The Abduction of Pier Fortunato Zanfretta

The alien abduction phenomena is a tricky, tricky, thing. There are a variety of different proposed explanations for alien abductions. Many feel that they are completely fabricated events within the person's subconscious. Others are convinced that abductions represent a systematic biological program which is being performed by extraterrestrials in order to produce a race of alien-human hybrids.  Some believed that these experiences stem from sleep paralysis. Still others see it is as some kind of demonic activity meant to deceive and lead people from the path of righteousness.  I haven’t decided where I land on the topic yet.

Today I wish to take a look at an interesting abduction case which isn’t discussed too often. As an added bonus, at least in my mind, it doesn’t involve those pesky Greys. On the night of December 6, 1978 security guard Pier Fortunato Zanfretta was out patrolling his route around Torriglia, a village near Genoa, Italy. An Italian journalist named Rino di Stefano, who has done an extensive amount of research into the case firsthand, tells the following version of events which befell Zanfretta that fateful night:

As Zanfretta approached a client's uninhabited country-house (called "Our Home" by the owner, Dr. Ettore Righi), in the area of Marzano, his patrol car, a Fiat 126, mysteriously stopped dead. The car engine, lights and radio all failed seemingly for no reason. At the same moment he saw four strange lights moving about in the garden of the house and stepped outside of his car to investigate with gun and flashlight in hand.At first he thought that burglars were behind the house. So he walked through the open gate and crept along a wall in an attempt to surprise them. Feeling himself touched from behind, the security guard whirled around and saw something that filled him with terror: only inches away stood what he called: "An enormous green, ugly and frightful creature, with undulating skin, no less than ten feet tall". When he directed the beam of his flashlight on the being's face, he was so frightened that he dropped it, but quickly it up again and run away. While running, he became aware of a large and very bright light behind him. Turning around, he saw a huge, flat triangular form which was blinding in its brilliance.

At this point, I have to commend Zanfretta for keeping his senses about him and getting the hell out of the area. I’d like to think I would maybe stick around and check the situation out some more. Of course I’ve never come face to face with a 10ft tall anything. So who knows how I would actually react. Getting back to the account, Stefano continues:

Zanfretta shielded himself from the light with his arm. This thing which he assured was a flying saucer, ascended from the back of the house. It was bigger than the house itself, and produced a hissing sound. Later, Zanfretta said that he felt an intense heat. He made it back to his car and tried to call his security company's operations center in Genoa. It was 12:15 A.M. Carlo Toccalino, the radio operator, has testified that Zanfretta was speaking in an excited and disconnected way. He kept saying: "My God, are they ugly!". The operator then asked if "they" were human and if they were assaulting him. The answer was: "No, they aren't men, they aren't men". At that point, the communication were abruptly broken off

The radio operator called the chief of the security force and two other security guards were sent out to look for Zanfretta. Arriving at 1:15 am the two guards found Zanfretta lying on the ground apparently frightened and near hysterical. Stefano says:

When he saw them, he jumped up, gun and flashlight at the ready. Eyes bulging, Zanfretta didn't seem to recognize them, nor to understand when they told him to lower his weapon. The other patrolmen rushed and disarmed him. To their surprise, his clothes felt warm even though the December night air was quite cold.

The Italian police were said to have launched an investigation almost immediately following these events. During their investigation, they found that nearly 52 people admitting to seeing strange lights in the vicinity of Zanfretta’s encounter at around the same time it was alleged to have occurred. Stefano tells us the following in regards to the investigation:

Antonio Nucchi, the commandant of the Torriglia station, has stated that he was every confidence in the testimony given by Zanfretta. In fact, he has known the security guard for many years and, when I asked him what he thought about him, he answered: "I can state with certainty that he is a clear thinking man with no strange fantasies in his head. When we went to investigate the scene the next day, he almost didn't want to come, he was so scared. Only something exceptional could have frightened him so."

