and two occupants of it. Frenchpolice and Air Force Intelligence regard the object as unidentified. (Photocourtesy of United Press International.) That leaves the UFO buffs, who have been collecting stories forthirty years, concentrating on the kinds of data that fit their theories.And they have been fighting each other in an endless, pointlessconfrontation, not of ideas and theories, but of personalities inegotistical conflict. Some encouraging words by President Carterelectrified these groups when he asked Jody Powell and ScienceAdviser Frank Press to see what could be done. The new directorof NASA was gingerly approached: would the Agency agree to actas a focal point for public inquiries? The Director said he would.What about a project to investigate the current sighrings? NASAwas going to think about it. Seated across the desk from the Science Advisers assistant, Ibegin asking my own questions. Why NASA? I would like to know.

8. 4 M E S S E N G E R S OF D E C E P T IONNASA deals exclusively with space technology. Has the ScienceAdvisers office already established that the UFO phenomenon istechnological in nature, and originates in space? Or is this choicemerely a response to the perceptions of the public and the media? Several serious researchers in this field question the idea thatUFOs are extraterrestrial visitors. So why pick NASA rather thanthe Department of Energy, which could deal better with thephysical effects, or the National Institutes of Health, which arecapable of investigating the physiological responses so prevalentamong witnesses? Dr. Schneider is a long-time professional civil servant. Hisurbane, soft-spoken response brushes the question aside. Inthe mind of the public, the UFO problem has to do with spaceand therefore it is appropriate for NASA to deal with it. Arewe talking primarily about public relations, then, rather thanscience? Before our circumspect "Invisible College" (a network ofscientists who are privately investigating the mystery) invests timeand effort i n presenting our data - probably the most detailedand best-investigated set of UFO cases ever selected - we haveto know these answers. Is the government thinking of starting anew Project Blue Book? A new Condon Report? If so, we wouldcertainly not participate. That would nor leave the Science Adviser without assistance,however. A file of papers on the desk contains letters from UFOgroups, offers from contactees who want to tell the Presidentabout their "Space Brothers," recommendations to set up saucerobservatories equipped with radar and lasers. They have spent lonelynights on hilltops waiting for visitors from the sky. And some havereturned claiming to have met them. Good luck, NASA. Eleven thirty. I leave the New Executive Office Building, callingto mind another conversation, a few months earlier, with a memberof the French Cabinet. The quiet apartment was the setting for aprivate discussion, which began with a review of French researchon the subject, and drifted toward the possible causes of the

9. Prologue - A D r e a m World Far Off 5phenomenon. IfUFOs did not have an extraterrestrial cause, if theywere not space visitors, then what? I suggested that the phenomenon,or at least its social effects, might be closely monitored by a humangroup - not necessarily a government. No analysis of the problemwould be complete if it did not address the possibility that a groupof unknown persons either influences the phenomenon itself or isusing public reaction for its own purposes. Preposterous? My hostdid not seem to think so. Standing by the window my friend looked at the darkeningstreets, then turned around to say, "That possibility does exist. Butwe know what human beings would do with such power. I haveseen the effects of power, believe me, in my years in government.If your hypothesis turns out to be the answer, I will jump into theSeine without waiting for developments." Noon. In the bright sun of Washington, the humid hazy air, Iremember the chill of that conversation in Paris. Did I sense thesame helplessness in the answers I have just heard? No. The Carteradministration is acting as if it is concerned only with responding topublic interest in the subject. NASA will rapidly sense this attitudeand will turn down the assignment. The mood in Washington is farremoved from the reality of a phenomenon which may be scaringfarmers in Iowa right now, or playing with high-performanceaircraft over Japan, Iran, and Spain. Washington is not partial tolong-term analyses. Besides, the Potomac is not the Seine. No oneever jumps from the Key Bridge. The Three Aspects of the UFO ProblemThe topic of unidentified flying objects has always posed a thornyproblem of public policy, but it has always been approachedas a short-term question of public relations. I have followed theapplication of this policy with interest, both in France and in theUnited States. When I first became interested in the sightings

10. 6 MESSENGERS OF DECEPTIONduring the 1954 wave in Europe, the official position was simply todeny the observations. At the time I was a student, had no accessto good information, and could only wonder about governmentattitudes. I became seriously interested in 1961, when I saw Frenchastronomers erase a magnetic tape on which our satellite-trackingteam had recorded eleven data points on an unknown flying objectwhich was not an airplane, a balloon, or a known orbiting craft."People would laugh at us if we reported this!" was the answer Iwas given at the time. Better forget the whole thing. Lets not bringridicule to the observatory. Lets not confess to the public that thereis something we dont know. The main argument against UFOs at the time was that"astronomers dont see anything unexplained." Well, there wewere, a team of professional astronomers, seeing things we couldntexplain. Not only were we denying it, we had destroyed the data!I wanted to know how many of our colleagues were doing thesame thing, how many sightings were swept aside, how many laydormant in scientific or military files. I went through the FrenchAir Force data, and later Major Quintanilla authorized me to studythe cases gathered by the U.S. Air Force. I wrote a couple of bookson the subject to summarize what I had found. There was a realphenomenon there, I concluded. And it might very well originatefrom outer space. The Washington policy at that time was not toridicule the witnesses, but simply to claim that 98 per cent of allsightings had been explained by the Air Force. I n 1967, as the University of Colorado began spending the$512,000 given to Professor Condon by the Pentagon to studyUFOs, my interest had begun to shift. Why is it, I wondered, thatthe "occupants" of UFOs behave so much like the denizens offairy tales and the elves of ancient folklore? Why is the picture wecan form of their world so much closer to the medieval concept ofMagonia, the magical land above the clouds, than to a descriptionof an extraterrestrial planetary environment? And why are UFOs becoming a new religious form? I spent a year researching this

11. Prologue - A D r e a m World F a r Off 7angle, and emerged with a greater appreciation for the psychicaspects of the phenomenon. I could no longer regard the "flyingsaucers" as simply some sort of spacecraft or machine, no matterhow exotic its propulsion. Back to my computer: by then, I had become a computerscientist and was leading a research group working under contractwith the Advanced Research Projects Agency, a project thatbrought me to Washington several times a year_ In my spare time,I pursued my UFO studies, trying to find some pattern in theglobal distribution of sightings. The most clear result was thatthe phenomenon behaved like a conditioning process. The logicof conditioning uses absurdity and confusion to achieve its goalwhile hiding its mechanism. There is a similar structure in theUFO stories. I am beginning to perceive a coherent picture of the "flyingsaucer" phenomenon for the first time, now that I am pursuingthe idea that UFOs may be a control system, and now that I amaware of their link to human consciousness. I still think there is agenuine technology at work here, causing the effects witnesses aredescribing. But I am not ready to jump to the conclusion that it isthe technology of some kind of "spacemen." There are three aspects to the UFO problem. The first aspect is physical. The UFO behaves like a region ofspace, of small dimensions (about 1 0 meters), within which avery large amount of energy is stored. This energy is manifestedby pulsed light phenomena of intense colors, by other forms ofelectromagnetic radiation, and by microwaves that create distortionsof the witnesses sense of reality. The second aspect ispsychological. It is debatable whether anybodyhas seen the actual technology that supports the phenomenon.What is seen, and reported, is an image; that is, the perception ofa UFO by a human witness. Reports of UFOs show all kinds ofpsychophysiological effects on the witnesses: perception distortions,unconscious barriers, and mental blocks. Witnesses also show

12. 8 MESSENGERS OF DECEPTIONevidence o f suggestion and post-hypnotic effects. Exposure to thephenomenon causes visions, hallucinations, physiological effects,and long-term personality changes. The third aspect is social. Belief i n the reality of UFOs isspreading rapidly at all levels of society throughout the world.Books and periodicals on the subject appear at an ever-increasingrate. Documentaries and major films are being made now by youngpeople of the UFO generation (young men and women who wereborn just after World War II and who grew up with flying-saucerstories) who have moved into influential positions in the media.Expectations about life i n the universe have been revolutionized bysuch belief changes i n the public. Political and economic attitudesare changing, too. Many of the themes of yesterdays counterculture can be traced back to the "messages from space" comingfrom UFO contactees of the forties and fifties. 1he experience of a close encounter with a UFO is a shatteringphysical and mental ordeal. The trauma has effects that go farThe most obvious aspect ofthe UFO phenomenon is physical. The cases oftenpresent material traces, burns, depressions, and imprints. In this Canadiancase, near Chapeau, Quebec, an area 27 feet in diameter was scorched inrepeated incidems. (Photo courtesy of United Press International.)

13. Prolo g u e - A D r e a m World F a r Off 9beyond what the witnesses recall consciously. New types ofbehaviorare conditioned, and new types of beliefs are promoted. Thesocial, political, and religious consequences of the experience areenormous if they are considered, not in the days or weeks followingthe sighting, but over the timespan of a generation. Could it be thatsuch effects are actually intended, through some process of socialconditioning? Could it be that both the believers and the skepticsare being manipulated? Is the public being deceived and led tofalse conclusions by someone who is using the UFO witnesses topropagate revolutionary new ideas? The purpose of this book is to explore these questions. In a Paris RestaurantOne day in 1973 two friends met for lunch in a quiet Parisrestaurant. One of them was a journalist with a long-standinginterest in the UFO problem. The other was an intelligence officerwith the French Air Force, who had enthusiastically promised,during a previous conversation, to find out all he could about thetrue state of affairs on the military side. They sat down at a quiettable in a corner, far from curious ears. "Did you get any information? " asked the journalist, ready topull his notepad from his briefcase. "Is the government going todo anything?" The officer took a long time in replying. "You wont like what Ivegot to say." He spoke slowly and with a strange note of hesitancy. "Whats the matter? Is our government hiding terrible secrets?" "I didnt go to our government. They dont know anything. Iwent to my American contacts." He paused. "Human society is apeculiar thing." "I know that. You dont need an American to. . ." "I mean, its a balance, a sort of equilibrium thar can be easilyupset. You see, it rests on a combination of trust and fear. The

14. 10 M E S S E N G E R S OF D E C E P T I O Nmilitary, the government, all of that runs because people knowtheir place i n the world isnt threatened by any drastic changes." "What does this have to do with UFOs?" "Oh, but it does! Dont you see, if we let people believe thatthose things are out there, and we have no explanation for them,the whole structure is in trouble. People will transfer their fear andtheir trust to a different place." "Sort of like a run on the banks?" The question went unanswered as a waiter approached to taketheir order. When his friend had made his choice between theSole Meuniere and the Entrecote, the journalist continued: "So themilitary doesnt want to take any chances, eh?" "Not until they know whats going on. This thing is too big." "Would you say they are covering up, then?" "Thats not the right way to put it," the officer said, when thewaiter had left their table. "There isnt a particular group decidingand enforcing a cover-up. Everybody simply avoids looking at theproblem. Why upset the whole machine?" The journalist settled back in his chair, lacking the satisfactionof the simple conspiracy that he had frankly expected. What he hadreceived was a problem of much more vast and subtle proportions. The World of the ContacteesWhat this French officer didnt realize was that the impact couldnot be avoided indefinitely. UFOs continue to be seen in such largenumbers that the public is forcing scientists and the military toexamine the issue. But other, more subtle things are happening,too. They have to do with those who claim to have received directknowledge from UFOs: the Contactees. Whenever a civilization approaches a dramatic turning point,some symbol or concept arises to crystallize that change. Theshining eagle of the Roman legions, the Templars cross on the sails

15. Prologue · A Dream World F a r Off 11The physical traces left by UFOs have been of frequent concern to the U.S.military. Here investigators from Kirtland Air Force Base in New Mexico aremeasuring the radioactivity at a lan ding site where a bush has been burnedq�ar Socorro in April l964. The man standing at the left is the main witness,patrolman Lonnie Zamora. (Photo courtesy of United Press I nternational.)of the Conqu istadores, have been such symbols, spelling the end ofone world and the dawn of another. For the world of the comingdecades, the key symbol may well be a shining disk from heaven.Many people around us today are preparing to greet it with delight,even if that means falling under the control of forces they do notunderstand. These people are the UFO contactees and the believersin celestial visitation, the followers of the saucer prophets. They canpave the way for dramatic changes. It is a common mistake to assume that contactees are alwaysirresponsible crackpots or elderly mystics. A case in point is ayoung man named Gregory, whom I used to know as a systemsprogrammer with one of ou r lead ing "think tanks.n He quit his jobto form a psychic center. He is now publishing a newsletter devotedto his experiences with higher entities; he believes that, in so doing,he follows the telepathic instructions of a superior force. Some feelthat he has found a new moral framework based on revelation.Others argue that he is the victim of a delusion that could spread

16. 12 M E SSENGERS O F DECEPTIONlike an epidemic. In either case, the implications are serious. It is notbecause of their numbers or because of their leaders thirst for powerthat the followers of such sects will be especially influential. Ourinstitutions are vulnerable to the spreading belief in the irrational.People like Gregory do offer us a new dream, but it is so far fromreality that it could easily turn into a complete fantasy. Here is asample of his writing, of his pseudo-historical "revelations receivedfrom wise beings who fly through outer space: On the eastern shore of the Peaceful Sea, God broughr forth the American Republic . . . For the purpose of assembling the high consciousness required to conceive and establish this new Union, God sent His son Melchizedek, one time Lord of Salem, unto Christopher Columbus . . .Other contactee groups have overt political purposes. The leader ofone such group told me: The Earth is the property of one group of saucers that controls this end of the universe, and they call themselves the Brothers, and they are the ones who brought the Christ on Earth 2000 years ago . . . If we get a little out of control, and maybe Russia would start to throw some missiles at us, from Cuba . . . well, they might step in, if it got too bad, and help us out. They told us they would.This group of contactees is nationally organized as a political party. Before we reject these views as examples of harmless lunacy, weshould observe that people once had the same view of the Churchof Scientology. Indeed, the inventor of Dianetics is said to havepracticed ritual magic with a rocket expert named Jack Parsons,who met in the Mojave Desert in 1945 a "Spiritual Being" whomhe regarded as a Venusian. People also used to reject completelythe beliefs of the Mormon Church, whose founder would today be

17. Prologue - A D r e a m World Far Off 13regarded as a contactee. But how many religious movements startedin the same way? For every individual who is openly identified as a contactee,how many more have received what they regard as a "secretillumination"? It is apparent that the transformation they undergocan strike at any place and at any age. Is it purely random, then, or dothe UFOs select their "victims? Does it spread like an epidemic, ordoes it develop like a psychosis? Although one group of contacteeswas studied in detail by sociologist Leon Festinger (in his book When Prophecy Fails), we do not really know the answers to thesequestions, because too few of the contactees have been carefullyinvestigated. What we do know is that their transformation releasesideas that challenge established structures. The followers of modern UFO cults are often persons who, likeGregory, have become disenchanted with science and technology.Scientific reluctance to consider valid claims of paranormalphenomena is slowly driving many people to accept any claim ofsuperior or mystical contact. The voice of science has lied too often.A large fraction of the public has tuned it out completely. The social sciences have not yet achieved an understanding ofthe process by which new religious experiences arise and new sectsbecome influential churches; also, revolutionary cultural changesoften appear at first (as the UFO sects do today) to be irrational,absurd, and contemptible. There is an historical parallel for thisdisenchantment with rationalism. To the educated disciples ofAristotle and Plato, many religious writings (such as the Apocalypse o St. John) must have looked like laughable tissues of delusions f unworthy of scholarly examination. Aime Michel, the noted French author, has pointed out that none of these brilliant minds speculated for a second that such "lunacy," spreading among their ignorant slaves, might eventually spell the end of the Classical World. In the nineteenth century, the religious establishment laughed when a young man named Joseph Smith followed the orders given to him by an angel oflight named Moroni and founded the Mormon

18. 14 MESSE NGERS OF DECEPTIONChurch. Today we find it easy to laugh at the UFO comactees likeGregory because they are still isolated. We dismiss the phenomenonthat fuels their beliefs as a mental aberration derived from aphysical mirage. Scientists joke about the strange lights reportedby housewives, and refuse to study the genuinely unexplainedphenomena that are contained, for example, in the files of the U.S.Air Force. As for the claims of the contactees who believe they havebeen aboard the "vehicles," the scientists simply know this cannotbe true! By blatantly dismissing these claims, they are ignoringsome of the hard lessons of mans spiritual history. For, in the wordsof sociologists Glock and Stark, "all religious experiences, from thedimmest to the most frenzied, constitute occasions defined by thoseexperiencing them as an encounter between themselves and somesupernatural consciousness." Faced with the new wave of experiences of UFO contact, ourreligions do seem obsolete. Our idea of the church as a socialentity working within rational structures is obviously challengedby the claim of a direct communication with visible beings whoare endowed with supernatural powers. Some modern preachershave already recognized this challenge. Evangelist Billy Graham,for example, has suggested that UFOs may, in fact, be "heavenlyangels"; their occupants, he says, are "astonishingly angel-like insome of their reported appearances." Fundamentalist Presbyterianradio preacher Dr. Carl Mcintire has even organized a "UFOBureau" in Collingswood, New Jersey, to investigate the connectionbetween UFOs and angels. But why restrict our interest to the traditional view of angels? Anequally impressive parallel could be made between UFO occupantsand the popular conception of demons, and indeed sociologistshave pointed out that "the same elements are involved in diaboliccontacts as in the divine encounters of increasing intimacy withwhat is defined as a supernatural consciousness."3 There are evensome religious thinkers who see the sinister hand of Satan in themore bizarre UFO cases.

19. Prologue - A Dream World F a r Off 15 The UFO Counter-CultureWho is likely to be the underdog in the conflict between the oldmyths of rationalism and the new myths of revelation from space?I am afraid human reason has much to lose. The history of manis not one of smooth, continuous development_ Rationalism, onwhich modern scientific thought is based, had to fight long andhard to establish itself. Once in power, however, it has fallen intocomplacency, has become unwilling to recognize the occurrence ofthe irrational. I think Aime Michel is correct when he draws ourattention to early confrontations of this kind. Western culture wentthrough such a confrontation when the fanatics of the early Churchdestroyed the Greek scientific establishment: The conversion which humanity underwent in antiquity was prepared by the collapse of the ancient religion, began in the middle of the Hellenistic period, and went on with ever greater strength under the Empire, until it was perfected in the victory of Christianity and the passing of the ancient culture into the Middle Ages,writes M. P. Nilsson in his book Greek Piety4 What he describesis the catastrophe that befell the ancient world, with its advancedknowledge of astronomy, of geometry, of mechanics, and ofphilosophy. During this grave crisis, the Greek rationalists proved tobe incapable of recognizing the cultural changes around them andfell into a thousand-year darkness. What form did the conflict take? It was a conversion from rationalism to mysticism: from the clear, logical lines of Greek thought to faith in the wonderful, supernatural, and supersensuous; from love of the beauty of the world and the body to flight from the world and condemnation of all that was corporeal.

20. 16 MESSENGERS OF D E C E P T I O NThe real counter-culture of today is not one of new lif estyles andradical attitudes. The counter-culture of UFO contact is moredurable, more subtle, because it is not tied to a particular socialgroup or age bracket. If the Science Adviser to the President ever decides to ponderseriously the policy questions posed by the UFO phenomenon,he might begin with the observation that the modern world facesspiritual bankruptcy because of its failure to deal with the irrational.What the barbarians did to the works of Plato and Aristotle, somenew cults may very well do to modern science and philosophy.Aime Michel once wrote to me in a depressed mood: All of this has happened before, complete with occupation of scientific citadels by "contactees" and with gradual replacement of experimental doubt by faith and superstition. What strikes me most is the contempt in which the intellectuals of the time held their enemies. They found themselves killed or at least thrown out into the street before they could realize what was going on. The whole idea [of blind faith] had seemed so ridiculous to them that they had not even bothered to seek information about it.A young man who has spent months on the trail of contactee cultleaders "Bo and Peep" recently sent me a pathetic tape. His appealwas direct and profound: I am confused now. I go through periods of emotional agitation. I represent a person who is going through what normal people call a depression, or a difficult period. But I have gone through these difficult periods enough times so that now its quite creative. I know Im confused. Im really asking you for help. After two weeks with these girls on this Bo and Peep thing, I got

21. Prologue - A Dream World F a r Off 17 to a place where I knew that with my conscious mind I couldnt figure it out. I got as subtle as I believe my mind is capable of getting. I had to let go, give up believing that I could know. So I was driven to other faculties. Faith is one of them. I do have faith in the process, in the Gods, beings more evolved than us, in flying saucers or not. And we pray to them in our language, we pray for specific things.The cult this young man has joined will be described in more detailin Chapter 4. I hope that he will find in this book some answersto his tragic puzzlement. His adventure makes obvious the depthof the emotions that the UFO counter-culture can generate andchannel. This "counter-culture" of modern contactees comes at atime when science has already shut itself off from the common man.At the same time, science has the power to determine the futureof humanity. It can destroy our planet. For all practical purposes,there is no longer any meaningful communication between theman in the street and the frontiers of research where such poweris generated and controlled. "Expert opinion" on any subject ofpolicy - from energy supply to cloning, from the ban of the SSTto the censorship of TV violence - has become a game in whichthe answers are constantly revised, not to reflect new knowledge,bur to follow the trends of academic fashion. The language of eachdiscipline has become an esoteric jargon that cannot be penetratedeven by someone with an advanced education in another field. Scientists are often socially and geographically isolated. This isolation of knowledge is matched by the failure of other social structures. Here, too, the parallel with ancient Greece is interesting. In Five Stages ofGreek Religion, Gilbert Murray mentions that in Greece there was gradual awareness of two failures: . . . the foilure o human government, even when backed by f the power of Rome or the wealth of Egypt, to achieve a good life for man; and the foilure o the great propaganda f

22. 18 M ES S E N G E R S OF D E C E PTION of Hellenism, in which the long-drawn effort of Greece to educate a corrupt and barbaric world seemed only to lead to the corruption and barbarization of the very ideals which it sought to spread.Under these conditions - so similar to those of the Western worldtoday, in which human government is regarded with suspicion andin which education of the "emerging nations" by the affluent onesis nonexistent - what did the Greeks do? This sense of failure, this progressive loss of hope in the world, in sober calculation, and in organized human effort, threw the Greek back upon his own soul, upon the pursuit of personal holiness, upon emotions, mysteries, and revelations, upon the comparative neglect ofthis transitory and imperfect world for the sake of some dream world fur off.A dream worldfor off that is exactly what the UFO contactees areoffering us when they invite us to step into a pleasant mirage, to« • " reprogram our consciOusness. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, a group leaderattempting to start a new cult based on revelation was likely tobe opposed by the combined powers of church and state. Moderncontact cults find fewer obstacles. The intolerance that destroyedearly heresies has gone out of fashion in our society. A morehumane attitude prevails toward groups with extreme beliefs. Themedia seek colorful theories to feed the publics expectations ofmiraculous "breakthroughs." While doing research into the theories of occult groups inCalifornia (some of which I joined as a "participant-observer" tolearn their views about UFOs), I did not find a single group thathad a consistent belief system, but neither did I find one that didnot claim to have had some form of "contact" with an alien formof intelligence. I am not at the moment a member of any such

23. Prologue - A Dream World Far Off 19group or sect, but I understand one thing: the idea of contact withso-called "higher" forms of consciousness has social and politicalimplications that go far beyond its appearance of being a simplescientific speculation. The public is already cynical about the roles and values ofgovernment, science, and the military establishment. The merestatement that unknown objects are penetrating our atmosphereand maneuvering at will would further erode the peoples confidencein all political structures. It would generate fear in many sectors.Consequently, governments in every country are trying to avoidsuch potential effi:cts by censoring information about unexplainedphenomena, as the discussion in the Paris restaurant quoted earlierindicates. But I doubt that censorship can long be effective in theface of continued sightings by the public. I think that UFOs represent an objective reality that we canstudy only by revolutionizing existing disciplines. Confrontingthe irrational means promoting pioneer research in physics andbiology. We also need to begin a kind of research that will takeUFO data as empirical observations and try to use them to initiatean interaction with the phenomenon itself. And we should do thisnow, before the new myth is created, before the myth o extraterrestrial frevelation replaces belie in the rational acquisition o knowledge. f f Sooner or later, the emotions stored in the UFO phenomenon willbe released. What kind of social reaction will appear then? There maybe new churches, new political movements. Each sector ofsociety willreact in its own way. The temptation will be great for our technocratsto respond by building giant facilities to eavesdrop on the universe,like the multi-billion-dollar projects already proposed by some radioastronomers. Although these projects would do nothing to explain theobservations of unusual objects on Earth, they might deflect some ofthe public pressure the observations are creating. Such projects mightbe an astute political move to prepare the public for other thingsto come, a wise form of life insurance for rationalists attempting topreserve their own power. But they could never solve the spiritual

24. 20 M E SSENGERS OF DECEPTIONproblem raised by the idea of contact. The real consequences will bemuch more complex, and will go much deeper. Ipropose: that the UFO we see is, amongother things, a device whichcreates a distortion o the witnesss reality; that it does so for a pur f pose,which is to pro ject images or fabricated scenes designed to change ourbeliefsystems; and that the technology we observe is only the incidentalsupportfor a worldwide enter prise o "subliminal seduction. " f Have we allowed our need for rationalism to become so muchlike a dogma that it cannot afford the open discussion of suchpossibilities? Evidently. The idea of contact with "alien" intelligenceshas acquired an explosive quality that goes far beyond the ludicrousappearance of a few fanatical statements by isolated believers. But itmust be faced - precisely because it is so potentially dangerous. Why UFOs Are ImportantUFOs are extremely important to contemporary civilization becauseirrational forces are an integral part of the nature of man. Theseforces can be recognized; once they are recognized they can benurtured and used. The subtle power of groups like the contacteeslies in the unwillingness of existing structures to recognize thereality of new phenomena and the need for change. This failuremakes it necessary for each individual to deal with the challengeon his own spiritual level. I believe there is a machinery o mass manipulation behind the fUFO phenomenon. It aims at social and political goals by divertingattention from some human problems and by providing a potentialrelease for tensions caused by others. The contactees are a part ofthat machinery. 7hey are helping to create a new form o belief an fexpectation ofactual contact among large parts ofthe public. I n turnthis expectation makes millions of people hope for the imminentrealization of that age-old dream: salvation from above, surrenderto the greater power of some wise navigators of the cosmos.

25. Prologue - A D r e a m World Far Off 21 With the release of popular UFO movies, many people whoi>reviously were skeptics have begun to jump on this bandwagon!rom outer space. I wish them bon voyage. However, if you take1 he trouble to join me in the analysis of the modern UFO myth,you will see human beings under the control of a strange force1 h3t is bending them in absurd ways, forcing them to play a rolein a bizarre game of deception. This role may be very important iflhanging social conditions make it desirable to focus the attentionof the public on the distant stars while obsolete human institutionsare wiped out and rebuilt in new ways. Are the manipulators, in1 he final analysis, nothing more than a group of humans who havemastered a very advanced form of power? Let me summarize my conclusions thus far. UFOs are real. Theyare physical devices used to affect human consciousness. They maynot be from outer space. Their purpose may be to achieve socialchanges on this planet, through a belief system that uses systematicmanipulation of witnesses and contactees; covert use of varioussects and cults; control of the channels through which the alleged"space messages" can make an impact on the public. Part One of this book will assemble the arguments against theidea that UFOs come from outer space. It will describe what thecontactees are actually experiencing,: confusion, helplessness, andoften despair. Part Two will expand the discussion to a subjectthat is shunned by all UFO researchers - politics. For if UFOsmake an impact on our social reality, they are bound to changeour political realities as well. This discussion will lead to a new"model" of what is happening, a model in which UFOs appearagainst the background of a worldwide manipulation operation.Part Three will show the brutal consequences of this model: itmay add apprehension to disappointment as we suggest thatthe mutilations of animals that are taking place throughout theWestern states are part of the same manipulation. A friend who read this book in manuscript advised me notto publish it: "Thats not what America wants to hear," he said.

26. 22 M E S S E N G E R S OF D E C E P T I O NAmerica wants a big UFO that flies down from heaven, as in CloseEncounters o the Ihird Kind, filled with new hopes for mankind; fAmerica wants a shiny spacecraft to replace the deflated balloonof its religious values. If UFOs are connected with unexplainedmutilation of cattle and with behavior modification on a grandscale, America doesnt want to know about it." Even the sensational National Enquirer is of the same opinion.The panel of investigators which the magazine maintains to reviewUFO cases - a committee on which leading civilian research groupsare represented - has decided that the link between UFOs and themutilators was an idea whose time had not yet come. All the UFOgroups have avoided the issue. I am of a different opinion. The public is equally impatient withthe believers rhetoric and with the official denials. It has now heardboth sides and suspects that both sides are lying. It is time, perhaps,ro take a long look at the facts.

27. PA R T IThe Contacts

28. There is in many ofus, obviously, a dee p-seated desire to assentto extraterrestrial forces-to be embraced by them, overwhelmedby them, and ifpossible deprived by them o our own weary fresponsibility for ourselves. "Hiccups from Outer Space":Russell Davies, reviewing Close Encounters o the 7hird Kind, f in 7he Observer, March 1 9, 1978

29. ONE --�e:ze-/"" "%�) " The Case Against the Spacecraft People wonder ifthey looked like an outer-space deal. I told them I didnt know what an outer-space deal" looked like, but I do know this was made in America, I am sure. It had a plain old G. I in it, I know that much. I would know the man ifI saw him in Chicago tomorrow. What gets me is that ifthey are supposed to be such secrets, why do they put themselves in a compromising situation? Being near a highway - he did not have to be there; there wasnt any point in being there. An aircraft instructor, 1966 (authors follow-up to an Air Force investigation) Mississippi, who has been subjected to lieA FISHERMAN FROM detector tests six times, faces the nation on prime-time TV.Seated between Dr. Carl Sagan and an astronaut, he describes thetwo robots who came down to take him into the UFO. There was abig machine with an eye, and it examined him. Ufological expertsacross America pull out their yellow pads and consult their data bases.The fisherman has been hypnotized by an engineer who learned thetechnique in his spare time and who assures us that the experiencewas real. A UFO "expert," having interviewed the witness in a roomfull of screaming reporters, has seen the truthfulness of his reactionsby the light of their flashbulbs. This is what America is being told- and it happens to be what America wants to hear. This man, we are asked to believe, is adding to the knowledgewe have of other worlds. The ufologists are cross-indexing his every

30. 26 M E S S E N G E RS O F D E C E P T I O Nsentence, adding final touches to the consistent picture they arepainting of extraterrestrial life. In their view there is no room fordoubt: this fisherman seated beside Dr. Sagan, now making smalltalk with the astronaut (who, by the way, may have seen a UFO inspace), has obviously observed the landing of a spacecraft, and hasbeen abducted by its robot occupants. The time has come to challenge this statement. I do not need alie-detector test to know the witness is describing what he saw. ButI dont buy the story that he saw a spacecraft from another planet. The Spacecraft TheoryThe study of UFOs is very much like American politics in onerespect: there are only two parties you can join. In politics, youcan be only a Democrat or a Republican. In ufology, either youdont believe in UFOs at all, or you believe they are spacecraft fromanother planet. But are these necessarily the only two possibilities?I f UFOs are real, is it obvious they are spacecraft? For many years the best cases of unexplained sightings were ofdisks that appeared to be metallic, of large size, and capable offantastic acceleration. They frequently disappeared by going straightup out of the witness view, suggesting that they were going "home"to another planet. Their occupants were wearing diving suits andwalked awkwardly. The French press of 1954, for instance, was fullof reports about "the robots" and "the Martians." The consensusamong UFO researchers in the 60s was that we were probablydealing with space visitors. The idea, at the time, was revolutionary.Scientists like Carl Sagan pointed out that space visitations, if theyoccurred at all, would be very rare. Other scientists, like DonaldMenzel, rejected the whole idea, because even the nearest starsare too far away for interstellar travel to be feasible, even at highspeeds. All such arguments are valid only if one assumes that"their" science has not superseded in any fundamental way the

31. The Case A g a i n s t t h e Spacecraft 27Figure_ 1.1 Pascagoula, Mississippi: Sh ipyard worker Charlie Hicksondescribes the October night in 1973 when, he says; an unidentified flyingobject landed in the old Schaupeter shipyard. Hickson claims three"things" picked him and young Calvin Parker up, and carried themaboard the craft, where they were dosely examined. (Phoro courtesy ofUnited Press International.)limitations of our own science, that "they" have found no meansof propagating information faster than the speed of light, and areusing the same concept of space-time as we are. I n fact, we canmake no such assu mption about a space civilization. It could havehad many centuries of development beyond our own science. The real question is, does the "spacecraft" hypothesis explainto our satisfaction the facts of the UFO phenomenon as we knowthem today? The answer is a definite and resounding NO. 1becontactees and their friends will challenge this answer in manyways: "What about the messages we are receiving throughchannels and through automatic writing, assuring us thatthe vehicles come from other worlds? What about our ownobservations in deserts and remote areas?" And what about the evidence of the "star map" seen by contacteeBetty H i l l aboard the UFO which abducted her? And, finally, what

32. 28 M E S S E N G E R S OF D E C E P T IONabout the hundreds of reports of landings that have been madearound the entire world? We need to examine closely the so-called"evidence," to decide whether or not it contributes anything to the" , spacecraft theory. There Are Too Many LandingsThe first argument against the idea of flying saucers as spacecraftlies, oddly enough, in the large number of verified, unexplainedsightings. In my own files I currently have approximately 2,000cases of close encounters from every country on Earth, many ofthem involving occupants of various sizes and shapes. It may seemthat 2,000 cases in some 20 years is not a very large number, butwe are talking only about the cases that were actually reported. Itis possible to calculate how many landings this represents if, as thecontactees claim, UFOs are spacecraft whose occupants happenedto be surprised by witnesses who wandered onto the scene as thecraft was being repaired or as the crew was conducting someexploration of our planet. To make this estimation we must rakeinto account three factors: the time of the sighting, the probabilitythat it will be reported, and the place of the event. Most landings are reported to take place after 6:00 p.m. Thefrequency distributions that my computer studies have disclosedfor every continent show this activity peaking at about 10:30 p.m.,decreasing sharply after that time, and increasing again just before dawn.There are few reports after 6:00 a.m. What could this mean? That theactivity of the objects is nocturnal by nature and by choice. Then whydo the reports decrease in frequency around midnight? Simply becausepeople go to bed: after 10:30 p.m. the number of potential witnessesis severely reduced. Then let us ask the question: how many reportswould we have if people did not go to bed but stayed outside to watchthese so-called "spacecraft?" The answer is, about 30,000. We wouldhave to multiply the number of cases by a factor of 15.

33. The Case A g a i n s t t h e Spacecraft 29 Now, this last figure does not begin to approximate the actual1111mber of events, because we know from many independent studies1 hat only one case in ten ever gets reported. Then we should have " " 30,000, but 300,000 cases in our files! But this still isnt thewhole story: most landings occur in unpopulated areas, away fromdwellings. If the Earths population were distributed evenly insteadof being concentrated in city areas, how many reports would wehave? Again, taking a conservative multiplying factor of ten leads" to the staggering conclusion that the UFOs, if they are spacecraftcngaged in a general survey ofour planet, must have landed here noflower than three million times in two decades! This is one of the little-recognized facts of the UFO problem1 hat any theory has yet to explain. The theory of random visitationdoes not explain it. Either the UFOs select their witnesses, or theyare something entirely different from space vehicles. In either case,their appearances are staged! The Strange Physics of the UFOs·fhe following unexplained sightings have been extracted fromdozens of similar cases in my files. March 1954, SantaMaria, Brazil. A man observed two occupantsof a football-shaped craft who spoke in a strange language. Thecraft vanished silently and instantly. june 1962, Verona, Italy. Following a UFO observation, awoman was awakened by a feeling of intense cold and saw a beingwith a bald head near the house. She called other witnesses, and allsaw the apparition shrink and vanish on the spot "like a TV imagewhen the set is turned off." October 1963, Whidbey Island, Washington State. A middleaged woman saw a strange craft with three figures inside. Ittilted, partially sank into the ground, grew in size, and departedwith a flash.

34. 30 MESSENGERS OF DECEPTION November 1968, France. A prominent doctor saw two large diskshaped objects merge into one, and the single object send a beam oflight in his direction. It vanished with a sort of explosion, leaving acloud that dissipated slowly. Consider what these sightings have in common. In each case theso-called "spacecraft" did not disappear by moving away, even athigh speed. It simply vanished on the spot, or it slowly faded awaylike the Cheshire cat, sometimes leaving behind a whitish cloud,sometimes also producing the sound of an explosion. In other cases,UFOs have been reported to enter the ground. I hardly need to point out that this behavior is contrary to whatphysical objects do, and quite impossible to duplicate with ourcurrent spacecraft technology. It is the behavior of an image, ora holographic projection. Yet at other times the objects have leftmaterial traces. There may be a machine involved, but a machinethat remains out of view of the witnesses, who see only what it isprojecting. When we go to the movies, we look at the objects andthe people on the screen; we do not stare at the projector. Soundsand voices, too, come to us from the screen, not from the directionof the tape machine. Besides, a single physical machine (a camera)can trigger millions of similar experiences in the people who watchthe resulting film projection. UFO events could be staged the sameway, to suggest to us an impending intervention from outer space. Most witnesses are not primarily reporting an object or acraft; they are reporting a light, a massive, multicolored, intense,pulsating light, a playful, fascinating, impressive, hypnotic light,which is accompanied by strange sounds. How much do we know from the available scientific literature aboutthe effects of strong, pulsed, colored lights and other electromagnetic radiations? Pitifully little. Until this area is fully explored, we willhave to think about the "physics" of UFOs mainly in terms of thewitnesss perceptions, not in terms of spacecraft propulsion.

35. The C a s e A g a i n s t t h e Spacecraft 31 The UFO Creatures( :outactees tell us they have met the denizens of other planers.In some cases the beings turned out to be robots or dwarfs indIving suits, but in most incidents they were humanoid, and theywuld breathe our air. They walked normally on our planet. I n• va riety of sightings they were accompanied by human beings.( kcasionally, the occupants were completely human and spokehuman languages. However, visitors from outer space would not necessarily beIutman in shape. They would certainly not breathe our air (forlear of viruses). They might have serious problems with theFa rths gravity. You can push these objections aside, and assume that thevisitors are advanced enough in genetic manipulation to have"grown" humanoid pilots for their spacecraft. Perhaps they haveeven kidnapped humans to breed space children destined to becomesaucer-crew members. But even these outlandish assumptions failto explain the facts. Temple, Oklahoma, March 23, 1966. An instructor in aircraftelectronics at Sheppard Air Force Base is driving to work at 5:00 a.m.on Route 65 and approaches the intersection with Highway 70. "One mile before the intersection I saw a very bright light a mile or so to my right, and I supposed it was a truck having trouble on the highway. I went on to turn west on Highway 70. I went a quarter of a mile or so, and changed my mind and thought that it was a house that was being moved down the highway in the early morning hours." "Did you seem to be getting closer to it all the time?" "Yes, sir. It was parked on the highway and I got within a hundred yards of it and stopped, got out of the car, and

36. 32 M E SSENGERS OF DECEPTION started trotting towards the object, leaving the car lights on and my engine running. I got about fifteen steps or so, and I happened to think I had a Kodak on the front seat, and I would like to get a picture. I hesitated just a second, and while I did, why, this man that was dressed in military fatigues, which I thought was a master sergeant . . . this insignia was on his right arm, and he had a kind of cap with a bill turned up, weighed approximately 180 pounds and about 59" . . . " "He looked perfectly ordinary?" "Oh, yes, he was j ust a plain old G.!. mechanic . . . or a crew chief or whatever he might happen to be on that crew. He had a flashlight in his hand, and he was almost kneeling on his right knee, with his left hand touching the bottom of the fuselage."2The object looked like an aluminum airliner with no wings or tail,and with no seams along the fuselage. It lifted up vertically forabout fifty f eet, and headed southeast almost straight backward,off by about ten degrees, at a speed estimated to be about 720mph, judging by the barns it illuminated along its path across thevalley. It was the size of a cargo plane, but had no visible meansof propulsion. The witness was grilled by a roomful of officers atthe Air Force base. A truck driver down the road had observed thesame object. Whoever he was, the man in the baseball cap was no interplanetaryexplorer. Whatever they are, the occupants are not genuineextraterrestrials. This leaves us with few alternatives. Either they areimages created within the brains of the witnesses, possibly by remotestimulation of the visual cortex (this would explain why contacteesBetty and Barney Hill disagreed on several details of the occupantsappearance), or they are characters in a staged occurrence, actors in

37. T h e Case A g a i n s t t h e S p a c e c r a f t 3311 deception operation carefully borrowing its concepts from basicl u 1 1nan archetypes in order to force a global behavioral change. Contactee Experiences Can Be Induced( lne day in 1976 I went on a desert expedition in an attempt to verify�I atements received by automatic writing, a form of trance in which1 he subject is not aware ofwhat his hand is writing, and is apparentlynnder the control of an outside entity. Although our search that daywas negative, it is worth telling because it shows an element of the111a nipulation that is rarely discussed by the participants: it showshow easy it is to induce contactee" experiences. Deserts have always exerted a peculiar fascination on thehnman mind. As we were driving along the Garlock fault in thef(Jta-wheel-drive Toyota, we passed small ranches, ruins, forgotten111ines, twisted tracks that indicated the power of this dream:hundreds, thousands of men and women had brought to thisdesert the strength of their despair, and in the terrible heat they hadhuilt, dug, planted, and carved an environment for other humans.Miraculously, some of their endeavors had even survived: downi n the valley we saw vast fields of alfalfa being irrigated by strongwater sprayers. Go and lind crystal, but no machines, just pure crystal. Take crystal to valley, point toward the sun, hold your mind still and wait. No matter how many of you. The force is strong . . . dont lose control. Only with thought can you return. You will see the old way.We had decided to follow these instructions to the letter and seewhat would happen. The man who had "channeled" them waswith us. He had already made several trips into the desert withoutfinding anything. He sent me a copy of the message transcript,

38. 34 MESSENGERS O F DECEPTIONand I had brought four good samples of quartz to our meetingplace in Burbank. Retrieve pure crystal and use this as instructed. Not a game but serious method for moving time block aside. This is absolutely necessary if we are to communicate.The messages were supposed to come from conscious beings whotraveled through time. There were certain places on Earth, theyclaimed, which could serve as doors to other physical planes. Theyused these places in their own travels. The purpose of the crystalwas to see through the time block: "We can maneuver through theblock to the various nodes." As the Toyota left the paved road and headed up the canyonpast the old mines, I was reading the transcript again: You must strive to prepare a small group of people who can work in the realm of the incomprehensible,said the instructions, and our guide had done just that. At a turnin the road we stopped, raising a cloud of dust from the scorchedground. As it settled we met six men who had driven earlier fromLos Angeles with sound equipment and cameras. The days of UFOinvestigation on a bicycle were gone, I noticed. The team assembledhere had three powerful trucks equipped with four-wheel drive.With our electronic equipment and communication gear, we lookedmore like an Army strike team than like a group of researcherstrying to verify some elusive psychic data. At last we neared theplace indicated by the transcript. We were within two miles of thepoint it called "the node." We found nothing that day, although we climbed over hillsand rocks, peered into old mine shafts, and observed many tracksin the desert. Everything was alive here. There was no peace.Some of the mines we came upon were obviously still in use.

39. The Case A g a i n s t t h e Spacecraft 35Uott ndaries were marked with white paint. Twice we saw a cartlriving in the distance. I took pictures with and without the crystal at severalp la ces that resembled the description of the "node" given i n the1 1 a nscript. I got only pictures of the blurred landscape with its1 wisted bushes and rock piles, but I came close to experiencing1 he feeling of anticipation and excitement that gets hundredsuf people to drive out into the hills and the desert in search of.tlien truths. Our expedition was not without its minor mystery. Drivinghigher into the hills overlooking Garlock, we found a mine<"I! trance sheltered from the great desert wind. There we discussed1 he possible meaning of all this, and the remote chance that themessage might come from some real alien source. The most likely(..X planation, of course, was that it simply came from our guidesunconscious; most automatic writing can be shown to have apurely psychological explanation. At that moment there was thesharp sound of a minor explosion behind me, like the poppingof a flash bulb being crushed. There were only two of us in theentrance to the mine at that moment, and nothing was foundthat could explain the noise. As a mystery it did represent quitean anticlimax after hours of climbing and driving and pickingup rocks and scrutinizing the sky and the barren hillsides.But I could understand how the will to believe could turn thesmallest incident into a sign leading to other signs and feeding theimagination until it constructed vast space-operas. I had a more mundane reason for going into the desert beyondMojave with my camera: someone had sent me a manuscriptclaiming that he often caught UFOs on infrared film in the desertskies. The photographs I took to try to duplicate this effect didshow some dark spots, but they were quickly explained as being aresult of the developing process. Perhaps there are flying saucersthat hover beyond the hills where old mines are. Perhaps they areonly visible in the infrared range. Perhaps there are time-folds and

40. 36 M E S S E N G E R S OF DECEPTIONsecret doors on the Earth that allow strange beings to cross overthe dimensions, but I did not find any. What I did find was the power of human imagination. In suchisolated, unfamiliar places, it doesnt take much to create mystery,and the slightest influence will amplify it. Bringing scientificequipment (such as cameras, rape recorders, binoculars, andradios) will only create opportunity for peculiar effects. And themore people in the group, the easier it will be to give the strengthof reality to a faint impression of mystery and danger. We droveback to Los Angeles in a sober frame of mind. If UFO phenomenacontinue to be observed in that area, there will be no lack ofbelievers. Here again there is an opportunity for a new mythologyto arise. I find another example of it in the remarkable story of BettyHill, who thinks she has located the origin of flying saucers, andhas convinced several scientists that they came from outer space. A Star Map to NowhereMany UFO investigators have become very excited in recentyears because a witness of obvious sincerity, Mrs. Betty Hill,had described what was believed to be the star map used by ourmysterious visitors. These investigators are convinced that the mapshe saw inside the "flying saucer" had guided the pilots to our solarsystem. This "proves," they argue, that we are in fact being visitedby a race of space explorers. I claim that it proves nothing of the kind. Bettys drawing is amap to nowhere. If there is some intelligence involved, Bettys mapis another deliberate attempt to lead us astray. It is on September 19, 1961, in the White Mountains area ofNew Hampshire, that Betty and Barney Hill meet their flyingsaucer. At first it looks like a star. They keep driving on the lonelyroad, observing the object. It comes closer and looks like a disk.

