Håkan Blomqvist´s blog

For the UFO historian and sociologist the 1950s is a period of special interest. As a result of the frequent and global reports of unknown craft in the sky coupled with claims of contact with space people the decade witnessed the emergence of the first civilian UFO societies. They ranged from scientifically oriented research organizations to more or less religious or cultist groups. If you happened to live in Hawaii during the 1950s and had an interest in UFOs there was one man you couldn´t miss – Riley Hansard Crabb, founder of the Honolulu-based Akualele Research Group in 1956. Akualele is a local Hawaiian word for ”fire spirits” or ”flying gods”.

Riley Crabb with friends in Honolulu April 1949. Probably photo from workplace

Riley Crabb (1912-1994) was especially well equipped to deal with unexplained phenomena. His mother, Mrs. Eunice Crabb, was a student of esotericist and philospher Manly Palmer Hall. As a young man growing up in Minneapolis, Riley, in 1934, discovered the very extensive library of the Theosophical Society in Minneapolis. This collection of Esoterica he ”tried to read through in record time”. Interest in psychic research led to co-operation with Mrs Nellie Thompson, a clairvoayant lady whose talents were sometimes used by the detectives of the Minneapolis polis force. During these years he also married his first wife Marion Crabb (Marion M. Strese) who was a materialisation medium. It must have been a very special learning experience for Riley living together with a medium with such unusual abilities. At times presumably quite upsetting if Marion didn´t have control of her psychic powers.

Military service took Riley Crabb to Hawaii in 1944. After the war he continued living in Honolulu, marrying his second wife Judith (Judy) Crabb in 1950 or 1951. Interested in both Eastern and Western esoteric traditions Riley, during these years in Hawaii, became a student of the local Kahuna philosophy and magical practices, learning from Kahunas Charles Kenn, Kino Lau, David (Daddy) Bray.

David (Daddy) Bray

In a Round Robin article 1962 Riley Crabb reminisced about these times: ”During the four years I worked at the Naval Supply Center, Pearl Harbor I became well acquainted with one of the safety engineers, a Caucasian-Hawaiian from the island of Molokai. He knew of my interest in Flying Saucers and told me of his own early childhood experiences with Akualele. He had an uncle who was one of the 57 varieties of Kahunas. By appropriate rhythmical breathing and chanting this uncle could call up an Elemental and give it a temporary form in the shape of a glowing ball of light. Another Kahuna across the valley had similiar abilities. They were probably initiates of the same Mystery School. They were friendly rivals, too, and to entertain themselves - and show off their prowess - in the long Molokai evenings, these pagan sorcerers would create highly charged globes of electrical ether and send them back and forth between them! The engineer told me of those long-remembered nights there in the tropic darkness of his home island, sitting at a respectful distance from the Kahuna, and watching open-mouthed as the ghostly, glowing globe came floating down out of the darkness.” (Round Robin, vol. 18, no. 3, April 1962, pp. 30-31)

Interest in flying saucers started in 1950 and in 1951 Riley became a member of Borderland Sciences Research Associates (BSRA), founded by Meade Layne in 1946. He became intensively fascinated by the subject and began lecturing on UFOs in Honolulu 1954. This led to many TV and radio appearances and lectures to both civilian societies, clubs and military personnel. On January 27, 1955 he was interviewed on the popular TV program Betty´s Guest Book, the CBS outlet in Honolulu:

”Betty Smyser: We have a guest who is an expert on a very unusual subject, Flying Saucers. His name is Riley Crabb. This is so nice of you to come down and tell us about a subject which is so fascinating. And, is it believable?
Riley Crabb: Yes, that´s what we´ll find out during your show.
Betty Smyser: First Riley, how did you become interested in inter-planetary travel?
Riley Crabb: One of the radio engineers here in Honolulu, back in 1950, gave me a copy of True Magazine which had one of their first articles on the subject. Prior to that I dismissed them as hallucinations, but the factual material in the article startled me. Shortly after that I had a chance to join the Borderland Sciences Research Associates, a group with headquarters in San Diego. We compile material of this kind and analyse it to see what truth is in it.”

Combined with his lecturing, media appearances, UFO and Kahuna studies Riley was elected President of the Theosophical Society in Hawaii 1955. This combination of interests, esotericism and UFOs, would become the hallmark of Riley Crabb´s continued work. The Esoteric Tradition was the worldview, theory or paradigm he always referred to in his writings and lectures. He explained this background in a letter to Hope Troxell, March 2, 1959: ”I take factural data as reported by contactees in newspapers, magazine articles and books and try to correlate it with the known or accepted teachings of the wise men of our race. I established this method of arriving at understanding when I began lecturing in Honolulu in June, 1954 and also used it as the basis for the work of the Akualele Research Group which I organized two years later.”

It was almost inevitable that Riley would also found a UFO group in Hawaii. He organized a first presentation on February 26, 1956 at Reef Hotel, Waikiki, naming the meeting The First Honolulu Space Convention. Riley suggested the name Saucer Research Group but changed it to Akualele Research Group. During 1956-1957 meetings, or conventions, were held around once a month. Although interest was great it was obviously not so easy to form a research group as evidenced by this leaflet about the Convention April 1, 1956.

But the Akualele Research Group was eventually formed in 1956 and a small newsletter was published regularly, the Akualele Research Group Bulletin. From what I can understand of the newsletters there was very little field investigation of UFO reports. Activity was concentrated around meetings with lectures and social gatherings. Riley Crabb gave a summary of the group meetings in a letter to Morris Jessup, June 10, 1956: ”… space conventions. We´re having about one a month at the Reef Hotel in Waikiki… We expected 20 or 30 people and over a hundred showed up. There were 160 at the last convention. I givet hem reviews of books, analyses of newspaper clippings, and slide illustrations of Flying Saucers and related material. If you ever come out this way we can guarantee you a pretty good audience for whatever you might want to say.”

Honolulu Star-Bulletin January 19, 1957

First page of Akualele Research Group Bulletin, April 7, 1957

When Riley and Judy Crabb left Hawaii, moving to California in August 1957, it seems that the activity of both Akualele Research Group and the Theosophical Society in Hawaii more or less ceased. This was probably due to the very active and dominant personality of Riley Crabb. His message in the last Bulletin August 1, 1957, indicates that their move will be the end of the group. In the BSRF archive I have only found an incomplete collection of Akualele Research Group Bulletin. There are several issues missing. If anyone of our colleagues reading this blog have access to this newsletter, physical or digital copies would be much appreciated.

In the introduction to The Philosopher´s Stone, Swedish esotericist Henry T. Laurency writes: ”There exists a vast literature of which, amazingly, the general public appears to be entirely ignorant.” That this statement also includes most academic scholars becomes very obvious when reading Gustaf Fröding – och jag (Gustaf Fröding – and I) by the author Rolf Erik Solheim. This is a pioneering work of the famous Swedish poet, an in depth study of the lifeview and worldview of Fröding and how it relates to ideas in The Esoteric Tradition.

Rolf Erik Solheim is a Norwegian engineer (M.Sc.), writer and lecturer who, besides his interest in natural science and technology, for many years has been deeply fascinated by esotericism in literature. When in the Spring of 2013 he, at a hotel in Värmland, found the book Frödings mystik (Fröding`s Mystique) by Olle Holmberg, Solheim ”borrowed” this volume and it was the beginning of a long journey of discovery. Very early on in his research Solheim realized that almost no writer or academic scholar had studied the worldview of Fröding, nor had any understanding of its foundation and sources. Solheim regularly updated his findings at the website, Framtiden är din(The Future Is Yours) created together with his wife Anne.

Rolf Erik Solheim during a lecture at Kristinehamn Public Library October 8, 2016

In 2016 Solheim published a summary of his research in the yearbook of the Gustaf Fröding Society now later extended in the latest work Gustaf Fröding – And I. The title has been changed several times as the author also wished to include how his own spiritual search has been affected by this study: ”The journey with Fröding is also a personal journey where I narrate how I wrote the book and how the established Fröding scholars regarded my project almost as a molestation of the mainstream view of Fröding.” (p. 19) Since the Olle Holmberg study, published in 1921, no in depth study has been made of Fröding´s esoteric worldview. Solheim found out the hard way that all writers including academic scholars are metaphysical illiterates. Hopefully this will change because of the renaissance of academic interest in the once taboo subject Western Esotericism. It is slowly been recognized that The Esoteric Tradition is the third intellectual force or pillar in cultural history besides religion and science.

Yerbook of the Gustaf Fröding Society 2016

Gustaf Fröding spent the latter part of his tragic life at different mental institutions and hospitals. His most precious possession during these final years was a portrait of Goethe. His friend, poet Erik Axel Karlfeldt, visited Fröding and noted: ”Goethe´s ´Geist´ was to Fröding something much more than spirit in the ordinary sense, an all-consciousness. In his Graal poetry the Divine Spark, which according to Fröding exist in every human being, is connected to this all-consciousness.” (p. 46). This deep attachment to Goethe reveal a spiritual affinity as Goethe was a member of the secret Rosicrucian fraternity which he disguised as The Fellowship in the Tower in his second novel Wilhelm Meister´s Apprenticeship.

Gustaf Fröding 1910

An important discovery was made by Solheim in the Fröding archive at Uppsala University Library. Among the 133 volumes many are filled with notes and comments by Fröding himself, especially in the collected works of philologist and Orientalist Max Müller. The comments give many clues to Fröding´s worldview and spiritual quest. When Solheim found these comments he took no less than 600 pictures as reference to his book. Of interest is that one book in the Fröding archive is the Swedish edition of Theosophist Alfred Percy Sinnett´s Esoteric Buddhism.

Gustaf Fröding wrote three small booklets presenting his worldview. The most important bears the title Om lifsmonader. Ett lifsförklaringsförsök(On Life Monads. An attempt to Explain Life), privately published in 1898. The idea of the evolution of consciousness that Fröding tried to formulate in his booklets was usually misunderstood or completely ignored by later scholars and writers, revealing their ignorance of The Esoteric Tradition. Solheim give many examples from literary reviews and books how mainstream academics viewed these works, often referring to Fröding´s mental illnes: ”balmy”, ”a curiosity”, ”hocus pocus”, ”reduced capacity for reasoning power”, ”a low point in Fröding´s production” etc.

A major part of the book consists of Solheim´s quotes and references to various historical and contemporary authors who from different viewpoints discuss the same ideas and problems as Fröding. Here we find Plato, Pythagoras, Leibnitz, Goethe as well as Roger Penrose and Max Tegmark. But there is also a few quotes from esotericists Roberto Assagioli and Henry T.Laurency. This may be a bit confusing to the reader as there is no summary of the basic ideas in the core Esoteric Tradition – Helena P. Blavatsky, Alice Bailey, Henry T. Laurency. Italian psychiatrist Roberto Assagioli was the founder of Psychosynthesis but also secretly a disciple of the Tibetan adept who dictated the works published by Alice Bailey. Regarding his connection to the Tibetan, Assagioli kept a strict ”wall of silence”.

Three pages are devoted to Pythagoras and hylozoics with some short comments on the writings of the erudite Swedish esotericist Henry T. Laurency. To fully understand the unique contribution of Laurency to esoteric philosophy, a more extensive chapter should have been included. Especially as Solheim recognize Laurency as an expert esotericist: ”If Fröding had known that the worlds foremost monad thinker a few years after his death would study philosophy at Uppsala University he had possibly asked the All-Consciousness permission to live a few more years to meet him.” (p. 208). Henry T. Laurency studied philosophy at Uppsala University in the beginning of the 20th century.

Together with the author at Kristinehamn Public Library 2016

These few critical comments are not meant to dimish the importance of Solheim´s work. Hopefully new generations of scholars will continue this line of investigation and fully realize how ideas in The Esoteric Tradition has influenced our culture. Gustaf Fröding´s contemporary author Selma Lagerlöf was also very much influenced by esotericism, which fortunately several scholars have discovered. Next in line is Gustaf Fröding and here Rolf Erik Solheim has laid the groundwork with his excellent and pioneering research.

So, you want to become a ufologist, dedicating your life to researching one of the most fascinating enigmas of our time. Then you are in for a life journey of a most unusual kind and I can guarantee that you will many times feel like a stranger in a strange land. I assume your ambition implies ”real research”, not just writing some post-modernist, mainstream academic monograph about myth and superstions in society. If you mean business with your endeavor the road ahead is that of the intellectual heretic and pathfinder.

If the first book on the subject you happen to find is The Edge of Reality by J. Allen Hynek and Jacques Vallee a good idea is to listen to their introduction: ”The UFO phenomenon calls upon us to extend our imaginations as we never have before, to think things we have never dared think before – in short, to approach boldly the edge of our accepted reality and, by mentally battering at these forbidding boundaries, perhaps open up entirely new vistas. To many, such thinking is both frightening and a threat to their intellectual security.” (p. 1)

Often, when walking around in the AFU library and watching the thousands of books, magazines, clippings etc I wonder how I would react to all of this if I was a young, ambitious ufologist? The amount of documents today is gigantic and it must be quite frustrating to find out where to begin. In his third book, published in 1972, Tefaten är här (The Saucers Are Here) the grand old man and pioneer of Swedish ufology, K. Gösta Rehn, gave this advice to the new generation of young ufologists: "Concentrate on the close encounter cases". This is a message I have for many years tried to convey to new and old field investigators at the UFO-Sweden seminars, lectures, articles, blog and books. Forget the lights in the sky and the ”ordinary” UFO reports and go for the real enigma – close encounter and contact cases. Concentrate on making detailed , in-depth investigation and documentation of the most complicated and challenging encounters. Many times you will find wild and whacky individuals with various psychological problems, drug related or simply people with fantasy prone personalities. But you will also stumble upon really intriguing cases that will represent a definite challenge to your investigative efforts. I will present a few old cases of the type that you as a serious UFO researcher should follow-up.

One of three AFU libraries

A good example of how to proceed is No Return. The Gerry Irwing Story. UFO Abduction or Covert Operation? By David Booher. This is the story of the young soldier Gerry Irwin who stopped his car on a lonesome road in Utah, 1959, observing a blazing object, who he theought was a plane, seemingly about to crash nearby. He leaves a message in his car and decides to investigate. Gerry was later found by a local sheriff lying with head face down at the site.

While browsing through some older issues of Fate magazine I found an interesting early abduction report, closely resembling the Gerry Irwin case. It was published as a Report from the readers in vol. 25, no. 11, November 1972, pp. 160-161. The witness, Mimi Gorzelle, relates an experience from August 1967. She was driving on an unfamiliar, dark, lonely road in the middle of the night and suddenly notice a light swinging from side to side beckoning her to stop. She stops, expecting to find an accident. Leaving the car she find three other cars parked ahead. A man leaves one of the cars and another man is coming towards her, wearing a white coverall, like hospital orderlies. He takes her by the arm, leading her into the prairie, where she can see a spaceship.

Mimi observeres three men dressed in business suits also being escorted into the spacecraft, led by several men i white coveralls. Mimi and the other men are led up a staircase and into the craft. The men in white coveralls look alike, all in their 30`s and baldheaded. Mimi is not afraid, only curious. One of the spacemen tell her: "You will have no memory of anything you saw or experienced here. You will awaken with no memory of this experience." Her next memory is being led down the steps and escorted to the car, like the other men. She notice them drive away one by one and she also drive on home. "I awakened in the morning very muich aware of what I have related but with no knowledge of how I drove to that site or what else transpired in the spacecraft."

There are hundreds of these types of close encounters found in UFO literature and magazines including the report archives of UFO organisations, but very seldom investigated thoroughly. I found a good example in Ray Palmer´s Mystic Magazine no. 9, April 1955, originally documented by first generation ufologist Tom Comella.

One of the great mistakes of the scientifically oriented ufologists of the 1950s was to discard the classic contactees as frauds and impostors without in-depth investigation. In these type of close encounter cases appearances and first impressions can be very deceptive, in several ways. A good example is Florida contactee Lydia Stalnaker. The mainstream scientific ufologist who finds her ad in UFO report 1980 selling the Cross of Antron, would probably dismiss her as just another cultist. In this ad Stalnaker claims to have met people from another galaxy and given a mission by the spaceman Antron.

But when you take a second and deeper look into Stalnaker´s story you will find some very intriguing and disturbing details. These were presented by Judith and Alan Gansberg in Direct Encounters. Personal Histories of UFO Abductees (1980). The case was investigated by then APRO respresentative Dr. James Harder, University of California. On January 23, 1985 I wrote a letter to Dr. Harder to get more data on his study but unfortunately received no answer.

In August 1974 Lydia Stalnaker was driving north from Jacksonville, Florida when she saw a bright light coming out of the sky. She stopped the car at a parking area and got out to have a better look. Suddenly another car pulled into the area and a man that Stalnaker thought she vaguely knew joined her by the side of the road. They stared at the light hovering over some trees, assuming it was a helicopter and noticed it descending as if crashing behind the trees. They decided to drive toward the region to see if they could be of help.

”I asked the man if he had seen what I had seen… He said, ´Yes, and its right on time´. The man was short, less than five feet five inches, and had a dark, Italian or Jewish look… He coaxed me into his car, and we drove off to find the spot.”

When they got closer to the area of the assumed crash Stalnaker felt un uncomfortable sensation of being suffocated. ”Then it seemed like just a moment passed and we were heading back towards Jacksonville on another road. It was midnight and Stalnaker´s forehead was hurting and she felt nauseated. After this incident she was having frightening dreams of being on an operating table surrounded by people wearing masks, sticking painful needles in her sides. Eventually she sought professional help and was hypnotised. During hypnosis she recounted a classic abduction scenario. After the missing time incident Stalnaker developed telepathic and healing powers and received messages from the spaceman Antron.

What makes this case especially interesting is the physical meeting with the strange man in the parking area. Stalnaker tried to find him again but found out he had disappeared from the town. He had quit his job and no one new where he was. ”His employer said that the man had appeared in town one morning looking for work, but they did not know where he had come from.” I have not read of any ufologist who have followed up on these important clues. But this is the kind of data ufologists should look for.

To delve into these aspects of the UFO enigma the ufologist has to be both a meticulous, critical investigator and a detective. In-depth research of close encounter and contact cases of this type is time-consuming and can be quite unnerving as you will discover facts very difficult or impossible to publish. Ufology at this level is very far from writing reports of lights in the sky or being entertained by fake videos on YouTube. You have all the chances of entering Forbidden Science. But then remember the motto of Riley Crabb, the late director of Borderland Sciences Research Foundation: ”If I have one goal in life it is an uncompromising search for Truth, whatever that might be, and wherever it may lead.”

Because of the renewed interest in Mothman and John Keel I have decided to translate the original interview Anders Liljegren and I made with Åke Franzén on May 19, 1973. It was published in our Swedish magazine Ufologen no 12, Nov-Dec 1973. I have written some blog entries on Åke Franzénbefore but here is the complete interview as transcribed from our tape recording. Åke travelled to West Virginia in the Summer of 1969 and spent five weeks in the area around Point Pleasant and also a few days in New York where he met John Keel. From a research point of view it is interesting that this interview was published before Keel´s classic The Mothman Prophecies, 1975.

Anders Liljegren and I interviewing Åke Franzén, May 19, 1973

What was planned as an ordinary field investigation proved to be much more. Åke fell deeply in love with Mothman witness Linda Scarberry and soon became a close friend with several people in Point Pleasant, including journalist Mary Hyre who was his chauffeur during these weeks, visiting witnesses and observation sites.

Åke Franzén, October 22, 1977

Åke Franzén: ”I was surprised by the openness I met from these people. Whether this was because they felt I believed them and wanted to listen to what they told me, or if it is an American characteristic I don´t know. Anyhow there were no closed doors.”

We asked Åke if there was any connection between Mothman and UFOs:

Åke Franzén: ”To my knowledge there is only one case where saucers have been observed together with ´the bird´. I have promised not to reveal the names of the people who witnessed this but they were out cruising late at night and observed a saucer and a ´birdman´ with the characteristic luminous eyes, melting into one object and disappearing in the sky.”

Åke then related some of the encounters with Mothman:

Åke Franzén: ”One of the main witnesses, Linda Scarberry, had moved from Ohio when I came to Point Pleasant, but 2-3 weeks later she moved back to her parents home. I asked Mary Hyre to contact her and she drove me there. Linda Scarberry told that she and her husband, and another young couple, had gone to the TNT-area one evening. This place is a sort of nature reserve and ´lovers lane´. They were about to park their car behind a ruin of a closed power plant when one of them suddenly shouted ´look there in the corner´. They watched a creature, about seven feet tall, with glowing eyes or rings.