Per Stefano’s insistence, Zanfretta agreed to undergo hypnosis. According to an Above Top Secret thread:

Zanfretta agreed to be hypnotized by Dr. Mauro Moretti, a psychotherapist and member of the Italian Association of Medical Hypnosis, in Genoa on December 23. During that occasion Zanfretta said that he was abducted by "monsters about 10 feet tall, with hairy green skin, yellow triangular eyes and red veins across the forehead" who brought him to a hot, luminous place where they interrogated and examined him.

During the same session, Zanfretta also indicated that the creatures came from the "third galaxy" and that "they want to talk with us and that they will soon return in larger numbers." The aliens did not speak Italian to the guard, but used a "luminous device" to translate what they were saying.

To my surprise, Zanfretta was back to work only a few weeks after the event. I have to admit, I would probably use this encounter as an excuse for a vacation, but “to each his own” I suppose. Zanfretta may have later regretted this decision to return to work as these creatures from the “third galaxy” were not evidently not finished with him yet. According to Stefano:

At 11:45 PM on that night [December 23rd], Zanfretta was at work as usual, driving a Fiat 127 inside the Bargagli tunnel, near the Scoffera Pass. Suddenly he lost control of the car. On the radio, he reported that the Fiat turned on its own and came out of the tunnel. Terrified, Zanfretta tried to work the brakes and steering wheel, but the car continued on its own along the steep road uphill.

Speaking with the radio operator, the guard said that he was having difficulty with the patrol car, and couldn't see well because of the very thick fog. After going for about a mile, the car finally come to an abrupt stop, throwing Zanfretta's head against the steering wheel. He called the radio operator and this time, in a very controlled voice, said: "The car has stopped. I saw a bright light. Now I am getting out." Zanfretta and his car were found at 1:10 AM by other guards.

The first to see Zanfretta was sergeant Emanuele Travenzoli. Zanfretta was in a field near the road. His clothes were warm and dry, and so was his head, despite the rain. The man was very scared, he was shaking and crying. "They say I must leave with them. What about my children? I don't want to, I don't want to...". Again the Carabinieri were called.

During their investigation they found that, though the car had been in the cold and rain for a long time, the roof of the Fiat was as hot as if it had spent an entire day in the sun. The interior of the car was also said to be as hot as an oven.

All around the car were disproportionately large footprints. As measured by the Carabinieri, the tracks proved were 20 inches long by 8 inches wide, with a distinct empty spot between sole and heel.

In addition, the Carabinieri found that Zanfretta's gun, a Smith & Wesson 38 Special, had been fired five times. But the guard couldn't recall at whom he had fired the weapon.

Zanfretta would go on to have many other abductions and encounters with various “extraterrestrial” denizens, far too many to name here. Instead I invite those curious to learn more to check out the links below. Zanfretta seemed to not be too bothered by the actual encounters themselves, frightening as they may have been. Instead the majority of stress and negativity Zanfretta received was from earthly sources. After Zanfretta’s story got out, he received constant harassment via telephone. People calling him crazy or phony. However Zanfretta always maintained that the events he recalled were real and had truly happened to him.

What are we to make of Zanfretta’s account? According to all who knew him, he was a reliable, stand up guy. Co-workers described him as honest and most seemed to believe that something strange happened to him, if not necessarily an abduction. He never seemed to have profited from these experiences, although he did appear on television and Stefano would eventually write a book detailing Zanfretta’s reports. I’m reserving my judgement on this case for now. I will say that I do believe Zanfretta had a genuine experience. What that experience involved remains a mystery.

Additional Reading:

ATS Thread

UFO Research Network

Rino di Stefano’s site

High Strangeness

A good portion of my childhood, and most of the origins for my interest in paranormal/fortean topics, stems from The X-Files. So most weekends while doing homework, I have the show on in the background thanks to it being on Netflix.  I watched one of my favorite episodes this past weekend. The episode is called ‘Jose Chung’s From Outer Space’. It centered around an author, Jose Chung played by the late Charles Nelson Reilly, who was sent by his publisher to write a book on an alleged alien abduction event which Mulder and Scully had also investigated. The episode is not only a fantastic example of what makes the X-Files great; it has humor, mystery, celebrity guest stars, but it is also does a great job representing all of the related weirdness which is inexplicably related to the UFO enigma.

