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

The Valensole Incident

Stories of humanoid encounters are easily a guilty pleasure of mine. I have written on a number of occasions on this blog about the variety of strange tales of human interactions with non-human, apparently “extraterrestrial” creatures. As I was flipping back through the various bookmarks I’ve made over the years, I came across a particular incident which I wasn’t familiar with and don’t remember seeing it being discussed very often. I thought I’d take a moment today and share with you the story of the Valensole Incident.

Early on the morning of July 1, 1965 at around 5:45 A.M., farmer Maurice Masse was smoking a cigarette before he began working outside his home which is located near the French village of Valensole. As Masse was smoking his cigarette he heard a strange, whistling sound coming from overhead. Masse was apparently standing beside the ruins of a tall wall located on his fields, next to a vineyard, and had to step around the wall in order to find the source of the noise. Lon Strickler, at phantomsandmonsters.com tells us a version of the events which came next:

At the time, he was positioned next to a 7-foot-tall rubble pile at the edge of a vineyard, so he had to step out from around this to view the source of the sound. It was then that he saw something shaped rather like a rugby ball and about the size of a Dauphine automobile, resting on four legs some 200 feet away in his lavender field. Close to the curious looking object were two figures resembling “boys of about eight years.”

Masse was apparently more curious than frightened by this whole encounter and began to make his approach towards the entities. As he came near the creatures Masse could see they were hard at work collecting lavender from his lavender fields. When he got to about 15 or 20 ft away the creatures apparently noticed Masse and immediately stood up from their “work”. Masse described the entities as such:

less than 4 feet tall, as dressed in gray-green overalls with smooth, bald, pumpkinlike heads, large slanted eyes, and with little holes for their mouths. They made grunting sounds between them, although their mouths did not change appearance, and Masse was not sure where on their bodies the noise was coming from. (source)

Apparently upset or annoyed by the interruption to their flower picking, one of the creatures raised up a long, thin, pencil-like object and pointed it at Masse. This brings to mind the countless similar reports that Jacques Vallee discussed of entities waving pencil-like wands at witnesses in order to paralyze them. Here to, Masse found himself completely stricken and unable to move. At this point, the creatures entered their craft and flew away into the morning sky. One can infer that they were “frightened” by Masse’s interruption of their flower picking and had to flee the scene immediately. Personally this whole thing reeks of the “staged event” vibe. This idea was speculated on by researchers like the late Mac Tonnies, in his writings and in his posthumously published work, The Cryptoterrestrials.

Once Masse found himself able to move again, he went to the spot where the craft had landed. The landing spot had impressions in the ground from the craft and some kind of material which allegedly hardened into something like concrete days later. It was said that nothing would grow in the spot for some time. Many researchers, including Jacques Vallee, conducted interviews and investigated this case. They all came to the same conclusion; that the witness was reliable and was reporting what he believed to be a real event. An interesting little note to end this tale on is that Masse would later report to investigators that he had had some kind of communication with the entities, though he would never reveal the details of this communication. Strickler notes that:

Though he hinted that there had been some sort of communication between himself and the beings, he never revealed the particulars to investigators. He told Vallee that one was best off not sharing such encounters with anyone, even family. “One always says too much,” he added.

What are we to make of this incident? Assuming that the witness is telling the truth, and I see no reason to doubt him, why would these creatures go through so much hassle to obtain lavender? Is there more to the flower than we know? Somehow I doubt it. In my mind, this incident seems to lend credence to the idea that someone is staging these events in order to perpetuate a meme. Of course, that’s only how I feel about the case today. Who knows what tomorrow might bring? I’d love to hear your opinions on this case. Was it an expedition from some distant planet to gain specimens? Did Masse have a weird hallucination? Let me know in the comments below!

Further reading/sources:

Lon Stricklers’ write up

Educating Humanity

ATS thread Started by Kandinsky

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. 

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

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