The Case of Indrid Cold

Although Charles Fort’s books were obviously highly influential in developing not only my theories on various paranormal topics, but also how I look at and interpret reality in general, I would be remiss if I didn’t also give John Keel his due credit as well. Though my interest in paranormal phenomena has been a life-long one, it wasn’t until probably 2008 or so that I discovered Fort’s, and a little later, Keel’s works. Their writing styles, the content of the writings, and perhaps most importantly of all the way in which they encouraged a non-dogmatic approach to the topics, helped shape the person you see today. (For better or for worse, I suppose only time will tell). With Keel’s birthday being yesterday, March 25th, it got me to thinking back on some of the stranger tales that Keel related in his works.

One of my favorites is the case of Indrid Cold. While in Point Pleasant, West Virginia digging up information on the various strange occurrences which followed in the wake of the Mothman sighting, Keel meet and interviewed a man named Woodrow Derenberger. Keel tells “Woody’s” story in his famous book, The Mothman Prophecies:

At 7 P.M. on November 2, 1966, he was heading home in his panel truck after a long, hard day on the road. The weather was sour, chill, and rainy. As he drove up a long hill outside of Parkersburg on Interstate 77 a sudden crash sounded in the back of his truck. He snapped on his interior lights and looked back. A sewing machine had fallen off the top of a stereo, but there didn’t seem to be any real damage.

A car swept up behind him and passed him. Another vehicle seemed to be following it. He eased his foot on the accelerator. He had been speeding slightly and thought it might be a police car. The vehicle, a black blob in the dark, drew alongside him, cut in front, and slowed.

Woody Derenberger gaped in amazement at the thing. It wasn’t an automobile but was shaped like, “an old-fashioned kerosene lamp chimney, flaring at both ends, narrowing down to a small neck and then enlarging in a great bulge in the center.”

A door slid open on the side of the thing and a man stepped out. The stranger was about five feet ten inches tall with long, dark hair combed straight back. His skin was heavily tanned. Grinning broadly, his arms crossed and his hands tucked under his armpits, he walked to the panel truck. He was wearing a dark topcoat.

Underneath it Woody could see some kind of garment made of glistening greenish material almost metallic in appearance. "Do not be afraid." The grinning man did not speak aloud. Woody sensed the words. "We mean you no harm. I come from a country much less powerful than yours." He asked for Woody’s name. Woody told him. "My name is Cold. I sleep, breathe, and bleed even as you do."

Cold told Woody to report the encounter to the authorities, promising to come forward at a later date to confirm it. After a few minutes of aimless generalities, Cold announced he would meet Woody again soon. The object descended, the door opened, Cold entered it, and it rose quickly and silently into the night.

You can listen to Derenberger’s account in his own words here, it’s file # 47. Derenberger has been interviewed by a radio station and is offered the chance to tell the story. Derenberger would go on to have other adventures either with Indrid or his kin, visit the planet Lanulos, and eventually write a book called Visitors from Lanulos. Interestingly enough Keel actually wrote the foreword to Derenberger’s book even though he didn’t necessarily believe the man’s story.

The story of Indrid Cold does not end there, however. Keel mentions that a number of times while investigating the Point Pleasant area he received phone calls from mysterious persons claiming to be “Indrid Cold”. Of course Keel was no stranger to mysterious and bizarre phone calls, as many portions of his books dealt with his seeming “harassment” by some informed third-party. This concept is captured in the 2002 Richard Gere film, The Mothman Prophecies, where Gere played a ‘John Klein’. You can see that scene here on YouTube.

In The Complete Guide to Mysterious Beings, which has been republished making it easier to come by, Keel discusses the idea of the “Grinning Man”. Within this category he includes the figure of Indrid Cold. Keel also tells another story of a similar type of entity which two young kids encountered. Keel writes:

A blazing white light "as big as a car" nearly scraped the 550-foot-tall television tower outside of Pompton Lakes, New Jersey, site of the large DuPont explosives factory, on the night of October 11, 1966. A policeman and his wife watched the object move slowly northward and disappear beyond the neighboring hills.

