Håkan Blomqvist´s blog

To all my friends out there in the multiverse.
Wishing you a Merry Christmas.

May your dreams come true and the Force be with you in 2019.

"I have an uneasy feeling that the world is being slowly and surreptitiously taken over by an all-powerful elite." These are the words of New Zealand airline pilot Bruce Cathie in the foreword to his book The Pulse of the Universe. Harmonic 288, published in 1981. Mention conspiracies and almost everyone will associate to evil powers and groups. Today there are untold numbers of books, magazines and internet sites devoted to various dark conspiracies. As a somewhat heretic counterbalance I wish on this first day of the new year 2019 present a few sources giving a more hopeful and positive alternative – a benevolent conspiracy.

This idea is not only found among the naive new age mystics and cultists but seriously discussed as a hypothesis in many of the works of Jacques Vallee and Allen Hynek. To understand their fascination with this controversial topic it is necessary to know that both Vallee and Hynek have one foot in science and one foot in the Esoteric Tradition. This is especially evident in the co-authored The Edge of Reality (1975) and Forbidden ScienceI-III by Jacques Vallee. In the first volume of his diaries, Forbidden Science. Journals 1957 - 1969, Vallee discuss the theory of a hidden group of individuals, planetary guardians, working behind the lines to further mankinds progress: ”Has the future spiritual state of man already been achieved by some individuals? Have certain gifted men already achieved contact, on some plane, with those who may be guiding our psychic evolution?” (p. 80).

References to a hidden group of highly advanced individuals secretly guiding the evolution of man is found throughout history. Such a benevolent conspiracy is hinted at in Hermeticism, Alchemy, Kabbalism, Rosicrucianism and in many works of fiction. In his second novel Wilhelm Meister´s Apprenticeship the German author Goethe gives a vivid description of how The Society of the Tower become his secret mentors. But it was not until 1875 that the planetary guardians, the Higher Intelligence Agency (HIA) for the first time in modern history decided to reveal their existence and present fundamentals of the Science of the Multiverse, The Ancient Wisdom. The cultural impact of this ”disclosure” was profound and several scholars and academics began to realize that the Esoteric Tradition can be regarded as the third intellectual force or pillar in cultural history, alongside religion and science.

The woman chosen for this mission impossible was Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, who together with the lawyer, journalist and pioneer in psychical research Henry Steel Olcott founded the Theosophical Society in New York 1875. Blavatsky and Olcott had several meetings with and close cooperation with various representatives of the planetary guardians and came to understand that these individuals were no astral spooks but living men and women united in an ancient fraternity. In Old Diary Leaves Olcott narrates his experiences and doubts before he became head of the Theosophical Society. To his very sceptical friend Mr. A.O. Hume he tried to explain his decision in a letter September 30th, 1881: "... I would never have taken anybody´s evidence to so astounding a claim as the existence of the Brothers, but required personal experience before I would head the new movement... I got that proof in due time".

One of my favourite novels that reveal a deep understanding of esoteric philosophy and the complexities of the benevolent conspiracy is Lost Legacy by science fiction writer Robert Heinlein. Published in the November 1941 issue of Super Science Stories it was later included in the collection Assignement In Eternity. Three scholars from California University, interested in paranormal phenomena, decides on a road trip to Mount Shasta. One in the group falls on a slippery cliff resulting in a fracture of the schin bone. A tall, elderly man appears from nowhere and offer his help. The group is led through a passageway into the mountain where they find themselves in a living room, illuminated by indirect lightning… They are then introduced to the around thirty persons resident in several rooms, men and women of different ages and nationalities.

Step by step the group is informed that these mysterious men and women represent a branch of an ancient secret society, custodians of the Ancient Wisdom. The university scholars are also briefed on the hard work of the society, including the struggle against the forces working in opposition to human liberty and evolution, defined as: ”… the racketeers, the crooked political figures, the shysters, the dealers in phony religions, the sweat-shoppers, the petty authoritarians, all of the key figures among the traffickers in human misery and human oppression… the opposition can fight as dirty as it pleases, but we have to fight fair, or we defeat our own aims.”

With the advent of the ”flying saucers” a new element was introduced in connection with esotericism and the benevolent conspiracy - ancient Vimanas, used by both the planetary guardians and extraterrestrial visitors. This connection was documented by authors such as Desmond Leslie, Meade Layne and Riley Crabb. It was further explained by UFO contactees Millen Cooke, Paul M. Vest, Daniel Fry and Howard Menger. Millen Cooke´s article Son of the Sun, published in Ray Palmer´s magazine Fantastic Adventures, already in November 1947, is remarkably prophetic of what was to come regarding UFO contacts in the 1950s: "We are alrady here, among you. Some of us have always been here, with you, yet apart from, watching and occasionally guiding you whenever the opportunity arose... We have been confused with the gods of many world-religions, although we are not gods, but your own fellow creatures, as you will learn directly before many more years have passed... Some of you have seen our "advance guard" already. You have met us often in the streets of your cities and you have not noticed us. But when we flash through your skies in the ancient traditional vehicles you are amazed... These are our mechanical means of transport. Now that the art of manufacturing plastic materials has reached a certain perfection among you, perhaps you can imagine a material, almost transparent to the rays of ordinary visible light, yet strong enough to endure the stresses of extreme rapid flight."

My favourite Fortean iconoclast, John Keelintroduced the theme in Our Haunted Planet, commenting on H. G. Wells´prophetic novel Things To Come. In a world ravaged by war and misery a group of scientists and philosophers band together in an effort to restore civilization. They call their organization Wings Over the World (WOW): ”Much of the UFO evidence suggests that a real WOW has always existed. Maybe one of their members handed a caveman the first flaming brand and the first wheel, just as some unknown party alledgedly deposited the first compass outside that Mormon tent… The members of WOW are still watching as they have always done…” (pp. 18, 222).

In many blog posts I have asserted that accepting, as a working hypothesis, the reality of a multiverse as presented in the Esoteric Tradition does not imply irrationalism or a loss of intellectual integrity. Like Hynek and Vallee I see no problem in having one foot in empirical science and one foot in esotericism. In Forbidden Science, vol I, Jacques Vallee expound his view on this problem: ”To me there is indeed a fundamental reality of hermetic science…Everyone must find his or her own expression of it. The spiritual path I have chosen is that of intelligence tempered by the fire of love, but always applied to accessible, solid, consistent, calibrated facts.” (p. 82). This is esoteric philosophy, an aspiration towards the good, the true, and the beautiful.

Accepting esotericism as a paradigm also implies accepting the reality of a benevolent conspiracy. I can understand that some of my more skeptical friends and UFO colleagues raise a few eyebrows when evaluating my research and theories. It is not exactly mainstream ufology of the materialist-reductionist school. Some months ago a skeptical correspondent criticized my writings and theories as laughable and regarded me as a dreamer. Well, of course I am a dreamer. That is the only reasonable option and outlook on this planet of sorrow. To my skeptical colleague I replied with a favourite quote from Charlton Heston in the classic science fiction movie Planet of Apes: ”My dreams are not like yours. I can´t help thinking that somewhere in the universe there has to be something better than man.”

Two individuals have had a seminal influence on the development of the UFO movement in Sweden, Edith Nicolaisen and Gösta Rehn. Miles apart in their ideas and writings they were active during the same era, from the 1950s to the 1970s. Edith Nicolaisen, founder of the Parthenon publishing house, representing the New Age contactee movement and Gösta Rehn the scientific ufologist approach. Both of them developed far-reaching international contacts and consequently the correpondence archives of Nicolaisen and Rehn are very extensive with thousands of letters. A treasure trove of unique data accessible to academic scholars as well as researchers of UFO and paranormal phenomena.

In Sweden we are in the unique position in having been able to salvage these voluminous archives from being dumped in containers. After months of negotiations in 1985-86 Mats Nilsson and Carl-Anton Mattsson from UFO-Sweden were able to acquire the entire Parthenon archive as a donation to UFO-Sweden and AFU. And in 1989 my AFU colleague Anders Liljegren and I succeeded in salvaging 32 binders with the Rehn correspondence, already dumped in a container. These correspondence archives are especially valuable as here we find data not aviable in published books, magazines and articles.

The correspondence between Edith Nicolaisen and George Adamski is interesting in this respect, giving insights into the events, views and controversies of the contactee movement. The correspondence file contain 71 letters, written between 1954-1965. 25 letters are from George Adamski. Edith Nicolaisen (1911-1986) published several of the UFO contactee classics of the 1950s and she corresponded with almost all known contactees and their co-workers. Among Adamski co-workers I have found letters from Desmond Leslie, Alice Wells, Lucy McGinnis, Carol Honey, Sonja Lyubicin, Lou Zinssstag, Madeleine Rodeffer, Alice Pomeroy, Adrienne Munkeberg, Fred Steckling to name just a few.

Edith Nicolaisen 1946

Edith Nicolaisen spent eight years studying various languages and Philosophy at the universities of Copenhagen, Paris, Berlin and Heidelberg. Between 1953-1957 she worked as a saleswoman for the Swedish publishing company Diana Bildreportage AB at Hälsingborg. 1949 was a turning point in Ediths´ life. She read An Outline of Occult Science by Rudolf Steiner, whom she later came to regard as "the greatest Western adept of the 20th century" (Letter to Wilbert B. Smith, February 17, 1959). For several years she devoted much spare time reading books on Antroposophy, Theosophy, Rosicrucianism (Max Heindel), Spiritualism and mysticism. From her American Friend Carl Vett she was told about flying saucers and during the summer of 1954 she read the classic Flying Saucers Have Landed by Desmond Leslie and George Adamski, a book that completely changed her life. She wrote her first letter to Adamski on August 12, 1954 detailing her plans to publish his book in Swedish:

”I have read your description of your experiences in book two of ”Flying Saucers Have Landed” with great interest and before I had finished reading it, I had made up my mind to write to you and to ask your permission to translate it into Danish and Swedish… My purpose with the translation and publishing of your book is the following: … the topic of this book will interest many people in Denmark, Sweden and Norway and it may encourage many a ”lost” and shipwrecked soul stranded either on the rock of orthodox religion or on that of materialism to start searching for spiritual light. Thus your many diligent night- and daywatches on the southern slopes of Mount Palomar may be a great blessing to many souls.”

The letters 1954-1956 deal primarily with practical issues in connection with publishing Flying Saucers Have Landed and Inside the Space Ships but Adamski also recounted some of his recent experiences with the space people:

”Since my first meeting with a man from Venus, as recounted in Flying Saucers Have Landed, I have had the pleasure of a number of other meetings with both men and women from our sister planets, Mars, Venus and Saturn. During the more than 200 hours that I have spent in their company, I have been granted the privilege of visiting in their ships and of being taken on trips beyond our atmosphere where I could personally observe the constant activity of outer space. And they have told me much of their way of life in comparison to ours on Earth.”

(Letter from George Adamski to Edith Nicolaisen January 25, 1955).

George Adamski

During the mid-1950s Edith Nicolaisen made at least three UFO observations, two at close range. In November 1955 she observed the classic bell-shaped flying saucer from her car. Surprisingly she did not mention this incident to George Adamski but to several other correspondents. Here in a letter to Desmond Leslie 1956 and Cosmic Brotherhood Association 1962:

”From the very first time I heard about ”Flying Saucers” coming from other planets, I believed it quite possible - to-day I am convinced! Had , too, the luck to see a ”Flying Saucer" of the Venusian type hovering some hundred meters about my head here in Sweden and last year during my holidays in the Austrian mountains a huge mother ship passed at a distance of about 500 meters and at the same level majestic, soundless and with incredible speed! As it seems as if I belong to those ”elected ones", who always get the toughest jobs to solve in life, I felt it my duty to plant the banner of ”Flying Saucers” on the top of ”Mount Everest" here in Sweden.

(Letter to Desmond Leslie, September 18, 1956)

”In November 1955 on a moonlit evening between 22-23 p.m. about 15 km south of Linköping while waiting in my car for a train to pass, I suddenly caught sight of a beautiful green-light far above the way-lin´s green signal-light. In order to see better I rolled down the car-pane on the left side and put out my head – and there a few hundred meters above the ground a big bell-shaped ”Flying Saucer” with portholes and landing gears was suspended in the air.. In the clear moonlight it looked like a magnificient silhouette of the world-famous Venusian-scout-design. From one side of the portholes shone a shaft of green light and from the other a shaft of orange light. (The colours and the intensity reminded much about our most beautiful neon-light advertisements.) As I had time to watch this ”silhouette” suspended in the air for 2 á 3 minutes before it disappeaed of sight, I noticed the details as above described. The next day a local newspaper reported that five people south of Linköping had observed a ”Flying Saucer”. The description of the observers tallied with my own observation.” (Letter to Cosmic Brotherhood Association, March 1, 1962).

Being a Danish citizen Edith Nicolaisen needed Swedish board members to be able to found her publishing company in Sweden. Three women, Brita Rodosi, Rut Lindberg and Sonja Lilienthal, all members of the Theosophical Society (Adyar) came to her help and in October 1957 Parthenon, Inc. was founded and Edith Nicolaisen moved from Copenhagen to Hälsingborg, Sweden. Adamski was informed about the happy news of the first book published by Parthenon: ”Finally, we have the pleasure to inform you that your and Desmond Leslie´s book: Flying Saucers Have Landed has appeared on the Swedish book market under the name: Flygande tefat har landat, and tomorrow a free copy will be sent to you and Desmond L… Two ”silver discs” passed Parthenon´s windows the other morning. I hope more will turn up within long.”

(Letter from Edith Nicolaisen to George Adamski, October 27, 1957).

George Adamski continued to brief Edith Nicolaisen about his contacts with the space people in personal letters. This letter, from November 27, 1957, is a special significance:

”Earlier this months some 6,000 space craft were brought into our atmosphere and simultaneously appeared over every part of our planet so that people everywhere could see them. In some cases they came in so low that they stopped car motors, turned out lights, and radios were silenced… I did not have a meeting with the Brothers again on November 20th because for three days, Nov. 19, 20, 21, our jets were swarming over this territory like flocks of buzzards, making it impossible for any space craft to even come in close without endangering both themselves and those in our planes. But a couple of days later I did have the pleasure of meeting Orthon, who told me about the 6,000 ships coming in earlier in the month.”

Edith Nicolaisen first accepted Adamski´s assertion that the space people he met were physical with organic bodies just like us, but in 1958 she began to doubt this claim and instead adhered to the position of Meade Layne and Desmond Leslie that the space people from Venus, Mars etc. were etheric physical, not normally visible to physical eyes. This was also in accordance with the Esoteric Tradition. She never debated this issue with Adamski but she wrote of her conviction to other correspondents: ”You asked me about my opinion of this ”curious object”. The interplanetarian space crafts belong to the so called ”etheric realm” and therefore they are usually not seen by our physical eyes, unless our interplanetrian friends want to draw our attention to their space-crafts or when they want to contact us – then they slow down the vibratory rates of their ships so that the vibrations can be caught by retina of our eyes and thus seen by our physical eyes. Very few earth-people – exept for the Adepts and Masters – so far evolved spiritually than average people – are able to see the etheric world with its high vibrations and with all its splendour of colours and forms.”

(Letter from Edith Nicolaisen to Frederick H. Curtiss, USA, September 19, 1959).

Edith Nicolaisen corresponded with Adamski co-worker Carol Honey 1962-1968. When the break between Adamski and Honey accurred in 1963 Edith suddenly found herself with double loyalities and vacillated between different views on who told the truth. She wanted to stay on friendly terms with both her correspondents but made some critical comments on Adamski to Carol Honey in a letter May 2, 1964: ” From past correspondence and G.A.´s strange behaviour during his world-lecture-trip in 1959 as well as during his lecture-trip in 63 during which he made many contradictory statements and let NEW-AGE-co-workers down by not keeping his appointments and promises and thus causing great embarassements – I knew at heart that G.A. was not supported by the SPACE PEOPLE any longer… I agree entirely with your opinion that we must distinguish between the ”OLD Adamski”, who had his experience with the Space people as recorded in ”Fl.s.h.l.” and ”I. the.Sp.Sh.” and the ”NEW Adamski” who seems to be under some sort of psychic control from sources opposing the BROTHERS´ program. For some time it was a problem to me, but it is no longer after having been informed that G.A. started resorting to trance mediumship… we shall support you and your program, because we believe that you belong to the group, which we call genuine co-workers”.

Carol Honey

George Adamski explaining his break with Carol Honey in a letter to Edith Nicolaisen

Actually Edith continued to support both Honey and Adamski. The spiritual message of the space people was for her the important issue. In 1963 she had written a ”A personal letter between two New-Age-co-workers”.

”Dear George,
As our Brothers and Sisters from space shall need so much our co-operation on both sides of the ocean, let us forget all past misunderstandings and build our future co-operation on a rock of confidence. We have both experienced the detrimental influences of the ”negative forces” on our new-age-work in the past and seen how even the best New-Age-co-workers may fall prey to rumours and rumour-mongers… If my intentions have been business-minded, no doubt, I should have published ”best-sellers” like Bender´s, Howard Menger´s and the Shaver´s stories, as such books could have been sold in large editions appealing to the carnal-sense-mind of the majority and brought a large profit.”
(Letter from Edith Nicolaisen to George Adamski, July 7, 1963).

What is especially significant in this letter to Adamski is the total deprecation of Howard Menger and his contact experiences with space people. Especially since Edith Nicolaisen corresponded with Howard Menger between 1959-1966. In her first letter to him she wrote: ”Having read your article in the Flying Saucer Review, London, I realize that you have been chosen by our interplanetary brothers and sisters to bring an important New-Age-message to the people on the Earth, therefore I would like to ask you, if I might get your permission to translate and to publish your book From Outer Space To You here in Sweden?

(Letter from Edith Nicolaisen to Howard Menger, February 10, 1959).

In a reply Howard Menger gave Parthenon permission to translate his book but it was never published in Sweden. Maybe because in 1960 Edith received a letter from Ray Stanford who claimed that Howard Menger was a fake. Still she sold the English edition from Parthenon and in 1966 asked Menger for articles to a coming periodical. I find it something of an enigma that Edith Nicolaisen didn´t notice that From Outer Space To You was actually even more in line with the Esoteric Tradition than Adamski´s Inside the Space Ships. Howard Menger makes it very clear that his space people were not physical in the same sense as earth people and if we visited Venus we would not be able to see them.

In his last letter to Edith Nicolaisen, February 29, 1964, George Adamski wrote: ”I know that people all over the world would like the latest information but it takes a lot of work to get it together and have it published and all involves time, which I have so little of… I deny myself many things to get the work out the best I know, knowledge that the Brothers have given to me. I just had a contact with them recently where they told me that much more deeper could be given but unless the present knowledge given is partially absorbed by applying it in our daily lives the other knowledge will have to wait.” George Adamski died on April 23,1965.