Linda´s husband, who was driving, tried to start the car real quick to get away from this horrible sight but because of excitement gave too much gas. The two young girls were hysterical and shouted ´drive´. They finally succeeded in getting away and when looking back they noticed how the creature turned around wobbling, and went towards the building like a clumsy duck. They reached the road, route 2. Halfway home one of them happened to look behind the car. Above them they could see the creature flying and its wing tips on either side of the car. The wings didn´t flutter, but were completely still. It was so low above them that the frightened witnesses could observe its legs hanging and dangling right above the windshield. I especially remember Linda saying she could see ´veins´, thick as rope, around the legs. They didn´t see any feet.

When they saw the first lights from Point Pleasant the ´bird´ made a turn and went in the opposite direction. The couples went straight to the police station where the chief of police listened to their story. He believed them as these young people were considered well-behaved and reliable. In spite of their fear they immediately returned to the spot accompanied by the policeman. On arrival there was nothing to see but the communication radio in the policar was turned up like listening to a 45 rpm record at 78 rpm. According to rumors a senior police officer made an investigation of the observation area and got a glimpse of the creature. After this encounter he refused to talk about this event. If anyone mention ´the birdman´ he withdraws from the conversation.

Linda Scarberry had to seek medical help because of the psychological trauma caused by the encounter. None of those traumatized by close encounters with this creature have recovered completely. Previously they were calm and harmonious which has changed to nervousness. Linda Scarberry woke up at the hospital one morning with her arms and legs badly scratched. She had large scars after this. The witnesses nervousness was above all evident in how much they smoked. My God, how they smoked. Even I who was a non-smoker when I arrived started. One witness, Marcella Bennett, could not be still. Most of the people who had seen ´the bird´ had these kind of symptoms. One witness started crying when she told me of her observation.

It was like they watched a movie when they told of their observations, talked like they experienced it again. I told them ´you don´t need to recount what happened of you don´t want to´ but they insisted on relating the event anyway. Maybe they noticed I believed them and felt confidence in me. I think it is important to the witnesses to behave in such a manner. It was fascinating but made me ill at ease listening to their encounters. When I talked to relatives they always said ´it is not the same old…´ and then the name of the witness.

Åke Franzén reading John Keel´s the Mothman Prophecies 1978

Marcella Bennett didn´t want to relate her experience to anyone else but John Keel and me. She said she had confidence in me. The night after Linda Scarberry´s encounter Marcella and some of her acquaintances were planning to visit friends living near the TNT-area. Because of what had happened the night before they decided to spook their friends by knocking on the window. They parked their cars on a slope and walked towards the house. Mrs. Bennett was just about to take her two year old daughter out of the car when she heard a sound like a wet sack had fallen behind the car. She turned around and noticed something gray rise up behind the car. What she especially saw was the shining red ´circles´. She felt like paralyzed by them.

Håkan Blomqvist: Was this some kind of eyes?

Åke Franzén: Yes, that´s the theory, but they are placed very low, shining with a hypnotic glow. The witnesses often talked more about these ´circles´ than the creature. Mrs. Benneett was unable to move when she saw the ´bird´ coming between the cars. Her arms were sort of straightened out and she dropped the little girl on the ground. Not until the child began crying did Marcella ´wake up´. She picked up the girl and together with the others started running towards the house. They were hysterical when they knocked on the door and rushed in. Only three of the children were at home. Their parents had gone to Point Pleasant on an errand. They locked the door. Mrs. Bennett was speechless from fear and the others hysterical. Suddenly they heard something moving on the porch and how the ´bird´s´ wings hit against the logs holding the porch. Someone picked up the phone and called the police but when they arrived there were no traces, nothing. Only some hysterical witnesses. They were five grown up people so it could hardly be a misinterpretation.

Håkan Blomqvist: Could they observe how it disappeared?

Åke Franzén: No, it´s understandable that after the chock of having seen the creature and hearing it hit the logs with its wings. They crouched, didn´t want to see. The girl Tina, who was only two years when her mother dropped her, was five when I met her. We became good friends and in spite of her age she was better in giving a clear and coherent picture of what had happened than her mother.”

This is the second part of the interview Anders Liljegren and I did with Mothman investigator Åke Franzén, May 19, 1973 and originally published in our Swedish magazine Ufologen, no 12, Nov-Dec 1973.

Åke Franzén: ”I also talked to a woman from New Haven. She and her husband were part of the group that investigated the ruin looking for traces. The walked around checking the various rooms. When she was about to leave a small room ´it´ appeared, crouching in a corner. She screamed and the others – Keel was there – hurried to the place, but saw nothing. The husband made fun of her in front of the others, which of course made her upset.

On the was home – now Keel was not there – they crossed a field and the woman noticed the creature standing in the field. Now her husband also observed ´the bird´ and became very pale. ´The Birdman´ disappeared straight up with a terrific speed, like a robot. It simply spread out the wings, but did not flutter with them, like an ordinary bird. Another woman I talked to was one of the few witnesses who had seen the face of the creature. She had observed an incredibly ugly, scaly head leaning towards one side.

Åke Franzén at AFU, May 30, 1989

Håkan Blomqvist: Did you estimate how many within the TNT area who had witnessed ´the bird´?

Åke Franzén: It is hard to say as I didn´t have time to visit all the witnesses. I talked to around thirty witnesses. I found it peculiar that they lived so far away from each other. It was pretty large distances. In spite of this they told the same story, with insignificant variations. Another common factor was the poltergeist phenomena. Something strange always happened in the house right after someone had seen the ´bird´. It was somehow connected. Certain witnesses received strange phone calls, any time day or night. When they picked up the phone all that was heard sounded like metallic clicking. Four of the witnesses I talked to – among them Marcella Bennett and Linda Scarberry – had experienced this.

One of the weirdest experiences was related by the Lilly family. One evening they were together conversing in one of the rooms. Mrs. Lilly happened to look in the direction of a bookshelf with a large vase. Suddenly the vase began moving, leaning outwards. Slowly, slowly, like in slow motion it fell over the edge of the shelf towards the floor where it shattered in two parts. Not in small parts, but straight edges! It was only the wife who observed the vase falling through the air and she felt paralyzed. She told me it wasn´t like the vase fell through the air, but rather ´sailed´.

Åke Franzén at AFU, May 30, 1989

No one could explain this incident but it was associated with the strange noices heard in the house. Several times it sounded like a woman or child crying in the house in the middle of the night. There were no children in this house and they found it impossible to locate from where the sound was coming. The sound was ´everywhere´. It was heard but they were unable to find out from which direction it came. The area seemed ´infected´ in some way. After a couple of weeks so much had happened that the family were forced to move. Nothing happened on the new adress.

Håkan Blomqvist: Did anything happen during your visit?

Åke Franzén: I don´t know whether you believe me, but it continued all the time. Even during my visits, now and then. But it seemed hopeless to have a personal observation. During these five weeks, I never got a chance to visit a witness directly after an observation, although I asked the people in the neighborhood to call me at the hotel any time day or night. It looked like ´the bird´ simply appeared in the most unexpected places.

Åke Franzén during a field investigation to a presumed landing site outside Södertälje, Sweden, Winter 1973

There were lots of theories about all this, but no one actually knew what it was. Some believed it was a sort of robot sent out and the large ´eyes´ were cameras that registred what happened. Then there appeared several rare birds in the area e.g. storks and a Turkish Snowy Owl. They were small birds compared to the ´Birdman´, but were used by summoned experts as excuses. The experts of course depricated the occurences and this was presented in the American media, and even in Vietnam.

Håkan Blomqvist: Before your return journey to Sweden you had a short meeting with John Keel. What were your impressions?

Åke Franzén: Keel appeared as a really honest, serious person. Above all he had humor and a natural distance to his work. This is my impression of him, both from correspondence and our meeting. I received the adress from his girlfriend. Because of various reasons he had been forced to change residence now and then. From what I gathered both known and unknown people were looking for him. Maybe it is not good to know too much… .

He lived in East End. One of the most notorious parts of New York, where you kill a man for ten cent. This was not because of economic causes but simply the place where he felt most secure, with all of the criminal underworld around. Few dared to enter this area. I barely had time to pay the cab when various gangs appeared from both the beginning and the end of the street. I rushed to the doorway.

I arrived at ten in the evening and stayed until two o´clock. Then I had to leave his tea to get in time for the plane to Sweden. Four hours with such an interesting person was of course too short. I only had time to get fragments of all his experiences. On one occasion Keel and a few others spent the night in one of the water towers in the TNT area. ”The Birdman´ did not appear but they watched saucers now and then. Keel once used his flashlight towards an object that passed overhead and it tipped back and forth, like answering. This happened twice together with several witnesses.

Håkan Blomqvist: Finally, what is your opinion on what´s going on in West Virginia?

Åke Franzén: After all I have read on the subject and talked with the witnesses my conclusion is that this is something non-physical. No one has ever found any feathers or markings.

Recently a deeply fascinating and challenging UFO book was published by the Danish painter, photographer and researcher Rene Erik Olsen – The George Adamski Story – Historical Events Of Gigantic Implications. By doing digital enhancements from copies of the original negatives taken by George Adamski, Rene Erik Olsen has succeeded in presenting unique and unknown details in the photos and films. Details which give a whole new dimension to the controversial George Adamski case.

Rene Erik Olsen was born in 1956, educated in the military and spent 30 years in the financial world. Painting has been his interest for many years and he is now working as a professional photographer doing lots of photoshoots. Special interests are research into UFOs and their technology. Visit his beautiful and inspiring website here.

Håkan: What started your UFO interest?

Rene: An observation 1966, together with my family, when I was 10 years old. A disc, around 8-10 meters, moving close to our house – maneuvering in an erratic way, standing still, moving again and disappearing extremely fast upwards.

Håkan: Are you a member of any UFO group?

Rene: No.

Håkan: Most mainstream UFO researchers are very skeptical of George Adamski. How come you decided to study his experiences, photos and films?

Rene: I know that many people are skeptical of the Adamski case. I am not a ”believer” of everything about this case (at least not at face-value) but the photographs has always looked real to me. That is why I thought it worth while to study some of the images closer. Those first photos of the mothership and the objects around it (taken in 1951) looked hard to fake to me (double exposures could be one way to fake such photos, but it takes a really good knowledge of how to do double exposures and I understand that Adamski did not have such specific photographic knowledge)) – but they look real. Also the images in Flying Saucers Have Landed – are particularly good. I do consider these real as well. As it happened I was sent these four Brownie photos by Glenn Steckling in 2001 for another project (animation of the desert landing). I then had them on a hard disk for 16 years – until I considered them worthy of a good look. Had always thought that two of them looked like something could be enhanced and details brought forward.

Rene Erik Olsen

Håkan: When did you begin to consider Adamski´s case as genuine?

Rene: Well, as stated previously, I am not a fan of everything Adamski – or for that matter other contactee-cases, as a clear pattern in contact-cases is that the contactee often times embellish in – shall we say – less than truthful ”stories” to keep the ”fans” interested. A reason for this could be that they no longer are in contact with the ”aliens” and therefore ”make up” their own stories to keep people interested in the case. It is often seen – unfortunately (The Meier case for instance). But the Adamski photos and films – these can be forensically researched – without being influenced by the case as such. Everyone can do it. Nobody should be scared to do so. Unfortunately most researchers are scared of everything that has the name ”Adamski” on it – including the photos and films.

Håkan: What, in your view, is the strongest evidence in favor of Adamski?

Rene: The photos and films (those of them which I have been enhancing) and the witnesses to the first contact on 20th November 1952. Those things will always – to me – be the strongest evidence.

Håkan: Has anyone duplicated your efforts in enhancements of Adamski´s photos and films, to check your results?

Rene: I have no idea. Nobody has contacted me in this regard – even though it would be easy to check the results (you need a good knowledge of how to use Photoshop). It could be that nobody really has the inclination – since ”the Adamski case has already been proven a fake” by all the big players in Ufology. Or maybe there is nobody who is sincere enough, who wants to put their name to anything ”Adamski”.

Photo by George Adamski, December 13, 1952

Håkan: Today it is very easy to fake UFO photos and films. What would be your answer if accused of faking the enhancements?

Rene: I will agree that anything is possible with all the software available today, but the original films – your eyes (especially when you see the films) cannot ”fake” what you see in front of you. Especially the Mexico film and the Silver Spring film – they are just so ”bizarre” that your eyes and brain just need time to understand what is going on in front of you – and no ”software” can ”undo” what is really there in front of you. The photos which I have researched are from 1952 – they are NOT double exposures or anything of the sort. Anybody can investigate the same films and photos and get the same results – that is my answer.

In support of my findings it was actually Michel Zirger who discovered some of the things in Brownie frame 1 (the one with the mothership in the upper left corner and the three crafts) and not me. I just enhanced what we both agreed we saw in the frame. The enhancement process anybody - with a good knowledge of photoshop – can do. Enhancements do not bring out what is not there from the start. I am actually surprised that at least the skeptics of the Adamski case has not come forward to dismiss the enhancements, but nothing of the sort has happened. Maybe because the enhancements are showing the real thing.

Håkan: What has been the response to your book The George Adamski Story?

Rene: Very positive. A few people have told me that had been waiting a long time for a closer look at the Adamski material. No skeptics have contacted me at all.

Håkan: Are there any photos or films by Adamski that you regard as dubious or not genuine?

Rene: I cannot claim to have seen all of the Adamski material – I wish I had that opportunity. I have only been asked to enhance a few things for Glenn Steckling of the Adamski Foundation. And that does not include the Brownie photos – they were done of my own interest. What I have enhanced I can clearly say – the raw material (film and photos) is real. I cannot remember having seen anything which would make me say that ”they were of dubious nature” – but again, I have not seen all of the Adamski photo and film evidence.

Rene Erik Olsen

Håkan: Will you continue researching the Adamski case?

Reen: Oh yes, there are so much material that another book is in the works. I only hope that Glenn Steckling will keep sending me material to be enhanced. In so many ways the Adamski case and the material is very unique.

Håkan: What do you hope to achieve with your research?

Rene: I hope to inform other researchers and people in general about the extraordinary evidence for another form of intelligence outside of the Earth, who actively are visiting the Earth – both in the past and now and that George Adamski produced some evidence for this ”extraordinary technology” both in photos and films.

Håkan: Do you favor any specific UFO theory?

Rene: No. Certain is it though that ”the visitors” need some form of transportation surrounded by shields to move around in the Earth atmosphere. This is what is being photographed and filmed and also observed.

Rene Erik Olsen photographing a "Venusian beauty"

Håkan: Have you had any other personal UFO or paranormal experiences?

Rene: Two other sightings. One with multible objects, more than ten, moving high in the sky at sunset. Another sighting, daytime, with a single object moving erratically

Håkan: What is your general worldview?

Rene: I think we are here on Earth to do the best we can, in any given situation with the aid of our knowledge of what is good or bad, right or wrong. Pure and simple. I assume we have one chance in life. So do your best in all situations. That is my life philosophy.

Håkan: Are you a member of any spiritual or group or church?

Rene: No.

Håkan: What advice would you give to new UFO researchers?

Rene: Look at every aspect of this field with an open mind (just like life itself). Never judge anything because it is ”beyond-your-understanding” – It could be you just need to ”adjust” your frame of mind.

In the 1950s and 60s a remarkable social phenomenon emerged, basically concentrated in the State of California. It was organizations founded by UFO contactees, individuals who told of physical and telepathic contacts with space people. Three of these contactees, Daniel Fry, George Adamski and Gabriel Green, succeeded in creating large organizations with local units in many U.S. states and even abroad. Understanding was founded in 1955 by Daniel Fry, El Monte, California, with only nine members at the beginning. In September 22, 1960 the organization was registred as a non-profit corporation in the state of California, Understanding, Inc. By 1975 no less than 86 local Understanding units had been registred, the last one documented, founded in Tonopah, Arizona.

Daniel Fry

In depth research and documentation is still very much lacking regarding the history and development of these organizations. This is probably partly due to the problem of finding archives with easily accessed original documents: newsletters, correspondence, photos etc. At Archives for the Unexplained (AFU) in Norrköping, Sweden we have for many years been working hard trying to salvage organizational archives from around the world, digitizing documents and making them aviable free on the internet. When it comes to Daniel Fry´s organization Understanding we must commend the excellent efforts of Sean Donovan in Canada who has salvaged and preserved the Understanding archive and making much of the data accessible on a websitededicated to Daniel Fry.

Sean Donovan

Based on documents from the Daniel Fry website, Sean Donovan´s excellent Fry biography and data from AFU I have made a small study of Understanding and the life of Daniel Fry. In every issue of Understanding magazine is to be found a department called Bulletin Board with news of Understanding units but also information on lectures, conferences social gatherings etc.by various ”Spacecraft Clubs”. By studying every issue of Understanding magazine I have been able to compile some statistical data that may be of interest. These figures should not be regarded as exact. Understanding magazine never mentioned when units had folded and sometimes units were given the same number.

Between 1955 and 1975 altogether 86 Understanding units were registrered in the Bulletin Board. A unit could be formed if there were five members. The organization was to a large extent California-based. Unit locations in the U.S. states: California (48), Oregon (7), Arizona (4), New, York, Oklahoma, Washington (3), Florida, Michigan, Wisconsin (2), Nevada, Maryland, Minnesota, Montana, New Jersey, North Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Dakota (1). There were also three units in Canada and one in Nigeria. In 1963 Understanding Sweden Unit no 1 was founded by Sven-Erik and Ing-Marie Asklund. The unit had some twenty members and during 1963-64 gathered at the Asklund home at Bandhagen, a suburb of Stockholm. The unit was discontinued in December 1964.

Daniel Fry in Sweden 1970

Usually between one and four new units were founded every year between 1955-1975. Understanding had its peak activity years in the beginning of the 1960s. In 1960 there were 24 new units registrered, 1962 eight new units and in 1965 ten new units. Directors were named Presidents and represented people from all walks of life, some with a Dr. attached to the name. Of Presidents mentioned in the Bulletin Board 70 were men and 55 women. In May 1963 a unit was formed at Stanford University, California by J. Lynn Mason. Generally members were people involved with various metaphysical, theosophical and UFO contactee groups.

Several of the local Understanding units initiated an impressive amount of activities, lectures and social gatherings. Lecturers were often the well known UFO contactees of the period such as George Adamski, Orfeo Angelucci, George Van Tassel, Dana Howard, Wayne Aho and of course Daniel Fry. A frequent guest and lecturer at the local units was Riley Crabb, from 1959 director of Borderland Sciences Research Foundation (BSRF). As the entire BSRF archive has been donated to AFU I have been able to study the correspondence between Riley Crabb and several of the local Understanding units in the 1950s and 60s. So far I have scanned 757 letters in the Riley Crabb file often giving interesting background information about Understanding units and activities.

Charlotte Sullivan was founder and first President of Understanding Unit no 6, San Fernando, California

The most extensive documentation of Understanding as an organization has been published by Sean Donovan in his excellent biography Contactee. Was Daniel W. Fry Telling the Truth?, published in 2013. Some 60 pages are devoted to the history of Understanding. Donovan relates the ups and downs, successful endeavors and projects, conflicts and crises during the four decades of organization activities. There are still some unsolved issues regarding the final years of Understanding. The last issue of Understanding magazine was published in September-October 1979 (vol. 24, no 5). But in November 1982 Daniel Fry began publishing a one-page newsletter with its final issue in June 1989. Beginning with the May 1985 issue the newsletter was published by World Understanding, Inc. On March 27, 1985 Daniel Fry had re-incorporated Understanding, Inc. As World Understanding, Inc. And the newsletters were published with this name until the last issue in June 1989. I have not been able to find out whether Understanding, Inc. Or World Understanding, Inc. were ever formally dissolved? Recently I sent a request to California State Archives whether there were any documents indicating that Understanding, Inc. or World Understanding, Inc. had been officially dissolved. According to the reference archivist I corresponded with no such documents were found.

Understanding Unit no 15, Inglewood, California was founded already in 1958 and was a very active local unit. In September 1985 newly elected President Bill Hamilton sent out a leaflet announcing a lecture by Al Synder. In this leaflet is also mentioned that ”In the future, we will be changing the name of the group to the Association for Universal Understandingas we are no longer connected to the now defunct Understanding, Inc.” But as the original organization was still functioning with the new name World Understanding, Inc. why not simply rename the unit World Understanding Unit no 15? Perhaps some of my blog readers in the U.S. can solve this mystery?