41. The Case Agai n S £ t h e Spacecraft 37 . � · -- . . A? i1 . > :�- . . >Figure 1.2. During a field trip 111 the Mojave Desert, the authorphotographed this apparent "UFO formation" using infrared film. The"UFOs" are simply artifacts of the film-development process.

42. 38 MESSENGERS OF DECEPTIONBarney stops the car, gets his binoculars. The object has a largecurved window, and behind that window, humanoids are lookingat him. Barney rushes back to the car, frightened, and drives away. Afew miles down the road the middle-aged couple loses all awarenessof their actions. They next remember driving past Ashland . . . sixtymiles to the south! The story of their nightmares and the hypnosis they underwenthas been told many times. A psychiatrist took Betty and Barneyback to the instant of the incident by using regressive hypnosis, andthey both described a scene they could not remember consciously:the car was stopped; eerie dwarf-like men in black uniforms tookcontrol of them; and they were taken inside the flying saucer f a ormedical examination. Barney Hill is dead now. He suffered a cerebral hemorrhage at46. Betty has become a UFO celebrity and a rallying point for thebelievers in extraterrestrial visitation. She is often heard on talk showsand seen on television. She has done more than any other UFOwitness in the last ten years to spread among the American public abelief in space visitors. Several uf ologists have now claimed that thehome base of these visitors has been identified: they come from aplanet circling a star in the southern constellation Reticulus! This is by no means the first time that the supposed origin of"flying saucers" has been revealed, either by the ufonauts themselvesor by deduction from the words of the witnesses. I n each case thewitness seems genuinely sincere and believes in the "revelations."But in each case these "revelations" contradict what all the othercontactees are saying! The history of such identification goes back to the days of the 1897 airship, whose occupants invited witnesses to come with themto "a place where it doesnt rain." On one occasion, asked where theywere from, the strange pilots replied: "Were from ANYWHERE,but we shall be in Cuba tomorrow!" On July 23, 1947, near Pitanga, Brazil, a group of surveyors sawa disk-shaped craft land near them. One of them, Jose G. Higgins,

43. The Case Against t he S p a c e c r aft 39•w 1 h ret beings in shiny clothes and translucent suits emerge fromlllf "llttr. They were two meters tall, had oversized bald heads,hliMr rollnd eyes, no eyelashes or eyebrows, and a metal box on theirIN• h I hey drew the solar system for the benefit of the witness andpuintPd to Uranus as if to indicate they came from there. In 1952, a man named Truman Bethurum met space beingswho claimed they originated from Clarion, a planet hidden from Us by the Sun! I n a radio interview and in conversations with me, a contactee named "jim" has identified the home base of the saucers as Orion: I he entities of light that appeared in energy form said they were from the constellation we call Orion, and they were here to prepare us to interconnect with the next level of 11 niversal intelligence.I )" November 2, 1966, a salesman named Darenberger saw adark object ahead of him on the road as he was driving home to1.11 kcrsburg, West Virginia. A man of dark complexion came outol 1 he strange flying machine and approached him. The man wastl ll·ssed in a blue shirt and blue trousers, and gave the witness amessage saying he came from another world called Lanulos. On September 4, 1967, in Latin America, a police officer namedAndrade saw a dwarf wearing silver coveralls near a hovering disk.l ie pointed his machine gun at the creature, but a voice came from1 he object and ordered him not to use the weapon. The dwarf then" tempted to convince Andrade to come to his world, which was"very distant and much larger than the Earth, with many advantagesli>r Earthlings." Let us not forget the UMMO affair, which I described in an earlierhook, The Invisible College. A complex series of messages allegedlyroming from a "Cosmic Federation of Planets" has been received bypeople in Spain and in France. These messages from UMMO claimto give full details on the origin and civilization of our visitors:

44. 40 M E S S E N G E R S OF D E C E P T I O N We wish to inform planet Earth of our origin and of the purpose of our visit to you. We come from UMMO, a planet that rotates around the star IUMMA, recorded on your Earth under the designation Wolf 424.The mysterious beings even provided a map ofUMMO and detailsof its atmospheric composition! Finally, Uri Geller has stated that his powers come from a formof consciousness emanating from "Hoova," and Spanish contacreeJacques Bordas believes that the strange being he saw was from Titan. Thus we have at least nine different "revelations" of thesaucers point of origin! An Ohio schoolteacher named Marjorie Fish has now addedanother chapter to this great quest by constructing a model ofknownsunlike stars and matching it to a map that Betty Hill saw insidethe flying saucer. It is this model that indicates to many authoritiesamong the UFO believers - men like Stanton Friedman and DaveSaunders - that the saucer which abducted the Hills hailed fromZeta Reticuli. Marjorie Fish visited Betty in 1969 to get more information aboutthe map. Betty told her that she drew the map under post-hypnoticsuggestion in 1964. She remembered it as a flat, thin display givingan impression of depth. Since she didnt move while viewing it, shecouldnt tell whether or not it was truly three-dimensional or justflat like a television screen. It was about three feet by two feet andshowed many stars, of which she remembered only the prominentones, connected by lines. She also recalled a small triangle to the left.(See Figure !.3A.) Ms. Fish investigated this pattern by compiling a list of all theknown stars within 55 light years of the Sun that are good candidatesfor supporting life, according to currently accepted cosmologicaltheory. These are stars that are nor too hot or too cold, that do not varyin brightness, and that rotate slowly, the slow rotation being necessaryif the stars are to have planets around them. There are 46 such stars.

45. The Case A g a i n s t the S pacecraft 41 Ma rjorie Fish went on to build models of the positions ofthr.r >tars by using beads dangling on threads and looked for"•tt•pidous alignments." Finally she exhibited a configuration of It• ·" :m that was very similar to the Hill map when seen from al"llkttlar viewing angle. An astronomy professor at Ohio State,Wolt,·r Mitchell, has recreated the model by using a computer andIto.• >tated that he was " impressed." David Saunders, a psychologistli u·mc rly on the staff of the Condon Committee, now working forM:tt hematica, Inc., in New Jersey, added: "I can find no majorpoint to quibble with in Marjorie Fishs interpretation of the BettyI I ill map." In many lectures around the country, Stanton Friedman"till others have shown slides of the model and the original map,.oml have impressed audiences with the resemblance, implying that I I Os were real spacecraft originating on Zeta Reticuli. People Ihave spoken to after such lectures came away with the feeling that1 he whole UFO mystery had at last been solved. I believe they aremmpletely mistaken. Before I present my side of the story, I want to state that Ithink Betty and Barney Hill really saw a UFO and that somethingunknown stopped their car and took control of their minds. Theywere not lying, and they were not "nuts." I also think that Bettysrecollection of a star map is a fact, and not simply something sheinvented. I base this opinion on similar sightings in which objectshave been described, often of very high symbolic value. Theseobjects generally refer to time (like a clock) or to space (like a mapor a compass). We are not dealing here with an isolated incident butwith a rather typical event. The second point I want to stress is the great value of MarjorieFishs work. The similarity between her model and the computermap is a tribute to her ingenuity and to the accuracy of her work.Recognizing that the witness is sincere and that the analystis accurate, we still have two very important problems beforeus. It is appalling to find that no one has raised them, and thatUFO "investigators" have been so eager to jump to a sensational

46. 42 M E S S E N G E R S OF D E C E P T I O Nconclusion on the basis of the simple evidence presented. The twoquestions we must ask are these. (I) From how many positions in space can we look at the 46- star model and find as good a match with the original map? (2) Once we find a good match, or even a "best" match, does that necessarily tell us anything about the origin ofUFOs? Let us examine the answers. Zeta Ridiculous and the Computer FreaksHow good are you at the "game of the seven errors? " CompareFigures 1.3A and 1.3B, and look for differences. You can see atonce that the sizes of the dots vary, and that many angles are notthe same. The pattern does look similar, but lines have been drawnon it to reinforce this impression, so that one really doesnt get asense of how exact or inexact the true resemblance is. Superficiallythere is agreement between the two patterns, but the detailedexamination tells a different story. What about the duplication ofthis pattern by a computer? Doesnt this indicate that it is genuine?No, it definitely does not. It only means that Ms. Fishs model wasaccurate, a fact I have already emphasized. The question posed to the computer was the wrong one. Giventhe stars in the model and the viewpoint chosen by Marjorie Fish,the computer was bound to display the same pattern that she hadalready found with her little beads and threads. It would be a lotmore interesting to ask the computer to place itself in succession ateach of the millions of possible space viewpoints, and to calculatehow many would give a "good" fit to the original map. To do thiswould require some definition of "goodness" and a lot of patience not to mention a lot of computer time. We would probably generatea list of many points in space from which 16 of the 46 stars form a

47. The C a s e A ga i n s t r h � S p a c e c raft 43 . . / / " A. Hill Map • ,._ - - - / - .._ .- - - . . . • - - - - -- - - - - - - - - - - - s. Fish InterpretationFigure 1 .3. A. 111e map as sketched by Betty Hill. B. 111e stars identified byMarjorie Fish. Map A shows the "star map" that contacree Berty Hill recalledunder hypnosis. The model in B, presented as "proof" that the saucer whichabducted Betty and Barney Hill carne from Zcra Reticuli, relies on flimsystatistical evidence. (Drawings courtesy of Space Age Review.)pattern closely resembling the Hill map. Zeta Reticul i may or maynot be significant when these results are sorted out. Clearly thisexperiment hasnt been done. Students have moved the computer model around, using atelevision-like display, to explore many possible positions, but thehuman mind is notoriously subjective in carrying out a job like this.Once it has found a possible solution, it will a lways come back toit. The number of possible patterns to be explored is in the billions,and it would take the lifetimes of hundreds of students to explorethem all by visual inspection to see if they resembled Bettys map.

48. 44 M ESSENGERS OF DECEPTION How many ways are there of picking 16 stars out of 46? Thereare 46 choices for the first one, 45 for the second one, and so on,until there are only 3 1 choices for the sixteenth one. The numberof space configurations we should examine, then, is the numberwe obtain by multiplying together the numbers from 31 to 46; it isabout 2 x 1025 (that is, two followed by 25 zeroes). Now, for everychoice of 16 stars, you should look at the pattern for every possibleviewpoint around the model and compare it with Bettys drawing.Clearly this has not been done. Marjorie Fish has selected one particular angle from which oneparticular group of 16 stars seemed (to her eyes) to give a goodmatch. This is quite insufficient for positive identification. What if a perfect match was found? What if it identified ZetaReticuli as the hub of the star pattern? This would still not meanmuch in terms of the possible origin of our visitors. An important, even a crucial, fact seems to have escaped theattention of those who have examined Betty Hills drawing:her map is not drawn to scale! The size of the stars - if the Fishinterpretation is correct - does not correspond to their brightness.The distance between the two stars of Zeta Reticuli, i n particular,is exaggerated to the point where the map would be useless fornavigation. What could a saucer pilot do with such a map? Whydraw it from a viewpoint that doesnt correspond to any knowncelestial object? If the map is real, it must have been placed there for Betty Hillto see, not f the pilot to use! Exposing unsuspecting people to orstaged scenes in order to further a certain belief is a n old trick.During World War II, for example, the British changed all theroad signs along the route of a German general who had beencaptured and who was driven to the coast i n an exchange ofprisoners. He could thus testify to the German High Commandthat he had seen tanks, trucks, and barracks in the area wherethe Allies were assembling a "phantom army" ready to strike innorthern Europe.

49. The Case Agai n s t t h e Spacecraft 45 We can only guess at the purpose of staging such a scene f orHetty Hill. Perhaps it served to reinforce her belief that she wasdealing with space visitors. Perhaps it diverted her attention away/rom something else. Perhaps the purpose was to have her convinceothers that a space invasion was imminent. I do not believe that any of the contactees - not even Bettyand Barney Hill - have been physically on board a n actual"saucer." It is more likely that they have taken a nonphysical"trip," controlled and guided by a system of which we have noclear idea as yet, a system that acts on human consciousness (theSoviets use the term "psychotronic" to designate such devices),rather than one that is purely physical. The symbols it uses areengineered to have certain effects. Those who experience theseeffects, like Betty Hill, snap out of the objective reality whereordinary perceptions apply. They develop alternative mentalrealities to cope with these amazing new perceptions. Somesucceed, some fail. In the process they become believers instrange powers beyond the realm of man. They become the toolsof the very system that has destroyed their former self. I n turn,they begin to change the social reality around them. The Abduction ReportsYou have seen them on the Mike Douglas show, accompanied byreporters, vouched for by Dr. Hynek and an engineer-hypnotistfrom California; they have been inside flying saucers and theyhave seen control panels, computers, dials, and knobs. They haveobserved the pilots of the craft. They have felt the cold metal floorbeneath their feet and the light in their eyes. Under hypnosis,they remember talking to their captors; they recall being coldlyexamined. They take lie detector tests and pass them: Betty Hillin Portsmouth, Charlie Hickson i n Pascagoula, Travis Walton inArizona. We are asked to accept this "scientific evidence."

50. 46 MESSENGERS OF DECEPTION We enter a hospital room in Anaheim, California. A youngwoman is speaking slowly in a hypnotic trance. She recalls anamazing expenence: • • Im lying on one of those tables. Uh - that one that was closest to me still seems to be the one thats in charge of things. Uh - my heart is beating really fast because Im really scared, even though he has communicated to me not to be afraid.The hypnotist, a medical doctor with long clinical expenence, •gently urges her on. Got . . . one of those machines for taking the blood. Its like a needle on the long end of one of those tubes. So, its just - took it out real quick. Almost like a vacuum. And . . . his fingers are kind of cold and clammy.Another piece of data for the extraterrestrial file? Guess again.This young woman is a subject who has never seen a UFO. Shedemonstrates that the "abduction" experience is a constant thathypnosis can trigger in almost anybody. This demonstration thatcontactee experiences can be induced comes from a professor ofEnglish at California State University in Long Beach, Al Lawson.Dr. Lawson and his colleagues selected "imaginary abductees"from among unpaid volunteers recruited by campus newspaperadvertising. Those who seemed informed about UFOs and thosewho had had sightings were eliminated. The eight subjects finallyselected were hypnotized by a clinical hypnotist, Dr. WilliamC. McCall. Seven of the eight subjects went into deep trance and were thenasked to describe what they saw as a UFO appeared to them intheir ordinary environment, then as they went on board, met theoccupants, were examined by them, were given a message, returned

51. The Case A g a i n s t t h e Spacecraft 47safely to the normal world, and thought about the way in which thesighting had affected them. The results of the experiments were shattering. Not only didthese "imaginary abductees provide what Dr. Lawson calls "acoherent, intriguing UFO abduction narrative," but their storieswere surprisingly similar to the most classic UFO abduction cases,like those of Betty Hill or Charlie Hickson. When the hypnosistranscripts were closely compared with those from "real" UFOcases, the parallels became even more striking: All of the imaginary subjects described many details which are identical to ones found in the literature. These patterns range from the obvious ("saucer-shaped") to rare and even obscure though well-established details of high strangeness.The study does not demonstrate that UFO abductions areimaginary, or that hypnotic regression of witnesses is alwaysworthless. But it does show that many aspects of the experiencemay originate in the witnesss mind. These remarkable experiments cast serious doubt on thevalidity of the hypnotic regression to which many over-enthusiasticinvestigators have subjected UFO witnesses. "But the lie-detector tests tell the whole story," answer thespacecraft believers. After all, what could be more scientific andreliable than a "psychological stress evaluator" or a polygraphoperated by trained personnel, certified by an accreditedprofessional organization? Before accepting such statements as "evidence," ufologistsshould get better information on the reliability of lie detectors, forexample, by reading the report by the Committee on GovernmentOperations entitled "The Use of Polygraphs and Similar Devicesby Federal Agencies." Testifying before Congress, experts from the Department of]ustice explained why U.S. attorneys were instructed"not to seek the admission in evidence of polygraphic examinations

52. 48 M ESSENGERS OF DECEPTIONand to oppose all attempts by defense counsel to seek the admissionof such examinations." Among the reasons cited by the Department ofJustice witnessesagainst the admissibility of these tests were nine importantobservations: (1) there is no specific reaction that indicatesdeception; (2) apparent physiological indications of deceptionmay come from psychological factors; (3) the moral attitude of thesubject toward lying may affect the outcome; (4) the subject maybe able to fake responses by intensifYing his reactions to controlquestions; (5) aberration or instability of the subject, (6) the takingof depressant drugs, and (7) the physical circumstances, all affectthe subjects reaction. What is most important with UFO witnessesis that (8) the complexity and nature of the matters discussed maybias the recording, and (9) excessive interrogation on the subjectprior to the test and involvement in repeated UFO sightings affectthe accuracy of the results. I n no abduction case have the investigators taken precautionsagainst these problems. The abduction experience and the contactexperience, which seem at first to suggest an extraterrestrial sourcefor the UFOs, can result, I think, from deeper, subtler, complexprocesses of the human mind. These processes can be triggered bysuggestion, hypnosis, drugs, and the physical tools of deception.Such deception could be the work of a higher form of intelligence- or it could be the work of human beings. The link between the images of the UFO world and thoseof human folklore resides in the psyche. The "technology" ofthe UFOs is not designed to carry little men from one physicalplanet to another. It is designed, much more simply, to trigger thealready-existing imagery we are all carrying in our brains. It isthe imagery of Magonia, of intelligent beams oflight, of dialogueswith strange creatures. Emerging fully armed into our local universe - like Athenabeing born from Zeuss head - the UFOs do nothing more thanprovide the physical support for our own dreams. We do the rest.

53. The Case A g a i n s t t h e Spacecraft 49l )urbrains erect a ladder of symbols toward the darkened skieswhere the strange machines hover, and we meet them more thanhalfway across the bridge of their strangeness - perhaps becausewe vaguely perceive that their irresistible, pathetic adventure isour own.

54. TWO ·�ST2)- --·· The Bandwagon from Outer Space Do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing. Matthew 6:3WE DROVE UP to Mendocino to hear the tapes Timothy Leary had recorded in jail. Actually, they werent meantto be released. The prison psychiatrist had undertaken a study ofLeary, and the whole thing had gotten out of hand. Did the tapesbelong to the State, to the psychiatrist, or to Leary? There was acomplicated legal battle; the tapes got out. We were going to hearthem as soon as everyone was there. People kept arriving. They sat on pillows. You couldnt reachthe kitchen for a glass of water without stepping on the toes oflong-legged, tanned California girls or knocking the pipe out of abearded physicists mouth. When the tape started playing, theremust have been thirty people in the room. Many had driven fromSan Francisco, Berkeley, Stanford. Others lived in the woodsnearby. There was one physicist from Berkeley who had doneresearch on Uri Geller, another in contact with FBI people whostudied psychic phenomena. (He said they wanted to find out ifpsychics could somehow pick up the scent of revolurionaries whowere making bombs.) There was enough scientific talent in theroom to send a rocket to Pluto. Learys voice, coming out of the tape recorder, was calm as hediscussed his beliefs with the prison psychiatrist. His argumentationwas as sure as if he had been back at Harvard, administering a

55. 52 MESSENGERS OF DECEPTIONPh.D. qualifying exam in the psychology department. He statedthat every living entity had a genetic purpose, and that theproblem before us now was that of the future of the human race.He implied that Man was fast approaching the end of his rope,that evolution was ready to make a new jump toward a higherform of life, and that a superior intelligence had conceived theblueprint for us on Earth. The central nervous system was its giftto us, a piece of equipment to explore and use in order to establishcommunication with our maker. The interviewer asked if this wasnt exactly what the modernfollowers of the ancient arts of massage and physical identificationwith the body had been preaching. Leary answered that he was bored with "the Body People." Itsfine for people to become identified with their body, he said, butafter theyve done that, they still have to identify themselves withtheir central nervous system, with the genetic code, and, lastly,with the superior plan. The psychiatrist remarked that Learys ideas seemed to differfrom Eastern philosophies, which assume that the body, includingthe central nervous system, is not the individual. How did he cometo develop a different philosophy? Leary said he wasnt sure it was so different, but as a scientisthe had never wandered away from concepts that could be localizedand reproduced: "I dont believe in mushy Hindu heavens," he said,adding that the psychiatrist was talking like a human being. Buthe, Leary, was no longer human, he said. Besides, he was terriblydistrustful of humanists. The people who had organized the meeting gave me a copy of aquestionnaire Timothy Leary had developed to gather the opinionsof other people concerning higher intelligence. It began with thesethree questions? ( I ) Do you believe that Higher Intelligence is a useful concept?

56. The Bandwagon from O u t e r Space 53 (2) What is your definition of Higher Intelligence? (3) What is your definition oflntelligence?I thought we were being trapped. The questions were in the wrongorder. Besides, defining intelligence is a game psychologists gave upa long time ago. Oddly enough, they stopped playing that gameabout the time when they started measuring intelligence with l.Qtests. To those who requested his definition, Professor Binet, whoinvented the I.Q test with another Frenchman named Simon, usedw answer simply: "Intelligence is whatever my test measures." Later I pondered Learys questions again. I f we had anexample of higher intelligence, perhaps then we could come backand make some useful statements about our own level. (Similarly,the "unreachable stars" can be extremely useful in defining andmeasuring distances on Earth.) Perhaps a genuine observation ofhigher consciousness would tell us who we are. But I also began to speculate along a different line. PerhapsLeary and others had found a new bandwagon. Perhaps they werejust expressing the aspirations and frustrations of a generationthat has put Man on the Moon, but has done nothing for theEarth. Visitors from outer space would be a convenient interlude.They would offer the space effort - and all its attendant industrialtechnology - a new purpose in life. They would rescue Westerncivilization from its acute spiritual malaise. They would helptranscend political emotions and pave the way to the unificationof that enormous economic marketplace: Planet Earth. Take thesepossibilities into consideration, and you will begin to understandwhy the idea of life in space is no longer a simple scientificspeculation but a social and political issue as well. Sensing this,the military authorities have tried to stay away from it as long aspossible. So has the scientific community.

57. 54 M ESSENGERS O F DECEPTION The Manipulation HypothesisIn 1967 I was visiting the University ofColorado physics department.I had lunch with Professor Condon and the staff of his recentlyorganized committee for the study ofUFOs. They had just receivedhalf a million dollars from the U.S. Air Force to find out whetherwe were being visited by extraterrestrials. I told Condon that I believed the problem of UFOs could besolved scientifically. He replied that he wasnt so sure: "It could besomething like the existence of God," he said, "a problem aboutwhich science has nothing to say." I disagree with that view. Sciencecould have analyzed the observations and reached a conclusionthen. But it may be too late now. Professor Condon and his team, who had been picked becausethey were presumably impartial and unprejudiced, went on to writea report stating that no evidence existed for the reality of UFOs.The report was reviewed and approved by the National Academy ofSciences in 1969, leaving the field of UFO research wide open forcharlatans and hoaxers of all kinds. In Man the Puppet: The Art o fControlling Minds, published in 1925, Abram Lipsky reminds us ofa thought of William James: If he wanted to pick an outright duffer for a scientific research he would take a student who was impartial and unprejudiced. An emotional urge, even if it be only pride in a preformed opinion, is necessary to give the push to intellectual activity. 1It has taken almost ten years fur serious researchers to beginchallenging the Condon Report. The controversy is more lively thanever as increasing numbers ofyoung scientists ofthe "UFO generation"wonder about the reality ofUFOs and eagerly look for an answer. I have long pondered that same question. The answer I haveformed is a disturbing one. It can be expressed very simply: it doesnt

58. The Bandwagon from O u t e r Space 55 ying saucers are real or not. It still mattersmtztter any more whetherfl10 me, of course, as an individual scientist. I have often stated, andI still believe today, that UFOs are real and technological. When Isay that it doesnt matter whether they are real or not, I am speakingof their social impact. You can find scholars who will "prove" to you that thesupernatural powers of]esus Christ never existed. You can also findscholars who will "prove" to you that they did exist. Does it matter?Of course not! It only matters to the experts, who have staked theiracademic reputations on either side of the argument. The effects o fthe belie in jesus, the impact o the doctrine based on the story of his f flife and death, are real enough. Socially, historically, the consequencesare beyond question. I claim that the same now applies to flyingsaucers because enough people believe in them, enough people believethat contact with them is possible, and enough people even believe thatthey have secretly achieved such contact. I n 1967, Condon and his team could have done a seriousscientific study of UFOs, but they didnt. Now it is too late forscience. The social. historical, and political consequences of thespreading belief in the contact with space are here, and they arereal, no matter how ludicrous and bizarre they may appear. In fact,the more ludicrous and bizarre they appear, the more effective theyare as subliminal seduction and as other forms of psychologicalcontrol, and subliminal seduction is exactly what we are dealingwith here. The belief in UFO contact, and the expectation of visitationby beings from space, is promoted by certain groups of peoplewho are responsible for advertising UFO contacts, for circulatingfaked photographs (often in connection with genuine sightings),for interfering with witnesses and researchers, and for generatingsystematic "disinf ormation" about the phenomenon. We may findthat they belong, or have access, to military, media, and governmentcircles. I n these games it is not clear exactly which side is infiltratingthe other.

59. 56 M E S S E NGERS OF DECEPTION In December 1972, for example, a Spanish researcher receiveda letter postmarked South Kensington, England, and bearing theinsignia of UMMO, a self-styled extraterrestrial government.* Theletter urged the researcher not to publicize their group and to keep tohimself their communications (which ranged widely from biologyand religion to astrophysics). Such letters had been received since1965 by several Spanish and foreign researchers. Theyallegedlycamefrom inhabitants of the planet UMMO who were living secretlyamong the Spanish population. These communications indudedthousands of pages of philosophical and scientific discussion, someof it trivial, some profound or even illuminating. On two occasions prior to 1965, it is said that officers of theCentral Intelligence Agency stationed in Madrid received lettersfrom these "visitors." They stated that two of their "brothers" hadlived from 1952 to 1954 at 58 Mayor Street, in Albacente, wherethey were the guests of a society lady, Senora Margarita Ruiz deLihory. In her house they had conducted "psychophysiologicalexperiments with animals," the letter said. Following up on thisinformation, authorities began checking into what they assumedwas some kind of a joke. They found that in February 1954, a corpsehad been mutilated in the house in question. It was the body of MissMargot Shelly Ruiz de Lihory, a daughter of the lady mentioned inthe UMMO letter. A hand and other limbs had been sectioned. Asensational trial had resulted. Rumor has it in Spain that the CIA is actively trying to locatethe so-called "biologists" of Albacente, and that a mysterious "Mr.W. Rumsey" has offered $1,000 to anyone providing informationabout them. If it is a joke, it has been carried a little far. But if it is not a joke,what is its purpose? Is there a symbolic message buried in the actions* The name UMMO may be hiding an inside joke. In 1970 a companycalled UMO Plant Hire, Ltd., was incorporated in Great Britain. It turnedout to be a Soviet spy front. In September 1971 , 105 Soviet officials wereexpelled from Britain for espionage, and UMO was dosed down.

60. The Bandwagon from O u t e r Space 57•I such groups? To whom is the message directed? What psychological""I social attitudes among the public might be promoted? To studyt l •csc questions, we must examine more closely the fantastic world of! I ll UFO contactees. Who Are the Contactees?/s you read this book you are penetrating with me into a strangeworld, into "an intellectual twilight . . . in which it is hard todistinguish between the menacing and the merely ludicrous."Peculiar events, furtive meetings, and messages suggestive ofother worlds will come into the picture before we reach the end.I wish it were a simpler story, but it will of necessity appear as amosaic, a puzzle, a pattern of individuals and trends and traditionsgoing back to very old records and leading to our own times bysome very strange paths. It involves many people with a commoncharacteristic: they have engaged in communication with whatthey regard as another level of consciousness, above the humanlevel. They believe that they have met the "Higher I ntelligence."" lbey have acquired an almost fanatical faith in its importance forthe future of humanity. They have created a subculture in whichpsychic phenomena and contact with space are considered everydayoccurrences. Then why is their world one of f and insecurity and earsuspicion, not a world of love? The stories of the contactees touch upon one of the most excitingareas of human existence in this century, because open contactwith other beings would be a turning point in our history. But thecontactees experiences should make us very cautious; just because amessage comesfrom heaven doesnt mean its not stupid. Many of thecontactees have fallen victim to a peculiar effect on their minds:they have lost their critical faculties. There are two kinds of contactees. I call "direct contactees" thepeople who (1) claim to have witnessed an unexplained physical

61. 58 M E SS E N G E R S OF D E C E P T I ON � r Figure 2.1. Betty and Barney Hill had a remarkable experience with a UFOin September 1961. After they had suffered from a series of nightmares,hypnotic regression revealed that they had unconscious memories of an"abduction" into what may have been another level of reality. (Photocourtesy of United Press International.)phenomenon, (2) have become convinced that its ongm wasintelligent, and (3) have felt an individual relationship with it thatgives them a special destiny. Under this definition, such historical figures as Joan of Arc orJoseph Smith are direct contactees. So are Edgar Cayce and Uri Geller.Their numbers are fairly small, but their influence is considerable. I call "indirect contactees» people who (1) have convincedthemselves of the existence of an intelligent cause that can produceunexplained phenomena, (2) have not observed such phenomenathemselves, but (3) feel that they have some personal link to thiscause nonetheless, one that again gives them a special destinyamong mankind. In this category are all the people who receive messages fromouter space by automatic writing or other means, but have not seena UFO, and those who simply consider themselves as having beengiven a "cosmic mission" by the superior intelligence in question.

62. The Bandwagon from Outer S p a c e 59 Contactees of both kinds are occasionally capable of extreme.�ttions to propagate their beliefs. They may be violent andunpredictable. For example, in the sixties, according to conversationsI had in the Soviet Union, a leading plasma physicist was pushedunder a Moscow subway train by an "indirect contactee" whohad been instructed by a "voice from space" to kill that particularman. In 1975, a French contactee was arrested by the police ashe was entering the headquarters of the French television network,carrying a carbine and fifty shells: a similar voice from space hadinstructed him to kill a newsman who had written several books onUFOs. Although many contactees are nonviolent, their beliefs arenonetheless tainted with fanaticism. To summarize, then, contactees are people who believe theyhave a special destiny, linked to an unexplained phenomenon theymay or may not have observed, but in the existence of which theystrongly believe. What wonders they could reveal to me, they claimed, if onlyI agreed to blindly follow their leadership! What powers I wouldshare, if I joined their ranks and did as their messages said! Irefused. My refusal may decrease my worth as a witness. I haveinvestigated, analyzed, and compared. I have not participated. I have seen enough, however, to warn others not to acceptlightly any claims that our world is visited by kindly beings fromspace who are bent on helping us. Those eager believers who driftinto the reassurance of some blissful new creed should consider thepersonalities that are causing the drifting. Their world is a case ofscience gone wrong, and mysticism gone wrong. Consider also theshadowy personalities, the sect leaders and the high priests, that areusing the contactees for their own ends. Consider their link - never seriously investigated by the UFOresearch groups - with political extremist organizations. Considertheir doctrines on the existence of "superior races," of people withchosen missions, their references to Atlantis and ancient astronauts- implying that human beings would never have had the drive and

63. 60 M E S S E N G E R S OF D E C E P T I O Nimagination to build civilizations if friendly "space brothers" hadnot been there to help them! In researching this link I found thatthe entire subject was even more tricky, depressing, and complexthan I had imagined. I have become convinced that the scientificinvestigation of sightings alone will never explain the phenomenon.I have met many people whose effect on the beliefs of those aroundthem was based on irrational claims and charismatic influence. These are difficult questions to research, and there is no standardmethod for conducting such a probe. Using the techniques of oralhistory, based on personal observations and interviews that weretranscribed and edited, I have compiled and interpreted profiles ofthe leaders of this new subculture. In this search I have met Helen, a young woman who believesthat she was teleported aboard a flying saucer and emerged with aformula for cosmic energy. In Paris I visited the leaders of an occultorganization who meet regularly with extraterrestrials who arepreparing social revolution. In California I have attended meetingsof the Human Individual Metamorphosis as they were recruitingpassengers for the next saucer trip to "the other level." In Spain Ihave interviewed Jacques Bordas, who stated that he had suppliedfood to extraterrestrials in the Pyrenees in 1951 and was still incontact with them. I came back to the States and met a womanpsychic who argued about Atlantis and the elimination of ourmoney system. I interviewed a would-be political leader, a memberof the John Birch Society, who was trying to put a contactee into the White House. The ideas of all these people had certain important themes incommon. Underneath the trivia, the verbiage, the platitudes, therewere powerful symbols and powerful social images: universal peace, the exploration ofspace, a single world economy, and the elimination of money. I traced some of these ideas to active occult organizations that are operating just below the threshold ofpublic notice. To clarify the mechanism of their actions, I looked for other situations in which the irrational had made an impact on political and social events.

64. The Bandwagon from O u t e r Space 61 Where does this exploration lead? To a completely new challenge of the conclusions of Professor Condon and the National Academyof Sciences about the nature of the threat presented by UFOs, not on physical grounds, but on social grounds. My own conclusions.,uggest that we would do well to think twice before jumping on the "( )uter Space Bandwagon" ifwe want to retain a balanced, objective view of future events. They also suggest that our civilization may be headed for very serious trouble, with irrational forces tearing apart the old structures and replacing them by the blind institutions of inhuman beliefs. Today there are many reasons f expecting a complete or lUrnaround in attitudes toward space intelligence. The officialspace effort has temporarily run out of objectives that can caprure the publics imagination and enthusiasm. The potential discoveryof extraterrestrial life would give the space industry infinite new horizons to explore. New political grounds would be open to ambitious young leaders. The eager anticipation of imminentencounters with space beings would help crystallize the efforts of an entire nation, perhaps of world public opinion. It would help in transcending local conflicts and in achieving within a single generation behavioral changes that might otherwise take a hundred years to complete. If this is the contribution of the UFO phenomenon, then we are in facr dealing with one of historys major transitions.

65. T H REE - ------· ·- ·�)· -.. . .,. . . .. . .. The Decep tion A lot ofpeople think Im crazy, but sometimes itll be a bright night and Ill be sitting outside and saying, come on down, come and get me. Ive always wanted to be picked up b a UFO. y A young man heard at Stanford University in 1975 Y FIRST MEETING with Helen took place at a coffee shop afterM she called to tell me about the motor she wanted to build.She was a tall, pretty girl in a fashionable dress. The men in therestaurant turned around to look at her. She could have been amodel, or a receptionist behind a big desk with five telephones inthose fancy buildings downtown. Little did they know she was acontactee bent on solving the energy crisis by building a new typeof engine. During our interview, she confessed that the motor idea wastriggered by an abduction aboard a UFO. It seems that she was witha group of musicians coming back from Lompoc to Los Angeles, inthe summer of 1968. "We left after the last performance on that weekend," she toldme after ordering a chocolate malt. "We probably packed up thegear by 2 : 1 5 a.m. We must have been on the road half an hour to45 minutes, it might even have been an hour. At that point, wewere on a flat stretch of land. There were hills on the righthandsid� and we were going south. Out of these hills came a whitelight, and it moved up and began to come in our direction. Anairplane couldnt have turned the way it did; so we figured it was

66. 64 MESSENGERS OF DECEPTIONa helicopter. Then it began to do very erratic things and twists, govery far out and come closer very quickly." I interrupted her to slow down her excited recollection of thatepisode. I wanted to get the step-by-step account of her perceptions."How did you all react to this?" I asked. "What did the others see?" Her reply was forceful: "All four of us were very aware of it," shesaid immediately. "We talked a lot about it, but nobody said Letshide, or anything like that. George and Barbara were up front -George was driving - I was in the back behind him, and Dave wasto my right. Dave and Barbara were afraid of it. George and I wereencouraging the whole thing; we enjoyed this." All right, so they could have been watching a helicopter. "What did the object do?" "It came up over the car and in front of us, maybe 100 to 200feet above the ground, and it was, I would say, about six lanes of thefreeway in width. It was white, and it showed a very beautiful kindof glow. I seem to remember some kind of windows, but I reallycouldnt be sure. It didnt make any noise. The thing was big. Fourwhite lights, funnel-shaped, extended from the perimeter of thevehicle and down around each of our bodies." She looked up andshuddered as if it was there, still hovering right above us, as big asthe whole restaurant. "What kind of feeling did you have then?" "!remember leaving my bod on the seat ofthe car and being about ythree or four feet out of the car," she said in a matter-of -fact way.�II four of us did the same thing; offwe went! At that point I dontremember anything else, and until fairly recently I didnt thinkthere was anything else. Then I began to realize that somethingmight have happened, because the next thing I remember wascoming back into the car. I looked around and saw the lightshimmer around Barbara and Dave, and we were slowly dissipatedback into our bodies." I had trouble visualizing the scene. Astral travel is nothing new.Thats how witches went to the Sabbath and saints to heavenly

67. The D e c e p t i o n 65communions. An American businessman, Robert Monroe, hasset up learning centers complete with training tapes to helppeople leave their bodies. The psychedelic culture embraced theconcept enthusiastically in the sixties, and it is now part of theeveryday world of millions. But automobiles are not capable ofastral travel. "What happened to the car?" I asked her. "The vehicle stayed with us at that time, and then began tomove off a little bit in the distance, and the car was just going on itsown velocity. That was the initial experience of it." I recalled a similar case in France, near Rouen, where a UFOallegedly guided a car across a three-lane highway to a head-oncollision with a speeding ambulance. The ambulance driver,who escaped under remarkable conditions, is now the leader of acontactee group in Nice. Under hypnosis, Helen remembered going on board the "saucer"and observing its propulsion mechanism. She met a man dressed inwhite, who showed her an amazing motor. Now she is determinedto build it. I began checking her story. First, I had a lengthy telephoneconversation with George, who hasnt seen her in several years butremembers the incident as "a turning point in his life." Dave hadmoved to another city, where I traced him. A friend of mine, apsychiatrist, got in touch with him and obtained his statement.Like George, he vividly recalls the whole incident and describes itin similar terms. Ever since the sighting, Helen has felt the urge to build themachine whose principle was revealed to her by one of the saucerpilots. It has become a central point for her, the goal of her entire life.Yet the motor she wants to build is based on a "perpetual motion))scheme and could never run, physically, the way she explains it. There are fhree witnesses to this UFO event, and everythingseems to point to the reality of their experience. But this is preciselythe place where many doubts are raised in my mind.

68. 66 MESSENGERS O F D E C E P TIONFigure 3.1. It is fairly typical for conractees ro claim that space beingshave shown them some secret of physics or engineering. Many have builtmach i nes like the "free-energy moror" held here by its builder, HowardMenger. (Photo by Sam Vandivert. Originally appeared in The Age ofFlying Saucers, by Paris Flammonde.) Consider the story from the point of view of the "spacecraft"theory. We would have to assume that what she saw was a vehiclefrom another planet, probably coming here f exploration. On the orsurface, this interpretation seems to fit the facts. But what about the paranormal effects? Can we ignore Helenstestimony that she was "teleported" into the UFO? If the episode isdescribed accurately, we are dealing with a psychononic technology,one that affects consciousness, not simply the physical body. And ifit is psychotronic, then in theory it could be generated, projected,and controlled from anywhere. The "meeting" between Helen and the man in white aboard thecraft makes no sense if we assume he was a visitor from a distantstar. Why would such visitors look like us? Why would they showher a motor that does not have an objective physical function?

69. The D e c e p t i o n 67 If we are not dealing with space visitors at all, but with powerfulimagery projected in order to alter individual belief systems, thenthe dream-like, hallucinatory nature of the experience begins tomake more sense. We could even imagine that the object is a formof natural energy; that close exposure to it triggered the vision; andthat the most important question to ask is, what effect do suchvisions have on the society around the witnesses? Let us not forgetthat the society in question is badly in need of"space brothers," andhas lost much of its faith in the scientific genius of mankind. Such is the social matrix within which we must consider anexperience like Helens abduction. Certain factors combine tosuggest we should believe that she was interviewed by spacecreatures, but all the facts taken together suggest a different, moresubtle interpretation: what she thought was a "contact" may havebeen a symbolic manifestation or a trap. Her "spacemen" may havebeen messengers of deception. Witnesses to close encounters with UFOs give reports similarto this one in case after case. The phenomenon involves more rhana simple crafr using an advanced form of propulsion; it involves atechnology that can distort the observers sense of reality. Psychic TechnologiesWe already have human technologies that are both physical and"psychic" (in the sense of influencing the consciousness of anobserver). An example o such a technology is given, very simply, fby your television set. There is no question that it is physical. Youcan talk about its size, volume, weight, and temperature. But ifyou turn it on, it will begin to control your awareness in peculiarways. You will observe scenes that, as far as you can tell, couldbe either "real" or faked. You may be a witness to an actual crimecommitted right now, or to something that happened years ago.You may also believe a scene to be absolutely real, when in fact it

70. 68 M ESSENGERS OF D E C E P T I O Nis actually staged i n a studio i n Hollywood. Based o n what youcan observe, you have no way to know the truth, even if you havea Nobel prize in physics. Besides, your television set i nfluencesyou in other ways. It determines what toothpaste you use, howyou shave, who you go to bed with, and how you will vote in thenext election. In some respects I think UFOs are similar to television sets.They are physical objects, the products of a technology, bur they arealso something else: the tools of a major cultural change. I thinkUFOs are perpetrating a deception by presenting their so-called"occupants" as being messengers from outer space, and I suspectthere are groups of people on Earth exploiting this deception. I have written this book because I am concerned with thechanges which would be triggered by the belief in an outer-spaceinvasion, real or simulated. I n the words of a Brookings Institutereport on the cultural impact of extraterrestrial life: The consequences of such a discovery are presently unpredictable because of our limited knowledge of behavior under even an approximation of such dramatic circumstances. The fundamentalist (and anti-science) sects are growing apace . . . For them, the discovery of other life would be electrifYing.Genuine "contactees" like Helen are already busy preparing thesechanges. They mean business. They are sincere. They obey whatthey believe to be orders coming from a higher cosmic level.Most scientists think this is a delusion of no importance. I differfrom them in believing that these contactees are being used in adangerous way, and that the symbolism they propagate will make adeep impact on our lives. The new belief is completely lacking in logic. That is the keyto its power. It serves to keep scientists away. The more absurd thestatement, the stronger its effect. When the Establishment is rational,

71. The D e c e p t i o n 69NhJ/Irrlity is dynamite. Through the contactees, the Manipulatorsti l " u ndermining both religion and science. Contact with alien intelligence is a social issue, too. Yesterday""Y politician would have avoided UFOs like the plague. Today""" like Jimmy Carter proclaim that they have seen unidentifiedllf•, lus in the sky and are "no longer laughing at those who report !l y i n g saucers." Various "revelations" by former governmentClltployees have suggested that evidence of extraterrestrial visitors 11 1 ay exist in Washington. Even a man like Arthur Lundahl, formerdirector of the Photographic Interpretation Center of the CIA, has,, I a ted publicly that he had examined a number of UFO films for t lte government and had judged them to be authentic. TomorrowMHneone might announce that proof has been found for then istence of alien life forms. Such an announcement would makepossible astonishing social, political, and economic changes. To 1•ave the way f such changes is the stated goal of many contactees. or I heir purpose is Utopia today. It could be reality tomorrow. A Social Time Bomb lhe idea of contact with higher intelligence is a social time bomb.Several years ago I warned that unless my scientific colleaguesundertook a serious and unbiased investigation of the UFOphenomenon, there would be a proliferation of new sects claimingcontact with higher intelligences and special communication withouter space. This prediction has now been fulfilled: in California, Oregon,and Colorado, for example, a group called Human IndividualMetamorphosis (H.I.M.) is telling its followers to abandon allearthly possessions in hopes of reaching a higher physical level.In Europe, mysterious organizations recruit people who seriouslybelieve that cosmic messages are coming to them from the"Universal Association of Planets." In France, Great Britain, all

72. 10 M E SS E N G E R S O F DECEPT I O Nover the world, claims of contact with supernatural entmes areleading to the creation of new sects. The expectation of higherintelligence is beginning to look like a form of worship. This raisessome basic questions about science and religion: what is the source.of the mystical experience? Some believers in contact with spaceclaim to have discovered it. As much as scientists would like to reject the ideas behind thesenew sects as being the creation of irrational or even abnormalminds, the fact is that their members are sincere and that the UFOphenomena that fascinate them are really unexplained by ourscience. It is this fact that prompted me fifteen years ago to begin asystematic analysis of the patterns behind the UFO, manifestations·.The propensity of most scientists to ignore these phenomena - oreven to ridicule indiscriminately those who report them - has createdan unfortunate gap that these new sects are naturally beginning toFigure 3.2. Near Bellaire, Michigan, John Shepherd has established thisUFO-detectingstation in his grandparents home. 1he conrrast between thetwo lifestyles is striking as John checks his eight television monitors fromthe console of his center. His equipment includes radar, sonar, scanners,and homing devices which attempt to attract the "Aliens" he believes arestudying the Earth. (Photo courtesy of United Press Imernarional.)