This correspondence is ample evidence of the importance of saving letters in UFO archives. Books, magazines and articles can usually be found again if lost but with correspondence the situation is different. We only have one copy. Once lost it is gone forever. In all types of research letters are an indispensable tool that may open doors to knowledge, impossible to discover in other sources.

During the last two years I have devoted many hours reviewing, organising and scanning the vast archive of Borderland Sciences Research Foundation (BSRF). The major part of this collection is now filed in alphabetical folders at AFU. Next in line of large-scale projects is the Parthenon archive. This unique collection was donated to AFU already in the 1980s but has unfortunately been somewhat neglected in favor of other projects. This archive is a treasure trove of hard to find information about organizations, personalities and debates during the first decades of the UFO movement, especially the contactee scene.

Early information sheet from Parthenon, announcing the publication of the Swedish edition of Flying Saucers Have Landed in 1957

What makes the Parthenon archive so internationally unique can to a large extent be attributed to the dedicated work of one remarkable woman, Edith Nicolaisen (1911-1986), founder of the Parthenon publishing house in 1957. She spent eight years studying at the universitities of Copenhagen, Paris, Berlin and Heidelberg. Her academic credentials are impressive: Modern languages such as English, German, French, Latin, Russian but also Philosophy, History, Science, Mathematics a.o.

Edith Nicolaisen 1962

Fluent in several modern languages she worked as a translator, after the Second World War, for the United States Armed Forces in the European Theater and also in the Civil Censorship Division. Always with excellent ratings in work and personal qualifications. Between 1953-1957 she worked as a saleswoman for the Swedish publishing company Diana Bildreportage AB, Hälsingborg.

The prime heureka moment in the life of Edith Nicolaisen happened in 1954. An event she described in a letter to contactee Basil van den Berg, South Africa, September 1, 1963: ” "The first book I read was that of Leslie-Adamski´s Flying Saucers Have Landed and something in me recognized the truth, however fantastic it all sounded to my intellect and narrow-minded teaching, we all have received. I am a Danish citizen, who in 1954 was faced with the difficult choice either to accept the doors suddenly flung open for an additional three years college-training in USA for a future career under WHO Geneve... or, to volunteer for the SAUCER-cause here in Sweden, which meant to chose the "thorny and stony" road of the lonesome pioneer. After a fierce fight between intellect and heart, the latter gained supremacy."

As a long-time student of the Esoteric Tradition Edith Nicolaisen became convinced of the deep spiritual and cultural significance of the coming of the flying saucer phenomenon and the messages presented by contactees such as George Adamski, Daniel Fry, Orfeo Angelucci etc. Between 1959-1969 she corresponded with BSRF director Riley Crabb. In an article published in Round Robin 1960 she detailed her vision of Parthenon. In a letter 1969 Riley Crabb gave Edith Nicolaisen credit as a server of the Light in Sweden.

Edith Nicolaisen corresponded with almost all the known first generation UFO contactees and many ufologists active between 1950-1980. To my knowledge there is no correspondence archive in the world comparable in this respect. Although most letters are from individuals involved in the UFO contactee movement, there is a surprisingly large amount of correspondence from individuals like John Keel, Jacques Vallee, Ingo Swann and many others. There is a fascinating early letter from John Keel, January 28, 1970, where he laments the hostility he has encountered from the mainstream, scientific ufologists, who do not understand his research.

As Edith Nicolaisen corresponded with many UFO contactees, not simply of personal interest, but in order to publish their books, she often became close friends with the contactees and the letters reveal details of UFO sightings, contacts and what happened behind the scenes in the UFO movement. One of the foremost publishers of contactee literature in the 1950s was the New Age Publishing Company in Los Angeles, directed by Franklin and Dorothy Thomas. Employed in this company was also a man from Sweden, Mr. Carl E. Hallgren. In the Parthenon archive I have found 46 letters written between 1957-1960, correspondence with both Dorothy Thomas and Carl Hallgren. These letters are fascinating reading, giving insights into the discussions of which contactees should be regarded as genuine and reliable. Notice in this letter the comments on contactee Lee Crandall, author of the Venusians and Trevor James (Constable), author of They Live in the Sky.

Letter from Dorothy Thomas to Edith Nicolaisen, June 6, 1958

Exept thousands of letters the Parthenon archive includes books, unpublished manuscripts, magazines, photographs and organizational files. In coming blog posts I hope to present unknown and interesting data found in the Parthenon correspondence collection.

In several blog posts I have commented on the three photographs of a bell-shaped craft allegedly taken by Tahahlita Fry in Merlin, Oregon on November 1968. These photos have been reproduced innumerable times in books and magazines, often with different dates and claims that they were actually taken by other people. In the Parthenon correspondence file at AFU we have original letter from Tahahlita Fry, describing how she took the photos. I have generally regarded all other claims as highly dubious. But recently a new source have appeared that deepens the mystery.

Info on backside of photo

In her letter June 2, 1969 to Edith Nicolaisen, Sweden, Tahahlita Fry, second wife of Daniel Fry, narrates how and when she took the photos in Merlin, Oregon, November 1968. Her friend Mrs. Wilma ”Billie” Thompson was also present on this occasion, but none of them observed the craft. They were surprised to find a bell-shaped craft on the pictures when the drug store had the roll developed. Tahahlita`s handwriting is rather difficult to read but with the help of Timothy Good I have made a reasonable interpretation. There is no exact date given in the letter and Edith Nicolaisen asked two times about this in their correspondence but Tahahlita never answered this question. Her comment that ”I have never seen one open before” is enigmatic.

Dear ones at the Parthenon,

Bless you all. Just mailed the book to ………… We thank you so much. You will find enclosed two pictures of UFO taken over Merlin, Oregon November 1968. A clear blue sky. I was taking pictures of the parlor to send to friends in Florida who wanted to come here to live so – a truck went by our freeway – or interstate 5. I took the truck and then my camera seemed to snap without me doing any thing. My dear friend Mrs Billie Thompson was with me, so we used a roll of film and then I started all over again to try and be sure I got proper snapshots to send away. I did get good ones too. I am sending you 2 of them. I have never seen one open before. …. once in a very big glow…
Wishing you all good luck.
All love and good wishes go to you
Sincerely
Tahalita Fry

Daniel and Tahahlita Fry 1965

Edith Nicolaisen received two different photos but the craft appeared on three. Whether she received the third photo later I have not been able to find out but we have one copy at AFU. When Timothy Good visited Daniel Fry and his third wife Florence in 1976, Dan told that Tahahlita did not see the craft when she took the pictures. The camera started to click the shutter by itself six times. In a email to me February 6, 2012 Timothy Good mentioned this interview: As you know, I spent a lot of time with Dan and his second wife Florence when I stayed at his home in Arizona with Lou Zinstag in 1976, and he gave me two large colour prints of that craft. I've just gone through our correspondence, and this is what Florence wrote to me on August 29, 1977: "About Tahalita's picture [sic] - Dan states that Tah did not see the ship and disclaimed the pictures when they were presented to her because she didn't recognize them. Finally one picture was of a mutual friend and she accepted the role [roll?] of them. The camera simply snapped itself six consecutive times and when the roll was developed there were the spaceship pictures. . ." Timothy Good sent me copies of the color prints he received from Daniel Fry.

Prints received by Timothy Good

Timothy Good also sent me a copy from a magazine called Lotus Leaves, Feb-March 1974, with an interesting comment on the photo with the open section. Lotus Leaves was a newsletter published by the Lotus Ashram, Miami, Florida. This was a spiritualist fellowship headed by Dr. Noel Street and his wife Coleen.

The Tahahlita photograhs were published in many books and magazines, often with differing and rather confusing data. George Van Tassel published one of the photos on the front page of his magazine Proceedings 1978, with this comment: ”This photograph was taken by Tahahlita Wiese, in September of 1969. She, and a friend, were standing on a hill taking photographs of her property downhill from where they were, near the Interstate 5, Merlin, Oregon interchange. We reprint the picture here with the permission of Mrs. Wiese.” Both the month and year are here incorrect. Tahahlita had married Mr. Harold Wiese around 1970.

Some further interesting data are presented in a short note in the magazine UFO Universe, vol. 1, no 2, September 1988. But as usual the month and year is incorrect, stating September 1972. Very interesting though is the statement that Tahahlita heard a ”peculiar humming sound in the sky. We are also informed that the camera was a Yashica and that negatives exist. I asked Sean Donovan, custodian of the Understanding archive if he had these negatives but they were not to be found among the archive he has salvaged, and now present on his exellent website.

Anyone searching the internet for information on the Tahalita photos will soon find the assertion that they were actually taken by an engineer named Fritz Van Nest on March 21, 1968. The location is given as eight miles south of Kanab, Utah. The first ufologist to make this statement, from what I have found, is Wendelle Stevens in the article Bell-Shaped UFOs, published in Official UFO, vol 1, no 4, November 1975. Stevens gives a very detailed report of the incident, appearently from a first hand source. Rather sensational is the claim that Fritz Van Nest was a working colleague with famous UFO Skeptic Dr. Donald Menzel. I corresponded with Wendelle Steven 1981-1991 but unfortunately never asked him about these photos.

On July 30, 2008 a man calling himself TruthSeekerwrote a short note on the Daniel Fry website. According to TruthSeeker Tahalita Fry took the photos but they were ”stolen by her real estate agent, Fritz Van Nest, who later made several attempts to profit from the photos. I was surprised to find that on the same website the daughter of Fritz Van Nest (Alix Van Nest) disputed this claim: ”My father is Fritz Van Nest. That is ridiculous that my father stole any picture from anyone. I personally have the original picture in my possession. I´ve had it since I was a little girl. He always told me it was real, and after returning home after seeing that thing there was always a telescope up looking at the sky. To say he tried to profit from the photo is offensive, he was a scientist, never a real estate agent. I´ve never heard of the person who you credit that the photo was stolen from.And since I have the original I think you had better research your sources before you slander my fathers name.”

In an effort to resolve this enigma of opposing statements I wrote an email to Alix Van Nest on January 12 this year, but so far no answer. Neither have I been able to find specific data on Fritz Van Nest. If he was a ”well-known and highly respected geophysical engineer”, according to Wendelle Stevens, there ought to be some information of his life and career on the internet.

Adding to the confusion on this issue is the website of Neil Slade who claim this his friend Henry Rowland from Denver received the photo in the 1970s from a client for whom he was doing landscape work in California. The photo had been taken by his brother. And the list of people who are said to be the photographer goes on and on. So far the earliest data on these photos comes from the personal letter from Tahalita Fry. Perhaps some of my research colleagues out there have more first-hand data that can possibly solve this complicated photo enigma?

For several years I have in various blog posts presented different aspects of the UFO contact enigma and esotericism. To give all readers and research colleagues a summary of my writings I have made a somewhat updated version of the Esoteric Intervention Theory, which, has been my main working hypothesis since many years. For in-depth documentation follow the links or use the search engine at the upper left corner of the blog.

In common with UFO researchers Allen Hynek and Jacques Vallee I have one foot in empirical science, critical investigation and one foot in the Esoteric Tradition. From this vantage point or paradigm I have advanced the theory that some of the physical UFO contactees of the 1950s were involved in a cultural and psychological influence test. An experiment implemented by a group of benevolent aliens, earth based or extraterrestrial, a group with access to highly advanced “vimana” technology. This test was done in co-operation with the custodians of the Ancient Wisdom (Higher Intelligence Agency), using a new type of phenomena as attraction as they used spiritualist phenomena in connection with the founding of the Theosophical Society in 1875.

A brief summary of my arguments for seriously considering this theory:

1. Many years of investigating and documenting physical contact cases have convinced me that some individuals (very few) have actually met and communicated with “aliens” from somewhere.

2. In spite of their faults and personality idiosyncrasies there is circumstantial evidence that the following contactees were involved in a cultural and psychological test: George Adamski, Orfeo Angelucci, Daniel Fry, George Van Tassel, Howard Menger.

3. The contact experiences of journalist Paul M.Vest indicates that the test was a carefully orchestrated plan by this benevolent group.

4. The message or information presented to these contactees is a somewhat simplified version of the Esoteric Tradition with basic ideas such as: a multiverse reality, reincarnation, universal laws for the evolution of consciousness, Earth a quarantined or “prison planet”, man not alone in the universe etc. In order to detect and understand the similarity in ideas between the contactee messages and esotericism a thorough acquaintance with the works of Helena Blavatsky, Alice Bailey and Henry T. Laurency is required.

5. The “hidden hand” similarities between the outbreak of spiritualist phenomena in the 19th century and UFO phenomena in the 1940s and 50s. In the Esoteric Tradition this hidden hand is the planetary guardians, the custodians of the Ancient Wisdom (scientists of the multiverse) using "phenomena" to expand the worldview and consciousness of man.

6. The assertion, in the 1930s and 40s, by AliceBailey´s teacher the Tibetan D.K. that "extraplanetary beings "stand ready to intervene" and "offer their help at this time".

7. To determine whether this version of the Esoteric Intervention Theory is tenable and will stand the test of time and critical analysis, much further research is required. Investigation and documentation of empirical evidence coupled with an advanced and serious study of the Esoteric Tradition. This is an intellectual challenge for the coming generation of open-minded researchers who enter the domain of ”forbidden science”.

With increasing fascination and interest I continue reviewing, organizing and scanning thousands of documents from the Parthenon archive. One of the oldest UFO collections housed at AFU, with many rare and unique items especially from the 1950s and 1960s. I would not hesitate to designate Miss Edith Nicolaisen - founder of the publishing house Parthenon in 1957 – the Mother of the Swedish UFO movement. Her pioneering work inspired thousands of people. There are aspects of her life that still remains something of an enigma, especially the scope and authenticity of her several UFO observations.

The authors, researchers, ufologists worldwide who donate their archives to AFU usually restrict the donated material to documents who are associated with their work and investigations. In the case of Edith Nicolaisen (1911-1986) with have received her entire personal archive including all records from the Parthenon publishing house. From a historical viewpopint this is exceedingly valuable, giving a profound insight into early UFO history.

Because of her extensive university education during the 1930s and 1940s, including medical studies at the University of Copenhagen, Edith´s prospects and future looked very bright. During the severe polio epidemic in Denmark 1952 she participated in the intensive resque and rehabilitation work of the more than 7.000 patients. Because of her valuable work during this period she was on July 7, 1953 rewarded with an invitation to Drottningholm Palace, the private residence of the Swedish royal family. This was followed by an invitation for cocktails, July 8, 1953, to the Danish Ambassador in Stockholm, Knud Aasge Monrad-Hansen.

Invitation to Drottningsholm Palace

Invitation to the Danish Ambassador i Stockholm

In 1954 Edith Nicolaisen was to enter a radically new life journey. Resting in a summer cottage by the Danish coast she read Flying Saucers Have Landed by Desmond Leslie and George Adamski and this book became the turning point of her life. Several years later she described this momentous event in a letter to Basil van den Berg: "The first book I read was that of Leslie-Adamski´s Flying Saucers Have Landed and something in me recognized the truth, however fantastic it all sounded to my intellect and narrow-minded teaching, we all have received. I am a Danish citizen, who in 1954 was faced with the difficult choice either to accept the doors suddenly flung open for an additional three years college-training in USA for a future career under WHO Geneve... or, to volunteer for the SAUCER-cause here in Sweden, which meant to chose the "thorny and stony" road of the lonesome pioneer. After a fierce fight between intellect and heart, the latter gained supremacy." (September 1, 1963).

Edith Nicolaisen 1946

Together with three ladies from the Theosophical Society (Adyar) Edith Nicolaisen founded Parthenon in 1957 and moved from Copenhagen to Hälsingborg, Sweden. In spite of a severe accident, periods of illness and many other obstacles Ediths succeeded in publishing many of the early classics in UFO contactee literature. Here is a list of books published during the first years:

1957
Desmond Leslie, George Adamski, Flying Saucers Have Landed. Swedish edition: Flygande tefat har landat.

1958
George Adamski, Inside the Space Ships. Swedish edition: Ombord på rymdskepp. 2nd and 3rd, revised Swedish editions in 1968 and 1973.

Daniel Fry, The White Sands Incident. Swedish edition: Resa med flygande tefat. 2nd revised edition 1968.

1959
Elisabeth Klarer, I Flew in a Spaceship Over the Drakensberg. Swedish edition: I rymdskepp över Drakensberg.

Max B. Miller, Flying Saucers, Fact or Fiction? Swedish edition: Flygande tefat: fantasi eller verklighet?

Ray och Rex Stanford, Look Up. Swedish edition: Kontakt med rymdmänniskor.

1960

Daniel Fry, Alan´s Message. To Men of Earth. Swedish edition: Budskapet från rymden. 2nd revised edition 1968.

Beginning in 1954 Edith Nicolaisen lived a life of total dedication to what she regarded as her life mission, inspired by the space people. It was an austere and ascetic life. She became a vegetarian, often living long periods only on fruit juices. Working days often exceeding 16 hours. In a letter to Mrs. Harriet P. Foster, San Diego, USA Edith explained her situation: ”Personally, I have burned my "candle in both ends a little shorter", and it is still my hope, before I shall have to leave my "physical mantel" behind me, worn out entirely from overwork and lack of sleep, to find genuine people of the type, which Alice Bailey called: "The suicide squad" to carry Parthenon´s' information work onward, as long as it will be needed.” (March 12, 1964).

To my knowledge Edith Nicolaisen never claimed personal telepathic messages from the space people, nor any physical encounters. She only mention ”inspiration” and having been ”chosen” for this life task. There are four UFO-observations referred to in her voluminous correspondence. As she very seldom mention details or exact date it is rather difficult finding other sources confirming her sightings. Here is a summary of the most interesting observations from various letters. The observations in the Austrian Alps, Summer 1955, 1956 and close encounter outside Linköping in November 1955 are often described together.

1955-1956, Austria and outside Linköping, Sweden
”From the very first time I heard about ”Flying Saucers” coming from other planets, I believed it quite possible - to-day I am convinced! Had , too, the luck to see a ”Flying Saucer" of the Venusian type hovering some hundred meters about my head here in Sweden and last year

during my holidays in the Austrian mountains a huge mother ship passed at a distance of about 500 meters and at the same level majestic, soundless and with incredible speed! As it seems as if I belong to those ”elected ones", who always get the toughest jobs to solve in life, I felt it my duty to plant the banner of ”Flying Saucers” on the top of ”Mount Everest" here in Sweden. ”
(Letter to Desmond Leslie, Sept. 18, 1956).

Letter to Cosmic Brotherhood Association, Yokohama, Japan, March 1, 1962).

