ROBERT

E. BARTHOLOMEW & GEORGE S. HOWARD


In the twenty-first century the greatest progress in civilization will be made not
through science and technology, but in the understanding of what it means to be
human.

-John Naisbitt

This book is dedicated to Robert C. Girard and Thomas Bullard, UFO pioneers.

Acknowledgments

Prologue

Part I. Strange Things Seen in the Sky

1. Wishful Thinking: The Great American Airship Mania of 1896-97

2. Thomas Edison's "Electric Star" Illusion of 1897

3. When Believing Is Seeing: Canada's Ghost Balloons of 1896-97

4. The New Zealand Zeppelin Scare of 1909

5. The New England Airship Hoax of 1909-10

6. The British UFO Panic of 1912-13

7. Phantom German Air Raids and Spy Missions over Canada, America, and
South Africa during World War I
8. Sweden's Ghost Rocket Delusion of 1946

9. Flying Saucers Come of Age

10. UFOs as a Collective Delusion

Part II. Strange Experiences: Real or Fantasized?

11. In Praise of Foresight and Fantasy

12. UFO "Abductees" and "Contactees": Psychopathology or FantasyProne?

13. The Further Reaches of Human Experience

Appendix A: The UFO Contact Catalogue

Appendix B: Bibliography for Chapter 12

About the Authors and Contributors

Index

 'his book could not have been written without several people who
contributed rare newspaper clippings on UFO sighting waves. Foremost is
Thomas E. Bullard at the department of folklore, Indiana University at
Bloomington, Indiana, for providing a treasure trove of press accounts for most
UFO sighting episodes in this book. For providing British press reports on UFO
sightings, we are indebted to Nigel Watson, Granville Oldroyd, and David
Clarke; also to Naomi Miller of the British Columbia Historical Federation.

Clas Svahn and Anders Liljegren sifted through thousands of documents

from the Swedish ghost rocket wave of 1946. New Zealand press accounts were
provided by several UFO researchers: Bryan Dickeson and Murray Bott, head of
New Zealand's Mutual UFO Network. Other New Zealand UFO researchers who
provided material are Peter Hassall, Bill Mercer, and Angie Moore. I am grateful
to Jan L. Aldrich, who provided press accounts of phantom airplanes over
Delaware in 1916.

A portion of chapter 10 first appeared in R. E. Bartholomew, "Collective

Delusions: A Skeptic's Guide," Skeptical Inquirer 31, no. 3 (1997): 29-33. Some
of the material in chapter 12 was first pub lished in R. E. Bartholomew, K.
Basterfield, and G. S. Howard, "UFO 'Abductees' and 'Contactees':
Psychopathology or Fantasy Proneness?" Professional Psychology: Research and
Practice 22, no. 3 (1991): 215-22. It is reproduced with permission of the
American Psychological Association.

For all of those who contributed information or collaborated on chapters,
we acknowledge that you may not necessarily concur with our interpretation of
the material, which is the sole responsibility of Robert Bartholomew and George
Howard.

We would like to thank the Prometheus team who worked closely and
professionally with us at every stage, on what was a challenging manuscript to
edit: editor-in-chief Steven L. Mitchell, freelance copyeditor Michele Pelton-
Fall, typesetter Bruce Carle, freelance proofreader Nicholas A. Read, and
especially associate editor Mary A. Read.

Sky Searches Marked Last Days

AN DIEGO (AP)-For months, the thirty-nine members of Heaven's Gate

climbed a sci-fi stairway to Paradise, step by faithful step. Up before dawn, they
prayed and then trained a telescope on the sky to look for the UFO they believed
would whisk them away from Earth's tribulations. In March, as the Hale-Bopp
comet swooped to within 122 million miles of Earth, they got the signal. Time to
go. Suddenly, their daily regimen switched from holistic hokum to recipe for
destruction as they leaped into the void fueled by a cocktail of pudding,
sedatives, and vodka, confident to the end that cosmic salvation beckoned.

"We know whatever happens to us after we leave our bodies is a step

forward," said Marshall Applewhite, glassy-eyed leader of Heaven's Gate, in a
videotaped message.

Last October, the group known as Heaven's Gate moved into the sprawling
mansion that would eventually become their highpriced mausoleum. Here,
according to people who knew them through their business incarnation of Web
site designers, Higher Source Contract Enterprises, group members followed a
schedule of almost military precision. They got up at 3 A.M. for prayers,
searched the sky at 4 A.M., ate a communal meal at 5. The rest of the day it was
work and more work ...

They wore black and kept their hair trimmed to marine recruit length. They
didn't drink alcohol. They didn't do drugs. They didn't have sex. Some of the
men had taken celibacy to the extreme: castration.

"I have the same kind of penetrating questions that you have: Who or what
would make thirty-nine people take their life in this manner?" asked Sheriff Bill
Kolender at a news conference describing the deaths. In mid-November, a rumor
began to circulate that there was a spaceship lurking behind Hale-Bopp. On their
Web site, cult members made references to the ghost ship. But they said it was
irrelevant, because the comet signaled it was time for "the arrival of the
spacecraft from the Level Above Human to take us home to 'Their World.' " .. .

On Friday, March 21, the ball of frozen gas and dust known as Hale-Bopp
made its closest pass to Earth. The Heaven's Gate Web site was updated one last
time at 10:26 Pacific time. In its final version, the page carried a flashing logo
borrowed from Star Trek. "Red Alert, Hale-Bopp Brings Closure to Heaven's
Gate."

"Take the little package of pudding or applesauce and eat a couple of

tablespoons. Pour the medicine in and stir it up. Eat it fairly quickly and then
drink the vodka beverage. Then lie back and rest quietly"-suicide instructions as
read by the medical examiner.

Notes, a trash can full of plastic bags, and medical evidence indicate the
final hours of Heaven's Gate was a calmly choreographed dance of death.
Members put on a uniform of long black pants, oversized black shirts and brand-
new black Nike sneakers emblazoned with the shoemaker's cometlike white
"swoosh" trademark.

All but one group member had left a final message on videotape. Most
tucked identification into their shirt pockets along with a $5 bill and some
quarters. They packed suitcases or canvas grips and stowed the luggage neatly at
the foot of their beds!

What are we to make of this bizarre event? Is it best understood as an extremist
religious cult-like David Koresh's Branch Davidians of Waco, Texas, or Jim
Jones's mass suicide in Jonestown, Guyana? In 1993 the Davidians perished after
turning their compound into a hellish inferno to avoid capture by advancing
police. On November 18,1978, about nine hundred of Jones's followers
swallowed a lethal mix of cyanide-laced Kool Aid-many willingly, some
unwillingly-or were shot. Perhaps the San Diego tragedy is more representative
of what occurs when a group of UFO enthusiasts becomes completely unglued.
Or it can be seen as the first in a series of events that shows what happens to
people who spend too much time in cyberspace and not enough time in the world
of real people and social relationships. How are we to understand the events that
led to the largest mass suicide in the history of the United States?

This book represents a social history that will lead directly to an

understanding of the Heaven's Gate tragedy. After reading the book you will be
in a better position to judge: Is this episode the logical extension of a century of
UFO sightings, or is it better understood as a cult religion, or a cyberspace
psychosis? UFOs and Alien Contact extracts the messages that can be gleaned
from a century of people who see strange things in the skies. But first we must
be completely honest with our readers about where we stand on the possibility of
UFOs and alien contact.

Do You Believe in UFOs?

Consider the following imaginary encounter:

"Professor Robert Bartholomew?"