In the episode, which I highly recommend you watch, you have military abductions, alien abductions, inner earth new-age religions being founded, military personnel impersonating aliens and flying “UFOs”, and Men in Black! About the only thing not included, probably because it was already a jam packed episode, is the poltergeist or “ghost” activity that sometimes follows or precedes UFO encounters.  A good catch-all term for the related phenomena which occurs in tandem with UFO sightings and alien abductions is ‘High Strangeness’.

Dr. J Allen Hynek, of “swamp gas” fame, first used the term in a paper which he presented to the American Association for the Advancement of Science in December 1969. Hynek assigned cases a “strangeness” index as means of offering some kind of classification for UFO reports. Hynek further clarifies and defines this concept in his 1974 book The UFO Experience wherein he states that high strangeness is “a measure of the number of information bits the report contains, each of which is difficult to explain in common-sense terms.”  

Stories and personal accounts which involve “High Strangeness” have always fascinated, especially when it comes to the investigators responses towards this aspect of the phenomenon. I was looking over some specific MUFON case files from the 90’s when I came across a really weird encounter which someone had, related below, but there was a caveat before the report which bothered me. In setting up the witnesses encounters, the investigators note that “Background paranormal events have not been included in this report.” I don’t wish to go off on a tangent, but since we know nothing about what may or may not be behind this phenomena, why not include all points of data? (I suppose that is the Fortean in me coming out).

Anyway, after reading some of the witnesses experiences, I couldn't help but wonder what in the world they had left out? As it stands some of her stories certainly qualify as high strange even with MUFON investigators leaving out the “background paranormal” events. Here’s a link to all of her experiences, but I wish to focus on one really bizarre encounter the witness had with an entity she called “Marcus”. Her account is as follows:

The witness was awakened to see an entity, in the form of a human(oid) male floating to the right side of the foot of her bed.  She indicated that when she saw the entity she knew that it was male, and that she knew who he was.  She was told, in a nonverbal manner, that his name was "Marcus", and he was there for her. She felt that their relationship was, in some way, very close.

She described the entity as being tall, and approximately human in appearance, but with a catlike face.  She described his appearance as "a cross between Worf (on Star Trek) and the beast "Vincent" in the TV show Beauty and the Beast". He appeared to be dressed in a manner that suggested to her a military officer from an earlier time period, with an apparent breast plate arranged in a chevron design.

The entity held his hands out to her, palms up, and she instinctively knew to put her hands in his.  She indicated that she then rose up, and he pulled her in closer to him.  [CL Note: She indicates that she was under the covers when the entity appeared.  If this was a physical movement, it is not clear how the bed covers were removed.]

At that point she felt that they were within a ball of light, and as if they were "dancing".  She didn't remember any sound, and was not sure whether or not they were still within the room, but felt that
there was not enough space within the room to have "danced" in the manner which they presently were.  Thus, she feels that they must have been somewhere else while this interaction occurred.  She indicates that this "dance" felt more like a "complete spiritual union", than physical motion to music (the traditional definition of dance). She did not feel that there was music present.

The witness sketched “Marcus” for our benefits, I admit I do enjoy seeing the person’s representation of the figures they have allegedly seen. Here is here sketch:

I would like to highlight the “aftermath” as the investigators labeled it, because I think it is an important detail which crops up in a lot of these kinds of reports. It’s something which Jacques Vallee pointed out in a number of his books. The investigators relate:

This event appears to be the start of her consciously remembered experiences.  She indicates that since that time, she has been very interested in spiritual topics, reading extensively in the area religion and spirituality, with subsequent interest in the field of UFOs and close encounters.