73. The D e c e p t i o n 71fill. [he question that remains is to discover how serious a threatt ltesc groups represent to established social structures. Suppose visitors arrived from elsewhere with a completelytliiFcrent religious system. Suppose they had a political organizationhu i It on principles that challenged both communism and capitalism.Wouldnt a new form of faith spread among humans? The longer1 his belief was suppressed, the stronger it would finally burst uponour rigid structures. Now, suppose a group of men simulate thearrival of these alleged visitors as a hoax, a deliberate deception.Would we ever know? Great social changes often come from the least expected area.I believe that the most powerful factor that can change a societysstructures is not a simple terrestrial "enemy" beyond its borders. Thischange can come from within, if the gap between the scientific eliteand the frustrated public gets wider and is deliberately exploited.Among the instruments of this profound change are the contactees,the believers in celestial interventions of all kinds, the scouts ofcosmic armies. • • Is the Lord an Extraterrestrial?The handwriting on the walls of the Paris subway ranges fromthe slogans of Maoism to the profanity of scatology, and I do notordinarily spend much time studying it. However, when I foundthe scribbled announcement that "The Lord is an Extraterrestrial,"allegedly emanating from a mysterious "Order of Melchizedek,"I had to stop and take notice. I had urged scientists to do seriousresearch on the phenomenon of UFOs before it was swept away byfanaticism. If! had been asked to name the part of the world wherefanatical saucer sects might arise, I would have said California!without a second thought. In Los Angeles perhaps. Or in somecommune near Mendocino. I n a small town on the edge of theMojave Desert, near the hills where Adamski claimed to have met

74. 72 M E S S E N G E R S OF D E C E P T IONhis Venusians. Certainly not in Paris. Not in the subway, in fullview of hundreds of thousands of men and women who walked bythis yellow poster every day, carrying serious, rationalistic, cynicalnewspapers like Le Monde under their arms! In Paris it was, however, and the note in black felt-tipmarker was written not once but many times, on the walls ofseveral tunnels. The work of some insane person? Perhaps. Butthe signature suggested a group, an organization: The Order ofMelchizedek. I decided to investigate; the next day I met Cynaand Ivan, two leaders of that sect, in their cluttered apartment.Later, bent on learning more than superficial acquaintance withthe group could reveal, I joined their organization and delved intoits history. What I found is wonderful and strange, and sometimesfunny, as this book will show you. I admit that the work I thusundertook represents a departure from the theme of scientificanalysis of UFO sightings that I have advocated in previouswritings. I still believe such an analysis to be necessary. Scientificanalysis will undoubtedly provide part of the truth about UFOs;however, I no longer believe it will lead to the whole truth. I owethis realization to a man I shall call "Major Murphy," althoughhis actual rank is much higher than that of Major. He taught mea lesson I am not likely to forget. Major Murphy, who retired from a U.S. Intelligence servicequite a few years ago, had seen action in World War II in Italy, andalso described vividly his investigations in the Caribbean, wherehe organized efforts to intercept submarines and German spies ontheir way to the United States. I met him at a gathering of UFOcontactees and suggested a drink when it was over. I expressedmy surprise at his interest in the event, which I had regarded as acomplete waste of time. He asked me to clarify this judgment, andI said that in my opinion none of the people in attendance knewanything about science. Then he posed a question that, obvious asit seems, had not really occurred to me: "What makes you think that UFOs are a scientific problem?"

75. The D e c e p t i o n 73 I replied with something to the effect that a problem was only" icntilic in the way it was approached, but he would have none ofthat, and he began lecturing me. First, he said, science had certainrules. For example, it has to assume that the phenomenon it isobserving is natural in origin rather than artificial and possiblyhiased. Now, the UFO phenomenon could be controlled by alienhcings. "!fit is," added the Major, "then the study ofit doesnt belongin science. It belongs in Intelligence." Meaning counterespionage.And that, he pointed out, was his domain. "Now, in the field of counterespionage, the rules are completelydifferent." He drew a simple diagram in my notebook. "You are ascientist. I n science there is no concept of the price of information.Suppose I gave you 95 per cent ofthe data concerning a phenomenon.Youre happy because you know 95 per cent of the phenomenon.Not so in Intelligence. If I get 95 per cent of the data, I know thisis the cheap part of the information. I still need the other 5 percent, but I will have to pay a much higher price to get it. You see,Hitler had 95 per cent of the information about the landing inNormandy. But he had the wrong 95 per cent!" "Are you saying that the UFO data we use to compile statistics andto find patterns with computers are useless?" I asked. "Might we bespinning our magnetic tapes endlessly discovering spurious laws?" "It all depends on how the team on the other side thinks. If theyknow what theyre doing, there will be so many cutouts betweenyou and them that you wont have the slightest chance of tracingyour way to the truth. Not by following up sightings and throwingthem into a computer. They will keep feeding you the informationthey want you to process. What is the only source of data about theUFO phenomenon? It is the UFOs themselves! " Some things were beginning to make a lot of sense. "If youreright, what can I do? It seems that research on the phenomenon ishopeless, then. I might as well dump my computer into a river." "Not necessarily, but you should try a different approach. Firstyou should work entirely outside of the organized UFO groups;

76. 74 MESSENGERS OF DECEPTIONthey are infiltrated by the same official agencies they are tryingto influence, aud they propagate any rumor anyone wants to havecirculated. In Intelligence circles, people like that are historicalnecessities. When youve worked long enough for Uncle Sam, youknow he is involved in a lot of strange things. The data these groupsget are biased at the source, but they play a useful role. "Second, you should look for the irrational, the bizarre, theelements that do not fit: thats what I have come to observe at thismeeting tonight. Have you ever felt that you were getting close tosomething that didnt seem to fit any rational pattern, yet gave youa strong impression that it was significant?" I told him about the incident involving Melchizedek. He lookedat me i n a strange way and said: "I would follow that track seriouslyif I were you." Prior to my discovery in the subway, I knew the name ofMelchizedek only from a few Biblical references, a mention duringthe now-obsolete Tridentine Mass (when the priest blesses thebread and wine, saying, "Look with favor on these offerings andaccept them as once you accepted the gifts ofyour servant Abel, thesacrifice of Abraham, our father in faith, and the bread and wineoffered you by your priest Melchizedek"), and an intriguing ritualcelebrated by a French sect of the n ineteenth century, a sect thatmixed the highest ideals with magical practices. Within a year I had filled a shelfwith curious books and pamphletsabout these heretics ofthe past and their beliefs. They provide a modelfor the modern cults dedicated to space visitors. I did research on twofronts: day after day I learned more from my dusty books about theantics of the old magicians, and I also attended meetings and seancesof the modern contactees. I pondered their significance until theybecame suspicious of me and decided that I must be a Venusian - butby then I knew enough to describe their beliefs clearly. I had heardwhat they had to say, and a curious tale it was, a space-opera wovenwith prophetic inspiration, a diatribe against modern lif through ewhich the wind of forgotten traditions blows.

77. FOUR �" 0" - �. . .. � · ·· · ··· · ·· · ·· · · ··· · ·· · ··· · ·· · ····· · · · · · · · · . �, Why Do They Keep Staring at the Walls? Now that we have adoptedyou, we will neverforsake you. A dwarf, to Jacques Bordas, 1 923 HE HUMBLE MAN who likes to be called "Major Murphy" hadT urged me to piece together carefully the available evidenceabout the modus operandi of the phenomenon. The first opportunityto try this new approach presented itselfwith the appearance in theWestern United States of a new contactee movement that recruitedUFO passengers. It taught me a serious lesson: such a group canacquire very significant power over apparently "rational" people. Ihad not suspected their work could be so fast, or so easy. It was inobserving this group, too, that I realized how completely it couldcontrol the believers lives. In August 1975, a friend had called my attention to a one-pageannouncement that was posted in the windows of stores in PaloAlto, California, and on the campus of Stanford University. UFOs?was written in bold red letters across the page. The statement -enritled simply Whats U - began with the observation that our p?environment was changing and that a human catastrophe seemedimminent: not only were people drinking more than usual andcommitting suicide by the thousands, the flyer said, but the weatherwas changing, famines were widespread, and even volcanoes wereacting up! The strange statement continued with the sensational claimthat, in preparation for a better world, some people had formed

78. 76 M E SSENGERS O F DECEPTIONa new group and left everything behind: they had quit their jobsand left their families "to follow what they would previously haveconsidered as bizarre studies or practices." They were seeking realtruth. The text was signed by flying-saucer believers who calledthemselves H.I.M., or Human Individual Metamorphosis. Theannouncement continued: Some, who by most standards would have been considered stable . . . are attempting to completely rise above their human nature (get this!)* under the direction of individuals who are members of a kingdom above human who have come in at close range to the Earth to help. They compare this period of overcoming their human nature to the metamorphic process of a caterpillar becoming a butterfly. They are looking to a nameless man and woman who say that they have incarnated from that next level to assist Earths "graduating class." These two say they will publicly demonstrate death overcome- the ability to heal a diagnosed dead body and walk away some three days later showing life eternal gained. (This is one of the characteristics of a member of that next kingdom.) These two and their followers say they will physically leave the planet within months. The new graduates then expect to take their place as beginners in a realm of individuals whose privilege it is to oversee the Earths production of future graduates.There would be a meeting, the flyer concluded, on Wednesday,August 13, at 8:00 p.m., in the Bechtel International Center, onthe Stanford campus. The Bechtel Center is an old house set among the trees nearthe Faculty Club. When I arrived, the room set for the meeting* Material in parentheses is part of the origin al , not my comment.

79. Why D o T h e y Keep S t a r i n g at t h e Walls? 77 1tU is root a nli•;l��>��t .,- f:"l..w�l �...-h.., rt�..;J� ,......w��>;r. · 1 " ..., ..._ -,mw...�.... " " _N.s .-t� �t<l a n-ft tf ;...ilvi�IIO 1fo df:ocli"l �� "Ma.l t�S _ftt itlt o _,; d "fn>n�,.;..,� r.-otn�. I fOil ..,.,.. _.. eoo ft<-t,..._, -tilt l n f 11t.-t -tilot"ll m•oJ-.t " � �.1 fII"!IC�I.. fltl o, �lfU �PI(! 11oe f<orilo� �oi>fiOIK, .,.... ..,·,K -..ant -., ��tow� *"• ...tt·� : 10NDIIY • AIJ6. 2�" • 5•:o fM UNIVtHi;S•Tf ,f ,,0N H<�NCI�(.O 1"<.CtARtN I-IAL� • "!<OOM :1.52.. 21.�0 fill."fe(o; )TIO£.T (.J",.. tl-1:- c..., , ,. ,1 q.IJ..q.t. H..qFigure 4.1. Typical of contactee literature is this poster, which was widelydistributed in the San Francisco area by the H.I.M. group i n 1975.was already filled, and I sat on the floor with a tape recorder nearthe front of the room, where eight empty chairs were facing theaudience. More people were coming in and filling the open loungebehind the last row of seats. Some had come from as far away asMarin County, north of San Francisco. I recognized half a dozenpeople who were active in UFO investigations in the Bay Area.Major Murphy was sitting in the front row. The organizers of the meeting arrived and sat on the eightchairs before us. They were serious but not overly dignified. Theyappeared neither arrogant nor scared. A tall bearded man withsearching, eloquent eyes got up and started the meeting with somerather amazing statements, which the audience appeared willingto accept, perhaps giving him the benefit of the doubt until he had made his position known fully. His view of higher intelligencewas so different from that of the ordinary "contactees that I

80. 78 MESSENGERS OF DECEPTIONwas immediately interested. He presented himself as a voluntaryparticipant in an effort to manipulate peoples beliefs! After an introduction that contained statements like "We arenot seeking converts, but we are seeking to get the information tothose people who have been waiting for it, because there are manyon this planet," and "We are not here to defend it or to prove whatwe are going to say," the speaker emphasized that he was "plantingseeds" and went on to what he called "the nitty-gritty." His first point was a clarification of the groups position, and hedescribed what they were offering to us. We are preparing ourselves for what we feel is a unique opportunity, and it is also the opportunity of evetyone in this room. Whether you accept it as an opportunity, whether you cannot accept it, we know that each one of you who hears it will be changed in the hearing of it; and in the days that are coming, because of the events that will take place, you will probably lind some significant changes taking place within you.He then shifted to an account of the history of the group and itsleaders, "the Two." The two people that we met months ago were born in the United States just like you and I. They grew up and had families and jobs and careers, and everything, exactly as you and I. As they got into their late thirties, individual man and woman, without knowing why, suddenly they began to have the feeling that there was something that they were here for. Circumstances eventually brought them together. And it was a couple ofyears be fore they began to realize that they had comefrom a diffirent level, a level above the human level, an actual, physical level out in space. [My italics.]

81. Why D o T h e y Keep S t a r i n g ac c h c Wa l l s ? 79Figure 4.2. Public meetings held by "the Two" and their disciples beforepacked audiroriums revealed a very sincere, dedicated group completelycommitted to a fantastic interpretation ofhuman destiny. (Photo courtesyof G. Askevold.).Are most of us condemned, then, to li nger at our present low levelof intelligence, while the higher intelligences incarnated in a fewlucky i ndividuals go on to some other plane of existence? No!According to the H.I.M. doctrine, salvation is for everyone. The most important crux of the information is that what you acquire on this human level is your physical body, and you can take and convert that physical vehicle into a diferent f form; i t will look the same on the outside, but its changed chemically and biologically. This physical body will then have the ability to leave this atmosphere and go out into what you and I would call space, where the radiation is extremely hot. The information they have brought to us is going to be demonstrated within a few months. They are now just finishing completing their own physical metamorphosis.

82. 80 MESSENGERS OF DECEPTION Their bodies have almost completely changed over physically, chemicall , biologically. They look just like you and I on the y surfoce. Within a few months there will be a demonstration. When we have changed our bodies over through this process, we no longer have to endure disease or decay or death. Ifyou find it extremely fur out when you first hear it, you may be amazed at how quickly it seems to make sense and seems logical. And you are capable o picking up this information f without solving it on a rational, conscious leveL [My italics.]The information, then, is to be regarded as an irrational piece ofdata. Here is an important fact: to follow H.I.M. or any othercontactee group involves an act of faith, even if the language is thatof science. Gone are the standards of the scientific method and themeasures of the laboratory: our minds, these people argue, can nowsoar above these petty, meticulous, worrisome details. There are those members o that next level who are ver close f y to the Earth at this time. Increased activity in the heavens which you and I probably call UFOs or falling stars [sic!) will testifY to increased sightings. They are here solely to help those humans who embrace this information and want to go through the process.Now comes the prophecy, the announcement that a proo of the fpower of higher intelligence will soon be forthcoming: In a period of months these two people, through some circumstance that they do not even know, will come to be killed. Three and a half days later, after having been officially declared dead by those who want to verifY the fact, their bodies will then come back to lift again to show you and I that when you have gone through this process you have actually overcome death.

83. Why Do T h e y K e e p S t a r i n g a t t h e Wa l l s ? 81A Lot of People are Tired of Playing the Human GameAfter this resurrection, (which, as I write this two years later, has stillnot taken place, although it was predicted within "a few months"),1 he two individuals in question will be picked up by a UFO and gohack to the level from which they came, a world where, naturally,1 here is no death, disease, or decay. Then everyone will know what1 he UFOs are, the believers claim. The powerful analogy (but a misleading one, as the audiencewould later point out) was that of the butterfly, an image borrowedi"rom the sixties. The speaker for H.I.M. could not resist using it asa symbol of metamorphosis: While the caterpillar is a caterpillar, if he is killed he doesnt become a butterfly. He must make that metamorphosis while he is a healthy, living caterpillar. He can no longer continue any of his activities; all the eating he used to love to do must end. He must come to a phase where he keeps all identity to himself. As a result he makes himself available to the power which transforms him. Those UFO vehicles are here to take those who complete this transformation successfully. A lot of people are really tired of playing the human game, and a lot of people have already copped out and left, in their own way, for different reasons. There are some people who are just tired, and there are other people who, even though they really love the Earth, and care about things here, feel an urge and a compulsion, because of the unfolding of their own souls, to move to something higher.What about the other belief systems? What about the religions thatthe doctrine of H.l.M. appears to supersede? The disciples of theTwo point out that no other system has integrated the concept of

84. 82 M ES S E N G E R S O F DECEPTIONsurvival of death and the belief in UFOs. In this sense, the doctrineof H.I.M. is a genuine prototype for some future religion. At thesame time, it is updating psychedelic themes ofthe previous decade,restating them for the UFO culture of the 70s and 80s. The Scientists Have Kept It From UsThe themes that H.I.M. uses to establish its doctrine and manipulateits believers are the old standards of escapism: Fear of changing times and social conditions, symbolized by violent human behavior, weather patterns, earthquakes, and volcanoes; Desire to transcend the fear of death, embodied in the promise of travel to another physical level; Boredom and feelings of inadequacy in the human condition, desire to escape everyday responsibilities to a job and a family.Joining the H.I.M. group means that none of these responsibilitiesneed be considered significant any more. It is a step that anyone cantake overnight, a form of intellectual and emotional bankruptcyless painful than suicide, and infinitely more glamorous. The H.I.M. group is also out to capitalize on the growingmisunderstanding between scientists and the public: Now, the physical fact that the doors are open means that there is actually an increased amount of radiation in this atmosphere. That increased radiation is what had been triggering the feeling of search in you and me. This is the reason weve all been looking, and you can also think of

85. Why Do They K e e p S t a r i n g a t t h e W a l l s ? 83 that band of radiation as an extreme ray of light, a light that exposes everything. It exposes everything at every level of our government; it exposes more things on the level of UFOs; it exposes things about our universe that the government and scientists and astronomers have been slightly aware of, but have kept from the general public because they didnt even completely understand what it meant. [My italics.] I here is indeed a language barrier between scientists and otherpeople. Within a given individual, there are also irrational forcesthat tear the mind apart. In this respect, the questions and answersduring the Stanford meeting were illuminating. The first one hadto do with the personal history of the speakers: Can you tell us a little bit about yourself! Like who you are, what you do, where you all come from, how you got together, how you met the two people, things like that? Because right now we have no idea of anything at all about you.The question was expected. A tall young man with blue eyes,wearing a white sweater, answered earnestly: We were sitting in very comfortable jobs with family situations in the exact same spot you are sitting in. The information came directly from rhe Two through the mail, and said, if you would like to know more, write in. We did. Then it suddenly appeared that there were a number of people like this, all in one area, that were interested, and the Two people came to that area. They extended the opportunity to help us better decide if we really understood the material and if we actually really wanted to leave this human life.

86. 84 M E S S E N G ERS OF D E C E P T I O N "Are there only two on the entire planet?" asked a middle-agedwoman in the back of the room. "That is true. "What is the end result of all this going to be?" she insisted.She had remained standing behind the last row of chairs. Sheseemed ready to join the cult. Are we going to formulate a newcivilization out into space that will complement human life hereon this Earth?" No, were not going to create a new civilization out in space. This process is available to those who would like to take advantage of it. Lets call it the graduating class of human beings from this planet. This is the normal course that has been going on for millions and millions of years. A lot of people thought, what happens when I die, is this the end all? Well, whatever your religious belief might be, it makes absolutely no difference. This is available to everybody. There is another step which has been going on for millions of years, off of the Earths atmosphere. It Only Costs Your LifeA girl with long hair got up i n the audience and addressed theeight disciples: Im curious to know how you got your belief concept going with these two individuals, because I have lots of beliefs and sometimes theyre incorrect. I f ollow them for a long, long time until I find that Im batting my head against a wall. What questions do you ask yourself? Youve already answered one question by saying that you cant answer it, because your brain cannot form correct statements . . . I can go along with that for a while, and then all of a sudden I need more.

87. Why Do T h e y Keep S t a r i n g at t h e W a l l s � 85One of the men decided to answer this, after some hushedconsultation with the others: "If! understand you correctly, youre asking what made us do this, right? I have known, during my whole lifetime, that something was going to happen at this space and time. Why, I dont know. When the student is ready, the teacher presents himself. I knew that when my special mission on this Earth lifetime, at this particular time, came forth, I had been preparing for it and I would recognize it and know it and pursue it. I said, oh, youre crazy, who do these people think they are? Here I am in my own little world and everything is functioning beautifully, and I have my life and my income and my family, and all the fine things of life. And yet, something here says this is it! Youve got to do it. That is about the best answer I can give. "Do I understand you correctly in that you are a class of students in a fashion, and you hope to graduate?" "Were taking our final exam, ifyou want to put it that way." "All right. Is it possible that one or some or all of you are going to flunk?" "Yes, its possible. But we all push right to the end. Dont let us mislead you on any level. It is extremely difficult. Its free, which is the first thing that may make a lot of you say, How could it be free? because everyone else around is charging a lot of money for what they want to offer you. Its free, but its very difficult. "It isnt free, because you put in time, and devotion, and effort," objected the girl.

88. 86 MESSENGERS OF DECEPTION "It only costs your life, you know . . . " the man replied.A man who must have come to some personal conclusions regardingthe deception broke in to ask: "How do you know that youre not being deceived bydemonic forces ? " The answer was less than adequate: The potency of the information speaks to you. When you get the information and you read through it and you realize that you understand it, that youre being pulled toward and you don� know why and you can� figure it out on a it, conscious, rational, human level, thats the clue right there. Something inside you says you know youre going to do it, you know youre going to do it.Someone in the audience yelled, "Thats how demonic forces work!" Another disciple picked up the ball: "Thats an impossiblequestion to answer. Except that in this particular process thoseindividuals in that next kingdom are so close that they step inand take over and keep any force from this level from influencingyou otherwise." A dreamy young man got up and testified, "A lot of people thinkIm crazy, but sometimes itll be a bright night and Ill be sittingoutside and saying, come on down, come and get me. lve alwayswanted to be picked up by a UFO. . ." The eight disciples smiled, and the one with the blue eyes said,"Weve been looking for you, too!" The mystery of H.I.M. was brought down to mundaneproportions in the ensuing months. In November it was discoveredthat the two people who claimed to be the leaders of that outer-spaceorganization were in fact quite ordinary humans: M. H . Applewhite,

89. Why D o T h e y K e e p S t a r i n g a t t h e Walls ? 87U, born in Spur, Texas, a musician and opera singer, the son of alrlsbyterian minister; and Bonnie Nettles, age 48, a nurse who methim in Houston in the early 70s while he was recovering from atnmtal breakdown. They had first created meditation centers, then;�[tout 1973 they began recruiting for H.I.M. One woman who joined their group for two months in 1975, but"bsequently refused to follow the party line, commented: "These twopeople are dangerous. It is not hypnosis. It is thought transplant." The group led by "the Two" has now become so notorious thatI need not spend more time with them; many articles have beenpublished about them, revealing much about their intentions andmethods 2 Yet I was carrying their image in my mind when I flewto Spain in December 1975 to investigate another aspect of the l J FO mystery. The important thing was this: an increasing number"f humans claim contact with space beings. They believe that the,� pacemen are, in fact, here with us. This belief is of enormous importance to individuals and to society. Although I consider thebeliefs of"the Two" to be childish fabrication, the fact remains that t hey have touched a sensitive nerve. They found many people to I isten to them. At the Stanford meeting, they made half a dozen new converts. Later, however, they began losing members. The people who left their group would just go home and, for several weeks, simply stare at the walls. The Epic of Jacques Bordas!hose who come into close contact with the UFO phenomenonseem to bear its mark forever. Some become nearly mad; others slideinto silent contemplation. Still others seem to reach a physical and mental state which sets them clearly apart from the human race. Such is the person I now want to introduce to the reader.Jacques Bordas was born on July 20, 1911, grew up a weakling, had several encounters with extraordinary beings, and was totally

90. 88 M E S S E N G ERS OF DECEPTIONtransformed as a result of his experiences with them. This is whatAntonio Ribera, a gifted Spanish writer who has known him formany years, said of him: He still has muscles of steel, and takes long walks through the mountains of Andorra, where he lives in a magnificent villa among the pine trees. He skis down the slopes, sleeps three or four hours a day - his body requires no more. He spends a large part of the night standing naked and motionless, as if recharging his "batteries" in a shower of invisible rays.Until the age of 1 2 Bordas was very sick indeed. Because of ahormonal deficiency, he was enormously fat and could walk onlywith difficulty. His mind was closed. Neither the public schools ofBarcelona nor private professors could get his interest. Then Bordasunderwent a strange transformation, similar to the metamorphosisso eagerly expected by the followers ofH.l.M. At twelve, in August 1923, as the boy was lying down, he feltthe urge to climb to the terrace, and there he saw something. Was itreality or a dream? He saw some small metallic, triangular devices,similar to miniature planes; three of them landed near him. Theymeasured less than nine feet, and one of them opened like a fan. Abeing came out of it wearing a white suit and a bright white mantle.This man, who was not taller than the boy, said: We have come to see you, because we have taken you under our protection. We know how much you suffer, and we know your dream of becoming a strong man, an athlete. You will realize it, with our help; you will be strong, not only physically but mentally, too. Now that we have adopted you, we will never forsake you. In the future we will come back to you again. In the meantime, as a token of friendship, take this.

91. Why D o T h e y Keep S t a r i n g a t t h e Wa lls? 89 l ite strange messenger gave him a dark, square candy andiustructed him to eat it completely, warning him that, as he did"· he was beginning a new life. He went back to his triangulara i rplane and rook off, followed by the other two. They flew towardTibidaro Mountain. When the boy woke up, he had a taste of tari n his mouth. During the next four years he underwent an extraordinarylransformation, and became physically very strong. At the samelime he developed a fascination for mountains and for science. Ateighteen he ran away from home with two friends and joined adrcus. Bordas also became an expert mountain climber. He wasthe first Spaniard to climb Green Needle, in 1934. In 1937 hecrossed the Grand Jura and ascended Grand Chervoz. A short time before the Spanish Civil War he passed theexamination to become the meteorologist in charge of TuroWeather Observatory, on top of Montseny. He came out first ofmany applicants, and went to work on the mountain. During thisperiod he recalls only one curious incident. There was a knock atthe door of his isolated cabin one night. He got up and opened it:the area was deserted. He took his gun and searched every corner ofthe rocks - still no one. He went back inside. A few minutes later,he heard something that scratched the window. He got up and thistime he saw a human form: it was standing on a narrow ledge abovea sheer drop of a thousand feet. The shape walked away toward theabyss, but instead of falling it kept going horizontally. The secondmessenger vanished in the distance. The Civil War forced him to go back to Spain as an Air Forceofficer. As the political structure of the country collapsed, he tookthe side of the Nationalists and became the leader of a group thatsought refuge in the mountains. He was tracked down, arrested,tortured, thrown on a prison ship, and managed to escape. Herejoined the ranks of the Nationalists, but soon came into conflictwith his superiors because he disapproved of the summary way inwhich "Red" prisoners were tried and massacred.

92. 90 MESSENGERS OF DECEPTION He was kidnapped by three men hired by one of the officershe had antagonized. In classic gangster style, they took him to anisolated cabin, ordered him to take off his clothes, and shot him.What happened then? How did he survive this execution? We canonly speculate about this point. The fact is that the would-be killersbecame convinced that they must be facing some supernaturalpower, because they ran away in abject terror. Our man picked uphis clothes and went out. Antonio Ribera met this extraordinary man at a time when hehad enemies on both political sides: the Reds had thrown Bordasinto jail because he had resisted the terrorist movement; and theNationalists had tried to kill him because he disapproved of theirsummary trials and cruel executions. Riberas father, who wasRumanian Consul i n Barcelona, helped Bordas escape to France.He became the manager of a small hotel in Casteil, a villageon Vernet Mountain, at the foot of the Canigou. He was therein 1951, dividing his time between his activities as an officialmountain guide and the management of the hotel, when he camefor the third time into contact with the force that had twicealready influenced his life: the irrational, inexplicable projectionof another intelligence. The Stranger From AboveJacques Bordas was resting in the patio when an unknown mancame before him and gravely saluted. This third messenger wasover six feet tall, with an athletic body, dear blue eyes, and longblond hair. He wore black boots, dose-fitting trousers, and a graygarment with ropes around the neck and wrists. His eyes wereslightly elongated, and his hands were very white. " I would like to beg of you a favor," he said in perfect French."Can you get me every day, at the same time, two bottles of milkand some bread? "

93. Why Do They K e e p S t a r i n g a t t h e W a l l s ? 91 They agreed on the time and place, and the man came backlvery day, never saying anything until Jacques asked him wherehe came from. "From above," was his answer. Jacques thought hemeant "from the mountain." He imagined the man was a runaway,perhaps a German. When they had a more lengthy conversation, itwas so full of mathematical terms that Jacques hardly understoodhalf of it. "What are you doing in these mountains?" Jacques asked. "I am doing a study of the topography of Canigou," replied theman with the strange eyes. "Can you show me what you do?" "I will bring you something tomorrow." The next day he brought Jacques a sheet of strange, parchmentlike paper on which the whole mountain was drawn in the finestdetail. It was covered with unknown symbols. Jacques Bordas tailed the visitor when he went back to themountain. He walked in an even, easy step, going up in the samegraceful way he had come down. Jacques managed to see his"camp": he noticed a peculiar gray conical object he took to be alow shelter. Next to it Jacques saw another being whom he thoughtwas a woman. I n the next few days the conversations with the stranger tooka political turn: "Man must tear away his egotism. Man believesthat he is unable to do this, but he can, although its very hard,"he continued. "Man believes he is the only important being on theEarth; he ignores the fact that he is nothing more than one elementin natural evolution. In spite of his unbounded pride, his so-calledknowledge, there is another species evolving now that will replace himin due time. Even your children are undergoing a transformation:they will change everything, the social structure, religion . . . " On the last day the visitor told Jacques: "Tomorrow Imust go back up there, a n d since I do not have any of yourcurrency, I will pay for your milk and bread with somethingyour people appreciate."

94. 92 M E S S E N G E R S OF D E C E P T I O N "Forget ir," said Jacques. "You have already repaid me with allyou have taught me." "No," said the man, "take these rocks: this is gold from the CadiRiver. It will repay you." He gave him a few rocks that Jacques later took to a jeweler inPerpignan: it was indeed gold. Jacques lif entered a period of great changes. His first wife and eson died in Casteil. He married again and had another boy. I f weare to believe the story, his psychic awareness began to increase. Hebecame able to find lost objects at a distance. It is a fact that he movedto Andorra on an impulse and decided to make furniture (a tradeat which he had no experience whatsoever). He was so successful atit that he became an excellent cabinetmaker and one of the richestmen in Andorra: his factory is now exporting to 30 countries. Heclaims that he is a healer, but declines to use this ability except invery special cases. He seeks no publicity and no fame. During the summer of 1971 he received a phone call from Paris.He thought he recognized the voice of his visitor of the Canigou,twenty years earlier: I am calling from a car in Bois de Vincennes [one of the largest parks in Paris] . You will undergo another mutation. You will not grow older. Your consciousness will open itself to universal truths.The language of these communications is the same as in thestatements coming from the H.I.M. group. The Meeting in BarcelonaI flew to Barcelona to meet Antonio Ribera and another Spanishresearcher, Ballester-Olmos. As the aircraft circled over the harbor,I reviewed in my mind the many topics we had to discuss. None

95. Why D o T h e y K e e p S t a r i n g at t h e Wa l l s � 93was more intriguing than the fate of Jacques Bordas. As soon aswe were in Riberas car, driving up the mountain, I told him thatI was toying with the idea of going on to Andorra in order to meetBordas in person. "You will not have togo that far!" was his answer. "He is spendingseveral weeks right in this city. You can talk to him tomorrow." Bordas at 65 is a strong man who does not look over 50, and givesan impression of intense vitality. His education is very limited, buthis knowledge of business is keen, and his understanding of naturearound him - especially when he speaks of the mountains- appearsexceptional. We spent most of our time, however, discussing thebeing of the Canigou and his subsequent "contacts." The story of Bordas is much more substantive than the taleof the ordinary contactee. George Adamski, f instance, has ordescribed an alleged meeting with a tall entity with long blondhair, but no one else was a witness to the event, although GeorgeHunt Williamson assured me that he had seen the craft in Right.In the case of Bordas, not only does the jeweler remember the goldnuggets that Bordas brought for his assessment, but several peoplein Casteil do recall Ittre etrange, " the Strange being that cameevery day to speak with him. "When was your last communication experience?" I asked Bordas. "Only a few weeks ago, in the house in Andorra. The roomappeared to fill with red light particles, and I went into a trance. Iheard a voice telling me that soon I would be needed." "How do they identify themselves? Do they say where theycome from?" "They say they are from Titan," he replied quietly. For somestrange reason I was beginning to trust something in this man,although I couldnt buy his theories. "Perhaps you know that many people in America, bothNorth and South, have made claims similar to yours. Only thecommunications are never consistent. Do you trust the source ofthese messages . )) >

96. 94 M ESSENGERS O F D E C E P T I O N "They could well be saying this because it is something Ican understand. I have no proof that its true. Besides, there areLuciferian forces out there . . . " At this point I became seriously concerned that I was goingto be treated to a conventional discourse on righteousness. I hadhad enough of that from the Human Potential types at home inCalifornia. Better find out right now. "Do you mean there aredifferent kinds of manifestations, and some are dedicated to Eviland opposed to Good?" I asked. "No, I do not mean that," said Bordas, to my considerablesurprise. "Those are simply forces of a different type, which we arenot able to comprehend. When we have evolved sufficiently, we willrealize that the contradiction was only an apparent one." This had been a fruitful discussion as far as I was concerned.Bordas had demonstrated a critical ability that contactees usuallylack. Their commitment to a particular source - the source of whatthey claim to be their "wisdom" - is generally so high that it borderson religious fanaticism, and indeed often triggers such fanaticismin their believers. Yet Bordas was open-minded. I n Jacques Bordas, then, I found something new: a manwhose life had been bent out of shape at an early age by theapparent intervention of another life form. He said that he hadbeen adopted by the alien force, touched by another energy!Then came the rationalizations, the attempts at explanation: theearly incident could have been a dream. It is not unusual forobesity to give way to normal development at puberty. Somehormonal deficiency could have been corrected when Bordasreached that age. The case was an intriguing one, nonetheless,because of the later events. Not only was the "being" of Canigoualleged to have impressed others i n the village, including theMayor, Mr. Nou, but he had demonstrated before them someunusual abilities: when the son of Bordas attempted to take hispicture, the exposures came out blank, although family sceneson the rest of the film were normal. When the good Mayor

97. Why Do T h e y K e e p S c a r i n g a t t h e Walls? 95Figure 4.3. Jac q ues Bordas, photographed during a visit to Barcelona,is one of the most remarkable European contactees. He claims to havereceived gold from a suange being whom he met repeatedly in thePyrenees i n 1951 . (Photo courtesy of A. Ribera.)con fronted the stranger and demanded to see his papers, the tallbeing is said to have looked at him in such a way that he becameconfused and forgot the question. In recent years three investigators with the French UFOgroup LDLN went to Casteil and tracked down the Mayor. Heconfirmed that Bordas settled in the village in 1940 and manageda hotel owned by Mr. Nou. He was regarded as an ((original/however, and lived by hi mself, often taking long hikes in themountains, or painting. A show he organized in Perpignan metwith little success .. Mr. Nou had no recollection of the ((strangebeing," a fact that supporters of the story take as a n indicationthat the Mayors memory was erased by the visitor. Anothervillager, restaurant-owner Michael Cases, told the investigatorsthat he had known Bordas fairly well, and regarded him as "anice guy," but one who craved attention. It is unfortunate thatnone of the people interviewed was able to absolutely confirm

98. 96 M E S S E N G E RS O F D E C E P T I O No r deny Bordas story, although Mr. Nous statement that hedoesnt remember the being casts some doubts on the validity ofthe claims. The believers in contact stories will be quick to pointout that such selective forgetfulness is another trademark leftbehind by our visitors! Those who follow the claims of Jacques Bordas are convincedthat there are aliens on the Earth. I [Jacques Bordas has seen them,they say, why shouldnt we believe all the other contactees? Whyshouldnt we go up in a flying saucer, like the T Jacques Bordas wo?doesnt play the "human game." Like the Two, he feels that heis living for something else, a level of reality which transcendsthis planer. Like the Two, he claims to have been biologicallytransformed by his encounter. This idea has universal appeal: it istempting to assume we can all be transformed, metamorphosed.Why shouldnt we survive beyond death itself and attain thathigher cosmic level, as Timothy Leary and other scientificallytrained minds are inviting us to do? I f the secret contact withspace could change a single man, why couldnt it have the sameeffect on a whole group, perhaps even on the whole human race? Atempting lure indeed. It is easy to see how such a belief can spread,and what new organizations can spring up to propagate it. But Iwas going to find our very quickly that the charming and mysticaltales of the contactees also had more sinister connotations.

99. PA RT TwoThe Manipulations

100. Here in the dark I grope, confUsed, purblind;I have not seen the glory and the peace;But in the darkend mirror o the mind fStrange glimmersfall, and shake me till they cease. R. W. Buchanan, quoted in D . Davidson, Remembrances o a Religious Maniac (Shakespeare Press, 1 9 1 2) f

101. F IV E Gz·(:rp�:-> · · · ·· · ····· · The Political Overtones Like many people, I have no religion and I am just sitting in a small boat drifting with the tide. . . today we stand naked, defenseless. and more alone than at any time in history. We are waiting/or something, perhaps another miracle, perhaps the Martians. Who knows? Federico Fellini N DECEMBER 1975 I was returning from Barcelona, where I hadI spent most of the day with Jacques Bordas. I was dragging my suitcase through the long white corridors ofthe Paris subway when I saw these lines, which had been hurriedlyscribbled with a black pen on a yellow poster: THE LORD IS AN EXTRATERRESTRIAL WHO HAS RETURNED IN A FLYlNG SAUCER. Order of Melchizedek, rue Jules Valles Paris XII copied this address on the back of my subway ticket and placed itin my wallet. The next day I was walking up rue Jules Valles in thebitter cold. Suddenly, this morning, the passersby had taken on anair of misery and shuddering frailty, rushing about with hands intheir pockets, covered up with coats and scarves. The mailboxes downstairs told the simple story of the building:apartments rented by workers of modest circumstances, names thatwere those of immigrants; there was no carpet at the foot of the

102. 100 MESSENGERS OF DECEPTIONstairs. A baby carriage was parked in the corner. I climbed to thesecond floor and rang a bell. A short woman with a kind, sad smile,oddly wearing a coat and a woollen cap, greeted me. I apologizedfor the unusual hour of my visit but she stopped me: "Do not worry,you have come at the appointed time." She gave me a long, meaningful look, and said again, slowly,"You have come at the appointed time." Do Spacemen Drink Champagne?The apartment was chaotic. There was no table or chair anywhere.An open closet revealed a mass of clothes piled on the floor. Twowindows borrowed some light from the frozen street. A few scatteredcushions adorned the first room, a piece of cloth was spread on thefloor of the second one; there were dusty pictures and dirty dishes;over this drab misery hovered the massive figure of a bearded manwearing a tattered shirt and torn jeans, and drinking champagnewith a young disciple. They invited me to have lunch with them: salami and pate withan apple, perhaps. And some Veuve Cliquot? Hardly what Americancontactees had led me to expect from outer-space believers. Thefollowers of H.I.M. drank Fanta Orange or Diet Pepsi. The oldercrowd, the members ofthe Universal Party who had voted for GabrielGreen in 1960 when he ran against Kennedy on the "Space Platform,"sustained their energies with tall glasses of bourbon. Perhaps I wasamong enlightened brethren who would allow me to raise my soultoward higher worlds without demanding that I lower my standardsin this one? The conversation that followed soon shattered the illusion. FirstI exchanged some words with the younger fellow and found that heworked with a major computer company; he was clearly a neophytein the group. The bearded man introduced himself as Ivan, andexplained to me his purpose i n life:

103. The P o l i t i c a l Overtones 101 Y see, we are surrounded by barbarism, but the barbarians ou will soon have to submit themselves to the new revelations. Besides, all the governments on Earth now acknowledge the truth of what were saying. Giscard has even gone to see the Pope, you understand what that means, no?They gave me several leaflets and other samples of their puzzlingliterature. The latest release from the Order of Melchizedekannounced the imminent fl ight of seven flying saucers over Paris.They would land on top o f the Radio and Television Building:"the Peoples are invited to attend this Circonvolution," concludedthe leaflet. "Do you ever meet extraterrestrials?" I asked Cyna, the womanwho had opened the door. "I meet them everywhere. I n the street. In the stores. They arehere. They tell me what to do. They stop me when Im about tomake mistakes." "Do you want more Champagne?" asked the Priest ofMelchizedek. I admire his philosophy. On California hilltops, hungry hippiesawait the flying saucers with trepidating hearts and frozen feet. Ihave met contactees in the suburbs of Chicago, leading virtuouslives to be worthy of their Space Brothers. They abstain from sexand wine. Ivan stands far above such mediocrity. He waits for the visitorsfrom space in comfort, ready to greet them with a toast: "Be notforgetful to entertain strangers, says the old text, for thereby somehave entertained angels unawares." I have before me the leaflets given to me by the French Order ofMelchizedek. They contain some startling announcements: My mission is to announce that the Lord is on the Earth. He is the chief of all the Extraterrestrials, of all the UFOs and all the Planets. He comes to save the Earth.

104. 102 M E S S E N G E R S OF D E C E P T I O N All the money in the world is obsolete. Only the land has meaning. All religions are abolished. The military service, detested by the Lord, is forbidden, thanks to the antimatter guns of the UFOs.The same leaflet goes on with a definition ofthe strange organizationthat is spreading this curious bit of news: The Order of Melchizedek is an association of Extraterrestrials where everything is taught and given freely. The first believers will also be the first to be served, and besides they will be given proofs, like St. Thomas. They will travel in flying saucers. This has already happened to many of them.Figure 5.1. A pentacle given to the author by the French Order ofMelchizedek, which aims at eliminating money, religion, and war.Members of this Paris-based organization claim to be in cons ram contactwith extraterrestrials.

105. The P o l i t i c a l O v e r t o n e s 103 The Coincidence in San FranciscoIn the shadowy world of occultism it is often difficult to distinguishtruth from hoax, to disentangle the true purpose from the tinselornaments and the bizarre trappings designed to hide it. Who is this Melchizedek who is becoming a symbol anda rallying point for saucer contactees? He is, to put it in todaysterminology, Abrahams guru! In Genesis it is said that the King ofSodom went out to meet Abraham after his victory over his enemies,and Melchizedek, King o f Salem, brought forth bread and wine;and he was the priest of the most high God. To find a referenceto him on a subway wall in Paris was bizarre, but an even strangermention of his name was awaiting discovery in the advertisementsection of a San Francisco Ballet program: Order of Melchizedek Sunday Services 1 2 p.m. to I p.m. Hyatt Hotel, Union Square Stockton and Post, San FranciscoThe announcement gave a phone number and the name of theminister, Dr. Grace Hooper Pettipher, Ph.D., D.O., InternationalLecturer and Representative, Order of Melchizedek. There weremeetings on Wednesday evenings. My wife, Janine, and I wentthere and paid our three dollars each. The meeting was taking place in the carpeted basement of themodern structure, in the subdued light of a small conference roomat the end of a corridor. On a small table were two baskets of freshflowers. The sound system played classical melodies, softly. A fewpeople, young, intense, clean, with white shirts and long hair,meditated. Others kept arriving, some saying hello quietly to thebearded fellow at the door, others walking in with self-conscioussmiles, glancing toward us, looking in their pockets for paper andpencil, ready to take notes. The man who operated the tape deck

106. 104 MESSENGERS OF DECEPTIONhad a heavenly smile on his face, and I suddenly became suspiciousof the entire group. I had seen the same smiles before on the faces ofso many believers who had found Perfect Bliss! At Zen meetings andHare Krishna dances and meditations with gurus, I had observedthe same vacuum in the eyes and on the lips of enraptured youngmen and young women, with what a French humorist has called "anidiotic air, relieved by occasional flashes of dullness." Sometimes inmy observations of these groups I have run into the same people,equally blissful under the influence of Sri Chinmoy, of ReverendMoon, and of Werner Erhard. Would the Order of Melchizedekturn out to attract the same kind of believer? And what, exactly, didthey believe? Dr. Pettipher would soon come and, I hoped, answerthese questions. As we waited, a disciple passed around some notes in preparationfor the evening lecture, which was entitled "Be Your OwnPsychiatrist." I studied these notes in vain. Their only effect on mymind was to produce a dull, warm, apathetic daze: Positively applied Psychiatries of Spirit exposes to light of Spirit, releasing the hidden psychic elements of the age-old psyche with its "dark indigo tidal flow" through the entire subconscious of soul.It went on like this for two pages . . . single-spaced. My brain softlywashed by this tepid prose, I waited. The meditating group aroundme was going in deeper. Perfection is ContagiousDr. Grace Hooper Pettipher came into the room suddenly, movinglike a sailing ship maneuvering into a channel. She was tugged thisway and that by assisting hands, classical music playing, her whitedress sail-like. She navigated among the chairs toward the front of the

107. The P o l i t i c a l Overtones 105room. She faced us with an ecstatic expression on her face. She mighthe seventy, but her energy was that ofan adolescent girl, and her poisewas perfect as she sized up her audience, nodded to her enraptureddisciples in the front row, and gave us a few more minutes to enjoy1 he music. Suddenly she began her lecture with passing reference to1 he notes that we had received from her assistants, quickly set themaside, and took off into spontaneous revelations. This would be, she assured us, our first lesson in mysticism: you:He with your Soul, she added, but not necessarily o your Soul. Are fyou living as a Soul, or as a Spirit? Ifyou have lived before only as aSpirit, then perhaps you have no remembrance as a Soul. Perhaps,on the other hand, you used part o the universe as a Soul? In f theOrder of Melchizedek, before Abraham, there was no question ofpsychic powers such as clairvoyance. (How does she know?) Therewas cosmo-voyance, the vision and hearing of God. This was whatthe lecture meant, about "being your own psychiatrist." You had tobecome a user of Gods mind, which in fact is the only mind. She was using absurdity and confusion in the skilled way ofa brainwashing expert, with what appeared to be a native abilityto pull lightning flashes from the entanglement of her mysticalprgon:• You must operate as a spiritual being. Who are you? Who caused you to be? Who are your Soul parents? Perfection is contagious, and you have been given perfection in your Spirit and mind unlimited.She switched frameworks on her audience again, from the mysticalto a pseudophysical description: There are seven times seven aerhers that form the garments of your soul, radiating in etheric wavelengths that rotate clockwise around you.