"Yes. How can I help you?"

"My name is Claire Martin. I live near Sydney. I've sought you out because
I understand that you study people who have had encounters with UFOs. Is this a
convenient time to talk?"

"Yes, it is. Have you had an encounter with a UFO?"

 "Yes, I have. But first tell me, do you believe that aliens sometimes contact
humans?"

"Well, Claire, that's a tough question. I would be lying to you if I said I

think we have been contacted. I simply don't know. I do think it's an important
topic for serious study, and I consider myself open-minded and genuinely
willing to listen to people's claims. I think it is possible. The universe is an
awfully big place, and it appears to have millions upon millions of galaxies like
our own-and that could translate into billions of planets. It would not surprise me
if the universe is teeming with life.

"I really do hope that we've been contacted, Claire. I must admit that when
I'm alone in the Australian outback and gaze up at the stars on a pitch-black
night, the thought of alien contact sends chills up my spine. But just when I
almost believe it's true, a little voice inside my head-my scientist half-spoils the
excitement by asking some nagging questions: Why has there never been any
unambiguous physical evidence? Why is it that most of the UFO photos I've
seen either look too good-as if the aliens were posing-or seem to be just a blur of
light? And why do they always seem to land in some farmer's field?

"So to answer your question, Claire, I'm not sure, but as a scientist I try to
be a bit like Mr. Spock on 'Star Trek.' I try to suppress my emotional side and
examine the evidence in a logical, systematic fashion. Otherwise, we can throw
science books out the window. If all scientists went on gut feelings, we would be
living in the Dark Ages again. Remember, in the nineteenth century, a lot of
famous scientists believed in the existence of witches and fairies. So far I have
examined a lot of interesting, even compelling, cases, but nothing so clear-cut as
to represent obvious proof. As a scientist, I have to ignore what my heart says
and go on the evidence."

"But Professor Bartholomew," Claire objected, "there are so many

unexplained cases. Aren't you being somewhat arrogant and close-minded to
dismiss them all?"

"Claire, you have to realize that there are thousands of reports worldwide
every year. It's just not possible for any one person to be familiar with all of
them. Some UFO investigators have spent years examining a single case. What
I'm looking for is the broad picture. Remember, in the nineteenth century alone
there were tens of thousands of fairy sightings and contact claims. So it is
important to keep things in historical perspective and not get too carried away by
our emotions. Before we discuss this further I'd like to introduce you to a
colleague from the United States, George Howard, who is spending a sabbatical
in Australia. George is a psychologist with an interest in UFO percipients-people
who claim to have had contact with aliens. I'd like to ask him to join us, if you
don't mind."

Claire nods her acquiescence, and Bob uses the intercom to invite his
colleague in the next office to join them. George quickly arrives.

"George, this is Claire Martin. She tells me she has had an experience with
a UFO. I've briefly summarized my beliefs about aliens, and I'd like you to share
your perspective on this topic also. Then, I think, we'll be in a position to hear
her story."

"Okay, Bob," George begins. "To this point in time I've led an extremely
boring life. I've never been contacted by aliens, nor (for that matter) have I ever
been contacted by God! Every experience in my life seems to me to have had a
natural or an ordinary explanation. So while I now study the possibility of the
existence of God and of alien visitors, honesty demands that I tell you that my
experience in life strongly suggests that there are natural explanations for
everything that has happened to me."

"Professor Howard," Claire asked, "since you've had no experience with

UFOs or aliens, does that mean you don't believe in them?"

"Absolutely not, Claire. A parallel argument would be that since I have had
no supernatural or religious experience I therefore believe there is no God. That
represents a flawed inference that I would never draw. Rather, if you are looking
for evidence of the existence of God (or aliens), my life and experiences simply
represent a bad. place to look. At this point in time, my life and experiences
simply have nothing to say on that topic. If God wants me to believe in Him
more concretely, He will simply have to call to me a bit more forcefully.
Similarly, if aliens want me to believe in them, then they'll have to first get in
touch with me. So far neither gods nor aliens have seen fit to attract my attention
to themselves, but that poses no particular problem to me.

"However, there are a lot of people in my position (people with no

experience of God or aliens) who have the pomposity to think that their lack of
contact proves the nonexistence of God or aliens. In my judgment, that position
represents a flawed logic and bad science. So when someone asks if I believe in
God or in aliens, I give the same answer: 'I have no idea!' My experiences in life
do not furnish good ground for either belief or disbelief in God or aliens. And
Claire, that's precisely why I talk to theists and UFO contactees. I'd like to
examine someone else's experiences that might have something important to say
about the existence (or lack thereof) of God or aliens."

Claire looked suspiciously at Professor Howard and then asked slowly,
"Are you saying that you don't care whether or not God or aliens exist?"

George laughed nervously before continuing. "No, Claire, I care very

deeply about the existence of God and aliens. That's precisely why I spend so
much time conversing with people like you. Think about it. Suppose we found
some incontrovertible proof that there was or was not a God. How could that
knowledge leave any of us unmoved? Similarly, as a citizen of this planet, I
would be affected by proof that we humans either are or are not the only
intelligent life in this otherwise cold and lonely universe.

"But when I'm in my role as a psychologist, my hopes and fears function

slightly differently. For example, psychologically speaking, your experience
with aliens becomes much less interesting to me if we find proof of the existence
of your aliens. Then your experiences would represent a simple report of what
happened to you-it would be a lot like telling me what you ate for breakfast.
Who cares? Such reports have no particular psychological interest, if they
actually occurred. Reports of alien contact have psychological importance only
if there are no aliens. In this case, humans would have created an experience for
themselves. Why would people do this? How could they bring this about
psychologically? What is the impact of this new belief on the quality of their
lives? These are the sorts of questions that grab a psychologist's attention. Please
don't take this personally, Claire, but if we obtain rock-solid proof of the
existence of your aliens, as a psychologist I lose interest in you and your
experience very quicklybecause you're just reporting what happened to you!
That's pretty ordinary stuff. In that case, Claire, both as a psychologist and as a
citizen of the universe, I'd like to talk with the aliens-not with you. Can you
blame me?"

Claire laughed and replied, "Not really! Well, at least I now know where
both of you stand on alien contact. So I'll tell you my story. My experience with
aliens began one night two months ago as I was driving from Sydney to Murray
Bridge..."

Note

1. Michelle Locke, South Bend Tribune, March 31, 1997, p. 1.

Thousands of people have seen things in the sky that they took to be alien
spacecraft. These UFO sightings did not suddenly appear overnight. Rather, they
are logical extensions of a social phenomenon that has been emerging for more
than one hundred years-our tendency to see strange things in the sky.

 Let us hope that the advent of a successful flying machine ... will bring
nothing but good into the world; that it shall abridge distance, make all
parts of the globe accessible, bring men into closer relation with each
other, advance civilization, and hasten the promised era in which there
shall be nothing but peace and good-will among all men.

-Octave Chanute'

uring the last decade of the nineteenth century, a remarkable

social delusion swept across the United States. Amid rumors that an American
inventor had perfected the world's first heavierthan-air flying machine, "airship
fever" gripped the country as tens of thousands of citizens reported seeing a
nonexistent airship. It was typically described as cigarshaped, having wings or
propellers and an attached undercarriage, resembling a crude, smaller version of
a modem blimp. The vessel was usually described as having a powerful
headlight and giant fans or wings protruding from both sides. Some witnesses
claimed that the wings slowly flapped up and down in a birdlike motion.