Photo by George Adamski, Dec. 13, 1952

”Personally, I believe they are they same Brothers who visited George Adamski at Palomar Hill, for after having contacted G . via correspondence , shortly after a few month for the first time I observed Fl . Saucers at a close distance - the first a Venusian Scout ship - exact of the same form and size as that G.A . photographed on Palomar Hill - later a year after a enormous size of a Space Ship passed my nose at a close distance high up in the Austrian mountains .

I gasped as a 12 year old school child.”

(Letter to George Adamski, Vista, California, March 27, 1963)

”As I have had the opportunity to watch space-ships on many occasions I know that the photos of G.A. are genuine. Particular two occasions, I remember: In 1955 here i Sweden about 15 km south of Linköping I wa tched a Venusian scout-craft with four port-holes howering for several minutes and at a very close distance. And in 1956 while standing on a mountain..plateau in the Austrian Alps, a huge mothership passed silently, but with great speed close to the plateau, both mentioned spacecraftss were of the exact type and appearance as those G.A. took by help of his telescope and Brownie-camera from Palomor Garden… If you happen to have photos of a scoutcraft with four portholes in your files, I should appreciate veiry much to get photoprint in black-white reproduction. Unfortunately only three portholes can be seen on the scout-craft which G.A. took. In O.p.R. he speaks about four portholes.”

(Letter to Desmond Leslie, Jan. 17, 1968).

”Concerning the Venusian-scout-ship with four port-holes! I read with interest what you write on page 373 in ”Piece for A Jig-saw”: ”… in order to suit the format of the book Waveney Girvan trimmed the photo of the scout-ship to size…” It does not sound very convincing, because why didn´t he diminish the photo to right size for block-making fitting the page in the book? The photos of scout-crafts received from G.A. during 1957 for block-making had only three port-holes. But in autumn 1955 about 15 km south of Linköping here in Sweden I watched a Venusian scout-ship of exact the same type and form as that outside the cover of the English edit. Of ”Flying Saucers Have Landed”, and it had four portholes. From one side of the scout-craft a strong neon-like orange light and from the other side a strong green-neon-like light was beaming, as it was very close I had time to watch all the details. Therefore, it would be of interest, if we Adamski-friends could get hold of a photo of a scout-ship with four port-holes. Try to contact Desmond Leslie who visited George Adamski in 1954, he may have among his collection of saucer-pictures a photo-print of the Venusian scout-ship with four port-holes.
(Letter to Leonard G. Cramp, Isle of Wight, Feb. 18, 1968).

”If you find a photo-print of a Venusian-Scout-ship – the Adamski-type with four portholes, please let us know, as all the photoprints which we received from G.A. for the mentioned two books had only three portholes. Personally, I know that G.A. is right, when he speaks about four portholes, as I have seen a Venusian-space-craft (of exact the same type and form as that reproduced on the cover of the English edit. Of ”Flying Saucers Have Landed”) at a very close distance about 15 km south of Linköping here in Sweden in 1955 – and it had four portholes.”
(Letter to Gray Barker, March 9, 1968)

”Since my first contact with G.A. in 1954, I knew that he had seen and photographed the type of spaceships as reproduced in his book: ”Inside the sp.sh.” because I have watched the same types at a very close distance both here in Sweden and in the Austrian mountains. So in spaite of all the fierce attacks on G.A. I do know that his photos are genuine.”
(Letter to Ingo Swann, United Nations, New York, April 18, 1969).

”The mentioned photo of the scout-ship taken by Tahalitha at Merlin, means a treasure to me too, due to the fact that in November 1955 on my way to Stockholm a scout-ship of exact the same appearance manifested above my head 15 km south of Linköping while waiting in my little car for a train to pass, it was late in the evening – and may be, in order to draw my attention, - a strong green light was beaming from one side of the craft and a strong orange light from the opposite site. Later I understood it meant a greeting and an encouragement from our Brothers to overcome all adversities and difficulties which the information-work about the UFOs and the Brothers messages to man of Earth would cause here in Sweden, indeed beyond imagination and description. Thanks to these greetings and encouragements in critical hours, I got the needed inner strength to face and to overcome the adversities of all sorts and to continue the new-age-information-work of Parthenon during the latter 17th years here in Sweden.”

(Letter to Daniel and Tahalita Fry and Kerttu Campbell, Jan. 10, 1975).

Photo by Tahahlita Fry, Merlin, Oregon Nov. 1968

The close encounter with the scout-ship in November 1955 is of special interest as Edith mentioned that a group of people had also observed this craft and that this was mentioned the day after in a local paper. I have always surmised that it must have been a local paper published nearby the observation site but it could of course have been published in any local Swedish paper. Nothing has been found in the local papers of Östergötland but If I could find the article and it would confirm Ediths observation that would certainly be finding the smoking gun. I any of my UFO colleagues and friends in Sweden would like to check local papers, November 1955 it would be greatly appreciated.

October 24, 1957, Hälsingborg, Sweden

”I woke up early that morning with anticipation and joy at heart – without knowing what was going to happen that day – before two silver discs passed our window here. When the first one passed about 8 o´clock I wore no glasses and therefore could not see it clearly – and I felt a great disappointment – about 20 minutes later another disc caming rolling along an invisible line. – when I appeared on the balcony and sent them my greetings of welcome and vawed my hands to them it stopped and lingered a while before it shot off in the far distance. This greeting on the day PARTHENON started its work here in Sweden has been my light and hope thorugh all difficulties during this winter.”

(Letter to George Adamski, Palomar Terraces, California, November 11, 1958).

”The following incident ascertains that it was not a self-appointment or an imagination!

On the 24th of October l957, the day PARTHENON started its new-age-acitivity here in Sweden, distributing the first "Flying Saucer-books, in the morning between 8:-8.30 a.m. a large SILVER DISC with sharp contours from which surface the October sunlight was reflected from its surface, - came rolling along an invisible line and stopped at a short distance in front of our balcony wobling for some minutes - a time enough to get thoughts of greetings before it shot away at an immense speed disappearing into the 4th dimension. This incident had been foretold one and a half year ahead by a highly spiritual-minded lady during my stay in Stockholm: "The day you start PARTHENON's NEW-AG-wo rk here in Sweden, you will

get a greeting from our VENUSIAN friends!”

(Letter to Tarna L. Halsey, Los Angeles, June 6, 1966).

Together with Parthenon co-workers leaving for the DUIST UFO congress in Wiesbaden 1972. From left: Ronny Hellborgssson, Edith Nicolaisen, Ebbe Johansson, Pia Ringstrand, Hellborg Johansson

1969, Malung, Sweden

”At the time I was on the point of giving up a 12 years` pioneering work here in Sweden, once more Parthenon´s friends from space manifested themselves on the physical plane as they did on the 24th of October 1957, the day Parthenon started its information work here in Sweden. On my arrival in the evening just at sunset at Malung, a town in the northern part of Sweden, a silver-disk hang suspended in the air and when I ”complained” telepathic that it was difficult to see the brim due to the dusk a few seconds after the thoughts had been received, the whole brim was glowing with light. Later when I entered my room in a remote hotel-annex, it got filled with light and blessings beyond words – and something extraordinary happened, which I prefer to related orally. This experience gave me the encouragement needed to continue.”
(Letter to the Findhorn Community, Oct. 17, 1970):

There are still hundreds of documents to review in the Parthenon archive and thousands of letters to peruse. Hopefully I will find some more clues regarding the observations and the remarkable life of the UFO pioneer Edith Nicolaisen.

It was Jacques Vallee who coined the phrase Esoteric Intervention Theory in Messengers of Deception, published in 1979. This idea struck a deep chord in me when I first encountered it and resulted in an article - a preliminary source study – published in AFU Newsletter no 19, April-Sept. 1980. I have since then followed up on all leads I could find relating to this theory or working hypothesis. An interesting comment on UFOs and esoteric intervention was made by esotericist Dane Rudhyar (1895-1985) in Occult Preparations for a New Age (1975).

There are two quotes in his book I find of special significance:

”The question almost inevitably comes to mind whether the Occult Brotherhoods, if they are indeed trying to establish a new public contact with mankind during the last quarter of this twentieth century, may not be ready to use the UFO myth for their purpose, just as they used — with quite unhappy results, alas — Spiritualistic and psychic phenomena in order to impress a transcendent kind of knowledge upon the collective mentality of our Western world, and through it, of mankind as a whole.” (p. 252)

”While in the nineteenth century Spiritualism sought to establish the existence of human minds and soul-entities beyond the borderline of the physical world, the twentieth century UFO movement — which also produced a wide variety of "communications" from "Space-People"— attempts to show that "men" from other planets or solar systems exist. Both movements represent an attempt at expanding consciousness and human contacts, and it will be interesting to see whether, after 1975, the occult "messenger" announced by HPB will use the UFO concept to gain public notice, and soon after also show that the usual interpretation given to flying saucers and space-people is not the correct one.” (pp. 43-44)

In 1984, the year before he died, I wrote a letter to Dane Rudhyar asking him about the American occultist Brown Landone and his assertion that some of the Tibetan adepts have moved their headquarters to South America, a claim mentioned in Rudhyar´s book. His reply may be of interest to students of the Esoteric Tradition.

Dane Rudhyar´s field of expertise was not UFO phenomena and the UFO movement, otherwise he most assuredly would have discovered the strong indications that there actually was an esoteric intervention, using the ”UFO concept” - but it happened already in the 1950s. From basically two sources it was stated that one or several esoteric lodges cooperated with benevolent alien visitors in an attempt or experiment to ”impress a transcendent kind of knowledge upon the collective mentality of our Western world, and through it, of mankind as a whole.” The two sources were the unique deep trance medium Mark Probert and the communications published by Borderland Science Research Foundation(BSRF). The second source was the information received from alien visitors and published in books, magazines and lectures by some of the first generation UFO contactees.

While Dane Rudhyar expected a new messenger, a traditional disciple, from the Planetary Guardians presenting facts like Helena Blavatsky and Alice Bailey this new experiment in influencing humanity was actually a brilliant idea suitable for the space age. That it was already planned int the 1930s is mentioned by the Tibetan D.K. in The Externalisation of the Hierarchy:

April 1935: "... the regenerative forces of Those extraplanetary Beings Who offer Their Help at this time." (p. 25)

April-May 1940: "Hovering today within the aura of our planet are certain great spiritual Forces and Entities, awaiting the opportunity to participate actively in the work of world redemption, re-adjustment and reconstruction.... the waiting extra-planetary Forces." (p. 222-223)

April 1943: "Certain great Energies of extra-planetary significance Who stand ready to intervene..." (p. 392).

Beginning in 1946 BSRF director Meade Layne began publishing the unique trance communications received through Mark Probert. The sixteen men and women, The Inner Circle, behind Probert often mentioned flying saucers and were adamant that ”the usual interpretation given to flying saucers and space-people is not the correct one”. Instead they reiterated that many of the UFOs and space people observed and contacted were from another part of the multiverse, the etheric level, and actually materialized in our atmosphere. The Inner Circle members also made an interesting comment on cooperation between the alien visitors and the Planetary Guardians or the Hierarchy:

”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). This work has to do with the great possibility of the Earth´s destruction… These men have landed in Australia in a secret landing field. They have not only been to Scotland, but to high authorities in England, and to a few of your men and women here of high standing (I refer to the secret Orders).” (Seance Memoranda From the Inner Circle, November 28, 1951, p. 30).

Irene and Mark Probert

The Inner Circle presented themselves with names such as Ramon Natalli, Dr. Charles Lingford, Yada Di Shi´ite, Lo Sun Yat etc. Could these names be personas, fictional characters used by members of some of the secret lodges on earth? If this theory proves correct my guess would be the Yucatan Brotherhood mentioned by Charles Leadbeater, Annie Besant, Alice Bailey and Henry T. Laurency. This secret lodge created the first physical materialization phenomena that inspired the formation of the Spiritualist movement in the 19th century.

The second source asserting a cooperation between the Planetary Guardians and alien visitors is the information given to some of the first UFO contactees. An experienced esotericist can easily recognize which of the contactees present information in accordance with the Esoteric Tradition. As with the experiment using spiritualist phenomena in the 19th century, very soon imposters and various mystics glamoured and deceived by astral entities appeared in the UFO movement. This was probably one of the reasons that the experiment was terminated after about a decade. But the original messages from the core contactees had a profound cultural influence on 1950s society and and became an inspiration and hope for thousands of young people of this generation. The message or information presented to these contactees was a somewhat simplified version of the Esoteric Tradition with basic ideas such as: a multiverse reality, reincarnation, universal laws for the evolution of consciousness, Earth a quarantined or “prison planet”, man not alone in the universe etc.

Regarding the cooperation in this operation between the Planetary Guardians and alien visitors these quotes from American contactees ar of interest:

"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)

”There are also space craft, though of inferior design, which are built by people of this planet. These people are in communication and in service with people from other planets. They are people who possess a high spiritual understanding and have reached an awareness of natural law; therefore they have been entrusted with information enabling them to construct such craft.” (Howard Menger, From Outer Space To You, p. 159).

Howard Menger

”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. This information, however, could not be revealed through their agency to the outside world. We therefore have selected individuals whose analytical minds and willingness to accept new concepts will make them channels for the truth. Your recognition of yourself and the channel for and not the originator of this material is both discreet and honorable.” (Trevor James Constable, They Live in the Sky, p. 170).

”The spacecraft that are appearing today are under the direction of the hierarchy of their own planets and are working in close harmony with the masters and mystery schools of the hierarchy on Earth… Thus we see that there is a definite connection between the mystery schools and the UFO. They are really one and the same force in operation… the UFO are in our skies, and we are talking with space men who tell us the same thing that the mentors of this planet have been telling us for many centuries.” (George Hunt Williamson and John McCoy, UFOs Confidential, p. 70).

The future prospects of humanity on this planet are not very bright unless something extraordinary happens. The ”forces of evil and destruction” evident in all aspects of society today are staggering and appalling. Trying to get humanity on our planetary Alcatraz to implement right human relations appears like a mission impossible. It will be interesting to se when and how the Planetary Guardians, eventually allied with benevolent alien visitors, plan their next move.

Watching the daily news I can fully understand the realistic view of life on Earth given by the ”Venusian” Bill to American journalist and contactee Paul M. Vest in the Summer of 1953: "Upon your earth the mere colour of one´s skin - a slight difference of religious belief - merely belonging to a different race or country - in fact the most trivial deviations precipitate animalistic belligerencies, hideous brutalities and the bloody slaughter of millions of your fellow creatures. Can you then truly be surprised when I tell you the the beings of certain other worlds view earth as earthlings might look upon a den of deadly serpents stinging each other to death."

In the voluminous Parthenon correspondence file at AFU is preserved letters from almost all the wellknown public contactees of the 1950s and 60s. Edith Nicolaisen, founder of the Parthenon publishing house, had the ambition to translate and publish as many contactee books in Swedish as possible. One of her close friends, although they never met, was Elizabeth Klarer (1910-1994) a South African woman with contact experiences that eventually would prove quite shocking to Edith and many of her colleagues in the UFO and New Age community. The Nicolaisen – Klarer correspondence file consists of 23 letters, written between 1956-1976.

Elizabeth Klarer

The original UFO observations and contact experiences of Elizabeth Klarer were published in Flying Saucer Review, Nov-Dec 1956. The first close encounter occurred on December 27, 1954, in the Drakensberg Mountains of Natal, when Elizabeth observed a flying saucer hovering close to the ground. She observered a man in one of the portholes: ”The most handsome man I have ever seen”. It was not until July 17, 1956 when she again encountered the same saucer, but this time it was landed and the man, Akon from Venus, stood beside the craft. He invited her to enter and she was given a short trip and offered water, a red apple and other fruit similar to bananas. The tall Venusian spoke perfect English and claimed to have lived a short while on our planet. He had a fair golden-hued skin while another member of the crew was short, stocky with olive skin. After some conversation Elizabeth is returned to the same spot. On July 17, 1956 she succeeded in taking seven photographs of the flying saucer. Edith Nicolaisen read the Flying Saucer Review article and immediately wrote a letter Elizabeth and received a reply February 7, 1957.

In her second letter to Elizabeth, Edith Nicolaisen gave a detailed summary of her own life and experiences. She was usually very reluctant to reveal personal details of her life, especially to her Swedish correspondents, but were somewhat more open when writing to contactee friends around the world. This is the only letter I have found, so far, mentioning possible meetings with extraterrestrials: ”You know, George A., has often written that ”the Brothers” from other planets walk among us, and I do believe that I have met one at Stockholm and one at Copenhagen, George told me once that they have a very characteristic feature – and I believe that I have recognized this particular feature. The latter at Copenhagen could have been 40 years but also 400 years! Next time I shall try to get the courage to address this type of gentlemen.”

(Letter from Edith Nicolaisen to Elizabeth Klarer, Feb. 23, 1957).

Edith and Elizabeth continued a friendly correspondence and in 1959 Parthenon published the small booklet I rymdskepp över Drakensberg. This was essentially the material from the Flying Saucer Review article, with some updated information from Elizabeth. A second edition was published in 1967.

Photo by Elizabeth Klarer, July 17, 1956

Backside of photo

In a letter August 29, 1961 Edith asked Elizabeth about another South African contactee woman, who had published a small book, Transvaal Episode – A UFO Lands in Africa. The author, Anchor, was the pen name of Ann Grevler. In her reply Elizabeth told about the strange vendetta between these two woman contactees, a controversy followed up in the local press.

Elizabeth became a very well known contactee in South Africa and also claimed that members of the military and intelligence community was interested in her experiences. But she was also rather suspicious of the motives of many of her friends and correspondents: ”You see, Nic, I have always been wary of the men who worked behind the Flying Saucer Review in London (this in confidence) and my manuscript was posted to Neville Spearman at their request and Col. Botha told me that he knows some of them and that they are British Intelligence (MI5).” (Letter from Elizabeth Klarer to Edith Nicolaisen May 12, 1964). Editor of Flying Saucer Review in 1964 was Waveney Girvan. He died on October 22, 1964 and was replaced as editor by Charles Bowen.

The manuscript mentioned was first published by the German organisation DUIST in 1977, Jenseits der Lichtmauer. The first English version, Beyond the Light Barrier, published in 1980 by Howard Timmins, Cape Town, South Africa. Elizabeth had worked on this manuscript since around 1960, adding and updating experiences that would prove to be very controversial. She had fallen in love with Akon and she had given birth to their son, Ayling, when taken to the new home of Akon on Meton, one of the planets orbiting Proxima Centauri: ”I am at present rewriting my whole manuscript and hope to complete it as soon as possible. I received the copy back from Karl Veit in West Germany. I think my manuscript shocked them – but I cannot hide the truth in these matters.
(Letter from Elizabeth Klarer to Edith Nicolaisen, Feb. 7, 1966).