Daniel Fry wrote of his contact experiences with the spaceman Alan and the philosophy he received in several books. Essentially it is a message of goodwill and peace: ”… creating a greater degree of understanding between all the peoples of the earth, and of bringing to them some of the understanding of those beings who are not of earth.” (Understanding, vol 1, no 1, Jan. 1956, p. 1). Alan explain that humanity will not survive if we do not succeed in reaching a balance between the physical or material science, the social science and the spiritual science. ”Understanding is the key to survival for your race. There is little value in a treaty, a pact or a guarantee between governments, if understanding is lacking between the people” (Daniel Fry, To Men of Earth. Including The White Sands Incident, p. 115).

There is much of philosophical and spiritual value in the messages given by Alan to Daniel Fry. Words of wisdom and inspiration that became the core teachings presented in the Understanding units. As I have stated many times before I have advanced the theory that behind some of the 1950s contactees was a benevolent group of aliens visitors from somewhere who initiated a cultural and psychological influence test, at a critical moment for our civilisation. Some of the people contacted tried their best to implement the projects and ideas received by the visitors. Others couldn´t stand the psychological strain of the experiences or invented fake stories when the real contacts ended.

Alan´s basic message that understanding is the key to survival for humanity has an immediate appeal but still fails to adress the problem of evil. We may understand the ideas and motives of a Hitler, Stalin or IS leader but we will still be killed or imprisoned if we have a different idea. No amount of understanding will help us in this respect. Only force or power will do the job. Many of the members in the Understanding were mystics, who often fail or refuse to recognize the problem of evil or admit that an individual can be totally evil. Dag Hammarskjöld, 2nd Secretary-General of the United Nations learned this lesson during the Congo-Katanga crisis in 1960-61. His best friend, Bo Beskow, related a conversation he had with Hammarskjöld in 1961 when he asked whether Dag still believed in the good in man, that there is something good in all people? ”That Summer, 1961, Hammarskjöld was very serious in his answer. You know I have concluded something I never thought possible. I have discovered that there really exist completely evil people.” (Documentary, Swedish TV October 29, 2005).

In the last book published by Daniel Fry, When In Cairo, there are indications that Alan was really very aware of the problem of evil. This is a strange, unfinished book by Fry which he claimed was 70% true. It is a sort of spy novel where Alan is the leader of a secret group fighting an evil society in Egypt (The Shukran), trying to find and use hidden technological treasures from the Atlantean civilization: ” We simply must find some way to stop this insane organization before they take over all of Egypt and plunge the nation into a hopeless war of conquest. The three leaders are the most dangerous of egomaniacs, whose ambition has absolutely no limit. If they succeeded in conquering the entire earth. they would immediately set up a huge space program just so they could go to other planets and conquer them too!” (p. 12)

Another fundamental idea presented by Alan is the necessity of balance between physical, material science, social science and spiritual science. In the human being this could be compared with balance between the physical, emotional and intellectual/spiritual part of man. The problem is that humanity on this planet has no generally recognized spiritual science, only various religions and more or less obsolete belief systems. The custodians of the science of the multiverse (Esoteric Science) have only recently made some tests in giving this science to humanity. But mainstream academic scholars will probably not take an interest in esotericism until definite empirical evidence of the etheric worlds and their inhabitants can be presented in the form of photos and films. An elementary outline of The Esoteric Tradition was presented by Daniel Fry in his book The Curve of Development. This is actually an excellent, easy to read, introduction to the science of the multiverse but as usual, unfortunately, mostly introduced in old religious terms.

There are still many unanswered questions regarding the contact experiences of Daniel Fry. Who was actually Alan? Is he or his group still around? Why didn´t such a large organization as Understanding survive the death of Fry in 1992? There were many capable local leaders who could have continued Daniel´s work. Further in-depth research on the history of the Understanding movement could perhaps give more clues to this enigma?

Daniel Fry is one of the most well known of the 1950s contactees. Besides the ride in a saucer on July 4, 1949 he told of several messages received by an inner voice. Not until 1961 did Fry actually meet the spaceman, named Alan, who landed with his spaceship in a secluded area in Merlin, Oregon. Later Fry would help Alan to work covertly as an international businessman while engaged in work for peace. In the cold war era of the 1950s this type of contact claims made some researchers speculate that Soviet spies used space people as a cover to infiltrate the U.S. In 1957 zoologist and Fortean Ivan T. Sanderson said: ”Some of these who tell such stories can´t be dismissed as liars, psychotics or conscious charlatans… So there is a definite possibility that some form a craft have landed here, unknown to the authorities.” There is no indication however that Daniel Fry´s contact Alan was a Soviet spy. But he is definitely an enigma.

In the former blog post I made a brief study of Understanding, the organization founded by Daniel Fry in 1955. There are still some unanswered questions regarding when Understanding was dissolved. In October 1978 Dr. Lloyd Sellman was elected President and Daniel Fry President Emeritus. But already in February 1979 Dr. Sellman resigned because of conflicting views on a lawsuit of which Dr. Sellman had not been informed. This conflict also resulted in the resignation of several other long time members. The last issue of Understanding magazine was published in September-October 1979. The organization was now falling apart, even physically because in September 1978 an arsonist had burned down the kitchen and library at the Understanding center in Tonopah, Arizona. They were never rebuilt. As a additional blow Daniel´s wife Florence died in 1980. At the age of 72 Daniel Fry was now a widow with the Understanding organization in ruins.

Many idealists would have given up under such circumstances. But Daniel Fry came back and on August 22, 1981 he married Cleona Castle and they settled in Alamogordo, New Mexico. Together with his new wife Daniel began publishing a small, two or three page, monthly Newsletter in November 1982. It was essentially a sort of editorial comments on world events, politics and the problems of peaceful co-existence between nations. The first part of the Newsletter was written by Daniel and the second part, often poems and Christian themes, written by Cleona. I have read all the Newsletters published between 1982 and 1989 to try to find out what really happened to the organization during its last years.

Daniel Fry in conversation with Swedish ufologist K. Gösta Rehn 1970

There was obviously a deep conflict among the new board members of what was left of Understanding. This was mentioned in the Newsletter for November 1983: ”At the July board meeting, we were very aware of duplicity, (so thick one could cut it with a knife,) of persons appearing as friends. We KNEW there was undermining and plotting, but we said nothing…. Now we know their plot, which was to overthrow Pres. Daniel W. Fry… They planned to run it in their questionable ways. With `friends`like these, who needs enemies?... They are out.”

In the same Newsletter is mentioned that three new Understanding units had been formed, in Puerto Rico and Texas. But there are no names of Presidents nor any address given to the new units. This kind of presentation continues in the Newsletter March 1984 where Daniel inform the readers of new units in New Orleans and Texas: ”As soon as we get to it, they will receive charters, and become full fledged units of Understanding.” But nothing more is heard of these or other units. Understanding as an organization is now in practice run by Daniel and his wife Cleona. He continous lecturing around the country and the couple distribute the pamphlet The Area of Mutual Agreementto politicians and world leaders. On March 27, 1985 Understanding, Inc. is re-incorporated into World Understanding, Inc. But nothing more is said about the fate of the 90+ Understanding units founded since 1955. ”The Sad Time of Parting” is the title for the last issue June 1989. I have not been able to determine whether World Understanding, Inc. was officially dissolved as a corporation.

Daniel Fry claimed that all this activity and work for world peace and understanding was inspired by the spaceman named Alan. What I find somewhat puzzling is the scarcity of information about this man. Very few ufologists, journalists or even members of Understanding seems to have been interested in finding out more about this individual and his activities on earth. Daniel himself gives very little information, often just clues and hints of the covert work he does together with Alan.

In April 1954 Daniel was contacted several times by inner voice. He had been given much information and Alan now wanted to know whether Daniel would accept the offer to help his group with their projects on earth. Alan made it clear that it would be almost a mission impossible: "The time has come when you must make the final decision as to whether you will be that person. It is a free choice on your part and there is no penalty for refusal. If you do not wish to assist us, you will be permitted to return to your quarters at once. All memory of this meeting and the previous one will be erased from your mind but everything else will be the same. You will be no worse off than before we came. If, on the other hand, you do decide to assist us, you may find yourself in a situation that is not easy to endure. You will have thankless tasks and seemingly profitless investments of time, effort and money. Your reputation will probably suffer, at least in the beginning and you may find yourself much worse off than before. The only reward we can promise you is the inward satisfaction of having assisted in the survival of your race and the acquisition of considerable knowledge and understanding that you would not otherwise be able to gain." (Daniel Fry, To Men of Earth, p. 88).

Why it would be necessary to erase Daniel´s memory of his contacts if he didn´t accept the offer is not explained. But Daniel did accept and he made his first public appearance on April 4, 1954 at the Giant Rock Spacecraft Convention organized by George Van Tassel. On September 18, 1954 Alan helped Daniel to get a picture of one of their spacecraft. He told of this episode in a letter to Dorris Andre (later Dorris Van Tassel). She was a secret or silent contactee who helped other individuals who had been contacted as a sort of booking agent and also healer.

”I have some interesting pictures, or rather seven different views of an interesting object. I took them two weeks ago Saturday near Balwin Park. I had started to drive out to the little shop in Balwin Park where I work on instruments in my `spare´ time. Midway down Garvey Blvd., I was told that if I would get a camera and film, I would get some pictures… I loaded the camera, in the car, and twenty minutes later I had the pictures. The craft is shaped somewhat like G.A.´s but not so streamlined. I will send you a copy but please don´t show it around too much, as I don´t know yet, just what I am supposed to do with it.” (Letter from Daniel Fry to Dorris Andre, October 13, 1954). Daniel mention seven photos but to my knowledge only one has been published.

Photo by Daniel Fry, September 18, 1954

Beginning in 1954 Daniel Fry entered a new life cycle as a public and controversial person. Besides founding and operating the Understanding organization there were endless meetings, lectures, radio- and TV appearances. But it was not until 1961 that Daniel met Alan in person. This encounter was never described by Daniel in his books. The first public mention I have found is from journalist Cleve Twitchell´s article A Conversation With Daniel W. Fry, Scientist Living in Merlin, published in Medford Mail Tribune, January 6, 1963: “In the first part of 1961, Fry said he went up to his cabin in the Merlin area “on an impulse” and met A-Lan face-to-face. The spaceman’s craft was on the ground in a clearing next to the cabin. A-Lan was an ordinary looking person wearing casual clothes, Fry reported. After a conversation of about 20 minutes the visitor got back in his craft and took off. Fry hasn’t said a great deal about the contents of that 20-minute conversation with A-Lan, but from that point on he began making frequent trips to Merlin.” Cleve Twitchell was a good friend of Daniel Fry and President of Understanding Unit no. 1 in El Monte, California 1960-1961. He later wrote The UFO Saga (1966), a 94-page book about the 1950s contactees.

There has never been a description of the craft Alan travelled in when he landed in Merlin and very few details mentioned about Alan himself. When Daniel Fry visited Sweden in 1970 the journalists did ask some relevant questions and were told that ”Alan is a middle-aged gentleman with an appearance that does not disclose his origin. But if a doctor examined him he would probably make some shocking discoveries.” (Helsingborgs Dagblad, Sept. 9, 1970).

Some further details were presented by journalist Ingmar Kommonen in an article September 17, 1970. Fry was asked to describe Alan: ”He is about my height with light brown hair. He looks like us, has blue eyes but is not as fat as I am. You will not notice any difference between Alan and us unless you try to give him a blood transfusion. Our blood types don´t match. He appears to be 45 years, but to him age doesn´t have the same meaning as to us.”

Swedish article published during Fry´s visit to Sweden 1970

As there was no legal way Alan could get a birth certificate, passport and drivers license Daniel helped him in this respect with some special contacts, obviously pre-arranged by Alan. (To Men of Earth, p. 100). Daniel Fry must have been involved in several secret activities and projects with Alan, who found work at an import/export company and in this way could travel all over the world. In his Fry biography Sean Donovan relates this episode:

”In a 1983 trip to Puerto Rico, Daniel stated that Alan had lived and worked in Cairo, which might explain why Fry and his future common-law wife, Tahahlita took a rather impromptu and mysterious trip to Cairo in 1965:

Many people have wondered why your editor and his wife should suddenly take off for Europé with almost no advance notice, and then, after a few days, with no notice at all, to depart from London, bound for Egypt, Jordan, Greece, etc. What were we looking for in Cairo, Sakkara, Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Athens, Rome or Paris? The answer to these questions cannot as yet be given in full, not because the answer is a secret from our readers, but because we ourselves do not as yet comprehend the full significance of the trip or why it was necessary to do the things we did. We only know that the trip was urgent, and that the tasks were accomplished” (p. 152). The last time Alan is mentioned in Understanding magazine is 1978: ”There has been a brief message from Alan this Summer. He beamed in one evening at the Fry residence and stated that he might possibly see us in Japan. (He didn´t say we would see him).” (Vol 23, no 6, July-Aug. 1978, p. 24).

Given that Daniel Fry told the truth, who was Alan and the group he was working with? Some of his activities could as well be associated with an emissary from some of the esoteric lodges on earth, especially is this evident in Fry´s last book When In Cairo. Whatever his origin the work he implemented became an inspiration for thousands of people. A message of goodwill, peace and understanding: ”We have expended considerable time and patience in the effort to light a few candles among the many nations of your planet.” (To Men of Earth, p. 95).

”I have discovered that the abracadabra of the Myster Schools is distasteful to many people who have been brought face to face with metaphysics by their interest in the Saucer phenomenon. This means that the old material, the Ancient Wisdom, is going to have to be rewritten for them, dressed up in modern, Space Age, terminology, before they' ll study it; and this is a normal, healthy thing.” (The Sky People, Round Robin, vol. 17, no 1, Jan-Feb 1961, p 22).

Riley Crabb

This is a very perceptive insight reached by Riley Crabb, director of Borderland Sciences Research Foundation (BSRF) 1959-1985. He had for many years been applying Esotericism as a worldview or paradigm in studying and evaluating UFO and paranormal phenomena. Lecturing and writing on these issues he learned the hard way that the critical scientist and investigator usually have scant interest in delving into the `abracadabra` of esotericism, mainly because it is presented in such a way that intellectuals find it meaningless and the terminology obscure. As I try to follow in the footsteps of Desmond Leslie, Meade Layne and Riley Crabb in using esotericism as a working hypothesis in my research I fully understand the dilemma facing any investigator delving into these problems.

My old friend and AFU colleague Anders Liljegren, who is a no-nonsense, practical, down-to-earth realist use to, in a good-natured spirit, now and then make some ironic comments about my ”curious” views and studies. Anders has my full sympathy in this respect. Why should any scientist or serious researcher bother to investigate claims and experiences in the occult underground community with hundreds of cults and metaphysical teachers? Especially since so few of these claims can be empirically verified. Many are those who have searched for the needle in the haystack (Philosopher´s Stone) among ”spiritual” gurus but ended up with an even bigger haystack and no needle.

Those heretical scientists who enter the world of Forbidden Science sooner or later discover that the mainstream materialist-reductionist paradigm or worldview is untenable when faced with UFO and paranormal phenomena. Investigators with a scholarly mind realize the implications of this fact is that we live in a multiverse. From a strictly empirical and philosophical standpoint it is also reasonable to conclude that this multiverse can be studied and understood in rational and scientific terms instead of being presented as some mystical mumbo-jumbo. Hence there is or should exist a Science of the Multiverse, as exact as any academic discipline. As we are obviously not alone in this universe, or even on this planet, is there any evidence that there exist ”something better than man”, scientists of this multiverse or custodians of knowledge so far not discovered by mainstream science? That this is a fact, sooner or later verified by official science, is the position maintained by The Esoteric Tradition or The Ancient Wisdom.

The serious and critical investigator who has arrived at this conclusion face the tricky problem of deciding what in the metaphysical haystack could be regarded as a real Science of the Multiverse, presented in such a way that it could be used as a working hypothesis. Here I can only answer that the worldview formulated by a.o. Helena Blavatsky, Alice Bailey and Henry T. Laurency are in my estimation the intellectually most interesting and profound presentations of what is called The Esoteric Tradition. A Science of the Multiverse to be considered as a theory or paradigm when investigating UFO and paranormal phenomena.

Even in the presentations of esotericism by Blavatsky, Bailey and Laurency we still have the problem of terminology. Often religious terms are used which give the reader wrong associations when, as Riley Crabb mention ”Space Age” terminology could be used instead. The Swedish esotericist Henry T. Laurency has made commendable efforts to introduce new words instead of the often meaningless or obsolete terms in the older Theosophical literature. To the philosophically and scientifically educated scholars the greatest stumbling block in accepting esotericism as a working hypothesis is the lack of empirical evidence for much of what is presented as facts in esotericism. In the books by Laurency and Bailey we are constantly reminded to refrain from simple belief when it comes to facts presented by the planetary guardians. Not to make a new dogmatic sect based on the data given, but keeping an open mind and using the information as a working hypothesis. “Belief is the enemy” wrote Fortean journalist John A. Keel. With this attitude the critical and scientific scholar can accept the esoteric worldview and still keep his or her intellectual integrity.

Alice Bailey

When more of the multiverse can be scientifically studied and verified by experiment we can expect a real renaissance of interest in the Esoteric Tradition. Until then I hope that erudite esotericists will be able to give more up to date presentations using known facts and terminology better suited to our time and age. What is still lacking in esotericism is a basic study aimed at the scientifical community giving as much empirical data as possible in support of the esoteric worldview. The intellectual and cultural elite will probably not pay much attention to esotericism until we have a breakthrough in our knowledge of the multiverse. A fascinating prophecy in esotericism is that a revolutionary discovery is awaiting mankind that will force many advanced scientists and scholars to consider esotericism as a reasonable theory, paradigm or working hypothesis. This paradigm shift will be ushered in by science when the next or etheric worlds around us can be photographed and filmed.

A very delicate problem facing the ancient and hitherto hidden organization who are custodians of the Science of the Multiverse is how to accomplish disclosure of their existence and knowledge without causing cultural and political chaos. This issue is freely discussed in the Theosophical classic The Mahatma Letters to A.P. Sinnett and the books by Alice Bailey. One of the problems is how to handle the many ridiculous and naive presentations of its members as ”ascended Masters” etc.

According to esoteric history it was during a meeting 1775 when two members of the Planetary Guardians received permission to implement an experiment in disclosing to humanity part of the Science of the Multiverse and the existence of the secret brotherhood of our planet. What happened at the meeting is described by Swedish esotericist Henry T. Laurency: ”All the other members of the planetary hierarchy voted against the proposal, since they considered that too few people had attained the necessary stage of mental development for the undertaking to have any prospect of success. The emotional illusions of the prevailing religions and the mental fictions of philosophy were so remote from the right conception of reality that any attempt to communicate superphysical knowledge to the so-called educated either would be rejected out of hand or would give rise to new imaginative excesses. They considered that one ought to wait until at least those furthest developed had acquired physical etheric objective consciousness. Then they would see the fictitiousness of the prevailing idiologies and prove readier to examine, at least, the reality content of the esoteric mental system.” (Henry T. Laurency, The Knowledge of Reality, digital edition 3.1.25).

The two members of the brotherhood, named M. and K.H. who were allowed to try the experiment found the Russian woman Helena Blavatsky and after special training she did her best with the mission impossible to be the first emissary from the Planetary Guardians. The result was the Theosophical Society, founded in New York 1875. Although the cultural impact of Theosophy was impressive the experiment was regarded as more or less a failure. In a letter to A. P. Sinnett February 1882 M. wrote: ”One or two of us hoped that the world had so far advanced intellectually, if not intuitionally, that the Occult doctrine might gain an intellectual acceptance, and the impulse given for a new cycle of occult research. Others – wiser as it would now seem – held differently, but consent was given for the trial.” (The Mahatma Letters to A.P. Sinnett, Letter no 44, p. 259).

The disclosure by Blavatsky that there existed a hidden organization of Planetary Guardians naturally resulted in much speculation and an almost romantic glamour among members of the Theosophical Society. Everybody wanted to meet these adepts and many spurious claims were made by various mystics who believed they were in communication with ”The Masters”. The brotherhood members were critized for there secrecy for which they delivered this answer: ”In common with many you blame us for our great secrecy. Yet we know something of human nature, for the experience of long centuries – aye, ages, has taught us. And we know, that so long as science has anything to learn, and a shadow of religious dogmatism lingers in the heart of the multitudes, the world´s prejudices have to be conquered step by step, not by a rush.” (The Mahatma Letters to A.P. Sinnett, Letter no 1, Oct. 15, 1880, p. 3).