The airship sightings took place between November 17, 1896, and mid-May
1897, during which time it was seen in most states. During the 1890s, Americans
were enchanted by literature on science and invention, which had become
something of a national obsession. This was "an age that was in love with the
great wonders of science."2 The sightings occurred during a period of great
social and technological change that fostered the widespread belief that almost
any invention was possible. The second half of the nineteenth century was
marked by a series of revolutionary inventions that would permanently alter
people's lifestyles. These included the telephone (1876), gramophone (1877),
filament lamp (1879), motor car (1884), steam turbine (1884), diesel engine
(1893), X-rays (1895), and radio (1896), to name a few. Of particular in terest
was the age-old dream of heavierthan-air flight, for during this period
"magazines devoted to science and engineering vied with Jules Verne's Robur
the Conquerer and other fictional publications to describe the flier which would
soon succeed."3 The voluminous literature on aviation "fed the public a steady
diet of aeronautical speculation and news to prime people for the day when the
riddle of aerial navigation finally would receive a solution."4 This social climate
fostered an exaggerated optimism in the belief that the perfection of the world's
first heavierthan-air flying machine was imminent.

This illustration of how the airship reflected the hope of rapid technological
advancement appeared on the front page of the Denver, Colorado, newspaper the
Rocky Mountain News, May 9, 1897.

In terms of historical context, however, nineteenth-century science lacked
the technological sophistication to navigate heavierthan-air machines.' In
practical terms, this technology was several years away, and when it was
invented, it was a very modest achievement by modern standards. The first
recorded piloted selfpowered flights of Orville and Wilbur Wright at Kitty
Hawk, North Carolina, did not occur until December 17, 1903, and consisted of
four brief "hops" totaling just ninety-seven seconds. While an array of crude
prototypes was developed during this period, they held little practical value.
Aerial navigation over the next decade was a dangerous occupation, as a sudden
wind gust could easily bring down the fragile, clumsy airplanes of the era, and
night flying was tantamount to suicide. Despite heavy press coverage of the
numerous flight trials during this time, most were abysmal failures. Albert and
Gaston Tissandier's electric motordriven dirigible of 1883 and 1884 in France
was hailed as successful, yet it was unable to maintain itself even against a
current of wind.' Eminent British aviation historian Charles H. GibbsSmith, a
specialist in aeronautical flight before 1910, is emphatic in his view that the
airships sighted during 1896 and 1897 were not feasible.

I can say with certainty that the only airborne vehicles, carrying
passengers, which could possibly have been seen anywhere in North
America ... were free-flying spherical balloons, and it is highly
unlikely for these to be mistaken for anything else. No form of
dirigible ... or heavierthan-air flying machine was flying-or indeed
could fly-at this time.'

During the 1880s and 1890s, numerous backyard tinkerers in America and
Europe claimed to be perfecting the first practical airship, and they were
typically afforded hero or adventurer status, their exploits glorified in the press
and by science-fiction writers. There was intense competition to be the first to
patent such a vessel, resulting in a flurry of submissions to the Washington,
D.C., patent office, and a shroud of secrecy prevailed, as many inventors
withheld vital data on their patents and experimental craft.' This veil of mystery
surrounding the state of aerial development further fostered public belief that a
practical airship had been developed.

In the late 1890s many people in the United States obtained patents for
proposed airships. Most people believed someone would soon invent a
flying machine, and many wanted to capitalize on the fame and fortune
that would certainly come to the first person to launch an American
into the skies. As soon as someone had a glimmer of an airship design,
he immediately applied for a patent. These would-be inventors
constantly worried over possible theft or plagiarism ... [and] most
people kept their patents secret. Given this atmosphere and the
numerous European and American experiments with flight, it is not
surprising that secret inventor stories so captured the public
 imagination and seemed such a logical explanation for the airship
mystery.9

It was within this context that a telegram appeared in the Sacramento

Evening Bee of Tuesday, November 17, 1896, in which a New York
entrepreneur claimed that he would pilot his newly invented airship to
California, which he vowed to reach within two days. That very evening the first
recorded sightings of the cigarshaped airship occurred as hundreds of
Sacramento residents reported seeing it.10 The incident took place between six
and seven P.m. as a brilliant bobbing light was seen on the eastern horizon,
drifting to the southwest, and it caused a sensation across California. As word of
the spectacle spread rapidly throughout Sacramento, residents on sidewalks
began gazing skyward. At one point the glittering light appeared to descend near
the distant housetops, and people maintained they heard faint voices warning:
"Lift her up quick! You are making directly for that steeple!"" A group of
electric railway workers reported that while passing near East Park, music and
human voices seemed to emanate from the sky.12 Railcar operator R. L. Lowry
described the craft "as an oblong mass, propelled by fanlike wheels operated by
four men, who worked as if on bicycles. "13

The popular folk theory that the first practical airship had been perfected
and was being secretly tested by a local inventor on the West coast under cover
of darkness gained credence in the intense press debate that followed. Some
newspapers treated the Sacramento sighting as due to overactive imaginations or
a hoax," while others described the incident as plausible or factual.'-' One press
account aptly summed up the conflicting public mood: "What is probably one of
the greatest hoaxes that has ever been sprung on any community has been started
in this city, and yet ... it is hard to account for the evident sincerity of those who
claim they saw the machine and heard the voices."16

In the days following the sensational Sacramento sighting, hun dreds of

descriptions of the airship appeared in the California press as the vessel's
existence became widely perceived as real and was reported as such. Newspaper
coverage in the San Francisco Call typifies this transition from possibility to
probability. On November 18, it reported that people saw "what appeared to
them to be ... an electric arc lamp." On the nineteenth, there was discussion of
"the reported appearance of an airship." The November 21 edition states that
"scores of residents ... are ... convinced that it is an airship ... making nightly trial
trips through the surrounding heavens." By November 22, a journalist writes that
"someone must be operating an airship in this portion of the State." On the
twentythird, in the wake of continued sightings, the following headline appeared:
"Exclusive Account of the Greatest Invention of the Age Is Now Corroborated
by Thousands."

An eyewitness sketch of an airship sighted over Sacramento, California on the

evening of November 17, 1896.

Sketch of an airship reported by scores of people as it hovered over St. Mary's
College in Oakland, California near dusk on November 21, 1896. The picture
appeared the next day in the San Francisco Call.

Sightings were so massive and widespread that one press source described
them as "thick as geese,"" while another journalist quipped: "The man who has
not an airship in his backyard in these days is poor indeed ... [and] has left
California ashamed of himself."" The deluge began two days after the initial
sighting when, on Thursday, November 19, the mysterious light of a possible
airship was seen near Eureka, California.79 By Friday afternoon the airship was
spotted over an orchard near Tulare.2° That evening numerous Sacramento
residents again observed what appeared to be a light "attached to some aircraft"
pass over the city at a distance,21 while in Oakland scores of people reported
seeing the airship, and some claimed to discern huge fanlike propellers, while
others said they saw giant wings attached to each side .21 On November 22
between 5 and 6 P.M., hundreds of Sacramento residents watched what they
thought was an airship with a brilliant arc lamp pass to the southwest.'

Another sketch of the majestic, birdlike airship reported by thousands of

residents in Oakland, San Francisco, and Sacramento during late November
1896. Source: San Francisco Call, November 23, 1896, page 1.