That Edith also was chocked to hear about this new revelation is evident. Her views on sex were very strict and ascetic, influenced by the teachings of Rudolf Steiner and Max Heindel. In a letter to another of her South African friends, ufologist Philipp Human, she made her views on the manuscript very clear: ”With thanks received your letter of 22 June 1966, and for your information about Mrs. Klarer. Don´t be afraid, we shall never publish E. Klarer´s story with her Venusian lover, long ago I heard about the contents of her book from our friends Veits in Germany. But I would like to reprint her little booklet about her contacts. I do believe that she has had some sort of contact.”

(Letter from Edith Nicolaisen to Philipp Human, July 4, 1966).

Edith corresponded with Philipp Human 1958-1967. He was in the 1950s a close friend and admirer of Elizabeth Klarer: ”Meeting Mrs. Klarer and getting to know her has been the biggest event yet in my life. Her knowledge about the universe is phenomenal and she has been kind and helpful to me. I was thrilled to hold a small stone her friend brought to her from Venus during his last visit… He actually visited her home.”
(Letter from Philipp Human to Edith Nicolaisen, April 17, 1958).

Philipp Human

Philipp Human´s admiration for Elizabeth would soon end when she criticized his views on psychic contactees and revealed that Akon was her lover: ”With regard to Mrs. Klarer, I´m afraid I shall have to disappoint you. Our correspondence came to a halt when I told her how a space man had contacted me through a trance medium. She gave me a severe telling off. No space man would stop to such methods… Ever since then Elizabeth and I have parted ways. You will be horrified to hear that I do not believe one word of her supposed to be contacts and it was a standing joke the way she was helped to photograph an ordinary motor car hubcap. So much for her photographs… I typed the original MSS. That was before she added additional material to tell of her pregnancy caused by her Venusian lover, and how he had taken her to Venus to give birth to this blue-eyed fair-haired Venusian baby who would never be allowed to visit this planet but was being reared by Akon´s sister. I pray that this book will never be published.”

(Letter from Philipp Human to Edith Nicolaisen, June 22, 1966).

Trying to make an assessment of all the claims of Elizabeth Klarer today is exceedingly difficult. To my knowledge there was practically no detailed, serious investigation made during her lifetime. One of the few ufologists who tried to document the Klarer case was Cynthia Hind from Zimbabwe. She reflects on what could have been checked at an early stage in the contacts: the relatives who could have confirmed Elizabeth´s pregnancy are now dead. Cynthia personally held the ring in her hand that Elizabeth claimed was a present from Akon. No examination made. No geological analysis was made of the rock from Meton, kept by Elizabeth. And to my knowledge there has been no study of the photo negatives showing the flying saucer.

Elizabeth Klarer at the 1967 DUIST congress, Wiesbaden

There are several classic cases where there are more or less independent confirmation that the contactee really did meet "aliens" - whoever they are. Ufologist Cynthia Hind reports in her UFO Afrinews, January 1999, that this scenario also came up in the Elizabeth Klarer case. The owner of a hotel in Natal, South Africa suddenly finds an unusual man standing in the reception area: "... tall, blond, very good-looking guy, rather strange, but with good features and high cheekbones." He asks for Elizabeth Klarer but is told no one with that name has been booked at the hotel. He then disappears in a strange way. About a week later Elizabeth Klarer did arrive and booked into the hotel. The owners mention the man and Elizabeth shows a photo of a bust of her space man Akon. He is immediately recognized as the strange visitor. Cynthia Hind, who was quite sceptical of Klarer and did a lot of investigations, still had this conclusion: "All these factors need examination and it is time we stopped casting aside cases like Elizabeth Klarer and Edwin which, although sounding like hoaxes, are not obviously so."

In her last letter to Edith Nicolaisen (Nov. 27, 1976), Elizabeth Klarer wrote regarding Beyond the Light Barrier: ”This book is a must for you and I hope you will be able to publish it at Parthenon.” But Edith never replied and ended twenty years of friendship and correspondence with silence. She published a second edition of Klarer´s first booklet I rymdskepp över Drakensberg, but never mentioned the second book. Instead of trying to understand what had happended to Elizabeth and openly expressing her disappointment and doubts, Edith simply ended the contact.

This attitude epitomize the dilemma of the New Age contactee-oriented UFO movement: researchers or missionaries? To Edith Nicolaisen the spiritual message of the space people was of the highest priority. Research was interesting if it could support the spiritual message. Edith was to learn the hard way that research and spiritual messages not always worked together. This was probably one of the reasons why she, beginning in the 1960s, became more and more oriented towards mysticism and the doomsday prophecies of Richard Graves and Yul Verner. She could have avoided these pitfalls and developed a more balanced view if she instead of relying on Rudolf Steiner and Max Heindel had followed in the footsteps of the core Esoteric Tradition of Helena Blavatsky, Alice Bailey and Swedish esotericist Henry T. Laurency. Inspite of her intellectual training and academic credentials she never appears to have found the works of Laurency. Edith Nicolaisen was and remained all her life the New Age missionary.

It is generally a good idea to return to the classics in any genre. This also goes for UFO literature. Rereading a book after ten or twenty years is a rewarding experience. You will discover new data and ideas you didn´t notice before. The reason, of course, is that you are, in many ways, not the same person reading the book the second or third time. Hopefully you have advanced in knowledge, experience, intellectual and spiritual discernment. I have made it a habit to reread, especially the contactee classics of the 1950s as there is in my view a deeper mystery involved in what happened during that era. The classic chosen for this blog is one of my favourites - Flying Saucer Pilgrimage by Bryant and Helen Reeve.

This book was published by Ray Palmer´s Amherst Press in 1957, with a second edition 1965. In an article in Flying Saucer Review, July-August 1957, Crossing The Cosmic Barrier, Bryan and Helen narrates how it all began: ”Please note that we both started out as sceptics. How come a stayed engineer like myself, working with a respectable and staid manufacturing company, and my perfectly sane and sensible wife – how come we ever entered upon so bizarre a venture as a flying saucer research? Well, a good friend burst into our home in 1953 with a copy of Flying Saucers Have Landed, by Leslie and Adamski, and that started a very hot argument!”

Helen and Bryant Reeve

The Reeve couple wasn´t satisfied with arguments. They really wanted to know the truth about these flying saucer stories. So they invited George Adamski for a lecture in their hometown Detroit. What they didn´t realize at that time was that this initiative would result in a journey across the United States and Mexico, covering two years of time and more than 23,000 miles of travel. Bryant and Helen published the results of their research in Flying Saucer Pilgrimage, which gives a very good overview of the UFO contactee scene of the 1950s. The authors didn´t just want to interview the wellknown contactees but adopted the policy of trying to live with the contactees to get the ”feel” of their stories and personalities.

The beginning with the Adamski lecture in Detroit 1953 could have ended in real trouble for the Reeve family. With his inspiring jocularity and espri Bryant narrates what happened:
”I came home tired from work on evening and was greeted brightly by my wife Helen with the remark, ”Congratulations! You´ve just rented the Masonic Temple”.
”I´ve just rented what?” I yelled.
”The Detroit Masonic Temple – for the public to hear Mr. Adamski – only $1,200.00 – I signed you up!”
To say that I was ready to ”give the saucers back to the Venusians” was putting it mildly.” The Detroit Masonic Temple had 5,000 seats. The pre-sale of tickets was not too encouraging and it was a rainy day. But Bryant was in for a big surprise. 4,700 people attended George Adamski´s lecture.

After this success Bryant and Helen continued inviting several contactees and authors to lecture in Detroit: Truman Bethurum, George Hunt Williamson and Desmond Leslie. There is an interesting sidelight to the Leslie lecture in October 1954. Leslie mentioned that during his American tour he had met a U.S. Air Force officer who confirmed the rumor that a flying saucer had landed at Muroc/Edwards Air Force base and that President Eisenhower was taken to see it. This story was first introduced by occultist and contactee Gerald Light (Dr. Kappa) in a letter, April 1954, to Meade Layne, director of Borderland Sciences Research Foundation (BSRF). The original letter is preserved at AFU.

Desmond Leslie

In August of 1954 Bryant Reeve retired from his work as engineer. The couple sold their Detroit home, bought a new car which they loaded with ”saucer books, tape-recordings of saucer lctures, a tape recorder, photographic equipment and the like”. Late in October 1954 they crossed the border at Laredo, Texas, heading for Mexico City with a six months´ Tourist Permit. Helen found an article about ”platillos voladores” in a Mexican newspaper, written by ”Senor Gebe”. They contacted this journalist which started a chain reaction of flying saucer activities for the Reeve couple. Their Mexico City apartment became an unofficial headquarters for saucer interest in the capital and they became quite well known as saucer experts, even appearing as ”typical gringo tourists” in a film, Rehearsal for a Crime, by distinguished movie director Louis Bunuel.

On January 7, 1955 Bryant Reeve lectured for an audience of over two hundreds Mexicans and friends interested in UFOs. It was during this lecture that Salvador Villanueva Medina the (Mexican Adamski) first told of his encounter and conversation with two spacemen some three hundreds miles north of Mexico City on the Laredo Road in August of 1953. Bryant and Helen decided to investigate his story thoroughly and together with their friend Billgey, Senor Gebe and his son they travel with Salvador Villanueva Medina to the contact point. They interviewed Medina at the landing site, checking every detail, and took samples of the soil and vegetation. Bryant and Helen finally concluded that he had told the truth.

Camping near Valles, Mexico. From left Senor Gebe´s son, Helen Reeve, Billgey, Salvador Medina

While in Mexico the couple received a letter from George Adamski. He arrived for a vacation in Mexico in March 1955. During his stay Bryant and Helen arranged a lecture by Adamski at the Insurgentes Theatre in Mexico City. In large letters appeared the sign ”Conferencia Los Platillos Voladores Por George Adamski”.

George Adamski and Salvador Medina in Mexico 1955

Helen and Bryant in front of the Insurgentes Theatre, Mexico City

After six hectic months in Mexico, Bryant and Helen continued their journey into USA, crossing the border at El Paso, Texas. Not far from the little town of Joshua Tree, on their way to visit George Van Tassel at Giant Rock, they observe a cigar-shaped craft moving over a mountain some miles away. They spend several days with the Van Tassel family and are also invited to attend one of Van Tassel´s psychic communications with space people, in the room beneath the Giant Rock. Bryant narrates: ”I am not myself ”psychic” at all – no more than a fence post! But I am rather sensitive to mild electric currents, to radiations and currents of energy, and I personally felt an amazing flow of energy in that room. It was something like a galvanic current through my body. I noticed that it manifested itself with particular strength before and during that contacts made by Van.”

Next stop on the Reeve´s pilgrimage was San Diego, where the spent several months with Meade Layne and the unique deep trance medium Mark Probert. This long visit proved to be seminal in the couples search for answers to the UFO enigma. They now realized that ”flying saucers are more than a mere physical manifestation”. In a summary and evaluation of their journey and experiences Bryant Reeve remarked: ”… I believe the greatest thrill of all for me came in San Diego when with the help om Mark Probert we talked to his Inner Circle! For the first time on our entie pilgrimage I felt that we personally had made a contact with advanced intelligences who could give us worthwhile information from a cosmic viewpoint.” (p. 276)

Mark Probert

Bryant and Helen also visited Daniel Fry, Orfeo Angelucci and many others. They did find some contactees that were obvious frauds or imposters but no names are mentioned. The Reeve´s pilgrimage is a very good example of the Jacques Vallee statement that UFO research is a ”process of initiation”. Flying Saucer Pilgrimage ends with the conclusion: ”The quest for knowledge of outer-space has turned into the quest for knowledge of LIFE itself – and that never ends!”

In a follow-up book The Advent of the Cosmic Viewpoint (1965), Bryant Reeve continue and deepen the quest for knowledge, entering the world of psychic research, paranormal phenomena and metaphysics. In spite of their extensive quest for a new worldview Bryant and Helen never appears to have studied the Esoteric Tradition, Theosophy, Alice Bailey etc. Although they do mention that ”from our analysis, the teachings of the space beings appear to support many of the principles taught in oriental philosophies by seers of the Far East.” (p. 244, Pilgrimage).

Edith Nicolaisen, founder of the Parthenon publisning house, corresponded with Bryant and Helen Reeve 1958-1966. Edith received the publishing rights for a Swedish edition of Flying Saucer Pilgrimage, but the project was never implemented due to lack of ”idealistic” translators and lack of money. Very unfortunate as this classic from the 1950s is a joy to read with an abundance of information on the inside world of the original UFO contactees. It also represents much of the early hope and vision for a better world inspired by the contacts with space visitors.

What would happen if it could be determined with abolute certainty that the photographs and films taken by George Adamski in the 1950s and 60s are genuine, showing real unidentified alien craft? The answer is not just of scientific interest but even more so a psychological and sociological issue. How would mainstream UFO researchers react to such a revelation or rather revolution? How would this heureka moment affect the UFO research community? Maybe we will soon have the answer, coming from the investigations implemented by Danish photographer and artist Rene Erik Olsen. His second book dealing with the George Adamski photos and films have recently been published – The Alien Visitors.

In his former book, The George Adamski Story, Rene presented the remarkable results obtained by digital enhancement of the Adamski photographs. The Alien Visitors is a sequel to the first volume. This is no ordinary UFO book or research effort, but a beautiful and inspiring artwork, a real feast for the eye. There are around 80 illustrations: Adamski photos, often digitally enchanced coupled with more than 40 visionary paintings by Rene Erik Olsen. The 58 pages of text is a detailed study of the visitors technology and propulsion system.

Painting by Rene Erik Olsen

Regarding the authenticity of the Adamski photos and his contact experiences the author simply states: ”… George Adamski. A man of much controversy, but a man who was exposed to an enormous amount of factual evidence of these amazing visitor-crafts. I have been extremely fortunate to have seen some of his original photos and been provided some digitized films and enhanced some of them for this book.” (p. 61)

When reading the chapters describing the technology and propulsion of shuttle crafts and cruisers I was immediately intrigued by the very detailed presentations. I did recognize some of it from the books by George Adamski, Daniel Fry, George Van Tassel and Howard Menger, but there is also very specific new information, not presented as theories och speculation but facts. Here a few examples:

The Alien Visitors, p. 20

Painting by Rene Erik Olsen

”In certain types of shuttle crafts the pilot has the ability to make any part of the cabin wall/outer wall transparent/translucent. This ”effect” is very useful, especially when in partly stealthy mode (not wanting to be observed) – they have the ability/technology to control the appearance (at the atomic/electron level) of certain materials.” (p. 26)

”The very large cruisers of 10 to 30 miles i sizes – are a different matter. They are a planetary matter. These cruisers are small cities and can easily travel for years without returning to their original base or home planet. For all crusiers traveling great distances, maintenance is performed at selected destinations during traveling – normally planned ahead of travel. All personnel on these city-sized cruisers are specifically selected for these trips.” (p. 38)

Painting by Rene Erik Olsen

I began to suspect that Rene must be the custodian of some very special information so in an email I simply asked what are your main sources for all these data? On April 5, I received several emails - and was I in for a surprise:

” Information from two direct sources in Copenhagen - between the years 1990 - 1992. While doing research both in the U.S. and researching the Eduard Meier-case (trips to Switzerland in 1988-1990) I was contacted by many people during that period, but especially two people stood out - they knew of my research in Switzerland and my planned trip to the U.S. and they wanted to part some information on the subject. Subsequently I had four meetings with these two individuals who provided intricate details on the propulsion principles.”..

"Direct sources - Those two individuals (a woman and a man - who knew each other) had information which I could not question. The woman worked at a research lab (in Copenhagen) and the man I do not know where he was working (or if he had a job). They both knew each other (I gathered that from a joint meeting with them both) and they presented things which I had no way of proving or refuting - photos attached to metallic surfaces (never seen that before) showing crafts (both large and small) and they also showed movie-clips on what best can be described as a small "Ipad" - which was not available back then (Ipads came out in 2010). They did not tell me what to do with the information, only that they wanted to give this, so I did the prudent thing (back then) and sat on the information. You may recall that a lot of stuff was happening in the late 1980'ies and beginning of the 1990'ies in the UFO-field (MJ-12 controversy, big-headed aliens, alien/terrestrial pact and technology transfer)."

"I sat on this information until Glenn Steckling by accident (in an email in 2017-18) told me of an observation of a mothership (with a swirling force-field moving around it) and that was when it clicked for me - and I thought I had seen this and heard a similar description of this before (from these two sources) - Back then I checked the woman's credentials (she did work at a research lab) but two years after the last meeting she was no longer there. Both of them I have not been able to locate again, to be honest - if I could, I really would not want to. Of course I asked them where they had the information from, but from the way they looked at me, it seemed self-explanatory. I think they wanted me to make my own conclusions. I sort of have. That is why I describe these two people as direct-sources. But I have no way of proving it… The two of them were looking just like you and me (meaning Caucasian in appearance and nothing special about them - seemed like two ordinary people you could meet on the street - but the only thing that stood out was that they were very patient with me - because I asked a lot of questions (talking fast when I get excited).”

Rene Erik Olsen

Rene is here indicating the possibility that the couple could have been visitors or contactees themselves, covertly involved in co-operation with the visitors. This naturally opens up for hundreds of follow-up questions and research. Rene mention that further data may be published in coming books and on his website. The Aliens Visitors is suddenly not only a book about George Adamski and the interpretation of his photos but of a second mystery as well. Who were the strangers that contacted Rene Erik Olsen – and why was he given this unique information?

Inside of shuttle craft. Painting by Rene Erik Olsen

Readers of my blog are aware of that I have advanced the theory that George Adamski was involved in a psychological and cultural influence test in the 1950s. An experiment implemented by a group of benevolent aliens, earth based or extraterrestrial, a group with access to “vimana” technology. 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 and social stigma of the experiences or invented fake stories when the real contacts ended. During my many years of investigation and documentation of physical contactee cases I have found enough circumstantial empirical evidence to accept some of the 1950s contact experiences as valid and worthy of further study and analysis. "Scientific" ufology usually regard this group of contactees as charlatans and impostors but I am too old to play the ufologically correct game and sing in the debunking choir. In the George Adamski case there is a lot of circumstial evidence indicating he really did meet alien visitors from somewhere. Here a few examples:

Timothy Good interviewing Lucy McGinnis, former secretary of George Adamski.
”Lucy McGinnis: This was at Palomar. I was in my room lying down… in the afternoon… I don´t know what date it was… I was lying down and for some reason I got up and went out… And I looked up, and here was this great big thing. I was amazed. It was a saucer-like, and it was big. As I looked up I could see through it: it was two stories. You could see the steps where they were going up and down… I don´t remember how many people I saw – but they were moving around.