”… we do not wish Mr. Hume or you to prove conclusively to the public that we really exist. Please realize the fact that so long as men doubt there will be curiosity and enquiry, and that enquiry stimulates reflection which begets effort; but le tour secret be once thoroughly vulgarized and not only will sceptical society derive no great good bu tour privacy would be constantly endangered and have to be continually guarded at an unreasonable cost of power.” (The Mahatma Letters to A.P. Sinnett, Letter no 29, p. 224).

We can expect further psychological and cultural tests from the brotherhood in reaching and influencing humanity. Some of the UFO contacts made in the 1950s were probably such a test, made in co-operation with a benevolent groups of extraterrestrials. In several blog posts I have made a study of the contactees involved in this experiment. Regarding these type of tests K.H. made a comment in an early letter: ”… we cannot consent to over-flood the world at the risk of drowning them, with a doctrine that has to be cautiously given out, and bit by bit like a too powerful tonic which can kill as well as cure…” (The Mahatma Letters to A.P. Sinnett, Letter no 34, p. 242).

Compare the above letter with this statement from Connie Menger, wife of American UFO contactee Howard Menger: "Let us assume that there is on this planet a group of scientifically minded and spiritually dedicated men and women who are working to accomplish this great task. And, let us further assume that they have already established contacts with equally dedicated people of other planets. To continue their work and remain effective, they must of necessity remain behind the scenes. However, they can, in the interest of humanity in general, send out hints as to what will take place in the near future. Perhaps they send out scouts to make personal contacts for the specific reason of determining the reactions of every-day people. Perhaps it is done as a "smoke screen" to temporarily keep secret the real work which is going on until such time that the people are prepared to meet this new era with many changes it will bring...Then there are the personal contact stories, some of which are authentic, and which have been established for study purposes and for keeping alive a story which must eventually be brought before all people. If given in small doses, the general acceptance will be made over a period of time, and will take place almost naturally." (Howard Menger, From Outer Space to You, p. 7).

For the critical investigator to accept the esoteric worldview as a paradigm and working hypothesis most scholars would probably need some form of empirical data indicating a multiverse. To me the empirical evidence became obvious by investigating UFO and paranormal phenomena. But of course a bridge to esotericism could be found by researching a number of borderland phenomena: healing, out-of-body experiences, remote viewing, materializations etc. In my many blog entries I have tried to show that accepting esotericism as a working hypothesis does not imply irrationalism or a loss of intellectual integrity. UFO researchers such as Jacques Vallee and Allen Hynek have entertained similar ideas. The UFO community have much to learn by a study of the Esoteric Tradition. I predict many heureka moments for those heretical ufologists who wish to follow this path in UFO research.

Much of my daily activity this last year has been reviewing and organizing the voluminous Borderland Sciences Research Foundation(BSRF) archive, donated to AFU in two large shipments in 2016 and 2018. The major part of the archive has now been organized in alphabetical folders: name, organization, subject. I also try to scan as much as possible of various documents, letters and photographs. As I corresponded with Riley Crabb 1979-1985 the archive relating to his work has been first priority. He was director of BSRF from 1959 until 1985 and his correspondence file is very extensive.

Your blog writer in front of the BSRF archive at AFU, September 19, 2017

In an earlier blog post this year I made a brief study of the letters my AFU colleague Anders Liljegren and I had found in the boxes. But this proved to be only part of the collection. Recently Anders discovered serveral old folders with letters from the 1950s and 60s. I have now scanned the complete Riley Crabb correspondence file comprising of no less than 943 letters written between 1952-1993. This collection gives a unique insight into the personal life of esotericist and ufologist Riley Crabb but also the inside story of the pioneering work of Borderland Sciences Research Foundation. It is obvious though that the correspondence that has been preserved is only a fraction of the original collection. This becomes evident when comparing the amount of letters from different years. There are 214 letters in the 1958 folder but only 21 in the 1964 folder. Reference is often given to letters missing and my own correspondence is not to be found. Perhaps some of the missing letters was kept in the personal Riley Crabb archive which his third wife Phyllis Hall consigned to the municipal dump after his death in 1994?

To give some glimpses of the life, ideas and work of Riley Crabb I have chosen to comment on a few excerpts from various letters. This first study comprise quotes from letters written 1953-1958. One of Riley´s lifelong interests was the Shakespeare-Bacon controversy, the question of who actually wrote the Shakespeare plays? In 1953, during his Hawaii years, he wrote a very critical letter to the editor of the Honolulu Advertiser: ”In vain have I searched two recent columns on your editorial pages on the Shakepeare-Bacon heresy for any solid rebuttal to my forthright statement that Francis Bacon wrote the plays which carry the by-line William Shakespeare… A lawyer wrote the plays. Bacon was a lawyer. A poet wrote the plays. Bacon was a poet. A philosopher wrote the plays. Bacon was a philosopher. An educated man with a working vocabulary of over 15,000 words wrote the plays. Bacon, by the standars of his day, was one of the best educated men in England. But the actor, William Shakespeare, had none of the above qualifications; and if your editorialist, along with all other academic troglodytes, insists the the illiterate money-lender did write the plays, he is placing himself in an indefensible position.” (Letter to the Honolulu Advertiser, March 9, 1953).

Riley Crabb during a TV show in Honolulu in the 1950s

The Shakespeare-Bacon controversy was one of the first problems in esotericism that occupied the young Riley. Later he would become a member of the The Francis Bacon Society in London and wrote the booklet Young Francis Bacon. He also lectured on this subject and continued research all his life as indicated by a letter to the Minneapolis Public Library1958: ”A former fellow-worker of yours, Mrs. Irene Buckley, librarian at the Marine Corps Supply Center here has suggested that I take one of my reference problems to you, seeing that it was reading material from the shelves of the Main Library which got me interested in one of my favourite studies, the Bacon-Shakespeare controversy. It is possible that he book or books whose title and author I hope you can find for me are long gone from the shelves, as my studies of Elizabeth and her times occurred in 1937 and 1938.” (Letter to Miss Martina Brown, Minneapolis Public Library, May 3, 1958).

In August 1957 Riley Crabb and his wife Judy left Hawaii and settled in California. This meant new job opportunities, new aquaintances and another direction in Riley´s research and study of UFOs and esotericism: ”So here Mrs. Crabb and I are on the mainland, me with questions in my mind to which I hope to find answers here in the peace and quite of the desert. One of these questions is whether I should try to give active leadership in theosophy again. Fortunately that doesn´t have to be answered here and now. By the time I´ve evaluated the work of the past three years in the Islands, and built a new base of the ashes of the remains, I´ll probably know.” (Letter to Harold and Dorothe Ross, November 18, 1957).

During the Hawaii years Riley had been President of the Honolulu Lodge of the Theosophical Society 1954-1957 and founder of the UFO research society Akualele Research Group in 1956. But he was not happy with Theosophical lodge work and questioned the activity in a letter to his friend Harold Ross: ”I had a chance to get my hands on a copy of the Mahatma Letters while in San Diego and what a revelation on lodge work. About the London Lodge, Koot Hoomi said then it would eventually fall into `quietism´. A fate that threatens every religious and philosophical group once its revolutionary leader is gone. When I consider the collection of conservative fuddy duddys and metaphysical dabblers I had to work with in Honolulu, after three years of being a lodge president, I wonder if it is worthwhile to become active again.” (Letter to Harold Ross, October 18, 1957).

Riley Crabb was looking for a new and more up to date way to present the esoteric tradition. He was too much of the critical researcher and practical idealist to stay in the old type of theosophical lodge work. In California a new door opened in connection with a new cultural phenomenon - the UFO contact movement. Riley described the California situation to Gray Barker: ”Outside brief visits with Dan Fry, George Adamski and George Van Tassel – whose Giant Rock home is only 60 miles from me – I´ve done very little about Saucers up until now. However, several of the Saucer groups in the Bay area have asked for some talks next weekend. So, it´s a TV appearance and lecture in Sacramento Friday night, San Francisco Saturday afternoon, Oakland Saturday night, and San Jose Sunday afternoon. Sounds like a rat race but I believe Judy and I will enjoy the trip. These California enthusiasts seem hungry for the metaphysical side of the saucer phenomenon and that´s what they´ll get.” (Letter to Gray Barker, Mrch 8, 1958).

As an accomplished and well-informed esotericist Riley Crabb also noted the problems with the new UFO contact movement. Discernment and critical analysis wasn´t exactly the hall mark of the members of this underground movement. Riley had become a member of Borderland Sciences Research Foundation already in 1951 and he described the problem to Meade Layne: ” ”If I attend Van Tassel´s Space Convention May 31st and he invites me to get up and say a few words, I think I´ll repeat pretty much what´s in the Committee letter. At least it´ll be a down-to-earth contrast to the flumduddery and the psychic racketeers that flock there. Even Van Tassel is getting fed up with them; only he calls them `fanatics´. Says he´s going to try to control them this year, but he hasn´t said how.” (Letter to Meade Layne, April 26, 1958).

In spite of the psychic racketeers and naive mystics among the UFO contactees Riley realized that behind this new movement was also a real attempt by ”superior beings” who tried to inspire a worldwide movement of goodwill and peace. Daniel Fry´s organization Understanding is a good example. As to who were behind this project Riley may have noted the information coming from the Inner Circle through deep trance medium Mark Probert: ”There is a certain secret work going on at present between the Etherians and certain high earth authorities (You understand, I suppose, that I do not use the word ”high” in the usual sense. I am referring to those belonging to some of the secret Lodges on Earth).” (Seance Memoranda From the Inner Circle, Novembner 28, 1951, p. 30).

Mark Probert

Riley Crabb expressed this idea in a letter to Fred Church: ”… the number of Flying Saucer research groups burgeoning forth here in Southern California is amazing. The demand for lecturers is constant… It is actually building up into a world-wide fellowship, loosely organized if at all, but with a common interest in outer space and the arrival of superior beings from elsewhere, interested in our welfare. These widely scattered groups may eventually blend with the New Group of World Servers. This latter movement seems to have been stimulated by Alice Bailey and the Master who is her Teacher. The effort now is for a world-wide fellowship, at the mental level, of men and women of good will everywhere. If there is any hope for our civilization and the planet I believe this is it.” (Letter to Fred Church, November 24, 1958).

1959 would prove to be a decisive year for Riley Crabb. Meade Layne´s health was declining and he asked Riley to become the new director of Borderland Sciences Researh Foundation including editor of Round Robin. The Journal of Borderland Research. How this new life was reflected in the correspondence I will present in a later blog post.

”I don´t think I have ever seen so much UFO material in one place – and so well-organized as well.” Hilary Evans in the AFU Guest Book, October 7, 1996.

Hilary Evans visiting AFU, October 7, 1996

One of the most extensive collections of unique books and magazines ever donated to AFU arrived at our premises in Norrköping, Sweden on December 13, 2010. We were celebrating our annual festivity on Saint Lucy´s Day with coffee, mulled wine and gingerbread when a truckdriver from Schenker called and said he was waiting for us to unload some pallets. The AFU staff put on their Winter clothes and walked up to the lorry and were met with a sight the like we have never encountered before. In the snow stood eleven pallets with 235 large and heavy boxes. Luckily we were ten AFU people who helped carrying these boxes. But it was a tough job in the snow and icy stairs down to our basement premises.

Unloading the Evans collection, December 13, 2010

Håkan Landin working hard in the snow

Sven-Olov Svensson carrying a heavy box filled with books and magazines

The boxes contained more than 9.000 books and thousands of rare magazines from all over the world. This superb collection was donated by Hilary and Mary Evans from London. We are honoured och proud that AFU was chosen as the custodian of this immensely valuable collection, covering subjects like UFO, Forteana, folklore, parapsychology, paranormal phenomena, ancient mysteries, mysticism, Esoterica and a host of other subjects. Mary Evans died in 2010 and Hilary in 2011 but I hope that from their celestial spheres they are satisfied with our work to preserve this important heritage, now housed in the Evans Library at AFU. For a more detailed presentation of our work together with the Evans couple read AFU chairman Clas Svahn´s inspiring obituary written on the day of Hilary Evans´ death July 27, 2011.

The Evans Library at AFU

When Hilary Evans visited AFU on October 7, 1996 my colleague Anders Liljegren and I made an interview that was only published in UFO-Sweden´s magazine UFO-Aktuellt, no 3, 1997, and only in an abbreviated version. But so far this interview has never been published in English. I wish to share a transcription of the complete interview as today it is of historical interest. Hilary Evans was a skeptic regarding UFO phenomena, advocating the Psycho-Social Hypothesis, but he represented skepticism at its best, open-minded and positive towards all kinds of research.

Interviewing Hilary Evans at AFU, October 7, 1996

Håkan Blomqvist (HB): Could you start by telling something about yourself, your background, history?

Hilary Evans (HE): Well, the most important thing about me from the point of view of ufology is that I am not really a ufologist. I come from a background of paranormal phenomena in general. I was a member of the council of the Society for Psychical Research and I resigned because I was to busy. Basically my interest is in all kinds of phenomena and it was only then I discovered that UFOs were a very special kind. The reason why they are special is that everybody are so interested in them and because of that there are many conferences, many publications. The witnesses to UFO phenomena are more accessible than witnesses to other kinds of phenomena such as ghosts, apparitions. It is not easy to find somebody who has seen the Virgin Mary, but I have in fact met a friend of mine who saw the Virgin Mary many times, but that was very unusual. But to find somebody who has been taken aboard an alien spacecraft is not difficult at all. They are only too happy to come and tell you about their experiences.

HB: Ok, let´s go back again. When were you born, what year?

HE: A very long time ago 1929. I see you want basic facts.

HB: Yes, I´m very fact oriented.

HE: Good, ok I was born on the 6th of March 1929. I went to Cambridge University where I studied Literature. I did my military service in the Palestine police and after the university I took a job in advertising, in publicity and others, my occupation for 15 years I suppose. Then we started the Picture Library at the same time as I was working in publicity. Little by little the Picture Library took over my house and now it´s my full time job. I still think of myself as a writer first and a librarian second. But in fact the librarian part of my life takes up 90 percent and that leaves me very little time for writing. I would like to make a change in that but I can´t. I don´t have the time.

HB: What started your interest in the first place?

HE: Oh, I can tell you that very easily. When I was, I suppose, fifteen or sixteen I was sent to take an examination in another town, to Cambridge. I went away from school to Cambridge and I had to stay in the college while I took the scholarship examination. It was the first time I had been on my own, a young boy, and they gave me some money to spend for my expenses. And I was the kind of boys if you had some money you spend it on books. Immediately I was given this money I went to one of the big bookshops in Cambridge and bought a lot of books. I bought books on all kinds of things, the history of education, history of the symphony. One of the books I bought was about the paranormal.

HB: Do you remember what book it was?

HE: Yes, it was the Personality of Man by G.N.M. Tyrrell. It was published by Penguin Books, a paperback. And for the first time I heard about this extraordinary world of anomalous events. My parents hadn´t told me about it, my teachers hadn´t told me about it. Nobody had told me about it, that there exists telepathy and ESP and psychic phenomena and things like that.

HB: Nothing in the background?

HE: You have to remember I am talking about a very long time ago. Today you see we all take these things for granted. I will tell you something that illustrates this very well. In this new book that I am proposing, that you are going to contribute to, Dennis is going to write the introduction and I am going to write the epilogue. He will present some kind of history of the phenomenon and I going to try to make sense of it from a sociological point of view. And I started thinking about this and it suddenly occurred to me that, one thing I will say is, most of the people who read this book will not be able to remember a time when there not was such thing as a flying saucer. You two are young enough. Probably you never remember a time when nobody had heard of flying saucers. But in fact there was such a time and it wasn´t all that long ago. It was fifty years, when these things were created in a sense in the imagination as a phenomenon you could write books about.

HB: You started becoming interested in paranormal phenomena?

HE: Yes I was interested in paranormal phenomena but most of the time I was to busy at work that I could take any active part. Then in the 1960s I suppose I said, now this is ridicolous if I wait until I have enough time I will waite forever because I will never have enough time. That is when I joined the SPR and started playing a more active part. I was very shy about involving myself becasue I thought I know nothing about it. Here are people who are scientists and doctors and psychologists. They know all these things. I don´t know anything. In the beginning I was very diffident. Until after a bit I realized that in fact they don´t know anything either.

Anders Liljegren and Hilary Evans, October 7, 1996

Anders Liljegren (AL): You haven´t experienced anything yourself?

HE: No, but I´m convinced that things like precognition and telepathy occur. Because I´ve had a little examples of that myself. But I´ve never seen an apparition. I´ve seen things in the sky I can´t explain but I don´t think I´ve seen an extraterrestrial spacecraft.

HB: You said you started being active in SPR and psychic research?

HE: I was a member of that and I realized that flying saucers in all their various aspects presented a very special case of paranormal phenomena because they were accessible.

HB: But you still regard them as paranormal phenomena?

HE: Yes, in a sense, but my definition of paranormal is not supernatural. It´s many things we can´t explain. So its beyond normal. It´s something outside the consensus terms. But it doesn´t mean to say that it is a mystical explanation. I´m not a materialist either but I wouldn´t say that any of these things is outside science. I think that science will find a explanation for telepathy and (inaudible). I´m convinced they occur and am convinced scientists are being stupid. Take spontaneous combustion for instance. I am one hundred percent convinced that spontaneous combustion takes place in spite of what the Skeptical Enquirer or whatever is saying. Because I think the evidence is so strong. I think that science is very much at fault to deny such a things becuase it is a phenomenon that actually occurs, like the crop circles takes place, whether they are hoaxes or they are real is another matter. They occur and to deny that they occur is ridiculous.
In the end of the 1970s there was announced a conference in Salzburg, I think it was 1979, organized by some Italian people. It was on the subject of encounters and abductions and I thought this really is interesting. You may laugh, but I very nervously wrote to the Italians who were organizing it saying I would be very interested to attend and hoped I could present some views of my own. At that point all I had been to was one or two congresses but just a member of the audiences listening. I was trying to make up my mind. I felt very flattered, he said yes we would be very glad to hear what you have to say. I went along and it wasn´t a big public thing, all by invitation just in a hotel outside Salzburg and I suppose there were a maximum of thirty people all sitting around a table. It wasn´t a hall with rows. It was more like a big conversation. Alwin Lawson was there and that was the beginning of my friendship with him and one or two people from France. I decided to go by car from England to Salzburg so I drove through France to meet some French ufologists. And that´s when I met with (inaudible), Jacques Scournaux, Claude Maugé and that crowd, all very skeptical. That was the time of the Cergy-Pontoise case and one of the people there was Michelle Piccin. He was investigating this case. It was very interesting what he had to say. So I met all these very interesting, very skeptical people and then I went to Salzburg and met people like Alwin Lawson whose theories are very interesting. He told us about the imagery abductee experiments that he had done. And I realized that there was in ufology a kind of a, not exactly a secret college, Invisible College, but something like that. There were a number of people like myself who were on the whole very skeptical, but at the same time who believed that there were some very genuine questions which needed to be answered. So I identified myself very much with this group of people and as a result it gradually extended to that I have friends and acquaintances, people I´ve never met but who I corresponded with over the years and gradually built up a sort network and I think it is the same for all of us. . We are not ufologists in the classic American sense but we form a kind of Invisible College of people who are not concerned with selling books or making money. We are concerned with establishing the truth. I don´t write books to make money. The amount of money I get is nothing. I like books in order to express myself so that people can read me and they can disagree with me or agree with me.

This is the second part of the interview Anders Liljegren and I did with Hilary Evans at AFU on October 7, 1996. In the former blog post I promised that this would be a transcription of the complete interview. What I didn´t realize at that time was that the interview takes more than one and a half hours. This would involve an inordinate amonut of time to transcribe so I decided to select those questions and answers I found most interesting.

Hilary Evans at AFU, October 7, 1996

Håkan Blomqvist (HB): Did you start your own investigations of cases?

Hilary Evans (HE): I´ve done very little, chiefly as you know yourselves, investigation takes a very great deal of time and if it one thing I do not have it is time. The Picture Library need all the time I can give it.

HB: But you have done some field investigation?