During the last week of November and the first week of December it was
reported in dozens of California communities, including Red Bluff,' Riverside,'
Antioch," Chico," Visalia," Hanford," Ferndale,' Box Springs," Salinas,"
Maxwell," Tulare," Merced," Fresno," and Pennington37 to name just a few.
There were scattered sightings in the adjacent states of Oregon," Washington,"
Nevada," and Arizona4l during the episode, although they received minor press
coverage. The wave was almost exclusively a California phenomenon, where
widespread sightings continued until dramatically declining by mid-December,
with the exception of a few intermittent cases from around the state.

Artist's rendition of the airship passing near the dome of the state capitol
building in Sacramento, California during late November 1896. It appeared on
the front page of the San Francisco Call, November 29, 1896.

An interesting feature of the California episode were several reports of
close encounters with airship pilots or crew. Several days after the California
sightings began, William Jordan claimed that while deer hunting in the
mountains near Bolinas Bay the previous August, he had stumbled upon several
men working on a nearly completed airship and was sworn to secrecy.42 On
November 25, 1896, two men riding on horseback near Lodi said they
encountered what appeared to be three Martians, each about seven feet tall with
slender builds, hairless faces, and huge feet. Each used a nozzle attached to a bag
to breathe. As they floated through the atmosphere their feet touched the ground
every fifteen feet before retreating into an "immense airship," which flew off.
The vessel "was pointed at both ends," had a large steering rudder, and
"expanded and contracted with a muscular motion."43 The next day, a San Jose
electrician, John A. Horen, told journalists that he was approached by the airship
inventor, who took him on horseback to a secluded spot where Horen installed
his newly perfected sparking apparatus to the airship's motor. Horen said that the
grateful inventor rewarded him with a three-day ride to Hawaii and back on the
airship.44 On November 29, Joel Flynn of Barry Creek reported that he too was
given a ride on the ship after the inventor landed near his farm.45 Fishermen
Giuseppe Valinziano and Luigi Valdivia claimed that early on the morning of
December 2, an airship landed in the ocean near their boat some fifteen miles
north of Pacific Grove, and they were allowed to examine the ship from afar.46
The following night sailor William Gordon said he was given a ride on an
airship near San Luis Obispo by a pilot who spoke Spanish to his lone female
companion.47 Finally, James Lewis said he was taken for a ride in the vessel
near San Diego, in which he visited heaven.48

The New York Morning Journal of Sunday, November 28, 1896, published this
illustration of "The Great California Airship" based on witness descriptions.
1897: The Sightings Rekindle Nationwide
Starting with a trickle of reports in mid-January 1897 and climaxing during April
before petering out in May, speculative stories about the possible existence of an
airship and inventors, in addition to reports of other sightings, appeared in
almost every state. Most of the airship sightings closely paralleled popular
literature of early heavierthan-air flight attempts. An examination of over one
thousand sighting reports shows that whenever specific airship descriptions were
given, beyond ambiguous nocturnal aerial lights, eyewitness accounts vacillated
between two craft types. One was a large oblong or eggshaped main structure
having two winglike appendages resembling those of a bird. The second type
also consisted of a large central portion but sported propellers or fanlike wheels.
Both types were said to possess powerful searchlights and some form of
motordriven propulsion system, often having a carriage suspended beneath the
main structure.

Press sensationalism appears to have played a major role in creating and

perpetuating the hysterical social climate, first in California and later across the
United States. Sensationalistic yellow journalism typified the period just prior to
and encompassing the sightings, as it was not unusual for newspapers to publish
highly speculative or even fabricated stories in attempts to secure wider
readership, especially on slow news days.49 Amid intense public interest in
airship development, newspaper editors published a barrage of articles
speculating as to whether someone had invented the world's first practical
airship. Publisher William Randolph Hearst noted this in an editorial attacking
such tactics:

"Fake journalism" has a good deal to answer for, but we do not recall a
more discernible exploit in that line than the persistent attempt to make
the public believe that the air in this vicinity is populated with airships.
It has been manifest for weeks that the whole airship story is pure
myth.50

Walter McCann claims to have used a box camera to take this photo of an
airship passing over Chicago during April 1897. In reprinting the photo, many
newspapers failed to note that the original object in the photo was very vague
and the "airship" had to be enhanced by a sketch artist.

Other editors attacked the initial sensationalism of the airship rumors and
sightings by portions of the California press.-' One editor noted that the
California press was notorious for propagating "the fake," which "at its best is a
lie well told; that is, a piece of pure fiction dressed up with an air of probability
and presented as truth."52 It would be a mistake, however, to conclude that the
airship wave was a hoax. While yellow journalism was instrumental in
propagating the episode, witnesses were usually seeing something (e.g., stars,
planets).

Within this context of newspaper saturation and public enchantment with

aeronautics, and in conjunction with this new definition of plausible reality, past
and concurrent events, objects and circumstances were reinterpreted relative to
the newly ascribed meaning. On numerous occasions, even ambiguous noises or
voices in remote areas were attributed to the airship's engine or occupants.53
The following account is typical:

Mr. Johnson, foreman of the Haggin ranch, in company with another

gentleman, was driving across the bare plains adjacent to the city last
Tuesday night, when they plainly heard a merry chorus of human
voices. The thing was uncanny and unreal. They were entirely alone
and on all sides stretched bare fields without a brush or fence, no
human being was visible,... and yet the merry chorus rang out distinct,
but faint. They stopped their team and listened and looked, saw the
clear bright light high over their heads, but did not dream that ... above
them human beings were floating.54

Several newspaper editors and public figures reinforced the airship's

plausibility by speculating about the inventor's identity. A typical aeronautical
inventor profile portrayed a fiercely independent, wealthy eccentric. A Nebraska
newspaper reported that local man Clinton Case was the presumed inventor as he
was known to have possessed complicated blueprints for aerial navigation.--
Speculation also turned to John Preast, an educated recluse residing on the
outskirts of Omaha.56 As further confirming evidence, the press reported: "The
two times in the past week that the [airship] light has been seen at Omaha it
disappeared near Preast's home." In Montana it was said to be Albert Zoske.57
In Savannah, Ohio, the inventor was identified as a wealthy genius,' while in
western Missouri suspicion fell on G. D. Schultz, "a retired capitalist of
decidedly sedentary habits."59 Perhaps the most scrutinized individual was
California dentist E. H. Benjamin.'

This gentleman is six feet in height, about forty years of age, and as far
as his mysterious habits are concerned [Mr.] Keiser said last night:
"We have had him in the house for two years and don't know any more
about him than on the day he came in. He goes away every little while
 on trips to Oroville, Sacramento and Stockton, sometimes staying a
few days, sometimes a month. He has plenty of means and fills his
time when at his room experimenting with various metals, principally
aluminum and sheet copper.

"He is a dentist by profession, I think. I know he has friends and

one relative in Oroville who are experimenting on some invention or
other, but what it is I don't know. He has told me once or twice that
attorney Collins does his law business for him, and I have often
wondered what law business a dentist in a small way would be likely
to have."

"Dr." Benjamin's name is not in the directory, nor in the list of

dentists in the city. Nobody could be found last night who had ever
heard of him practicing his profession. His room contains very little to
show what his real business is. There are a few drawings and charts
scattered around bearing trigonometrical figures, two very ancient
teeth on the mantle shelf and a litter of aluminum and copper shavings
all over the carpet.

According to Keiser's statements of his late movements, he was in

Sacramento twice last week, has been out very late at night during the
last month and has not been home more than a few hours in the last
two days-a record that fits in seemingly with the stories of the airship's
movements. Up to two o'clock this morning Benjamin had not returned
to his room, and the flying machine was at latest reports being steered
by its proprietor over localities several miles away from Ellis Street."