On the other side of those hills. Sergeant Benjamin Thompson and Patrolman Edward Wester, of the Wanaque Reservoir Police, observed the same sight at about 9:45 P.M. as it swooped low over the reservoir. "The light was brilliantly white," Thompson said. "It lit up the whole area for about three hundred yards. In fact, it blinded me when I got out of the patrol car to look at it, and I couldn't see for about twenty minutes afterwards."

Forty miles south of Wanaque, in Elizabeth, New Jersey, two boys had a frightening experience that October 11, at approximately the same time that Officers Thompson and Wester were watching the glowing object cavort above the reservoir. There had been a number of aerial sightings in the vicinity of Elizabeth the previous week, apparently clustered around the New Jersey Turnpike which slices through that city. New Jersey newspapers from one end of the state to the other were filled with UFO reports during that period.

The two boys, James Yanchitis and Martin "Mouse" Munov, were walking home along Fourth Street and New Jersey Street when they reached a comer parallel to the tumpike. The tumpike is elevated and there is a very steep incline dipping down from the busy thoroughfare to Fourth Street. A very high wire fence runs along the street, making it impossible for anyone to scramble up the incline to the tumpike. There are bright street lights on that particular comer.

It was on this comer that the two young men encountered "the strangest guy we've ever seen."Yanchitis spotted him first. "He was standing behind that fence," the youth said later. "I don't know how he got there. He was the biggest man I ever saw." "Jimmy nudged me," Mouse reported, "and said, 'Who's that guy standing behind you?' I looked around and there he was . . .

behind that fence. Just standing there. He pivoted around and looked right at us . . . and then he grinned a big old grin."

Yeesh, that Keel tells a good story. I’ve got goosebumps after reading that account. The story of Indrid Cold seems to evaporate around the same time that the Mothman flies back to wherever he had made his home and after the collapse of the Silver Bridge.

There is an interesting postscript to all of this however. A man on reddit claims to have been contacted by “Indrid Cold”. With this being the internet, I’m inclined to be skeptical, but still suggest you follow this link and read about it on Reddit.

After it’s all said and done, I’m not sure what to make of Indrid Cold. Did Derenberger actually encounter a man from Lanulos that night back in 1966? Was the figure the two kids in New Jersey saw Indrid Cold making his rounds and generally creeping people out? I don’t know. I do know that Indrid Cold, as well as the other myriad creatures and spooks which Keel wrote about inspire me to always keep an open mind, to deny belief and dogma, and to always say, “ Forget the answers! What’s the question?”

Humanoid sighting reports, not just little Greys!

I'm always fascinated to read humanoid encounters and reports of strange beings that people have had dealings with. Whether or not these accounts are valid is often difficult to determine, but it does seem that many of the people who recount them are sincere in their telling of the stories. If nothing else the stories are fascinating to read about. Some time ago I came across an amazing website which has a massive index of these bizarre humanoid encounters. So tonight I thought I would share with you a just some of the cases that stood out to me as examples of the variety of entities people report seeing. Not unlike my post dealing with the menagerie of Ufonauts, you won't find too many stories of 4-ft tall Grey beings from Zeta Reticuli listed below. All the reports come from Albert S. Rosales' Humanoid Sighting Reports that are posted on UFOinfo.com. Rosales has painstakingly collected these reports from a variety of sources and has tried his best to organize them, both by date and by type of encounter. I love how Rosales approaches this topic in both his willingness to simply take what people say as important and with his attempts to preserve this information for any and all to have. Quoting directly from the website, Rosales says:

I always felt that the study of the "humanoid” itself was more important than any other study ….. I am currently engaged in attempting to catalog most reported encounters with humanoids, entities, beings, little men, giants, MIB, creatures, amphibians, reptilians, grays etc. So far I have over 10000 cases in my files, many known, many not so well known. I have translated many from all corners of the globe . I think this study is vital for future researchers and for UFO historians.

