Contactee Thoughts

I finally picked up Nick Redfern's Contactees: A History of Alien-Human Interaction as of Friday and have already jumped right into reading it. This book got me thinking and so I started looking into the Conctactee movement at my usual sources. I thought I would share with you all some of the more interesting things that I've come across so far. I'm still hoping that a recent article I had written for a magazine will be published because it also deals with the Contactee issue, albeit from a slightly different perspective, but until then this post will have to tide you over. I still maintain an open mind about the Contactee movement as I'm not always sure what to make of it. I don't think the answer is as clear-cut as some would suggest. Namely that all of their accounts are hoaxes that were put on by the Contactees themselves simply for profit. At the same time I don't know if they had as many, or as vivid, contacts as they claim. Regardless I will share with you all the items that I've come across in my research and leave it up to you to decide what you think of the Contactees.

Space Brother Contactees YouTube Documentary

This hour-long documentary mostly focuses on Howard Menger's contacts with the space people. Missing from the documentary is the fact that in the 1960's Menger appeared on Long John Nebels radio show (as a bit of background Long John Nebel was the Art Bell of the 50's and 60's who interviewed the majority of the mover's and shaker's of the Fortean/UFO fields of the day) apparently recanted his account and claimed that he was apart of some kind of Army test to gauge the publics reaction to the idea of alien contact. It's an interesting documentary that I would recommend especially if you've never heard of Menger and actually, for that matter, if you have heard of him you may not have actually heard from him like you can in this video.

As a final piece of the Menger case I wised to share with you is this blog post from Outsider Music expert Mr. Fab, entitled Authentic Music From Another Planet. It contains a link for you to download music that Menger claimed he was directed to play by the contactees. In other words this was music that was channeled through Menger by his Space Brothers.

Emmanuel Swedenborg – 18th century contactee and theologian

Born in 1683 Emmanuel Swedenborg was a scientist, philosopher, theologian, and early Alien Conctatee. In many ways Swedenborg was far ahead of his time; he had many theories about the neuron, the cerebral cortex, and the nervous system. In addition to his fascination with anatomy, Swedenborg spent some of his time diagramming and designing a variety of “flying machines”. Among some of his other accomplishments, found at this site, there are:

Swedonborg's Flying Machine

In the next two years of his life (1716-1718), Emanuel published a scientific periodical titled 'Daedalus Hyperboreus'. The periodical held record of mechanical and mathematical inventions and discoveries. In this journal, he also mentioned about a flying machine, which he had earlier referred to in his letter to Eric. Around this time, Emanuel was also enobled, along with his siblings, by Queen Ulrika Eleonora and their surname changed to Swedenborg. Emanuel's scientific inventions include a dry dock of new design, a machine for working salt springs and a system for moving large boats overland.

 

In the field of biology, Swedenborg stressed on the importance of cerebral cortex. Apart from these, he drew feasible sketches of futuristic machines, including an airplane, a submarine, a steam engine, an air gun and a slow-combustion stove. Emanuel Swedenborg was offered the position of a professor in mathematics at Uppsala University, in 1724. However, he declined the offer, because he dealt with geometry, chemistry and metallurgy mainly, not maths.

In 1758 Swedenborg published Life on Other Planets which detailed the civilizations and peoples that could be found living on Jupiter, Mars, Mercury, Saturn, Venus, and the moon. At this point many would likely be pointing out that we now know that those places do not have any life on them. But according to Swedenborg the planets are inhabited by spirits on other dimensions. Cop out? Maybe. But then again, who knows? If you would like to know more about Swedenborg and all of his miscellaneous works and theories you should check out the following links:

The, at this point almost obligatory, ATS thread on the topic.

The Swedenborg Project

Wiki article

Gabriel Green Presidential Candidate and Contactee

Finally the last contactee that I wanted to take a look at is one of the more obscure ones out there. Strange considering the man ran for US President in both 1960 and 1972 as a write-in candidate representing the Flying Saucer Party. Beyond that rather unique aspect of his story, Green was pretty much a run-of-the-mill Contactee. He alleged that in 1957 he met a crew of Space Brothers from the planet Korender which orbited a star in the Alpha Centuri system. He was also in contact with his Korendians via telepathy. You can follow this link here to hear Green being interviewed about his decision to run for President. The same year that Green was contacted by the Space Brothers, he founded the Amalgamated Flying Saucer Clubs of America, Inc. Green only published one book which was entitled Let's Face Facts about Flying Saucers. Finding info on Green isn't really easy. If you want to read more about him the best source that I've been able to come across so far is his Wiki article.

That's about all I've come across so far that really stuck out in my mind. The Contactee movement is a very interesting aspect of the overall history of Ufology. It's hard to say whether the Contactees were liars, hucksters, or hoaxes. Perhaps, we could take them at their word. It's entirely possible that they had the encounters that they claimed to have had. As with anything else in the Fortean world the answers are never a simple matter of black or white. It's mostly a gray area. (No pun intended!).