Dozens of stories were reported by citizens who had seen something
unusual in the sky in the weeks prior to the first publicized sightings and who
were now reinterpreting this activity as originating from the airship.62 One
newspaper reported an account of a woman in Oakland, California, who had
seen "a strange looking object in the sky" six weeks earlier. As it had "a
powerful headlight" the newspaper concurred that an airship was the most likely
explanation.13 The night prior to the first publicized sighting over Sacramento,
Mr. and Mrs. George Plummer of Alameda, California, spotted an apparent fire
balloon.64 In light of the airship publicity, however, George Plummer believed it
was an airship.'
 The rationalistic subculture of scientism fostered a prevalent view that
witness reports were due to irrationality or mental disturbance, for the consensus
among scientists was that "mob" behavior was abnormal, a view that remains
true among a few influential collective behavior theorists in more recent
times.66 Witnesses were believed to have succumbed to instinctive, regressive,
irrational thinking. The airship sightings were typically described as a "craze,"
spreading like a disease, reflecting French psychologist Gustave LeBon's popular
notion of crowd pathology.67 Humans under "the herd" influence were believed
to degenerate and regress to primitive, illogical thought patterns. Irrationality
was widely viewed within a contagious-disease model. Thus, the San Francisco
Examiner blamed newspaper sensationalism for trying to "infect its readers with
a silly craze." This belief, espoused by both popular writers and social scientists,
held that mass behavior resulted from an abnormal stimulus, and it was deemed
impossible for reasonable people to view anomalies such as flying machines. If
witnesses were of good repute or education, it was assumed that substances such
as alcohol had deluded their thinking. It is within this context that delirium
tremens68was implicated in sightings by several Hastings, Nebraska, residents
who were described as having a "bad case of 'em,"69 while in Elko, Nevada,
witnesses were said to "have 'em in a mild form."' In Omaha, Nebraska,
sightings were attributed to the "wrong kind o' booze,"" and in response to a
prominent citizen's sighting in Topeka, Kansas, a reporter inquired as to his
"brand of soothing syrup."' In Kearney, Nebraska, a jailer wrote a witness-
ridiculing poem, attributing reports to alcoholic visions,73 while the St. Louis
PostDispatch of April 12,1897, printed a front-page airship cartoon depicting an
insect viewed through empty wine and liquor bottles.

To document the thousands of observations from nearly every state could
easily fill several hundred pages. In order to provide a flavor of the airship
reports as they spread across the United States, we will document sighting waves
in five representative states: Wisconsin, Michigan, Kentucky, Indiana, and
Minnesota.

The Airship in Wisconsin

With the exception of one report in 1896, all of the Wisconsin sightings were
confined to late March and April of 1897. The first report occurred in
Milwaukee on Sunday afternoon, December 6,1896, as hundreds of residents
were greatly excited after spotting what appeared to be a flying machine high
above the bay. The incident began when local millionaire Herman Nunnemacher
was sitting in his room at the Pfister Hotel and saw an object in the sky.
Grabbing a field glass, he saw not only that it appeared to be an airship, but also
that there seemed "to be a man working the wings." He dashed down to the
lobby, exclaiming, "It is a flying machine!"74 This aroused considerable
excitement as more and more people saw it. However, it was later determined
that the object was an experimental kite that the army was testing.75

A skeptical view of airships taken by a cartoonist. This picture shows residents

viewing the airship through empty alcohol bottles. It appeared on page 1 of the
St. Louis PostDispatch, April 12, 1897, after a spate of sightings in the state.

Cartoonist's illustration of a drunk seeing airships. Source: St. Louis
PostDispatch, April 18, 1897, page 1.

The first sighting of 1897 was recorded on April 8 at 9 P.M. by "a number
of reliable people" in the village of Lake Mills, including well-known baseball
player Lynn Mills.' It carried "a great red light, moving up and down as if on
wings" as it traveled westward before disappearing behind the woods on the
western shore of Rock Lake." At 10 P.M. about fifty residents in Wausaw
claimed to see an illuminated aerial craft pass over the city and head northwest.
"A dim outline of it could be seen which appeared to be shaped like an egg. The
main talk of the city today is about the airship."78 The next night about twelve
people in Kenosha saw a greenish light in the clear skies and believed it to be the
airship.79 It was also seen moving westward by citizens in Oshkosh at 8:30 P.M.
John C. Thompson said that he could plainly see the outline of the flying
machine-"the forward portion being cigarshaped and the rear part square or box-
shaped.""

On the night of April 10, an airship was spotted near Marshfield just after
sunset as hundreds of residents poured onto the streets. When viewed with
binoculars, it appeared to be coneshaped with a powerful headlight.81 It was
also seen in Mani-towoc.82 At about 10 P.M., the following account was
recorded in Green Bay of an object that was viewed for thirty minutes:

Residents of this city are intensely excited over the appearance,

tonight, of what is supposed to be the airship which has been seen near
Chicago and elsewhere. Many prominent people of the city saw it
distinctly, among them being attorney H. G. Fairchild, clerk E. J.
Carroll of the Hotel Straubel, and many other citizens whose veracity
is beyond question. It was first seen high up in the heavens, the light
shown being of a reddish color, and larger than a star....

News of its appearance spread rapidly over the city.... [Several

people using night glasses] ... claimed that a large cigarshaped body
could be seen projecting back out of the large light, which was on the
forward end of the machine 83

Some press accounts openly ridiculed the Green Bay sightings on the grounds
that it had all been a practical joke caused by a twelvefoot-high fire balloon
made of tissue paper with a rod across the bottom from which hung two Chinese
lanterns. Its remains were later found in the barnyard of Fred Reschke.84

The airship was also observed by several people at Fond du Lac between 10
P.M. on the tenth and 3 P.M. on the eleventh, and some observers claimed to see
the guy ropes on the vessel." One press account was highly skeptical, noting that
"their visions were so acute that they clearly distinguished the stern light which
was green, from the fore light which was red. "I At about midnight on the tenth it
was seen by Racine resident Silas Bilderback, who saw a variety of colored
lights-red, blue, yellow-"attached to some apparatus or machine," of which only
a dim outline could be seen. He also claimed to hear what sounded like faint
voices "uttered in authoritative and commanding tones, as of a captain giving
orders to sailors," although he could not discern what they were saying. The
object slowly faded off to the northwest.B7 The airship was also spotted on the
evening of April 11 in Appleton,88 and on both the eleventh89 and twelfth" in
Kenosha.

The airship hysteria peaked between April 11 and 12, as it was appearing
everywhere at once. The following reports illustrate the scale of the sightings:


Ripon, Wis., April 12-Claim is made that fully one-twentieth of

Ripon's entire population saw the now celebrated airship last night...

Eau Claire, Wis., April 12-About 150 persons were assembled at

the Omaha depot about midnight last night by a report received there
from Nerrillan that the airship was coming. The telegraph operator and
others saw it through field glasses and vividly described it to the
crowd, several of whom saw it also. The strange visitor caused
considerable excitement.

Rio, Wis., April 12-The airship was seen passing over this place
at 8:45 last evening. Several persons saw a white and red light
apparently about three hundred feet above the earth, moving swiftly in
a northwesterly direction.

West Superior, Wis., April 12-The airship is reported to have

been seen here, circling about the head of the lakes.

Darlington, Wis., April 12-The airship was seen passing over

west of here this evening. It appeared to be a large, bright light and
moved off in a northwesterly direction.

Madison, Wis., April 12-A great many Madison persons are

confident that they saw the "airship" last night.