I obviously do not believe every single story, but I believe all stories must be told. Many are first hand reports, others are just anecdotes, but all are included. I am constantly looking for new sources of information and I am willing to assist any serious researcher looking for humanoid cases. I also need help from the numerous groups Worldwide in forwarding humanoid incident reports for my catalog, so it can one day be used by everyone.

With that in mind I will let the cases speak for themselves for the most part. I can't tell you what to make of them. If you wish they could just be what Greg Bishop calls 'UFO porno' or perhaps they might resonate with you as similar to something you or someone you know has sighted. Personally, I take the reports at face value and assume the people involved encountered what they have reported encountering.

First up is a really interesting event where a man was doing some work in his yard when he found himself face to face with some little beings and their pet. It comes from the 1977 year reports.

56.
Location. Near Snohomish Wisconsin
Date: April 1977
Time: 1600

Steven Unzelman was clearing some land behind his property in an area surrounded by tall evergreen trees and brush when he noticed a man like figure standing close by. The man seemed startled and suddenly the witness began hearing a loud buzzing sound and everything around him began to vibrate. The figure appeared to be yelling at him. A second man wearing a blue coverall now descended from the sky inside what appeared to be a half-egg shaped contraption with rotating blades on top. It was creating a strong turbulence all around the area. Both men descended to the ground using this peculiar machine. The two half egg shaped objects then suddenly shot up into the sky and disappeared. Both men were described as bald headed with flat faces. Both had dark brown skin and wore metallic blue uniforms and what appeared to be oxygen tanks on their backs. Both were about 5-feet tall and their heads were slightly larger than normal. Suddenly the witness heard a loud motor sound and saw a disc shaped object descend overhead making the trees whip back and forth. After emitting more sounds the object shot straight up making a siren-like sound. The object was silvery and appeared to have been spinning. The two humanoids then began walking away looking over their shoulders at the witness. He then heard a noise and noticed a huge hairy Bigfoot type creature hiding behind a nearby stump. The two humanoids then seemed to motion at the Bigfoot to come with them. It seemed to obey and left with them. The witness experienced a memory loss after the incident.

HC addition # 2387
Source: Peter Guttilla, The Bigfoot File
Type: C

This is a fairly classic example of the 'soil sample collection' variety of encounters. One has to wonder if perhaps they should hire someone else to do the soil collecting, after all they've only been doing it for a few thousand years or so, but I digress.

7.
Location. Badlands area Montana
Date: July 1913
Time: unknown
J. L. Buick & another prospector were startled by a small brown man saying "Peace be with you, my friends." Sitting on a patch of sand was a silvery round object nearly 100 ft in diameter, with central dome & a small conning tower; no wheels underneath. Around it was other small men in brown picking flowers, pebbles, etc, & some mining a rock outcrop. The occupant told the witnesses they were from another planet, which had secretly been keeping tabs on earth for over a hundred years; they had learned English via spies working in a US circus. The craft rose silently & then took off. Next day it came back, & they were given a tour inside; 5 concentric saucers with diminishing air pressures, the outermost being evacuated. As to lift, "gravity is only a different type of magnetism," so it can be controlled by an electromagnetic drive; they can do 9000 mph, and have artificial gravity inside the saucer. Rockets, they were told, had failed for space travel.

Humcat 1913-1
Source: Letter to Donald Keyhoe
Type: G

This next case is really weird. In a lot of ways it reads almost like a Nazi version of the Roswell incident, especially in some of the details about the living and dead “ETs” which were recovered.