HE: Well the most interesting for me was going done to West Wales. In 1978-79 there was a big flap in lots of places in West Wales. Peter Brookesmith editor of the publication The Unexplained invited me to go down there to investigate. I went and talked to all the people. The very first evening I arrived I drove to the first sight where a school was and the children had seen a UFO outside the school in midday. They went out to play when they saw this flying saucer in a field. And I saw something which was completely unexpected. Behind the school there was indeed a field but it was not a flat field, it was a field surrounded by a valley and on the top of the valley were houses. All around there are houses. There are people in the houses and people look out the window but nobody sees this flying saucer which was there from twelve o´clock to four o´clock. Four hours and nobody saw it. This is not mentioned in the books so right from the beginning I was skeptical. For three days I carried out my investigations, meeting people talking to witnesses. Almost everything I found out was totally negative. There was a farm where very strange things took place and I went along to the farm. Two chief witnesses had gone away by this time, they had left but some lived in a little cottage and those people were still there. I talked to them and nobody had asked them any questions, which is incredible. I was the first person who had asked these people about the strange things that had happened and they said nonsense, absolut rubbish. If you read the book by Pugh and Holiday, (The Dyfed Enigma), you will find out that all the cows were taken up in the air and put down here, which is a marvelous thing if it is true. They were in a farm yard which was locked, there was a fence. The investigator, Pugh, is a veterinary surgeon. If anybody knows about cows it is a veterinary surgeon and he said there is no way the cows could have gone out of there. But they were always getting out. People was always getting telephone calls from the next door farms saying your cows have come here again so come and get them.

HB: No one had asked the right questions?

HE: They had explanations for all the strange things that had happened to these people. But if you read the Pugh book or the Peter Paget book they all create great mysteries but they all had explanations. Unless you investigate the investigator you will never find this out. Pugh is a vet and you think people in his position are very scientific in their investigations. You expect that from somebody with that qualification. I went to visit him and he was very nice. We spent an afternoon talking and drinking tea, discussing the whole thing. I let him talk and talk and didn´t make any objections. And it was obvious he was mad. He told me that since the investigation he had come to realize that UFOs are crated by the devil. He got all his papers and took them out behind the house and lit a fire. But it wasn´t as simple as that because he made a fire and the smoke comes out and it turns itself into the shape of a devil. Finally there was one case that I thought was very interesting because it was a farmer´s wife and she had seen something in broad daylight. I thought a farmer´s wife is very practical, that´s good, so I phoned her up and said can I come and talk to you. She hesitated a bit and then she said yes, I haven´t thought about it for two years and it would be quite nice to talk to somebody about it again. I went there and she was very nice and she told me a story and it is just her testimony, that is all there is. She seemed to me to be a totally honest peson. She wasn´t trying to sell her story. She said I got up one Saturday morning. It was sunshine, full day and I looked over the field and there was a strange object in the field, on the ground. She said I looked at it for two minutes. It was metal, about 15-20 meters in diameter. She said I must get somebody else and she ran to her son´s bedroom and said you must come and look at this. And typically when they came it was gone.

HB: Did she check the ground?

HE: Yes, and there was no signs of anything. The only thing to support her story was that in this field she keeps a pony and normally first thing in the morning the pony is here because it want´s it´s breakfast. But this day it was right up in the corner. I think she was telling the truth but to be honest I think she was hallucinating, but I can´t prove it. All I can say that is a genuine story. The only positive story I heard. One person´s testimony doesn´t mean anything scientifically but I was impressed. After that I went back to London and telephoned Peter Brookesmith and I said you´re not going like this I have to say, it was almost entirely negative. At this time I was a still a little bit naive I thought that everybody was to believed and Peter Brookesmith said wonderful, that´s what I want because he said I got so many stories coming in of people who believe and I would love to have something which is skeptical so he printed my article about it. That was when I realized that it is absolutely essential to investigate not only the phenomenon but the people involved.

HB: Have you investigated any case where there is not a psychological explanation?

HE: If you´re thinking of a physical phenomenon I have been very intersted in the Hessdalen lights. The three cases I find truly conclusive, not conclusive, wrong word, but I think there is no doubt whatsoever that something is taking place are the three cases where the phenomenon has repeated enough that investigation can be carried out, not of the original story but of the phenomenon itself and that have to be cases where the phenomenon is seen over and over again. One of them is Yakima in Washington state. The second is Project Identification, Harvey Routledge and the third one is the Hessdalen lights. Most of the cases are where you only have what the witness tells you and all you can do is test his story. But in Hessdalen you can actually investigate the phenomenon itself. Those are for me the important cases.

HB: I read in the Jerome Clark Encyclopedia that he criticize you for the psycho-social theory?

HE: He is of course a great enemy of the psycho-social thing but Jerry Clark and I have a very good relationship. He is always criticizing me but he knows now that I don´t mind. Although I say that most of the cases have a psycho-social explanation it doesn´t mean I think there are no UFOs. If by UFO you mean literally an unidentified flying object then yes there are, of course there are. I think there are strange things in the sky which need to be explained and I don´t think a conventional explanation will be enought. It may be purely natural but I am not closing my mind to the possibility of something literally undiscovered by science.

HB: How do you regard close observations by several witnesses of purely metallic craft that look like a totally foreign technology?

HE: If you have several witnesses there is always a problem. This is the kind of thing that makes me say we are still looking for answers in these kind of cases. If I would say who is the best investigator in the world I would say Richard Haines. I have a very great respect for him. A man of great integrity. When he says something I trust it, I believe it.

HB: If you would give an advice to Swedish UFO field investigators what would you say?

HE: The first thing you must have is an open mind. I hope I got that. If the evidence was good that there were aliens from other worlds coming I hope I would be able to accept it. If I have a psycho-social bias that is the conclusion I have come is because of how I read the evidence. It seems to me the evidence suggests a psycho-social explanation. But I am not committed to that and you should never be committed you must be open minded.

HB: What is your opinion on CSICOP, the skeptics organization?

HE: Well, they do some very useful work. I have never met Robert Sheaffer but Philip Klass I know and I like him very much and I think his books are very important. His work is very valuable. What I have against Klass is that he is not open minded. Right from the start he assumes that it´s a fake or a hoax. Most of the time he is right and when it comes to the Travis Walton case I still think it is a hoax, even in spite of everything. I´m open minded but that is my estimate of the case. I would just like Klass to say just once there is a possibility of something else for the Hessdalen lights or Yakima.

HB: He sounds more like a dogmatic than an inquisitive scientist?

HE. That´s the trouble but I don´t altogether blame him because the circumstances in America is if it´s not black it´s white. He´s being forced by the media. If he´d had a stronger personality he would have been able to be like Jacques Vallee – sometimes yes, sometimes no. Phillip Klass is only a journalist and the media needs a bogey man, a big bad wolf. I said to him I´m sure you enjoy being the big bad wolf and he said yes I love it. He´s playing a part. So even if he has privately in bed at night doubts he would never publish it. His position is to be committed.

HB: That is not very scientific?

HE: Not at all. But he isn´t a scientist. He´s a journalist.

HB: But he is the official spokeman for the organization.

HE: This is what I have against CSICOP altogether. I don´t like it. I get the Skeptical Enquirer and often there are very interesting cases but every single article is written from the point of view of someone who knows from the start that it´s not true: spontaneus combustion, the influence of the Moon whatever it is. I know for sure, I have no doubt whatever that the Moon influences behavior. When the Moon is full it will effect peoples behavior. I know it happens to me. I know it happens to our dogs. I´ve seen enough cases. So I know they are wrong. When I find Skeptical Enquirer is wrong on that why can´t they be wrong on other things too.

Hilary and Mary Evans

HB: Could you comment some on the state of ufology in Britain?

HE: It´s terrible. I am not saying that arent´t some good investigators but most of the time they are concentrating on abductions. The only people in ufology now are people with some kind of emotional commitment. John Spenser I am not sure about. Basically he is a writer. He is writing books for money. I think he is honest. But at the same time he is not what I would call a true investigator. I´ve pulled away from the whole thing and so has Paul Fuller. We have no worthwhile investigating organization in Britain. I still have a great respect for Jenny Randles but now she is more or less independent. It could get better if we get a new generation.

HB: What is your own worldview?

HE: From the religious point of view I am an atheist. I think the case for a God is nonexistent. I hate religion. I hope I´m not offending you guys. I wouldn´t call myself a humanist. I´m not an ist of any kind. On the other hand I am convinced there are a great many things that should be … I´m certainly not a materialist. I do believe in the potential of the human mind. I am sure of the street lights effect If it is true that people can make a physical object like a light switch on and off by their mind then we are talking about something which science says is impossible. But we know the mind can influence things. I strongly belive in poltergeists for instance.

HB: But you don´t believe in a spiritual world or other dimension as an explanation for these things?

HE: I am sufficiently open minded not to close my mind to the possibility but I think for the time being we can still find explanations in our science. But I do think that the human mind is still unexplored territory.

One of the most influential books in UFO history is Flying Saucers Have Landed by Desmond Leslie and George Adamski. Published in 1953, it has been referred to as ”the book that was dynamite”. And the dynamite was George Adamski´s report of meeting a spaceman in the California desert on November 20, 1952 and a return visit of the craft December 13. In support of these encounters were several photos and affidavits from six witnesses. Since the 1950s there has been an endless pro-and-con debate regarding the veracity of this first contact claim and the close-up photos taken by Adamski.

One of the researchers convinced of the authenticity of George Adamski´s 1952 contact is Michel Zirger, born in France but since twenty-four years living in Japan. In two former books The Incredible Life of George Hunt Williamson (co-authored with Maurizio Martinelli), 2016, and ”We Are Here!” Visitors Without A Passport, 2017 the author have presented much new data on Adamski and Williamson. Now we have Zirger´s third book, Authenticating the George Adamski Case. The Desert Center Investigation. This is a detailed and extensive study of the empirical evidence indicating that, as the late French ufologist Franck Boitte wrote: ”… there is in the George Adamski saga much more than meets the eye”. Zirger´s book, in a very concrete way, show that this is an actual fact revealed by a digital enhancement and analysis of the Adamski photographs.

George Adamski was, and still is, regarded as a very controversial figure in the UFO community, but his first contact with the spaceman in the California desert is really unusually well documented compared to many other contactee claims. This is one of the reasons why Michel Zirger argues for a second look at this historical event: ”This case of contact of November 20, 1952 – the first case of contact with an entity of human appearance – deserved to be at least reassessed in a dispassionate way. This is what I have humbly tried to do in this book, gathering together the factual elements of information already known since the release of Flying Saucer Have Landedand those I excavated through my research.”

In the first two chapters Michel Zirger presents biographical data of his background and life in France. A passion for books included everything ”from Mallarmé to Adamski”. When the UFO interest began he devoured all the aviable literature in French. The book that made the greatest impact was the French edition of Flying Saucers Have Landed: ”A Magical reading experience I have never gotten tired of. Even today, I still consult this old red and gold Jái Lu edition”. Here I find a kindred spirit. Of all the UFO books I´ve read during my life this classic remains the all time favourite. Desmond Leslie´s pioneering study of UFO phenomena, including George Adamski, in the light of the Esoteric Tradition is a path I have followed in my own, somewhat heretical, research and writings.

Michel Zirger

Except literature there were two other decisive factors in the life of Michel Zirger that finally led to the writing of his books on George Hunt Williamson and George Adamski. As a young boy of thirteen his mother revealed to him that she had, in July 1964, observed a classic flying saucer with a cupola and strongly lit windows, that stopped hovering very close to her, around 45 meters. Of even greater significance was Zirger´s three observations and telepathic contact with ”aliens” in public places not far from central Tokyo. There were witnesses to these encounters, which he described in ”We Are Here!”.

In the remaining sixteen chapters Zirger presents a detailed analysis and documentation of what happened on November 20 and December 13, 1952: witnesses, photographs, original newspaper articles and later comments by Adamski, Williamson and other participants during the early years of the 1950s. A major breakthrough in Zirger´s research was when he became acquainted with Danish photographer and painter Rene Erik Olsen. In 2017 Olsen made digital enhancements of some of the Adamski photographs and discovered amazing details that even Adamski himself was obviously not aware of, showing the large cigar-shaped spacecraft and what appears to be the spaceman himself. Olsen has also published his findings in The George AdamskiStory – Historic Events of Gigantic Implications. If Glenn Steckling, director of the Adamski Foundation, will allow a similar digital enhancement and analysis of at least one of the original negatives and the Olsen findings can be confirmed it could implicate a major revolution in UFO research and a renewed interest in the early 1950s contactees.

In spite of the extensive study made by Michel Zirger there are a few details or mysteries not addressed in the book. When the group had stopped in the desert and observed the cigar-shaped craft, why did Adamski insist on leaving the group and walk alone to a spot around 500 meters from the others? For a group deciding for skywatching in the desert it would be more reasonable to stick together in one place. Could Adamski somehow (telepathically) been informed that a physical contact was planned without mentioning this to his friends?

In letters to Emma Martinelli, written before the 1952 contact, Adamski reveal some very interesting facts regarding his first "science fiction" book Pioneers of Space, published in 1949. "... speaking of visitors from other planets, you see, in the physical I have not contacted any of them, but since you have read Pioneers of Space you can see how I get my information about these people and their homelands." (January 16, 1952). In an earlier letter he wrote: "In this letter I have explained, using illustrations, how one may venture from one place to another, while his physical is one place and he is in another. That is the way I have written this book. I actually have gone to the places I speak of; I actually have talked to the ones I speak of. To you I can reveal this since your letter reveals much, while to others I keep silent about this." (August 16, 1950).

George Adamski

Another very intersting aspect of the 1952 contact not further elaborated in this volume by Zirger are the many low-flying aircraft observed during Adamski´s meeting with the spaceman. He does mention though that ”a strategic bomber and two jets of the U.S. Air Force allegedly over-flew the zone of contact several times during the events” and that George Hunt Williamson later asserted that ”the Air Force did observe the landing from above and took pictures of it.” (p. 59). In his former book ”We Are Here!” (p. 250) Zirger documented a statement by George Adamski during a lecture at Caxton Hall, London on April 28, 1959. About one month after the desert contact a captain in the U.S. Air Force visited Palomar Gardens asking for pictures of the footprints and the plate with the famous writing from another planet, received by Adamski on December 13, 1952. When the Air Force captain returned he had made 10 x 12 enlargements for Adamski. But he also left his business card with the message ”Did you focus your telescope on me?”, implying that he was one of the pilots who had watched the contact from his plane. Adamski always kept this business card i his wallet.

There is a confirmation of this claim made by contactee George Van Tassel in his publication Proceedings: ”I was personally informed by an officer in Air Force Intelligence that George Adamski´s contact was filmed by Air Force personnel aboard one of the airplanes orbiting over the craft Adamski made contact with”. (Proceedings, vol. 5, no. 1, October 1956, p. 13) These statements, if true, would of course have tremendous implications. Some intelligence group within the U.S. have photographic evidence that the Adamski contact was authentic. This could be the key to understanding why he had a passport with special privileges (U.S. Government Ordnance Department Card) and later was invited to the Pope, Queen Juliana of Holland and perhaps also other political and military leaders, who had been informed that Adamski was a sort of go-between or courier for a group of alien visitors. ”My heart is a graveyard of secrets”, he once told his Swiss co-worker Lou Zinsstag.

Lou Zinsstag and George Adamski

Authenticating the George Adamski Story is an important contribution to our understanding of this first contact claim. Michel Zirger is to be commended for his excellent research and documentation. For those who wish to delve deeper into the Adamski enigma there are nine pages of notes and references, including a select bibliography. With all the renewed interest from several researchers and additional and rather unique data perhaps the tide is turning in favor of George Adamski? It would change ufology for ever.

In the annals of UFO history there are few issues that have created more debate, derision and enmity in the UFO community than the classic contactee cases of the 1950s. The situation is not very much different today. Few ufologists appear to be able to handle these cases with an open and investigating spirit. The believers believe too much and the skeptics dismiss empirical data without investigation. Finding weak points in the claims of the true believer is usually not very difficult but when dealing with complicated contactee cases it is equally important to be critical of the critic and skeptical of the skeptic.

Sten Lindgren at his home, December 25, 1984

I learned this the hard way during my formative years in ufology. My first teacher or mentor in the strange and sometimes whacky underground world of the UFO movement was Swedish contactee Sten Lindgren. A gentle soul, mystic and idealist who told of both physical and telepathic contacts with the space brothers. Being a naive teenager I was immensely fascinated by his claims and became a member of his group of eager students and activists, the Intergalactical Federation (IGF). But after a couple of years in this very special social milieu I began asking critical question which eventually led to the founding of AFU.

Still I was deeply interested in the many contact claims of Sten Lindgren and decided to gather as much data as possible to determine what was reality and fantasy in the world of Sweden´s most famous contactee. This endeavor proved to be a tricky problem as the core group around Sten were unwilling to talk. But I kept on turning every stone and after several years had quite an extensive file on IGF and its members.

Sten Lindgren (right) together with Roland von Malmborg 1971

The central contact experience often mentioned by Sten Lindgren in lectures, books, articles, radio- and TV interviews happened 1965 at lake Nävsjön, south of Nyköping in central Sweden. During the Autumn of 1965 Sten and his close friend Christer Janson are offered to participate in a contact with space people by contactee Daniel Glantz. On a Saturday night in November 1965 Sten, Christer and a third friend Bertil a.k.a. Besic (real name known to me) travel by car from Stockholm to the home of Daniel Glantz and his wife Ingrid in Nyköping. Before leaving for the contact the group have a cup of tea and Christian are instructing them not to wear any metallic objects such as coins, watch etc. When the group has traveled a few Swedish miles south of Nyköping, entering a small dirt road, the car is stopped and Daniel turn the car headlights on and off a few times and then proceed further. Now Sten and Christer begin experiencing a strange sensation as if faint electrical currents are playing on their heads, like an electric hairnet.

According to Sten Lindgren this is what happened next: Around 9.30 p.m. Daniel find a parking spot close to the small lake called Nävsjön and the group leave the car. From a distance of around 50 meters Sten observe a landed bell-shaped saucer. There are also two craft hovering a few hundred meters above the lake. From the left side of the landed saucer comes a man dressed in ski-type uniform with a wide belt. He looks like a normal human being and have long hair. Daniel signal three times with a flashlight and the man takes something from his belt signalling back. This light stop in mid air at various distances.

Illustration of the Nävsjön contact according to Sten Lindgren

The man start walking towards the group and Daniel, Bertil and Ingrid go to meet him. Sten and Christer are told to stay where they are and just watch. Sten can hear the group talk for about five minutes. Bertil is carrying a brown envelope that he hand over to the man. The group return, enter the car and take of. After travelling a short distance Daniel stop and everybody leave the car. The night sky is starlit and Sten observe another saucer coming slowly gliding above the trees. When Sten and Christer look up they get a visionary experience as if the stars are much closer, a sort of zooming effect and they can see many more stars than is normal. It was like a consciousness expansion. After this observation the group return to Nyköping where Sten, Christer and Bertil continue their journey to Stockholm.

Beginning in the 1980s some of the witnesses had begun to open up regarding the incident, giving more and more details of what had happened. I had also began corresponding with Daniel Glantz who claimed there was a genuine contact although I found many of his letters rather far out and deeply religious. In 1985 I finally persuaded Sten and Daniel to be interviewed before writing an article on the case. On August 15 I visited Nävsjön in the company of Sten Lindgren followed by an in-depth interview on August 26. I also interviewed Daniel Glantz at his home in Nyköping on August 24, 1985. During a dinner in November 1985 with the witness Bertil he confirmed to me that he was the one that had carried the envelope during the contact but he insisted on anonymity.

Sten Lindgren at Nävsjön, August 15, 1985

Sten standing beside lake Nävsjön from where he observed the landed craft

By this time I deemed the case so well documented that I wrote an article for the Swedish magazine Sökaren, published in late 1985 (no 9). I called the article ”En svensk Adamskikontakt” (A Swedish Adamski-type contact) and presented it as a possibly genuine contact with benevolent alien visitors. But there were still many questions unanswered. How come that none of the witnesses could remember the exact date of the incident, not even the correct month. Both September and November was mentioned. I was also rather dubious of a statement made in a letter from Daniel, indicating a connection with the U.S. Air Force. In a phone conversation with Sten Lindgren June 17, 1985 he, to my great surprise, speculated that the whole incident could have been staged or a bluff arranged by Daniel using a model or balloon.