108. JOG M E S S E N G E R S OF D E C E P T I O NShe stopped and looked at us for a long time, as if she couldsee weird colors rotating around people in the audience. Noone stirred. Her voice had a deep quality that held attention;her personality dominated the room in spite of her aimlessverbiage. She took cognizance of the charged atmosphere:"Were beginning to transmute. Weve gone pretty high, all ofa sudden." The How of her words became more colorful and definite.Her substance now was historical and mythical, her assertionspunctuated by movements in her white dress, long, incisive,hungry glances from the lively eyes in the wrinkled face: Weve all met before, near the Mediterranean. For the last twenty years weve had Egypt with us, people who reincarnated from that period. Were coming our of it now. People remember meeting in Greece, in Atlantis . . . Atlantis on Fifth Avenue"We lived in harmony in Atlantis," she said with the matter-offact intonation of a housewif recalling some childhood memory. e"Unfortunately the heaviness of mind sank the island. Parts of thisheaviness are still with us." Atlantis . . .she saw it on Fifth Avenue, ten or twelve years ago.Grace was walking on the sidewalk on a hot summer day, andsuddenly it was there at her feet: a vision of palaces and parks,an ancient city alive and excited. "God, give me a witness!" sheprayed. Then she saw her friend Emma Fox in a doorway. "What are you doing there, Grace? What are you looking at?" "Im investigating Atlantis, cant you see? We must never make that mistake again; thats the lesson of Atlantis. We must never manipulate others, never camouflage

109. The Political O v e r t o n e s 101 our feelings. Live a straight way of lif because the power e, from above must go down straight, or lose its effectiveness.Dr. Pettipher recalled her first visit to San Francisco, at the timeof the hippie movement. She couldnt believe that so many soulsfrom the ancient world had reincarnated at the same time, but thatonly confirmed her theories, she felt. The hippies came from Greektimes, and she finds proof of this in their later disappearance fromAmerica: hundreds of them now live in caves in Greece; she hasseen them. They have returned to their normal environment. "Theywere darlings," she said, "but they didnt understand bodies. Peoplecome from all kinds of places. Even here, in this room . . ." she staredvery hard at Janine and me, then said matter-of-factly, "we evenhave some whove come from outside this planet tonight. There arebeings who come in UFOs, and people go away with them." Finally she spoke of sex, and she made it clear that noemotional involvement was permitted to those who followedher philosophy; if a new disciple has a lover, let that personsay, "Look, I ve discovered a new way of life - lets finish thisrelationship." She was hitting hard. In extreme cases, marriagewas O.K. if the attraction was too great, but that was the extentof her willingness to tolerate the passions of the flesh. Subvertedsex, she said, turns to lust for money; its like taking mud fromone bank of the river and dumping it on the other bank. She hadsome haunting phrases: Most people are ships that pass in the night. Those that pass in the day you remember. Think about it: if you remember me and I forget you, who is the stronger of the two? Never leave a business imperfect or unfinished. Stay with it. Dont cover up your mistakes; use the light. Y shouldnt ou decide what is good or bad, but what you, personally, wish to know. Light can only look upon itself. It looks at the darkness and says, "Hello, light!"

110. 108 M E S S E N G E R S OF D E C E P T I O N The Secret Contact With SpaceThe members of the Order of Melchizedek throughout the worldregard Pettiphers statements as fact, and they accept the presenceof Space Beings among us. Why is it, then, that their publicationssay nothing about this exciting development? Are they hidingsomething? Is there an "inner circle" behind the trivial metaphysicalverbiage offered to the uninitiated? The lectures by "Dr. Grace"contain tidbits of fascinating time-space theory hidden by layers ofpseudomystical jargon, but what is it that individual members ofthe group really believe? About the time this question began to bother me, one of myfriends, whom I will call Steve, had developed an interest in thephilosophy of the saucer groups. When I told him of the existenceof the Order ofMelchizedek, he joined it enthusiastically and beganto read Dr. Graces pamphlets. He was disappointed. "Its pretty bleak, to say the least," he told me. "It speaks ofnegativevibrations interfering with the aura and of unfoldment of spiritualconsciousness. Nothing you can verify, no scientific content." "Is there anything in all this literature that gives information onthe history of the group, its traditions?" I asked. I like to understandwhere things come from, an old-fashioned habit I got from myFrench education. -Figure 5.2. The seal ofMelchizedek as used by Dr. Grace Pet tipher .

111. The P o l i t i c a l O v e r t o n e s 109 "When I asked that at the meeting, I only got some vaguegeneralities. When Dr. Grace saw me for the first time, though,she said something curious. She said, Youve come a very long way,havent you? I asked her about it later in the evening, and she saidI was already quite advanced." "Do they have anything to do with any of the saucer cults? " "As a matter of fact, I met a girl at the meeting who was goingon later to see some followers of another group called Urantia whoassemble in somebodys house in the Mission district. She has beenwith Dr. Grace for two or three years, and considers her to be asort of grandmother figure. This girl and a man were the leaders ofthis Urantia group; the man thought that Dr. Grace didnt have ittogether enough, and the two groups split." Occult groups follow the same general rules. They often have acovert purpose that only a few leaders know. They have a doctrineand a recruiting technique. I asked my friend how he thought theOrder of Melchizedek operated. "They work pretty much like any church does," he said. "Theyhave a dogma that says members of their Order are pretty special, ,of course. " I n what sense are they special? Do they have some kindof initiation?" "I dont know. They havent initiated me, anyway. Grace did saysomething striking about an experience she had near Glastonbury,in England. She was staying with some friends, and sleeping neara window overlooking the marsh; during the night the room wassuddenly filled with bizarre beings who motioned her toward thewindow. Instead of a marsh there was a beautiful lake." This was unexpected: a vision that came straight out of themedieval mystical literature, communication with the Sylphs . . . orwere they Undines? "What did the beings look like?" "She didnt say. There was a full moon in the sky. She went backto bed, and the next day, when she saw her hostess, Grace said, Thefull moon was up last night, and she said, Yes, it was, adding,

112. 110 M E S S E N G E R S OF D E C E P T I O NAnd you saw it reflected i n a lake, and she said, Yes, I did. Andshe embraced her in a secret kind of way." "She said that publicly? At the meeting?" "Y she did. I asked her if she had ever seen a UFO. She had. es,She described to me what she had seen once in the eastern part ofthe United States, with her husband. It was a craft, only fifty feetor so away, and shefelt that the beings on board were communicatingdirectly to her, into her brain." After the meeting of the Order of Melchizedek, there was aparty celebrating the opening night of Totentanz, a ritual danceorchestrated by a gifted San Francisco choreographer. I wassurprised to learn that he was a member of rhe Order. The managerof his group, too, had seen a UFO i n !967. It was a cigar-shapedcraft with a dome on top and on rhe bottom. It moved sidewaysbetween two douds. "It was as real as a 747." I Am Only The InstrumentIn 1963 the Lockhart Research Foundation published a bookentitled MELCHIZEDEK TRUTH PRINCIPLES from theAncient Mystical White Brotherhood. It bore the subtitle, "FourthDimensional Teachings Through Frater Achad, suggesting that thebook was not written but revealed through automatic writing. It wasfull of the same vague, meaningless sentences as the announcementof Grace Pettiphers lecture. Witness this passage on "the HealingPower of Love": When the five physical senses have become purged because of mans desire to do so, man no longer thinks i n error, hence, he can no longer speak in error.One of the chapters in the book is entitled "Calling a Chosen One."It refers to the Order of Melchizedek:

113. The Political O v e r t o n e s Ill Would you experience the inner revelation of the greatness oflife? W impose no task. Love knows no task. It is because e of the manner in which you have walked with your fellow man that we desire that you have a conscious knowledge of your oneness with the Unseen Ambassadors of God. Ever since man has been. . . The Ancient M ystical White Brotherhood After The Order of Melchizedek Has Been . . . Unto each man of Earth is allotted a position of Lifes pattern, in each physical incarnation. You have followed your pattern well.Is this the way out of the labyrinth, the open door leading awayfrom the maze? As they who answered His call in the fulness of heart, they answered, "Ye, Raboni Y Would you answer the call at e." this moment, dear heart? If so, speak forth. Student. I choose, I choose the way. I am only the instrument.Frater Achad, in real life George Graham Price, was receiving theselessons "in suspended mental animation." Today it is in the samestate that dozens of believers receive similar communications andfollow the instructions they contain because they are, after all,"only the instrument" of a much higher wisdom.* Where does thisalleged wisdom come from? From the distant stars? I am beginningto wonder. Could the source ofthe so-called "wisdom" be right here onEarth? Could there be human manipulations behind all this?* References to Melchizedek are numerous in the occult and masonicliterature. In the Stella Marutina, the major successor to the HermeticOrder of the Golden Dawn, there is a special ritual for the invocation ofMelchizedek. In her book Secret Societies and Subversive Movements,Nesta Webster says that "in the Melchizedek Lodges of Freemasonry, +rhe Rose Croix degree occupies the most important place."

114. 112 M E S S E N G E R S OF D E C E P T I O N I deliberately went out of my way to find out, armed with theknowledge that they understood this rule: the way to a mans beliefis through confusion and absurdity. The absurdity of many UFO stories and of many religiousvisions is not a superficial logical mistake. It may be the key to theirfunction. According to Major Murphy, the confusion in the UFOmystery may have been put there deliberately to achieve certainresults. One of these results has been to keep scientists away. Theother is to create the conditions for a new form of social control,a change in Mans perception of his place in the universe. Are histheories fantastic? Before we decide, let us review a few other facts.We need to examine more closely the political connections. Paris Flammonde, in his well-documented Age o Flying Saucers, fremarked that "a great many of the contactees purvey philosophieswhich are tinged, if not tainted, with totalitarian overtones.1 A catalogue of contactee themes, compiled from interviews Ihave conducted, includes the following. Intellectual abdication. The widespread belief that human beingsare incapable ofsolving their own problems, and that extraterrestrialintervention is imperative to save us "in spite of ourselves." Thedanger in such a philosophy is that it makes its believers dependenton outside forces and discourages personal responsibility: whyshould we worry about the problems around us, if the Gods fromOuter Space are about to solve them? Racist philosophy. The pernicious suggestion that some of us onthe Earth are of extraterrestrial descent and therefore constitute a"higher race." The dangers inherent in this belief should be obviousto anybody who hasnt forgotten the genocides of World War II,executed on the premise that some races were somehow "purer" orbetter than others. (Let us note in passing that Adamskis Venusian,the Stranger of the Canigou seen by Bordas, and many other allegedextraterrestrials were all tall Aryan types with long blond hair.) Technical impotence. The statement that the birth of civilizationon this planet resulted not from the genius and ability of mankind,

115. The Politica I Overtones 113but from repeated assistance by higher beings. Archaeologists andanthropologists are constantly aware of the marvelous skill withwhich the "Ancient Engineers" (to use L. Sprague de Camps phrase)developed the tools of civilization on all continents. No appeal tosuperior powers is necessary to explain the achievements of earlyculture. The belief expressed by the contactees reveals a tragic lackof trust on their part in human ability. Social utopia. Fantastic economic theories, including thebelief that a "world economy" can be created overnight, and thatdemocracy should be abolished in favor of Utopian systems, usuallydictatorial in their outlook. Such ideas are present, in one form or another, in the statementsof the organized UFO cults and sects that are described here, andthey deserve to be examined in some detail.

116. The Venusian Candidate Nothing belongs any longer to the realm ofthegods or the supernatural. The individual who lives in the technical milieu knows very well that there is nothing spiritual anywhere. But man cannot live without the sacred. He therefore transfers his sense o the sacred to the very thing f that has destroyed itsformer object: to technique itself Jacques Ellul is growing around the idea of "contact"A NEW SUBCULTURE with other beings. What is its political and social significance?The way the believers mix together philosophical beliefs, politicalmotivations, and pseudoscientific dreams reminds me of classicalcases in psychopathology. Yet these people are not crazy. They aretrying to keep their balance in a world where "official" science nolonger provides good answers. Strange phenomena, designed andmanipulated by forces they do not understand, have shattered thereality they were taking for granted. Once irrational beliefs aboutspace visitors are born, irrational beliefs about new social forms onEarth are likely to follow. One group has been ofspecial interest to mebecause it represents an extreme form of that process: the membersof this group believe that flying saucers are sent here by some raceof Space Brothers, and they are attempting to change the politicalsystem accordingly in anticipation of massive saucer landings. We went to see Mr. T. in his mansion in the California hills. Itwas surrounded with palm trees, and had a great view of the citybelow. But there was none of the luxury with which Western wealth

117. 116 M E S S E N G E R S OF D E C E P T I O Ntries to impress visitors: the walls at close range showed their cracks;balconies were empty; there were no flowers or lights, although thiswas the week of Christmas. I n the park was dampness, and mysteryseemed imminent. Silence. Cold wind around the house, through the porch. Wehad stopped the station wagon at the edge of the trees to absorbthe strangeness. Steve and I were about to meet the owner ofthe mansion, Mr. X, founder of an organization whose programincluded the recognition of the Space Beings among us. Like Cynaand Ivan, he advocated the elimination ofthe money system and theestablishment of the "New Age." He came politely to meet us at the door, a jovial man of sixty,wearing a white shirt and suspenders. He introduced us to a man hecalled "his colleague Marvin," the groups resident scientist. Therewas silence inside the magnificent rooms. We sat under a tapestry,at the foot of a formal staircase. I first asked him what the goal ofhis group was, and he said, "We try to present the Saucer point ofview in our resolutions and our platform, as near as we can, whichis not easy to do in one generation. To change to a no-money systemwould be a little hard on the economy. So we have built some waysof getting to it in a manner that will not hurt our economy andstill will satisfy the people, and the Space People as well. The SpacePeople have O.K. d our platform, entirely. And we have had ourconvention; weve had two major conventions." Steve said, "Wed love to attend the next one. Our host replied jovially, "Wed love to have you. Ill take yourname and address, and well send you brochures as soon as they areavailable. But right now were striking for money. Oh, well get it,dont worry, but . . .we havent decided yet on the hotel where well haveit in Chicago, its possible one of the major hotels downtown . . ." "The Conrad Hilton?" Steve proposed as a joke. As a center forpolitical rallies, the Conrad Hilton brought back memories of the1968 riots and the Vietnam War. Mr. T didnt seem to get the joke.He went on:

118. The V e n u s i a n C a n d i d a t e 117 "Yeah, could be, and. . . anyway, it will be nicely presented, youknow, and a lot of our friends will be there that have an interest.Anyone is eligible for nomination. We dont care how many talliesit takes to vote off, but we want to be sure the people get a man ,t hey want. "A man or a woman. , "Its either one; it doesnt make any difference, just so theyreforty years old." "This person will be your representative?" "Yes, hell be our nominee fur the coming election for President." "But how many people are registered?" Mr. T. had to confess that he wasnt exactly sure: "Were muchlike the Republican or the Democratic Party in that respect: wedont really have members. We do have a Board of Governors, andwe do have chapters, all over the Earth. We have some chaptersin Australia, in Africa, in France . . . Let me say this, they do havemembers, these chapters, they do. And they have their officers." Steve suggested, "Maybe we should start a chapter. . ." Marvin and Mr. T. made approving gestures. I could already seeus going into politics . . . on the Space Platform. Many People Communicate with the SaucersI changed the subject and asked if there were many people whocould communicate with the saucers. "Yeah," said Mr. T. "Theresquite a few people that have this ability." Steve had heard that someone in Arizona, named VanTassel, was building a device under instructions he had receivedfrom space beings; so he asked, "What about Mr. Van TasselsRejuvenator? Is he working with your group? I understand thattheres a part missing." Mr. T. turned to Marvin and asked, "You know about that?" ButMarvin didnt appear ready to get involved. Maybe he didnt like Van

119. 118 M E S S E N G E RS OF D E C E P T I O N . tl lFigure 6.1. The contactee movement has built many strange stations andmuch esoteric equipment. This four-story structure, rising in the Californiadesert near Yucca Valley, is the work of George Van Tassel. Built ent irelywithout nails or metallic fasteners - to accord with rhe specificationsallegedly given by rhe space people - it is called the I megratron, andis supposed to reverse the aging process. (Photo courtesy of The HefleyReport, Psychic/UFO News.)TasseL Contactees, although they often seem to agree. on the surface,are just as jealous and spiteful in private as academic scientists. Steve didnt give up: "Can you tell u s something aboutyou r researc h ? " Marvin shifted uneasily on his sear and reluctantly told us,((Well, I have a degree in physics, but after I had done a little graduatework, I began to see that it was really all along the conventionallaws of science. I wanted to completely reexamine these laws . . . Imade i mprovements . . ." He stopped again. I said, rather at random, ((Can you tell us what you t h i n ko f antimatter?" ((Oh,. thats just some pipe dream," answered Marvin withdisgust. "I could give reasons why antimatter couldnt possibly exist.Yes, Im i n a group that doesnt consider anti matter: these particles

120. The V e n u s i a n C a n d i d a t e 119they are continually claiming they are finding in those high-energyaccelerators are artificially produced; they have nothing to do withthis. They are plain old particles, they are meaningless." "They are artificial? What do you mean?" "Well, I wont go into the physics of it. The fact that they last forsuch an infinitesimal length of time, that shows there is somethingfishy about it." This discussion is getting interesting, I thought. One of myphysicist friends used to joke about photons. According to relativity,he said, they shouldnt have time to exist, since they travel at thespeed oflight! "Do you think there is any danger with these accelerators? " "The radiation that emanates from these high-energyaccelerators is dangerous. Its doing a lot more harm than peoplerealize. Youll find that the behavior pattern of people in thevicinity of these high-energy accelerators is abnormal behavior,you might say subnormal. This might be attributed to theaccelerators. Look right around the university: notice how manyoddballs, how many people are committing suicide, and thingslike that. In this area, the per-capita suicide rate seems higherthan in places where you dont find these accelerators. Nuclearenergy should never have been discovered. Its an abomination.Its an unnatural source of energy. There are other types of energythat make it obsolete." I was tempted to joke that the crazy people I knew tended tocluster around Berkeley and Stanford, and not fat from the bigphysics facilities. But I had always assumed their mental conditionwas a prerequisite rather than a result of their occupation. "This is going to be important to understand," said Steve. "Whatdo you propose to do to get science on the right track?" "There have been a number of free-energy devices that havebeen developed over the last several decades, but theyve alwaysbeen suppressed, because the vested interests do not want them to ,come out.

121. 120 M E SSENGERS OF D E C E P T I O N I could read the disappointment on Steves face. Many contacteeswant to make a free-energy machine. "You dont mean . . .perpetual motion?" "Well, perpetual-motion machines have been developed," saidMarvin patiently, as if he was explaining the law of falling bodiesto high-school kids. "Its been proven. They had physicists examinethese devices, and they couldnt find any loopholes with them. Theypassed every conceivable test." "But the energy. . ." began Steve, who was still looking for arational argument. Marvin cut him off sharply: "The conventional viewpoint ofphysics is so narrow and so limited they cant conceive that there is somuch untapped energy right around you, its completely untapped." Antigravity MachinesMarvin was now on his favorite subject, attacking the "official"scientists. "The government has suppressed a lot of data about thesemachines," he insisted. "The petroleum industry also," said Mr. T. "How does antigravity world" "ll tell you what produces gravity. Its a frequency range in theelectromagnetic spectrum, between infrared and the radar band.I n terms of wavelengths, 0.3 to 4.3 millimeters. I f you generateelectromagnetic radiation in that range, youll get gravity effects. Iwont go into how the Earth produces its own gravity. A lot of it weget from the Sun." I was confused already, but Marvin was just getting started:"Experiments have been done in the laboratory, where you get alarge metal ball, a lead ball, and you measure the attraction. Its thethermal agitation of the molecules in these balls that radiates fromthe surface, and a certain infinitesimal per cent of the energy is inthat gravity range - the frequency range that gives gravity effects."

122. The Venusian C a n d i d a t e 121 What Marvin was saying was perfectly absurd, but we didntcontradict him. Marvins saucer theory involved something I wouldoften hear in my dealings with contactee groups: crystals, like thosewe had used in the Mojave Desert. "Ill give you an idea of what saucers use for their propulsion.By activating certain types of crystals, with sounds at certainfrequencies, youll generate those frequencies at high intensities. Ihave a theory. Instead of using an electronic device for getting thefrequency, you can do it with crystals, by activating crystals." "Do you think thats something your group will do, sponsoringthis kind of research?" "If these facts came out, it would mean all the textbookswould have to be rewritten, all the universities would have tochange. There would be a big upheaval in the educational system.Also, economically they would have to scrap billions of dollarsworth of equipment, and they are not about to do that. And allthese scientists have got a good thing going; they are drawing nice fotsalaries. A lot of them know about this and worry about it. In factI got it from a friend of mine who knew about this in science: theyhope it wont come out in their lifetime." "Ifwe got that on record, perhaps we could show it to NASA, andget a response," suggested Steve, trying to calm Marvin down. "Oh, that NASA is just as rotten, as corrupt as anything else; itwouldnt do any good." Marvin and Mr. T. had just illustrated the growing mistrust of"big science": an establishment which laymen see as inaccessible,entrenched behind its "textbooks." They have expressed thismistrust in extreme, fantastic terms, but tomorrow it may findmore powerful social forms.

123. 122 MESSENGERS OF DECEPTION Jesus Controls This End of the UniverseSteve gave up on Marvins theories and turned to Mr. T. again: "Ifyour organization in this country intends to get a strong following,would a contact, would an arrival, an endorsement, lets say, fromup there, would that happen in the near future to spur it on?" Mr. T. reclined in his deep armchair and launched into religion.In this area, too, he had some fantastic theories: "Here is theproblem we face, gentlemen. We face the problem ofprophecy here,which the most capable contactee himself cant struggle with, in away. Its in a way like the Prince of Heaven when he said, [ cant tellyou the time or the hour that my Father will come again. So thatsnot a religious matter, its a statement of fact. No one knows whenthese things will transpire. Well, there is absolutely a statement bythe modern contactees: there will be a three-day period in whichwe will have a blackout on the Earth. We wont be able to see theSun or any star, well be covered completely - so we cant see up, onthe horizon, whatever." That recalled Revelations: "When there is silence in Heaven . . ."But Steve wasnt going after any mystical stuff: "[ was referringspecifically to the fact that earlier you said the political platformhad the approval of beings from another wotld." "Yeah, theyve all endorsed our platform." "Have they made it clear to you that they intend to doanything more?" Mr. T. was too good a political animal to fall into such anobvious trap: "We have not made prophecy; weve never madeprophecy in our platform. We simply take this countrys problemsapart, as we see it and as they see it. Well, as far as when were goingto place our candidate in office, I cant say, but our contact told meat our last meeting this summer, My friend, one morning youllwake up, and you andyour Party will be in the White House. Nowthese things sometimes are mysterious to us who have to have areason for everything, theyre hard to explain, but . . . "

124. The Venusian C a n d i d a t e 123 "Being a Taurus. . ." began Steve. I almost burst out laughing, andharely managed to restrain myself Mr. T. didnt notice my discomfort. "You see, there are all kinds of saucers. And there are all kinds ofcivilizations, throughout the universe, that have been coming and�oing here for centuries, thousands of years. But this is the propertyofone group ofsaucers that control this end o the universe, and they call fthemselves the Brothers. They are the ones who brought the Christon Earth two thousand years ago, as an example for mankind tofollow. And of course our population was unable to take him atthat time, and they crucified him and kicked him in the pants, toldhim, Get out!, they wouldnt stand for him. The man they sent atthat time absolutely will not come again. He has been contacted,and weve been very close to him on the Mother Ship that he travelson, and he is a Prince of this end of the universe." Our host leaned forward and emphasized every statement: "1hisparticular group controls this end o the universe. They have a ray that fis absolutely more powerful than anything in the universe, and thatthese other negatives dont have. And this ray is so powerful thatthey can take down anything within a tremendous radius of miles- even several universes away, if they wish to, they can destroy - itsa tremendously powerf ray. So thats why they control, you see. So ulwe are absolutely under their control, right now." The Space People Protect AmericaThe discussion had already jumped from science to social issues andto religion in the disconcerting fashion that is often characteristicof the "contactee" mentality. Now Mr. T was going to plunge withthe same abandon into yet another area, political strategy, and wewere about to hear statements equally as unbelievable. "The Space People keep shy because they dont want to comehere and say, Youve got to do this, fellow. Theyre not makingthe laws for us. But they are kind of watching around the corner;

125. 124 M E S S E N G E R S OF D E C E P T I O Nso if we get a little out of control, and maybe Russia would startto throw some missiles at us, from Cuba over there, which theydo have, and Castro got a little out of hand, well, they might stepin. They told us they would. So you might say that our first line ofdefense is the Saucer People. Thats the purpose of our organization,to protect first of all the United States of America, because weare all substantially United States citizens, and I dont believein Communism or anything of this nature. But I will say this:that whatever threatens this country I am against, and Ill fightfor it. And the Saucer People have indicated absolutely that theConstitution of the United States, the Magna Carta of England,and all o thefree instrumentsfor thefreeing o man from slavery and f ffrom oppression which came from the governments were sparked bythe Saucer People invisibly but absolutely by them, and they can -prove that it is." ��"�� c �ernlty � •. Study .. ,, " , · " " "·""� " .,... (n . t .. � · .... , /A a CI N I IS S I B· . ·, � - f�OM T H !. Hi Av.fNS ·To A·t�f)oj _ lo "• >oi> P" .!<, <O ""J• toou<o>-moi f, / N� ><>Y 04 ·�· IMn�<>o b<O<�o<l"o! M> !,;•o "� """ -"•••• Woh """" ,.r "h I •Figure 6.2. The message of most comactee movements is very simple andhas potential world-wide appeaL This Italian group sends its literatureto many countries. Its primary source is supposed to be a space entitynamed Adoniesis.

126. The Venusian C a n d i d a t e 125 Having delivered this statement, which will surely come as ashock to historians, Mr. T. concluded: "So anyway I would say that we have a lot to thank themfor, things that we do not really understand, but if we went intodetails wed find that in the Halls of Congress occasionally, someman thats unknown gets right up and sways the audience, anddisappears. Thats happened many times." We shook his hand and drove down toward the city. As wedrove, I was thinking, what is it that prevents these men fromrunning a really powerful movement? Simply the fact that toofew people believe that the contact with Space People is actuallypossible. What would happen tomorrow if continuing observationsof UFOs changed this minority into a majority, or simply gavethem a temporary focus? I do not believe, as many contactees do, that increasing volcanicactivity is going to destroy the Earth, or that the Midwest is going toturn into an ocean. I am skeptical about " impending disasters," spaceinvasions, and free-energy motors. Rational talk will not convincetrue believers, however. It is not difficult to imagine a combinationof economic and social circumstances under which contactee groups could capitalize on the publics fear. Where would people turn f or advice? Not to the scientists, who would instead be blamed for not forecasting the disaster. Not to the government, which would be held in contempt. It might become very, very tempting to go out into the desert and wait for salvation from heaven. Contact with space maybecome a significant socialfoct a long time before it is a scientific reality. "This Authority W Granted ro You from Above . . . as "Jeff, the young man, described the UFO sighting: Iremember that night very well; I was close to my father. At first I thought it was a falling star, and I even told my

127. 126 M ESSENGERS OF D E C E P T I O N father to make a wish. But the UFO continued to move and change color. My father was mumbling: Look, Jeff, now its red . . . now its green . . . My God . . . I confess that I was beginning to tremble, I do not know why, but I just could not help it. 1The father was also interviewed, and said: I was heading for my car, when suddenly I saw an incandescent mass in the starry sky, as brilliant and as big as the Moon. It moved at a terrific speed. Personally, I did not hear any noise, but my son Jeff, who was with me, later told me that he heard a metallic sound coming from the UFO. We stood there with our mouths open for about ten minutes. The UFO flew above us for a few moments; then it went south and changed route repeatedly and moved east. Finally it disappeared on the horizon. 2A typical report? The routine story of a hovering UFO? Perhaps.But the young man who saw it, back in 1973, is named Jeff Carter,and his father is President of the United States. The fact has notescaped the notice of contactee groups around the world. One ofthem has even published a message to Carter coming from outerspace, and "channeled" by telepathy: Terrestrial Brother Jimmy Carter. Now that you have attained the goal to develop better your programmed mission in the world, Remember: Do not do as others have done! We remind you that this authority has been granted from above . . . Our terrestrial operator already knew since a long rime of the process which was to bring you to the supreme charge

128. The Venusian C a n d i d a t e 127 of a continent full ofoperating strength not always positive, but your action could render it constructive and effective, prosperous, salvaging light for all mankind . . . Remember: Jimmy Carter, Remember! From the Heavens to Earth, ADONIENSIS. Nicolosi, 4 November 1 976. Time 12:30The idea that leaders of a society have received their legitimacyfrom higher levels, rather than from the people, is fundamentalto authoritarian forms of government. The Kings of France andthe Egyptian Pharaohs were considered to be established bydivine right. I n recent history, naturally, this concept has becomesomewhat obsolete, and new forms of organization have emerged.We like to think that our leaders are people like ourselves. Wedelight in reading of their human foibles in the morning newspaper.Occasionally we even force one of these leaders out of office, and wetake pride in the feeling of collective control this generates in us. The UFOs suggest another reality. Therefore they seem to holdanother form of power, transcending or restricting our individualability to make decisions. Most of the contactees, for instance,agree that UFOs watch over the Earth. Mr. T. states that "theSpace People protect America." It is but a small step from thisview to the idea that they guide us in our political development. Mr. T. started a political party to "put a Contactee into the White House." The channel of Adoniensis claims that the President has been secretly "programmed." Other contactee groups actually believe that the saucers have made contact with us in the 50s. A man named Gerald Light even claims that he made a journey to Muroc Air Base in April 1954, allegedly in the company of Franklin Allen of the Hearst papers, of Edwin Nourse of the Brookings Institute, and of Bishop Mcintyre of Los Angeles. Having been cleared to enter the restricted section and to wander

129. 128 MESSENGERS OF D E C E P T I O Naround for two days, he stated that he saw five different types ofextraterrestrial spacecraft "being studied and handled by our AirForce officials, with assistance and permission of the Etherians!"The same Gerald Light writes that President Eisenhower was"spirited away" to Muroc one night during a visit to Palm Springs,also in April 1954, to meet with the "aliens." These claims, naturally, are made by small groups who reachonly a miniscule audience. Yet what they express and dramatizehas been thought by many people who simply have not verbalizedthe idea. The immense success of the books by von Danikenshows that people today are eager to believe that we are receivinghelp from above. If divine intervention is obsolete for our rationalminds, why not have extraterrestrial intervention! From thereality of UFO phenomena, it is easy to jump to the conclusionthat our space brothers are coming back to help us, and that theyare already influencing our leaders. The danger in this processcannot be underestimated. Can the vision formulated by a few"contactees" mean changes in the lives of many? Can theirmessage make a lasting impact in this rational, computerizedworld? The answer is found in the activities and the dreams of theUFO subculture, and it will shock you into the realization that ashuman technology expands, our range of awareness, rationality,and irrationality grow together to fill the new voids revealed byscience, and heal the new anguish it leaves behind. The LetterThe mailman brings a letter from Paris. It comes from Ivan, whosays he is responsible for the Order of Melchizedek in Israel,Africa, and Europe, as well as India and China. He says thatflying saucers have been seen in Paris last December as predictedin his leaflet: "the reports are on file." He is launching several newdemonstrations, one of them to obtain freedom for the inmates

130. The V e n u s i a n C a n d i d a t e 129of the Gulag Archipelago in Russia, another " for the animals."This is, he adds dryly, as far as the terrestrial side is concerned.Politics again. I n addition to his Melchizedek duties, Ivan is the founder of theFrontfor Christian Liberation, an organization called jesus Revolution,another called jesus People Europe, the Charismatic Christian, jew,rmd Arab Movement, and the Christian Socialist Party. I had asked him how one would go about joining the Orderof Melchizedek. The process is simple, he answered: you becomea member of the Order by direct divine inspiration, or somethingclose to it. A month or so later I received another communication. Thisone came from Valverde, Italy. It was typed on stationery of the "Study Center of Cosmic Fraternity," whose symbol is theAdamski saucer with two stars shaking hands underneath. They are the group responsible for the extraterrestrial message to Jimmy Carter I quoted earlier. The letter said in part: Our desire is to contact those who search for the Truth in these Messengers or Angels, who have been visiting us for thousands of years. The SCCF assumes no characteristic of a human organization. Nor is it a sect. It is a messianic movement guided by Beings who are very evolved coming from space. We have secretariats all over the world which divulge the same activity on their own while offering themselves to this cause. The SCCF springs from a programmarion that lends itself mainly to traumatise positively and consciously the souls particularly predisposed to receive the teachings of the Superior Beings. . .Here is another organization which attempts to "program" us.

131. 130 M E SS E N G E R S OF D E C E P T I O N FROM H EAVEN TO E A R T H Figure 6.3. Insignia o f the "Study Center of Cosmic Fraternity." The same group appears to provide the inspiration for the SCCFand for the French contactees. Are they also behind some UFOincidents? Or are they simply another element ofconfusion? In theirnewsletter, the SCCF publishes a message from "an extraterrestrialin mission on your planet": We notice the incapacity of your political, economic, and scientific organizations . . . We also observe all the other known and unknown activities which engage immense resources for warlike ends . . . Certainly, we do not just limit ourselves to observations and we do not believe we have reached the moment of our most solid intervention. We are working with a methodology of which you are not aware, but which will surely give its fruits. OUR HELP WILL BE REVEALED IN THE MOST APPROPRIATE TIME, WHEN YOU WILL ALL BE CAUGHT "RED HANDED." Nicolosi, 1 3 January 1 977. Time 12:25

132. The Venusian C a n d i d a t e 131In his own statements Ivan implies that the SCCF, his group, andtheir correspondents (like myself) are going to play a great role inthe future. He invites all of us to become connected and share "ourinformation." What information? Beyond the common attitudes, the common belief intranscendence, each group has its own particular set of scriptures,its own method of "channeling," and its own technical jargon. Themost complex I have encountered is the language of the Urantiasect, which is widely developed in North America and the rest ofthe world.

133. S E VEN �i>-. " ,:W.� - 8;0 : { p ?....:Seraphic Transports and Benevolent Programmers The worlds greatest frauds, fakers, and impostors have operated largely aumg psychic lines. . . In every age the common people have been deceived not only by these out-and-out frauds and fokes, but also by various other psychicf ads. William Sadler, Physiology o F f aith and Fear MONG TO MOST ardent believers in flying saucers and theirAoccupants are the followers ofa religious philosophy expressed DAYsin the Book o Urantia, a thick volume that was mysteriously freceived in Chicago and printed for the first time in 1955 by asubsequently formed "Urantia Foundation." Urantia is the cosmicname of the Earth. According to this system, it is "the six hundredsixth inhabited world in the local system of Satania, situated in theconstellation of Norlatiadek, one of the 100 constellations of thelocal universe ofNebadon." To an unbeliever, the amazing word structure of the Booko Urantia appears to have all the earmarks of paranoia: the fconsistency of its statements, the richness of its material. and thefondness it displays for neologism make it a monument to theunchecked imagination of man. It defines, for example, threeorders of Paradise sonship, including one which is of Trinity originand "does not register in a local universe." If you are lost in thispeculiar cosmology, take heart, for the unknown author adds (inPaper 35),

134. 134 M E S S E N G E R S OF D E C E P T I O N I estimate there are in Nebadon between fifteen and twenty thousand Trinity Teacher Sons exclusive of 9,642 creature Trinitized assistants of record. These Paradise Daynals are neither magistrates nor administrators.The author goes on like this for 2,097 pages. I hasten to add thatI do not intend to quote much from it, or even to summarizeits philosophy. I am concerned only with the cosmic hierarchyit describes. Urantia has much to say about UFOs and Melchizedek: "Inthe universe of Nebadon the Father Melchizedek acts as the firstexecutive associate ofthe Bright and Morning Star."* This impressivefigure who rules over an entire universe sends his sons to workclosely with the Angels, who lind in them sympathetic friends. TheMelchizedeks are said to be a self-governing order, and they can beabsolutely trusted: "not once throughout all the super-universe ofOrvonton have they ever betrayed their trust." There are few humanbeings, indeed, about whom the same thing could be said. These Melchizedeks live on their own world close to universeheadquarters in Salvington. They have a number of spheres forminga University. You and I may meet there some day: All evolutionary mortals who graduate from their constellation training are destined to land on Melchizedek . . . And never will you forget your reactions to the first day of your life on this unique world, not even after you have reached your Paradise destination.This is no wonder, for you will have the choice of many educationalprograms that are lacking from the curriculum of Harvard orUCLA, such as "Universe Administration" and "ComparativeCreature Existence." (The University also teaches more classical* The Morning Star, in a traditional sense, is the lightbearer, Lucifer.

135. Seraphic Tra n s p o r t s a n d B e n e v o l e n t P r o g r a m m e r s 135disciplines, such as Energy, Matter, Organization, Communication,Records, and Ethics.) The Book o Urantia devotes a section to the Special Work of fthe Melchizedeks, which has to do with the supervision of the"progressive morontia career of the ascending mortals," meanmgyou and me: While the Melchizedek orders are chiefly devoted to the vast educational system and experimental training regime of the local universe, they also function in unique assignments and in unusual circumstances . . . In a planetary crisis these Melchizedek Sons serve in many unique [sic] capacities. It is easily possible for such a son to make himself visible to mortal beings, and sometimes one of this order has even incarnated in the likeness of mortal flesh.According to the unknown author of Urantia, the biblicalMelchizedek had volunteered to incarnate because he was afraidthat the light of consciousness would become extinguished if he didnot step in to initiate Abraham. All these intelligences use an advanced technology to travelthrough the universe. They have developed seraphic transports whichdepart at regular intervals from a base on Jerusem: Numerous mechanical developments are used in providing initial energy for escaping the planetary graviry and overcoming the air resistance. A seraphic transport departs every three seconds of Urantia time and, sometimes, far into the recession. The transporters take off at about 25 standard miles per second of Urantia time and do not attain standard velociry until they are over 2,000 miles away from Jerusem. Transports arrive on the crystal field, the so-called sea of glass.

136. 136 M E S S E N G ERS OF D E C E P T I O NAre rhese our UFOs? According to the Urantia system, thedevelopment of all the world religions is due to Melchizedekmessengers. For instance, the Salem missionaries penetrated Italyduring the sixth century B.C., it is claimed, paving the way forthe development of the Christian religion! The Book o Urantia fcontains a surprisingly clear and readable section on religioushistory, and many inspired passages on morality and ethics. Thesesections are in striking contrast to the childish descriptions of theSpheres of the Beyond, which the imagination of the author haspopulated with beings that would not survive in the pages of themost grotesque piece of science fiction. Such is the dilemma ofhuman faith, and the challenge posed to us by the belief in thecurious powers of the Order of Melchizedek. A Meeting of UrantiansIn my search for a solution to the continuing puzzle, I attended aSunday afternoon meeting of Urantians in San Francisco. Therewere ten of us in the small classroom, facing a tall, strong woman inher late fifties, dressed in purple and mauve. Next to the blackboardwas a complicated chart showing Nebadon, Urantia, and the Isleof Paradise. Several participants were regular students, advancedin the knowledge of Seraphic Planetary Government and otherabstruse concepts. The subject of that afternoons lecture was the function ofthe Thought Adjusters. In the extremely complex cosmology ofUrantia, they come from other worlds to live within our brains.They influence our actions by subtle sabotage of our physical andchemical functions! A typical part of the discussion dealt with the "Higher Masters": Student: I wonder how they got on our plane. Instructor: They were received here, channeled . . .

137. Seraphic T r a n s p o r t s a n d Benevolent Programmers 137 Girl: I thought I heard that the channel was a taxi driver in Chicago. Is that true? Instructor: Thats one more story! We dont get told very much about the origins, but I can tell you what I think. Dr. William Sadler, who was a very fine surgeon, became interested in mediumship, and he has written a book in which you find that most mediums are only victims of suggestion, but that he found two exceptions, a man and a woman. In their case he feels that the data was de finitely coming ftom a superhuman source! He had many hundreds of sessions with these people. Vt<llee: In what year was the Book received? Instructor: In I934.* It wasnt published until 1955. The woman who typed the original manuscript is still living. She is a very dynamic woman. She typed it three times! She was a Federal bank examiner. The Puzzlement of Doctor SadlerI came away from the meeting with a precarious sense ofaccomplishment. A number of real people truly believed inMelchizedek and his cosmic role, and I had found a reference to aman, apparently a serious scientist, who had known the founder ofthe Urantia sect and, after serious examination, had pronouncedits revelations genuine. I looked up Sadlers name in the index of the StanfordLibrary and quickly found that he was a writer of talent andconsiderable scholarship. His book, 7he Physiology o Faith and fFear, published in Chicago in 1920, lists his titles as Professorof Physiologic Therapy at the University of Chicago MedicalSchool and Director of the Chicago Institute of Physiologic* We shall see later that the actual beginning date must have been closerto 1910 or 1911.

138. 138 M E S S E N GE R S O F D E C E P T I O NTherapeutics. In 1929 he was also Senior Attending Surgeon atColumbus Hospital. In the preface to ?he Physiology o Faith and Fear, he offers a fstatement of his own interests when he observes: We are now passing through a period of popular reaction against the scientific materialism of the last century. The common people are awakening to the fact that the mental state has much to do with bodily health and disease. The bookmakers, in their efforts to satisfY the universal demand for teaching on various phases of mental healing, have flooded us with literature, much of which is premature, unscientific, incomplete, and highly disastrous in its misleading influence upon the popular mind and morals.This fine principle - which we would do well to remember in thesedays of psychic rip-offs - led Dr. Sadler to consider the phenomenonof spirit communication and automatic writing, which he generallyfound to be false and misleading. Dr. Sadler goes on to condemn charms, relics and shrines,various forms of quackery, astrology, palmistry, crystal-gazing,trances, and catalepsy. He writes: It is not uncommon for persons in a cataleptic trance to imagine themselves taking trips to other worlds [my italics] . In fact, the wonderful accounts of their experiences, which they write out after these cataleptic attacks are over, are so unique and marvelous as to serve as the basis for founding new sects, cults, and religions. 1He explains these phenomena, as well as automatic writing andspeaking, by the projection of "marginal consciousness withoutthe awareness of the central consciousness." One wonders what Dr.Sadler would have to say about current best-selling books based on

139. Seraphic T r a n s p o r t s a n d B e n e v o l e n t Pr o gra m m ers 139automatic writing, such as Jane Roberts Seth Material, which havehad a major effect on the public. In his later book, The Mind at Mischiif(published in 1929 andsubtitled "Tricks and Deceptions of the Subconscious and How toCope with Them"), he develops his theory of dissociation, doublepersonality, and automatic writing. He concludes: We now have a thoroughly scientific hypothesis which will account for all phenomena of this kind that deserve to be classified as genuine. Nothing as yet has ever come to us through automatic writing which bears any evidence of supernatural origin, or which contains authentic truths, facts, or principles heretofore unknown to the human race.Having said this, however, Sadler refers the reader to an appendix"for a brief notice of a very unusual case o supposedly automatic fwriting associated with other psychic phenomena which came undermy observation many years ago."2 In this appendix, Sadler is evidently dealing with the Booko Urantia, although he never mentions the word. The appendixfdeserves to be quoted extensively, for it sheds much light on thescientific methods that can be applied to alleged communicationsfrom cosmic entities. Dr. Sadler begins the appendix with a reversal of his previouslystated theoretical position: In the interests of scientific accuracy on the one hand, and of strict fairness on the other, it becomes necessary to explain that there are one or two exceptions to the general statement that all cases of psychic phenomena which have come under my observation have turned out to be those of autopsychism.Sadler goes on to describe his contacts with the "channel" of theUrantia Book, who may have been a former stockbroker:

140. 140 MESSENGERS OF DECEPTION The exception has to do with a rather peculiar case of psychic phenomena, one which I find myself unable to classifY, and which I would like very much to narrate more fully; I cannot do so here, however, because of a promise which I feel under obligation to keep sacredly. In other words, I have promised not to publish this case during the lifetime of the individual. I was brought in contact with it in tbe summer of 1 9 1 1 , and I have had it under my observation more or less ever since, having been present at probably 250 of the night sessions, many of which have been attended by a stenographer who made voluminous notes. A thorough study of this case has convinced me that it is not one of ordinary trance. While the sleep seems to be quite of a natural order, it is very profound, and so far we have never been able to awaken the subject when in this state; but the body is never rigid, and the heart action is never modified, though respiration is sometimes markedly interfered with. 7his man is utterly unconscious, wholly oblivious to what takes place, and, unless told about it subsequently, never knows that he has been used as a sort o clearing house for the coming and going o alleged f f extraplanetary personalities [my italics]. In fact, he is more or less indifferent to the whole proceeding, and shows a surprising lack of interest in these affairs as they occur from time to time.Sadler draws a clear distinction between this case and the usual"spiritualist" phenomena: I n no way are these night visitations like the seances associated with spiritualism. At no time during the

141. S e r a p h i c Transports and B e n e v o l e n t P r o g r a m m e r s 141 period of eighteen years observation has there been a communication from any source that claimed to be the spirit of a deceased human being. 1he communications which have been written, or which we have had the opportunity to hear spoken, are made by a vast order o f alleged beings who claim to come from other planets to visit this world [my italics], to stop here as student visitors for study and observation when they are en route from one universe to another.The medical expert goes on to explain why this case forced him torevise many ideas in his approach: Eighteen years of study and careful investigation have failed to reveal the psychic origin of these messages . . . Psychoanalysis, hypnotism, intensive comparison, foil to show that the written or spoken messages o this individual have f origin in his own mind [my italics] . Much of the material secured through this subject is quite contrary to his habits of thought, to the way in which he has been taught, and to his entire philosophy.Having acknowledged that he is at a loss to explain these facts withclassical answers, he presents a summary of this unique material: I can only say that I have found in these years of observation that all the information imparted through this source has proved to be consistent within itself While there is considerable difference in the quality of the communications, this seems to be reasonably explained by a difference in state of development and order of the personalities making the communications. Its philosophy is consistent.

142. 142 M E S S E N G E R S OF D E C E P T I O NWilliam Sadler, who thus studied the "channel" of Urantia, hadthe unusual courage to confess that, after 18 years of study, "!find myself at the present time just where I was when I started."We might ask ourselves the same question about UFOs and theiralleged agents among us: a phenomenon that leaves physicaltraces must be taken seriously, but what can we say of the peoplewho claim to be in contact with superior intelligences emanatingfrom these objects? What should we do about their claim thatthe phenomenon ofUFOs is directing the evolution of mankind?This idea, which once attracted only a handful of devotees, nowhas the potential to draw the attention of the media and to makea major impact. The claim is even made that ifwe fail to listen to the voice of the"higher levels: there will be a major catastrophe on Earth. From the gentle belief in higher forms of life bent on helpingmankind, we have gone to explore increasingly disturbing systemsof philosophy and some new faiths that demand total obediencefrom their followers. The forces they released were not forces oflove, but of disorder and violence. Yet they were forces of change,bending those who allowed themselves to be used. Melchizedek, UFOs, and the Sex FunctionThe psychopathology of the contactees was the next area to explore.I began reading everything I could locate about Melchizedek, andfound references to him in the books of Leadbeater,3 but it wasin the work of another contemporary of Madame Blavatsky that Ipicked up the trail again.** Madame Blavarsky, rhecolorfulaurhoroflsis Unveiled, was an extraordinaryleader ofoccult organizations in the nineteenth century, many ofwhich stillexist. According to Jacques Bergier, one of these organizations is the HelenaPerrovna Blavarsky Foundation, of which Richard Nixon is a member ofthe Board. I have not been able to verify this statement.