16.
Location. Czernica, Germany (Eastern Part, now territory of Poland)
Date: Summer 1937
Time: unknown
A multicolored ball or globe-shaped UFO was seen to fall in a field (or near a field) belonging to Eva Braun’s parents (this was the future mistress of Adolph Hitler) The area was cordoned off by SS-troops from the town of Jelenia Gora (called Hirschberg at the time). The crashed disk was transported to the Hirschberg SS base and kept under very strong guard and super top security. The disk was 7.6 meter in diameter and 3.8 meters high. It consisted of a large “overwhelming” dome, encircled by a narrow outer rim, and smaller flat dome on the bottom with a flat lower section. The top of the dome was also flat and large. The craft had 6 oval-shaped structures resembling portholes but not transparent, or devices that radiated some type of light, located near the base of the upper dome. On the lower surface of the outer rim the craft had 12 lights. The color of the disk was a dull metal gray. There was an insignia on the dome resembling the letter “T” with 2 props on its sides. The entrance into the disk was found on the top of the upper dome. The general shape of the disk resembled that of a German soldier’s helmet with a small protrusion on the bottom. Inside the circular cabin were 3 small seats, there were control panels around the dome and 3 alien beings were found: one was dead, the other two were alive. One of the live aliens died soon after the crash, and the second live alien remained in custody for about 1.5 months and then died. The aliens were small dwarfs, about 0.9-1.0m in height, with large hairless pear-shaped heads, small dystrophic looking bodies, long narrow hands with 4 fingers, grayish skin and large dark slanted eyes. The Germans were afraid to move the disk to a more distant location, out of apprehension that it might explode during a long trip during transportation. So, a research laboratory had to be constructed nearby. From Hirschberg the disk was removed to a more secured underground location, which most likely, was called “Der Riese” a Nazi complex in the nearby Gory Sowie mountains (now in southwest Poland), which was also a site being used for excavating for uranium ore. This complex had an extensive network of underground hangars, connected by tunnels. The bodies of the occupants and the living extraterrestrial were also moved into this complex. The alien that lived for a little bit over a month apparently supplied the Germans with some type of information and was desperately asking the Nazi medical doctors for help, but they could not help him because of the different biological structure of his body. The alien died from an unknown illness. The origin of the crashed craft was apparently the double star system RA known on earth as 78 mu-1, Cygni, 73.1 light years in distance. Among the information given to the Germans by the surviving alien was that they had built underground bases in the polar region of the Canadian Northern Territories maybe Baffin Island. This data was supplied to Adolph Hitler himself. But no substantial technical data was in fact provided by the alien that could had help Nazi scientists to cope with the alien technology, despite their desperate attempt to obtain such data. The surviving alien also informed the Germans that the crashed was caused by some kind of technical malfunction. The alien was kept and interrogated at the same underground installation as the disk. Adolph Hitler and some other top Nazi figures including Werner Von Braun and Air Marshall Hermann Goring inspected the crashed disk, the alien bodies and consulted Nazi scientists in an attempt to use the object as a super secret weapon. Among those scientist involved in investigating the crashed disc were, Max Von Laue, Otto Hahn (who discovered nuclear fusion) and Werner Heisenberg. Fortunately (and unfortunately for the Nazis) the alien technology was extremely sophisticated and difficult to understand. The disc indeed inspired some Nazi scientists to construct different models of disc-shaped planes and the so-called flying bombs. This crash and possession of the extraterrestrial spacecraft was one of the factors that possibly inspired Hitler with extreme self-confidence to start World War II, hoping to use the craft as a sort of super weapon that would eventually help him conquer the world. Because of the approaching Soviet troops the whole underground complex was blown up, and the disk and the alien bodies was buried in one of the underground tunnels, the entrance was sealed with numerous huge rocks. It is apparently still there, unbeknownst to the Polish Government. The disk apparently still emanates radiation from its power plant, but because of the nearby uranium mines this source of radiation remains undetected.

HC addendum
Source: Robert K Lesniakiewicz, Milos Jesensky “Wunderland, Extraterrestrial Technologies, Anton Anfalov, Lenura A Azizova, Iryna V Volyk & Sergey V Kovalevskiy
Type: H

This next and final report I wish to share reminds me of tales of encounters with Fairies and going to the fairy realm.