In the Summer of 1986 I finally succeeded in getting interviews with Bertil and Christer Jansson. Bertil was according to Sten a key person in the contact as he had handed over the envelope to the spaceman. When I asked about the content of the envelope Bertil said he had a black-out during the incident and couldn´t remember but that he often carried pen and paper and in a sort of calligraphy wrote and made drawings as a hobby. ”It is possible that this so called strange envelope contained some of these drawings but I am not sure… It is also possible that I dropped the envelope, I don´t know.” Bertil was adamant that it did not contain any secret message to some spaceman. Bertil remember seeing a light in the forest but has no memory of a saucer. His recollections of the incident are very hazy. He does remember that they stopped once more to try telepathic contact but he did not see any saucer coming close as told by Sten.

In an interview August 11, 1986 Christer Janson gave a rather different version of the incident than Sten Lindgren: ”It was a light that was not natural but emanated from some kind of lamp, spotlight or headlight that could have come from a vehicle, boat or car but to me it was obviously not an observation of an Adamski-type craft with clear outlines, but Sten claims to have seen something like that.” To Christer the most memorable part of the evening was the mind expansion: ”The best evidence for me is the mind change because no earthly power could affect that unless they had put drugs in the tea before we left… It was a pleasant feeling, not at all negative.”

Daniel Glantz (left) and Christer Janson (right) being interviewed

To get more facts about the contact combined with field investigation I travelled with Daniel Glantz to Nävsjön on October 11, 1986. He told of three earlier meetings with a spaceman at this place. But what really made me dubious was his claim that the spacepeople had helped him win on the racetrack to get money for travelling to United States and Bahamas in 1971. He was given five digits for the next Swedish Åby galopp and won 50,000 SEK. That space people should visit this planet to help a man win on the racetrack wasn´t exactly credible. After this meeting I told Daniel I would contact his former wife Ingrid to hear her version of the Nävsjön contact. But Daniel dissuaded me from contacting his former wife because she was now dying from cancer, bone tumor.

Daniel Glantz during a visit to Nävsjön, October 11, 1986

I wrote a letter to Ingrid and mentioned that Daniel had told me of her disease and offered help because my father was a nature therapist. Ingrid called me on the phone October 29, 1986 and this conversation became for me the heureka moment in the whole investigation. When I asked of her physical illness she didn´t understand what I meant as she felt fine. After mentioning what Daniel had told me of her cancer Ingrid exclaimed ”Oh, not that too”. And then I was given a completely different story of the Nävsjön contact and what had transpired during their marriage.

Håkan: This incident which you witnessed in 1965, did you see the craft?

Ingrid: No, absolutely not. I am so astonished that these people have seen something.

Håkan: Didn´t you notice a man coming out then?

Ingrid: No, absolutely not. I was there all the time and I can clearly state there was no man coming out.

Håkan: Ok, that is strange.

Ingrid: Yes, I find it strange too.

Håkan: But you were a group standing together?

Ingrid: Yes, but there was no man. I must be honest… as far as I know Daniel has never told me he saw a man there.

Håkan: But didn´t Daniel tell you of his own experiences?

Ingrid: Daniel has not met anyone.

Håkan: So what is this all about?

Ingrid: I believe there are psychological factors behind this.

Håkan: Do you think it is a conscious fake?

Ingrid: No, it can be unconscious wishful thinking. When you say we saw something in the forest I wonder if it could have been someone with a flashlight. The light was like coming from a flashlight. There is a lake there and people are fishing all the time.

Ingrid revealed the during their marriage the couple had lived a sort of ”Sunday-hippie life” using drugs like hash and LSD. She wanted desperately to get away from this life and turned for help to a local Christian church. After having been saved by a life with Christ she regarded everything to do with UFOs as evil.

Ingrid and Daniel Glantz

My investigation of the Nävsjön incident now turned in new directions. Ingrid had provided several names of people who were part of their group of friends in the 1960s. A group that often met to discuss UFOs, paranormal phenomena, mysticism etc. But they were also experimenting with drugs of various types. Could this be confirmed by other members or was Ingrid simply exaggerating to discredit her former husband? Two of the group members were Matts-Gösta Jonsson and Birgitta Holmberg. When I interviewed them they confirmed what Ingrid had stated. The group had experimented with drugs also using Mescaline, a psychedelic alkaloid with hallucinogenic effects. They bought Mescaline cactus at Östgöta trädgårdshall, a local gardener´s supply. They never heard Daniel relate any meetings with space people and regard these stories as fantasies.

I later received confirmation of Daniel´s drug use from two more witnesses, Monica Ahnkvist and Yngve Freij. Daniel used to smuggle drugs in cookies from Denmark, according to Monica. Yngve Freij claimed to have tried LSD three times together with Daniel but he didn´t believe his UFO stories. With these confirmations the most likely explanation for the Nävsjön incident is that Daniel, without mentioning this to the other witnesses, put some Mescaline or LSD in the tea before going to the contact with the ”spaceman”. This would explain the strange mind expansion effects attested by Sten Lindgren, Bertil and Christer Janson.

Yngve Freij visiting AFU in 1993

In spite of all this information Sten continued to relate the Nävsjön incident as a real contact on TV, interviews and in the book he wrote in 1997, Dialog med Kosmisk Kultur (Dialogue With A Cosmic Culture). Perhaps he really honestly believe to have witnessed this contact, not realizing the influence of drugs. I have never been able to confirm any of the many claims of contacts and UFO observations by Sten Lindgren. There are a few cases of lights observed by others together with Sten but only of a vague nature. Investigating the Sten Lindgren case was for me a profound learning experience and taught me many lessons. Sten has always been a gentle mystic, a good will idealist and I am grateful for having known him although his stories may be more fantasy than reality.

Sten Lindgren lecturing at a UFO conference

This story is a very good illustration of the importance of in-depth research, turning every possible stone, always checking sources again and again. It is also an illustration of the need to be honest with your own data, theories and convictions. This is why I value researchers, whether skeptics or believers, who after years of field investigation and published writings have, in a public debate, the guts to stand up and say – Well, I may be wrong.

Every year since 1977 UFO-Sweden has arranged a weekend field investigator seminar, educating and training both new and old ufologists from Sweden and Norway. This event is also a much appreciated social gathering. Since 2013 the seminar has been held at Föllingen Hotel near Kisa, in the middle of Sweden. Every year a guest speaker is invited and on October 20, 2018 some 40 participants could listen to a lecture by Mr. Glenn Steckling, director of the George Adamski Foundation.

Glenn Steckling lecturing at the UFO-Sweden field investigator seminar

Glenn Steckling gave a historical overview of George Adamski and his contact experiences and also his own involvement with the foundation. The facts and views presented were of course very controversial and many questions followed, especially from the new field investigators. Before Gleen´s lecture I gave a short introduction of George Adamski och the problem of investigating contactee cases. Because of the tight time schedule I interviewed Glenn during the car journey from the train

station.

Glenn Steckling and Clas Svahn at UFO-Sweden seminar

Håkan Blomqvist (HB): Could you give some short background of yourself, birth, education, employment?

Glenn Steckling (GS): My family has been involved with the subject since they were in Europé and the children growing up. When my parents emigrated to the U.S. we had a number of sightings in Colorado Springs, Washington D.C. - I was born in 1959 – and over downtown Washington we saw one of these bell-shaped craft hovering and there were about 30 other witnesses.

Together with Glenn at the UFO-Sweden seminar

HB: You saw that too?

GS: Yes, and there was a reporter from the Washington Daily News standing there with us so it was in the newspaper a couple of days later. My father who had witnessed these craft for so many decades went to the Library of Congress and came across Adamski´s books. The telescopic photos were exactly the same type of craft that we´ve seen. My father, in March 1963, wrote to Mr. George Adamski and in June Adamski was coming to Washington to lecture to the Air Force Reserves. We became close friends with George Adamski. We met some of his cosmic contacts and ended up inheriting his materials and after a few years the entire foundation. My father carried it on until his passing in 1991 and then it seemed to me as I had spent a lifetime in this field with observations, sightings and experiences it would be only natural to continue the work being the youngest and the last link to the actual occurences and that makes a big difference.

Fred Steckling on Japan National TV 1977

HB: Do you have the archive at home?

GS: Yes, I have a large storage in the house with vaults and safe where the archives is contained. It includes the original negatives and also what has been collected over years from other people like May Morlet, Alice Wells. Actually we took care of Alice Wells for many years before she died. Every so often some work comes to us.

HB: You met Adamski when you were rather young, any remembrances?

GS: Oh yes, I was six years old. What happened was that when George came to Washington he stayed in Silver Springs and we all stayed with him. My parents and Mrs. Rodeffer would go out and make arrangements for television and radio shows so I spent much of my time with George in the house. There were several circumstances when his space contacts came to the house and made arrangements. I remember sitting with George in the dining room and these two space people came and sat at the table and he said to me sit here and listen and observe what is going on. They looked like anybody else, no any different and we have seen the same people since and the interesting thing is they don´t age very much.

George Adamski with the Steckling family 1964

HB: Are you many board members at the Adamski Foundation?

GS: No basically it stays within the family, me, my sisters and some others, about half a dussin. I am the primary executive officer. I do most of the work

HB: What in your opinion is the strongest evidence that George Adamski told the truth?

GS: There is so much it´s incredible. We have photographic evidence that have been authenticated. We have motion picture evidence that have been authenticated. My father and mother were invited to NASA, the Pentagon and the British House of Lords.

HB: We both know Rene Olsen. What do you think of his analysis of the Adamski photographs?

GS: I think his analysis is very good and I have supplied him with a number of photographs in order for him to clean them up. Olsen did a very good work.

HB: I remember Lucy McGinnis had a sighting herself when Adamski was not present and she saw a craft at very close distance?

Lucy McGinnis

GS: Correct, on the Mount Palomar property where they used to live at the base of Mount Palomar there were a number of these craft and one of them landed. Not only Lucy McGinnis but a fellow by the name of Alan Tolman. He was a witness along with many running up the hill towards the craft.

HB: What do you think about greys, abductions. What is behind all this.

GS: In 1961 this field became divergent or went in separate directions. In 1961 after we had a flood of landings on this planet and the forces that control this world became very anxious. This was a psychological manipulation by the forces that use the politics of this world to keep people in a fearful state. The purpose of this type of rumor mongering is to keep the people fearful. All these craft carry a robot. The newer ships have no robots but androids. The androids only have four fingers and they can only do what they are programmed to do. Some of these sightings could be robots or androids.

HB: We talked about the opposition but who are they really?

GS: The opposition or what we call the silence group are individuals of this world and individuals of some others who are responsible for the geopolitical manipulation of the events of this planet. The real people who are manipulating what is going on in this world – there is a one world government a long time ago – there are no boundaries and no borders for them and the manipulation of the economy are done geopolitically through the aggravation of small regional conflicts, regional wars where billions and trillions of dollars are spent. So you have a very small nucleus, a group fo people, no one knows their names, no one will ever no their names but they are deep within the center of the core.

HB: Do they have some type of craft?

GS: People see is our own craft. The triangular are built here. Anything which has appendages, landing gears, struts, finns, all that stuff is our stuff.

HB: Could some of the contacts have ben faked by the opposition?

GS: We have set out our own people to scare our own people. It has been done not so much from the opposition although they are involved in that but they delegate to our own minor research and development.

HB: You mentioned there were some negative space people, what are they doing?

GS: Well they are very easy to identify. I´ll give you an example. Many people have heard of the individual called Valiant Thor. When Adamski died in April 1965 at the end of the year there was a knock at our door. My father opens it and there stands Valiant Thor. My father starts laughing. He says I know who you are. You are a misinformation agent from the government. You are not an extraterrestrial at all because I know the ones who are and you are not it. And Thor starts laughing and says yes you are absolutely right. My father said to him you will get absolutely no verification or justification here because we know who you are and you can just turn around and leave. And he did. So you have individuals who are assigned to go out and misinform. The other not so pleasant visitors they also are working some times for our government. We knew one from the CIA. He would come to the Silver Springs house when George passed away and he would come and to my father with a whole pocket full of cash. He says if you give up Adamski I will give you a million dollars right now tax free on any account you want. My father said it is never going to happen. These people are working with our own politicians and government, not necessary aware of them but they are working towards an agenda that is more shall we say conducive to what they like to have. We play along very easy because we are susceptible. Not many people would turn down a million dollars in 1965 or ten million now. They come to you and give you for your weaknesses. If you wish power they give you power It you want money or recognition they give it too. There is always a price you will have to pay. So you have to be very aware of who and what you are and the type of people that come. I have seen both groups. I know how to recognize them and my father pointed it out to me and we laughed about it. The opposition does not like to be recognized because they work very hard to be incognito. They don´t like you to know where they are coming from. When you know that you are not susceptible to their games.

HB: Are they coming from a special planet?

GS: They come from two planets in this solar system, Mars and Jupiter, where they like to play games. Let us be clear about soamething. They do not come to harm you physically or mentally. In other words they are not stupid. They are well aware of natural principles and the principle of karma. They are not stupid enough to be resposible for your actions. They want you to make the decisions so they play a game of chess with you, with your mind. Are you going to be weak or are you going to allow yourself to be played with or do you look at them and laugh and say it is not going to happen. You are only in danger by your own willingness to agree. They do not come and hypnotize you or work with your brain. They don´t have too. They have absolutely zero reason to come and abduct you.

HB: Was it a long time since you met one of the brothers now?

GS: Ten years.

HB: Will they come back?

GS: I have no idea. That is not for me to decide.

HB: Adamski was not the only one contacted? What about Howard Menger, George Van Tassel?

GS: Absolutely not. Some of the other contacts had some legitimate stuff. Some of the embellished a few things and added stories to it to keep current. Of the original stuff you have Van Tassel who had one meeting. You have some other people Truman Bethurum and Buck Nelson, a very simple man, a farmer, who was taken on a ship, two sisters in Norway, the lady in South Africa. So there were a number of others. The difference with Adamski was that he was chosen by them to be their primary ambassador

HB: Did he have a special passport?

GS: I´ve heard that to, no it is amazing how many people throw out claims, Salla does that now. You don´t need a special passport to get on a military base. What you need is a military ID to get to a base. You don´t use a passport. He carried on him a White House pass that allowed him into the White House during the Kennedy administration. He briefed president Eisenhower and he met Eisenhower in 1958 in the desert in California at one of the Air Force bases where one of these craft landed and he introduced them. That story has been twisted as well that in 1958 Eisenhower made a deal with the extraterrestrials that we would givet hem certain body parts. All this is garbage in order to completely confuse this whole thing. George carried a White House access card and that included a certain amount of security clearance but he was never on a military base by himself but always escorted with official people.

HB: You wrote that he had been six years in Tibet. How could he get to Tibet which was a closed country?

GS: That´s true. How do you think he got there? Who do you think took him?

HB: Well, I guess I know what you imply?

GS: George´s actual story is much more developed and intricate than the public part of it. It was supposed to start earlier but we were in the middle of war. It was decided in the fifties that he was given more information and come out publicly but his personal interaction started already when he was a child.

HB: Was there someone together with him.

GS: This particular school has nothing to do with Tibetan teachings. At that time there was a space base on the Tibetan plateau. Gordon Cooper took two pictures of space ships when he was orbiting Tibet and it was given to George. This particular space base in only by special invitation.

HB: Did his parents know this?

GS: Absolutely, his mother said take him and go. So he spent those years in Tibet in a school of mastery. He was not the only student there.

HB: Will you write a book yourself?

GS: I am in the process of doing that now. I have chosen the title Can Truth Prevail, and it is going to be the history of my family and myself, our activites and experiences. The more I work on it the more I add to it. Since my mother passed away I´d had a lot of work as far as consolidating the archive. Basicallly I have stuff from Alice Wells, all the things that go back to the 1930s. I have a lot of reviewing and organizing to do.

Alice Wells and Martha Ulrich, September 1965

HB: One last question, did something special happen to George after 1961, when several co-workers left him?

GS: No, Three people left. Lucy McGinnis, Carol Honey and somebody from New Zealand. The reason that Carol Honey left was that he tried to take the copyright from George Adamski. Honey tried to make a problem so George took a lawyer and I have all the paper work and confronted Honey with it before he died. In fact Honey´s archive came to me after he died. Honey and McGinnis had a little private, shall we say, personall thing going on. He encouraged her to take money out of the bank account and leave George. But she was always afterward sorry she did it. The only other one was Lou Zinsstag and George took her out as she worked for the opposition.

Today there are not many ufologists left of the first pioneers from the 1950s. Recently the AFU board members were informed that one of Sweden´s real oldboys in our movement, Sven Schalin died on October 13, 2017. It is unfortunate the this sad message didn´t reach us until now as we stilll don´t know if Schalin´s UFO archive has been saved. Many years ago we were allowed to copy some of his material but as for all the original reports, photos, correspondence etc. we fear it has ended up in the local dump. The tragic fate of many rare and unique ufo archives.

Sven Schalin in 2014

Perhaps even more frustrating was the information that Sven Schalin in his will donated around four million SEK to the Swedish Anthroposophical movement. Schalin had for many years been an AFU supporter and we had of course hoped he would remember AFU in his will. With four million SEK we could have realized our old dream of having one large archive facility instead of the present 14 premises, scattered in different buildings. But we have been around since 1973 so we just keep on hoping that someone on this little planet find our work and efforts worthy of a major donation or remember us in his or her will.

Sven Schalin was born i Gothenburg 1925. He studied aerospace engineering at Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg and in 1954 moved to Linköping, working for SAAB, the Swedish aerospace and defense company, founded in 1937. During his engineering career at SAAB, Schalin worked in developing famous Swedish fighter aircraft Saab J 35 Draken, Saab 37 Viggen and Saab JAS 39 Gripen. He retired in 1990.

Sven Schalin lecturing at the UFO-Sweden annual conference, Jönköping 1974.

It was during his work at SAAB that Schalin first heard of flying saucers. In 1956 a colleague at SAAB asked if he had read Flying Saucers From Outer Space by Donald Keyhoe. Schalin read the book and became deeply fascinated by the subject. Even more so when a man from British Intelligence visited SAAB and related further information. This man later sent a list of UFO literature to Schalin who read all he could find on the subject and also became a member of NICAP (National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena), headed by Donald Keyhoe.

The first major UFO case investigated by Schalin was the Domsten close encounter. On the evening of December 19, 1958, two young men, Stig Rydberg and Hans Gustafsson claimed to have encountered a landed saucer outside Domsten in southern Sweden. They were attacked by three or four formless creatures who try to drag them into the saucer. After a fierce fight the boys escaped, the creatures entered the craft and it took off. This sensational story was printed in several newspapers and was even investigated by the Swedish police and military. Sven Schalin interviewed the boys assisted by Dr. Ingeborg Kjellin (MD) but although skeptical they found no natural explanation. But in 1989 my AFU colleagues Anders Liljegren and Clas Svahn disclosed, after years of in-depth research and detective work, that the case was a simple hoax inspired by the Tom Trick science fiction series published in a Swedish magazine.

Sven Schalin (left) and Ingeborg Kjellin interviewing Stig Rydberg and Hans Gustafsson

Much because of articles in the magazine Se, 1959 and Såningsmannen 1960, Sven Schalin became a well known figure in Swedish ufology, resulting in public lectures and many contacts with UFO witnesses. In 1959 he also began working together with Edith Nicolaisen, founder of the Parthenon publishing house and for a few years was also a board member of Parthenon. Nicolaisen published several of the classic contactee books on the 1950s and 60s. She was a demanding and hard working woman, not easy to get along with as she expected co-workers to be totally devoted to the Parthenon spiritual mission. This, coupled with different opinions on the UFO problem, made Schalin leave the Parthenon board in 1963.

Part of article in Såningsmannen no 4, 1960.

The close co-operation with Dr. Ingeborg Kjellin, during the Domsten investigation, also influenced Schalin in another respect. Kjellin was a theosophist and inspired Schalin to study theosophical classics, Blavatsky etc. for a few years. Influenced by a working colleague at SAAB he soon changed his interest to Rudolf Steiner´s Anthroposophy which led to a break with Kjellin. Schalin became of member of the Anthroposophical Society, and would conintue to advocate the Steiner worldview all his life. In a letter to Edith Nicolaisen July 4, 1962, he tried to explain his shifting position regarding UFOs and spirituality:

”I am still very much interested in the UFO/IFO issue but I don´t share the same views as previously. My assessment has changed and I am rather confused regarding the implications of the UFO phenomena and contact stories. I don´t believe that the basic human problems and our relation to Christ involves UFOs. No such phenomena are required in understanding spiritual values and what is important in our life. This has been clearly evinced by Rudolf Steiner. Forgive me if I am wrong but I simply cannot view things as Miss Nicolaisen. Maybe I am not spiritually mature. My interest in spiritual matters has developed rather all at once, probably because too much has happened which has been difficult to digest. Then it is necessary to seek solid ground beneath the feet or your life will be a total chaos. And for me Anthroposophy is that solid ground. I also hope that via this teaching come to a better understand of UFOs and what they imply.”