143. Seraphic T r a n s p o r t s a n d Benevolent Programmers 143 Hiram Erastus Butler, a Pennsylvanian by birth, who died in1916, was a simple, self-educated man who worked in a sawmill.Following an accident in which he lost several fingers, he becamea recluse, and for 14 years he lived as a hermit. During these yearsButler was favored with many revelations from God, and developedthe peculiar philosophy of the sect which is still known today as theAmerican branch of the Order of Melchizedek. In the late 1880s, Butler came out of seclusion and describedhis revelations in a series of lectures in Boston; in 1889 he movedto California with a dozen disciples, homesteaded a 260-acre areaoverlooking the American River near Applegate, in Placer County,and built a mystical center. When a journalist visited his EsotericFraternity in 1971, he found an old four-story house at the end of adirt road, and only two surviving members, William Corecco, 89,the fourth president of the organization, and his brother, Steven,who had recently buried the last female member of the sect. Theymet in the library: As he talked, Corecco swayed back and forth in a creaky old rocker beside a pot-bellied stove that warmed the musty library: "The Bible says that when 1 44,000 persons establish the Order of Melchizedek, the Kingdom of God will be established on Earth. That was our hope . . . Weve all lived on Earth hundreds of times before. The population of the world remains constant. Souls that leave at death reappear in the newborn."4Corecco retraced the history of the group that came to Californiawith Butler. They had built the 1 8-room house from timber on theproperty, and they made their own furniture, too. They plantedand harvested their own crops, and had a small herd. The rest oftheir time was taken up with meditation and writing. They operatedtheir own publishing house, and they still sell about 20 booksand pamphlets. One of these, by Enoch Penn,5 first copyrighted

144. 144 M ESSENGERS OF DECEPTION lilot ®rd..,. (S)f.JRech,sedelt JL : ..... _;� > ENOCH PENNFigure 7.1. Cover of a book by Enoch Penn, an early leader of the Orderof Melchizedek in the United States. Although published in 1926, thisbook contains several of the themes that have since become popular incontactee literature. (Courtesy of the Vallee Collection.)in 1926, states the philosophy of the Order and describes its fourdegrees of initiation. The prerequisite for joining the Fraternity is to abstain absolutelyfrom any sexual activity. According to Penn, there are two great truths, or natural facts,in this world. First, there is a more subtle life, "which is interior tothe life that makes the physical man live. A man can become moreconscious of and live from that more interior life, which includesmeeting and associating with the inhabitants of the Spirit-world."Second, the key to this contact is the suppression of the orgasm. There resides in the substance of procreation, in the seed, a power, which, if the seed is retained in the body, will in time, cause the soul to awaken to a consciousness of and in the realm of Spirit, the realm where dwell those Intelligences who are the creators of man.

145. Seraphic T r a n s p o r t s a n d B e n e v o l e n t Programmers 145This is a complicated way to state what the f ollowers of TantraYoga and other Eastern sex practices have always said, namely,that control or suppression of orgasm was the key to spiritual bliss.The Esoteric Fraternity of Hiram Butler is more extreme, however.Renouncing normal orgasm is only the pledge of the First Degree.In the Second Degree the initiate must avoid all sexual impulse,even in thought: In the Second Degree there is not only the effort to overcome the generative impulse and its results in the body, but to learn of and avoid all those sensations, impulses, emotions, thoughts, and relationships that lead up to and cause these impulses . . . The neophyte must so shut his sympathies from all who belong to generation as not to share in their life currents and desires.Taking this position, Hiram Butler and his followers differ fromthe Eastern mystics, who teach their students to use their desiresinstead of suppressing them, and to reabsorb the sexual energy intothe body instead of releasing it. An Occult Plan to Control the WorldButlers version of the Order of Melchizedek is an esoteric groupcomplete with initiations, passwords, and secret handshakes. Itspurpose is occult work with political ambitions: The power to overthrow nations cannot be had m its fullness until the neophytes, as sons of God, have gathered together to work together as a unit.How would such a small group of initiates control the world?

146. 146 M E S S E N G E R S OF D E C E P T I O N One of these powers operates rhrough what is called "Mob Psychology. " The vast majoriry of the people are controlled wholly by their feelings, and he who can play on the feelings of the masses can control them.These lines were fi rst published in 1926, at a time when controlof "the Mob" through psychology was already becoming a wellunderstood tool. The Melchizedekians had no doubt about their ultimate rise topower: did not Revelations state that after the Body of the 144,000sons of God are gathered and sealed and have overcome death, they"shall take the dominion under the whole heaven and shall reignfor ever and ever"? Such was the grandiose plan of the followers of Hiram Butler.Their ultimate goal was even more ambitious: in the h ighest stagesof initiation, the adepts begin to merge with the Supreme Power ofGod, and they actually join the Elohim: If a man can believe into the Body of the Elohim, then they once were men who have attained to such mastery that they are able to be that which they will to be . . . He who seeks to attain to the fullness of the Order of Melchizedek must learn to "take" that name (ofYahveh) so that he may have the needed strength to "overcome the world," and be master of everything in nature.The similarities of this old esoteric fraternity to some of themodern UFO contactee groups are quite obvious. The puzzle isbeginning to take shape. The H.I.M. sect, for instance, speaks ofregeneration, transformation, and contact with a higher level inthe same terms as Hiram Butler, who promises that "there willopen before him (the neophyte) a door in heaven" and mentionscontact with superior beings. Such is, i n fact, the Creatorspurpose for Man, adds Butler: "he should develop into a Godlike

147. Seraphic Transports a n d B e n e v o l e n t P r o g r a m m e r s 147being having of His knowledge, powers, qualities, and attributes,and be accepted as a fellow among those Godlike beings." Thediscipline of the Fraternity is nothing but a preparation for livingamong the angels. The disciples must form a social order like that in heaven; then the Holy Ones in heaven will not only at times appear to men, but will come and abide among them as a father with his children. You Might Insult an Angel, Calling Him a UFOThe esoteric fraternity is no longer active in the hills of Applegate.The only operation still carried out in the old building is theprinting and distribution of its literature. As a representative of theorganization told me in 1976, "If the Order exists now, its probablyin Heaven. Its not here; we just have the printed word. Wherever itexists, were not aware of it." "How can I learn more about it, then?" I asked. "There is someone back in New York who claims to belong tothe Order. We have this on file, but so many people are making somany claims! The only thing to do is to develop yourself enough,where you dont have to get it secondhand. Thats where the bookspoint out your obligations." "What about Dr. Grace Pettipher, in San Francisco?" "I dont know her, but women can be redeemed too." "Do you think she is a member of the same group?" "No, we have had many false prophets who more or less madethese claims . . . There are many who are around and may have partof the truth, but unless you develop yourself enough you waste your time. This Order of Melchizedek we publish, I hope gets over the idea that there are no shortcuts . . . Its a lot of hard work, especially on yourself. You have to curb the desires that are not in harmonywith the H igher Spirits."

148. 148 M E S S E N G E RS OF DECEPTION "What relationship do your teachings have to the UFOphenomenon?" "The UFO came in after these two authors, Penn and Butler, wentto their rest. The only thing we can say is that an angel can sometimesbe a UFO as well as a craft being a UFO. And so, unless you developyourself enough, you might be insulting some angel, calling hima UFO. So it almost gets to be a no mans land until you do yourown developing. . . It doesnt mean there isnt anything in the secretpreparations, but openly there is nothing going on at this time." After this conversation, I was ready to conclude that the Orderof Melchizedek in California was in bad shape, caught betweenits aspiration to gather 144,000 members and its predilection foravoiding orgasmic release. Someone, after all, would have to makeall those babies. I had reached this state of puzzlement when a psychologistfriend sent me a copy of the newsletter of the California Instituteof Transpersonal Psychology, based in Menlo Park. The newslettercontained the f ollowing announcement: On the last weekend before the holidays, during our time with Zalman Schachter and with his inspiration and support, eleven second-year students were initiated into the Order of Melchizedek. This is a priestly order of more than two thousand years of tradition. Melchizedek is mentioned in Genesis, Chapter 14, as the "priest of God Most High" who brought bread and wine and initiated Abraham. Since then priests in the Jewish tradition, in the Roman Catholic, and in the Anglican Communion have all been initiated as priests of Melchizedek.6Apparently the author of the newsletter did not know about theMormon tradition, which also gives a prominent place to thepriests of Melchizedek. He did offer his personal feelings aboutbeing initiated into the Order:

149. Seraphic Transports a n d Benevolent Programmers 149 Those of us who were initiated on Sunday, March 12, were first baptized by Zalman in the hot tub at Richanas and received new names. The experience was profound, and a fitting culmination of the work with Zalman during the week on the Ten Sephiroth and the Kabbalistic Tree of Life. Jan Gaston was our congregation, representing the community. What will happen next is to be seen and pondered deeply. At the very least we will be meeting together to talk of what the meaning of the priesthood is for each one of us 7This is taking place in the middle of Silicon Valley, California,the worlds major electronics manufacturing center, within a fewmiles of the headquarters of such high-technology companiesas Memorex, Lockheed, Amdahl, Hewlett-Packard. A groupof young people - perhaps the sons and daughters of scientistsand managers at these corporations - take off their clothesand jump into somebodys hot tub to renew the tradition ofthe Melchizedek priesthood. The eccentric, harmless writing ofpoor Hiram Butler and the innocuous teachings of Enoch Pennhave found a powerful resonance in the most unlikely place ofall: the first post-industrial generation in the most advancedcountry on Earth.I Am Invited to Become a Consciousness ReprogrammerThe Order of Melchizedek was flourishing again, even though theold organization in Applegate was reduced to preservation of theprinted word. A new community named STELLE has been startedin Illinois by a group which derives its entire philosophy fromMelchizedek, whom they believe to preside over "the ArchangelicHost of our Solar System," helped by billions of Masters from theplanet Klarian.

150. 150 M E S S E N G E R S OF D E C E P T I O N Then a man named Jim Hurtak called me and triggered a newstream of information. He was a friend of Andrija Puharich, wasdeeply involved in the Uri Geller affair, and claimed to be psychichimsel£ Not only was he psychic, but he had had a number of UFOencounters, and was sure that he had come into direct contact witha higher order of consciousness. On April I , 1976, Hurtak and Puharich were on a talk-showbroadcast in San Francisco. Jim explained his involvement withthe Center for Democratic Studies, a think tank located in SantaBarbara, California. He said he was there as a visiting sinologist(Chinese specialist). The interviewer pointed out that "many peoplethink that its a commie organization because of the proposed newconstitution. Its a very controversial place because of that. Jim replied, "It has been a rallying point to motivate people to dodeeper problem-solving. If anything, its been a shot in the arm toget better government and put out better philosophy of humanismtoward planetary unity." Puharich gave details of a contact scene near Tel Aviv, when hewas in the desert with Geller: "He saw this blue light flashing, andUri walked into this UFO. It was night, and I couldnt actually seethe final entrance into the UFO; and he came out carrying a glassobject that had disappeared three days earlier." Jim Hurtak described his own contact: "Well, believe it or not,I was giving a series of seminars three years ago, and coming backwith two of my students we noticed a light following our car downHighway 152, and we pulled off the road and roughly 100 to 200yards from the road this vehicle came down. I felt a strong magneticattraction in the direction of the vehicle. I experienced at that timewhat most people would call the higher intelligence. A beam o light fwent through my bod and I received scientific codes which I was told y,to call the Keys o Enoch." [My italics.] f He didnt say how, or why, he had received these mysterious"codes." Jim invited me to join a new psychic group designed tochange the destinies of the world by occult methods: he was in

151. Seraphic T r a n s p o r t s and Benevolent P r o g r a m m e r s 151direct contact with this group, he said, and had important news toshare with me at the first opportunity. And he explained that there were, on one side, what he calledbenevolent programmers, who allow planetary societies a free will,and then there are the poachers, who interfere with the programsalready under way. The Brotherhood o Melchizedek deals with the fconsciousness reprogramming. Its a very special order with veryspecial people, he claimed. One of his Keys deals with where theBrotherhood has been in the previous centuries. Jim stressed the need for me to join his group. We agreed to meetthe next day for lunch. The "keys" he had mentioned were part of amanuscript entitled: "The Biocomputer Keys to our ConsciousnessTime Zone, Revealed to Me by Master Control MessengersMetatron and Opthanim." The book (which was signed "Enoch")was written in flaming letters and Kabbalistic style. It was, for themost part, just as impossible for me to understand as the "magneticaura" of Dr. Grace Pettipher. Was some hidden truth contained inthe jargon? Was there a needle in the haystack? I decided to keepmy appointment with Jim, and find out. No Grounds for FearWe met in a restaurant, and Jim came to the point immediately.When he had the series of contact experiences with Enoch threeyears earlier, he was apparently told to set up a think tank whichwould be known on some levels as the Sons o Light o the Order o f f fMelchizedek. It would work directly with the Brotherhoods whowere "fields of intelligence going between star systems and thereprogramming of lower evolutionary systems." I asked him if he was aware that the Book o Urantia also fsaid that the Melchizedeks were an order of beings who roamedamong planets. Not only was he aware of that, but he knew thatthere are two Mormon priesthoods, the lower priesthood and the

152. 152 M E S S E N G E R S OF D E C E P T I O Nhigher one. The higher one is the priesthood of Melchizedek. Thisidea of the interrelationships between all religions leads him tosome fantastic vistas: "I have been told that there are Councils of Light which areorganizational boards where the archangels, or Ascended Masters,organize all of the codes pertinent both to the visible spectrum aswell as to other spectrums [sic] that were not aware of. I was toldthat, beginning in 1976, between April 18th and May 18th, theBrotherhoods would begin to define the blueprint for the spacetimeoverlap, which was going to literally re-educate and reorganizethe human community to find its destiny in space, because it, inessence, had failed the program." "What does that have to do with the UFOs seen by peoplearound the country?" I asked him, at a loss to understand why theAscended Masters needed a spacetime overlap. "The UFOs are merely one aspect of higher evolutionarytechnology. And they are used to impress upon civilizations purelyin the material range of technology that there is a higher energymodel controlling the technology. You see, the UFOs do not travel;according to the teachings of Enoch, they have their own energy field. By combining what we call magnetohydrodynamic energy,parallel-phase electromagnetic energy, they are able to literally go several times the speed of light as we calculate it." "Its a mode of propulsion?" I asked, hoping to get a more prosaic theory from him. There was no way to make him explain it clearly. He came right back to Melchizedek, replying, "Its their mode of propulsion, yes. The Order of Melchizedek is one of the higher orders of the various Space Brotherhoods. There are 70 such Brotherhoods that comprise the Sons of Light, or the White Brotherhood, as it is known in some popular literature in our particular local universe. And they, at this present time, have, shall we say, been through a tremendous housecleaning. Among the negatives, the poachers as I call them, who come in and experiment with someone elses

153. Seraphic T r a n s p o r t s and Benevolent P r o g r a m m e r s 153experiments, have been a Brotherhood known as the Asteriants, aswell as the Marinites, who are of a grotesque appearance, as well asReticulants, who are also of a grotesque appearance.) "How can you tell one group from the other?" "The guidelines are very clear if we look at the historicaldocuments which acknowledge that, along with the appearance ofUFOs, there is the bringing of a cosmic law, which is distinct fromthose which do not bring a spiritual teaching. The more advancedextraterrestrials do not look differently from humans, with thefacial features of biological societies that somehow are parr of thesame galactic tree of knowledge." "So they would look like us?" "So they would look like us. I feel this is the basis of why itIS [said] in the book of Genesis, that man was created into the•image. It is progressive; it is not static. This is spelled out with thedefinition of the various life thresholds at the beginning of thisvery sacred text." Why was Jim telling me all this? Why was he writing a book?Again he gave me political reasons: "I was told that I was to comeout at this time with this information because mankind was goingto go through the collective Christ experience of worshipping UFOs and receiving information. It would help mankind balanceits political focus. You see the interesting thing, Jacques, is that wemust emphasize the fact that we are receiving a new program! Wedo not have to go through the oldprogramming o Armageddon." f Contact Within Eighteen Months!At the end of our meeting, Jim said he wanted to share with mesomething that I could keep in mind: a statement that he hadprepared with Puharich, a "sensitive" who was working for theAmerican Navy, and other friends of his in various positions whohad access to "con:hdential and secret information":

154. 154 MESSENGERS OF DECEPTION I believe that the Earth will be contacted within the next 1 8 months by highly evolved intelligent beings from other worlds. This belief has come about as a result of a study of prophetic literature, claimed UFO contacts, recent forecasts, and countless other materials.Jim was following the usual pattern: illumination, belief in contact,mental changes, and, finally, prophecy. Eighteen months havepassed, and nothing has happened. That, too, is typical. From an exploration of the theosophists and Hiram Butler,I had followed the modern Melchizedekians into their colorfulfantasies. I had identified a complete panorama of organizations,cults, and groups that had in common the idea that a superior groupof Manipulators was controlling the Earth. On that higher plane,the Order of Melchizedek was said to be supreme, and to rule theaffairs of man. They allegedly intervened on Earth through theiragents in religion, the arts, and science. It had even been suggestedthat I become involved myself, and that by so doing I would help inaverting World War III and a global holocaust. How seriously should one take these claims? Would these fearsand these fantastic claims die in some forgotten corner, like the worksof Butler and Penn? My feeling, as I continued exploring the world ofthese groups, was that of groping through a damp, gloomy cave. My reasons for declining the invitation, for refusing to becomeinvolved with the Sons of Melchizedek, were not based on somescientific idea of the impossibility of the contact they promised. Such unprovable contact, for all I know, may be occurring everyday. But contact with what? With genuine beings from space?With some dark part of the human mind, alive with delusions andstrange fears? A whole spectrum of human folly and of humangreatness had passed before me since I had begun this investigation.The search had led me through several countries, showing me that the idea of contact with the Messengers of Deception was nothing new, and that it was capable of triggering fantastic passions. I had

155. Seraphic T r a n s p o r t s and B e n e v o l e n t Programmers 155become aware of some pretty shady business behind the apparentlyharmless antics of the contactee groups. Now I wanted to focus myattention on the problem at hand: the question of who was doingall this and what their designs on us might be.

156. The Puppets The question o how men first came to be religious is shrouded in f the unknowable past. . . W accounts for the rise and evolution o hat f new religious groups in society? This question remains unanswered although it has received more attention than any other problem in the sociology o religion. f Glock and Stark, Religion and Society in Tension OHara, who works for the San FranciscoA REPORTER NAMED Chronicle, goes through the streets of this magnificent cityand poses a different question every day to the people he meets.When he asked, Are UFO beings among us now?" a truckdriverfrom Cupertino with long black hair and a mustache said: No, but I dont doubt there are people who do exist someplace else, because the UFOs are coming from somewhere, but I dont think they need to send anyone down here to observe us. I dont doubt the existence of UFOs. But among us, no. A lot of weird people are walking around, but you cant blame them on Outer Space.Another man, a TV production worker wearing thin glasses and athin smile, seemed to agree: No [he said], but I am convinced of the existence of flying saucers, because Carol and I saw one in La Jolla. It was sort

157. 158 M ES S E N G E R S OF D E C EPTION of diamond-shaped, with a number of points of flashing lights. At first we thought it was an especially bright star, until it started moving away. We were completely sober. We hadnt been drinking or dropping anything. I dont think beings are among us, but I am certain flying saucers are capable of observing us.A classic description: "First we thought it was a star," says thewitness. Now he has to add, "We were completely sober." Hisgirlfriend Carol, who is an insurance company employee, stressedshe had not seen Star W or Close Encounters; she believed that arscreatures from outer space did not need to come among us: "theycan find out what they need to know by hovering around." Not oneof the seven people responding expressed the slightest doubt thatflying saucers existed, and they automatically assumed that theycame from outer space. Three o the answers stated that the UFO fpeople are among us now (see Figure 8.1). "They can take about any form they want," said Pauline, astudent with pretty, clear eyes. "There could easily be space beingsamong us, because saucers keep landing and people are probablygetting off them." A forklift operator from San Leandro agreed completely: "Theyprobably look upon us as primitive beings; he said. "Theyrewatching us all the time, picking out the good ones, the ones theywant." And Gary, a construction worker, had the last word: Yes, I know there are space beings among us . . . Me and my Mom saw a flying saucer just out of Rochelle, Illinois. There were two of them darting in and out of the clouds. Lots of people see spaceships but dont report them, because theyre afraid of being laughed at.In Europe, and especially in France, where the scientificcommunity is philosophically determined to defend a certain idea

158. The P u p p e t s 159 U F O Beings-- Are They Among Us Now? wuummumullnll!lm��.��( II y 0 "Hara Patdh:w W�ttktt.l$", �tutlent, S•n F.randS(:fJ: "�111$, bw:<tu�· t!ltw <:<m tul<w about any Jonn they vant. Tlt��ril � f�l> l4t�: l:lt>lng� armmg could �t�siy il J f us he{:�u�e S<UWf.>rS i;111�p landing l!.!)q jlei}jll) <)rt! prQbab)y J�ttirtg oft ,l, th�m.. Rememl��t tttas : JJten down � in MLlSissfppi tnat were Sltfifli1Se<l .o have bt0ll ta K(ll ahoart! a $p"<C ship for a tide? WelL l bdi(:vc. thNn because th!!y put rtwm: tltoough. l!hOeok tr·Mtme:nt.� and found tlut : th<.>y wr,.r() tdJinA the tntt:h.. V<Ju cant !a.kc. ·shock ;md wby �Oulo they HH about thAt. anyway? NMl !tlarcoux, fork lift upera· tor. San 1-cludrc.: "(ll, 1 thinK :we re h(�ln)� vls.ited. l th lnl wh(l.t �hwn� diling s t I hlSJWCtlug r h�ht !tQW, !u�t dir:.;king ll:lirlg$ Qtlt. !bey prob•lhl_y l<1<tk u�·on us lls prJm.H lv!; b�illll;:!. TIH)yr.r. tH"obah!y a lot nwre ;td vanee:d. llHHl ( are and arc tuti<rus · aht).ut 11> lfkt) v.� 11re <thout th<� r•• ·� m9.n. rh;:yril WitCblng lt% <�U !lW .tlmc;, JlkklrJ.g out l.hc t:ood OM !he s. l OU(;S lW} W.<IJ.Il. Tl:w;(r< jJJS!. diN:!· ing us <n;t for htn lwy want u,_ , t.<�ty Nlbon. t!Hlstna·t"ion l�<.;.r"!ll.lr, Sun .l.•�andrll; Yes, l kn.ow tll< r< an� spat� U�i.i>J;,t among ·vs. Htt•rt· � (!l)fUi > � F�· ly sommhllli 01!. · J !Jwre. lo<:;hnitiil!y . thPre l Nltd. be il hmh.-r dd!ilati n <i · tlee;ms¢ wct(l n<>t h,� onty planN and thc lOU!d 1w�� a difh:r.;ont y sy;swxn and Mt £)ven re(p.dtc sl:t, !vte and ·my M1m saw .a flyin saucer � g JtSt ou,t <if Roch;etk, I!l.iutJLI. !here w�re t-wo o Uwm d:trt.ing n and f i our -of the clou.dl>, Lot of p(�lpln se. s : �p�c� �hip> t;ut llont n�pQrt tbf.>m boc.;ms� tlw�r(l <tfratd of heini! JJil�giwt.l a�. - r �--" !Figure 8 . 1 . A reporter interviewing people on the streets of San Franciscorecorded these views on the subject of contact with "UFO beings."TI1e responses confirm that the public is generally aware of the mainfeatures of the phenomenon, and that some people are prepared to acceptuncritically the idea that space people are already among us. (CopyrightChronicle Publishing Co. 1977.)

159. 160 M E S S E N G E R S OF D E C E P T I O Nof "rationalism," such reactions from the public are received withlaughter: "What do you expect," a French space scientist onceasked me, "from such people who are untrained in science? TheAmerican public is naive and gullible, bombarded by Hollywoodwith sensational publicity for science-fiction movies. Such crazymovements and cults would never have a chance in France." The French researchers place in the same bag the UFO cultistsand the scientists who research parapsychology. InterviewingFrench space expert Claude Poher in 1978, for example, the popularmagazine Paris-Match made this incredible statement: You are refuting the parapsychology hypothesis (suggestion, provoked hallucination, etc.). Therefore, the phenomena seem to have an objective reality.It never occurred to Paris-Match that a phenomenon could be realboth in a physical sense and in a psychic sense. Similarly, Frenchintellectuals regard UFO cultists and contactees as an Americanaberration. I was amused, therefore, when I discovered that oneof the largest Urantia organizations was based in France, as is abranch of the Order of Melchizedek. And I was even more amusedwhen I met Monsieur Vorilhon. Rae! Tells the TruthClaude Vorilhon is a young reporter living in Clermont-Ferrand(France), a racing enthusiast and the bearer of surprising news. Weare living, he says, in the last days of the world! This was revealedto him on December 13, 1973, as he was hiking in the old volcanocountry near his home. The weather was foggy, overcast. Hesuddenly saw a blinking red light, and something like a helicoptercame down and hovered two yards above ground. It was the sizeof a small bus, conical on top. There was a flashing white light at

160. The P u p pets 161Figure 8.2. The sign seen by Vorilhon. Compare with Figures 5.1and 7.1 . Conractee symbols often combine well-known designs inronew patterns.the apex of the cone. The red light was underneath. A stairwayappeared, and a child-like occupant came out, smiling, with a glowaround his body. On the craft and on the pilots green suit was asymbol combining the swastika and the Star of David! The pentaclegiven to me by the French Order of Melchizedek also showed a Starof David with a spinning pattern inside. The Vorilhon symbol is supposed to mean "As above, so below,and everything runs in cycles." Remember Waites commentaryon Melchizedek: "He raised the world below to the height of thatwhich is above." Vorilhon looked at the creature and the creature smiled. "Where do you come from?" " very C away. . . "T rar "You speak French?" "I speak every language on Earth." "You come from another planet?" "V " .1es. "Is this your first visit to Earth?" "Oh, no.1 " "Have you come here many times?"

161. 162 M E SSENGERS OF DECEPTION "Very often . . .thats the least you could say." "Why did you come?" "Today I come to speak to you." Vorilhon proceeds to tell us the story of his encounter with theglowing child, followed by several sessions of note-taking under hissupervision. The story is naive. absurd; it reads like a space operawritten by a twelve-year-old. "Why did you pick me?" "For many reasons. First we needed someone who lived in acountry where new ideas are well-received. France is the countrywhere democracy was born, and her image on the entire Earth isthat of the land of freedom." The pilot added that Vorilhon had also been selected because hewas a free thinker without being antireligious. He was not a scientist,and therefore "would explain the thing simply without complicatingit." He wasnt a professional writer, either, and thus "wouldnt makeup convoluted sentences that most people wouldnt be able to read."Finally, they picked him because he was born in 1946, after the firstatom bomb. The visitor told Vorilhon to come back the next day and to bringalong his Bible. They had haifa dozen meetings on successive mornings,and the little man gave Vorilhon his new name, "Rae!." During thesemeetings, Vorilhon-Rael claims that he received commentaries onthe most significant parts of the Bible. He gathered his notes in abook, privately published by "Message Editions" in 1974, entitled 7he Message Given by the Extraterrestrials. It tells a strange tale ofMans creation by scientists of an advanced space civilization wholater disagreed on our development, thus splitting the gods into acamp led by Jahweh and one led by Satan. We are now living the LastDays of an Age. I n order to make further progress, we need to makedrastic political changes. First, we must wipe out democracy: You must eliminate elections and votes that are completely ill-adapted to the current evolution of mankind. Men are

162. The P u p p e r s 163 the useful cells of a large body called Humanity. A cell in the foot doesnt have to say whether or not the hand should pick up an object. The brain decides, and if the object is good, the cell in the foot will profit by it . . . A world government and a new monetary system must be created. A single language will serve to unifY the planet.(It is curious to lind such themes under the pen of a contactee inClermont-Ferrand, since the same theories are advocated by Mr.T. in his California mansion.) Finally, the military service mustbe discontinued in all countries. Then the Elohim will come backto the Earth, and they will give us the benefit of their superiorscience. If, on the other hand, Man remains aggressive, then theywill wipe out our scientific centers, as they did once with Sodomand Gomorrah. Having returned home after the last meeting, Vorilhon surveyedhis notes and "realized the immensity of the mission that he hadbeen given." He decided to go ahead anyway, and even to ignorethose who would make fun of him as an "illuminated one." Hereflected that "It is better to be an illuminated one who knows thanan enlightened man who doesnt." To those who disbelieve his message, he would simply answer:"Look at the sky, and you will see more and more apparitions thatneither your scientists nor your military will be able to explain." The key to Vorilhons appeal is that he brings a simple, or rathera simplistic, solution to our worries. He confesses this himself inthe conclusion to his book: All these revelations have brought me such well-being and such an inner peace, in this world where one doesnt know what to believe any more, a world where professional scientists cannot provide a precise enough explanation of our origin and our goals. In the light of these revelations, everything is cleared up and appears simple.

163. 164 M ESSENGERS OF DECEPTIONWhat Vorilhon expresses here very well is the grave danger ofcontactee beliefs: an unquestioned faith i n external interventionthat will bring simple answers to mankind. Hitlers "final solution"for humanity was equally simple. The themes are familiar: (I) People dont know what to believe any more, because scienceand education have made it impossible to continue worshipping a"Good God with a long white beard." (2) On the other hand, science and education have brought noreal answers to the deeper questions i n our minds: where do wecome from? Where are we going? Vorilhons illumination has brought him an answer which is allthe more convincing because it rests on faith alone. The little man hasinstructed him to start building a mansion for the returning Elohim.Vorilhon has appealed to public support on French radio and television,and has attracted some followers. Now he waits for the Angels. Vorilhon gave a public lecture in San Francisco in December 1976. A group of about 150 people paid $3 each to attend. By thetime Vorilhon had described the details of his trip to the planet ofthe Elohim, a reporter observed that "five persons had stomped out,and three elderly ladies had lapsed into soothing snoozes." They missed the bathtub episode. I n his new book, Beings From Outer Space Took Me to theirPlanet, Vorilhon writes: I put on my belt and found myself carried in front of the apparatus used to make robots. When I was seated, a splendid-looking dark-haired girl appeared i n the three dimensional luminous cube. My robot asked me ifl liked her and wished to have different shapes or a modified face. I told him I found her perfect.The machine produced five more girls, and they accompaniedVorilhon to his place, where he had an unforgettable bath with

164. The Puppets 165Figu re 8.3. When French contactee Claude Vorilhon lectured in California,he argued for the creation of a world government and a reformed monetarysystem, claiming that he was instructed to do so by the "Elohim" fromanother planet. (Copyright Chronicle Publishi ng Co., 1978.)h is delightful robots who, he says , <submitted to all my desires."Vorilhon doesnt explai n any of the contradictions in the s to ry. Whywould the Elohim want us to dest roy democracy after selectingas a prop het a man born i n France, "the country of d emocracyand freedom"? Why would they use for an insignia such a human,terrestrial symbol as a swas ti ka inside a Star o f David? We should look for an answer in the direction the phenomenonitself ind icates : it has human elements; yet is alien to us. It is physical inappearance; yet it also behaves like a projection from the unconscious.I suggest that it represen ts a technology, like the television set, thatman ip ula tes the perceptions of the human mind. One is temptedto say that Vorilhon might have had an in itia l experience, and thathe later hallucinated the dialogue with the pilot and the subsequentencou nters Hallucination is a big word, however, and implies .that nothing in the experience was real. This is not my intention.Whatever the tech nology, it is the effec t that is interesting. The newman Vorilhon , like other contactees, is out to change the world.

165. 166 M E S S E N G E RS OF DECEPTION The Manipulators . . . I have given this name to the hypotheticalagents who might cause the UFO contacts and engineer theireffects. Everything now centers on their role, their identity, theirdesigns. Who could they be? Alien beings coming from the endof the galaxy? Psychic entities from the "other side" ? Automatacontrolled by some nonhuman consciousness? Holographicnightmares? But perhaps we are looking far away for somethingwhich is right under our nose: could they simply be human?Could they be masters of deception so skillful that they plan tocounterfeit an invasion from space? It is not difficult to see that the same themes are running throughthe whole puzzle. Many contactees, for example, mention Atlantis.If our self-styled "space brothers" need such a prehistoric pedigree,is it reasonable to expect them to come from some far-away star?The real answer is both more mundane and more frightening: Beyond the attention ofacademic science, below the dignity of fficial history, there are groups, cults, and sects that serve as o "leading indicators" ofmass movements.The myth of contact is such a leading indicator. I took all my papers one day and drove to the house of MajorMurphy, who had advised me to pursue my research of the contacteegroups. We quickly agreed that the popular idea of flying saucersfrom outer space left much to be explained. The Major, who was stillclosely following government-funded research on parapsychologyin the U.S. and seemed well aware of similar advances in the SovietUnion, suggested that the UFOs might not be spacecraft, but whathe called "psychotronic devices." "In 1943," he said, as we sat in his study, "we already hadevidence that several countries were working on circular aircraftthat they hoped to develop into secret weapons. The Germans werealso doing advanced research on controlled electrical discharges andcontrolled lightning, and tried to combine these things together.

166. The P u p p e ts 167When we invaded Germany, a lot of hardware fell into our hands,but the Russians had gotten most of the good stuff. Then peoplestarted seeing the modern UFOs in Sweden in 1946." He leaned back and lit a cigarette, leaving me with a thousandquestions. Why did he bring in the Germans and their secret weapons?It would be absurd to suggest such devices could explain UFOs. "Nobody seems to have documented that period, Major," I toldhim to stimulate his recollections. "General James Doolittle wassent to Sweden by the United States in 1946, apparently under coverof the Shell Corporation. In fact, he was to investigate the ghostrockets with the Swedish authorities. Whatever came of that?" "His conclusions have never been revealed," answered MajorMurphy with a sigh that seemed to say, If only the Pentagon couldtalk! "But it doesnt take much imagination to realize that hisinvolvement meant considerable interest among the top brass. Thiswas a year before Kenneth Arnold, mind you, several years before the creation of Project Blue Book. Dammit, the Air Force didnteven exist in 1946!" Murphy was obviously relishing an opportunityto think back to what had been a very exciting time for him, a timewhen military intelligence could do almost anything. "One area where you must realize a lot of research had already been done in great secrecy by 1946 concerned mind control and the effects of electromagnetic radiation (what we now call ELF, or Extremely Low Frequency) on the human body." "And what does that have to do with UFOs or with rockets, or secret weapons?" I asked rather brusquely. He took my outburst with patience. "On the surface, if you just look at a few isolated cases, like scientists arguing about UFOs, well, I agree it doesnt mean anything. But suppose somebody had obtained a device by the end of the war, which perhaps wasnt a very effective weapon. Perhaps it couldnt fly very effectively, couldnt carry guns and bombs, but had other properties. For instance, it could emit radiation that caused paralysis and hallucinations as it flew over an area, so that witnesses exposed to it would think they

167. 168 M ESSENGERS OF DECEPTIONsaw the phantasms of their own imagination. Did somebody testthat kind of a device in Sweden in 1946, and in the States in 1947,and find it to be ineffective as a flying machine, but very useful as ameans of propaganda? Has such a group already understood whatUFOs were, and are they confusing the issue by simulating UFOwaves? Or is the entire phenomenon under their control?" "You cannot mean that, Major." I got up and took from a shelf ofhis well-organized library the Book o the Damned by Charles Fort. f"Many of the typical tricks of what we now call UFOs have beendescribed in the journals of bygone days, collected by this man . . ." "Wait," said Murphy. "Things are rarely so simple, my friend.I am only trying to caution you, so you will not spend your timechasing dreams. There is a UFO phenomenon, and there havebeen contactees claiming intimate knowledge of it since timeimmemorial. But there is also a capability to create artificiallyboth the UFO sightings and the effects reported by contactees.Furthermore, there is a possibility that some group has alreadyunderstood the whole puzzle . . ." "Solved the UFO problem?" "Yes. You need to face all the possibilities. You have to drawthe consequences. Someone may have solved the problem. Perhapsthere is an elegant solution to multidimensional travel, and it isbeing applied. I am not a physicist. You should ask your theoreticianfriends what they think. I can only tell you that silent, disk-shaped flying machines can be built. If they are equipped with the rightdevices, they can create astonishing effects and be reported as flying saucers. I wish I still had my files on the German experiments." Suppositions, I thought. Assumptions. Were going to need more than that to explain the UFO problem. "Major, I cant believe that some Nazi group had managed to survive secretly with this kind of technology in its power." "Who says anything about the Nazis? I am suggesting that other groups have become involved. Germany was simply a little ahead of other people. You have V2s in 1944, and you have the Atlas rocket

168. The P u p p e t s 169in the 60s. You have foo-fighters in 43, and the green fireballs ofNew Mexico nine years later. "A lot of people got involved. Industrial concerns. Laboratoriesengaged i n psychotronic research. The Nazi research on microwaveswas childs play compared to the sophistication of modernexperiments. If someone is using this technology, we can assumethey have also mastered pharmacology, the use of drugs to distortthe memories of witnesses, the use of mind control to suggeststories, to plant fake observations. Dont you think people shouldtry to get some information about that before believing in friendlyspace visitors? " "Its hard to believe that these techniques would already beapplied on this kind of scale," I said. "Dont you read the newspapers? Dont you follow publicationson mind control? The military has been using this kind oftechnique c ,ror years. He pulled out of a file a series of New Y ork Times clippings beginning in 1977. It described part of a U.S. project which spanned 35 years and involved hypnosis, narcoanalysis, electronic brain stimulation, and the behavioral effects of every physical vibration known to science, from ultrasound to m icrowaves. He showed me a book entitled Operation Mind Control, in which W.H. Bowart describes his meeting with a young man who had just returned from a tour of duty with the Air Force. He suffered from amnesia. Like many UFO contactees, he remembered vaguely that he had had a good time, but couldnt describe in detail where he had been. After many therapy sessions, he began to recall part of his activities. He had served, it seemed, on a military committee in Vietnam. He had dreams in which he was standing at a long table on a beach, with Communist officers on one side and Americans on the other. Although the discussion was heated, nothing was written down. His assignment was to remember everything that was said. He had been trained for total recall. . . then his entire memory of these assignments was erased like a magnetic cassette.

169. 170 M E S S E NG E R S O F D E C E P T I O N Giving me time to absorb this inf ormation, Major Murphygestured toward the notes I had compiled on the UFO contacteesand their sects. "You have assembled case histories on rather interestinggroups. Don)t misunderstand me," he said. "I am not suggestingthat secret agents are going around the world giving thesethousands of people individual suggestions to see UFOs.As we found out when we began developing the science ofpropaganda during the last war, you dont need to do all that.A few well-placed stories, a well-planned program publicizingsensational incidents, will do marvels. The contactees are beingmanipulated. And I think we should not look i n outer space forthe Manipulators." "Where would you look?" "Right here, on Earth," said the Major, with the satisfied airof a mathematics professor who has succeeded i n proving anespecially vexing theorem. "The best place to start looking forthem is among some of the occult groups. S uch organizationsare an ideal place for a clever individual to exercise his influence,because they are ignored by the intellectuals, by those who callthemselves scientific investigators. They are afraid of lookingsilly if they join the Order of Melchizedek: what will the Deansay when he finds out!" We both laughed. I knew that Murphy was right on at leastthat point. The professional scientists were so insecure that theywould thunder against any one of their number who dared to readoccult books and admit it, or who got initiated into the Order ofMelchizedek. . .without clothes, in somebodys hot tub. "Look at what you have already found. You have here manycontactee stories that appear meaningless or foolish at first,"continued Murphy. "Yet they contain explosive ideas: politicalcontrol from a so-called higher level; social unification;resistance to nuclear energy; transcending traditional religions;elimination of the current financial system. Keep looking. You

170. The Puppets 171might find that most of the UFO groups, including the majorcivilian organizations, are influenced by some strange people.And the pattern of conditioning you have discovered in yourcomputer studies of UFO sightings may turn out to be aimed atlong-term social changes." "How could you prove that?" "Look for cases where direct contact seems to have takenplace between such a group and someone who fits the profileof the manipulators," answered the Major, getting up from hisarmchair as I gathered my notes and walked toward the door."And look for other unexplained effects which follow a similarmodus operandi: things that have a strong symbolic content, butdont seem to make sense. Things that academic science refusesto study, but which make a subliminal impact on the public.Thats the level where the manipulators will do their work. IfIm not mistaken, the UFOs are only one aspect of their activity,one tool in their arsenal. If these beings are human, they haveto reveal themselves occasionally, even if they are very good atmisdirecting our attention. So do not go chasing every UFO that people report to you. You may find that the really important observation has taken place in your own backyard while youwere away. " We walked together to the quiet street, lined with trees. "Also remember," he said as I was getting into my car, " for Gods sake, dont waste your time with the UFO groups. Theres better things to do." I tried to catch him off guard, just once: "What will you say, Major, if I come back with evidence that some nonhuman beings are involved? Will you say that you were wrong, and that the occult groups were right?" "I never said they were wrong," retorted the Major. "I said they were infiltrated."

171. 172 M ES S E N G E R S OF DECEPTION Adventures of a Grand MasterA few weeks after this discussion with the Major, I ran intothe first indication that there might be some merit to his ideathat occult groups are controlled by skilled manipulators, andthat it might even shed some light on the UFO phenomenon. Ifound this indication in a book written by a Frenchman namedRaymond Bernard. Bernard lives near Paris, in Villeneuve-St.-Georges. He headsup the European branch of the "Ancient and Mystical 0 rder ofthe Rosy Cross," one of the major organizations in the worldthat claim to preserve and teach a genuine esoteric tradition. True adepts of the Rosy Cross, it is said, are not of this Earth.They have transcended the bonds of time and space. They needno human structure, no Order, and no Raymond Bernard! Theyreach this exalted state, however, by a series of initiations thatorganizations such as AMORC claim to preserve as a body of"sacred knowledge." AMORC teaches it throughout the world,mailing its educational material from its lavish headquarters in SanJose, California. I have my own conclusions about the nature of this process;I am not blind to the fact that many such organizations serve ascover for international espionage. From John Dee and Casanovato Aleister Crowley, occultists have often doubled as spies. But thatmay not be the whole story. The fact is that, as soon as we enter thisdomain, we find another hall of mirrors where opportunities forerrors and deception are many. The confusion is blatant and deliberate. Its avowed purposeis to discourage superficial minds, curiosity seekers, and mostscientists. It also gives rationalists a good reason for rejecting thewhole thing out of hand. The second purpose is to mislead mostof those who still remain into blind alleys by various forms oftemptation. Making gold, for instance, is a favorite sidetrack of theAdepts. Only those who are not interested in the literal gold will

172. The P u p p e t s 173be able to find their way deeper into the labyrinth. But what of theknowledge of the initiates which AMORC claims to hold? Well,this knowledge is most ancient. AMORC says it comes from - youguessed it - Atlantis. It was preserved all this time by Egyptianpriests and their descendants. Whether or not there ever was a continent or island of Atlantis,one thing is certain: some techniques used by occult groups haveindeed been preserved from the most ancient times. They includeexcellent operating knowledge of hypnosis, suggestion, the laws offorms, and their use for ritual and behavior control. The ancient artof hypnotic control has been transferred to the halls of academe,where it is used with caution and reluctance in the psychiatrydepartment; but for all practical purposes the awesome powers ofthe shaman have gone the way of Gurdjielf and Aleister Crowley. There are notable exceptions. Hypnotic techniques taughtto would-be Adepts occasionally play a role in publicly visibleevents. In 1968 a man named Sirhan killed Robert Kennedy inLos Angeles. Sirhan was a member of AMORC. He had used theOrders technique for self -hypnosis while preparing his role in this tragedy. Raymond Bernard, too, has used the technique often, but for a different purpose: to obtain visions that would lead him to a higher level of being, and would help him assume his role at the head of a thriving, active, wealthy international organization, with members in all French-speaking countries, including large parts of Africa. Bernard, in turn, reports to the man who heads up the Order worldwide, the "Imperator." The Manipulators struck in 1967. Raymond Bernard was contacted by a "superior being," who called himself Maha, and who apparently had extraordinary eyes, which, Bernard wrote, reflected an entire universe. Bernard was convinced that Maha could communicate through his eyes alone.1 Their first meeting took place at the Carlton Hotel in Amsterdam. The effects of a powerful suggestion were immediately noticeable, for Bernard found himself standing before Maha, without being

173. M E SSENGERS OF D E C E P T I O Naware of having made any effort to get up. He could no longerperceive anything around him except Mahas eyes, extremely pale,which demanded that he abandon all control. What we have here is the statement of a man who has met inperson one of the "Manipulators," an important statement, even ifthe witness is a believer in the occult and a highly trained practitionerof a tradition that is obviously affecting his perceptions. Maha was quick to point out that thehotel lobbywas not a suitableplace for their meeting. He walked to the street: an automobilepicked them up, and began driving along the Leidersplein, crossingthe bridge, turning left, and moving away toward a suburb ofAmsterdam. They stopped i n front of a splendid residence built oflight-colored bricks, situated in a park full of flowers. Maha then made his purpose clear. He said he was a memberof "the High Council" (also called the "A!). His statementsabout his role were couched in the same bizarre style used byDr. Pettipher and the other "mystics" we have heard. The readeralready knows what I think of this style of discourse: it is used,purposely or not, because of its suggestive value. It lulls the mindof the hearer into a semihypnotic state until it is ready to receivethe real message, the "plant" designed to grow and prosper in theaudiences unconscious. Maha, just like Grace Pettipher and a fewothers of the strange characters I met in this quest, shows himselfto be a master of the subliminal. He then began to discuss his political role, and to paint anincredible picture of what I have called the "Control System." Hepointed out that it is difficult to contain the errors of mankind.Why should the truth of one particular continent have precedenceover the truth of another? he asked. The vigilance of the "High Council" is necessary to prevent human tragedy in a way that doesnot interfere with the freedom of mankind. After this general statement, indicating that the so-called "High Council" works on a planetary scale, unconcerned by minor philosophical differences between capitalism and communism

174. The P u p p e ts 115(the "truth" of one continent and that of another), Maha wenton to deliver his main message, which Raymond Bernard woulddisseminate through his organization and through his books. Hestated that mankind is now at the "right level," and that the "newcycle" will see competition on a global scale. However, this newcycle is off to a bad start, said Maha; mankind is approaching itwith a mistaken concept of the value of money. In the comingcycle, the scale of values will be reversed, he added, leading to a newunderstanding ofsocial good, the abolition ofborders, and the deathof nationalism. At this point in Mahas monologue, Bernard wasstill wondering why this meeting was taking place. In fact, he hadheard much of this in earlier briefings about the role of the "HighCouncil." Maha seemed to have read his thoughts of puzzlement:the meeting, he said, concerned the specific role of propaganda andpublic indoctrination that groups such as AMORC can play. Raymond Bernard went to Vienna in June 1967. He met anotherman, with a fine profile, dark eyes, and white eyebrows. The car,this time, was bearing the special plates of the diplomatic corps.They drove to an isolated house near a forest. It was surroundedwith high walls, above which only the roof and the top floor couldbe seen from the road. There was no outward sign of activity, butas they knocked on the door, it opened onto a circular room witha floor of black and white marble triangles, where twelve men werestanding, dressed in white robes. There, Bernard witnessed a ritual with several striking peculiarities. First, he suddenly failed to hear the words of the celebrants, although he saw their lips moving. Then he heard a mounting vibration - not quite the om sound used by Eastern meditators. He lost consciousness and was later puzzled by the whole experience. Reflecting upon it, Bernard came to the conclusion that he had been subjected to an examination. In fact, he has no proofthat he had not been given posthypnotic suggestions or reinforcements of earlier suggestions, whose existence may be indicated by the frequent perceptual phenomena he experienced

175. 176 M E S S E N G E R S OF D E C E P T I O Nthroughout the episodes covered in his book. Yet he asks noquestions. The explanation is simple: he trusts these people ascompletely as the contactees trust their "space brothers." Indeed, hesays, I would give myself completely and without second thought tosuch beings: their work is the supreme good, the summum bonum. I n a later interview with the master of the house in Vienna,Bernard was given the key to the symbolic colors used in the ritual.He was told that red is the color of the cosmic masters, the regulatorso human evolution. Once again, the words suggest a control system fthat combines physical knowledge with uncanny mastery o that femerging set o techniques the Soviets callpsychotronics. f After Bernard toured the entire house and was told its rolein the function of the Order, the "master" spoke a single wordof two syllables: upon hearing this keyword, Bernard again lostconsciousness. He assumed once more that he was reaching a levelof cosmic ecstasy induced by the high meditative state of hishosts. To me, everything he describes again indicates hypnoticcontrol. The "master" explained it himself, by saying that everyman can be linked to others by his "keyword," forming infiniteseries of chains. Is there really such an organization as the "High Council"?Probably not. The name may have been picked for Bernardspurpose. Could the owners of the houses he describes be found?That, indeed, would be most interesting, but under what pretensecould a serious investigation be mounted? There are laws againstpolitical agitation within a given country, but there is no law againstpeople who think they can run the world by psychic means. What are they waiting for? The answer is straightforward: theywait for the "coming of the Kingdom of Graal." When will this takeplace? When the UFOs land on Earth, or, as the men told Bernard,"When the knights of the Earth meet the celestial knights of themacrocosm." In other words, when contact is openly establishedwith the cosmic messengers every religion has been promising ussince Abraham - who got the idea from Melchizedek!