I don’t know what to make of cases such as this one. It wanted to dance with her? Let’s assume for a moment that it was an ET, could it not find a dance partner on it’s home planet? I’m slightly joking of course, I don’t mean to belittle the witness or her account. Honestly, I’m perplexed by what it is she allegedly experienced. Though she is not the only one. John Keel’s books are full of high strangeness encounters which people have purportedly had. I recently spoke about The Case of Indrid Cold, which is but one example of the variety of high strangeness reports which Keel spoke about.

In his book Real Ghosts, Restless Spirits, and Haunted Places, author Brad Steiger relates another classic example of high strangeness which accompanies a, relatively, mundane UFO sighting. The story is below:

An Iowa farmer named Gary C. saw a UFO one night as he was working late in the field during spring plowing. The next morning over breakfast, he learned that his wife, Melanie, 14-year-old son Jake, and 12-year-old daughter Lisa had also seen the bright object as the kids were getting ready for bed.

That day at school, a man who claimed to be from the state board of education asked to interview Jake. He told the principal of the junior high school that the boy had attracted attention because of his high scores in the state tests and that Jake had been selected to participate in a special educational project ... A call to the state office revealed that they had no one on their staff by the man’s name, and they had no special project for junior high students in progress.

When the principal entered the private room to confront the imposter, he found a puzzled Jake sitting alone. The teenager could only shrug that the special state project must be about space travel, for all the man asked him were questions about UFOS, aliens, and life on other planets. Jake had glanced away from his interrogator for just a moment, and when he looked back at him, he seemed to have vanished.

About the time that Jake was being interviewed by the mysterious stranger at school, out on the farm Gary and Melanie received a visit from two men dressed in black while they were eating lunch. The men identified themselves as agents of a special government task force investigating UFOS and said they had learned that the family had sighted a bright object in the sky on the previous evening.

Melanie and Gary were puzzled, since they had not told anyone of their sighting. The alleged government agents suddenly adopted a threatening manner and demanded that Melanie and Gary turn over any photographs they may have taken of the UFO. The farm couple said that they had taken no photographs, but the two agents refused to accept their denials and threatened that they had better cooperate if they knew what was good for them. “You must cooperate,” the taller of the two men said, “for your own good, the good of your country, the good of your world.”

Later that afternoon, Gary was certain that he saw the two men watching him from the shadows of his machine shed while he fed the cattle on the feedlot. In the farmhouse, Melanie answered the telephone on four occasions to hear nothing but a peculiar static. Finally, on the fifth ring, a voice in a strange accent told her to forget all she knew about UFOs or terrible things would happen to her entire family.

That night, shortly after the children went to bed, Lisa began screaming that some animal had crawled under her covers. When Gary and Melanie investigated, they found nothing, but then Jake yelled that his bed was jumping up and down. As they ran to his room, they could hear the thumping sounds of his bed lifting and slamming to the floor. Such poltergeistic disturbances continued on a nightly basis for nearly a week before dissipating.

What are we to make of these strange tales? Why would strange “government” agents show up after a sighting of a light in the sky? Why would the family see strange creatures and experience poltergeist-like activity following the sighting? It seems obvious that something peculiar is going on. I remain unconvinced that we will ever have an “answer” or solution to the UFO enigma, but I think that by looking into the High Strangeness reports (or the “damned data”) we may come closer to an understanding. Otherwise we will have failed to learn the lesson which Charles Fort attempted to teach. Data, no matter how bizarre or strange, needs to be taken into account. 

ET Pen Pals

I’ve been getting back into the habit of more regular updates here at Forteania and as such I’ve been racking my brain to dislodge various paranormal topics which I haven’t really dealt with before in the past. Today I wanted to talk to you dear readers about a very fascinating topic: Alien/Automatic writing. Personally I’ve lumped these two seemingly disparate topics together because I don’t actually think they’re all that different upon further inspection.