Timothy Good: Were they men or women, or both?

Lucy McGinnis: I couldn´t say because they had kind of like… ski-suits. But they were ordinary, fastened around the ankle, and pant-like deal, blouse deal…

Timothy Good: If the whole craft was transparent, could you see any machinery, or anything like that, or darker patches than others?

Lucy McGinnis; Yeah, you could see, but you couldn´t – or at least I couldn´t tell what it was.

Timothy Good: Did it have the same shape as the classical Adamski craft?

Lucy McGinnis: Yes, the round one…. It was kind of hovering up there and then suddenly it just started going up – drifting away.”
(Timothy Good interview with Lucy McGinnis, Nov 20, 1979).

Lucy McGinnis

Desmond Leslie´s observation of a golden disc at Palomar Gardens in 1954.

”We were sitting on the patio in the twilight, George, Alice Wells, Lucy McGinnis, and I with my back turned facing the doorway. A curious cold feeling came over me as of being watched, as if someone or something was standing directly behind me. I swung around in time to see a small golden disc between us and the Live Oaks fifty feet away. Almost instantly it shot up in the air with an imperceptible swish leaving a faint trail behind it, then vanished. George grinned solemnly. `I was wondering when you were going to notice that!`. I was amazed. `One of those remote control things?`I believe I asked. He nodded.”
(Desmond Leslie & George Adamski, Flying Saucers Have Landed, Revised and enlarged edition, Neville Spearman, London 1970, pp. 243-244.)

Desmond Leslie and George Adamski 1954

George Adamski´s former co-worker Lou Zinssstag mention this episode from Adamski´s hotel i Basle 1959.

”Yes, indeed I had a good rest, but this morning I had a visit from two of the boys who came to my room at nine o´clock” I was flabbergasted because I realized what he meant by this. It was his manner to call his extraterrestrial friends `boys`when he was pleased. It was hard even for me to believe him at that moment, but he insisted that there were several in Basle at that time. On a number of mornings that week he told the same story, so I decided to check on it. I asked the hotel manager, as well as the porter who I knew well, if Adamski did indeed have any visitors in the morning. ”Yes”, both men said. There are several men who come at about nine o ´clock, but never more than two at a time.” I felt that they were wondering about it, but, of course, I could not enlighten them.”
Lou Zinsstag & Timothy Good, George Adamski. The Untold Story, p. 30.

There is definitely a deeper mystery connected with George Adamski and several of the early 1950s contactees. We have only begun to scratch the surface of this great enigma. To delve into these aspects of the UFO riddle 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.”

A nuclear war will cause the end of the world on April 23, 1990. This was announced in many newspapers around the globe at the time. Behind this prophecy was Elisabeth Clare Prophet or Guru Ma, head of the Church Universal and Triumphant. Members of this New Age church had built a gigantic bunker in Montana, USA, waiting for doomsday. There were doctors, nurses, pilots, technicians, cooks, even a dentist from Finland. They had quit their jobs and sold everything. Millions of dollars were invested in this bunker. When doomsday didn´t arrive many lives were shattered. Twenty years later Elisabeth´s daughter, Erin Prophet, wrote a revealing biography of her life in this group, Prophet´s Daughter, published in 2009.

Part of article about Elisabeth Clare Prophet from Swedish daily Expressen, March 31, 1990

Apocalyptic doomsday prophecies are often reported, coming mainly from fundamentalist or New Age cults, and since the 1950s also from various UFO contactees. As I am presently organizing and reviewing the Parthenon archive at AFU I have found many documents and letters giving the inside view of how deeply affected Edith Nicolaisen, founder of Parthenon, was by doomsday prophecies and ideas. In fact it appears to have been one of her main motivations for the incessant activity and hard work for more than thirty years. This may come as a surprise for many who have regarded Edith as basically a UFO and New Age book publisher. Personally I have been of the opinion that her adherence and interest in prophecies began during the later years but as this letter reveal doomsday ideas was an important part of her worldview already from the start:

”Should you wish further information about the Flying Saucers and interplanetary relations och ´The Disaster worse than the H-Bomb´, prophesied already in 1883 by Madame Blavatsky, and today scientifically proven with the help of gyroscopics and mathematical calculations I will gladly come to Malmö one evening, speaking with you and others interested. It is a matter of life and death involving 4/5 of humanity in our century. Everyone becoming aware of this has no choice but joining the information work with the aim of helping as many people as possible to survive.”

(Letter from Edith Nicolaisen to Arvid Johansson, October 31, 1957).

A fascinating occultist and complicated trickster figure in the annals of UFO history is Dr. Raymond Bernard, born Walter Siegmeister in New York 1901. He is best known for his 1963 volume Flying Saucers From the Earth´s Interior and his many books on health food. After several decades of adventurous life in many countries, setting up colonies for ´natural living´, he finally bought a large tract of property near the town of Joinville on Sao Francisco do Sul Island in southern Brazil. Here he established a company, Santa Catarina Banana Products, selling Banana Sugar, Dehydrated Bananas, Banana Bars and Banana Krumbles. Edith Nicolaisen was interested in the ideas and plans of Bernard and corresponded with him 1963-1965, also ordering some of his bananas. She regarded his settlement as a possible ideal community for Swedish families to escape the coming catastophies, as mentioned in this letter to Dr. Walter Bühler, Brazil.

”From Dr. Raymond Bernard I have received information about his established ´New-Californian´settlement at Barra Velha, Joinville, Santa Catarina, Brazil… Before I recommend our new-age friends here in Sweden and in Germany to buy land at Joinville for the purpose of emigrating and become new-age settlers in the ´World´s Low Fallout Zone´ I should appreciate very much to hear your opinion… Probably, you too have heard about all the fatal prophecies of various sorts, from various sources and from diffrent parts of the Globe – all pointing to the same conclusion: ´It is later than we think´! And that the years 64/65/66/67/68 will be the years of great catastrophies of different origins… I would like to get the opportunity to help as many UFO-friends with children as possible from the Northern part of the Globe to the Southern part in due time.”

(Letter from Edith Nicolaisen to Walter Bühler, February 28, 1965).

Although coming catastrophies was a central idea in the mindset of Edith Nicolaisen doomsday prophecies did not appear in the literature published by Parthenon up until 1967. Instead there was a concentration on the classic UFO contactee books by George Adamski, Daniel Fry, Elisabeth Klarer, Ray and Rex Stanford. But in 1966 Edith had started a correspondence with British artist and spiritualist Liebie Pugh, resulting in the publication of a Swedish edition of her book Nothing Else Matters. The Universal Link(Universell kontakt).

The story behind Universal Link originated from the visionary and paranormal experiences of Richard Grave, Worthing, England. On April 11, 1961, while fixing up a rented house, he encountered a bearded Christlike figure who pointed to a framed picture of the Annunciation. The glass covering the picture exploded and the figure disappeared in an orange light. Later Grave discovered that salty drops formed on the surface of the picture. When media began writing of this phenomenon it was called the Weeping Angel of Worthing.

Richard Grave with the Weeping Angel of Worthing

The bearded visitor, calling himself Truth, returned to Grave on a number of occasions, delivering various messages of a vague and mystical nature. He was not exactly the humble type, referring to himself as ”I am The Truth, The Light, all in The Entire Universe” and ”How happy I am of the progress made in my universe”. Liebie Pugh contacted Richard Grave and together they founded Universal Link. Soon Universal Link groups formed around the world spreading the messages from Truth. Fervent and zealous activity in the groups began after this message from Truth: ”No one can know the day nor the hour of my coming, or when the great Universal Revelation will be enacted; however by Christmas morning, 1967, I will have revealed myself through the medium of nuclear evolution. This is My Plan which is absolute.”

Liebie Pugh at the St. Annes Centre

Even the Danish UFO research group SUFOI became for a while associated with Universal Link. Jørgen Ellesøe and Børje Jensen from SUFOI promoted the messages and Jensen wrote articles in UFO-nyt about Universal Link using the pen name N.E. Wagenda. In 1967 SUFOI published Nothing Else Matters and several Universal Link Newsletters. The situation changed radically when one member of the Danish Universal Link, Knud Weiking, began receiving messages from the Master, now referred to as Orthon. In UFO-nyt no 2, 1967 Børje Jensen concluded: ”Finally there is now evidence that Universal Link and the flying saucers are two sides of the same operation. A Universal Link Center is now founded in Denmark, under the direct supervision of space people.”

Trouble began during the Autumn of 1967 when the Danish Universal Link group announced in the press that the world will end in an atomic war Christmas 1967 and they were building a bunker to save the members from this devastation. When nothing happened at Christmas the group split into different factions.

Article from Swedish daily Sydsvenska Dagbladet about the Danish Doomsday group

In spite of this negative publicity and undeterred by the nonsensical messages from England, Edith Nicolaisen continued to promote Universal Link. But now she received protests from the Danish UFO-groups. Frank Pedersen, editor of UFO-nyt: ”You asked me in the latest letter about my honest opinion about Universal Link. In my opinion this story has been built around a few simple incidents. It is a mixture of ignorance and fraud. Drop this tale, it will only harm the UFO cause.”

(Letter from Frank Pedersen to Edith Nicolaisen March 5, 1968)

A similar protest and warning was sent from the Danish IGAP movement: ”Why have you taken up the cause of the Universal Link program? Don´t you realize that the whole ´Orthon madness´ has its origin in Universal Link? It was the Danish Universal Link group in Borup who started all this mess that wrecked so much of the UFO cause… You may cause more damage than you realize by advocating Universal Link, but it is of course your responsibility.”
(Letter from Leif Eckhoff Pedersen to Edith Nicolaisen February 20, 1968).

These protests did not affect Edith but when she continued to publish a compilation of Universal Link newsletters in 1971 even one of her closest co-workers and translators, Gulli Bergvall, abandoned Parthenon. In her last letter to Edith she stated: ”I had hoped that, at this late stage, you would have abandoned publishing the newsletters (Universal Link newsletters – HB). And I reiterate once again, if I only had had a little spiritual knowledge and insight in 1966 when I was given the task of translating the Universal Link story, I would have flatly refused. The best option now would be to forget the whole thing. I cannot understand what good it will do, in 1971, when so much water has flowed beneath the bridges, to resurrect this thread and return to what happened in St. Annes in the 1960s or with abstruse reasoning try to inject something deeply spiritual in the failed revelation of 1967. To exalt this simple story about ´the master´ (who is no master) and the accompanying rather uninterersting phenomena (the crying angel etc.) to something of spiritual significance is truly offering people stones instead of bread.”
(Letter from Gulli Bergvall to Edith Nicolaisen March 14, 1971.

Edith Nicolaisen 1962

The Universal Link messages were not the only doomsday prophecies promoted by Edith. She was equally impressed by the prophecies of New Zealand contactee Yul Verner and she had plans to translate his The Book of Yul. The Secret Life of a Space Incarnate. Yul Verner mixed Bible prophecies with messages from his space friends.

”… I was contacted directly in 1963 by spacemen from the Andromeda constellation. It was from them that I positively learned that Jupiter was the Sun of Justice to be glorified `in a short time´, which I take to mean in 12 years, that is from May 1963 + 12 = May 1975. By that time the Earth ought to feel the impact of this event. There could be som astronomical reports beforehand, although we may have other matters on our minds then for the prophesied Great Tribulation is to take place just ahead. This means that time is at hand for a great world crisis to burst suddently upon us. As a matter of fact I have reason to believe there will be an event this November warning us about it. The contact with my space friends also made me certain that I was an incarnate from their planet MICHAEL of the Andromeda constellation. I had prior to this contact made journeys in spirit to other worlds”.
(Letter from Yul Verner to Edith Nicolaisen, August 26, 1973).

One of the foremost donors to Parthenon was Johan Häggström. Because of his economic support Edith were able to translate and publish several books in Swedish. In this letter she refer to the Verner prophecies in the hope of receiving a substantial economic contribution:
”These lines because ´the sand grains in the hourglass´ are running out faster than we earlier anticipated. And that is why we also need the help of Brother Johan to accomplish an effective information work for the benefit of the Swedish youth during the coming four years. Already in 1974 Jupiter may have manifested in our solar system as our ´new sun´ also known as ´The Sun of Justice´. This will alter the balance in our whole solar system and cause the natural catastrophies mentioned in the Bible,.. Already before 1979 our Earth would be ´cleansed´ according to Adam Rutherford, one of the most acknowledged pyramidology experts of our time.”

(Letter from Edith Nicolaisen to Johan Häggström, February 2, 1970).

How come that Edith Nicolaisen, in spite of her many years of university education and wide contacts around the world did not abandon the idea of doomsday prophecies, when they constantly failed? In this respect she is a psychological riddle. These ideas became the Achilles´ heel of Parthenon. Edith often referred to her many years of study of the Esoteric Tradition, which to her essentially meant the mixture of esotericism and Christian mysticism presented by Rudolf Steiner and Max Heindel. If Edith had been better acquainted with Helena Blavatsky and Alice Bailey she would probably not have made these ”glamour” mistakes. Or, she could have simply heeded the warning about doomsday prophecies given by John Keel – ”Belief is the enemy”.

Besides the collections of books, magazines, photos, correspondence etc. at AFU, we have many documents and items that could be catalogued under the heading UFO iconography: paintings, posters, toys, figurines, t-shirts, stickers, business and membership cards, letterheads etc. When reviewing and organizing various files at AFU I have made it a habit of scanning some of this iconography as it presents a fascinating view of how the image of UFOs and aliens has changed during the decades. As I have scanned thousand of old letters, here are a few letterheads from ufologists and organizations worldwide, mainly from the 1950s and 60s.

One of my favourites is this letterhead from the New York Saucer Information Bureau. They published the magazine UFO-mation in 1958-1959. Co-editor and secretary was C. Lois Jessop, who told of a scary encounter with unknown giants in the Hal Saflini caves in Malta in the mid- 1930s. Her article, Malta, Entrance to the Cavern World, was published in Round Robin, The Journal of Borderland Research, vol 17, no 2, March 1961.

Knut Aasheim was a Norwegian ufologist and contactee. He was the author of Stjernefolket blandt oss – de frivillige og deres misjon 1995, (The Star People Among Us – the Volonteers and Their Mission). Aasheim also lectured for the House of Lords UFO-Group in London 1983. For a few years he headed a group called Interplanetary Cooperation Association– INCA.

Knut Aasheim during a visit to my home at Södertälje, July 29, 1972

Wellknown to the old guard ufologists is this letterhead from Gray Barker. He published The Saucerian, later Saucerian Bulletin between 1953-1962.

This beautiful letterhead was used by British ufologist Brinsley Le Poer Trench in a letter to Edith Nicolaisen, Sweden, November 11, 1960. There is s small mistake in the image of the golden scout craft. The portholes should have been in rows of four.

Brinsley Le Poer Trench

The letterhead from the Italian contactee Eugenio Siragusa 1964 solved the porthole issue by simply not drawing any portholes at all.

The Japanese group Cosmic Brotherhood Associationwas contactee oriented but chose to have a more neutral letterhead as this one from 1964.

Daniel Fry´s organization Understanding also used a rather neutral but symbolic letterhead. This from 1960, before they moved the headquarters to Merlin, Oregon.

Daniel Fry in Sweden 1970

An imaginative drawing was used as letterhead by the magazine the Hollow Hassle, published by editor Mary LeVesque (Davis) 1973-1986. She headed the organization Hollow Earth Research Association.

This is the letterhead used by one of the oldest UFO groups in Sweden, Malmö interplanetariska sällskap (MIS). They were founded already in 1958 and are still active and members of UFO-Sweden. Director during many years has been Ebbe Johansson, still going strong.

Ebbe Johansson, March 6, 2010

Finally the letterhead I used as chairman of Södertälje UFO-Center, a group I founded in 1970 together with my late friend and AFU colleague Kjell Jonsson.

How to introduce esotericism as a profound philosophy and tenable worldview to the intellectual, cultural and scientific elite? A somewhat unusual method of handling this issue is writing a novel. When I first discovered The Unlikely Occultist. A Biographical Novel of Alice A. Bailey, written by Australian author Isobel Blackthorn, I felt somewhat apprehensive. Being a student of esotericism for many years I first assumed this was just another sensational potboiler by someone not much versed in the Esoteric Tradition. I was wrong.

In a short author´s note in the beginning of The Unlikely Occultist, Isobel Blackthorn writes: ”This portrait of Alice A. Bailey is based on a deep and prolonged study of her life and teachings.” All this study and research has resulted in a PhD from the University of Western Sydney, Australia. Her thesis The Texts of Alice A. Bailey. An Inquiry Into the Role of Esotericism in Transforming Consciousness (2006) is published under her former name Isobel Wightman and aviable online. Besides this special interest Isobel is a prolific novelist or as she prefer to designate herself, ”author of diverse quality fiction”, but she is also a humanitarian, a campaigner for social justice and a qualified astrologer.

Isobel Blackthorn

As a retired librarian I was immediately charmed by the fact that part of the narrative centers around the ficticious Heather Brown, librarian at the State Library of Victoria in Melbourne, Australia. During an routine inventory of boxes from the late Professor Samantha Foyle she discovers that the boxes comprise a large collection of Esoterica, especially Theosophy and Alice Bailey, a special research interest of Professor Foyle. Out of curiosity Heather begin reading The Unfinished Autobiography of Alice A. Bailey and is immediately hooked, and becomes deeply fascinated by the life of this unusual woman and ”unlikely occultist”. The reader can then follow two parallell stories, the life of Heather Brown coupled with the real life of Alice Bailey as told in her autobiography. The major characters in the novel are based on real people while their personalities and attitudes are more or less fictitious.

Those who have read Alice Bailey´s autobiography recognize the stages in her life: the strict and orthodox Christian upbringing in a wealthy British family, evangelical work in Britain and India, where she met her first husband, a distrastrous marriage resulting in three daughters. The move to America, conversion to Theosophy and finally the founding of The Arcane School in 1923, together with her second husband Foster Bailey. The narrative alters between the lives of Alice and Heather, who becomes more and more obsessed to find out why Alice Bailey, in spite being regarded as the mother of the New Age movement, is now so forgotten and criticized: ”Carl Jung and his intellectual coterie were the last piece in a jigsaw of condemnation… she had been abused by a violent husband, and then vilified and ostracised by purist Theosophists, the Jewish community, fundamentalist Christians, conspiracy theorists and leading scholars in the field of western esotericism.” (p. 295)

Alice Bailey

It is fascinating to follow how Isobel portrays the mindset and moral attitude of Alice Bailey. Not an easy undertaking as the scenes and anecdotes presented may create new myths around a woman already a favourite among conspiracy advocates. Reality and fiction becomes blurred. In the novel Alice is generally presented as a very strict moralist, especially when it comes to sex, nudity and her daughters upbringing. Very much different from her husband Foster: ”He was a perfect companion who held the vision as close to his own heart as she, yet he didn´t share her moral propriety. His was a more fluid, liberal morality…” (p. 140). This is exemplified in a scene at a conference in Ascona, Switzerland where Foster is observed sunbathing in the nude on a raft. For this shocking behavior he is heavily lambasted by Alice, who is very much afraid his act has damaged the reputation of the Arcane School.