Lodi, Wis., April 12-James Wilson and many others say they saw
the airship here tonight between 10:20 and 11 o'clock. It seemed quite
low and was passing from a southeasterly to a northeasterly
direction.91

The following account captures the intense excitement during a mass

sighting near Milwaukee on the eleventh:

Every adult citizen of Milwaukee ... swept the "infinite meadow of

heaven" last night in search for the mysterious airship....

"Have you seen the airship!" took the place of the conventional
"Good evening," when two friends met upon the street, and they
 immediately took a look ... in hopes of discovering the aerial
navigator.... People coming out of the churches lost the inspiration of
the prayer and the praise service as they sought out the invention of the
man amid the handiwork of the Creator in space. Audiences coming
from the theaters halted upon the street to cast aloft a searching glance,
and they discussed the craze that is sweeping over the country.92

The reports rapidly declined and ceased altogether by the end of the month.
On the night of the thirteenth the vessel was seen at Portage at about 8 P.M. 93
and by hundreds in Racine on the fourteenth where some of the most
enthusiastic declared they could see the outline of the mysterious ship, and some
even went so far as to state that they could hear voices.94 It was also seen on the
night of the eighteenth near Beloit.95

As the sightings continued, many newspapers became increasingly

incredulous. The Wisconsin State journal remarked that "every bird that essays
the zenith these days incurs the imputation of being an airship."96 Many papers
equated the airship with the sea serpent sightings during the "silly season."97
The Evening Wisconsin suggested two possible explanations: "One is that all the
air is full of airships. The other is that a good many people are lying." It
concluded by saying there was much evidence "in favor of the latter."" When the
ship was seen at Lancaster on Saturday night, April 10, one press report
proclaimed, "Fake airship at Lancaster," suggesting that it was another tissue
balloon.99

Perhaps the most sensational report was from the town of Norway, where
there was "great excitement" after a small boy swore that he saw the ship alight
on the John Johnson farm, where its occupants took water aboard that was
poured into the vessel's boiler. After telling the story, the boy "was taken down
cellar and spanked by his mother."" There were other reports of contact with the
pilots and their crew at remote sites near Rice Lake on April 12,101 while at
Potosi two airship occupants were seen sitting on the rail track smoking
cigarettes before jumping into the craft and flying off after being startled by
local resident John MacGuire.112 Near the end of the episode, a woman rushed
into the offices of a local newspaper in Racine in a state of great excitement and
holding a wooden arrow that she said she found in the street. On the end was
attached a note: "Airship S & G, dropped from a distance of two miles in the
air." While her faith that it had fallen from an airship could not be shaken, an
investigation revealed that it was a publicity stunt by the firm of Silber and
Griswold.103

Michigan

The episode of phantom airship sightings in Michigan occurred between April

and May of 1897 following a flurry of sightings in nearby Iowa and
Missouri.104 During the last week of March there were several reports of
mysterious aerial lights in Michigan, but these were interpreted as either a
strange "meteor" that was seen for an hour in Holland105 or "ghost lights" on
Boughner and Mills Lakes near the village of Shearer, which resulted in several
inhabitants' leaving the vicinity due to the "ghost scare."106 A similar episode
was reported in the bay off Caseville, where a fluttering light was thought to be
ghosts from the steamer Oconte, which sank near Big Charity Island several
years earlier.107 A mysterious nocturnal light seen by Rodney Heddon near his
farm in Byron was attributed to the ghost of his deceased father.108

The first Michigan airship sighting took place in the village of Alma on
Saturday evening, April 10, in the western sky." At Benton Harbor at 7:45 P.M.
on the following night it was watched for fifteen minutes flying high above Lake
Michigan by a group of residents on Morton Hill, before it faded off to the
northwest."' The vessel was described as having red, green, and blue flickering
lights, and was also seen at St. Joseph at about the same time."' An hour later
several hundred people saw the aerial "machine" floating above Black Lake near
Holland, including prominent citizens Dr. J. D. Wetmore and Mr. C. L. King,
manager of the large King Basket Factory.1' Near Niles, Michigan, two men saw
bright aerial lights during the evening, of what may have been the airship,"'
while at 10 P.M. it was seen by three Mendon residents."' On April 12, some
twenty "reputable citizens" in Battle Creek claimed to watch the vessel pass two
miles west of the city at 8:55 P.M. "Sparks flew forth and the ship began to
slowly settle to within about half a mile from the earth. 11115 It was twentyfive
to thirty feet long and hovered near the ground a few moments, when a buzzing
noise was heard. "Again the sparks flew out as if from an emery wheel and the
machine began to rise slowly ... [and] the lights went out."16 Some witnesses
even claimed they could discern faint voices coming from the "craft.""' The
object disappeared to the southwest.18 When the brilliantly illuminated airship
was spotted by several residents of Kalamazoo on the same evening, it was said
to be moving about fifty miles per hour as it passed northwesterly. The editor of
the Kalamazoo Gazette, Andrew J. Shakespeare, also observed it.19 The most
sensational report of the evening was from the town of Pavillion, where residents
George W. Somers and William Chadburn saw an illuminated object explode in
the air, leading them to assume that the airship had blown up. Several other
residents heard the noise but saw nothing. When part of an electric appliance
was found lying on the ground the next morning, it was thought to have come
from the airship, as were mysterious tiny fragments of an unknown material
found scattered near a barn in the town of Comstock.12'

On Tuesday night, April 13, the airship mania continued. When a
mysterious glow was noticed in the southern sky over Kalamazoo, the cry of
airship immediately went up, but the illumination was a reflection from Thomas
Moore's barn burning down on South Burdick Street.12' Meanwhile, George
Parks and his wife reported that an airship swooped to within one hundred feet
of a field on their Pennfield farm, five miles north of Battle Creek, and claimed
that a wheel fell off, embedding itself in the ground. The wheel was three feet in
diameter and was put on display at their farm.122

As the sightings continued, press editors grew increasingly incredulous as

numerous hoaxes came to light, and stories grew more outlandish. A carrier boy
for the Battle Creek Daily Moon claimed to have found a letter dropped from the
vessel.123 There was a sensation in Pontiac on the evening of the fifteenth as
hundreds of persons were certain that the airship had passed about 250 feet
above Saginaw Street, but were disgusted upon realizing that enterprising
students had hauled lanterns up on the flagpole of the school. 121 On the same
evening, hundreds of Lansing residents reported seeing the airship, which was
later identified as a toy balloon.125

On April 16, a man near Lansing claimed to have accepted a ride in a

cigarshaped airship with large wings and conversed with the "professor" who
invented it and said he was flying it across the country.126 Meanwhile, at Pine
Lake, it reportedly alighted and obtained food from William McGiveron.127

By mid-April, the airship episode peaked. The following excerpt from the
Saginaw Courier-Herald gives a flavor as to the widespread nature of the
sightings:
Corroboration of the visit of the flying airship to this city [Saginaw]
yesterday morning has been received from many sources....

Charlotte, Mich., April 16-The mysterious air ship was seen by

many people last night.

Hudson, April 16-This morning's Hudson Gazette contained an

account of the passage of the airship over this city ... last night. It ...
was also seen at Pittsford, Clayton and Cadmus.

Hart, April 16-A large crowd witnessed a strange sight

Wednesday night. Something floated over Shelby ...

Olivet, April 16-The airship was observed here Wednesday night

by a large crowd.
A skeptic's humorous interpretation of the airship, comparing local sightings to
sea serpent reports. It appeared on page 1 of the St. Louis Republic, April 16,
1897.