The influence of Anthroposophy on the UFO movement has been quite extensive but so far very little documented. A list of ufologists more or less influenced by Rudolf Steiner would include Allen Hynek, Gordon Creighton, Trevor James Constable, Gordon Allen, Dan and Eileen Lloyd. Personally I find it rather surprising that so many leading ufologists have been inspired by the rather odd mixture of Christian mysticism and esotericism advocated by Rudolf Steiner. The Ahriman-Lucifer demonology of Anthroposophy is reminiscent of ideas presented by fundamental Christian groups where UFOs are usually interpreted as demonic. If these ufologists had instead followed the more balanced approach, interpreting UFOs from the core Esoteric Tradition (Blavatsky, Bailey, Laurency) as exemplified by Desmond Leslie, Meade Layne and Riley Crabb the result would have been different.

Sven Schalin did not personally investigate many UFO incidents but one case he found of great interest was the Kolmården close encounterAugust 23, 1967. In the small community Kolmården, close to Norrköping, two teenagers observed strange lights and a small, skinny figure carrying some sort of instrument. Schalin never revealed the identity of the witnesses but some time ago investigators from UFO-Sweden found and interviewed the woman involved, who confirmed the incident.

On June 8, 1992 Anders Liljegren and I interviewedSven Schalin at his home in Linköping. Here a few quotes from this interview:

Håkan Blomqvist (HB): How would you summarize your view of the UFO problem today?

Sven Schalin (SS): In the beginning I believed it was space ships. Further on I became more suspicious when reports of objects formed and dissolved appeared. There were many such cases and then I realized this was something different.

HB: But you didn´t interpret these cases as manipulations of a higher technology?

SS: I became convinced there is a spiritual world and from this world entities can manifest. I began to suspect they are deceiving us. I believe there are both negative and positive forces involved in all this. Today I favor the theory of materialisations.

HB: Why did you end your active involvement in ufology?

SS: When you realize that there are very treacherous things involved you want to study the spiritual aspect more. I didn´t want to dig deeper into ufology but chose to study Anthroposophy instead. But I am very confused about all this talk of crashed saucers. Where do they come from?

HB: Anthroposophists generally have a very negative view of UFOs?

SS: I had expected to get some answers to the UFO enigma through Anthroposophy but I didn´t. There is a man called Hans Mändl, a leading anthroposophist. He meditated on this enigma and I received a very brief answer. He implied that this were some form of cosmic jokers. That is all the information I got this way. Anthroposophists are reluctant to have anything to do with UFOs.

Sven Schalin wrote very few UFO-articles during his active years. He did present a summary of his views in the magazine UFO-Information no 8, 1971, Ännu gäckar de oss (They still elude us). Schalin advocated continued serious research also involving the non-material aspects. I admire his courage to publicly stand up for UFO reality in 1959, especially with regard to his position as engineer at SAAB. He was once ordered to come to the then technical director at SAAB, Hans Brising. Schalin feared a reprimand because of his UFO interest but instead Brising told of his serious interest in the subject but didn´t want this information to be made public. Sven Schalin was a brave pioneer in the Swedish UFO movement.

”I don´t know what has happened , George, but all the mediums have suddenly disposed of their Indian guides, etc., and have replaced them with space people traveling in Vimanas.” This is a very intersting comment made by British ufologist and esotericist Desmond Leslie in a letter to George Adamski, soon after Flying Saucers Have Landed was published in 1954. Adamski was critical of the many mediums (channelers) who in the 1950s proclaimed to be in contact with various space people. Although he was not generally adverse to the idea of telepathic or psychic communication he did give this advice to his co-workers: ”You can never check on the sender of a trance message. Every mock spirit or evil impersonator could come and tell you that his name was Ashtar or Aetherius and that he lived in a space ship. I think that these entities are having a heyday leading astray the gullible mediums and their public… This is not to belittle mediums in any way, but it is to say that most of them have much to learn before they can be sure of just what they are receiving, and from whom and where.” (Lou Zinsstag & Timothy Good, George Adamski - The Untold Story, pp. 55, 57).

The UFO contactee movement of the 1950s was a colorful spectrum of fascinating individuals. Besides the classic physical UFO contactees there emerged a wide assortment of mediums, often with a background in various spiritualist and metaphysical groups. There were no clearcut demarcation lines between physical and psychic contactees. Some belonged to both camps. GeorgeVan Tassel is a good example, starting as a channeler and later having physical contacts with space people.

Although the UFO contact movement of the 1950s certainly was of a mixed quality the core group of physical contactees had a definite sociological impact on society in a positive way, not often mentioned by researchers. The movement conveyed a general message of hope, peace, goodwill and inspired members to contact and friendship with people from all over the globe, regardless of race, creed or color. George Adamski initiated the International Get Acquainted Program (IGAP) and Daniel Fry founded Understanding, Inc.: ”… a non-profit organization dedicated to the propagation of a better understanding among all the peoples of the earth, and of those who are not of the earth.”

Daniel Fry in Sweden 1970

By the end of the 1950s the contactee movement reached its high tide when Gabriel Green, President of AFSCA (Amalgamated Flying Saucer Clubs of America) arranged the First National Convention on July 11 and 12th, 1959 at Statler-Hilton Hotel, Los Angeles. This two-day convention amply demonstrated the problems of the contactee movement. Only two of the classic (and in my view genuine) contactees were present – Orfeo Angelucci and Daniel Fry. Almost all the other 40 speakers were channelers with more or less far-out and bizarre claims and messages. The movement was now so contaminated by psychic racketeers and sincere, but self-deluded mystics that by the end of the 1960s it faded into obscurity.

Daniel Fry and Gabriel Green at the AFSCA Convention 1959

Journalist Cleve Twitchell wrote a summary of the program and speakers for Daniel Fry´s Understanding magazine, July-August 1959. Here a few ”highlights”:

”LeRoy Roberts, channel from Oregon, one of whose mentors came through and stated the the Master Jesus, before coming to Earth, had visited Mars and had taught its inhabitants to conserve their dwindling water supply – by building canals.

Wilbur Miller, who received a transmission from the being Mentar, giving unbelieving Eartlings a well deserved kick in the pants.

William Suther, young teenager, who said he had recently toured a universe separated from our own in his astral body”

The audience of around 2000 could also listen to:
Monka of Mars and a galactic tour by Hatonn, channeled by Dick Miller
Prince Neosom (Lee Childers), who claimed to have come from the planet Tythan.

When adressing the controversial issue of the possible validity of channeling messages it is interesting to compare the ideas and experiences of Meade Layne who discovered and for many years worked with the unique deep trance medium Mark Probert. Meade Layne discovered Probert´s unusual gifts as medium in 1946 and it was through him that the etheric or 4-D interpretation of ”flying saucers” was first formulated. But Mark Probert never channeled any ”space people” as so many of the other mediums. Instead the communicators presented themselves as ordinary individuals who had lived on earth before.

Meade Layne was well acquinted with all types of paranormal phenomena and had already in 1936 published an article, Experiments in Evoking Images, published in The Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research (vol 30, no 9). After three years of work together with Mark Probert he published the booklet Mediums and Mediumship in 1949. Regarding the question of spirit identity he concluded: ”Much importance is attached, in some quarters, to establishing the alleged identity of spirit communicators. The question seems of little importance to the present writer, except when spiritism is considered only in its consolatory and religious aspects. The basic question is whether any intelligent and excaranate operator is present; and beyond this, the importance of the communication lies in its content, whether it is intellectually and morally profitable, and whether it conveys any information not easily aviable by normal means.” (p. 14).

Mark Probert

Like Meade Layne I personally, during more than a decade, had the privilege to investigate and become good friends with the Swedish contactee couple Sture and Turid Johansson. In the Autumn of 1976 Sture became a deep trance channeler. The first individual to come through was named Simeno later to be replaced by Ambres, who claimed that his latest incarnation was as an Egyptian merchant, Rameno Charafez, living around 1,000 years B.C. The teachings of Ambres became very popular and soon a group formed around the couple. In the 1980s Sture och Turid moved to the north of Värmland, building a center attracting many followers who came from all over the world to listen to the Ambres teachings. Sture became very famous in the 1980s when celebreties like Shirley MacLaine and Dennis Weaver visited the center in Sweden. Sture and Turid travelled around the world and I have letters and postcards posted from California, Hawaii and Mexico. Sture also figures in the miniseries Out On a Limb from 1987, based on the bestselling book by Shirley Maclaine.

Out On A Limb, Swedish edition

In 1976-1977 I participated in several trance sessions at the home of Sture och Turid and hade many long conversations with Ambres. I taped these sessions and they became important as they taught me a lot of how trance communication works and the problem of interpretation. During the seven or eight seances in 1976-1977 when I participated there was no really new or unknown facts regarding UFOs or paranormal phenomena presented by Simeno. It was essentially a summary of the views discussed in the meditation group we belonged to, although expressed in a somewhat novel form. I do not state this fact to belittle the Sture Johansson channelings. The teachings of Simeno and Ambres are in many respects inspiring and beautiful, a combination of Theosophy, spiritualism and Advaita mysticism. There is no fanaticism, life-negating ascetiscism or political extremism in the messages.

Sture Johansson channeling Ambres, with wife Turid

As it is actually more or less impossible to determine the real identity of the ”spirits” in channeled communications I agree with Meade Layne that the only option left is assessing the philosophical and intellectual quality of the messages. Mainstream academic, materialist, reductionist psychology usually regard the channeling phenomenon as the effect of a subconsciously created personality. This may be the answer in some cases. The esoteric explanation is somewhat different. Here are quotes from three esoteric sources of interest as alternative paradigms:

” And, you have heard of and read about a good many Seers, in the past and present centuries, such as Swedenborg, Boehme, and others. Not one among the number but thoroughly honest, sincere, and as intelligent, as well educated; aye, even learned… Tell me, my friend, do you know of two that agree? And why, since truth is one, and that putting entirely the question of discrepancies in details aside — we do not find them agreeing even upon the most vital problems..." (The Mahatma Letters to A.P .Sinnett, Letter 48).

”Unless regularly initiated and trained — concerning the spiritual insight of things and the supposed revelations made unto man in all ages from Socrates down to Swedenborg and "Fern"— no self-tutored seer or clairaudient ever saw or heard quite correctly." (The Mahatma Letters to A.P. Sinnett, Letter 40).

In Telepathy and the Etheric Vehicle by Alice Bailey (pp. 76-77) the Tibetan adept D.K. givet these interesting figures regarding channeled messages:

”1. Messages emanating from the relatively nice, well-trained subconscious nature of the recipient. These well up from the subconscious but are regarded by the recipient as coming from an outside source…These messages are normally innocuous, sometimes beautiful, because they are a mixture of what the recipients have read and gathered from the mystical writing or have heard from Christian sources and the Bible. It is really the content of their right thinking along spiritual lines and can do no one any harm, but is of no true importance whatsoever. It accounts, however, for eighty-five percent (85%) of the so-called telepathic or inspired writings so prevalent at this time.

2. Impressions from the soul, which are translated into concepts and written down by the personality; the recipient is deeply impressed by the relatively high vibration which accompanies them… This accounts for eight percent (8%) of the writings and communications put before the general public by aspirants today.

3. Teachings given by a senior or more advanced disciple on the inner planes to a disciple under training or who has just been admitted into an Ashram. These teachings bear the impress and conclusions of the senior disciple and are frequently of value; they may—and often do—contain information of which the recipient is totally unaware. The criterion here is that nothing (literally nothing) will concern the recipient, either spiritually or mentally or in any other way connected with his personality, nor will they contain the platitudes of the religious background of the recipient. They will account for five percent (5%) of the teaching given, but this is in relation to the entire world and the percentage does not refer to some one occult group, one religious faith or one nation. The recognition of this is of vital importance.

4. Communications from a Master to His disciple. This accounts for two percent (2%) of the entire telepathic receptivity, demonstrated by humanity as a whole throughout the entire world. Western students would here do well to remember that the subjective Eastern student is far more prone to telepathic receptivity than is his Western brother…”

Alice Bailey

Finally a comment from the Swedish esotericist HenryT. Laurency:

”What most characterizes spiritualists is that they permit themselves to be guided by beings in the emotional world, highly developed “spirits in the spiritual world”. The only comment necessary here is that even the most highly developed beings in the emotional world lack a true knowledge of reality and life. That knowledge cannot be acquired in the worlds of man… Spiritualists think that the medium is protected by so-called controls, who see to it that no unworthy beings use the physical envelopes of the medium. However, these “controls” have never reached beyond the emotional stage, the stage of the mystic, and they lack the requisite esoteric knowledge. They have no other knowledge of reality than the one they acquired once when in physical incarnation, and the one they receive through “pupils” who have studied esoterics. Usually, these “controls” are old Indian yogis who are detained in the emotional world through the philosophical systems they have accepted.” (Henry T. Laurency, Knowledge of Life Three, chapter on Spiritualism).

None of these esoteric authors mention the possibility of communicating with extraterrestrial visitors. In this area we find another problem not addressed: psychic communication with the help of technological instruments as mentioned by George Van Tassel and Daniel Fry. But whatever the form of communiction, the problem of identification is just as relevant when it comes to physical contacts. How do we know the visitors are what they claim to be? My favourite heretic among ufologists, John Keel put it this way: ”Suppose a strange metallic disk covered with flashing colored lights settled in your backyard and a tall man in a one-piece silver space suit got out. Suppose he looked unlike any man you had ever seen before, and when you asked him where he was from, he replied, "I am from Venus. " Would you argue with him?” (Operation Trojan Horse, p. 214).

How much does the military intelligence agencies of the world´s superpowers actually know of what is going on regarding UFO contacts and abductions? I don´t mean the general intelligence agents but the special black ops operatives with a need to know who are trying to understand and handle the situation. Are these operatives also involved in what has been called MILABS, military abductions of close encounter witnesses and abductees? Is it even possible for investigators of this secret underground world to discover what is going on and who is doing what to whom? This controversial issue is addressed by Nick Redfern in his latest book Top Secret Alien Abduction Files.

In his introduction Redfern relates what many investigators have come to believe regarding abductions: ”According to numerous accounts, after being kidnapped by alien entities, the abductees are shortly thereafter kidnapped again … by the government. These follow-up MILABS are the work of a powerful group hidden deep within the military and the inteligence community.” MILABS is short for Military Abductions. An important document in this genre is The Controllers by Martin Cannon. This theory was also studied and documented by Dr. Helmut Lammer and Marion Lammer in their book MILABS: Military Mind Control and Alien Abduction (1999). Based on several years of research Lammer concluded that some abduction cases could actually be secret experiments by various military intelligence agencies. In April 2011 I wrote to Dr. Lammer asking for more data on his research. He very kindly told me he had abandoned all research on abductions and mind control and had no further interest in the subject. I then asked if he would consider donating his research material and archive to AFU. I was quite surprised when told that his entire archive had been thrown away. Why would a scientist destroy the result of many years of research? Was the subject too sensitive?

Because of documents obtained thanks to the Freedom of Information Acts in United States and the United Kingdom we know that military and intelligence agencies creates secret files on contactees and other individuals involved in the UFO movement. From the 1950s there are FBI files on George Adamski, Orfeo Angelucci, George Van Tassel and others. Much of this activity was motivated by political reasons and the Cold War fear of Communism. In the first chapter Redfern presents some of these documents and contact stories. But he should have checked basic facts about the contactees better. The alien visitor Adamski met on November 20, 1952 did not present himself as Orthon. This was a fictitious name later adapted by Adamski and his co-workers. George Van Tassel did not ”drive out to a nearby area” for his encounter with landed craft and crew. He was sleeping outside at his property at Giant Rock when awakened in the middle of the night by the presence of an alien visitor. And Van Tassel did not die in 1977, but on February 9, 1978. These are minor faults of course but still facts that could easily have been found in UFO literature or on Internet.

Karl Hunrath was an enigmatic figure in 1950s contactee circles. Most well known because, together with his companion Wilbur Wilkinson, he disappeared during a flight, taking off from a small airstrip outside Los Angeles, November 10, 1953. Redfern makes a summary of the case based on FBI files and UFO history. These documents reveal Hunrath as a troublesome and not very savory character who claimed to have been visited in his bedroom by a tall, thin man dressed in a dark suit. The unknown intruder injected him with some form of chemicals and said: ”I am Bosco. You have been chosen to enter our brotherhood of galaxies.” Later Hunrath told of having a secret technology that could bring down both our own aircraft and saucers.

By a strange co-incidence the name Bosco appears in connection with the classic Antonio Vilas-Boas abduction in Brazil 1957. Ufologist Rick Reynolds was in 1978 approached by a mysterious man named Bosco Nedelcovic, who claimed to have worked for the CIA and the Department of Defense. One of his projects involved destabilizing prominent figures in the civil rights movement. Nedelcovic also revealed that he had been involved in the Vilas-Boas abduction which was a part of the CIA´s mind control program called MK-Ultra. With the help of a helicopter and a chemical derivative in gas form the MK-Ultra operatives wanted to find out how the human mind could be altered and manipulated by hallucinogenic substances. And Antonio Vilas-Boas became the unfortunate human guinea pig. After this first documented MILABs operation Redfern asks the obvious question – who are the real abductors?

This question becomes even more relevant when comparing the Nedelcovic story with the abduction experiences of Alison, a woman living on a ranch not far from Sedona, Arizona. The case was documented by Nick Redfern in his 2006 book On the Trail of the Saucer Spies, pp. 115-117: Alison´s abductions always start with a humming sound, loss of electricity in the house and her dogs becoming very distressed. Bright lights envelope the room and in a semiconscious state she is aware of small creatures carrying her to a small craft outside the house where she is examined and then led back to the house. On her fifth abduction something extraordinary happens. The humming sound stops abruptly and Alison slowly regain her normal senses. The small gray aliens fade away and instead she find a group of large and burly men in black fatigues in her room. According to Alison one of the men screamed "what happened" in a microphone. Another man utters the word "sorry" in her direction and the men leave in, not an alien spacecraft, but an unmarked black helicopter. Alison is convinced she has been used in covert military experiments with advanced forms of psychotronic technology, drugs and hypnosis.

Much of Nick Redfern´s new book is a chronology and summary of well known abduction cases such as Gerry Irwin, Barney and Betty Hill, Betty Andreasson, Whitley Strieber, Judy Doraty, Myrna Hansen and Christa Tilton, leading up to stories of black, unmarked helicopters, cattle mutilations and secret underground military bases. One of the most intriguing cases of recent MILAB activities is the story of Charlie, a man from Shreveport, Louisiana who contacted Redfern in late 2016. Charlie´s encounter happened on January 2, 2015 when he was nineteen years of age and living in a small house in an isolated area.

At about two in the morning Charlie was watching TV when a compulsion made him go to the living room window. He notice a police car parked outside the house. He decides to go outside and ask the police if everything is ok. As Charlie approach the car he get the strange feeling of being ”half-awake”. But what really frighten him is the look on the face of the police officers: ”an insane smile; like crazy and dangerous”. Suddenly the car and the two officers vanish and in their place is an egg-shaped object. Charlie try to run back to his house. The next thing he remember is standing in a field behind the family´s home together with two classic Men in Black. The men haul him aboard a craft nearby where he is strapped on a thin bed. Three small figures walk into the room, large hairless heads and huge black eyes. Charli can feel how something cold and metallic in put in his nostril and he starts to get images in his mind, apocalyptic visions of war and devastation. Suddenly Charlie finds himself standing in the family yard again, watching the police car leaving in the darkness of the early morning.

About a month later Charlie has a dizzy spell and fall asleep on the couch. When waking up he notice a man in black, military-style outfit and two other men in the room. Another man comes from the kitchen injecting something into Charlie´s arm and he suddenly finds himself in the back of a large van with the four men around him. They start interrogating Charlie, stating they know everything about his encounter a month ago and they want him to share every aspect of the incident. After sharing the story one of the men explain to Charlie that ”we have in our midst a dangerous race of extraterrestrials who are routinely implanting devices into large numbers of the American population – devices that have the ability to control and manipulate people as they see fit.” After this explanation Charlie is driven back to his home and given an apology for the rough handling.