5.
Location. Banks of the River Volga, Russia
Date: January 1912
Time: night
Mr. V. Dychkin and his friend were driving during a snowy night in separate sledges along the banks of the river. Dychkin's friend was driving ahead and he was following him. Suddenly they encountered two "strangers" standing alongside of the road, and Dychkin invited them to seat on the sledges. The two strange looking men convinced Dychkin not to continue home because of the storm, but to turn to the nearest town and spend the night there. Though Dychkin knew that there weren't any towns in the area, he drove against his will in the direction where the men told him. One of the men then pointed and yelled out, "Look, there is the town!" Dychkin looked and to his amazement saw a beautiful scene; something resembling a huge strange "city" was located on a flat plateau, illuminated by thousands of lights. The lights were positioned in a "fantastic" arrangement; he had never seen anything like it. Convinced in the reality of his vision Dychkin turned in the direction of the lights without hesitation. His companion followed and soon approached him. Suddenly both men were seized by incredible fear and rushed towards the road, never seeing where the two strangers had gone. Dychkin looked back in the direction of the lights but was surprised to see only the night gloom and darkness.

HC addendum
Source: "Rebus" Magazine, St. Petersburg 1914
German Mikhailov "NLO" Magazine # 50
Type: G?
Comments: The lighted "city" could have been a giant spacecraft but also the possibility of parallel worlds cannot be overlooked.

Are all of these encounters made up or exaggerated? We may never really know. I tend to agree with Rosales in that these incidents are important in our understanding of paranormal or even ufological phenomena. It's true that they also make for some great reading. On that note I can't recommend enough that you visit the UFOinfo site in order to read these and many, many, more reports each just as unusual and bizarre as the last. In addition to the reports available at the site, Rosales also publishes the Journal of Humanoid Studies that can be downloaded as PDFs. Drop me a line and let me know what you think of these reports in the comments, additionally if you come across some other bizarre encounters feel free to post those as well. 

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!).

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

UFOnauts: many shapes, sizes, and colors

It should come as no surprise to anyone that has been in the UFO arena for any amount of time that there are a myriad of UFO occupants that have been encountered by many people all throughout the world. One thing that can be said for sure is that they certainly don't all fall into the “Gray Alien” meme that has become so popular in our culture. As I've noted in previous posts (Little Green Meme?) they seem to come in all shapes, sizes, and colors. And boy that's no exaggeration! Over at AboveTopSecret a member by the name of karl12 has brought together an awesome thread entitled 'UFO Occupants ~Drawings,Sketches and Non-Human Reports' which showcases a large number of the varied Ufonauts seen by people.

Below are just a few of the examples, though I highly recommend that you check out the thread for more information on each of the cases included. First up will be The Flatwood's Monster.

I'm sure most are familiar with the baisc story of the Flatwood's Monster so I won't go into too much detail here. From the related ATS thread:

From the town of Flatwoods, of Braxton County, West Virginia, comes the mysterious tale of a burning craft which fell from the sky, and a mysterious being. The account began in the afternoon of September 12, 1952 when Sheriff Robert Carr and his Deputy Burnell Long received a call from witnesses who had seen the fiery object as it crashed into the earth. The unknown object had crashed on the Elk River, south of Gassaway. The natural assumption was that an airplane had faltered, and fallen from the skies. Not long afterward, a second unusual sighting was made by some school buddies at the Flatwoods School. Shortly before nightfall, four boys playing football saw something fall on a hill not far from the school playground.

The boys, at first frightened, succumbed to their youthful curiosity, and headed for the sight, which was on the property of one Bailey Fisher. They proceeded up the hill, stopping at the house of Kathleen May, excitedly telling her of what they had seen. Kathleen and her two sons joined the search party. Reaching the top of the hill, Mrs. May remarked that, the night was foggy and there was a mist in the evening air." " the air had a metallic smell which burned our eyes and noses." A dog was reported to have ran ahead of the group only to return with his tail between his legs, frightened by something.

Topping the hill, they could see a "glowing, hissing" object about 10 feet in diameter, about 100 yards away. Now completely dark, the night was shattered by two lights, about a foot apart. One of the boys had a flashlight, and when he turned it on the two distant lights, a creature ten foot tall appeared.." a bright red face, bright green clothing, a head which resembled the ace of spades, and clothing which, from the waist down, hung in great folds". Suddenly, the creature began to "float" toward them, sending the group running back down the hill to the May house, where they quickly called the Sheriff.