Battle Creek, April 16-The aerial phenomenon, construed by
some to be an airship, was seen by many persons here Wednesday
evening.

Middleville, April 16.-This village takes the cake in regard to

airships. Several responsible residents claim to have seen two of them
Wednesday evening.... A car attachment had colored lights and
scattered sparks, and what was supposed to be smoke.
 Lansing, April 16.-Many citizens of Lansing are willing to swear
that they saw the airship last evening.12'

From this point on, witnesses were mercilessly ridiculed in most press
accounts, although sightings continued until early May when they tapered out,
with reports in Manistee,"' Saginaw,130 Davison,"' Three Rivers,"' Saline,"'
Grant,'34 Marquette,"' Marshall,"' Geneseeville,137 Sidnaw,'38 Dayton,"' and
Flint.14' After a report by several people in Wyandotte, it was noted that beer
season was open.141 One journalist quipped that an American had "the same
right to see airships that he has to see pink-winged elephants and man-eating
cockroaches."142 Another reporter warned that if the sightings did not abate
soon, large numbers of citizens were in danger of getting cricks in their necks.
One newspaper reported that "the sea serpent was green with envy over the
notoriety being enjoyed just now by its rival the airship."143 Meanwhile, the
Saginaw Globe commented that future historians should note "the fact that the
airship is always seen on Saturday night, when a large portion of the population
is in a proper mood to see such things."144 One writer told of being pleased by
three consecutive days of rain, since during this time "nobody claims to have
seen the airship."145 A press editor sarcastically urged sinners to repent, noting
that the Bible predicts the appearance of strange signs and wonders during the
Last Days, and that the airship may portend that "the day of judgment draws
near."146

Spoof sketch of the airship published in the St. Louis Republic, April 29, 1897,
page 9.

Many advertisers jumped on the airship theme in order to sell their products,
often humorously. This ad appeared in the Rocky Mountain Daily News on
April 14, 1897, to pitch the popularity of "News Small Ads."

A humorous incident was recounted near Galesburg, when a hunter came
upon a hole which appeared to contain a metal instrument. "Visions of airships
and grappling hooks arose before him and he made all speed to town" to relay
his finding to the local newspaper office. While the paper reported that an anchor
dropped from the airship had made a deep hole, a subsequent investigation
revealed "a steel trap in the entrance of a skunk's dwelling place."147
Indiana

The Indiana airship mania lasted from early April until mid-May of 1897. The
first sighting was recorded on the evening of Friday, April 9, when several
"reputable citizens," including deputy postmaster D. A. Gibbons, saw what
appeared to be an airship pass to the north of Newport. It was visible for twenty
minutes and had a reddish color.148 At 1 A.M. on the tenth, Mrs. William
Marsh of Anderson went to fetch water from an outside hand pump when she
was startled by a powerful headlight overhead. She roused her husband and
neighbors, and they watched as it appeared to circle around before attaining
great height and flying southward. At one point they claimed to hear what
sounded like its wings flapping.149 Meanwhile, at about this time, farmers north
of Anderson reported seeing a "crazy star,"150 and in Lowell, it was seen by the
Elliot family.151

On the night of the eleventh, it was spotted across the state. The airship
light was seen at about 7:30 at Warsaw, swaying in the distance as it traveled to
the northwest.152 At least one hundred residents in New Carlisle claimed to
have watched it pass by at 8:30, its lights "distinguished from a dark object far
up in the heavens."153 It had a green light in the front and a red light at the
rear.154 At nine o'clock it reportedly passed over Plymouth,"' while in LaGrange
"great excitement" prevailed after it was observed by numerous people at 9:30
before fading away after forty minutes.15G It was reported at Elkhart about ten
o'clock,157 and by 11 P.m. several prominent citizens of Logansport saw the
airship, including Henry Poit of Porter's Drug Store and Al Anderson of Kraut's
Barber Shop. It appeared to have red and green lights. One witness, Charles
Knowlton of Lock Mills, claimed that there was a man in the vessel who
projected "magic lantern" pictures1-" onto the side of his barn.159 Meanwhile,
on the following night, residents along South 10th Street in Terre Haute were
excited by "a powerful revolving searchlight with a dark object behind it."" In
Danville on the evening of the thirteenth, Green Burris, John Tinder, and
Livingstone Rankin claimed not only that it passed overhead, but that they could
hear singing and talking coming from the vessel.161 At about 9 P.M., it flew just
a few hundred feet above Michigan City.162 At the same time, near Brook
numerous residents saw the illuminated airship whose wings "flopped slowly"
and majestically. Some could even see a propeller that made "a loud whirring
noise."163

 During midafternoon on the fourteenth, several residents in Gas City
reported seeing a cigarshaped airship with broad canvas wings land in a corn
field on the John Roush farm, but that it flew off before they were able to reach
it. There appeared to be six men on board.164 Also on the fourteenth, "a strange
craft" was seen to pass by Mid-dlefork,1 and there was a sensation in Valparaiso
when the airship was sighted at about eight o'clock. "In less than ten minutes
nearly half the population ... was on the streets and on top of buildings watching
its movements." It disappeared after thirty minutes.166 It was also observed at
Princeton at about the same time, where there "was great excitement,"167 and in
the countryside near Frankfort, where it passed over the treetops and was
described as "cigarshaped and rigged with wings or fins. '1161 Also on the night
of the fourteenth, a vivid encounter was reported near Shelburn by Mr. I. H.
Woolsey, T. J. Cushman, and Edward Woods, who were returning from
Currysville at about 11:30. They reported that a brilliantly illuminated airship
passed overhead about two hundred feet above the ground. It was barrel-shaped
with a point in the front and "was bound by heavy bands and had the steering
apparatus in the rear."169

A sighting by three Fort Wayne residents on the fourteenth, provides insight
into the influence of the mass media on airship accounts, making it clear that
residents were scanning the skies in hopes of glimpsing the craft.

Telegrams from various places have told about the sight of this strange
light and Fort Wayne people have been on the lookout for it. For
several nights telescopes have been directed toward the heavens of the
northwest, and at last F. Crocker and R. J. and J. L. Tretheway have
been rewarded....

Mr. Crocker, who lives at 56 Barr street, was the first man to see
it, and after watching the light for some time, called his wife ... [and
neighbors] ...

When asked to describe what he saw, Mr. Crocker said: "I had
taken a great deal of interest in the stories printed in the newspapers
about this star or airship, and was standing at the window of my flat
endeavoring to get a glimpse of it. In a short time I was rewarded..."

So far as is known no other Fort Wayne people have seen the

 light, but many are on the lookout for it.10

During mid-April there were wild rumors that the airship had alighted for
repairs atop Weed Patch Hill in Brown County, after two farmers claimed that
they had seen it anchored there. As a result, a number of residents, mainly from
Martinsville, became excited and trekked to the hill, only to be disappointed
when they could not locate the ship, and locals had no idea what they were
talking about."'