As a bit of a background automatic writing, also known as psychography, is a supposed psychic ability whereby a person produces writing words/symbols without actually physically having written them. Generally this is achieved by an outside, supernatural, force. (Thank you wikipedia!) Automatic writing, or spirit writing as it was also called at the time, seems to have shown up right about the time of the Spiritualism Movement of the late 19th century. This website seems to suggest that women used automatic/spirit writing as a means of breaking out of societal norms, who am I to argue? But that’s neither here nor there for what we’re talking about today.

Alien writing seems to have come around about the same time as the contactee movement, although there maybe some overlap with the earlier spiritual/theosophist writings who technically communicated with what would be called “ETs” which they considered to be Ascended Masters of sorts.

Explanations and origins aside, here follows a few example of the myriad that have been reported by experiencers over time. What little information is available on their accounts is also included. All credit to this information goes to Alien Abduction Experience and Research.

First is from Manuel from Minnesota: 

The above script is from Manuel some kind of an abductee from Minnesota. I don’t really know much more about his experiences besides the writing.

I remember that I forgot to reply to you concerning the 'alphabets'. I found a writing from December of 1998. I am including in this note as an attachment. Also am including one more 'circle' actually it is a quarter circle, with an animal-like figure in it. There are different 'families' and each has its own way. And then there are 'the experimenters' a family unto themselves. The 'experimenters' are what are known as 'greys'. Someone told me they are referred to as the 'Zeta Reticuli'. She wasn't someone I felt comfortable even being in the same room with... as it is with most people who 'enjoy' expounding about implants and experiments and giving birth to hybrid alien babies. I have this unexplainable urge to get away from them, or ask them to leave. Kinda like the feeling that the energy is not anything I want even near me... unlike those that are clearly upset by the whole thing... do you see what I mean. Like the difference between a propagandist and a victim of the propaganda...? By the way, in writing all I did in my big note about my experiences I have been freed of a lot of pain and anger. I came to realize in my writing you that I was really quite angry and fearful... I never realized just how scared I really was. I do now. And it has helped me to start looking at the matters in a whole different light. I have pushed people away, in the process of trying to find understanding. I hope I can open even more, at least enough to hold on to discrimination while honestly evaluating and sharing.

Next up is from a man named David:

David from Texas explains, "This writing is very special to me. I use it mostly for sacred purposes. I cannot remember a time when I did not know this language. I write it very fast, but it takes me forever to translate it to English, mostly because it does not lend itself to translation to English very easily." "Most of the words have no parallel in English. The English language, while having a beauty in its precision, does not contain the depth of meaning and color that this language does. The nearest illustration I can provide is, for example, with the word "love." In Koine Greek, as you know, I studied Greek and Hebrew at Seminary, the word "love" has at least three or four words used to describe it:  Eros which is physical love; Phileo which is brother love; Agape-Godly which is also love." "In English, we have just the word "love." Shades of meaning and depth of color are missing from the English language." "I sent samples of this writing to a friend who specializes in ancient languages. I also gave a copy to a friend who is in military intelligence, a cryptanalyst and linguist. He thought it was similar to Russian or Greek. Being familiar with Greek, I can see where some of the elements resemble Greek, but they do not fit into the schema as do the Greek letters that would have a linguistic correspondence." "I can read Russian to some small degree and I can see evidence of Cyrillic in it, but cannot say it is a known Russian language, of which there are over 150 Russian dialects. I have heard at least twice as many conclusions as there have been people analyzing it."

"My earliest memory of writing this language goes back to when I was in the third grade. My older sister tells me that I have been speaking this language since before I went from crawling to walking."

The interesting thing about David’s writing is that it looks somewhat similar to the “Martian” writing of Hélène Thome, who using automatic writing, was allegedly in contact with beings from Mars. Her story was written about in the book From India to Mars which can thankfully be obtained for free on the internets.