In May of this year I received an email from an American woman, Laura (not the real name), who had found my blog and wanted to share a very frightening close encounter she had experienced together with her husband John (not the real name). Of interest is that her husband is a retired military, special ops, military intelligence. The close encounter was the beginning of a two year long odyssey of strange experiences, among others the observation of a sort of surveillance device outside their house. What then happened on the night of January 11, 2011 was documented in great detail in a nine page letter received by me on September 21, 2018.

At exactly 3:33 AM Laura is awakened by a very soft bump coming from the opposite site of the bedroom wall. Fearing that someone is breaking into their house she tries to wake her husband but realize she couldn´t move. ”I was totally paralysed with only the use of my eyes… From around the corner into our bedroom came several humans walking in a line. The leader was a large, tall female with auburn hair pulled back into a bun. She wore a white physician´s coat. Behind her walked a short male with a balding head who wore a blue coat. Behind them were others, less descript and faint in my memory… They appeared to float into the room rather than walk.”

Laura first thought they were ghosts but soon realized that ghosts don´t paralyze you. The group position themselves beside the beds of Laura and her husband. ”Suddenly, the room seemed to be filled with anesthesia… I knew I was being led to become unconscious but I faught it, refusing to go down. Luckily, I was successful and remained in control and awake for a while longer… These humans dropped their facade. They were not human entities but huge insects – something resembling ants without antennea. What I had been seing as human was apparently holographic imaging.”

”After dropping their human cover, one mounted John from his side of the bed and one mounted me from mine. They literally climbed on top of us and sat straddling our middle as if they had knees folded under them.” The entity tries to put its face an inch from Laura which she understood was an attempt to look into her eyes. But she refuse to cooperate and lower her eyes. ”As I looked down its long frame for details I saw the entity´s covering was very dark brown and leathery. It had spindly legs (at least four of them) about two inches in diameter with odd bumps here and there on the surface of its skin but no hair. The hands were more like pinchers with two operating parts. Its eyes were enormous, very dark brown and almond-shaped… There was no mouth, nose or ears and no mandables as one expects from some insect species. It appeared to have a hard exoskeleton covering its face that was a little shiny. The length of the entity was difficult to determine; it appeared to be five or six feet long.”

”When I would not engage, the creature leaned back, turned to his compadre sitting atop John who also sat back and they exchanged the loudest, shrillest series of tonal communications I´d ever heard. Clearly, the were conversing. Oddly, I knew what they were saying. Mine said, ”She is not cooperating.” John´s said, ”Try again.” Mine said, ”Ok.” Whether I heard their meaning in my ears or understood it with my mind I´ve no idea… they had no emotions and went about their business as living yet mechanical, task-oriented robots…. The next thing I knew it was 40 minutes later and I was sitting up in bed yelling the thing I could not get out before the incident, ”John wake up!!!” John did wake up, grabbed me and shook me. Of course, he thought I was having a nightmare.”

Reports of encounters with these type of insectoids, looking like praying mantices have increased during the last decades. They remind me of the American contactee Ted Owens who told that the space intelligences he communicated with looked like grasshoppers on two legs. Because of the shape shifting demonstrated by these entities it is difficult to evaluate what we are dealing with. Evil aliens, holographic projections or what? Whatever they don´t belong to ”the good guys”. There is not much help here in information from the core esoteric works of Blavatsky, Bailey or Laurency who very seldom mention evil extraterrestrials. But there is one interesting comment made by the Tibetan to Alice Bailey, warning of a form of ”cosmic evil” reaching manking: ”… an evil which is not indigenous to our planet, an evil with which it was never intended that men should deal.” (Alice Bailey, The Rays and the Initiations, p. 753). During his last years, living in New Zeeland, esotericist Riley Crabb wrote a few booklets trying to present this problem based on various esoteric sources.

In the last chapter, Conclusions, Nick Refern presents a timeline for the intelligence agencies work to handle the alien intrusion. In the 1960s ”something changed the nature of how and why aliens interact with us. It was nothing positive. It was all negative. For us at least”. The only option to the governments was to watch closely what was going on, keeping abductees under constant surveillance. Hence the use of black helicopters and quick-reaction teams. With the increase in reports of implants intelligence agencies took another step forward in the fight against the abduction phenomenon. This was the dawning of MILABS, the military´s own abductions to get the answers to what was really going on. Now abductees didn´t just have to worry about being kidnapped by aliens, they also had to deal with the military abducting them.

In his conclusions Redfern seem to side with the governments regarding their way of dealing with the problem: ”And we see agencies of government doing all that they can – and, in the process, often struggling – to try to not just understand the full nature of the abductions but also to find a way to stop the aliens´secret agenda… governments struggle to hide the terrible, complicated truth from all of us.”

Field investigating ufologists today are faced with an increasingly complicated enigma. Trying to find out who is doing what to whom – and why? It is like opening Chinese boxes. You open one and find another box inside – with a still deeper mystery.

In reviewing and organizing documents from the BSRF archive at AFU I have now completed the file on Trevor James Constable (1925-2016), for many years associated with Borderland Sciences Research Foundation. I have scanned articles, interviews, booklets, photos and assorted documents including the correspondence file consisting of 206 letters, written between 1959-1997. By studying these letters and rereading the books and articles written by Trevor James Constable I have tried to solve some of the riddles regarding his UFO contact experiences in 1956-1957.

A internet search for Trevor James Constable resulted in 9,040 links, mostly references to his two books, They Live in the Sky (1958), The Cosmic Pulse of Life (1976), etheric weather engineering and infrared photography of ”sky critters”, invisible amoeba-like elementals often confused with UFOs. What many readers of these sites may not be aware of is that all this activity was originally inspired by and the result of Constable´s contact with space people. Few investigators have made an in-depth study of these decisive UFO experiences. Neither is there much information on his contacts in Thomas Brown´s extensive interview Loom of the Future, the Weather Engineering Work of Trevor James Constable (1994). Thomas Brown was director of Borderland Sciences Research Foundation 1985-1995.

Trevor James Constable was born 1925 in Wellington, New Zealand. As a lincenced Radio Electronics Officer he served in the Merchant Marine of New Zealand, Great Britain and for 26 years in the U.S. Merchant Marine. After emigrating to the United States in 1952 Constable became interested in the UFO enigma and read the classic books of Keyhoe, Wilkins, Jessup, Adamski and others. Fascinated by the prospect of contact with UFO intelligences he visited George Van Tassel who gave Constable instructions on how to contact space people and also warned of possible ill effects. Being an adventurous and practical man he did not heed this cautioning and spent several months in trying to open up communication with space people.

Experimenting with channeling without a competent teacher is not recommended. Constable learned this the hard way: ”… I did develop extreme sensitivity to telepathic impulses. I found that I can barely control the situation. In daily business life in the aviation industry, I would hear a sentence psychically before a client ever spoke the words physically. When the telephone rang, I knew who was calling before I picked up the instrument. A constant struggle soon ensued for control of my physical vehicle – myself against unseen interloopers…My difficulties were extreme, and I felt that I was slowly losing my battle to retain my mastery of myself. I bitterly regretted ever having meddled in UFO communications. The ”intelligences” into whose realm I had broken poured confusing rubbish into me.” (The Cosmic Pulse of Life, p. 48.)

I have not been able to determine what year Constable met Van Tassel. Possibly 1955, as the first result of the telepathic contact experiments were published (under the pen name Trevor James) in two small booklets, Spacemen – Friends and Foes, 1956. Publisher was Franklin Thomas, who together with his wife Dorothy, operated the New Age Publishing Company in Los Angeles between 1948 and 1959. They issued many of the classic 1950s contactee books. The couple also ran a small bookshop on Glendale Boulevard, where Thomas used to lecture on Friday evenings on various occult and new age topics. Thomas was an experienced esotericist who taught Constable how to control his psychic faculties: ”I had learned, through Franklin Thomas, how to sort out the otherworld telepaths. Those intelligences which would seek to communicate without controlling had what seemed to be valid information.” (The Cosmic Pulse of Life, p. 50). It was also Franklin Thomas who inspired Constable to study the teachings of Rudolf Steiner. Anthroposophy from now on became the guiding light and worldview that he always would relate too and promote for the rest of his life.

Trevor James Constable 1961. Photographed by Kerstin Bäfverstedt, former Swedish Regional Director of BSRF

In 1956-1957 Constable, together with his friend and co-worker James Woods, made many trips to various places in the Mojave desert in California, combining channeling sessions with infrared photography. The idea to initiate such a photo project was originally presented by a well known spaceman in contactee circles, Ashtar: ” ”The first and most essential ”wrinkle” we learned was the use of infrared film, which permits photography of invisible light or radiation. We obtained this information from Ashtar, whose early suggestion it was, before I terminated contact with him many months ago.” (The Live in the Sky, p. 218). The last sentence is certainly intriguing. Why would Constable ”terminate” his contact with Ashtar and other space people when he regarded these messages as valid and emanating from benevolent alien visitors? In all the documents I have studied there is no explanation for this decision.

The first individual to claim contact with Ashtar and other space people, with rather odd-sounding names, was George Van Tassel in 1952. According to Van Tassel these messages were not received with ordinary telepathy or channeling but relayed via an instrument referred to as adiphone. The information delivered to Van Tassel is of a very mixed quality as anyone reading his book I Rode a Flying Saucer can ascertain. But he also had physical contacts with space people and in my view was part of a psychological-sociological test made by a group of benevolent alien visitors in the 1950s. According to journalist and esotericist Paul M. Vest the space people used physical contacts, ham radio, clairvoyance and clairaudience in this operation.

The adiphon instrument mentioned by George Van Tassel was also used in transmissions to Constable: ”One of the most fascinating experiences occurs when the transmission is transferred from one space base to another. The beam can be felt to switch off, and then on again as the new entity appears. On one occasion Ashtar has brought his wife to this ”thought microphone” the adiphon and had her communicate with me.” (Letter from Trevor James Constable to Meade Layne, Round Robin, vol 12, no 4, Nov-Dec 1956, p. 7.)

The messages received by Constable are interesting and generally in accordance with The Esoteric Tradition and the teachings of the Inner Circle, channeled by deep trance medium Mark Probert. Ashtar refer to his homeplanet as the etheric Venus. Here a few quotes from They Live in the Sky:

”Question: ”From your statement that you are etheric, am I to presume that you have evolved beyond the stage of a physical and astral body”?
Ashtar: ”Correct. I do not possess a physical casing of the dense type such as yours. I am definitely etheric, as are all people on other planets in this solar system.” (p. 39-40).

Question: ”When you become visible to our eyes does the person who sees you know that you are a ”converted etheric?”
Ashtar: ”Not as a rule. The conversion can be made so completely that a physical person encountering us thinks that we, too, are physical.” (p. 41)

Question: When you speak of making etheric matter visible at will, is this the way that George Adamski was permitted to take his now famous photographs?
Ashtar: ”Yes, Ether ships as they have been called on your surface, have been made visible to and for certain individuals, selected, upon your surface of whom Adamski is one. Normally the ships are part of the invisible world.” (p.46-47).

Question: Why has the information you have given me been passed through me? That is, why have I been used as the channel for it?
Ashtar: ”This information is well known in occult circles upon your planet, and has been known for many thousands of years by those you term initiates and adepts.” (p. 170).

Ashtar warned Constable that there were scores of impersonators and deceivers in the invisible worlds who used his name: ”He has frequently stated that many come in his name and under his name, and therefore that it is foolish to presume that because a message comes ”from Ashtar” it is automatically the truth.” (p. 161). This proved very true as after Van Tassel and Constable a large channeling industry appeared using Ashtar or Ashtar Command. George Adamski, critical of channeled communications, noted this phenomenon during his European tour: ”In Europe I encountered reports of two Ashtars, totally different in character, but each claiming supreme command over large numbers of space travelers. From such dubious sources have come promises of personal contacts, sometimes even with specific dates and instructions as to time and place.” (George Adamski, Flying Saucers Farewell, p. 113-114).

Trevor James Constable and Riley Crabb in Visa, California, June 1962

Although Constable all his life defended George Van Tassel as a genuine contactee he also voiced some critical views in The Live in the Sky. Constable agreed with Riley Crabb that Van Tassel was not enough discerning when inving speakers to his annual Spacecraft Conventions at Giant Rock: ”The major fault of George´s Conventions is that no effort is ever made to set aside, however briefly, the monotonous reiteration of these astral experiences with spacecraft, undergone by well-meaning but hopelessly disoriented sensitives… The book (The Live in the Sky) had just come of the press prior to the Convention, and I previously wrote to George and told him that I would appreciate the opportunity to speak to the people about these new discoveries. When Convention time came, George took care that I did not get on the platform. Some reference to him in the book, which were truthful and honest expressions of my own views disagreeing with his, apparently aroused his ire.” (Trevor James Constable, Think About This, Psychic Observer, May 10, 1959, p. 4).

George Van Tassel at Giant Rock

When They Live in the Sky was published in 1958 Constable was regarded as a heretic by the love-and-light mystics in the contactee movement, mainstream scientific ufologists and the general public. His statements that there was also dangerous (astral) forces involved in the UFO phenomenon coupled with his assertion that many UFOs were actually a form of normally invisible life forms (critters) was upsetting to many in the UFO community: ”During my 1957 experiments with telepathy, the ethereans with whom I had commerce conveyed to me, in a simplistic yet emphatic fashion suited to my ignorance of things cosmic, basic facts concerning the forces at work within the UFO phenomena that are anti-evolutionary and anti-humanity. This was, and is, unpleasant information.” (The Cosmic Pulse of Life, p. 210). In an undated letter to Riley Crabb 1974 Constable told of how in 1958 his book was deemed as crazy, even by his friends: … business executives, who knew me well, literally crossed the street to avoid talking with me, or being seen talking to me.”

After They Live in the Sky was published Constable abandoned the UFO movement and spent the rest of his life devoted to etheric weather engineering, inspired by Rudolf Steiner, Ruth Drown and Wilhelm Reich. In the beginning of the 1970s he began working on a new book, a synthesis of his mentor´s teachings and the UFO problem: ” ”My big new UFO book is a tyrant in my life at present, and the synthesizing of Reich, Steiner and Drown a Herculean chore. I hope I can retire from that field with its completion, and settle down to the intriguing realities of weather control.” (Letter from Trevor James Constable to Riley Crabb, Nov. 16, 1970). In the same letter to Crabb he disclosed what would be the spiritual message in this monumental tome: ”I am finishing up Puls of Life at this time, and am engaged in the most comprehensive exposure of the Ahrimanic powers and their workings that has yet been set to print. This is putting me to my limit in every way, because they surely want this book obliterated along with its author.”

This prophecy would prove devastatingly true. The manuscript to The Cosmic Pulse of Life was rejected by Harper and Row in 1974. On August 16, 1975 Constable married his second wife Linda Christine. What then happened was told to Riley Crabb in a letter October 16, 1975: ” On 2 October she jumped 22 stories in Honolulu to her death, while I was en route from New Guinea to San Francisco.” This was a personal tragedy and terrible blow from what Constable believed was a murder orchestrated by the ”Ahrimanic powers: ”Well, slowly I recover from the occult murder of my beloved spouse. Believe me, that was one hell of a cannon ball – and having to survive it out on a ship thousands of miles from home and all my control cords just about put me out of the body myself. That was the idea of course…Frank Thomas went through the same thing when ”They Live in the Sky” was published, but he got the job done before losing his body two months afterwards.” (Letter from Trevor James Constable to Riley Crabb, Feb. 26, 1976). The Cosmic Pulse of Life was finally published in 1976, ”Dedicated to the memory of my beloved wife Linda Christine 1944-1975 – My Eternal Star”. Later Constable found a new love in his third wife Gloria.

They Live in the Sky and The Cosmic Pulse of Life have become classics in UFO literature. Because of Constable´s theory of the critters or bioforms some author´s have misunderstood his writings, claiming all UFOs are invisible critters. Now and then Constable had to officially defend his actual position on the UFO problem. Here in a letter to author Andrew Collins: ”Where in any of my works is the statement you impute to me, that ”UFOs are not spacecraft at all, but bioforms… etc. etc.”? You will find in Cosmic Pulse of Life that the point is comprehensively deliniated that there are TWO distinct types of UFO´s which are MUTUALLY CONFUSED. These are the ether ships, and the bioforms. The confusion is intensified by the etheric power source of both kinds of UFO´s. This is the first qualitative element introduced into the UFO subject. You refer to this not at all – just critters.” (Letter from Trevor James Constable to Andrew Collins, Aug. 15, 1992).

There are still many unanswered questions regarding the UFO contacts of Trevor James Constable. In spite of my study of his extensive correspondence and articles I have not found out why he terminated his, obviously positive and inspiring, contact with the space people? Neither have I been able to find out whether his personal archive has been saved. I assume there must be more messages received from his space friends than so far published. Trevor James Constable was a brave pioneer in the UFO movement and I hope the ultimate biography of his life and research will one day be written.

For several years I have been trying to obtain an rather unusual contactee book, Suzies Sudden Saucer, written by Dorris Van Tassel(Dorris Andre). Although it was obviously published in two editions, 1976 and 2000 (revised), I have never seen it in print, nor found one for sale on Amazon, eBay etc. At AFU we have only one, not very good, copied version. Dorris Van Tassel (1912-1991) was an enigmatic woman and, what John Keel would call, a silent contactee. Suzies Sudden Saucer is often portrayed as a children´s book, a poetical story of contact with space people. But I suspect this 37-page book is actually an autobiography.

The first edition of Suzies Sudden Saucer was advertised in Proceedings, Oct-Dec 1976, as ”a small book on the philosophical approach to life”. Authors were stated as Dorris Van Tassel and Bob Benson (illustrator). In 2000 a revised edition was published with the subtitle Suzies Silver Saucer. Foreword was written by Brianna M. Wettlaufer and Heidi Menger Evans. Heidi had also contributed illustrations and photographs. She is the daughter of Howard and Conny Menger. This new edition, published by the Ministry of Universal Wisdom, has 75 pages, possibly because of large type.

Dorris and George Van Tassel

In a former blog post I have presented a summary of data on Dorris Van Tassel, a woman of mystery and very much involved in behind the scenes activity among UFO contactees in the 1950s. She was a sort of booking agent for George Adamski, Truman Bethurum, Daniel Fry and other contactees. As Mrs. Dorris Andre she lectured on flying saucers but did not mention her own contacts with space people until 1976, during a lecture at Daniel Fry´s Understanding Convention. A short note of her lecture was published in Understanding magazine: ”Two women were a delightful part of the program. Dorris Van Tassel told the story of her contacts with space people, a fantastic story it was too. Until you have heard her, you´ve missed something.” (Understanding, vol. 21, no. 5, 1976, p. 6).

The Press Democrat, March 3, 1954

The Press Democrat, February 24, 1955

Already in the beginning of Suzies Sudden Saucerthere are hints that this story is actually the secret life history of Dorris expressed in allusion and poetry. Many of the verses mention early childhood contact experiences reminiscent of the life of Howard Menger.

In several verses we are told that Suzie (Dorris) very early in life understood that she was different than other men and women because of her experiences and contacts, both physical and telepathic with the space people.

Dorris in her younger days acting in a play

On page 15 and 16 are some interesting verses where Suzie is frightened by ”earthly” saucers that don´t belong to the benevolent space people but instead belong to occupants who give honor ”to materialistic rule”.

A connection between the work of the benevolent space people and the Esoteric Tradition or Ancient Wisdom is narrated on page 21. Here Dorris also alludes to her special mission on this planet.

In Suzies Sudden Saucer the author mention both physical and telepathic contacts and the secret work with the space people going on behind the scenes. Dorris implies that she cannot tell the whole story ”knowing more than most”.

There are still many unanswered questions and enigmas regarding Dorris Van Tassel and her contact experiences. Perhaps some of the clues to her secret life can be found in Suzies Sudden Saucer?

Akualele Research Group

Gustaf Fröding and Esotericism

Advice To A Young Ufologist

Åke Franzén And Mothman, Part 1

Åke Franzén And Mothman, Part 2

Interview With Rene Erik Olsen

The Rise and Fall Of Understanding, Inc.

Alan - The Enigmatic Man From Space

Esotericism And The Critical UFO investigator

Notes From The Riley Crabb File

Interview With Hilary Evans 1996. Part 1

Interview With Hilary Evans. Part 2

George Adamski - Is the Tide Turning?

The Sten Lindgren Contact Case

Interview With Glenn Steckling

Sven Schalin 1925-2017

Contactees And Channeling

The MILABS Enigma

The UFO Contacts Of Trevor James Constable

Suzies Sudden Saucer