The boys also called some of their schoolmates, and when the Sheriff arrived, the scene of the event was full of locals, who had to see the creature for themselves. Reporter A. Lee Stewart, of the "Braxton Democrat," began interviewing witnesses of the unusual event. He would later state that all of the observers were extremely frightened by what they had encountered. Stewart, accompanied by one of Kathleen May's sons, made their way back to where the creature had been spotted. Approaching the sight, Stewart was overwhelmed by an odd smell, but saw nothing unusual. Returning to the exact spot the next morning, Stewart could observe "skid marks" where some object had been.

Next up will be the strange abduction account of a security guard in Italy named Pier Fortunato Zanfretta. I'll admit I was actually not terribly familiar with this case before coming across it in this thread. The story is as follows:

Shortly after midnight on December 6th, 1978, Zanfretta was on duty in Torriglia, a village near Genoa. It was a dark and moonless night. It was also very cold and snow had fallen during the day so that there was a dangerous film of ice on the roads. 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. But Zanfretta had underestimated the problem and ended being the one who was surprised by what he had taken for thieves. 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. 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 and Toccalino called the chief of the security service, Lt. Giovanni Cassiba. An hour later, a couple of other patrol guards, Walter Lauria and Raimondo Mascia, found Zanfretta in front of the country-house, lying on the ground. It was 1:15 A.M.. 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 account continues at this thread; much like Zanfretta's abduction experiences (bad joke heh). Moving onward; we now turn to another abduction which allegedly occurred in the Yukon territory of Canada. The hunter that experienced the abduction actually tells the story in his own words. It's a bit of a lengthy account, but is highly fascinating and I would suggest you follow this link to read it. Here's an overview of what occurred:

In August or September 1987 (later determined to be Wednesday September 2, 1987), I left Ross River (where I lived) and headed up the North Canol Road by myself on my motor bike for moose (hunting).

I was planning on spending 3 days in the area between Sheldon Lake and Macpass. A guy I worked with and a friend of his were to leave a day later and I was to meet them for some fishing. We were all to stay at a trailer at Dewhurst Creek.

I left Ross River early in the morning and the temperature started to drop. Then it started to rain very hard and very cold. When I got to Gravel Creek, I stopped at Art John's Cabin and put on extra clothes while standing under the edge of his roof. I knew the rain would not stop, so I got back on my bike and headed off.

I arrived at the trailer ½ hour before dark, very cold and very tired. I lit up a fire, cooked supper and went straight to bed looking forward to the morning hunt. Over night the rain had stopped.

At daybreak (September 3, 1987) I put my gear and my gun on my bike and headed towards Macpass. A couple of miles down the road, I was putting along at about 10 mph looking into the trees and watching the hillsides. I decided to stop for a pee.

I was standing just in front of my bike watching the mountains to the south, when I noticed to the left out of the corner of my eye, what I first thought was an airplane. It was 400 to 500 yards away and about the size of a DC-3 plane or a full-size school bus.

It was travelling north to south, at about 40 yards above ground and moving maybe 30 km/h. Right away I thought "boy is he low". I blinked my eyes because I couldn't make out any tail fin or wings.

Right away I thought, somebody must be here and I've got to tell them what I saw. The noise I heard sounded like a heavy trunk lid on a car slamming shut.

I quickly walked along the edge of the road to the corner to see who was there.

I came face to face (about 20 yards) with 2 grey creatures in blue jump suits, about 5 ft. tall with big insect looking heads, pointy faces, big eyes, thin arms, body and legs. I immediately thought "they're not little green men*, they're grasshopper people".