Thome's "Martian" writing

One last example I wish to take a look at is from Nathan:

Nathan wrote, "Here is some alien writing. I also speak alien from the home planet of Ethna. I've been doing this all my life. Unfortunately, I stopped for a long time due to people (family) thinking I was crazy and sending me to a psych doc who put me on 22 pills a day, and still did it . . . so I stopped, because they said I was crazy and delusional." "Recently, I just went off my meds . . . they only made me very ill to the point I could hardly function! This also messed up my mind really bad. But the good news, since I've been of them a few months, I have recovered 100%. I am growing in psychic powers such as telepathy! I also started writing down this writing and channeling. Anyways, take a look, tell me what you think."

That last little bit of information about the medication somehow interfering with the communication channels sounds like something Greg Bishop talked about Dr. Mario Pazzaglini telling him. Here is an excerpt of an interview Bishop did with  Dr. Pazzaglini for his now defunct zine The Excluded Middle (an anthology of which you should purchase here). The idea, as I understood it, was that the medication interrupted whatever was allowing the person to have contact with the alien intelligence.

In the end what are we to make of this writing? Does it have any inherent value? I can’t say for sure. I’m interested in the writing as yet another fascinating puzzle piece in the grand scheme of Forteana. Like almost everything else in this arena, I don’t know how real it is. But it’s certainly fascinating. As usual if you’ve got anything to add hit me up in the comments section.

The West Lothian Incident

It seems as though every time that I think I've heard just about every kind of UFO encounter story that exists, a new one pops up and shows me that (much to my chagrin) I don't know everything. The following case that we will be looking at is rather famous in the annals of Ufology and certainly one of the more unique cases that I've come across. I'm sure many of you will be shocked to learn that I first heard about this from a thread on AboveTopSecret entitled “The Dechmont Woods Encounter 1979”. It tells a very fascinating tale of what happened to a forestry worker by the name of Robert Taylor from Scotland. The thread lead me to find some additional sources about Taylor's account. Here it is in a nutshell (source from UFO Evidence):

On the 9th of November 1979, at around 10.30 am, Robert Taylor, a forestry worker employed by the Livingstone Development Corporation parked his pick up off a track at the bottom of Dechmont Law, just off the busy M8 motorway. He walked up the lower slope of the forested hill with his dog, and as he emerged into a clearing an amazing sight greeted him.

Before him in the clearing was a large, circular, sphere like object about twenty feet across. It appeared to be made from a dark metallic material with a rough texture like sandpaper, parts of which were transparent. A narrow flange ran around the outside of the object.

As he approached, two spheres with protruding metal spikes in the manner of old navel mines dropped from the object. They were about three feet wide and made of the same dark metallic substance as the larger object.

The two spheres rolled towards him and flanked him, each rolling at the same time to his left and right foot. With his dog now barking furiously, the spikes attached to the Bob's trousers and pulled him towards the larger sphere. Bob heard a distinct hissing sound and smelled an acrid smell that caused him to choke

The next thing he knew he was coming round lying face down on the grass with his dog nearby. The strange objects had disappeared from the clearing, his legs were aching, his trousers were torn and he found he could not speak.

At this point Taylor struggled back to his vehicle in order to radio for help. Unfortunately he still could not speak and so made the decision to walk back to his home. We'll pick the story up from About.com:

Arriving at this house, his wife was stunned to see his condition. He was covered with mud, and his pants were torn. He began to tell her the story of his experience. His wife wanted to call the police, but Taylor was against it, considering the subject of the matter. He did allow her to call his job supervisor, and the head of the forestry department, Malcom Drummond. He took a bath while she made the calls.

Drummond called a physician, and drove straight to Taylor's house. He was so anxious to find out what happened that he questioned him while he was still in the bathtub. Taylor and Drummond agreed that there must be some kind of physical evidence left on the ground by either the craft or the small spheres, and Drummond headed to the area to check it out, but he was unable to find the exact location.

Dr. Gordon Adams arrived and began to check out Taylor's condition. He found a grazed area on Taylor's left leg, and another graze under his chin. There were no apparent head injuries. At this time, anyway, Taylor's body temperature, blood pressure, and other body functions seemed normal. 