Among esotericists a renewed debate has recently come up regarding the possible discipleship of Dag Hammarskjöld. Isobel Blackthorn mention an interesting speech (p. 5), written in the 1970s, by New Age activist Donald Keyes, who was also speechwriter for Secretary-General U Thant in the 1960s and Founder/President of Planetary Citizens. The speech can be found posted online. This quote is of special significance: ”In one of Alice A. Bailey´s books, written in the 1930s, there is a statement that a leading Swedish disciple would soon be working in the world. A high Swedish initiate who was a friend of mine was once asked if the foretold one were he. His answer was ”no, it is Dag Hammarskjöld”.”

I was not aware of this document but Donald Keyes is not the first to refer to Hammarskjöld as disciple. In the writings of Swedish esotericist Henry T. Laurency I have found two quotes referring to this issue, written in the beginning of the 1960s:
”That does not at all mean that they need to be aware of this in their present incarnation. Most often they are not. Neither Franklin Roosevelt, nor Winston Churchill, or Dag Hammarskjöld knew that they were disciples.” (Henry T. Laurency, Knowledge of Life Three, Esoteric Knowledge Orders, p. 8, digital ed.)

”… Mustafa Kemal, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and Dag Hammarskjöld (were

unbeknownst to themselves) disciples of the planetary hierarchy.” (Henry T. Laurency, The Way of Man, 9 The Second Self, p. 84, digital ed.)

The actual quote by the Tibetan can be found in Bailey´s A Treatise on White Magic, p. 79: ”… They are aided by a disciple of rare capability in Sweden”. I have always maintained that this is a reference Henry T. Laurency, who was a disciple of the adept known as Hilarion and Laurency was certainly a ”rare capability”. But of course it may also have been Hammarskjöld. We can only speculate. I do wonder who the ”high Swedish initiate” known by Donald Keyes was? Could it have been Laurency himself?

Article about Henrik von Zeipel (Henry T. Laurency) from the Swedish daily Morgon-Tidningen, July 9, 1947

From an esoteric viewpoint I have found no actual mistakes in the text, with the possible exception of a designation on page 8: ”Heather half expected the Buddha to appear from behind the fresco and greet the Christ standing before the altar, the heads of a spiritual hierarchy of ascenden masters central to Alice Bailey´s occult scheme.” Esotericists should refrain from using the term ”ascended masters” as this will associate Bailey with the I Am-movement and its offshoots. Ascended Masters was a concept advocated by Guy and Edna Ballard of the I Am-movement. The Tibetan is very explicit and critical, referring to the I Am Movement as a "cheap comedy" and travesty of the esoteric tradition. (Alice Bailey, The Rays and the Initiations, p.16).

Although The Unlikely Occultist can be considered as a defense or apology for Alice Bailey and esotericism, Isobel Blackthorn is no naive devotee. Like many critics she has noticed several controversial statements in the Bailey volumes that taken out of context could be used as a pretext for racism, antisemitism and persecution of homosexuals. The problem is that it is often difficult to assess what is Alice Bailey´s personal idiosyncracies and what is actual quotes from the Tibetan. Bailey was a unique amanuensis but heavely influenced by her fundamentalist Christian background. Isobel Blackthorn makes this relevant comment in the novel: ”It appeared she had taken the notions of Christian goodwill and service, and blended them with the Buddhist idea fo right relations. She never left her old faith behind; she dressed it up in new clothes.” (p. 87).

What is Isobel Blackthorn´s present view of Alice Bailey and her work? This quote from Isobel website is from what understand a good summary:

”For too long Alice Bailey has been either maligned or ignored and I think it is time the world knew just how important her body of work and her life’s mission are, influencing healing modalities, psychology, education, the ongoing campaign for world peace and the spiritual ethos at the United Nations. ”

I highly recommend The Unlikely Occultist. I found it intensely captivating and enchanting. This work can actually function as an introduction to studies in the Esoteric Tradition and may even inspire a minor renaissance for Alice Bailey. Esotericists will be delighted by this biographical novel and if you are a librarian or archivist you will just love it.

Next year, 2020, UFO-Sweden will celebrate its 50 years anniversary. Our national UFO research organization was founded in April 1970, and is still very much active and growing in membership. An impressive achievement from an international perspective. During these decades there have been many ups and downs, crises and controversies. A seminal event in the history of UFO-Sweden was the annual meeting in 1991. A vocal group of New Age enthusiasts and contactees within the organization wanted UFO-Sweden to promote a neoreligious, New Age ideology. Fortunately the members preferred the critical, but open minded research approach and voted for journalist Clas Svahn as the new chairman. The annual meeting in 1991 became a watershed in the history of UFO-Sweden.

UFO-Sweden annual meeting 1991. From left: Håkan Ekstrand, Clas Svahn, Håkan Blomqvist

Beginning in 1988 a wave of rather extreme New Age-ufology spread rapidly in Sweden. Retired high-school teacher Sune Hjorthpromoted the messages of contactee Eduard (Billy) Meier, adding various anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. It was no surprise to learn later that Sune Hjorth had been a member of a Swedish nazi organization in the 1940s. Contactee Sten Lindgren abandoned his work with the UFO reporting and data project (URD) and instead began media appearances and lectures together with another contactee Daniel Glantz. Unfortunately Glantz was heavily involved in drug use combined with a fantasy prone personality, often presenting highly dubious and absurd UFO contact experiences. Former medical doctor Rauni-Leena Luukanen was another UFO contactee that during these years was very much in the media, claiming CIA was behind UFO-Sweden. Well-known Swedish ufologist Bertil Kuhlemann had joined the New Age coterie, advocating various mystical ideologies a.o. The I Am movement, founded by Guy and Edna Ballard.

Sune Hjorth

During the latter part of the 1980s UFO-Sweden was in a rather critical situation. Local units disbanded, membership was at an all time low. There was a general uncertainty about ideology and future of the organization and much internal criticism because of lack of active leadership. In 1988 a prominent Swedish ufologist and author, Boris Jungkvist, abandoned UFO-Sweden and formed a competing national UFO organization, heavily promoting UFOs as interplanetary spacecraft. Many ufologists were in this situation deeply concerned about the future of UFO research in Sweden, including we at the AFU board who tried our best to further serious research, field investigation and documentation.

Boris Jungkvist (right) donated his archive to AFU. Here together with Clas Svahn June 9, 2005

The crescendo and watershed in this development was the UFO-Sweden annual meeting at Rättvik, April 6-7, 1991. The meeting was arranged by Siljansringens UFO-grupp, a local UFO-Sweden unit very much influenced by New Age-ufology. Lectures was delivered by Sten Lindgren and Bertil Kuhlemann. Before the election of a new UFO-Sweden chairman Bertil Kuhlemann pleaded for a female chairman, an evident attempt to stop Clas Svahn from being elected. But a large majority of the assembly voted for Clas. The UFO-Sweden members decided the future fate and ideology of the national organization. Clas Svahn had in an article in the UFO-Sweden magazine UFO-Aktuellt defined the option in no uncertain termes: ”Are we ufologists to be researchers or missionaries?”.

Dala-Demokraten April 4, 1991

Clas Svahn now formulated the new ideological position of UFO-Sweden, labelled the Third Way Ufology: Neither naive belief nor debunking skepticism but an open mind to various theories and claims based on careful field investigation, critical evalution and documentation. UFO-Sweden decided not to promote any specific theory regarding the nature or origin of UFO phenomena, simply stating there is a core of unexplained phenomena deserving further investigation. During these first years of Third Way Ufology the debate between ufologists of the New Age camp and research oriented ufologists was often rather harsh and bitter as it was considered important for UFO-Sweden to give the new ideology a firm footing and distinctness. But in actual research there are of course no clear demarcation lines between these two factions, all depending upon the favourite theories and paradigms of the ufologists.

Clas Svahn at a UFO-Sweden board meeting October 12, 1996

Readers who have followed my blog for some time may be a bit surprised that I fully endorse the strictly empirical and critical ufology of UFO-Sweden as I personally have advocated a rather controversial theory, the Esoteric Intervention Theory and the worldview or paradigm of Esotericism. But as I have tried to elucidate in serveral blog posts, given an intellectual approach, I find no antagonism in having one foot in empirical science and one foot in esotericism. Once again I would like to refer my research colleague Clas Svahn who many times have reiterated: ”To believe is one thing but to know is something completely different”. The Esoteric Intervention Theory is of course only a theory, that further research may validate or not. And Esotericism is a working hypothesis, worldview or paradigm. Serious research must always be firmly empirical and fact oriented.

If UFO researchers and investigators of paranormal phenomena become too much locked in their own pet theory or paradigm box, scientific and intellectual integrity will suffer. This is one more reason why I think investigators should openly present a position statement regarding their own theories and paradigms, whether they are skeptics or ”believers”, secular humanists, buddhists, catholics, theosophists or whatever. Transparency and honesty in this area makes it easier to evaluate, understand and criticize fellow researchers.

There is an interesting and rather sensitive dilemma associated with position statements. A problem addressed by Dr. Jean-Michel Abrassart in his essay Paranormal Phenomena: Should Psychology Really Go Beyond the Ontological Debate? Should academic scholars state their own beliefs on the topic they are studying? That is, being honest in regard to religious, esoteric affiliations or adherence to some specific paradigm or worldview? Being open minded in this respect can be detrimental to the academic career and result in a loss of intellectual integrity in the academic community. In spite of this problem Dr. Abrassart advocates the view that an open position statement from scholars is of great importance: ”I think that transparency (stating one´s own beliefs about the subject one is studying) is preferable to staying safely outside the ontological debate… If we can imagine that a committed Christian can legitimately study personal prayer, why not a medium studying mediumship?”

Even though I favor the scientific and critical approach in UFO research every experienced ufologist know that there are aspects of the enigma where science enters Forbidden Science and you are faced with problems that have to be dealt with using the methods and thinking from the intelligence community. This is one of the reasons few scientists wish to enter this heretic subject. The study of UFO phenomena is a complicated multi-disciplinary task with no natural connection to any academic discipline. There are of course academic research on UFOs performed by historians, folklorists, psychologists and historians of religion a.o.. But it is important to understand that these scientists do not address the ontological issue, the basic question of the reality of the phenomena. This requires a different approach and methodology which is not regarded as scientific within these disciplines. Mainstream academic science is intrincically materialist and reductionist and is therefore automatically challenged when confronted with phenomena indicating a multiverse of forces and entities.

Field investigation with the object of determining the reality of UFO phenomena has no natural academic connection. Any academic scholar trying to address to ontological (reality) issue will immediately be questioned by collegues and university administration and face public media ridicule as the strange scholar who believes in little green men. He or she will also be heavily criticized by representatives of the Skeptic community, condemning the heretic for promoting pseudoscience and irrationalism. Few scientists are willing to put their academic career at stake when faced with such obstacles. An Invisible College of critical but open minded researchers affords the best option and protection in such a cultural situation. UFO-Sweden and Archives for the Unexplained (AFU) offer this open minded milieu and have the globally largest amount of data necessary to high quality UFO research.

Some months ago while perusing old issues of the Theosophical journal The O.E. Library Critic I found, in the March-April 1935 issue, a short note with very scathing remarks about George Adamski and The Royal Order of Tibet. Mention is also made of a booklet by Adamski: The Invisible Ocean. A rare 1932 publication that I was completely unaware of. In August 2018 ufologist and esotericist Gerard Aartsen also discovered the note in the O.E. Library Critic and succeeded in acquiring a copy of The Invisible Ocean. He has now republished the 1932 booklet together with three chapters on a study of the early Adamski writings. Also included are two old unpublished articles by George Adamski and a history of The Royal Order of Tibet.

There are still many unanswered questions and mysteries regarding the early years and writings of George Adamski. Wisdom of the Masters of the Far East (1936) was republished by Health Research in 1974. The small brochure Satan, Man of the Hour (1937) was included in an updated version in Flying Saucers Farewell (1961). Copies of various early articles have been shared and distributed by members of the George Adamski Foundation, but a worthy project would be the publication of the collected writings of George Adamski with comments and detailed references. In his foreword Gerard Aartsen mention that the collected writings are published in twelve volumes – in Japan.

Gerard Aartsen

In The Invisible Ocean George Adamski makes a summary of the purpose with his writings and projects: The Royal Order of Tibet is for the purpose of establishing the All into One Eternal Life Progress. Its aim is to bring about the best possible conditions for every soul. It presents All inclusive Cosmic Teaching, a scientific and practical Master course of the Universal Message, and a message whereby the individual attains access to mystery in a simplified way.” (p. 23) Although the teaching is often expressed in phrases used in Christian mysticism the content is actually a form a esotericism light or elementary outline of The Ancient Wisdom.

The universe is by George Adamski compared to an ocean with many different strata and states of consciousness where all beings develop an ever increasing expansion of knowledge, understanding and perception in the multiverse. The meaning of life is the evolution of consciousness. This, of course, is the essence of the esoteric worldview. Adamski uses the metaphor of the ocean and the fishes: ”As the master fish passes through the different strata, he will find fish that will appreciate his knowledge and teaching. As it is with the fish, so it is with us, only that we work on different planes of mental vibrations instead of stata of water. The master among us can go down to the depth of the earth and up to the lights of heaven.” (p. 6).

To make the right connection with ”cosmic consciousness” man must understand the power of thoughts, from destructive to constructive, from egoism to altruism. And the path for the pilgrim is ever the same: ”… if the student is to find his place in life he must transmute his selfishness into higher fields of action. This could be done most easily, perhaps by finding channels of service which would be beneficial to many intead of the few. The more one enters into the service of others the less he thinks about himself as a personality.” (p. 37).

In literature and personal correspondence there have been several references to Adamski´s remarkable psychic powers and healing abilities. My late correspondent friend, ufologist Franck Boitte, mentioned one of these instances when meeting George Adamski in 1963. To what extent he could exercise real psychic powers is not known but he does relate a rather fantastic incident in The Invisible Ocean: ”Knowing the law, we can do anything under the sun, no matter what it is. One night, I went to a circle where fourteen people were gathered, and they will all support what I am saying now. I actually brought forth water from out of the atmosphere.”

Franck Boitte

Fourteen pages of Aartsen´s book is devoted to a history of The Royal Order of Tibet 1932-1940. Reproduced in this chapter are several old photographs and newspaper clippings. The most interesting clipping is from Los Angeles Times, April 8, 1934 – Lamaistic Order to Be Established Here. A very cryptic remark is that the international headquarters of the order is located in London. Who was in charge of the this headquaters is not mentioned. Is this article we also find the very controversial statement by Adamski that he was educated a few years in Tibet: ”I learned great truths up there on the roof of the world, says Adamski. Or rather the trick of applying age-old knowledge to daily life, to cure the body and the mind and to win mastery over self and soul. I do not bring to Laguna the weird rites and bestial superstition in which the old lamaism is steeped but the scientific portions of the religion.” (p. 47).

Part of article from Los Angeles Times, April 8, 1934

According to Aartsen this is the only known instance where Adamski himself refers to his training in Tibet. But he actually did mention this schooling in Private Group Lecture For Advanced Thinkers, Detroit, March 4, 1955: ”As I stated before, I am not a Theosophist, a Rosicrucian, nor anything. I did study in Tibet when I was an eight year old boy. I took up Occult Catholicism because my father hoped I would become a priest which I decided against. I have since studied many philosophies and religions, but I didn´t become associated with any one particular religion. I have taken the pearls from each and discarded the chaff.” (p. 3).

I have always been very dubious about this claim of study in Tibet. In 1898, when Adamski was eight years old, Tibet was almost impossible to enter for Westerners. The few who succeeded had either very special contacs or penetrated the country in disguise. Alexandra David-Néel is an interesting example. When Glenn Steckling, director of the George Adamski Foundation visited Sweden in the Autumn of 2018 I asked him about this mystery and received an interesting explanation which in part re-open the Tibetan connection.

With Glenn Steckling at the UFO-Sweden field investigation seminar. October 20, 2018

Here a quote from the interview October 20, 2018:

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

Glenn Steckling (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.

Glenn Steckling is implying that George Adamski was taken in a space ship to Tibet and that the space people had a base there which was only accessible from the air. This reminds me of what American contactee Trevor James Constable was told by his space contacts: ”The space people state that three dimensional disc-type machines of high performance originate in both Antarctica and Tibet… One might look at the Red Chinese attempts to subjugate Tibet and wonder why this is being done. Do the Chinese know that a high performance type of machine is built or stationed in Tibet, one that will outperform all earthly aircraft as at present known? Such a weapon would be potent in the hands of China´s unscrupulous rulers.” (Trevor James, Spacemen Friends and Foes (1956), part II, p. 6). Also mentioned in They Live in the Sky, pp. 63-64).

Trevor James Constable 1961

In the last three chapters of his book Gerard Aartsen presents a study and comparison of the early Adamski writings with present day scientific theories and the esoteric tradition. Aartsen specifically refers to the theories of Hungarian professor Ervin László and his studies of systems science. Adamski was always very adamant in his assertion that the space people were physical, just like us. But Aartsen does give a few interesting Adamski quotes that could be interpreted differently as this one from The Possibility of Life on Other Planets (1946): ”Even upon planets whos atmosphere is so rare that life seems impossible there may be intelligent forms existing – forms having the power of reason such as we possess, but the actual physical construction may be so fine as to be almost invisible to our sight, limited as it is to this particular plane of manifestation.” (p. 59).

Gerard Aartsen has written several books on UFO contactees and esotericism. The Sea of Consciousnnessis an important contribution to our understanding of the early years of George Adamski. It is carefully referenced with an eight-page Adamski bibliography. This work will be of interest not only to ufologists and aficionados of contactee literature but also to academic scholars of Western Esotericism. Gerard Aartsen is to be commended for this excellent effort to share an important historical document.

”Holland was an ET who chose to come to earth by birth through an earth mother, another volunteer from Venus to help uplift benighted mankind.” With this short biographical note Riley Crabb introduce the writings of American medium and UFO contactee Ralph Holland, pen name Rolf Telano (UFOs and the Martyrdom of Frank Scully, p. 8). Although quite well known in UFO history from Meade Layne´s The Coming of the Guardians, his life and channeling work has, to my knowledge, never been thoroughly studied and documented. Based on files in the BSRF and Parthenon archives at AFU I have tried to uncover data giving a more detailed picture of this fascinating contactee from the 1950s. In the BSRF correspondence file there are 28 letters written to and from Holland between March 24, 1951- November 14, 1955.