176. The P u p p e t s 177 I find it fascinating that there should be a secret group of menspending their time and money keeping these ideas alive: withinthe symbol of Melchizedek, all paths of belief become one, eventhose apparently most opposed, like Satanism and Christianity; inthe last analysis, man is bearing every stream of knowledge withinhimself, and the High Council rides higher still, beyond Good andEvil. Raymond Bernard was told that he must transmit what hehad seen, and make it public. He was instructed to write books abouthis encounters. This was a deliberate action on the part of his guidesto get their symbols and their message out into the world. Theircarefully staged rituals would be described in detail. Other books,movies, conversations would then pick up this mass of ideas andcarry them farther. Among the notions they want us to believe is the assumptionthat they are the guardians of a most ancient tradition comingfrom the Atlanteans. Where did the Atlanteans get it? Maha statedthe answer unequivocally, by insisting that this knowledge camefrom another galaxy, and was brought to Earth by the founders ofAtlantis. The claim is made that the "pure race" of these Atlanteanshas continued throughout the millennia. Maha will not reveal where they now live, not even to his dear disciple Bernard. He hinted that they are linked to reports of unidentified beings, coming from elsewhere, who pay for the goods they buy with pure gold. 2 Spiritual BlackmailThe being of the Canigou, the man with long blond hair andhypnotic eyes, who could not be photographed by Jacques Bordasand paid with pure gold; the scientist who showed Helen the motor;the dwarfs who exhibited the trick map to Betty Hill and gaveVorilhon a fake Gospel: were they of the same origin as Maha? The U.S. Air Force has made many naive and misguidedattempts to understand UFOs. It has tried, patiently at first,

177. 178 M E S S E N G E R S OF D E C E P T I O Ndesperately sometimes, to get rid of "flying saucers." To that end ithas used power from the scissors of its censors and from the barrelsof its guns. It was looking for evidence that the objects were a directmilitary threat to the United States. It never occurred to the USAFthat the threat might be at a different level. The group o people who will first manage to harness the fear o f fcosmicforces and the emotions surrounding UFO contact to a politicalpurpose will be able to exert incredible spiritual blackmail. Such weapons are less flexible, but also less detectible, thantanks and aircraft; they represent a more lasting form of controlover the lives of men. It takes a long time to bring their effects tocomplete fruition, because secrecy is essential for them to work. Thecontactees and the occult believers have been used as puppets. Thepublic in every country now recognizes the existence ofUFOs, andassociates it with the idea of wise visitors from space. A majority ofthe American public has become convinced of the existence of suchvisitors. They have harnessed Hollywood. And they have made surethe whole subject remains a matter of ridicule and disrepute amongscientists. There is in the White House a man who has seen a UFOand is impressed by what he saw. There are small groups and sectsof contactees all over the world, using a vague and confusing jargonthat protects the unspeakable reality, and claiming that salvationfrom Heaven is just around the corner. I dont think we should expect salvation from the sky. I believe there is a very real UFO problem. I have also cometo suspect that it is being manipulated for political ends. And thedata suggest that the manipulators may be human beings with aplan for social control. Such plans have been made before, and havesucceeded. History shows that having a cosmic mythology as partof such a plan is not always necessary. But it certainly helps.

178. PA RT TH R E EThe Stratagems

179. Practically all the ruses and stratagems o war are variations for developments o afew simple tricks that have been practiced fby man on man since man was first hunted by man . . . 7heelementary principle o all deception is to attract the enemys fattention to what you wish him to see, and to distract hisattention from what you do not wish him to see. General Sir Archibald Wavell, memorandum to the British Chiefs of Staff, 1 940

180. NINE ...... �-� (i)· - - - �qp� A Cow for Norad The steep hillside up to the electrically controlled high entrance gate to the huge tunnel into this worldwide intelligence nerve center is covered with rock and brush. Sur prisingly, a few cattle are also grazed here, no doubt to lower any possible fire hazard So right there, immediately overlooking thousands of military buildings, the protective covering o hundreds o planes and helicopters and 20, 000 f f soldiers, and immediately in ftont o the electronic brain and senses f thatsurvey the entire North American continent so that even a needle couldnt get in undetected, plus monitoring ofall ofspace from here to the Moon . . . someone thought this would be a neat place to have a cattle mutilation. Frederick W. Smirh, Cattle Mutilation N THE LASTthree years a new problem has been added to the listI of unresolved questions surrounding the UFO phenomenon.Much intense discussion has taken place among the believers and theskeptics alike about this problem. I am referring to the many reportsof cattle mutilations that are reported throughout the Western states,often at the same time and in the same area as UFO sightings. Are themutilations real, and are they caused by UFO occupants? I must admitthat I cannot give a conclusive answer. I can summarize the facts,however, and show why they are relevant to the possible exploitationof UFO beliefs. Let me first remind the reader that the three positionspeople have taken about the mutilations are as follows:

181. 182 M E S S E NG E R S O F D E C E P T I O N (I) the cattle have died naturally and were mutilated by predators,or were killed by a few isolated sensation-seekers; (2) there is an organization secretly conducting large-scalemutilation of cattle, either as part of some witchcraft cult or as partof a secret government testing program; and (3) the mutilations are caused by UFOs and their occupants. We must approach this new area with caution. The accumulationofdata seems to prove that many of the reported mutilations are real.Many animals, small and large, ranging from rabbits to buffaloes,have been killed mysteriously and have had some organs removed. Instudying these reports, I have disregarded all cases where predatorscould have been involved, and I have relied on the original policereports and on the statements given by state veterinarians andcounty coroners about the nature of the wounds inflicted on theanimals. These documents disclose the fact that the mutilations arenot of the sort that some youthful gang or witchcraft cult would belikely to cause. They involve surgical techniques that demand bothgood anatomical knowledge and procedural skill. This restrictsconsiderably the range of possible suspects. In the words of a lawenforcement official in Montana: "Diligent and intensive researchby officers, assisted by pathologists, veterinarians, toxicologists, andothers, has failed to unravel the mystery." We are entering a new area where we must tread carefully. Someof the evidence may have been planted to mislead us into falseconclusions. The connection with UFOs appears especially trickyand, if proven, would still not answer all our questions. Someonecould be simulating UFO events to turn the investigators attentionaway from the real cause of the mutilation. Or it may be that themutilations are in fact the "next step" in the unfolding of a processdirectly related to the UFOs. In the arsenal of mass manipulation, few weapons are as effectiveas terror; and among the devices of the terrorist, few are as strikingas mutilation of people or animals. Here again, the connectionwith esoteric organizations is a familiar one. On May 2 , 1918, in

182. A Cow for N o r a d 183Munich, for example, right-wing newspapers accused the left ofhaving murdered and mutilated hostages who were members ofthe occult "Thule Society. The hostages sexual organs were saidto have been severed before the hostages were shot. The story wasa fabrication, but it succeeded in convincing the farmers and themiddle class that the executions had been the work of a "Jewishconspiracy." More than two hundred leftists were executed by May5 in reprisal. Throughout the course of history, actual and fakedmutilations have been a tool of political terror for both the leftand the right. Such acts convey many symbols into the minds of those who read about them, and evoke feelings of helplessness and fear 1 The countryside is especially vulnerable, isolated as the ranch houses are, under the night sky. If cattle are found, inexplicably cut by the knife of an unknown criminal, people are likely to feel ancestral terrors: Threatening and heavy his wings overshadow thee; Satan, himself, is hovering near!Such mutilation of cattle has been systematically carried our bypersons or forces unknown since about 1974. at least. The reaction oflocal, state, and federal authorities was usually swift but ineffective.Many individuals and organizations have been suspected of havingengineered the slaughter, but since no one has been arrested andconvicted for it, many farmers now assume that the perpetratorswere either creatures from outer space or secret agents on thepayroll of the government agencies themselves. The problem is wellworth a detailed examination here. not only because it involves thesame patterns as UFO landings, but because its social repercussions follow the same general principles: incidents of high strangeness are reported by credible witnesses; apparent "evidence" found at the site turns out to be spurious, worthless, or misleading; authorities become involved but fail to provide an adequate explanation; the press amplifies the mystery; hoaxers and curiosity seekers complicate

183. 184 M E S S E N G E R S OF D E C E P T I O Nit; finally, academic researchers issue "explanations" that witnessesand knowledgeable investigators throw into the garbage, butwhich impress the scientific community enough to discourage itfrom probing any deeper into the real nature of the problem. Theultimate result is to spread a feeling of anguish and unf ormulatedexpectation throughout the area where the events have taken place:expectation of something dreadful that will come from the sky,something no one on Earth understands, something swift andpitiless that will reshape human life. The numbers themselves are eloquent. In an 18-month period before January 1977, there were 700 mutilations in 15 westernstates. More than 180 cases occurred in Colorado alone in 1975. Most cases have taken place under the same conditions as UFO landings: at night and in silence. Other characteristics have been: no cause of death could be determined; blood was drained from the animals; specific organs were cut away; no traces or tracks of the killer could be found; and no efforts had been made to hide the carcasses. In fact, as Mendocino SherifFs Investigator Baron Hankes said, after studying seven mutilated cattle in Covelo, California, between November 76 and January 77, "It was like someone wanted us to find them." The Slaughter BeginsFirst, a review of some older cases. {l) januar y 29, 1953, Conway, South Carolina. A farmer heard a commotion in his barn and observed an object at treetop level. It was about seven yards long and four yards wide, light gray, lit up inside, and shaped like a half egg. The witness fired his gun at the object. Numerous cattle were found dead of unknown causes after the sighting.

184. A Cow for Nor ad 185 (2) November 14, 1954, Isola, Italy. A farmer named Amerigo Lorenzini rook cover when a bright, cigar-shaped crafi: landed near him. Out of it came three dwarfs dressed in metallic diving suits. They spoke among themselves in an unknown language while looking at the rabbits in a cage. Lorenzini aimed his rifle at the intruders, but it failed to fire, and he felt so weak he had to drop the gun. Lorenzini saw the dwarfs take away the rabbits, and the crafi: departed. (3) September 18, 1962, Barcelos, Brazil. Three men working in a rubber plantation saw a large, disk-shaped object hover near the river. It emitted sparks, and was silvery in color and very bright. It eventually rose straight up at high speed. Cattle disappeared from the area. (4) Fall 1969, near Kansas City. Two women saw an unidentified object come close ro the ground and heard the yells of an animal being slaughtered as the object took off again.As far as my files extend, there are indications of peculiar effects onanimals wherever UFOs are seen: horses lifted from the ground;dogs paralyzed along with their human masters. And we have theclaim that some of the animals have been taken away, or left behindas mutilated carcasses rotting in the sun. A man named Anton Fitzgerald reported two strange experiencesthat rook place one year apart in the mid-sixties. The first onehappened in the Natal midlands, in Africa, as Fitzgerald and afarm manager named Jock Marais were walking down a hill on hisproperty one fine morning. They saw "an eerie reddish glow" on the farm runway, about200 yards from them. The flock of sheep in the runway paddockwere all standing in two one-third circles on opposite-sides of

185. 186 M E S S E N G E R S OF D E C E P T I O Nthe glow, looking toward it. "From our elevated position," wroteAnton Fitzgerald in the aviation magazine Wtngs Over Africa, "thesheep reminded me of iron filings on a piece of paper around amagnet." The pinkish glow started rising vertically without a sound.Fitzgerald inspected the area, and noticed that one old sheep wasmissing. He was reminded of the Zulu legend of"the Red Sun thatrises straight up into the sky after devouring some of the tribescattle." The Cherokee Indians have a similar legend of the Sun thatrises straight up. The second incident witnessed by Fitzgerald took place ashe was flying over western Texas. His companion, another pilotnamed Jake Rugel, thought the object was a weather balloonuntil he saw it climb straight up, with a pink glow which wasmore intense in the center. In this case, too, animals had beenfascinated by the phenomenon. Whiteface Hereford steers on theranch of a man named Ted Leslie had stood in a semicircle inthe paddock. One of the older steers was missing. The case wasreported to Project Blue Book.3 The first case to be investigated officially in the context of UFOreports was that of "Snippy the Horse" in Colorado, in September 1967. Nothing came of it, because the horse had been left theretoo long before scientists arrived at the spot. There had been UFOreports in the specific area where the carcass was found. In 1974 and 1975 the cases began coming in a real wave. In late July 1975, on Ashlot Bench, north of Fort Shaw, Montana, a mutilated cow was found in the pasture, the teats cur off with a sharp instrument, the grass trampled down for nine feet around the carcass. The farmer had seen a blinking red light at the spot on the previous night, and it had moved down the road. A short time later, a young boy saw a red light going through a field which was inaccessible to vehicles (and no traces of a vehicle were found). Two cows were missing and have never been found. In the words of Captain Wolverton, the officer in charge of investigating such reports in Cascade County,

186. A C o w for Norad 181 The records [of the Sheriffs office] are filled with numerous reports of UFO sightings. In a number of cases, the person reporting the sighting was able to give officers a vivid description of the strange craft. These varied from a saucer shaped crafi: or something that looked like a giant pear, to a large object that looked like a two-story building with lights resembling windows.There were two UFO landings on a ranch near Simms, Montana,on December 8 and 9, 1975. The ranchers wife and children sawthe object - a large white light with a red light on top - come tothe ground in an area where the carcass of a calf, already deadfrom natural causes, had been left on the grass, about a half milefrom the house. When the object ascended, it seemed to roll onits side and fly away toward August (west) at low level. The nextevening it returned, remained about one minute, and left to theeast. The calf was found mutilated. Three officers went to the site and examined the carcass.They found that the udder area had been removed: "The cutmarks around the wound were consistent with those found inearlier cases that pathologists had verified were made with a verysharp instrument." Delusionary Spirals and Other Surgical InstrumentsMany people still think that the cattle mutilations can beexplained by natural causes. In a state the size of Montana orTexas, cattle die by the hundreds every month, and it is notsurprising to discover carcasses that have been eaten away bypredators. James Stewart, an assistant professor of sociologyfrom the University of South Dakota at Vermillion, suggestedthat belief in cattle mutilations was "the result of collectivedelusion," something we have already heard many times as the

187. 188 M ESSENGERS OF DECEPTION LI GHTS (<:> d - - ........__ R E V O LV I N G - LIGHTN I N G B O LTFigure 9. 1 . Drawing made by a UFO witness in Vaughn, Montana, an areawhere there have been many carcle mutilations. There were two objectswith glowing domes, and revolving blue and white lights. A lightning boltwas seen underneath them at intervals. The objects were observed at duskfor five minutes."explanation" for UFOs. How can the ranchers be "deluded"when they report mutilated animals? The sociologist in questionreports that: (1) they may be caught in a delusionary spiral; (2)they hope to collect money under the vandalism clause of theirinsurance policy; (3) the animals may have been killed by people;and (4) they may have been killed by wild dogs. All these explanations are valid for a portion of the cases;but they are emphatically contradicted by much of the evidencegathered by the police. In Nebraska, Captain Vern Byler (Criminal Division of theState Patrol) cited a case that his agency had investigated inwhich he found evidence of deliberate mutilation that couldnot be attributed to predators. Similarly, i n Texas, Captain W.Wilson of the Texas Rangers stated that several cases he hadstudied were classified as unexplainable. But they were only thetip of the iceberg.

188. A Cow for Norad 189 Threatening and HeavyI have before me a standard police report form. It comes fromTexas. It is signed by Sheriff Richards, of Cochran County, and isdated March 10, I975, at 12:30 p.m. The complainant is a residentof the town of Whiteface. The "offense" listed in the upper righthand corner of the report reads: Cattle Mutilation. The statementindicates that, upon hearing the complaint, Sheriff Richards wentto the scene and found the following. About rwo miles over in a field was a perfectly round circle. The heifer was lying in the middle of this circle with the head to the North . . . the bottom jaw was cut back and the tongue was gone. The sex organs were cut off and gone. The navel was cut out in a round circle and the meat inside was not touched. There was no blood on the ground or on the cow.While he was checking this out, the rancher said, "If you think thisis odd, look at that place a quarter of a mile west." Sheriff Richardsfound another circle there, with a dead steer. This circle was about the same [size] as the other one, but the wheat was about four inches tall and it had been burned clean. These circles were about 30 feet across.A team from Reese Air Force Base went to the area and found noabnormal radioactivity. The only unusual circumstances that wererelated to the case were frequent recent reports ofUFOs in the area. The people that have been reporting this all tell the same story. "It" is about as wide as a two-lane highway, round and looks the color of the sun when it is going down.

189. 190 M E S S E N G E R S OF DECEPTIONThe law enforcement agencies in all areas tried, understandably, toprevent rumors from spreading and to issue reassuring reports. InUtah, a veterinarian on the staff of the Department of Agriculturewas told he would be fired if he announced his conclusion that ananimal he had autopsied had died abnormally. The mutilation reports extended over Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa,South Dakota, Colorado, Oklahoma, and Minnesota during 1974.The following year many cases occurred in Puerto Rico at the sametime as UFO phenomena. According to engineer S . R. Lamarche,who investigated many of these reports, the first strange deathstook place in February 1975. By April 9, the Assistant Secretaryof Agriculture, Mr. F. N. Rodriguez, stated that the problem wasoccupying his department full-time, and the Federal Meat Inspector,Mr. I . Fernandez, said the cause of death was unknown. Domesticanimals and poultry were killed, as well as cows, sheep, and pigs,apparently by stabbing with a very sharp instrument. A biophysicistat the University of Puerto Rico, Dr. Angel de Ia Sierra, stated heinvestigated a case where an incision had been made "similar towhat is done in experimental surgery."4 In one of the incidents in which UFOs were related to thediscovery of dead animals, a rooster was killed near the house ofMr. Orlando Franceschi, who works at the hospital in Ponce. Thistook place on the night of April 18, 1975, after he had observed adwarfish being that floated away from him. Feeling it was going toattack him, he tried to hit the strange creature with a shovel, butsuffered temporary paralysis. When he came home in a distraughtstate, the police were called and an investigation was launched. Agroup of independent witnesses had seen the being (and had thrownstones at it) the same night, and the next day two women observed "a vivid orange light hanging stationary above their garage" near Ponce. After about five minutes it rose silently and moved away behind the mountain, but around the whole area where the object had been, a glow remained visible. An interesting sequel (in the light of the contact incidents related in the first part of this book)

190. A Cow for N o r ad 191involves the series of messages this man heard " inside his head"during the following days. They were warning mankind of disasterunless people started saying more prayers! Other countries experienced the phenomenon. In 1975 therewere incidents in Ontario, and in 1976 in Quebec, Canada. I n thespring of 1976, according to information received by a Texas researchgroup,5 two horses were found in a snowbank near Wildwood,Alberta. The uterus and left eye had been removed from each one.The only tracks or marks resembled bird prints. The carcasses were allegedly flown to Winnipeg for analysis. The same group reports cases from Brazil, Bolivia, Sweden, Australia, and Scotland. In April 1977 similar cases were reported in France, in the Vosges region. The episode began with the slaughter of 34 sheep in a single night at Verrieres and eight sheep at Vomecourt. In one week the total number of dead animals included 61 sheep and one deer. Hunters and soldiers were deployed in the area, including troops of the 43rd Regiment and forest rangers. In spite of their extensive searches around the clock, the unknown agent soon killed another five sheep in Rambervillers. The local police attributed the deaths to a wolf- and a hungry I ittle bastard it must have been. In a single night, early in May 1977, it killed another eight sheep in Jessarupt. Some of the deaths took place in fields and pastures surrounded with barbed wire. In late September, two sheep were killed near Epinal. They were the only survivors of the earlier slaughter on the same property, belonging to Mrs. Claude Regit 6 In France, as in the United States, some of the cases actually were the work of wolves (a wolf was killed in Lozere, but that area is 500 km south of the Vosges episodes). A man carrying a knife and a rille was arrested in October 1977 near Epinal, but this incident could hardly explain the earlier slaughter. In spite of the attempts to keep the stories out of the newspapers, the questions were inescapable: if someone could with impunity fly close to the ground and land in isolated spots, if someone could kidnap

191. 192 M E S S E N G E R S OF D E C E P T I O Nanimals, slaughter sheep and cows, and remain undetected, couldanything be done to stop this madness? Who was responsible? Andwhat purpose was served? As with many UFO encounters, themutilations carried a message. In the United States, they seemed totell military authorities, with their radar and computers, "See howhelpless you are; see how obsolete your technology is!" The Calling CardsA man named Frederick W. Smith, who lives in Colorado, has offeredthe only interpretation of the mystery that, among everything Ihave read on the subject, makes sense to me. He writes, very simply,"Someone has been delivering a message to the American people,to the government, the intelligence community."7 The informationamassed by Mr. Smith is coherent and quite impressive. Most ofit comes from the area where he lives, right in Colorado. It leavesfar behind the "delusionary spirals" of the social scientists, and thesoothing "predator theory" of the Public Relations boys. Governor Richard D. Lamm flew to Pueblo on Monday afternoon, Sept. 4, 1975 (accompanied by John Maclvor, director of the Colorado Bureau of!nvestigation), to confer with the executive board of tbe Cattlemens Association about the mutilations, which he called "one of the greatest outrages in the history of the western cattle industry." The Governor of Colorado added, "It is no longer possible to blame predators for the mutilations."8The same week, what a local newspaper called "the largest forceof law enforcement manpower ever assembled in the history ofColorado" was deployed. It failed to identify a single suspect. Reportswere coming in daily. Sixty officers from Nebraska, Wyoming, andColorado met in Fort Morgan to try to coordinate their efforts,

192. A Cow for Norad 193 i .» ri fi • d : Nt;n< i > &. • 5JkG!e:l: ;t � �$ .¢$ to< t- ptllr �:-o ltib,eu dlt 111 :l H� c• rk,.._ M..._•!/Jt.a fo;,t n: ,P il � Mtr.ft "t .mr rt � r o, .r ... o::# Figure 9.2. A sample of French newspaper anicles describing theunexplained deaths of over $40,000 worth of carde in a few weeks.In spite of watches and searches conducted by farmers, police, andFrench troops, the killings continued several months later. Attempts arexplanation ranged from "hungry wolves" ro "vengeful neighbors," andhad to be rejected on the basis of the evidence.

193. 194 M ESSENGERS OF D E C E P T I O Nbut there was no visible progress. However, Colorado Bureau ofSpecial Investigation special investigator Carl Whiteside said thatthe removal of sex organs and other body parts was "definitely notmade by predators." The phenomena had certain characteristics: the animals diedwith no evidence of struggle. There were no tracks or blood near thecarcasses (although circular depressions and pod-like marks weresometimes reported). Some carcasses seemed to have been airlifted,then dropped in areas which maximized the chances of discovery.And intense blinding lights from the sky were often associated withthe events. I n a news release dated Sept. 18, 1975, the senior Senator fromColorado, Floyd K. Haskell, disclosed that he had discussed thematter with FBI director Clarence Kelley and his chief assistant.However, the FBI concluded it had no jurisdiction to enter the case,because there was no evidence of interstate movement. The most remarkable feature of the mutilations was theirbeautiful precision. Many ranchers echoed the statement of AdamsCounty (Idaho) Sheriff Jim Hileman: Ive been around livestockall my life, and Ive never seen anything like this." A Garfield County officer, named Hart, disclosed that on Sept. 13, a Heref ord cow was discovered just across the county line i nMesa County; missing were the sex organs, the rectum, and anear.9 In another case, a steer was found in open country, cut openat the ribs with the heart excised. I n Montana, Wolvertons unitinvestigated a dead bull calf north of Cascade. Its right hind leghad been removed in a circular cut that went completely throughthe leg bone below the hip socket and extended toward themidsection, exposing the stomach area. All of the sex organs hadbeen removed. There was no footprint or other evidence aroundthe carcass. Also in Montana, a cow was found i n an undisturbedplowed field, its loose furrows intact, three-quarters of a mile fromthe fence line. Two teats and the rectal area had been removedwith a sharp instrument, and an incision underneath the front leg

194. A Cow for Norad 195went all the way to the heart. The absence of tracks in Montanawas remarkable because the ground at the mutilation sires wasfrequently soft, muddy, or covered with snow. It is quite true that some predators, such as coyotes, have razorsharp claws and can produce circular cuts around the parts theyeat. A trained investigator, however, can tell the difference betweensuch natural incidents and deliberate mutilation. Some of thecarcasses showed evidence that a standard autopsy procedure, theRokitansky technique, had been used; it consists in the removal ofthe viscera as an integral unit. Coyotes and delusionary spirals donot use the Rokitansky technique. In Colorado, there was a concentration of mutilation incidentsin Elbert County, very near some of the worlds most sophisticatedmilitary installations; these include EntAir Force Base, Fort CarsonArmy Base, Peterson Airfield, Lowry Air Force bombing range,the U.S. Air Force Academy, the Buckley Air National Guard andNaval Air Station, the Rocky Mountain Arsenal (where nerve gasis manufactured and stored), and the Rocky Flats, where H-bombtriggers are assembled. Noting the impressive display of advanced technology in thevicinity, Frederick Smith writes: The capstone of all this, and ultimately of all U.S. military muscle, is Ent Air Force Base and Cheyenne Mountain, the headquarters for NORAD (North American Air Defense Command) and the Canadian Air Defense Command . . . Carved into the solid heart of Cheyenne Mountain is NORADs Combat Operations Center. Forry-five thousand cubic yards of granite had to be blasted out to accommodate its solid steel buildings, some of them three stories high, all free-standing and mounted on the biggest coil springs ever made . . . The purpose of this fortress inside a mountain is to detect and analyze everything entering or crossing U. S. air space.10

195. 196 M ESSENGERS OF D E C E P T I O NThe celebrated Cheyenne Mountain Zoo is situated to the northof the mountain. A 1,500-pound female buffalo was mutilatedthere on Tuesday, October 21, 1975. An udder, an ear, and f oursquare feet of hide had been removed. The vagina had been cut.Zoo director Dan Davis stated, "There is no doubt the animal wasmutilated with some sort of sharp instrument handled by man.""Additional details were given by El Paso County Coroner Dr.Raoul W Urich: "The cutting was done neatly, cleanly, obviouslywith a very sharp cutting instrument. The dissection was of thetype that would eliminate any type of predator." Noting that thehide had been removed without puncturing the tissue underneath,he added, "It was better than I could do if I were trying. It wasreally an expert job."" It was an expert job, but even more remarkable was an incidentthat had occurred on July 6, 1975, next to the NORAD entrancegate, near the unmarked NORAD road (which is not shown onmost road maps). The entire area is a military reservation, and everyfew feet there are signs warning that "VIOLATORS WILL BEPROSECUTED TO THE FULL EXTENT OF THE LAW." Themutilation was "standard." It was a cow due to calve in two months.Sgt. Robert Stone of the Sheriffs Office "ruled out the possibilitythat the sex organs were removed by a coyote., r.� There are other indications supporting Mr. Smiths thesisthat the mutilators purpose is to send a message to the militaryand the intelligence communities. Many of the carcasses appearto have been dropped from the air. I n one report, a large bullwas found with all four legs broken. Other animals were foundoutside an intact fence. Two cows mutilated in Park Countywere found in a pasture with a padlocked gate, not in the pasturewhere the owner had left them. Sheriff Norman Howey saidthey "couldnt possibly have been where they were found unlessthey had been dropped from the air."14 The carcasses showedevidence of internal pressure from the fall. Furthermore, some

196. A C o w for Nor ad 197 """· ___ . _ . _ _ . .: ----- . - . .�.,.. . ·· - � ,_,,., ,... .... . . " < ", • ,. " """ .,,_., ,,,, """ · -"-- •" �-.. - " ·" . . ,. . . " ," . .. , " �--- · ... "" . - -- ... "" ., . ,,, ," , L -- . . . . .. " " --- " "" . •" ,. ,, , : ". .,, - " " ·-- . " .... - · ,, . - ." "" .. . .... .... .. . ". .,_,.•... I ,,.,. . - . "Figure 9.3. A sample of mutilation reports from the files of lawenforcement agencies throughout the United States shows how widespreadthe phenomenon is.

197. 198 M E SS E N G E R S OF DECEPTIONmutilated animals were discovered i n ponds, straddling ditches,wedged between large rocks," or lying bloodlessly next to largetrees at places i naccessible even to helicopters.16 Sometimes themutilations are clearly "signed." Sheriff George Yarnell of ElbertCounty is quoted by F. Smith as saying that his "most memorablecase" was one in which an udder was "neatly cleaned out, leavingonly the skin, which was then tightly packed with several gallonsof sand." I n other cases, organs were cut out and left on top of thecarcass. Perfect squares or circles were taken from the hide. In oneincident a scalpel had been left behind; it was an ordinary articleof military surplus. The stage was set for new attempts to explain the facts.The " delusionary spiral" theory clearly did not hold up, andsomething better had to be found. As each new hypothesisbecame more complex and more incredible, a specter beganto rise. It gave the whole idea of "contact" with friendly spacebrothers another deadly blow. It froze the blood of the believers,and it gave the skeptics some interesting new items to thinkabout. But more than anything else, it challenged the lawenforcement community. For a long time, UFO believers have wondered why so littlerecognition has been given to the problem by high governmentlevels. They speculated that our leaders thought the public wasnot ready to learn "the truth," which, in their eyes, consisted in the fact that an alien space invasion was taking place. I find itdifficult to believe in that kind of a cover-up. It seems to me thatthe intelligence community has only two good reasons to hide the truth about such a phenomenon: either it is secretly causing it for its own purposes and doesnt want the phenomenon examined too closely (as in the case of its own deception operations); or it simply doesnt know the answers. Since the first rule of any secret agent is to always appear to know everything, the so-called UFO censorship may be more of a bluff than a cover-up. This suggests a particular meaning for the message. Dropping a mutilated cow

198. A Cow for Norad 199at the main entrance to NORAD may be a clear indication thatsomebody is now calling that bluff.

199. TEN Gz.,:.= -- { � D Intelligence Reports A he told the citizens it was only stars and had talked to Mehrabad fter tower, he decided to look for himself He noticed an object in the sky similar to a star, [but] bigger and brighter. He decided to scramble an F-4from Shahrokin Air Force Base to investigate. . . U.S. State Department repon of an attempted interception of a UFO in Iran, September 19, 1 976 Cuban military installatiom reported a bogey approaching the Cuban land massftom the northeast. T MIG-21 interceptors were wo scrambled. . . Cuban Air Defome headquarters ordered the wing learkr to arm his weapons anddestroy the ob . . . Seconds later the wing man ject began screaming that the wing leaders aircraft had explorkd. . . Within hours we received orders to ship all tapes andpertinent intelligence to the National Security Agen� and were told to list the incident in the squadron files as aircra loss due to equi ft pment malfunction. Testimony from a member of the 6947th Security Squadron, Boca Chica Naval Air Station, charged with the monitoring of Cuban military communications N preliminary I ntelligence Report was prepared OcTOBER 1 9 75, aI for the U.S. attorney in Minneapolis. Although it was entitled"Intelligence information regarding occult activities throughout theUnited States," it really centered on cattle and human mutilations

200. 202 M E S S E N G E R S OF D E C E P T I O Nand their relationship to UFOs. The report was based on the"conf essions" of two convicts who later escaped from jail, wererecaptured, and "conf essed" that their earlier statements had beena hoax! In the process, dozens of law enforcement agencies in manystates, as well as such federal agencies as the FBI and the Bureauof Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms of the Treasury Department,had been pulled into the investigation. The report is of interest, nomatter what the true nature of the "confessions" may be, becauseit shows that the public is starting to place UFOs, mutilations,and fringe seers of various kinds into the same mental category.Furthermore, it reveals both the degree to which informers whoreport to law enf orcement agencies have infiltrated the variousgroups involved, and the extreme naivere with which investigationsof this scope and importance are handled. The report began with a statement summarizing the experiencethat the special agent in charge had had with mutilation cases. Itconfirmed all the patterns we have already observed in Chapter9. About the time he concluded these investigations, he becameaware of letters written to authorities by a prison inmate namedAlbert K. Bankston. This man stated that he knew who themutilators were; he said that they were members of a Sataniccult, and that he wanted to assist in their arrest. However, he wasafraid of reprisals and asked to be transferred to a Minnesota jail.He added that some motorcycle dubs were heavily involved inthese operations, which included human sacrifice. Furthermore,there was a list of prominent liberals who would be assassinatedby the group, among them Senator Hubert Humphrey and actressKim Novak. The interrogation of Bankston disclosed that he had met in jaila former Hells Angel who kept talking about a secret organisationthat he referred to simply as "the Occult" [sic!]. This so-called "Occult" was responsible for the mutilations, Bankston said, and used the animal organs in its rituals. Another friend of Bankston,named Dan Dugan, was also allegedly involved. I f Dugan was

201. I n t e l l i g e n c e Reports 203transferred to Minnesota, Bankston added, he could reveal moreabout the whole thing. The authorities agreed: This information was brought to the attention of the U.S. Attorneys office, which, through Judge Lord, issued a writ for Dugan. On March 16, 1975, Dugan was transferred to Dakota County Jail in Hastings, Minnesota.Dan Dugan was eagerly interrogated, and spread before thegovernment agents his amazing tale of Satanic orgies andnocturnal capers. The Story of Dan DuganWhen Dugan lived in Texas, he said, he became a heavy user ofdrugs, and it was through such contacts that he was recruitedinto "the Occult" and witnessed the mutilation of small animals.In 1969, he added, he also observed a human sacrifice in Cozad,Nebraska. Four innocent teenagers were shot with tranquilizerguns and received massive injections of the drug PCP. Abouttwo hours later they were dead, mutilated, and used in what thereport calls "atrocities too horrible to mention." Dugan added thatanimals were also killed by means of tranquilizer pellets, and thatthe cultists rook care to misguide investigators: He said they all got a particular "thrill" over not leaving any tracks, and often talked about how the authorities would sooner or later begin blaming the whole thing on UFOs, which is what came to pass.When "the Occult" began to plan an increase in its humanmutilations, Dugan said he decided to get out. The group, headded, had definite political and racial overtones. He went on to

202. 204 M ES S E NGERS OF DECEPTIONFigure 10.1. Farmer Reuben Olson looks at a calf that was mutilated onhis properry near Kiowa, Colorado, in August 1975. Carl Whiteside, anagent with the Colorado Bureau of Investigation, stated that trying tocatch the culprits was like chasing a ghost. (Photo cou rtesy of UnitedPress International.)

203. Intelligence Reports 205provide the investigators with a list of names, including a BellHelicopter employee who was already suspected of narcotic traffic,burglary, and fencing. Authorities were interested in this anglebecause of frequent reports of "unmarked helicopters" at the sitesof mutilations. Many of these "revelations" dovetailed with information alreadyin the files of the investigators: One of the Texas S.W. Cattlemens Association investigators . . . and Texas Ranger Captain . . . have interviewed a young man and woman in their area about occultists in Texas, and he has detailed the structure and activities of the occult [sic] almost identical with the information given me by Bankston and Dugan.Furthermore, police around the country have been increasinglyworried about ritual murders. For example, state investigators inColorado reported they had discovered four murders with occultelements in 1974 alone, two near Aspen and two near Vail. The useof helicopters and tranquilizers in connection with the mutilationsmade a lot of sense. All the persons named by Dugan existed, andhad had some dealings with the police for one reason or another.Most were known to be interested, to various degrees, in witchcraft.However, this information could easily have become known toDugan and Bankston through their contacts in the underworld.It did not necessarily mean that their mutilation involvement wastrue as described. Dugans story was a mixture of fiction and reality,but many people were ready to swallow it. The story of Bankston and Dugan was very timely for theufologists who were still expecting friendly visitors from outerspace. (Some of them were building landing pads for them anderecting "Welcome!" signs.) Whenever the mutilations are mentioned to ufologists, theirstandard answer is, "Its all been solved as a simple cult activity."

204. 206 MESSENGERS OF DECEPTIONWhen I was told of this "explanation" i n 1976, I asked threequestions: exactly which cult had been identified (there are atleast three different organizations that call themselves "Satanic" innorthern California alone); why no arrests had been made; andwhy the mutilations were continuing.* There were no answers tothese questions; so I pressed for the basic facts, and contacted thespecial agent who had written the report. He told me that he no longer believed the facts to be as simpleas he once had. For instance, although all the people named byDugan did exist, some of them were in jail during the periodwhen his story placed them at mutilation sites. On the last day ofMay 1975, Bankston escaped from the small Minnesota countyjail to which he had managed to get transferred, and the next dayDugan escaped from his jail in Texas. Both were recaptured, andthe general consensus was that their stories had been tall talesdesigned to earn them the confidence ofjail authorities and a morelenient treatment. When this failed to materialize, they executedtheir escape plan. By late 1975, mutilation investigators agreed that any involvement by cult members was more the exceptionthan the rule, and that the real culprits were much more powerful.The Occult Theory was i nadequate. The ranchers had come to the same conclusion. Since theykept seeing flying objects of various kinds i n the mutilationareas at night, and since some of these resembled helicopters, they concluded that the military was responsible. There were two schools of thought: some farmers believed that a sect or secret group within the military was performing rituals using the stolen* These points are especially puzzling because the police put a high priorityon such cases, and often solve them in a matter of days. For example,the Queens District Attorneys office in New York conducted a vigorousinvestigation of a case in which a self-styled "warlock" sold human skullsto pagan seers. In November 1977 they arrested five suspects, and bail wasset at $25,000 by a judge who said their crime of cemetery desecration"defied description among civilized people."

205. Intelligence R e p o r t s 207cattle organs. A larger number believed that the governmentwas conducting massive experiments, testing new drugs on theanimals. The ranchers had not forgotten the "nerve gas" deaths ofthousands of sheep in Utah, long denied by military authorities,and the research on epidemics, mind control, and the effect ofdrugs that had been conducted on unsuspecting victims by thegovernment. The ranchers began firing on helicopters leavingor returning to Fort Carson at low altitude, and several of themachines came back to base with bullets i n their sides. A Fort Carson pilot, an officer, was arrested for drug traffic.He was also suspected of having flown helicopters at night tosupply animals to local witch covens, but these tantalizingallegations were never proven. Neither was it explained how asingle group could be responsible for hundreds of incidents inseveral states. At night, the ranchers kept up vigils, parking their pickups onhilltops and staying in contact by citizens band radio. However,the mutilations continued, even on stormy nights when helicopterflights were prevented by the weather. The theory of government intervention was not as far-fetchedas it may seem at first glance. Among the ranch families were men who had returned from Vietnam and the Philippines, where they had participated in counter-insurgency operations that used mythology to achieve political change. In the fight against the Huks in the Philippines, for instance, the troops were instructed to fake vampirism to impress the enemy: The enemy dead were strung upside-down from the limbs of trees, and their jugulars pierced with small incisions. Found days later by their comrades, their bodies drained of blood and with what seemed to be "teeth-marks" on their necks, the dead were presumed to have fallen victim of immortal enemies. 1

206. 208 M E S S E N G E R S OF D E C E P T I O NIn Vietnam, some Special Forces troops exploited the myth of the"evil eye" by gouging out the eyes of enemy soldiers and leavingthem on the backs of the corpses. According to a witness before Senator Frank Churchs SelectCommittee on Intelligence, there was even a harebrained plan tosimulate the Second Coming of Christ, using flares launched froma submarine off the coast of Cuba, in the hope of contributingto the overthrow of the Castro government. I n other words,mutilation, the simulation of paraphysical phenomena, andexploitation oflocal beliefs are indeed familiar tools in the arsenalof some government agencies. The helicopter theory cannot be completely disproved, becausethere are now various types of silent aircraft that can go throughmaneuvers that are very similar to UFO behavior. If equipped withappropriate lights, as the Vietnam-type helicopters are, they wouldclosely duplicate what UFO witnesses have reported. Whateverthe facts about aircraft may be, the mutilations are closely alliedwith the UFO belief. Animal disappearances and deaths, as well asmutilations of various kinds, both animal and human, have beenpart of the folklore of ufology since the report of cow butchering in 1897 (later denied by the descendants of the individuals involved),the case of Snippy the Horse, the stealing of domestic animalsand poultry by ufonauts in France in 1954, the human dissectionslinked to the UMMO affair in Spain, and finally the recent series ofgory incidents in half of the American states and in Puerto Rico. The symbols attached to the UFO phenomenon are the primaryimages of life: blood, death, sex, time, space, and sky.* Carl Jungcould expand vastly on his archetypal hypothesis about UFOs if hecame back today to study the documents that have accumulated on this subject. What are the organs taken by the mutilators? The eyes, the ears, the tongue, and the genitals: that is, the organs concerned* Similar symbols are found in fringe religion and occultism. See, forinstance, Charles Lefebvre, The Blood Culrs.

207. Intelligence Reports 209 ATLANTIC OCEAN t::. ISABELA Quibrodilla Ill �;uodilla(2) San Juon (3) [ll Areciba (I) guoda •Moco 0511!1 (I) • son Stbottion • Corotol VAGUEZ [[) , ,) Ill • Hornigutrot(!) • Cobo Roia "II.lSon Gtrmoin Coorna • (II • fl Sobona Juono •OJ Gu nlca Gr nde ,. Dioz ....... Cotn of mytttrlout lleotht of onimalt ( ) CARIBBEAN SEA 0 Cun af UFOt fl ca.., of othr unutuol happenlnQt T h e I s land of Puerto RicoFigure 10.2. This map of unusual phenomena in Puerto Rico, compiledby investigator R. Lamarche (Flying Saucer Review, June 1975, p. 9),shows an apparent correlation between UFO sightings and mmilationcases. (Courtesy of the Flying Saucer Review.)with communication and with reproduction. The culprits deservecredit not only as good surgeons, but also as good psychologists. I have had several conversations with a law enforcement officerwho investigated cases in the northern plains. He gave me somefirst-hand derails. "Is there any indication of the level of sophistication of thepeople doing the mutilations ?" I asked. "There is this case I examined. An animal, a cow, whose sexorgans had been removed. Not from the outside, but through asurgical operation that consists in introducing a scalpel through therectum and cutting the ligaments. That takes someone with goodknowledge of anatomy." "Wouldnt predators remove tender organs, like the eyes ofa carcass. , , "Sure. But in some of our cases the eye was taken out through an incision above the socket. How would predators do that?"