Adams called in for an ambulance to transport Taylor to the hospital for a head X-ray and an interview with a counselor. Taylor refused to make the hospital visit until later.

Eventually Taylor would give in and allow the police to become involved in the case. To their credit, it would seem the police handled the whole thing quite respectably. Possible because they had never dealt with any thing like this in the past, but who's to say? The police were able to find physical evidence that something had actually landed, what that something was is (shockingly) up for debate.

Whatever Taylor may or may not have seen it would seem that everyone who knew him knew that he was a man of his word and was not prone to making up these kinds of stories. Probably not surprisingly a mundane explanation has been offered for what Taylor had encountered. Would you like to take a guess as to which astronomical body makes an appearance in the explanation? If you guessed Venus then you guessed correctly, Here from the UFO Evidence post is the explanation in full:

The main explanation given by Steuart Campbell, is that Bob witnessed a mirage of Venus, which brought on an epileptic fit and caused him to hallucinate the whole encounter. Although possible, Bob had never experienced epilepsy before or after the event, although some of his symptoms after the encounter are similar to those experienced by those with epilepsy.

Personally I'm not sure what it was that Taylor saw that November morning back in 79. I can say that I don't think the Venus explanation really fits the bill in being an adequate explanation. The last thing I will leave you with is this mini-documentary on the event in question. Featured prominently is the witness himself. I don't know what it is exactly but I enjoy hearing the witnesses themselves give descriptions of the events that transpired. I guess it's because it reminds me that at the heart of these events is a human element that can often times be overlooked. Whether something genuinely fortean or otherworldly occurred to Taylor that day it's unlikely that his like stayed the same after it was all said and done.

Additional sources:

Dechmont Woods Encounter

Unexplained-Mysteries Thread

Demonic UFOs

Alternatives to the ETH are always really interesting to me. If you've read this blog at any time in the past you are likely aware of the fact that I'm always looking into different explanations for the origins of the UFO and its occupants. The Cryptoterrestrials as proposed by Mac Tonnies, Jacques Vallee's theory of UFOs as some form of psychosocial control, and John Keel's Ultraterrestrials are all different avenues that I have looked into and spent a lot of time reading about. I've dedicated an equal amount of time blogging and writing about each of these alternatives in the past as well. However there is one area that I've only done a little bit of reading and research into; the idea that occupants of UFOs are demonic in the Judeo-Christian sense. The reason for this is that I really find the theory a bit too limiting and it feels a little like some confirmation bias is going on. 

Still in the interest of fairness, and to not exclude any idea, I began to read a recent thread on ATS that delved into this topic. And with a title like Secular Researcher's Findings that UFO Activity is not Extraterrestrial in Origin, how could I resist? Likewise in the offline world I had a bit of synchronicity with this topic which I will go into a little latter in the post. But first let's get to thread from ATS. In the interest of fairness I feel that I should state upfront that I definitely do not agree with the posters conclusions. I feel that he's grasping at too many disparate pieces in order to tie his theory together and don't personally accept this theory. However I am bringing the information to you attention because I don't think there is anything wrong with entertaining an idea. And I figure you should never shut your self off to any avenue.

The poster went through a lot of work in order to gather together the information necessary to formulate their thesis that the UFO phenomena and Alien Abductions are merely demonic deceptions meant to present a new gospel and cause people to turn away from the Judeo-Christian faith. They came to that conclusion based on couple of things; people that experience the UFO phenomena, especially Alien Abductees, typically end up experiencing psychic phenomena, many early UFO researchers, such as Jacques Vallee and John Keel, had come to the conclusion that the answer to the UFO was not the Extraterrestrial, and finally that the galaxy is just too large for the prospect of interstellar travel to be anything more than just a pipe dream. With these things in mind, the poster ultimately states the following as their final assessment of the situation;

The Facts of what we know to be true:
1. Aliens are inter-dimensional/Spiritual beings.
2. They do not use interstellar travel.
3. They are malevolent.
4. Their aim is to deceive man-kind.
5. The film industry is helping to prepare us for a "grand deception".
6. "Alien Abductions" stop in the name and authority of Jesus Christ
7. "Alien Abductions" match the abilities of fallen angels as described in the Bible.
8. "Aliens" bring primarily deceptive anti-biblical messages, as is reported by abductees and contactees.