Ralph Holland at his home in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio April 1, 1960, photograph by Meade Layne

Ralph Meridette Holland was born August 29, 1899 in Youngtown, Ohio. His family moved to Akron, Ohio in 1914.He received an engineering degree, worked in the plant at the Akron Beacon Journal, and later for B. F. Goodrich Rubber Company. While in Detroit, Michigan he studied journalism and became a freelance reporter, sometimes writing stories under a pen name. In 1932 he moved to Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, employed by Vaughn Machinery Company, where he worked until the time of his death. Ralph Holland never married and lived for many years together with his sister, Miss Dora Holland, at their home at 2520 Fourth Street, Cuyahoga Falls. He was a member of the local Methodist Church. Ralph Holland died of a heart attack January 26, 1962.

In a letter to Meade Layne, May 5, 1952, Holland revealed some of his earlier political activities: ”As you may or may not know, Steinmetz was an ardent Socialist all his life, and I happened to be the same, so long as it was in existence in this country. At various times (and under various names, due to the legal persecution of the Party in its early days) I held positions as State Chairman and State Secretary in three different states (at different times, of course)”. This background may have been one of the reasons why, in his contacts with Meade Layne, he often pointed out that he didn´t want to make any money from his publications or channeling. For many years a member of Borderland Sciences Research Foundation he often donated money to the organization.

An ardent science fiction enthusiast he joined the National Fantasy Fan Federation (N3F) in 1950 and was president from 1958 until his death in 1962. In 1955 he published several issues of his own fanzine The Science Fiction Review and in 1958 compiled Ghu´s Lexicon, a book of fannish terms. There was even a N3F´s Ralph M. Holland Award, named after him. First winner of the award was Juanita Coulson.

Holland became deeply fascinated by the fantastic tales of Richard Shaver. Partly because of his engineering background Holland found the Shaver stories enigmatic: ”Many writers have featured fantastic mechanism in their stories… but Shaver described so many different kinds of mechanism that, to quote the analysis of one professor, he would have to be a master at a dozen different sciences to even imagine them in the detail which he had in his stories. It is at this point that the real ”mystery” comes in… it is utterly impossible that he could have dreamed up his ”mech” in his own head. The question was: where did he get his information? He claims that he got it from his cavern friends.”
(A Voice From The Gallery, no. 28, Spring 1958, p. 1).

In order to study the mystery Holland joined a small group, the Circle Letter Club, circulating letters discussing Shaver. Many members were technicians of some sort. This procedure became too complicated and time consuming so Holland, around 1949, instead started publishing a small bi-monthly newsletter, A Voice From the Gallery. But the zine failed to serve its intended purpose and he continued the newsletter as a sort of personal editorial affair with this policy: ”A Voice From the Gallery is merely the voice of its editor and publisher, and does not represent any organization, group or ”school of thought”. It does not have any idea or theory to sell, and is not attempting to prove anything.” It became a sort of Fortean newsletter covering subjects like paranormal phenomena, Richard Shaver, the Koch Treatment and other alternative medicines, flying saucers, A and H bombs. 28 issues were published until Spring 1958. We have only three issues in the BSRF archives at AFU.

I have not been able to find out when he began channeling or why, probably around 1949-1950. In early 1952 Holland sent his first channeling document, Flying Saucers, to Meade Layne, director of Borderland Sciences Research Foundation (BSRF) and it was published as BSR Release 1-B-52, an 11-page brochure. In later editions of this document Meade Layne made this comment: ”The Intermediary or ”Receiver” of the foregoing material, ”Rolf Telano”, is an electronics engineer by profession and a resident of the Middle West. He has never publicized or exploited his psychic gifts. The above material was received by a kind of inner dictation or clairaudience, with partial control of the hands on the typewriter. I have found no reason, during my near-decade of contact with him, to question his integrity or the authentic nature of the psychism involved.”

In a Round Robin article 1952, The Telano Communications, Ralph Holland made a few comments on his channeling: ”The method of receiving the communications was both mental, and a form of automatic writing. That is, it was written directly on my typewriter, and although I was fully conscious at all times, I often did not know what was going to be set down next. Also, my ”control” used the touch system of typing, and could write as well in the dark as in the light. I myself have never learned the touch system and write by the ”peck and hunt” method. I can receive replies via the pendulum and alphabet card… but do not regard it as being as reliable as other means.”
(Round Robin, vol 8, no 1, May-June 1952, pp. 2).

After this brief introduction Holland gives the rather surprising revelation that one of the communicators, Borealis Telano, is actually his wife ”on the Venusian etheric plane”. She is working as a priestess on Venus. Holland explain that he has ”many hasty memories” of his former life on Venus and ”only a few clear ones”. The people behind the communications is a group of etheric Venusians, who function as interplanetary Guardians. In a letter to Meade Layne, January 21, 1952, Holland present the names of some in the group:
Gerald Peterson, chief of operations of the various craft here.
Ollie Rolson, technical officer
Portia Norton, historian
Mira Peterson, psychologist
Nels Gordon, interplane communications officer
Borealis Telano, priestess

Anyone familiar with the unique and high quality channeling by deep trance medium Mark Probert will immediately notice that the messages received by Holland appears to be a reflection of the teachings given by the Inner Circle, communicating through Mark Probert, and the Richard Shaver stories. Although the worldview and philosophy presented by Holland in several ways is in accordance with the Esoteric Tradition I would suggest the theory that the information comes from his own subconscious, from many years of reading BSRF writings, Richard Shaver and science fiction. He is certainly honest and wrote to a friend: ”I have no special powers or wisdom of my own. I was just the ”stenographer” who wrote down what they said, and the ”messenger boy” who sent it where I was told.”

(Letter from Ralph Holland to Joseph Magenta Feb 23, 1952).

It is interesting to note that the Mark Probert communicators were somewhat doubful regarding the authenticity of the Ralph Holland contacts as evidenced by this quote: ”I see no reason why this communication from your Associate known as Rolf Telano, should not be made public, since a few will profit by it and others will not be harmed. It should, however, be presented with the utmost circumspection.”
”Meade Layne, the Coming of the Guardians, p. 54).

To my knowledge Holland never claimed any physical contact with his Venusian friends nor to have made any UFO observations. He was actually very skeptical about physical UFO contacts and and even regarded George Adamski as a fraud, a position contrary to Meade Layne and the Mark Probert communicators:”For myself, I long ago made up my mind about Adamski” (A Voice From the Gallery, no. 28, Spring 1958, p. 4). Even if Holland was not a naive believer in psychic communication he never seems to have considered a psychological explanation for his own experiences. And he was very critical of another of the BSRF UFO contactees Gerald Light (Dr. Kappa): ”Regarding Dr. Kappa: have you ever considered the possibility of impersonation? Not by him, but by his ”Etherians”. There are many details which does not ”ring true” for an Etherian on any level. You mention that they seem to be ”non-human”, but I get the feeling that they are a very perverted form of human, with a very vicious form of sadistic insanity.”

(Letter from Ralph Holland to Meade Layne, January 30, 1952).

I do find it a bit surprising that neither Meade Layne nor Riley Crabb ever seems to have considered the possibility of a psychological explanation for the Ralph Holland experiences. They were both erudite esotericists and should have remembered the common sense approach to psychic communications as expressed by the Tibetan to Alice Bailey: ”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. Introspective people frequently penetrate into the layer of subconscious recollection and are quite unaware of so doing. Their interest in themselves is so intense. Not knowing that they have done this, they regard what they find as unusual, beautiful and important, and then proceed to formulate it into messages, which they expect their friends and the general public to regard as spiritually based. 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.” (Alice Bailey, Telepathy and the Etheric Vehicle, pp. 75-76). Ufologists and investigators of paranormal phenomena may be a bit surprised to find that in this respect esotericism actually side with mainstream materialist, reductionist psychology in the general interpretation of channeling.

Meade Layne´s compilation The Coming of the Guardians (first edition 1954) is today a minor classic in UFO literature, published in many editions. This first manuscript, The Flying Saucers, was later (1963) published Gray Barker´s Saucerian Books, with a few additions and an In Memoriam by his sister Mis Dora Holland. In the middle of the 1950s Ralph Holland gave a new manuscript, A Spacewoman Speaks, to Meade Layne. Harriet P. Foster, for many years secretary of BSRF and associate editor of Round Robin, then became a sort of literary agent for Holland and succeeded in getting his MS published by Daniel Fry´s Understanding Publishing Company in 1960. She commented on this project in a letter to Daniel Fry: ”I might mention that one of the main reasons why Ralph wished to remain anonymous was that he had been president for four or five years of an international science-fiction writers club and his association with sf-circles might have imperiled the authenticity of the Spacewoman in the minds of some of his readers. That was why I undertook the task of finding a publisher for the book.”
(Letter from Harriet P. Foster to Daniel Fry, April 10, 1962).

First edition of The Coming of the Guardians

Edith Nicolaisen, founder of the Swedish publishing company Parthenon contacted Harriet Foster and succeeded in getting the publishing rights free ”for the benefit of Parthenon”. Nicolaisen also contacted Miss Dora Holland to get further biographical data on Holland and a photograph. She never received a picture as Ralph´s anonymity was important for Dora. But she did give some interesting biographical data of her brother in a letter June 1, 1964. A Swedish edition of A Spacewoman Speaks (Vänner i universum) was published by Parthenon in 1964.

There are still many unanswered questions regarding Ralph Holland and his life and writings. As he was very much involved in science fiction, Richard Shaver and borderland sciences much data could possible be found in different archives. During his active years he claimed to be corresponding with some 200 people, so correspondence files could possibly be located from many sources.

A new book by Jacques Vallee is must reading for every serious student of UFOs and paranormal phenomena and also - I would add - esotericist. His writings are always intellectually challenging with new data and inside views from the UFO research community. The Forbidden Science Journals are now into the fourth volume, covering the decade 1990- 1999, subtitled The Spring Hill Chronicles. The difference this time is that many diary entries deal with Vallee´s work as private investor and venture capitalist. Somewhat frustating to readers, like me, who is not fascinated by economy and high finance.

Giving a detailed and accurate review of this massive work (551 pages) is a mission impossible. There are so many UFO incidents, personalities, events, ideas, theories and personal memories and anecdotes mentioned that makes it necessary to concentrate on a few themes. I´ve always admired Vallee´s heretical thinking and lone wolf attitude. In Forbidden Science, vol. 2 he gave this advice: ”The real phenomena continue to manifest under our noses, and no special access to questionable government documents is required to pursue a serious study” (491). He reiterates this view in vol 4: ”The best work is always done by lonely researchers with no money” (p. 404). Vallee deplores how ufology has developed in the US with the misuse of hypnosis on abductees, beginning with Hopkins´ Missing Time 1981, resulting in new myths and conspiracies.

Jacques Vallee, photo by Clas Svahn, June 2016

Vallee in no way deny the reality of abductions, only the misuse of hypnosis and resultant credulity and is a harsh critic of John Mack and David Jacobs. As in the other volumes there are many intriguing close encounter and abduction cases mentioned in brief summaries, cases I wonder if anyone ever followed up or documented. Vallee is especielly intrigued by the possibility of covert intelligence operatives involved in psychological experiments: ”Barbara knows another woman who found out under professional therapy that she had not been abducted to a UFO at all; instead she had been taken to a house in San Francisco, where her supposedly ”Alien” abductors also turned out to be humans as they removed their fake faces in front of her. That description sent chills through my bones, because it was one of the scenes in my novel Fastwalker.” (p. 24). This case is reminiscent of the Alison MILABS case, Sedona, Arizona, documented by Nick Redfern. The theme of secret black projects was introduced aleady in Messengers of Deception (1979). Vallee is convinced there is both a real UFO phenomenon and government mind control experiments. The mystery , of course is, ”but why? And cui bono?” (p. 179).

In 1995 American businessman Robert Bigelow founded the National Institute for Discovery Science (NIDS), based in Las Vegas, Nevada. He recruited a team of scientists, a.o. Jacques Vallee to research various paranormal phenomena, including cattle mutilations and black triangle reports. The investigations were for many years led by Colm Kelleher, concentrating on a ranch in Utah where a plethora of strange phenomena were observed. Vallee reports on the meetings, discussions, research and internal problems of the group. He concludes: ”… we learned a lot in Utah from the work on the ranch of Bob Bigelow. Thanks to enlightened support from him and from Laurance Rockefeller, a small cadre of American scientists had begun to study the pheonomena first-hand, at close range, over extended periods, and to openly discuss their findings.”. (p. 485). The investigations at the Utah range were later documented by Colm Kelleher and George Knapp in Hunt for the Skinwalker(2006).

Jacques Vallee has all his life been a valiant exponent for the serious and scientific study of UFOs and paranormal phenomena. Therefore I was deeply surprised and troubled by this diary entry November 1, 1992: ”Planning the move, I have disposed of three large crates of letters from readers that would have been excellent raw material for somebody´s dissertation on the UFO mystery and society´s reaction to it. I can hear future scholars cursing me, but where am I to find the space for all this? No University has any interest in it.” (p. 143). To me it is almost incomprehensible that Vallee does not seem to realize the importance of saving documents, especially correspondence. As I often have reiterated: Without libraries and archives we have no history, only anecdotes, myths and hazy memories. Without archives and libraries serious and scientific research becomes very difficult and in some areas almost impossible. If we don´t learn from history we will continue making the same mistakes or once again try to reinvent the wheel. Jacques Vallee and his wife Janine were close friends of Brian Myers and Tina Choate, who succeeded in getting hold of the APRO archives after the death of Coral Lorenzen in 1988. The APRO archives is unique in UFO history but unfortunately still not accessible nor digitalized, as far as I know. Robert Bigelow tried to buy the archive without success. Jacques and Janine visited Myers and Choate on July 28, 1992: ”Again, we saw the Apro files in rows of filing cabinets, many of them still taped shut. The data for the years 1948 and 1949 was misssing; there was no file on Roswell. Many of the drawers only contained clippings (labelled ”Features”) but others were full of data.” (p. 128). Nowhere do I find a comment by Vallee that this archive should be saved and made accessible to researchers.

When Anders Liljegren, Kjell Jonsson and I founded AFU in 1973 Jacques Vallee was, besides John Keel, our foremost ideological inspiration. We even quoted from Passport to Magonia in our first published information sheet. His writings has deeply influenced my own research and theories. Especially because to Vallee UFO research is part of a profound spiritual quest to understand our existence and in this quest he, like his colleague Allen Hynek, has turned to various esoteric traditions looking for answers. It is here that I am faced with one of the great unsolved riddles in his life and writings. In several diary entries Vallee mention his interest and study of esoteric authors. Both Hynek and Vallee consider themselves as belonging to the Rosicrucian tradition (p. 126). The Rosicrucian tradition often referred to is Amorc: ”Yesterday, I visited Rosicrucian Park, taking along a copy of Forbidden Science as a gift to their library. I spoke to Grand Master Kristie Knudson who called me ”Frater”, apologized for being busy, and delegated an instructor to take me through the temple.” (p. 196).

Among the names in the Rosicrucian tradition Vallee recognize ”and pledge allegiance to” are Paracelsus, Flamel, Nostradamus and Paschal Beverly Randolph: ”I have always felt – as did Allen Hynek – that the objective of most esoteric groups such as the Golden Dawn, Amorc and masonry, was intellectually and spiritually valuable. It is the execution that is flawed because human and social structures prove incompatible with the ideals.” (p. 436). How come that Jacques Vallee, in his lifelong studies of Hermeticism and Rosicrucians, never have found the core Esoteric Tradition as represented by Helena Blavatsky, Alice Bailey and Henry T. Laurency? The Esoteric Tradition as formulated by these authors constitutes the scientifically and philosophically most interesting multiverse paradigm or theory to explain the multitude of intriguing phenomena documented by many researchers. Of special importance is that Bailey and Laurency also have solved the basic epistemological problem of how to intellectually relate to the claims in esotericism. The esoteric worldview as presented by these authors could be accepted as a reasonable working hypothesis by any scholar or academic. Instead Vallee refers to the rather naive writings of Amorc and the obscure occultist Pachal Beverly Randolph who was advocating sex magic and drugs – the dark reflection of the Esoteric Tradition. In his diary April 27, 1996 Vallee has an interesting discussion with a friend in Paris: ”We spoke of Umberto Eco. I told her that his Foucault´s Pendulum danced around the occult domain, but he completely missed the door that led inside. She shrugged: ”He´s only an academic, an ethnologist,” she said. ”You can´t expect him to understand the paranormal.” (p. 306). Jacques Vallee himself is knocking at the door of the Esoteric Tradition. The problem is that he is knocking at the wrong door.

These critical remarks are of little interest to mainsteam ufologists not acquainted with esotericism, for whom Vallee is basically a scientist and UFO investigator. Neither shall my comments be understood as a denigration of his life and work. I have always admired and been inspired by Jacques Vallee. He is definitely at the top of the ufological Parnassus. The Forbidden Science Journals are not for the wider public but are and will remain unique documents in the annals of UFO history.

Jacques Vallee is a brilliant scientist, ufologist, esotericist and author but also a sensitive and romantic soul. His love for Janine and their life at the Spring Hill retreat is beautifully portrayed in many of the diary entries: ”As Allen did, I am guided by the certainty that there is another level of consciousness and undiscovered structures of reality, or rather ”meta-reality.” It is that higher level I have been seeking, and occasionally finding in meditation at Spring Hill under the night sky.” (p. 437).

When visiting bookstores and antiquarian booksellers I usually look for the shelf labelled Esoterica. In most cases the shelf comprise a mixture of esotericism, occultism, spiritualism, mysticism and New Age literature. On this blog I have often referred to writings from the Esoteric Tradition or science of the multiverse, books which very few investigators of UFOs and paranormal phenomena are acquainted with. For those heretics who wish to take a step further into Forbiddden Science I present a short list of gems from the Esoterica shelf.

If you are a beginner in this study don´t make the common mistake of starting with the classic The Secret Doctrine by Helena P. Blavatsky. In 1973 the meditation group I belonged to decided to read and discuss The Secret Doctrine. We gave up after a few sessions. Although this work contain a mountain of interesting facts it is hopelessly unstructured with an abstruse terminology. Esotericism is the science of the multiverse, the knowledge of reality offered mankind by individuals belonging to the next or fifth kingdom in nature, our future in evolution. It is not some vague form of mysticism but as exact as any academic discipline. It is important to remember the glimpses of this science so far presented by various authors have been more or less successful tests or experiments, implemented by the organization of Planetary Guardians, custodians of this knowledge or Ancient Wisdom. They are far from the pathetic mystics and fanatical ascetics portrayed in much popular occultism and channeling. Of necessity these men and women must at the present time work behind the scenes. If the forces of goodwill and construction on this planet can overcome the perveyors of hate and destruction the Planetary Guardians plan to reveal themselves more openly to humanity.