208. 210 M E S S E N G E R S OF D E C E P T I O N So much for the predators, I thought. I kept going down my listof questions. �re there electromagnetic effects along with these cases?" "I looked into this one incident where the lights went out,"answered the man with a note of frustration in his voice. "Wenever solved the case. This farmer was eating dinner with hisfamily. He was goin g to go out after dinner and repair theelectrical system; only when he did go out twenty minutes later,one of the pigs was dead and mutilated 200 yards from thehouse, among the other pigs." "He hadnt heard anything?" "Not a thing." That was the hardest thing to believe. I wasnt born on a farm,but I was born in the country, close enough to the farms to knowwhat a horrendous racket a pig makes when its slaughtered; so Iasked about other indications of a disturbance. "There wasnt any disturbance whatsoever," was his answer. "How did the light system work?" "It activated automatically at dusk. There is a photocell." "Could you turn the system on and off by shining a spotlight .on 1tr" " "I did exactly that with the officers who were with me, usingtheir patrol car light. Sure, we could aim at the cell and turn thesystem on and off. But can you imagine somebody holding up alight to that cell for twenty minutes while mutilating a pig 200yards from the house, the whole thing without any noise?" I had to admit I couldnt. "Are you still doing this kind of investigation?" I asked. "No, fortunately. We were taken off that kind of thing. Im sorrywe got involved i n this problem in the fi rst place." So the strange dialogue goes on. The contactees continue to receive their messages of peace and prophecy with open arms. Their groups are infiltrated by shadowy ligures from various factions. Their leaders are expressing new political and social ideas. Racial theories

209. In t e l l i g e n c e R e p o r t s 211F igure 10.3. This Holstein calf was found mutilated on October 28, 1975,near Middleton, Idaho. The sexual organs, rectum, and tongue have beenremoved, according to local law-enforcement authorities. (Photo courtesyof United Press International.)are appearing with increasing frequency: some of us may be ofextraterrestrial blood, they say, and therefore "superior" to the rest ofmankind. I have shown this process to be at work around the earlycontactees, Williamson and Adamski and their associates. I haveshown it to be at work behind some of the Rosicrucian groups abroadand the Order of Melchizedek in this country. The same links canbe traced around people like Jack Parsons, who founded JPL, andRon Hubbard, who founded Scientology. The evidence continuesto indicate that we are not dealing with the preliminary stages ofa friendly landing from outer space. It has become clear that we aredealing with a ver dangerous process right here on Earth, whatever the yultimate source of the UFO phenomenon happens to be. How can we tell if this process is purposely used andmanipulated? I confess I do not have any proof that a single groupof men is responsible. Are the human mutilations of the UMMOgroup in Spain and the cattle mutilations of the western United

210. 212 M E SSENGERS OF D E C E P T I O NStates caused by the same group? Things are not usually so simple,as Major Murphy had said. Neither can we be sure that the same groups that are encouragingthe fanatic contactee organizations and that operate behind the morebizarre occult sects may also be active in discouraging professionalscientists from examining UFO evidence. What we do know at this point seems shattering enough in itsawful simplicity: the unpredictable UFO phenomenon and its moredisgusting extensions at ground level are sending some definitemessages, and a lot of people have been listening. As I write this in 1978, the civilian UFO groups, the contacteeorganizations, many occult sects, and various governmentbranches are engaged in a strange sort of game. What I have called"manipulation" may be simple exploitation. The truth about the manipulation of the belief in UFOs mayturn out to be that it has been a grotesque hoax, perpetrated onthousands of unsuspecting witnesses, in order to use the minds andemotions of the contactees as a means for influencing social beliefsand behavior. If so, who has decided i n what direction this behaviorshould be bent? It may be premature to try to answer these questions, evenwith the data we have gathered and presented here. But it is notpremature to ask them.

211. E L EV E N � <> The Stratagem Theories Stratagem: An operation or act o generalship, usually an artifice or f trick designed to outwit or surprise the enemy, a device or schemefor obtaining an advantage; cunning, used loosely for a deed o blood f or violence. Oxford English Dictionary STILL a lot to learn from Major Murphy. Among theI HAVE lessons he taught me was the art of recognizing some of theshadowy figures who had infiltrated the UFO groups. He told mewhat a "vacuum cleaner" was, and a "little aunt"; he told me how"cut-outs" worked. I started looking all over. I went to the libraryand read some old UFO books again. I went to used book storesand bought contactee pamphlets of the fifties that I had never read,because their pseudomystical verbiage seemed ridiculous to meat the time. I checked the lists of trustees, directors, and advisersof the major UFO groups. Some aspects of the mystery became alittle clearer when their names were checked against the computerdata base of the New Y ork Times, or in such commonly availablereferences as Who s Who. Others became more obscure and bizarre.I resigned from the supposedly "scientific" UFO organizations withwhich I had been affiliated. A "vacuum cleaner" is an agent who is trained to pick your brains.Some day, someone will come and see you under perfectly natural circumstances, and ask you some questions. It may be an attractive coed who has credentials from the local campus newspaper; it may

212. 214 M ES S E NG E R S OF DECEPTIONbe a middle-aged man who is the secretary ofan amateur astronomygroup. The excuse for the meeting is an innocuous interview. The person in question is well-informed on the subject andhas an engaging personality. After ten minutes of conversation,you are describing to him (or her) your most guarded intuitions,your innermost feelings, your future plans. The "vacuum cleaner"will rake no notes, bur nothing you say will be forgotten. Withina few hours, there will be a complete and accurate report on yourconversation in the files of his (or her) employer. A " little aunt" serves a different function. It may be a colleagueof yours, a business associate, someone who has a good reasonfor staying in touch with you for a long rime. The phone willring, and rhe person will say, "How are you doing? We haventspoken for a while." You may respond rhar youve just comeback from vacation, that your cat has been sick, and that youreexcited by the recent news from Latin America. "What news fromLarin America?" Soon your little aunt will know everything youare currently doing, will note if youre happy or depressed, andgenerally will probe any area rhar may be useful for updatingyour file: to check if your research is moving into areas of interest,either to you - or to them. Most UFO organizations are led by people who are independentand sincere. I n the cynical and blunt terminology oflnrelligence,I have heard them referred to as "useful idiots." They believe inwhat rhey do in a blind and automatic fashion. Can rhey help itif rhey need an escape from the routine of their daily existence?Such sincere individuals are surrounded with people who have links ro rhe world of espionage or to military intelligence. I foundthat some of the links were open and obvious: for instance, the Board of Directors ofNICAP lists among its members rhe formerhead of the CIA. Sometimes the link is less obvious, bur is known to members of the organization, who admit it when confronted with rhe fact. When you read a report on a UFO case written by someone who was trained as a field collector by rhe government,

213. The S t r a t a g e m Theories 215the contrast (in both form and content) to a report written inthe erratic spelling and incoherent syntax used by the averageufologist is fairly obvious. In yet other groups, the link to suchan organization can only be suspected. But the conclusion isinescapable: all the UFO groups are closely watched by severalagencies. Why? And why is the relationship between UFO groupsand occult organizations so evident? The Major has a simple answer. He suggests that the "spooks"use the UFO groups to get information that is marginally usefulto them, information that the group leaders themselves may notrecognize as being important or relevant. And they use occultorganizations as they always have, since the days of Dr. John Deeand Jacques Casanova: as a cover for their own designs. Some of the activities of the UFOs, which make no sense to the civilian groups, may be highly significant to an intelligence analyst who can correlate them with other data, such as infrared satellite scans of specific areas of the planet, or radioactivity measurements. A link with a national UFO organization will save the analysts employer the trouble of training and deploying field agents, or it will provide information to supplement their reports. I n France, some UFO cases have been investigated by five government agencies. The witness of the Valensole case even had to answer questions from customs agents, who thought the object he had seen might have been a helicopter engaged in gold contraband. There is another, well-documented, reason for all the attention that civilian movements receive from various agencies: the social influence of such groups can be manipulated for political reasons. One of the recommendations of a recently declassified CIA/USAF panel on UFOs, which met in 1953, was precisely to monitor the activities of civilian groups: The Panel took cognizance of the existence of such groups as the "Civilian Flying Saucer Investigators" of Los Angeles and the "Aerial Phenomena Research Organization"

214. 216 M ES S E N G E R S OF D E C E P T I O N (Wisconsin). It was believed that such organizations should be watched because of their great influence on mass thinking ifwidespread sightings should occur. The apparent irresponsibility and the possible use of such groups for subversive purposes should be kept in mind. 1Similar feelings have often been expressed in socialist countries. In1976, an article in the youth newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda, bywriter Yeremei Parnov, implied that those who spread UFO storiesare "flirting with superstitions and religious impulses indirectlymanipulated by the Pentagon." The goal of the manipulation,according to Parnov, is to frighten American citizens into approvingthe growth of defense spending and to use "the specter of flyingsaucers to fan the Cold War." In a press release dated March 29, 1976, two futurologistspredicted that the present world political order would betransformed into an economically integrated, largely capitalistsociety. Such phenomena as UFOs were messages from higherintelligent beings signaling the peaceful political transformationof Man, they said. 2 This history of the interaction between Rying-saucer contactand politics goes way back, to the early California contactees.In those days many occult groups linked to power-hungryorganizations were extremely active. Right after World War II,when a branch of Aleister Crowleys O.T.O.* flourished in LosAngeles, two of the most ardent members were Jack W. Parsons, apropulsion engineer, and L. Ron Hubbard, a science-fiction buff.Jack Parsons met a Venusian in the desert in 1946, and went onto be one of the founders of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and ofthe Aerojet Corporation.* Ordo Templi Orientis. Aleister Crowley, by the way, was himself a minorespionage figure (his file at the Intelligence Service is said to have read, ."Use only with the most extreme caution"), whose influence on Hitlerwas more imaginary than real.

215. The Stratagem T h e o r i e s 217 Another contactee, Daniel Fry, was an Aerojet employee whenhe saw his first saucer in 1950. Ron Hubbard, on the other hand,founded Oianetics and, later, the Church of Scientology.** According to some of my own informants, contactee GeorgeAdamski had prewar connections with American fascist leaderWilliam Dudley Pelley, who was interned during the war. Anotherseminal contactee, George Hunt Williamson (whose real name isMichel dObrenovic), was associated with Pelleys organization,"Soulcraft," in the early fifties. In fact, Pelley may have putWilliamson in touch with Adamski. Other associates ofWilliamsonduring the great era of the flying saucers were such contactees asJohn McCoy and the two Stanford brothers, Ray and Rex. The connections between all these men, who have been influential in shaping the UFO myth in the United States, are quite intricate.William Dudley Pelley, who died in 1965, was the leader of the Silver Shirts, an American Nazi group which began its activities about 1932. Its membership overlapped strongly with Guy Ballards "I Am" movement. Pelley declined to join the other fascist groups in their support for Congressman Lemke in 1936, standing on his own in Indiana as a "Christian Party" candidate. His opposition to Roosevelt increased until his eight-year internment for sedition in 1942. After the war, he started an occult group, Sou/craft, and published a racist magazine called V alor. He also wrote the book Star Guests in 1950, a compilation of automatic writing reminiscent of the Seth Material. !twas about 1950 that Williamson is said to have begun working for Pelley at the offices of Soulcraft Publications, in Noblesville, Indiana, before moving to California, where he witnessed Adamskis desert contact on November 20, 1952, with a Venusian with long blond hair. Perhaps Adamski and Pelley knew one another as a result of their common interest in the I Am cult? Dr. Laughead, who inspired the contacts of Mrs. Keech in the Midwest3 and ** See John Keel, Our Haunted Planet (N.Y.: Fawcett, 1971), p. 1 27.

216. 218 M E SSENGERS OF DECEPTIONlater launched Dr. Andrija Puharich on the tracks of the mythic"Spectra," is also thought to have associated with this group. John McCoy, who coauthored with Williamson the book UFOsConfidential, operated the Essene Press. He introduced into thepicture the idea that the Jewish Banker conspiracy was involved in theUFO problem. The Stanford brothers were living in the same Texastown as McCoy (Corpus Christi), and in the mid-fifties produced aseries of contact books, one ofwhich had McCoy as coauthor. The Stanfords book, Look U acknowledges "all those who p!,helped in preparation of this book, and the people of other planetswho made the contacts described." Ray Stanford states that inDecember 1954 he received "a very distinct telepathic message fromthe space people," and he adds, During 1955 I also had a personal contact with two space men . . .the contacts were not very frequent during 1955 and the first six months of 1956, but beginning in June 1956, things really started popping.4Their book includes many allusions to impending social change,and it encourages the readers to prepare themselves: Ifwe desire to prepare for future changes to occur on Earth, not merely for the sake of physical survival, but rather to be able to further serve in more adequate ways than ever before, there are definite things we must understand.Among these lessons is the realization that science is inadequate,according to the Stanfords: Man incessantly on Earth has tried by science and other methods of investigation to go from effect to cause in solving problems. The Brothers and Masters of our own planet tell us that we must look within.5

217. The S t r a t a g e m T h e o r i e s 219Today Rex Stanford has become a "scientific" parapsychologist,and Ray, in a remarkable reversal of his earlier position aboutthe inadequacy of science, operates a UFO detection stationusing donated electronic equipment. Installed in Austin, Texas,the organization uses an apparently "scientific" approach to theidentification of UFOs. I find some curious analogies between the statements of thesecontactee organizations and those of Bob Barry, the directorof the "Twentieth Century UFO Bureau," headquartered inCollingswood, N.J. The Bureau is one of the groups that composethe fundamentalist religious organization headed by the ReverendCarl Mclntire. Barry stated in June 1978 that he had three excellent sources,one in government, the others retired from highly sensitivepositions, who asserted that the government was quite concernedwith the UFO problem and had recovered a total of 18 bodies after UFO crashes. An interesting belief of Mr. Barry is that the movie Close Encounters o the Third Kind was part of a government plan f to condition the public. "The plan in this country is on schedule," Barry said in an interview with Edgar Williams of the Knight News Service. "Three years ago it was decided to do TV documentaries and observe public reaction." Could the movie by Alan Sandler Productions, UFOs: Past, Present, and Future, have been such a test? Barry observes that reaction was good: So the next step was the film Close Encounters. Now, in a little while, there doubtless will be the beginning of government advisories that UFOs are indeed with us.Everyone is now so anxious to see the government "reveal" thislong-awaited information that no one questions the reality ofthe basic facts and the political motivations that could inspire amanipulation of those facts. Trying to outsmart the CIA and the

218. 220 M E SSENGERS OF DECEPTIONPentagon has become such a national pastime that lawsuits againstfederal agencies under the Freedom of Information Act have begunto accumulate. All that has been shown so far is that these agencieswere involved - often covertly - in aspects of the UFO problem. Isuspect that they are still involved. But the UFO enthusiasts who areso anxious to "expose" the government have not reflected that theymay, once again, be playing into the hands of the manipulators. And the UFOs may not be spacecraft at all. What Else Could They Be?If they are not spacecraft, what else could UFOs be? Whatexplanation can account for the physical effects, for the impact onsociety, and for the surprisingly "human" element of much of theirbehavior? How can we explain that the phenomenon makes itselfobvious to rural populations but avoids overt contact, choosinginstead to deliver irs message in a series of high-strangenessincidents, such as the Cuban and Iranian aerial chases quoted atthe beginning of Chapter 10? The theory proposed by some researchers of the forces behindthe UFO incidents, goes beyond the notion that these are simplytechnological vehicles produced by advanced races on anotherplanet. Rather than a form of transportation invented by thedenizens of some far-away world, the UFOs could be a stratagemdevised by a human group to promote its own goals. In this chapter we will first examine two hypotheses alongthis line. Both are disturbing, mind-boggling, and downrightdiscouraging-yet I feel they do not go far enough. They still cannotexplain all the reports. However, stating these two hypotheseseven in their preliminary form can open up our minds, which areconditioned too narrowly by common imagery, to some alternativeexplanations. Someone investigating the UFO phenomenon should be able to go beyond both Star Wars and Close Encounters in search

219. The Stratagem T h e o r i e s 221of metaphors, because there is no simple incremental path fromtodays experience to tomorrows explanation. Only free speculation can open the door to an adequateunderstanding of what is happening around us. Accordingly, Iwill present two hypotheses: the "Martian Conspiracy"; and theEsoteric Intervention." Both assume that a group of men hasunderstood the UFO phenomenon (and especially its social effects)well enough to use it for their own purposes. The hypotheses willshow where the roots of such a manipulation could be found,and how it could mislead the public, the civilian organizations,and even the government. In the last part of the chapter, I willpresent another hypothesis as my own interpretation of what thephenomenon may mean. First Hypothesis: The Martian ConspiracyThe code name "Martians" was first used by British Intelligenceduring World War II, and it had nothing to do with the RedPlanet. It referred to the spy industry that had been created to keepthe Allied Command informed on the moves and intentions ofthe Wehrmacht. The Martians were part of a giant apparatus ofespionage and deception that was documented for the first time inAnthony Browns book, A Bod yguard o Lies. The title of the book fcomes from a remark made by Churchill at the Teheran Conferenceto Roosevelt and Stalin: "In wartime, truth is so precious that sheshould always be atrended by a bodyguard of lies." At the center of this apparatus was the LCS, the LondonControlling Section, set up by Churchill within his personalheadquarters, and skilled in the weaponry of "Special Means"which M.R.D. Foot would describe as "true to the tradition ofEnglish eccentricity; the sort of thing that Captain Hornbloweror Mycroft Holmes in fiction, or Admiral Cochrane or Chinese Gordon in fact, would have gone in for had they been faced with a

220. 222 M E S S E N G E R S OF D E C E P T I O Nsimilar challenge; the sort of thing that looks odd at the time, andeminently sensible later." The Chief of the LCS was Colonel John Bevan, who borethe remarkable title of "Controller of Deception." His specialassistant was Lady Jane Pleydell-Bouverie. Other members wereMajor Derrick Morley, Major Noel Gordon Clark, Major HaroldPeteval, Wing Commander Dennis Wheatley (RAP), Colonel SirRonald Wingate, Colonel James Arbuthnot, and CommanderAlan Pinter. It was an extraordinary group. Bevan was a grandsonof the founder of Barclays Bank, and a son-in-law of the Earl ofLucan. Wingate was the son of Wingate Pasha of the Sudan, anda cousin of Lawrence of Arabia. Wheatley was a student of crime,an expert on black magic and Satanism, and the author of morethan fifty books (among them the classic 1he Devil and All HisWorks). Peteval was a millionaire industrialist, Morley a financierand shipping magnate, Arbuthnot a leading businessman.Professor Neville da Costa Andrade, another LCS member, wasan illustrious scientist whose passion was collecting "old scientificbooks and useless knowledge." His specialty, according to Brown,was "using the tricks of science to deceive the enemy." Other components of the deception apparatus were the XXCommittee (where XX means "double-cross," not the numeral20), who specialized in manufacturing and delivering falseintelligence through the enemys own espionage network, and thegroup of computer geniuses around one of the founders of moderninformation-processing theory, Alan Turing. The latter group hadbuilt a machine called Ultra which could and did emulate thecryptographic engines of any nation; the intelligence it deliveredwas only declassified in 1974. The work of the "Martians" and their colleagues during thewar included the manipulation of friend and foe alike to further the goals of global strategy. They were not concerned with theday-to-day operation of the war. Their only purpose was strategic deception. Their tasks extended to a secret alliance in which the

221. The S t r a t a g e m T h e o r i e s 223Soviets and the Americans agreed with the British on worldwidemaneuvers that were merely feints to deceive Hitler and that keptmany Wehrmacht divisions expecting attacks that would nevermaterialize, while the Normandy landing proceeded toward itsachievement of total surprise. Invasions were faked. Phantomarmies were deployed. I nflatable rubber tanks, tracks left inthe desert sand, simulations of the sounds of an entire armadamaneuvering in dense fog, electronic countermeasures thatenabled a single cargo plane to appear to be an attacking bomberfleet, fake radio communications, newspaper ads for uselessservices to nonexistent forces, false letters to lovers of phantomsoldiers attached to imaginary regiments, sociological effects ofentire armies assembling at false staging areas: all these werecommon tricks for the Martians and their friends. The remarkable book written about all this by Anthony Brownmust be read by anyone who doesnt believe that governmentscan keep a secret, and by those who are convinced that "militaryintelligence is a contradiction in terms," as some ufologists like tosay. The LCS and the Martians made some mistakes, to be sure, but there can be little doubt about their collective I.Q. The very existence of groups like the LCS, whose techniques later inspired the disinformation practices of the Soviet KGB and similar work elsewhere, should make us extremely cautious about any kind of apparent "evidence" about "flying saucers." The close association of many UFO sightings with advanced military hardware (test sites like the New Mexico proving grounds, missile silos of the northern plains, naval construction sites like the major nuclear facility at Pascagoula) and the bizarre love affairs revealed in this book between contactee groups. occult sects, and extremist political factions, are utterly clear signals that we must exercise extreme caution. What if the deception operations of World War Two extended beyond the end of hostilities with Germany? What if the "Ghost Rockets" of 1946, which behaved so much like UFOs, were a continuation of the activities that used "Special Means"?

222. 224 M E SSENGERS OF D E C E P T ION Anthony Brown tells a revealing story about an incident thatrook place on July 10, 1944: A German long-range rocket had fallen in Sweden accidentally, and the Germans were attempting to recover its remains; one party had entered the area, which was sealed off, behind a funeral cart, posing as mourners. Menzies wanted permission to "buy" the rocket remains from the Swedes in exchange for two squadrons of tanks.The fragments in question provided the first proof of the existenceof a new German secret weapon, the V-2. What other weaponswere at the prototype stage in the German arsenal? Couldsome of these have been used later, in Sweden and elsewhere,to support an even more ambitious stratagem: the simulationof an outer-space invasion, the goal of which might have been toprevent a third W orld W by turning the thoughts of mankind artoward an extraterrestrial goal, lending credibility to the notion ofan impending invasion from space? The very idea mighr seem to be outlandish, to be quite outsidethe realm of possibility in a normal world ruled by normal brains.But the world of 1945 could hardly be called "normal." And thebrains of the LCS - brains like those of Satanist expert DennisWheatley, and computer genius Alan Turing - were as far abovenormal as Skylab is above a Piper Cub. They were the brains thathad left Hitler deceived, beaten, and broken. Many of their devices(notably their super-computers) continued to operate when the warended as if nothing had happened. Such an organization was quitecapable of designing a follow-up that would insure a continuationof the fragile peace they had just won. And there were others aroundwith similar abilities. A writer named Bernard Newman actually described such ascenario in his 1948 novel The Flying Saucer. His book beginswith a meeting of three remarkable men: a French master-spy,

223. The S t r a t a g e m T h e o r i e s 225an American physicist of Nobel Prize caliber, and a well-knownwriter. The meeting takes place at the end ofWorld War II, as theycontemplate the rubble and the despair around them; and theydecide that another global conflict must be prevented at all cost.They are inspired by a newspaper account which reads, "In hisspeech Mr. Eden said that it seemed to be an unfortunate fact thatthe nations of the world were only really united when they werefacing a common menace; what we really needed was an attackby Mars." Andre Maurois, the French author, had once writtena satirical essay called "The Next Chapter: The War Against theMoon," in which he developed the same theme. I n Newmansnovel, the three men enlist their friends in various fields to unitethe world against an imaginary threat from outer space. The same idea comes up in Leonard Lewins Report fromIron Mountain, an ingenious hoax purporting to be a secretreport on the possibility and desirability of peace, in which "anestablished and recognized extraterrestrial menace" is listedamong the possible "substitute institutions for consideration asreplacements for the nonmilitary functions of war." It is alsopresent in Arthur Koestlers unsuccessful but ingenious play The Twilight Bar, i n which two space beings, Alpha and Omega,announce that they have come from the stars to extinguishhuman life and prepare the Earth for new inhabitants, unlessmankind can find happiness and peace within a reasonable time: three days. Could someone be faking an extraterrestrial threat? The idea seems preposterous indeed. Is it less believable than the idea of General George Patton commanding an imaginary Army Corps armed with inflatable tanks and cardboard barracks? Yet Patton, much to his displeasure, once commanded such a phantom army, to fool the Germans into reinforcing their defenses in the north of France while the real invasion in Normandy was being prepared. If Britain, the United States, and the Soviet Union could jointly plan and carry our such worldwide deception in the early f orties,

224. 22 6 M E S S E N G E R S OF D E C E P T I O Ncould not the same mechanisms be at work now? Only a fractionof the deception techniques has been revealed.* The institutionscreated to carry them out are still in existence with their )privileged communications channels, their hidden sources ofprocurement and capital, their recruiting procedures. The answerto the question, "Could such an international group foke, use, ormanipulate UFO activity?" has to be YES. The argument thatsuch a secret could not be kept very long is not tenable. Althoughmy professional field is computer science, I never knew the fullextent of Alan Turings monumental contributions to it until Iread about them in Anthony Browns book. I was only familiarwith Turings theoretical papers, and, like most people in myprofession, fell for the story that the "Turing engine" was only amental construction. I knew it was seminal to the developmentof general-purpose computers, but I did not know that several ofthe "engines" had actually been built and operated during most ofthe war. Could flying saucers be similar "mental constructions/devices you assume are just impossible dreams . . . until one of themlands in your backyard and steals your dog? They could. And the Martian Conspiracy would explainmany things. The MIG in the LobbyThis first hypothesis would explain the military silence on UFOs,and the strange dialogue in the French restaurant that I quotedin the Prologue. Deception operations have to be protected fromeveryone, including the normal intelligence-gathering channels of* When Amhony Brown compiled his book, the product of 14 years ofresearch, he found that most of the material on World War II deceptionwas still secret. At the Office of the Chief of Military History inWashington, the card index had no reference to the cover operations forthe Normandy landing!

225. The Stratagem T h e o r i e s 227friendly groups.** During the war, the activities of the LCS wereknown only to Churchill, Roosevelt, Eisenhower, and a handful ofhigh officials. They bypassed everything else, including Congressand Parliament. Even leaders of friendly forces, like General deGaulle, and the Resistance groups, were routinely manipulated aspart of the deception and were not informed. IfUFOs are part of aninternational deception stratagem, it is likely that most intelligenceunits of the United States government and those of allied countrieshave been kept in the dark or firmly told to "stay away." It would also explain the public-relations operations to createfronts and covers like Project Blue Book and the University ofColorado panel, whose ineptitude cannot be adequately explainedeven by the standards of military bureaucracy. I remember visitingthe Foreign Technology Division at Wright-Patterson Air ForceBase. In the building lobby a MIG interceptor was hanging from theceiling, hammer and sickle on its tail. The general impression wasnot one of sloppy work and casual distraction. Yet the proceduresof Blue Book, where files were lost and cases mislabeled, were sogrossly bungled that disciplinary action would have been warranted in any other context. Even classified files got "lost." Reports of UFO landings by reliable observers, sometimes Air Force personnel, went uninvestigated for weeks at a time. Yet whena shower of bright objects was reported in the Midwest, the same man who headed up Blue Book, Major Quintanilla, jumped our of bed at 4:00 a.m., ordered the area sealed by Air Force police, and supervised a square-inch by square-inch search of an entire forest for possible debris. The object sighted was a Soviet spacecraft which had been expected to reenter the atmosphere over the U.S. Picking up foreign satellites was Quintanillas primary assignment at the Foreign Technology Division. He only attended to Project** In the early days of Project Blue Book, the U.S. Air Force explainedaway as "flights of wild geese" observations of strange craft reported bymilitary personnel and civilians. The Air Force knew very well that theobjects were not birds, but U-2 spy planes en route coward Russia.

226. 228 M E S S E N G E R S OF D E C E P T I O NBlue Book, it seems, when there were no Sputniks to worry about.I always wondered if the officer who conducted the highly efficient,top-security dragnet for satellite debris and the jovial man who keptjoking casually about UFOs were the same person. If Blue Bookwas a cover for some deception scheme, this apparent contradictionwould be explainable. It is interesting to me that in 1964 MajorQuintanilla wrote a thoughtful article on UFOs f the CIAs orinternal magazine. This hypothesis would also explain the infiltration of civilianUFO groups by persons linked to the Intelligence world.Organizations like NICAP would be as necessary to a successfuldeception as Project Blue Book or the Condon Committee, becausethey would defuse the issue, provide an escape valve for the steamof the enthusiasts, and enable the manipulators to check on theextent of their own progress. Admiral Hillenkoeter, the former CIAchief who stated, "It is imperative that we learn what UFOs areand where they come from," and joined the Board of Directorsof NICAP, could have been lending credibility to the stratagemby deliberately promoting the "extraterrestrial" theory. Also amongthe leaders of NICAP were at least three well-known Intelligenceoperatives: Bernard Carvalho, Nicholas de Rochefort, and ColonelJoseph Ryan. What about the high frequency of UFO landings? If we assume that the close encounters are engineered only when witnesses arepresent to observe and report them, we do not have such a large number of occurrences to explain. Producing an average case is aproblem in the generation of special effects, and well within the capabilities of Hollywood. The "Martian Conspiracy" does explain many other bizarre aspects of the UFO problem, including the behavior of the contactees, who could have been set up in their roles in order to propagate alleged extraterrestrial messages in many countries. George Adamski gave credit to four U.S. government scientists for launching his career as an ambassador for the Space Brothers.

227. The Stratagem T h e o r i e s 229They were from the Point Lorna Naval Electronics Laboratory nearSan Diego, and from a "similar setup" in Pasadena. They allegedlyasked him if he would "cooperate in the collective attempt to getphotographs of the strange craft moving through space." Adamskismajor supporter abroad was a former Intelligence officer with theBritish Army, and a Cambridge engineering graduate, who nowlives in Mexico. And according to a man who hosted Adamskiduring his tour of Australia, he was traveling with a passportbearing special privileges. The activity of the more vocal skeptics would be explainedby such an hypothesis. The greatest danger a deception schemewould run would be exposure by qualified scientists who wereseriously and critically examining UFO evidence. What if theydiscovered that some of the phenomena were simulated byhuman trickery? To prevent such a scientific study from beingorganized, all that is needed is to maintain a certain thresholdof ridicule around the phenomenon. This can be done easily enough by a few influential science writers, under the guise of "humanism" or "rationalism." UFO research would be equatedwith "false science," thus creating an atmosphere of guilt by association which would be deadly to any independent scientist. If the believers groups are manipulated, the skeptics can also be manipulated in the same way. I propose that the more dedicated investigators take time away from their endless UFO chases and look into the backgrounds, connections, and motivations of the more vocal "skeptics" for clues to such influence. There are various magazines in the United States which fulfill a debunking role. They are systematically equating unidentified flying objects and cattle mutilations to media hoaxes like the Bermuda Triangle. The editorial committees of these magazines and of the groups that publish them include people who may have links to intelligence agencies and to various occult and political organizations. These links can be discovered, however, only by someone who has spent time looking behind the scene. Most casual

228. 23 0 M E S S ENGERS OF D E C E P T I O Nreaders will only see a prestigious group of men defending scienceagainst the irrational belief in UFOs "and other ridiculous topics." I n academic circles, being associated with an apparentlyridiculous subject is hazardous to ones career: no ambitious youngscientist will risk having his name cited in jest in the pages ofScientific American or New Scientist, to mention only two respectedpublications whose editors have departed from accepted scientificprocedure to ridicule the subject. Such ridicule may be essential tokeep scientific attention away from the scene until the authors ofthe manipulation have achieved their political goals. The claim thatthe "Turing engine" was only a mental exercise was a similar ploy. I will let you ponder the merits and the limits of the "MartianConspiracy," according to which a high-level international militarygroup may have decided to use public interest in UFOs and the willto believe in space visitors to further a political goal. Let us go onto the second hypothesis. Second Hypothesis: The Esoteric InterventionA few investigators - notably Ray Palmer, John Keel, and SalvatoreFreixedo - have suggested both in public statements and inprivate conversations with me that there may be a link betweenUFO events and "occult" phenomena. At first view, the verysuggestion of such a link is disturbing to a scientist. However, theincidents described in this book have already revealed overlappinginterconnections between occult groups and sects, on the onehand, and organizations involved in UFO research. Many of thephenomena reported by witnesses involve the poltergeist effect,levitation, psychic control, healing, and out-of-body experiences:things quite familiar to those who know the occult literature. Theyare described in detail in the nineteenth-century works of Dr.Encausse, Baron Reichenbach, Eliphas Levi, Camille Flammarion,and many European writers. More recently they could be found

229. The S t r a t a g e m T h e o r i e s 2 1 3in the teachings of the Rosicrucian Order, of Aleister CrowleysO.T.O, and of the various offshoots of the Hermetic Order of theGolden Dawn, which have inspired not only the witchcraft revival,but also the current generation of "psychic" writers and many oftodays "scientific parapsychologists," although they would be quickto deny any association with such sources. Furthermore, there isa connection between UFOs and occult themes in terms of theirsocial effects, even if there is no physical connection. Could the linkbe real, and what would it mean? The basis of all "esoteric" teachings is that ordinary reality is anillusion. A good source for the analysis of this philosophy is LynnThorndikes masterful work, History o Magic and Experimental fScience. Claiming that reality is an illusion was a revolutionarystatement in terms of nineteenth-century science, but one whichnuclear physics and quantum mechanics have now demonstrated andeven superseded. However, the esoteric schools add that reality canbe manipulated consciously by those who understand its "higher"nature, a possibility that modern science has not as yet addressed.It is also often said, unfortunately, that the actual techniques formanipulation have to be kept secret and constitute the core of theso-called "occult tradition." The weakness of the esoteric philosophylies in the fact that it will not - or cannot -submit its tenets to criticalinquiry. It will only "reveal" them to selected initiates, who are thuscompletely at the mercy of those whom they regard as UnknownSuperiors (in Chapter 8 we have followed the personal adventures ofsuch an initiate, Raymond Bernard). One fact remains: occult beliefs have from time to time exercised an influence on history, from the Crusades to the French Revolution,from the war for American independence to the establishmentof a Nazi Reich. Whether such influences were incidental or fundamental is a thorny issue f historians, and it is likely to or remain so for some time. Recent American history, with its wave of assassinations, political blackmail attempts, and Watergate-type conspiracies, has done nothing to simplify the issue. The problem

230. 232 MESSENGERS OF DECEPTIONis further obscured by the fact that, here again, espionage agenciesare using occult groups as covers. 6 Let us assume, for the sake of argument, that one or severalgroups of men had in fact learned to control some physicalprocesses by means that ordinary experience would call " magical."Suppose, for instance, that in the course of its research someoccult group had stumbled upon a method for the projection ofimages controlled mentally; perhaps it might even have learnedto extend human consciousness out of the body, or to createlocal distortions of the spacetime continuum. Suppose it haddeveloped a way to project scenes at a distance, to control andamplify psychokinetic abilities of human subjects, or to createentities similar to the "tulpas" of Tibetan folklore, which Mrs.Alexandra David-Ned describes as materialized beings withwhom she conducted experiments documented in her books. Farfetched? Maybe. Yet Nazi Germany had several scientific researchinstitutes working along these lines for about a decade, and twomodern nations at least - the Soviet Union and the United States- are known to be pursuing aggressive programs of research onsimilar subjects. The funding that is required in this area is sosmall that many private organizations, and even independentlywealthy persons, could sponsor very significant research whoseresults may yield unpredictable breakthroughs. Have suchbreakthroughs in fact already taken place? And are UFOs theresult of their application? Such a group could operate internationally, independentlyof local governments. It could enlist the resources of leadingcorporations. It could try to manipulate public opinion for its ownends. It could not control science, bur it could certainly influenceit. And it could produce many of the effects UFOs seem capableof manifesting. The persons controlling such a "psychotronic"technology might even have already achieved contact with otherforms of consciousness, and might know the real nature ofUFOs,or they might try to convince others that they do.

231. The Stratagem T h e o r i e s 233 This hypothesis of "Esoteric Intervention" suffers from severalflaws, the major one being that it assumes the human manipulatorsto be much more clever than is typical of the human race. Whatwe often see in esoteric groups is either a picture of infighting andimpotent arrogance, or one of authoritarian practices maintainedat a high cost to individual freedom. Bitter competition betweenthese sects is just as common as it is between groups of professionalscientists fighting for contracts, grants, and Nobel Prizes. Manywealthy individuals who could well afford to give away a millionor two each year for such research do exist, and have an interestin such frontier subjects. However, they are usually motivated byimpractical visions or unconscious psychological needs. Elderlyindustrialists searching for immortality, and wealthy old ladiestrying to keep ghosts away, are more common among sponsors ofpsychic research than are pragmatic entrepreneurs ready to fund andmanage realistic research plans. The same applies to governments,since the bulk of the psychic research conducted in the U.S.S.R.and in the U.S. is geared toward short-term military or espionage applications, and is managed by bureaucrats. Furthermore, the "Esoteric I ntervention" hypothesis is a conspiracy theory, and suffers from all the weaknesses of such theories. It is only superficially attractive. Historical conspiracies do exist (generally in a multitude of forms rather than i n a single one at a given time), but they either fail quickly or reach their objective and therefore change in both style and purpose. When de Gaulle came back to power in France in 1958, there were a dozen different conspiracies fighting among themselves for control of the government, but they were evolving very rapidly from one day to the next until the historic climax. Most UFO contactees propose a conspiratorial theory to explain their own views. According to George Hunt Williamson and John McCoy, for instance, all the evil in the world is due to the International Bankers, a well-known belief of the extreme right: "The force behind the International Bankers who constiture the

232. 234 M ES S E NGERS OF D E C E P T I O NHidden Empire stems from Communist Russia."7 Other groupswill blame world problems on the CIA, the Jews, the Mafia, theKGB. Such paranoia is often nourished by a few elements of reality.*The scope and character of the cattle mutilations do indicate thatsome sort of secret organization is responsible. There is no questionthat the public mind is linking the activity of this organizationwith that of the UFOs. Its effects are physical enough. Similarly,most of those who have studied the UMMO affair have concludedthat it was the work of a secret group on Earth. Although the hypothesis, as presented above, has seriousshortcomings, there is an interesting variant which deservesfurther exploration. Some influential group could well be usingvarious cults as a front for its own purposes, as Major Murphysuggested to me. Some occult specialists go beyond this view,and suggest that the UFO phenomenon could even be the devicethat such a group is using to make its existence felt, to project animage of the future destiny of Man that transcends war, poverty,disease, and national government. Several human groups could be manipulating the publicsinterest in UFOs to further their own political goals. They couldtry to achieve this by deliberate use of confusion techniques, byplanting fake UFO evidence, by amplifying contactee mythology,and by systematically discouraging scientific inquiry into the nature ofUFOs. The obsession with secrecy which is the trademark of our military institutions would greatly facilitate the task of any private group that is trying to confuse the public, because any effort by independent analysts to sort out the meaningful factsfrom the hoaxes and trivia would be entangled in layer after layer of classified material.* Similar elemems in modern history were found in the myth of theProtocols o the Elders o Zion, a deception that was largely responsible for f fmotivating the massive deportation and killing of the Jews during WorldWar II. See Norman Cohn, Histoire dun mythe (English tide, W arrantf Genocide). or

233. The Stratagem T h e o r i e s 235 The only way to fight the confusion that surrounds the UFOproblem is to realize that much of this confusion is deliberate, andto make renewed individual efforts to document the phenomenonin the field and outside the framework of any UFO group. At thesame time, a systematic attempt should be made to expose thecontradictions of the contactee claims and to educate the publicabout them. Arthur Koestler has remarked, in a letter to me, thatcontactee stories left him with the same feeling as listening to a baddirty joke. It is an apt remark. Many contactees are sincere, but theyare trapped by their own narrow belief in distorted interpretationsof a much larger reality. Is there a group which understands and practices deception, andwhich is trying to mold our collective future? I have tried to showthat several historical precedents exist for such an hypothesis, andthat the data do not exclude this interpretation. I hope that myremarks can serve as a warning to any future research effort. Sourceso information should be severely scrutinized, not only for human ferror, instrumental inaccuracy, and observational bias, but also fordeliberate deception. The standards of evidence acceptable in the scientific laboratoryare not sufficient to deal with UFO data. They must be upgradedbefore any research can proceed, and the public should not acceptas valid the results published by any "scientific committee" that hasnot faced this fact. Control-System HypothesisWe have now introduced two new elements into the study of theUFO phenomenon. The first element concerns political exploitation:we suspect strongly that one or several groups, of unknown politicalbelief, are now influencing the "contactees" and the civilian researchorganizations for their own ends. The second element deals withmanipulation of the phenomenon itself by fabrication of UFO

234. 236 MESSENGERS O F DECEPTIONreports and of related stories, including such terrorist elements aslivestock mutilations. Should we be surprised to find these results? I dont think so.Human beings and their organizations use whatever they find intheir environment to further their own designs, and we can seefrom historical analogies that such deliberate efforts have oftenbeen hidden behind irrational trappings. Discontinuity is the rulein times of stressful change. The UFO phenomenon is a precursorof a major discontinuity. Discussing the two hypotheses I presented above, I have shownthat neither of them fully accounted for all the facts. I still feelthat the UFO phenomenon represents a manif estation of a realitythat transcends our current understanding of physics. It is not thephenomenon itself, but the belie it has created, which is manipulated fby human groups with their own ob jectives. I continue to be impressedby one fact I mentioned in my earlier book Passport to Magonia:such sightings have been made in earlier times; similar effects havebeen described; even the UFO "occupants" appear identical to thedenizens of medieval Magonia. This suggests a reality of mind,beyond whatever technology is activating UFO energy. I continueto regard rhis phenomenon as a manifestation of a reality thatis larger and more complex than a simple visit by interplanetarytravelers: the reality of Magonia. I believe there is a system around us that transcends time asit transcends space. I remain confident that human knowledge iscapable of understanding this larger reality. I suspect that somehumans have already understood it, and are showing their hand inseveral aspects of the UFO encounters. The system I am speaking of may well be able to locate itselfin outer space, as some of my readers will be quick in pointingout. Indeed it may, but its manifestations are not spacecra in ftthe ordinary "nuts and bolts" sense. The UFOs are physicalmanifestations that cannot be understood apart from theirpsychic and symbolic reality. What we see in effect here is not

235. The Stratagem T h e o r i e s 237an alien invasion. It is a control system which acts on humansand uses humans. However, we still need to discover the sourceof this manifestation. An episode that occurred while I waswriting this book opened my eyes to some new possibilitiesabout this source. The Coincidence in Los AngelesWhen I write this story, it seems incredible; yet it happened tome, the fellow who could least afford it! There I was on SunsetBoulevard in Los Angeles, on Saturday, February 21, 1976, about5:30 p.m., and I had to get to KABC on La Cienega Boulevard fora radio interview. I looked at the traffic coming toward me, and sawseveral taxicabs a block away. I raised my hand. A car swerved outof the mainstream and came to the curb. We drove to the station,without once discussing my current research, and I got a receiptfrom the driver. The shock came two days later when I took thereceipt from my wallet. It was signed Melchizedek! I cannot afford to write this story, because I cannot expectanyone to believe it. At the same time I cannot sweep it under therug. There is only one Melchizedek listed in the L. A. phone book,and I have the receipt signed by the driver right in front of me (seeFigure 11.1). It was this incident that convinced me to put moreenergy into understanding the nature of such coincidences. PerhapsI am becoming superstitious. This incident happened the weekwhen I started writing this book, collecting all my notes about theMelchizedek groups. Most coincidences you can rationalize away. Itried to rationalize this one away. I couldnt. In attempting to find an explanation for it, I began to speculateabout a variant of current physics, a variant in which apparent "miracles" could occur without violating physical laws, and in which psychic phenomena should be the rule rather than the exception. Insuch a physics, UFOs could come from Earth without necessarily

236. 23 8 M E S S E N G E R S OF D E C E P T I O N cf)- d.ll-1 "tC:.LUk(_ r;L pc; . � / • • • tar- L I 0--J J_ ./) /[�� -3,3,2{ J !?a .._.... I� " L? . (!)fidl_ rM Xed� Figure 1 1 . 1. Receipt for a taxicab ride.