Finally the last one that I want to look at comes from some lumberjacks in Finland in 1971. I'm including this one just because of the unusual size and overall characteristics of the entity involved. From the account:

On the snowy, overcast afternoon of February 5, 1971, two Finnish lumberjacks – 21 year-old Petter Aliranta and 18 year-old Esko Juhani Sneck – had a close encounter that would haunt them for the remainder of their days. The fantastic event began at approximately 3:00 pm. when the young duo — who had spent the morning cutting down trees in the forests near the village of Kangaskyla in Kinnula – decided to call it a day because the overcast conditions were making it too dark to continue.

According to their account, Aliranta had just turned off his chainsaw, when he suddenly noticed an odd metallic object hovering at tree-top level. He claimed that it was shaped like “two saucers” on top of each other and was about 15-feet in diameter.

At the bottom of the vehicle there were four thin landing legs with rounded bases, which he estimated to be more than 6-feet long. If the craft made any sound it was no doubt overwhelmed by the continued roaring of Sneck’s chainsaw.

Aliranta stared in amazement as a weird, green garbed entity to slowly descend through the open portal from the bowels of the craft.  He later described this unusual entity as being less than 3-feet in height with its entire body covered in a green, one-piece suit. On the front of the head was a faceplate that was described as being akin to that of a scuba diver. Although the creature had arms and legs, the suit gave no indication of hands or fingers.

You can follow this link in order to read more of the account and to see some other artist renditions of the occupants that were encountered by the lumberjacks. Also as I said earlier you really should go to karl12's thread in order to see all of the different Ufonauts that are available. I think it's safe to conclude that occupants of UFOs are far stranger than just the stereotypical grays that have been seen over the last twenty-some odd years. I certainly wouldn't go so far as to say that there are 57 varieties of ETs visiting our planet, it does however give one pause for consideration.

Is our planet some way station for intergalactic tourists? I don't know for sure. My gut reaction would be to say no. It seems more likely to me that the phenomena is malleable and there is some combination of the occupants altering their appearances and the human brain filling in the gaps of perception. I would certainly be interested in hearing what you guys think about this. Until next time this is your friendly neighborhood Fortean Philosopher saying “Stay Classy, Internet!”

Adamski vindicated? Not quite.

I'm starting to suspect that I have an unhealthy obsession with Above Top Secret and it's variable crazy threads. I was once again going through the site when a thread title grabbed my attention. Entitled “Life Spotted on Venus - Russian Scientist”, my mind began to entertain all manner of ideas. Could some Scientist have finally discovered Orthon's hideout? Unfortunately, as is usual in this field, the truth is not as exciting as I had originally hoped.

According to the original article, which the thread creator states is “all over Russian language websites”,

An article published in the Solar System Research magazine reported Several objects resembling living beings were detected on photos made by a Russian landing probe in 1982 during a Venus mission.

Leonid Ksanfomaliti of the Space Research Institute of Russia’s Academy of Sciences published research that analyzed the photos from the Venus mission made by a Soviet landing probe, Venus-13, in 1982.

The news article's headline was, not entirely unlike my post's title, a bit sensationalist. In fact, to his credit, Ksanfomaliti admits that the findings weren't exactly indicative of life. Instead he was quoted in the article as saying:

The photos feature several objects, which Ksanfomaliti said, resembled “a disk,” “a black flap” and “a scorpion.” All of them “emerge, fluctuate and disappear,” the scientist said, referring to their changing location on different photos and traces on the ground.

Ksanfomaliti went on further to state:

"What if we forget about the current theories about the nonexistence of life on Venus, let’s boldly suggest that the objects’ morphological features would allow us to say that they are living,” Solar System Research quoted Ksanfomaliti as saying.

Contrary to what the article's title would seem to indicate, at the end of the day this Russian Scientist is simply asking that we be open-minded enough to allow that these objects may actually be living. And here I was hoping for some candid, National Enquirer-style paparazzi photos of Orthon or the other Venusian's that “Professor” Adamski was allegedly in contact with.

Orthon...? Is that you?

You can read more of the original article here. Not sure what to make of this story, I for one don't mind some out of the box thinking. But at the same time, the one photo that the story has in it doesn't instill any confidence in me that what we are looking at is 'biological'. But, as always, I ask that you judge for yourselves and let me know what you think!