Conclusion:

"extraterrestrials" are intentionally evangelizing people to an alternate spirituality(new age)and are demonic in origin.

I will let that information stand on it's own. Again I don't believe that this is what is going on. I do recommend that you check out the thread for yourself because there is some great debate that is going on back and forth from both sides of the argument. I appreciate that this poster is willing to acknowledge that UFOs seem to encompass many paranormal events, but I don't agree with the conclusions that he reaches. Interestingly enough he is not the first person to reach this kind of conclusion. Writing in his 2010 book, Final Events and The Secret Government Group on Demonic UFOs and the Afterlife, Nick Redfern tells the story of a group comrpised of Government officials called the Collins Elite that eventually reached the same conclusion. 

The group studied the phenomena by interviewing UFO witnesses and alien abductees, the Collins Elite would eventually leave the ETH behind completely in favor of a very dark, and demonic view of the phenomena. In a very short summary the group believed that the UFO was just the latest way for this dark demonic force to deceive our species for the purpose of gaining access to our souls so that the demonic enemies could quite literally harvest some kind of unknown energy from it for purposes that were unknown and not well understood. 

I would definitely recommend reading Final Events in order to get the whole story on this strange group and the even stranger conclusions that they came to. Once again I don't necessarily agree with the conclusion that the Collins Elite came to about the provenance of the UFO, but for argument sake we don't really know enough yet in order to rule anything out completely. Many in the Collins Elite felt that perhaps we were being farmed in some fashion and I can't help but to be reminded of Charles Fort classic quote: “The Earth is a farm. We are someone else's property.”

Ah yes one last thing before I leave you; I had mentioned that I had a somewhat synchronistic incident involving this whole 'Aliens=Demons' meme this past week. This past weekend my girlfriend and I were at our local Books-A-Million and as is typical for me I headed over to the 'New Age/Paranormal' section to kill some time. The first book that I happened to pick up was Phil Imbrogno's Ultraterrestrial Contact  which, despite the controversy from last year, I still intend to read. As I was thumbing through, looking at the chapter headings, I found a tiny little square piece of paper which someone had stuck in the book.

Intrigued by what sort of person would put one of these in a book, I decided to visit the website from the paper on my phone. Unfortunately my phone had a really bad signal and so the website was taking a while to load. As I waited for it to come up I wondered if any other books contained a similar paper or if I had some how grabbed the “lucky” one. I checked something like 15 or 20 books but only found similar papers in four of the books. There were three variations of the message on them. The books I found them in were interesting, because personally I don't know if I would of picked the same ones had I been intending to spread this kind of message. I found them in two Zecharia Sitchin books, There Were Giants on the Earth and TheWars of Gods and Men, and the last one was in Jim Keith's Casebook on the Men in Black (which I reviewed here). In any event they all lead to the same website http://www.delusionresistanc.org.

Delusion Resistance is run by a former MUFON investigator named David Ruffino. You can read all about him at the site. As I said I had a very synchronistic feeling when I saw these papers because I was thinking about the ATS thread, trying to write this blog post and just generally gathering my thoughts together. And what should happen but I come upon these papers. It may not mean much to others, but it certainly struck me as interesting. That's all for now, again I recommend that you head over and read the thread and draw your own conclusions. Don't let what I or anyone say influence what you decide or conclude. Also be sure to check out Nick Redfern's Final Events as it's a very fascinating read about the Collins Elite. You can listen to Greg Bishop's interview with Nick Redfern on this topic here. Until next time I will leave you with a quote that I feel is relevant to this topic.

"The UFO manifestations seem to be, by and large, merely minor variations of the age-old demonological phenomenon..."

-John Keel