237. The Stratagem T h e o r i e s 239being "secret weapons," or they could come from another galaxywithout necessarily being "spacecraft." What consequences could a model of such processes have forour understanding of physics? The frequent occurrence of UFOcases points to undiscovered relationships between physical realityand human consciousness; it can be used to clarify some excitingtheoretical and practical opportunities to understand both energyand information better. According to modern physics, and in particular to Brillouin,Gabor, and Rothstein, information and entropy are closely related.The relationship has been expressed clearly by Brillouin: Entropy is generally regarded as expressing the state of disorder of a physical system. More precisely, one can say that entropy measures the lack of information about the true structure of the system. 8No inf ormation can be obtained in the course of a physicalmeasurement, then, without changing the amount of entropy inthe universe, the state of disorder of the cosmos. Now the physicist is faced with a new challenge: how todefine disorder. And the task, as R. Schafroth has pointed out,is not easy: Some scientists pile up papers and books on their shelves in apparent disorder, yet they know perfectly how to find the document they want. If someone restores the appearance of order, the unfortunate owner of these documents may be unable to locate anything. In this case it is obvious that the apparent disorder was in fact order, and vice versa.9Speculating on the relationship between these physical quantities,Costa de Beauregard wrote, "It must be in the nature of probabilityto serve as the operational link between objective and subjective,

238. 240 M ESSENGERS OF DECEPTIONbetween matter and psychism."10 He points out that, in precyberneticphysics, observation was regarded as "a process without mystery,requiring no explanation," whereas free action, on the contrary, was"regarded as a physical impossibility and a psychological illusion."In modern physics these ideas have been revolutionized. The key to these notions might be sought in cybernetics, butno serious attempt has been made to fir it to the lock. I nformationtheory deals exclusively with the transmission of "messages"regarded as physical quantities (impulses sent along a wire or bitsstored in a magnetic device). What about the "meaning" of thatinformation to the sender and the receiver? If you play a tape ofBeethovens Ninth forward and then backward, 1 1 you are releasingprecisely the same quantity of semantic information, but is theesthetic information identical? Researchers into psychic phenomena have the opportunityto extend the observations and the theory of information.Unfortunately, most of their speculation remains imprisonedin obsolete models of communication. The Soviet literature ofpsychic phenomena has stressed the concept of the subject as"receiver," and the experimenter as "transmitter" or vice versa,assuming that classical information theory should be applicable topsychic functioning. Recent research is more sophisticated, and isbeginning to use the specialization of both sides of the brain toexplain aspects of the experiments where "esthetic information" (touse Moles terminology) seems to be received, but where "semanticinformation" translatable into precise words is missing. This rightbrain model of psychic functioning, however, runs into serioustrouble almost immediately, and so does the concept of psychiccommunication in a classical information framework, whether oneassumes that the physical support of the information is found inphotons or that it is found in more exotic denizens of the physicistszoo: neutrinos, tachyons, and the likeP The data from psychic experiments suggest a different approach.The subjects in "remote viewing" work may have been able to

239. The Slratagem T h e o r i e s 241describe targets in drawings better than in words (suggesting aright-brain function), but they performed equally well when theyknew someone at the site or when they were simply given a setof coordinates, exhibiting what would seem to be left-hemisphereactivity in the latter case. Similarly, in remote-viewing experimentsI organized, using a computer network as the support for thecommunication, there was no difference between the results of testswith open targets (telepathy) and those of tests with double-blindtargets (remote viewing).13 A problem may lie in the basic concepts of communication. Assophisticated as its modern applications are, the theory is still peggedto the days when railroad signalmen had to send impulses downa wire to trigger a switch ahead of some train. It begins with thenotions of time and space as its basic building blocks: how fast doesthe signal from A have to travel along the wire to prevent derailmentat B if the train left an hour ago and travels at 90 miles an hour?This is reflected in the very terms in which the theory is expressed,nineteenth-century terms like "transmission," "receiver, "sender,""channel," and so on. In psychic experiments, which come closerto displaying the nature of inf ormation than any other physicalsituation, I defy anybody to label the "sender" and the "receiver."When Abbe Mermet was directing the digging of a well to find waterat a particular spot, or describing the location of the body of a personwho had been murdered, was he "sending" or "receiving" � I have always been skeptical of parapsychologists, because their experiments and their theories borrow the standard concepts ofspaceand time dimensions from physics. These concepts seem obsolete to me. They are not appropriate for understanding telepathy, or the moving of objects at a distance, or ghosts, or Melchizedek. I have always been struck also by the fact that energy and information are one and the same thing under two different aspects. Our physics professors teach us this; yet they never draw the consequences. In the physics we learn in school, time and space dimensions are all-important, and equations are cluttered with letters like x,

240. 242 M E S S E N G E R S OF DECEPTIONy, z,and t. Yet I believe this preoccupation with "dimensions"comes from a very simple cultural artifact: graph paper. Somegenius around the time of Descartes (perhaps it was Descarteshimself) popularized the idea of representing and measuringmotions in terms of distance from two axes intersecting atright angles: "Cartesian" coordinates were born, and they haveremained imprinted in our minds ever since. When we can drawsomething on graph paper, we think we understand it. I submit that it is proper to shake from our theoretical anklesthe chains of spacetime. Space and time coordinates derive theirconvenience from graphic considerations. The theory o space and time fis a cultural artifoct madepossible by the invention o graph paper. I fwe fhad invented the digital computer before inventing graph paper, wemight have a very different theory of information today. Time and space may be convenient notions for plotting theprogress ofa locomotive, bur they are completely useless for locatinginformation. The apparent exception is the library, bur anyone whohas tried to find something in a modern library with its flat shelvesalong vertical walls will recognize Schafroths predicament i ntelling order from disorder. What modern computer scientists have now recognized is thatordering by time and space is the worst possible way to store data.I n a large computer-based information system, no attempt is madeto place related records in sequential physical locations. It is muchmore convenient to sprinkle the records throughout storage as theyarrive, and to construct an algorithm for retrieval based on sometype of keyword or on "hashing/ a procedure where the recordindex is randomized. (Here again, probability serves as the linkbetween something objective, the record location, and somethingsubjective, the request for retrieval.) The Melchizedek incident that I experienced on February 21, 1976, suggested to me that the world might be organized more likea randomized data base than like a sequential library. Since there isonly one person named Melchizedek in the L.A. phone book, I have

241. The Stratagem Theories 243to conclude that mere coincidence cannot explain this incident.Alternative explanations are equally inadequate, unfortunately. Idid not discuss my research with the driver; so a hoax is out ofthe question. There could be a well-organized conspiracy againstme, of course, to put lady taxi drivers on my path with namesrelated to my current reading interests, but the motivations of suchconspirators would be rather obscure! Fortunately, another avenueof explanation exists. If there is no time dimension as we usually assume there is,we may be traversing events by association. Modern computersretrieve information associatively. You "evoke" the desired recordsby using keywords, words ofpower: you request the intersectionof "microwave" and "headache," and you find twenty articlesyou never suspected existed. Perhaps I had unconsciouslyposted such a request on some psychic bulletin board with thekeyword "Melchizedek." If we live in the associative universeof the software scientist rather than the sequential universe ofthe spacetime physicist, then miracles are no longer irrationalevents. The philosophy we could derive would be closer to Islamic "Occasionalism" than to the Cartesian or Newtonian universe.And a new theory of information would have to be built. Such a theory might have interesting things to say about communicationwith the denizens of other physical realities. If energy and information are related, why do we only have one physics, the physics of energy? Where is the physics of information? Is the old theory of Magic relevant here? Are the writings of Paracelsus, with his concept of "signatures," an important source of inspiration? These are highly speculative questions. But at a time when we are beginning to suspect that computer-based network communication may create altered states conducive to enhanced psychic functioning, a new type of physical experiment is becoming possible and creative speculation is necessary. These experiments would aim at probing the reality of information-handling by the brain from the point of view of associative constructs. They would

242. 244 M ESSENGERS OF DECEPTIONignore space and time referents, and use instead an expanded viewof the process in terms of retrieval systems. The SRI experimentswith Swann and Price, for example, suggest that remote viewing isbased on an addressing scheme. Is indirect and virtual addressingpossible, and if so, to what level Would this be a path towardsrealities that are not situated on far-away planets, but are right aroundus, outside our normal consciousness? Is it possible to promotecoincidences and peculiar effects (of apparently "paranormal"nature) by systematically creating physical structures serving asinformation singularities? Until these questions are explored, it maybe impossible to address what Costa de Beauregard calls "the trulyfundamental problem," that of the relationship between psyche andmatter. For even if we consider only the operational aspects of aninformation, if someone learns something from it, physical theorydictates that the entropy of the universe must have changed. If the world around us is a world of informational events,the symbolic manifestations that surround UFO reports shouldbe viewed as a fact of the greatest magnitude. If we consider thephysical world to be an associative universe of such informationalevents, consciousness is no longer simply a function which is localto the human brain. Instead, consciousness should be definedas the process by which informational associations are retrievedand traversed. The illusion of time and space would be merely aside effect of consciousness as it traverses associations. In such atheory, apparently "paranormal" phenomena like remote viewingand precognition would be expected, even common, and UFOswould lose much of their alien quality. These phenomena would be natural aspects of the reality of human consciousness, and would be subject to manipulation by the human will, both consciouslyand unconsciously. In any case, these phenomena serve as a support for humanambition, a framework for human tragedy, a fabric of humandreams. We react to them in our movies, our poetry, our music, our science fiction. And they react to us. They are part of the control

243. The Stratagem T h e o r i e s 245system for human evolution, like the nuclear process inside the Sunand the long-term changes in the Earths weather. But their effects,instead of being just physical, are also felt in our belief systems.They influence what we call our spiritual life. They affect ourpolitical institutions, our history, our culture. The Six Social ConsequencesIt remains f us to summarize the social effects that the belief in orUFOs is likely to create - whether such physical objects exist ornot. We have seen six major effects throughout this investigation.They were reflected in personal interviews and in quotations fromthe books and pamphlets of contactee organizations. 1. 7he belief in UFOs widens the gap between the public andscientific institutions. Some day our society will pay the price for thelack of scientific attention given the UFO phenomenon. As moreand more sincere witnesses come forward with their stories, onlyto be summarily rejected by the academic or military institutionsthey thought they could trust, an increasing gap is created. Notonly may the public turn away from science in any form (andbecome skeptical of the value of its investment in energy researchand space technology), but it may seek a substitute in new highdemand philosophies and pseudosciences. This movement towardsuperstition in turn antagonizes the scientists, who cite it as evidence that the UFO phenomenon should not be studied seriously, and thevicious circle continues. 2. 7he contactee propaganda undermines the image o human f beings as masters o their own destiny. Beginning with the idea f of Atlantis and of "Chariots of the Gods," and continuingwith Biblical interpretations of Yahweh as an extraterrestrial, contactee literature is replete with suggestions that all the great achievements of mankind would have been impossible without celestial intervention. Should we thank extraterrestrial visitors for

244. 246 M E SSENGERS O F D E C E PTIONteaching us agriculture, the mastery of fire, the wheel, and mostof our religious traditions? To anyone who has studied the historyof science, such ideas (romantically attractive as they are) appearill-founded. The best and the worst in human beings have beendisplayed in all the cultures we know. Early cultures were as giftedfor fashioning pyramids and building canals as they were skilledat exterminating their enemies, at raping, and at pillaging. Threethousand years later, we are engaging in the same behavior, althoughwe build canals and exterminate enemies "scientifically." 3. Increased attention given to UFO activity promotes the conceptof political unification of this planet. This is perhaps the mostcommonly recurring theme in my entire study of these groups.Through the belief in UFOs, a tremendous yearning for globalpeace is expressing itself. I n a way that was captured very early bynovelists like Koestler and Newman, the UFO is focusing humanattention away from the Earth. Whether this becomes a factor forpositive or negative social change depends on the way in which thisfocused attention is channeled. 4. Contactee organizations may become the basis o a new "high fdemand" religion. The current conservative backlash against"decadent" morality and social liberalism has led many to reconsidertheir spiritual orientation. The Catholic Church is at a critical point in its history, and many other religions are in trouble. The newchurches emphasize high standards and strict discipline. The creeds of UFO organizations often emphasize themes of sexual repression, racial segregation, and conservative values that place them in a position to capitalize on the growth of this movement. Especially noticeable in this respect is the attention received by "the Two" andthe widespread success of the Melchizedek groups. Inherent in suchsectarian activity is the seed of revolutionary religious movements with almost unlimited potential. 5. Irrational motivations based on faith are spreading hand in hand with the belief in extraterrestrial intervention. As the UFO phenomenon develops unchecked, with no expectation that

245. The Stratagem T h e o r i e s 247research on its nature will be honestly attempted, a continuallygrowing fraction of the public is becoming convinced that manyphenomena are beyond the scope of science and are "unknowable"by rational process. If this fraction becomes the majority, they mayend societys unquestioned support for rational science. Instead wemay soon find an intermediate system of beliefs, in which an almostmystical faith in higher "contact" blends together with advancedtechnology in strange hybrid ways. Among the contactees, the ideathat all attempts at scientific control must be given up and replacedby blind faith is already prevalent. 6. Contactee philosophies often include belief in higher races andin totalitarian systems that would eliminate democracy. From thestatement that UFOs have visited us in the past, it is only a smallstep to saying that their occupants have " known" the Daughters ofMan, "and found them fair!" Then some of us may have celestial blood in our veins, which would make them "superior, to others. The idea of a "chosen people" is an old one; it had lost its appeal in recent decades. Strong belief in extraterrestrial intervention could revive this primitive concept, with particular groups claiming privileges peculiar to those who descend from the stellar explorers. We have also seen that the alleged communication with UFO occupants, when it touched on political subjects, tended to emphasize totalitarian images. Vorilhon, for instance, reports he was told that democracy was obsolete. Raymond Bernard was instructed to expect a "reversal of the old values." These six effects of the belief in extraterrestrial intervention indicate that an increase in the social conditioning correlated with the UFO phenomenon may lead to complex changes. If the Manipulators do exist, I certainly salute their tenacity, but I am curious about their goals. Anybody clever enough to exploit the publics expectation ofUFO landings, or even to simulate an invasion from outer space, would presumably realize that human institutions are highly vulnerable to changes in our images of ourselves. It is not only the individual contactee who is manipulated, but the global

246. 248 M E SS E N GERS OF D E C E P T I O Nimage in humanitys collective psyche. One would like to knowmore, then, about the image of humanity such Manipulators harborin their own minds - and i n their hearts. Assuming, of course, thatthey do have hearts.

247. C O N C LU S I O N �:: > ·········· "" · J V,D _;:.; -.:.� <> HE WRITING OF this book has not been an easy task. In fact,T it was outright difficult and painfuL Few of the facts I havehad to state in these pages were to my liking" They shocked earliertheories of mine, destroyed my accepted and familiar thoughts.They were not designed to win any new friends. Pondering thereports and the theories, I kept thinking, "Should science havesomething to say about all this? If it doesnt, then what is sciencegood for?" Science with a capital S is a complex system, when you lookat it from the inside. Linear accelerators that stretch for miles,computing clusters as big as a supermarket, research centers the sizeof a city: the mind is easily impressed by the dimensions of moderntechnology. As a professional scientist, I have driven telescopesinside their large domes on mountaintops, and I have operatedcomputers in a radar factory. I have walked through immense windtunnels, and I have found my way in the streets of atomic cities, inOak Ridge and Brookhaven. None of this helps me when I try tounderstand the motivations of the contactees: science doesnt cometo my aid any more. I am outside the domain where equations rulea logical set of processes. I cant look at all this from the inside. Consider science from the outside: it is a machine for turningout knowledge. It has worked extremely well for a while. It hasgiven us aircraft, television, and trips to the Moon. On the otherhand, there are situations in which it is useless, because it assumesthat the phenomena that are fed into it are natural and spontaneous. If something bigger or smarter than the ordinary human mind is around, if some clever deceivers use it to feed us phenomena thathave been designed to fool us by Machiavellian spies or benevolent

248. 250 M E S S E N G E R S OF D E C E P T I O Nmasters, then a "scientific" investigation will be useless. How canwe find out whether or not anomalous phenomena can be dealtwith in scientific terms? At the end of antiquity, people were fed up with science. TheGreeks knew the Earth was a globe. They knew how big it was,and how far it was from the Sun, and they knew the diameter ofthe Moon. They could compute the dates of future eclipses. Theyeven understood the atomic structure of matter. But they couldnttell people what the human race was doing here, and where itwould go next. So their science was swept away and forgotten.Will the same thing happen to our science? Is this what UFOsmean? Scientists may be in the same position with UFOs as they arewith crime: every police department has a criminology lab, but it isthe detective who finds the criminal, not the technician. WHEREARE THE UFO DETECTIVES? The public has two usual positions on UFOs, either "Its allnonsense," or "We are visited by creatures from another planer."Until today, the first position has been the stronger one. A majorityof the public and practically every scientist has long thoughtthat UFOs were nonsense - and that is why there are no UFOdetectives. Now things are changing. So many people have seenstrange phenomena that a new belief has been born. Scientificopinion cannot stop this shifting of power. Unfortunately, oncedisturbed from its comfortable position of rest, the public willshift to the other extreme and start believing in space visitations.This is unavoidable. It is so reassuring to have other forms of lifecome here! They may be horrible to behold, but at least "they"know about us, "they" care about us, and "they" have gone tothe trouble of coming here to see what we look like! In the naivewords of a New Y ork Times science editor, "We are not Alone! " There is another system. It is sending us messengers of deception.They are not necessarily coming from nearby stars. In terms o thefeffict on us, it doesnt matter where they come from. I even suspectthat "where" and "when" have no meaning here. How could we be

249. Conc l u s i o n 251alone? The black box of science has stopped ticking. People look uptoward the stars in eager expectation. Receiving a visit from outer space sounds almost as comfortableas having a God. Yet we shouldnt rejoice too soon. Perhaps we willget the visitors we deserve.

250. EPILOGUE � ____,_ _ ,,,,,.."··- """"""··"<? !) ·�· C, ;:J " A Sociologists Reaction David Swift HIS BOOK PRESENTS a disturbing alternative to the twoT main theories about UFOs. The skeptical view denies thatUFOs exist: they are merely hoaxes, delusions, or misperceptionsof ordinary objects or natural phenomena. The other approachmaintains that UFOs are real, and are spacecraft from anotherplanet. Although Jacques Vallee concludes that UFOs are real, hedoes not think they are spaceships; instead, he suggests that theyare physical devices for manipulating human beliefs, and that themanipulators may be people here on Earth. What are we to think of such an explanation? Inadequate?Far-fetched? Yes, but so are the other theories. There is no satisfactoryexplanation for UFOs. It is difficult to deny that they exist: toomany astronomers, pilots, air-traffic controllers, and other trainedobservers have seen them, photographed them, or tracked themthrough optical instruments; and simultaneous radar and visualsightings are particularly hard to dismiss. But if UFOs are real, what are they? The extraterrestrialhypothesis has serious flaws. It is extremely unlikely that beingscapable of building spaceships live elsewhere in the universe. Butvisits from beyond the solar system would require time or speedsthat seem impossible according to our current ideas about the

251. 254 M E S S E N G E R S OF D E C E P T I O Nuniverse. Moreover, as Vallee observes, there are too many reports oflandings in which UFO occupants have supposedly been surprisedby Earthlings blundering onto them. Therefore we should considerthe possibility that such sightings were deliberately staged. Although Vallees hypothesis also has shortcomings - itdoes not tell us who is causing the UFO sightings or how theyare doing it - it is just as satisfactory as the other approaches,and has some advantages: it does not challenge the reportsof thousands of reliable witnesses, nor does it contradict ourpresent laws of physics. Moreover, it suggests a plan behindthe phenomena, and indicates that UFO sightings couldhave serious social consequences. B efore we examine theseconsequences, however, it may be helpful to glance at Valleesown scientific qualifications. Vallee is an unusual scientist. He firmly believes in the scientificmethod, but he applies it to nontraditional fields. He has a Mastersdegree in astrophysics and a Ph.D. in computer science. He hasserved as Manager of lnformation Systems at Stanford University,and has written live other books on UFOs. His early work proposedcategories for classifying UFO reports, and placed them in a broadgeographical and historical context. More recently his analysis hasshifted away from the UFO itself to the effects of sightings on thewitness and on society. H is findings are disquieting: flying-saucercultists may become an important factor in our culture. Belief incontact with extraterrestrials exposes the believer to manipulation,and could lead to revolutionary movements capable of underminingor destroying established institutions. Vallee is not talking about the many people who think that lifemight exist elsewhere in the universe. Nor is he directly concernedwith the many persons who have seen strange aerial phenomenathey could not identify. Instead, Vallee focuses on a smaller group,the contactees, who believe they have received important messagesfrom flying saucers. These revelations typically offer simplisticsolutions to our complex problems. The danger, warns Vallee,

252. Epilogue � A Sociologists R e a c t i o n 255lies in the contactees unquestioning and contagious faith thatextraterrestrial intervention will bring peace, joy, and salvation:the saucers have been sent by our Space Brothers; all we have todo is trust them, and our problems will be solved! This is an alluring message, but would anyone be naive enoughto believe it? The answer is yes. As sociologists know, something does not have to be true inorder to influence us. A great deal of human behavior is basedon questionable information. We plant crops, choose spouses,worship gods, and wage wars because of our perceptions of asituation rather than because of the reality of it. There may be avast difference between the two. This difference is crucial for understanding UFO cultists.They are influenced not by the objective facts of a situation butby their interpretation of those facts. They act according to whatthey believe, not according to what might actually be true. The fact that their interpretations may be grossly inaccurate does not prevent them from behaving as if they were correct. This is whatVallee means when he says that "contact with space may become a social fact a long time before it is a scientific reality." I emphasize this point because UFO cultists believe some strange things; things so bizarre that we are tempted to dismiss them as absurd but harmless. This may be a mistake on our part.Jesus, Marx, and Hitler seemed ridiculous to respectable citizens of their times, but they changed the course of history. UFO cults are like a religion, offering comfort and hope to people who are struggling with basic problems of modern life. On the one hand, science and education have undermined our faith in a benevolent God who cares about us. On the other hand, science and education have not provided satisfactory answers to questions about our origins and goals. Into this void have stepped the saucer sects, offering us the reassuring belief that benevolent beings from outer space will take care of us, solve our problems, and offer us unimaginable joys.

253. 256 MESSENGERS OF DECEPTION The situation was aptly described by a UFO cultist we met inthis book: All these revelations have brought me such well-being and such an inner peace, in this world where one doesnt know what to believe any more, where its impossible to believe in a "Good God" with a long white beard or a devil with cloven hoofs, a world where professional scientists cannot provide a precise enough explanation of our origin and our goals. I n the light of these revelations, everything is cleared up and appears simple.This statement not only summarizes the responses of UFO cultists,but also indicates that some of them are educated, thoughtfulpeople, quite different from the stereotypes of illiterate farmers anddreaming old ladies. This leads us to the next point: the future ofthese cults - and our own future. At present, contactee groups are small, and have no obviouseffect on society, except for discrediting serious research into theUFO phenomenon. But will this situation remain the same? Whatare the circumstances under which these cults could become broadsocial movements, posing a real challenge to society? Such movements arise when many people feel frustrated byexisting conditions, and when the movement gives hope torimprovement. These hopes may seem far-fetched to an outsider,but there is practically no limit to the irrationalities which may beassociated with a successful movement. The factors that affect socialmovements in general have been summarized in The Handbook ofSocial Psychology: The ultimate success of social movements does not depend on their size or organization, or the quality of their leadership, or the sophistication of their views. It depends, rather, on the extent to which they successfully express the

254. Ep i l o g u e - A Sociologists Reaction 257 feelings, resentments, worries, fears, concerns, and hopes of large numbers of people, and the degree to which these movements can be viewed as vehicles for the solution of widespread problems. 1UFO cults appeal to a vast audience. The problems they address arean undeniable fact of our times. Profound changes have affectedeveryone, particularly in the Western world. Science, technology,and education have undermined traditional beliefs, but have notprovided satisfactory substitutes. "God is dead"; yet nothing hastaken his place to guide us, reassure us, and protect us. Familieshave shrunk nearly to the vanishing point. It is the rare person whostill lives in the same house or community as his grandparents did.Few of the hundreds of people we pass on the streets know who weare, or care. Old occupations, practiced by generations, suddenlybecome extinct; skills developed by a lifetime of practice becomeworthless. And over all these social and psychological concernsloom the threats of environmental pollution and energy crises, andthe very real possibility that nuclear war will bring an apocalypticend to life on this planet. There is widespread uneasiness about these problems, andvarious remedies are being offered, including meditation, politicalaction, drugs, and religion. UFO cults are competing with all of these for the support of dissatisfied, disillusioned people. What arethe chances that UFOs will outdraw the others? What can saucersects offer that the rest cannot? A light in the sky, and the message that someone up there can help you. At first glance this may not seem impressive, but if we think about it we will realize that the UFO has some features which make it a formidable contender. First, the UFO, more than any of its competitors, highlights the inadequacies of science, the armed forces, and government. These are among the most powerful institutions in our society; yet they are unable to deal with UFOs.

255. 258 M E S S E N G E R S OF D E C E P T I O N For thirty years the flying saucer has made our leaders lookludicrous. They cant explain it, they cant ignore it, they cantcatch it, and they cant make it go away. It hovers on the edge ofpublic awareness, occasionally darting into the spotlight, creating amoment of consternation, and then withdrawing into the shadows,usually leaving its observers unharmed but shaken by the experience.Physical scientists say that it is a problem for social scientists, andsocial scientists just as quickly throw it back to the physicists andastronomers. The Air Force, after grappling with the problemfor twenty years, tried to wash its hands of the matter in the late 1960s. Although the government denies that UFOs exist, a 1973Gallup poll found that almost all Americans (93 per cent) wereaware of UFOs, and 15 million adults thought they had actuallyseen one. When the question "Are UFOs real or imaginary?" wasasked of the group that was aware of the problem, the percentageof those responding "real" increased from 46 per cent in 1966 to54 per cent in 1973, and to 57 per cent in 1978, when only 27 percent responded "imaginary." No other symbol has so silently buteffectively undermined the credibility of our leading institutions. Secondly, the UFO is a universal symbol, appealing to men andwomen of many lands, ages, and races. It is not even restricted to a specific period in history. To simple observers, it is a wondrous bauble glittering in the sky. To the more sophisticated, it seems to be a product of a superior technology. In either case, the underlying message is so clear that it hardly needs to be verbalized: the creators of this awesome object have fantastic knowledge and power, and this knowledge and power might help you. This is an alluring message, and it will become more attractive with each failure of conventional attempts to solve our complex problems. The thought of salvation from the sky is likely to grow in appeal. This belief is, after all, not so different from traditional religious doctrine. The idea that benevolent beings live in the sky goes back to our childhood, and to the early stages of human society. The UFO

256. Epilogue - A S o c i o l o g i s t s Reaction 259simply adds the trappings of modern science to those ancient beliefs.Because of twentieth-century technology, even we humans can flyinto the heavens, and the advocates of radio astronomy encourage usto believe that there are civilizations far out in space. Thus, belief in UFOs is not such a big step, and may well attractlarge numbers of people who are dissatisfied with more mundaneanswers to our inescapable problems. Would such movements be a threat? Quite possibly. They couldundermine the rational foundations of society. They would not haveto overthrow the present system all by themselves; they could simply reinforce irrational currents that already exist. Revelation rather than reason is the source ofcontactee beliefs. This is not a new occurrence. There have been previous periods during whichpeople followed voices rather than logic, superstitious belief rather than observation and experiment, and the consequences were disastrous. This is one of Vallees most telling points. He thinks that UFO sects will be influential because of todays spreading belief in the irrational. It is to this belief that our institutions are vulnerable. Thus, as he observes, the genuine counter-culture of today is not that of hippies or drugs, but rather the counter-culture ofUFO contact. It is more durable, subtle, and dangerous because it has a broader social base; it is not tied to any specific group or age bracket. The irony is that scientists themselves have contributed to this situation by refusing to consider problems beyond the borders of safe, established science. Vallee remarks that the attitude he first observed among his colleagues at Paris Observatory - sciences reluctance to investigate paranormal phenomena - is slowly driving many people to react by accepting any claim of superior or mystical contact. We now come to Vallees conjecture that contactees are being deliberately manipulated, perhaps by some group here on Earth. Could he be right? Your guess is as good as mine. I suggest that we keep our minds open, weighing the evidence he presents. He does offer some intriguing ideas. For instance, he notes that we already have technologies capable of distorting the observers

257. 260 MESSENGERS OF DECEPTIONsense of reality. Television can control our awareness so that wesometimes cannot tell whether a scene is real or faked, whether it isactually happening or is being staged. Furthermore, advertisers usesubliminal conditioning to make us want their products, withoutour being aware that we have been exposed to their messages. Ifwe have such devices now, what might be done by a more advancedtechnology? We can get some idea by looking at our own progress. Acentury ago it would have seemed impossible that people could walkon the Moon while we sat at home watching and listening to them.Todays impossibilities may soon become accomplished facts. Vallees hypothesis attempts to account for an aspect of the UFOthat has been neglected by UFO researchers: the social influenceof the contactees. They act "as if" they were being manipulatedaccording to certain principles listed in this book. This method ofsaying something works "as if" is used i n physics and in sociology;although potentially helpful, it must be used with caution. We mustnot confuse result with purpose. The first could be accidental; thesecond is intentional. This distinction is particularly urgent in topicslike UFOs, and Vallee is aware of it. He explores the consequencesof contactee beliefs, and then purposely steps across the border intothe realm of intent. This enables him to discern possible reasonsbehind the contactee phenomenon. Vallee has made a commendable effort to explain a phenomenonthat could have grim consequences. We dont know whether he is rightor wrong, and we may never know. At the very least, however, he hasadvanced our understanding by amassing a large amount of firsthandobservations about contactee cults on two continents. It is ironic thatthis competent study of a potentially significant social movement wasdone by a physical scientist rather than by a sociologist. Now that hehas shown the way, I hope other researchers will follow. Proftssor David Swift Department ofSociology University o Hawaii f

258. A P PEND I X TATEMENT ON THE UFO Phenomenon, Prepared for DeliveryS before the Special Political Committee of the United NationsOrganization, New York City, November 27, 1978, by Jacques F.Vallee, Ph.D., Information Scientist, Palo Alto, California:Mr. Chairman,In the process of science it is common for old human ideas to bechallenged by new facts. New knowledge is born of this challenge. In the process of social development it is common for newknowledge to trigger emotional reactions with far-reaching culturaland political effects. New beliefs are born of this confrontation. The frequent reporting of unexplained phenomena in the sky ofmany countries during the last thirty years presents an opportunityto observe both of these processes. In the documents circulated prior to this meeting, and in ourpreliminary discussions with His Excellency Mr. Kurt Waldheimand representatives of the Outer Space Affairs Group, the essentialfacts of the phenomenon have been stated by Dr. J. Allen Hynek,by Dr. Claude Poher, and by myself. Accordingly, I will limit myremarks to one aspect of the phenomenon which touches directlyon the role of your Committee. To be specific, I would like to call your attention to a newsocial movement based on the expectation of contact with beingsfrom outer space. This belief, in many ways, is an emotional

259. 262 M ESSENGERS OF DECEPTIONone. Although the UFO phenomenon is real, and appears to becaused by an unknown physical stimulus, I have so far failed todiscover any evidence that it represented the arrival of visitorsfrom outer space. Instead it is my conclusion, Mr. Chairman, that this phenomenonhas three aspects. The first aspect is a physical manifestation that can and shouldbe investigated by means of already available scientific equipment.Dr. Claude Poher, in his recently concluded study sponsored by anagency of the French Government, has now shown the way in thisdirection. This year the Spanish armed forces have also released theirfiles on cases that had resisted analysis by their experts. There is nolack of physical data, and there is no lack of competent scientistswho are willing to examine them with an open mind. The second aspect of the UFO phenomenon is psychophysiological. Witnesses at the scene exhibit disorientationsymptoms, a loss of the sense of time, partial paralysis or loss ofvoluntary muscle control, auditory and visual hallucinations, eyecomplaints ranging from conjunctivitis to temporary blindness,massive psychic reactions, and longer-term effects, such asdisturbance of sleep and dream patterns and radical behaviorchanges. I do not believe it is within the province or the budget ofthe United Nations to address such effects directly, except wherethe United Nations Organization can serve its traditional role indisseminating scientific information and facilitating exchangesamong scholars. It is the third aspect of the UFO phenomenon which deservesyour full attention here, Mr. Chairman. This third aspect is thesocial belief system which has been generated in all the nationsrepresented on this committee by the expectation of space visitors.This belief has been nurtured by the lack of serious attentiongiven to genuine reports of UFOs, and it is creating new religious,cultural, and political concepts of which social science has takenlittle notice.

260. Appendix - S t a t e m e n t o n t h e U F O P h e n o m e n o n 263Jacques Vallee attends a dosed U.N. conference with Kurt Waldheim andinternational UFO experts. I have spent more than fifteen years conducting studies of thereports made through official and unofficial channels in Franceand in the United States. These analyses have been supported byextensive computer statistics. I n addition, I have been i n frequentcommunication with scientists in other parts of the world. Theconclusions I have reached about the social effects of the UFOphenomenon in the cultures I have studied are the following. 1 . The belief in space visitors i.s independent of the physicalreality of the UFO phenomenon. I n terms of social science, wemight say that something is «real" i f enough people believe in it.The UFO phenomenon has now reached this point. The questionof knowing whether or not UFOs are physically ((real" is becomingsecondary in the mind of the public. 2. The belief i n the imminence ofUFO "contact is an indicationof a widening gap between the public and science. We are beginningto pay the price for the negative and prejudiced attitude with which

261. 264 M ES S E N G E R S OF D E C E P T IONour scientific institutions have treated sincere witnesses of UFOphenomena. Lack of serious, open-minded research in rhis fieldhas encouraged these witnesses to think that science is incapableof dealing with the phenomena. This attitude has led many peopleto seek answers outside the rational pursuit of knowledge to whichscience is dedicated. Only an open exchange of information on thesubject could now correct this dangerous trend. 3. In the absence of serious, unbiased research on the subject,the belief in the imminence of UFO "contact" undermines theimage of Man as a master of his own destiny. I n recent years wehave seen many books arguing that the Earth had been visited byspace travelers in prehistoric times. Although this theory deservesserious study, it is leading many people to suggest that the greatachievements of mankind would have been impossible withoutcelestial intervention: the development of agriculture, the masteryof fire, and the bases of civilization are credited to so-called "higherbeings." Not only does this idea contradict many archeologicalfacts, it encourages passive expectation of another visit by friendlyspace creatures to solve current human problems. 4. The expectation of contact with space visitors promotesthe concept of political unification of our planet. Through thebelief in space entities, a strong and beautiful yearning for globalpeace is expressing itself. The UFO phenomenon is providing anoutside focus for human emotions. Whether this becomes a factorfor positive or negative social change will depend on the way inwhich these emotions are treated and on the seriousness with whichthe underlying physical phenomenon is investigated. Such is thechallenge before this Committee. Mr. Chairman, it is not my role to suggest a specific approachto this complex problem. The scientists with whom I am in contactwould welcome an opportunity to share their data and their ideaswithin any structure that could be made available for this purpose. All the great nations of the world are represented on thiscommittee. Let us keep in mind that the UFO phenomenon may

262. A p p e n d i x - Statement on t h e U F O P h e n o m e n o n 265represent an even greater reality. It is our choice to treat it as athreat or as an opportunity for human knowledge.

263. Notes to Prologue. 1 . Clock and Stark, "Taxonomy of Religious Experience," in Religionand Society in Tension, p. 42. 2. Billy Graham, Angels, p. 27. 3. Glock and Stark, op. cit. 4. Nilsson, Greek Piety, p. 188. 5. Ibid.Notes to Chapter 1. 1 . The detailed statistics upon which these conclusions are based arebeyond the scope of this book. They will be found in Poher and Vallee,"Basic Patterns of the UFO Phenomenon." 2. From an interview I conducted in 1967. 3. Lawson, "What Can We Learn from Hypnosis of I maginaryAbductees?"Notes to Chapter 2. I.Lipsky, Man the Puppet, p. 57. 2. Brown, Bodyguard o Lies, p. 31. fNotes to Chapter 4 . I. Village Voice, Dec. 1975. I, 2. See Balch and Taylor, "The Role of the Cultic Milieu in Joining aUFO Cult."Note to Chapter 5. I. Flammonde, Age o Flying Saucers. fNotes to Chapter 6 . I. Telephone interview with the Italian paper Eva Express, July 1 ,1976.

264. 268 M ESSENGERS OF DECEPTION 2. Ibid. 3. In the Adoniensis message whose cover is shown in Figure 6.3.Notes to Chapter 7. 1 . Sadler, Physiology o Fear and Faith, Preface. f 2. All the following quotes from Sadler are from the Appendix toMind and Mischief 3. Leadbeater, Science o the Sacraments, p. 265. f 4. San Francisco Chronicle, April 25,1971. 5. Enoch Penn, The Order o Melchizedek. All the following quotes ffrom Penn are from this book. 6. "The Peek Experience," in California Institute o T f ranspersonalPsychology Newsletter, val. 6, no. 1 (April 14,1978), p. 1 . 7. Loc. cit.Notes to Chapter 8, 1 . Bernard describes his meedng with Maha in Les Maisons secretes deIa Rose-Croix, pp. 1 8-27. 2. Ibid., pp. 273 et ca.Notes to Chapter 9. 1 . See King, Satan and Swastika. 2. From Mussorgskys Boris Godunov. 3. Fitzgerald, "Repeat Performance," p. 8. 4. Quoted in Stendek (a Spanish UFO magazine), no. 22 (Dec. 1975)and no. 23 (May 1976). 5. Project Stigma, Box 1094, Paris, TX 95460. 6. AFP wire service, OC[. 1 , 1 977. 7. Smith, Cattle Mutilation, p. 13. 8. The Meeker Herald, Meeker, Col., Sept. 6, 1975. 9. Glenwood Post, Glenwood Springs, Col., Sept. 22,1975. 10. Smith, op. cit., p. 10. 1 1 . Gazette Telegraph, Colorado Springs, Oct. 23,1975. 12. The Sun, Colorado Springs, Oct. 23, 1975. 13. Gazette Telegraph, July 6,1975. 14. Haskell News Release, Haskell, Col., Sept. 1 1 ,1975.

265. Notes 269 15. Telluride Times, Telluride, Col, Sept. 21,1975. 16. Denver Post, Denver, Col., July 1 1 , 1975.Note to Chapter 10. I. Jim Hougan, "Thirty-Four Spies from Mars," p. 39.Notes to Chapter 11. I. Proceedings of the "Robertson" panel, 1953 (partially declassifiedin 1958). 2. New Y Times data base, reference 1 143695/IDN. ork 3. See Festinger et a!., When Prophecy Fails, and Vallee, InvisibleCollege, pp. 60-65. 4. Rex and Ray Stanford, Look U p. 14. p!, 5. Ibid., p. 43. 6. On chis wpic, see: Bergier, LEspionnage politique; Brissaud, Hitleret JOrdre Noir; and che special issue of Histoire devoted w "Espionnage1945-1971." 7. Williamson and McCoy, UFOs Confidential. 8. Brillouin, Science et thtorie de !information, p. 155. 9. Schafroth, Selected Lectures in Modern Physics, p. 268. 10. Costa de Beauregard, Le Second Principe de Ia science du temps, p. 69. 1 1 . As suggested by Abraham Moles in 7htorie de !information etperception esthetique. 12. Puthoff andTarg, Mindreach. 13. In Proceedings o the IEEE, Oct. 1976, p. 1551. fNote to Epilogue. I. Lindzey, Handbook o Social Psychology. f

266. BIBLIOGRAPHY ···················�··· <>Adkins, Diana. Confrontation. The Netherlands: Service, 2 vols., 1970.Balch, R., and D. Taylor. "The Role of rhe Cultic Milieu in Joining a UFO Cult." American Behavioral Scientist, vol. 20, no. 6 (July 1977).Bergier, Jacques. I.:Espionnage politique. Paris: Albin Michel, 1973.Bernard, Raymond. Les Maisons secretes de la Rose-Croix.Villeneuve: Editions Rosicruciennes, 1977.Bernard, Raymond. Rencontres avec linsolite. Villeneuve: Editions Rosicruciennes, 1977.Brillouin, Leon. Science et rheorie de !information. Paris: Masson, 1959.Brillouin, Leon. Science and information theory. New York: Academic Press, 1962.Brissaud, Andre . Hitler et lOrdre Noir. Paris: Perrin, 1969.Brown, Anthony Cave. A Bodyguard of Lies. N.Y.: Bantam, 1976.Butler, H. E. The Goal of Life, or Science and Revelation. Applegate, Calif.: Esoteric Publishing Co., 1926.Cohn, Norman. Histoire dun mythe. Paris: Gallimard, 1967.Committee on Government Operations of the 94th Congress. "Use of Polygraphs and Similar Devices by Federal Agencies." House Report no. 94-795.Costa de Beauregard, Olivier. Le Second Principe de Ia science du temps. Paris: Seuil, 1963.Festinger, Leon, et a!. When Prophecy Fails: A Social and Psychological Study of a Modern Group that Predicted the Destruction of the World. N.Y.: Harper and Row, 1966.Fitzgerald, Anton. "Repeat Performance." Fl ying Saucer Review, val. 15, no. 3 (May/june 1969).Flammonde, Paris. Age of Flying Saucers. N.Y.: Hawthorn, 1971.Frater Achad, Melchizedek Truth Principles: Fourth-Dimensional Teachings from the Ancient Mystical White Brotherhood. Phoenix,

267. 272 M E S S E N G E RS O F D E C E P T I O N Ariz.: Lockhart Research Foundation, 1963.Glock, Charles, and Rodney Stark. Religion and Society in Tension. Chicago, 1 11 . : Rand-McNally, 1965.Graham, Billy. Angels. N.Y.: Pocket Books, 1976.Hougan, Jim. "Thirty-Four Spies from Mars." Crawdadd Magazine, y Dec. 1977.Hurtak, James]. The Book of Knowledge: The Keys of Enoch. Los Gatos, Calif.: Academy for Future Science, 1 977.King, Francis. Satan and Swastika. St. Albans: Mayflower Books, 1975.Koestler, Arthur. Le Bar du crepuscule. Paris: Aimery Somogy, 1946.Lawson, Alvin H. "What Can We Learn from Hypnosis of Imaginary Abductees?" Long Beach, Calif.: California State University, English Dept., May 1 977.Leadbeater, C. The Science of the Sacraments. Madras: Adyar, 1967.Lefebvre, Charles. The Blood Cults. N.Y.: Ace Books, 1969.Lewin, Leonard C. Report from Iron Mountain. Baltimore, Md.: Penguin, 1968.Lindzey, G. Handbook of Social Psychology. Reading, Pa.: Addison Wesley, 2 vols., 1954.Lipsky, Abram. Man the Puppet: The Art of Controlling Minds. N.Y.: Frank-Maurice, 1925.Lofland, John. Doomsday Cult. N.Y. : Irvington, 1977.Moles, Abraham. Theorie de linformation et percepdon esthetique. Paris: Flanimarion, 1958.Murray, Gilbert. Five Stages of Greek Religion. N.Y.: Doubleday, 3rd ed., 1951.Newman, Bernard. The Flying Saucer. N.Y.: Macmillan, 1950.Nilsson, Martin P. Greek Piety. N.Y.: Norton, 1969.Penn, Enoch, The Order ofMelchizedek. Placer County, Calif.: Applegate, 1926.Poher, Claude, and Jacques Vallee. "Basic Patterns of the UFO Phenomenon." Paper 75-42 in Proceedings o the American Institute o f f Aeronautics and Astronautics Symposium, January 1975.Puthoff, Harold, and Russell Targ. Mindreach. N.Y.: Delacorte, 1977.Sadler, William. The Mind at Mischief: Tricks and Deceptions of the Subconscious and How to Cope with Them. New York: Funk &

268. Bibliography 273 Wagnalls, 1929.Sadler, William. Physiology of Faith and Fear; or, the Mind in Health and Disease. Chicago: McClory, 1920.Schafroth, R. Selected Lectures in Modern Physics. London: Macmillan, 1960.Smith, Frederick W. Cattle Mutilation. Cedaredge, Col.: Freedland, 1976.Stanford, Rex, and Ray Stanford. Look Up! Corpus Christi, Tex.: Essene Press, 1958.Stranges, Frank E. Stranger at the Pentagon. Van Nuys, Calif.: I.E.C., 1967.Thorndike, Lynn. History of Magic and Experimental Science. N.Y.: Columbia University Press, 8 vols., 1923.United Nations, General Assembly, Thirty-Third session. Official records of the 35th meeting of the Special Political Committee, November 27, 1978, Agenda Item 126: "Research into unidentified flying objects and related phenomena."Vallee, Jacques. The Invisible College: What a Group of Scientists Has Discovered about UFO Influences on the Human Race. N.Y.: Dutton, 1975.Webster, Nesta. Secret Soderies and Subversive Movements. London: Boswell, 1928.Williamson, George Hunt, and John McCoy. UFOs Confidential. Corpus Christi, Tex.: Essene Press, 1958.

269. R. jACQUES VA LLEE (www.jacquesvallee.com) holds a MastersD degree in astrophysics from a French university and a Ph.D.in computer science from Northwestern University. Before startinghis own computer company, he served as Manager of InformationSystems at Stanford University. A Jules Verne Prize winner for hisfirst science fiction novel, Dr. Vallee has published over fifty articlesin scientific and popular journals, and six factual books on UFOs.Dr. Vallee has pioneered research in the psychological, social andpsychic aspects of the UFO phenomenon. Jacques Vallee was alsothe model for the character LaCombe i n the film Close Encounterso the 1hird Kind.f The author can be contacted at P.O. Box 641650, San Francisco,CA. 94164.

270. Messengers of Deception: UFO Contacts and CultsCopyright © 1979 by Jacques ValleeForeword Copyright © 2008 by Jacques ValleeAll rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored,or transmitted in any form without permission in writing fromthe publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passagesfor review purposes.ISBN: 978-0-9757200-4-2Daily Grail PublishingBrisbane, Australiapublications@dailygrail.comwww .dailygrail.com

271. V HO I S MANI PULATING THE BELIEF I N U FOS?Too many cases of "accidcmal" alien contact . . . UFO cults praying to the skiessecret "psychotronic" weapons J(lr bending the human mind. ·The evidence .Jacques Valleereveals, after many years of scientific investigation, adds up to something more menacingthan monsters from outer space.}llt:smgas o s fDtuption documents the grovving effect of UFO contact claims on our livesand of the belief systems prevalent in our society. lt explores the hidden n:alitics ofthe cults,the contactecs, the murky political intrigues anJ the motivations of the investigators."As suspenseful as a Hitchcock 1llriller, brilliantly argued . . . a smashing achievement. - Robert Anton Hilson"Alarming San Antonio Expn·ss JVtu·1houghtful . . . and challenging" - JVtu• Realitic"i"Vallees hypothesis attempts to account f an aspect of the UFO that has been neglected orby UFO researchcrs: the social influence of the comactees." - Pr� eHor Dtlvid Su,.�fi, Univ(rsit � 1-/ v { y ( a ..:aii.Dr. Jacques Vallee was born in France, where he rcccived a Bachelor of Science degreein m:uhcmatics from the Sorbonne and a 1bstcr of Science in astrophysics from rhcUniversity of Lillc. He began his protcssional lif as an astronomer �u the Paris Observatory cin 1961. .Yhilc on the staff of the French Space Committee, he wimessed the destructionof the rracking tapes of unknown objects orbiting the: earth, initiating a lifelong interestin the UFO phenomenon. Vallee arrived in the U.S. in 1 962, worked in astronomy at theUniversity of Texas at Austin, and wrote two highly respected scientific examin:nion�arguing f the E or xtraterrestrial Hypothesis (ETI-1) of UFO origins. In 1967, he receiveda Ph.D. in computer science from 1:onhwcstcrn University, where he became a doseassociate otT Allen Hynek, then scientific consultant f the U.S. Air Force on Project Blue orBook. Eventually concluding that the ETH was too narrow to encompass the burgeoningUFO data, he conducted his own extensive global research, resulting in the "Alien ContactTrilogy." Dr. Vallee is presend�· a venture capitalist living in San Francisco. His website i:Vww.jacquesva.llee.com �-,.:1 }.!.�Daily Grail Publishing

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