These volumes should not be regarded as authoritative but read with an open and critical mind, the necessary tool of every serious investigator and esotericist. Even the best authors makes mistakes and have their personal idiosynchrasies. After having studied these books you will have a basic idea of the science and philosophy esotericism.

The Mahatma Letters to A.P. Sinnett

Published in 1923 by A. Trevor Barker, this book includes all the letters written by two members of the Planetary Guardians, known as M. And K.H. between 1880- 1884. The letters are now housed in the British Library. Basic facts of the esoteric science and much discussion of the problems of revealing themselves, their work and organization to humanity.
”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).

Charles Leadbeater, The Astral Plane (1895)

A clairvoyant study of the inhabitants of the astral plane by Theosophist Charles Leadbeater. This, in my view, is the most comprehensive and detailed taxonomy of non-human entities and phenomena from the multiverse perspective of the Esoteric Tradition. In his introduction C. Jinarajadasa mentions that this was also the opinion of one of the adepts who consequently wanted a copy of the manuscript for the "Museum of Records of the Great White Brotherhood". The Astral Plane was regarded as a "landmark in the intellectual history of humanity." It is a study of great interest to all investigators of UFOs and paranormal phenomena. This quote regarding nature spirits is interesting to compare with John Keel´s theory of the deceptive ultraterrestrials:
"Their forms are many and various, but most frequently human in shape and somewhat diminutive in size. Like almost all inhabitants of the astral plane, they are able to assume any appearance at will... Under ordinary conditions they are not visible to physical sight at all, but they have the power of making themselves so by materialization when they wish to be seen... in most cases when they come into contact with man they either show indifference or dislike, or else take an impish delight in deceiving him and playing childish tricks upon him." (p. 111-112).

Geoffrey Hodson, Fairies at Work and at Play (1925)

This charming little book is the first written by clairvoyant Theosophist Geoffrey Hodson. He is the author of over fifty titles on Theosophy, psychic powers, spiritualism, meditation and many other subjects. Perhaps best known for his clairvoyant studies of nature spirits and devas. In april 1922 he observed several sylphs or air-spirits. The close resemblance to the famous Mothman, encountered in West Virginia 1966-1967 is fascinating:
”Watching the approach across the valley of some dense storm-clouds, the presence was observed of a number of bird-like air-spirits travelling swiftly in front of the approaching clouds. Many of them are dark and unpleasant to look upon – slightly reminiscent of bats… Their faces are human and well formed, their expression is unpleasant; the rest of the body is not fully formed, and they rather resemble birds with human faces… They utter a weird shrieking noise, and occasionally shoot almost vertically upwards into and beyond the clouds… It is evident that there are many different species of storm-sylphs, varying in size, power, and evolutionary position.” (Geoffrey Hodson, Fairies at Work and at Play, pp. 84-85).

Cyril Scott, The Initiate (1920)

In the 1920s and 30s three books excited enormous interest, especially among Theosophists and those interested in the Esoteric Tradition. They were first published pseudonymously, "by his pupil", but later editions gave the actual name of the author, Cyril Scott (1879-1970), English composer, writer and poet. The trilogy was named in sequence The Initiate. Some Impressions of a Great Soul (1920), The Initiate in the New World (1927) and The Initiate in the Dark Cycle (1932). The Initiate trilogy is the life story of Charles Broadbent (Cyril Scott) and his involvement with a man, Justin Morewood Haig, to whom he is introduced in wordly London. Haig seems as first to be as other men but Broadbent soon comes to realize he is an initiate and accepts to be his pupil. The books combine the personal life history of Broadbent with the teachings given by Haig. The Initiate trilogy is a treasure trove of esoteric wisdom and sound psychological insights and advice, presented in a somewhat unusual context but easy and fascinating to read.
"Level - headedness and good sound common sense are what I try to instill into my pupils before I encourage them to peep into the hidden realms. A thorough grounding in philosophy is the first thing to be acquired- otherwise one’s up against hysteria and imagination of a wrong type, and all the other evils we know so well. I know of women who come down to breakfast every morning with the story of some wonderful vision they’ve had in the night, in which some supposed ‘Master’ has appeared and given them ‘teaching’, it turns out to be sheer nonsense or some moral platitude. Well, well- it is fortunate we gurus have a sense of humour.” (The Initiate in the New World, p. 48).

Theodore Illion, In Secret Tibet (1937)

In Secret Tibet is the story of Theodore Illion´s travel in disguise in Tibet in the 1930s, meeting hermits, lamas and the somewhat more mysterious few "wise men". For many years I have been very intrigued by his two books In Secret Tibet (1937, orig. Rätselhaftes Tibet, 1936) and Darkness Over Tibet (1937). Using the pseudonym Theodore Burang he also wrote several books and articles on Tibetan medicine. There are no definite data to confirm that Theodore Illion ever visited Tibet in the 1930s. There have been some speculation that he relied on the information in the books by Alexandra David-Neel, published in the 1920s, and simply used the travelogue about Tibet as a way to present his philosophy. Whatever the truth the books by Theodore Illion are a treasure trove of wisdom. Anyone thoroughly acquainted with the Esoteric Tradition will here find a kindred soul. I do find it amazing that Illion at his young age could have such extraordinary deep insights into esoteric philosophy, coupled with a critical mind and wonderful humour.
"I travelled in Tibet neither as a Christian nor as a Buddhist. I did not look at things there merely with the eyes of the scientist or the philosopher. I tried to examine things in an absolutely unprejudiced way. I do not belong to any sect, party, or denomination.""...my interest in Tibet was centered around the reality of Tibetan mysteries and psychical phenomena." (p. 18).
And I love his humor: "I am a non-smoker. I only smoke in the company of people who consider non-smoking a virtue". (p. 31).

Robert A. Heinlein, Lost Legacy (1941)

The novel, Lost Legacy, by science fiction writer Robert A. Heinlein (1907-1988) has been one of my absolute favourite novels since I first read it many years ago. It was originally published in the November 1941 issue of Super Science Stories and later included in the collection Assignment in Eternity. I know of few novels that reveal such a deep and innate understanding of esoteric philosophy. An accomplished and erudite esotericist could hardly have done a better job. The narrative centers around a trio from a California university, Dr. Philip Huxley, professor of Psychology, Dr. Ben Coburn, neurosurgeon, and Joan Freeman, student of Psychology. They discover psychic abilities in one another and theorize that all humans possess these faculties as potentialities. This trio of heretic academics decides on a road trip to Mount Shasta. Climbing the mountain Ben Coburn falls on a slippery cliff and receives a fracture of the shin bone. A tall, elderly man appears from nowhere and offer his help. The group are led through a passageway into the mountain where they find themselves in a living room, illuminated by indirect lightning. They spend the night in this room and in the morning Ben´s wound has mysteriously and completely healed. They are then introduced to the around thirty persons resident in several rooms, men and women of different ages and nationalities. Philip, Ben and Joan are then briefed on the history of the community, their philosophy, inner powers and work in the world. They are custodians of the Ancient Wisdom and have for ages worked behind the scenes to further the cultural and spiritual evolution of man on planet earth.
"... the forces that killed enlightenment in the rest of the world are spreading here. Little by little they have whittled away human liberty and human dignity. A repressive law... a blind dogma, to be accepted under pain of persecution... You see, sir, our antagonists don´t wait. They are active all the time. They´ve won i Asia, they are in the ascendancy in Europe, they may win here in America... With the aid of the archives they (Philip, Ben, Joan) learned the techniques byt which the brotherhood of adepts had interceded in the past when freedom of thought and action in America had been threatened." (p.p. 65, 88-90).

Alice Bailey

Alice Bailey, Telepathy and the Etheric Vehicle (1950)

The books by Alice Bailey, amanuencis for the Tibetan adept D.K. are generally not for beginners in esoteric study. Telepathy and the Etheric Vehicle is an exception. It was actually the first Alice Bailey book I stumbled across 1973 at an antiquarian bookseller in Norrköping, Sweden. The balanced approach and sound advice regarding paranormal phenomena and experiences makes this volume an important contribution to esotericism. Naive devotees of channeling should listen to this advice:
”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. Introspective people frequently penetrate into the layer of subconscious recollection and are quite unaware of so doing. Their interest in themselves is so intense. Not knowing that they have done this, they regard what they find as unusual, beautiful and important, and then proceed to formulate it into messages, which they expect their friends and the general public to regard as spiritually based. 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.” (Alice Bailey, Telepathy and the Etheric Vehicle, pp. 75-76).

Henry T. Laurency

Henry T. Laurency, Knowledge of Reality (1961)

HenryT. Laurency (Henrik von Zeipel, 1882-1971) was an exceptional intellectual who studied philosophy at Uppsala University. His teachers were the famous Swedish philosophers Axel Hägerström and Karl Hedvall. With this background and most assuredly inspiration from one of the planetary adepts he was able to formulate the esoteric worldview in such a clear and scientific language, with a new terminology, that his books can appeal to academic scholars and humanist intellectuals. His presentation of esoteric philosophy is in an international perspective of a quality unsurpassed. I assume that the international academic community of esoteric scholars will soon discover Laurency as he is a extraordinary intellectual and a fascinating iconoclast even among esotericists because of his harsh, almost Blavatskyan, criticism of other authors in the genre. His criticism of other authors and writing style can be a stumbling block for the more emotional new age mystics but his books are not for the general public. Laurency is addressing the intellectual and cultural elite, His comments on science, philosophy, religion and cultural issues reveal a profound and penetrating knowledge.
"The Knowledge of Reality is not my work, even though I was the instrument holding the pen that wrote it, and was made to rewrite every page until the content was approved as being correctly perceived." (Knowledge of Life. Four. Online version, p. 17).

For the critical student to accept the esoteric worldview as a paradigm or working hypothesis most scholars would probably need some form of empirical data indicating a multiverse. To me the empirical evidence became obvious when 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 investigators who wish to follow this path in research.

During a period of more than thirty-five years Dr. Ardy Sixkiller Clarke has collected and documented five thousand plus stories of encounters with various types of Star People by American Indians. Now Clarke has written her fourth book – Space Age Indians. This time concentrating on contacts and abductions involving both seemingly benevolent and malevolent or dangerous entities. Her study is a unique and specialized research and documentation accomplishment, unsurpassed in UFO history.

As a woman with American Indian ancestry and a professor emeritus of Montana State University Dr. Ardy Sixkiller Clarke is highly respected by the men and women she interviews. Because of their trust and confidence in her, protecting their names and integrity, the witnesses dare to relate their personal UFO contact experiences. ”Madison”, an FBI agent on a southwestern reservation, told Clarke before an interview: ”I know you keep everthing anonymous. I applaud your approach to your interviews. Many researchers don´t understand why Indians don´t talk to them. But you honor them with the way you treat them. They can be free and honest with you and they know you will not condemn them.”

Clarke is not a ufologist in the ordinary sense, not a critical investigator trying to determine the ontological status of the experiences. Instead her approach is what in Anthropology is called the emic or insider perspective, simply recording the narratives, avoiding judgements about the encounters. But the author makes her position clear regarding the reality of what she is recording: ”While the stories told in this book by individuals like you and me suggest that extreterrestrials visit this planet almost daily, we have no really hard evidence to prove that is the case… But as a researcher and social scientist, I belive the stories in this book are genuine, legitimate, and indisputable.”

The collection of encounters in this book are divided in three sections: The Blue Men, Reptilians and Insectoids, Other Star People. While some of the narratives are definitely scary, reminding me of scenes from H.P. Lovecraft novels, others are beautiful tales of healing and help from Star People, wherever they come from.

The first sixteen chapters describe encounters with the Blue Men. The name refer to their blue skin and that they are encased in a shimmering blue light. According to some Indian legends a race of blue-skinned people live in underground cities and possess an advanced technology. These people are described as benevolent, often helping and healing ordinary humans in difficult or dangerous situations. As in the story of the Chickasaw Indian Mele, who during his two years in the Vietnam war became trapped in an area sprayed with Agent Orange. Seeking safety in a cave he encounter three tall entities, surrounded by a blinding blue light. They guide him to an enlarged area in the cave where a spacecraft is placed. The Blue Men offer to remove Mele to safety. They board the spacecraft and he is placed in an area free of Agent Orange: "It toook me several days to find my squad. Everyone thought I was dead. I didn´t tell them I was with the Blue Men… They told me Earth was too beautiful to be destroyed by war and biological weapons and that I should do more to change it. I discounted their thoughts. I didn´t belive I could make a difference.”

In section two of Space Age Indians is documented twelve encounters, or rather abductions by shape-shifting Reptilians and Insectoids. As in all UFO contact and abduction cases it is difficult to determine the degree of reality behind these experiences. But in Clarke´s book two stories are of special interest in this respect.

”Julian” is a former Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) police detective. It was during his years as a federal officer he encountered a being on a desert road in Arizona. He told his story to Ardy Sixkiller Clarke at a dinner in a small town near the Montana/South Dakota border. Julian hade been called out to check on a house reportedly used by a drug cartel. On his way to the adress he suddenly noticed a tall figure on the edge of the highway. The figure looked like a giant grasshopper. When caught in the shine of the car spotlight it crouched down and when it stood up again it was human. Julian is abducted by the now human-loking alien unto a spacecraft where two small grey beings enter the room. They are ordered to take Julian to another room with human beings in a trance-like state.

The human-looking alien ask Julian how he can identify individuals captured in his work. He takes out his fingerprint pad, take the hand of one of the transfixed female captives and press her thumb into it and then transfer the print to a small notebook. When the alien is distracted Julian slip the notebook into his pocket. In the room he notice three females and three males, appearing to be in their twenties, ”handsome men and beautiful women.” Julian is then escorted out of the craft and to his car.

Part of the time he was unconscious during the abduction and he lost three-and-a half hour of time.

At work Julian was able to get a positive ID of the abducted woman by using the Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System (IAFIS). Asked by Clarke is he could identify the individual:
”Yes, she was a seventeen-year-old female from Las Vegas. She had been arrested four times for prostitution. She disappeared three years ago. Her roommate reported her missing. She said the last time she saw her, she was getting into a car with a strange looking man who was driving a Cadillac.” There was also a photo and Julian could identify her as the same girl he had seen on board the spacecraft. According to Julian there are three species that represent a threat to humanity: the reptilians, the buggers, and the Grasshoppers or Mantis-men. The buggers are insectoids. The Greys are a sort of manual workers doing the bidding of these entities: ”The buggers are the ones in control, and they are scary dudes.”

Clarke has documented another case that is interesting from a reality or evidence perspective. An American Indian doctor ”Wiley” is abducted during a hunting trip. The aliens look like lizard men, working together with smaller entities. On board the craft he notice three other men but two appear oblivious to what is going on. The third man is fully awake like Wiley. His name is Frederick and he is a doctor from New York City. The agree, if possible, to contact each other if they are freed. They are released by the aliens and after a few days Wiley search for Frederick on the internet and find him in New York City. In the email contact they can both confirm what has happened but Frederick remember more details of the abduction.

Cases like these are very disturbing and raise many questions. Who are the abductors? Real aliens or is this some kind of secret mind manipulation intelligence work (MILABS)? I have personally corresponded with one American abductee, Laura, who together with her husband (retired military, special ops, military intelligence) had a very frightening experience with shape-shifting aliens looking like large insects. In Sweden or Scandinavia these types of encounters are almost unknown. I have only tried to make an unsuccesful follow-up on the controversial Lacerta file. An interesting book dealing with these types of entities is Solomon Islands Mysteries by Marius Boirayon. I have often wondered, what if some of these frightening creatures mentioned by a.o. Ardy Sixkiller Clarke really exist and are secretly operating on our planet, how does the Disclosure activists deal with this issue? A Disclosure of such evil and dangerous activities would probably cause widespread fear and paranoia that would make the Orson Wells War of the Worlds panic of 1938 look like a peaceful picnic.

Thereise very little information in the Esoteric Tradition that could be of interest anent these types of aliens. But I did come across a very curious reference, a prediction of a possibly future threat made by Rudolf Steiner in a lecture given at Dornach, Schweiz on May 13, 1921: ”And from the earth there will spring forth a terrible brood of beings, a brood of automata of an order of existence lying between the mineral and the plant kingdoms, and possessed of an overwhelming power of intellect… This swarm will seize upon the earth, will spread over the earth like a network of ghastly, spider-like creatures, of an order lower than that of plant-existence, but possessed of overpowering wisdom. These spidery creatures will be all interlocked with one another… The earth will be surrounded — as it is now with air and as it sometimes is with swarms of locusts — with a brood of terrible spider-like creatures, half-mineral, half-plant, interweaving with masterly intelligence, it is true, but with intensely evil intent.”

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 mankind: ”… 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).

As a sort of comforting compensation to Reptilians and Insectoids the last seventeen chapters of Space Age Indians deal with benevolent aliens, often giving practical help in distressing situations or medical help. A good example is Eve´s Story: The Star People Are Healers. Eve´s mother, a retired tribe council member suffered from a dibilitating form of arthritis. She encounter a human-looking alien wearing a dark brown one-piece uniform. When he walk he doesn´t seem to touch the ground. He claim to be a doctor from another planet. ”His hands had magic in them", according to Eve. After a healing session Eve felt no more pain and can now do things like in her youth. Before the healing she was so bad she couldn´t open a door knob or a jar.

The four books so far published by Ardy Sixkiller Clarke are exceedingly fascinating, thought provoking and for the mainstream ufologist a bit frustrating as no follow-up on the cases is possible by other investigators. But that gives no reason to dismiss these stories, many which would probably never be known and documented without the persistent efforts of the author. Personally I look forward to the next volume of Star People stories.

Merry Christmas

A Benevolent Conspiracy

The Edith Nicolaisen - George Adamski Correspondence

The Parthenon Archive

Who Is The Photographer?

The Esoteric Intervention Theory - Updated

The UFO observations of Edith Nicolaisen

Dane Rudhyar and Esoteric Intervention

The Edith Nicolaisen - Elizabeth Klarer correspondence

Flying Saucer Pilgrimage

The Alien Visitors

Edith Nicolaisen and Doomsday Prophecies

UFO Iconography - Letterheads

Alice A. Bailey - The Unlikely Occultist

UFO Research, Theories and Paradigms

George Adamski´s Lost Debut Recovered

Ralph Holland and the Venusians

Forbidden Science Volume Four

Gems From the Esoterica Shelf

Space Age Indians