On April 15 it was sighted by several citizens of Albany," the same day that
Mrs. C. Strock of St. Joseph Street in Elkhart said she found a note dropped from
the airship in which it was claimed the vessel would pass back over the city on a
return trip Friday night. As a result "several parties have been formed here to
watch for the return trip of the machine."13 On the next evening of the sixteenth,
over twenty residents of Vincennes saw a "strange body" at great altitude fly
over the city.14 There was pandemonium in Muncie on April 17 as several
thousand Saturday-night shoppers were certain that an aerial craft passed near
the city low to the ground. It was later revealed to have been four hot-air
balloons tied together and attached to lanterns with colored globes which were
sent up by two mischievous reporters.15

On the night of April 21, several members of the First Spiritual Circle saw
the airship as they exited their meeting hall, at which time one member returned
to the building and went into a trance. He claimed that the vessel was occupied
by two men and a dog.16 On Saturday evening, April 24, several East Greenfield
residents reported that the vessel hovered above the filter at the Greenfield paper
mill, and a man was clearly visible and standing in front of a boat-shaped
undercarriage.177

As was typical of the reports across the country, as the sightings continued,
press accounts, which were often positive near the beginning of the episode,
grew increasingly skeptical. The editors of the Indianapolis Journal remarked
that the description of the airship seemed to vary depending as to whether it was
"viewed through a common tumbler, a champagne glass, a demi john or a quart
bottle.""' In describing a sighting at Terre Haute, a reporter noted, "They looked
through all kinds of glasses ... field glasses, beer glasses and whiskey glasses in
use."19 Another editor noted that the widespread sightings indicated that either
an airship was afloat or "alcoholic visions have become epidemic."" One
journalist asserted: "If you haven't seen the air ship yet you are behind the
time."181 Another observed that the airship far exceeded the powers of the sea
serpent, as "an inland town has the same show as a fishing village on the
coast."182 The editors of the Evening Republican expressed displeasure at
having "been slighted" since the vessel had not yet been viewed in Columbus,
and wondered why the tiny community of New Carlisle should be favored, as it
"never did anything to entitle it to any distinction.""' The Ligonier Banner editor
sarcastically wrote, "If you want to know anything about the airship that passed
over here Saturday night ask Operator Schwab and he will tell you all about
it."184

Just before the sightings ceased altogether, press accounts became

noticeably shorter as a flurry of reports appeared attributing several recent
observations to hoax balloons sent aloft by pranksters,"' and some press accounts
were acerbic in their reporting of alleged incidents. For instance, after a sighting
near Seymour on May 7, one newspaper headline stated: "Sure it was the air
ship."186 Following another incident, a paper used the rather blunt headline
"The Airship Fake. 11117 When the vessel was spotted near Angola on April 18,
a local paper gave the incident a two-sentence report, beginning with, "Some of
our citizens thought they saw an air ship Sunday night."188 After several Lake
Station residents claimed to see the flying machine, a local paper afforded the
event a single sentence: "Some of the Lake people have sighted the airship, or
claim they have."189 When it was seen near Rensselaer, the press account began
"Of course somebody in Rensselaer had to see the airship."190 After a mass
sighting at Mitchell, an article concluded by noting: "They don't pretend to say
that it was an air ship but they do know that it was something unusual."191

Some newspapers clearly stoked the embers of the craze, perhaps in hopes
of selling copies. The editor of the Greensburg Review was furious over a
lengthy article about his city that appeared in the Chicago Chronicle of April
14th.

Greensburg, Ind., April 13-The skeptics of this city who have read the
accounts of the airship ... now no longer doubt its reality, since the
machine itself was seen here this evening. The airship made its
appearance in this county about 6:30 o'clock and was seen by several
hundred people. One hundred fifty-six prominent citizens of the city
and county are willing to make sworn statements that they saw the
 strange machine.

The news of the sighting of the airship spread like wildfire, and it
is the sole topic of conversation on the streets tonight.... Three or four
hundred people were immediately on the streets, when, in a few
minutes, the strange object made its appearance....

The article goes on to describe the anxiety of Prof. Keeley and

our people concerning the clothing worn by the men in the air ship,
and closes as follows:

One disastrous result of the airship's visit came to the famous

Greensburg goat. Billy saw the strange thing in the heavens
and immediately becoming frantic, commenced to butt the
northeast corner of the Reformed Presbyterian Church.
Finally he took another despairing look at the heavens. The
lights in the airship changed color at that instant, and Billy
frothed at the mouth and went against the corner of the
church a seventh time, when his left horn broke off near its
base. He is now under the care of a veterinarian.192

The Greensburg Review editor condemned the Chicago Chronicle for making
Greensburg and its inhabitants "appear silly and ridicu-loos."193

Several Indiana residents claimed to have talked with the airship occupants
in remote locations at night. The vessel and its three occupants allegedly landed
near the Monon depot and alighted in order to make minor repairs to the
motor.194 On the evening of April 17, it reportedly landed near Charles Brown's
feed mill near Upland, where a quantity of ground cattle feed was purchased by
its lone occupant-a stout man with long flowing whiskers who spoke good
English. The man then got into his cab, pressed a button, and the craft rose above
the treetops and sailed off.195 At Hodge's Branch near Rushville Charles
Worthington and John Rodabaugh claimed they saw an airship with enormous
wings alight, its three occupants taking water aboard before the craft flew off to
the northeast.196 George Haskell, a farmer living just east of Muncie, told that
while he was milking his cows at night, an airship landed in his barnyard. "One
of the occupants stepped from the car attached to the ship and asked for some
milk. After receiving a pail full, the man pulled on a cord and it flew off."197 In
northern Hamilton county the airship reportedly alighted to take on provisions
which were paid for with a gold coin.198 Finally, the airship purportedly landed
under cover of darkness near a mine shaft, where two men took on a quantity of
coal and conversed with a bystander, before taking off.199

The reports continued to decline during the latter part of April until they
ceased altogether by mid-May. During this period there were sightings on the
twenty-first at Terre Haute,200 reports by several witnesses, including police
officers, at Kokomo201 and Logans-port202 on the twenty-second, sightings at
Cannelton on the twentythird,203 Logansport and Greenfield on the
twentyfourth,204 Logansport again on the twenty-fifth,"' and Auburn on the
twenty-eighth.206 One of the last sightings was at Seymour on May seventh.207

Minnesota

Minnesota was inundated with airship reports during a two-week period in April
1897. The first sighting was in the city of Albert Lea at 11:00 P.M. on Friday,
April 8, when a bright object that "seemed to be under perfect control" and that
was carrying red and white lights was seen traveling northward.208 Residents
were greatly excited.2a' It was also seen about ten minutes later at Waseca.210
On April 10, a peculiar square-shaped reddish light was spotted by several
Minneapolis residents at about 9:25 P.M. It was estimated to have been half a
mile high and nine miles in the distance before disappearing and then
reappearing 211 The vessel was also witnessed by a large number of residents as
it again hovered over Albert Lea. Among the observers was ex-mayor Gillrup
212 It was first seen at about 9 P.m. and was visible for twentyfive minutes
before vanishing to the north.213

On Sunday the eleventh, it was observed by at least a thousand people in

Minneapolis and Minnetonka between 8 P.M. and midnight. R. G. Adams gave a
particularly vivid description. He said it was cigarshaped, eighteen to twenty feet
long and had square lights attached to the top and middle portions. "I could
distinctly see the vague outlines of the craft,"214 he reported. An even more
sensational description was provided by Stuart Mackroth, an employee of the
Flour City National Bank. While riding his bicycle behind the Minnetonka hills
on his way to Minneapolis, he said that a boat-shaped flying machine with an
array of lights appeared a quarter of a mile overhead. He claimed to be able to
discern "men, women and children ... [who] were moving about as if very
busy."215 Also that evening, a large crowd assembled atop the Commercial
Hotel in Anoka when the airship was sighted between 9:30 and 10 P.M.216 On
April 12, the editors of the Minneapolis Tribune summed up the public mood:

"Where there is so much smoke there must be fire." The persistent

reports of a sighting of a queer craft sailing about in the sky,
apparently under perfect control of some intelligent power, suggest a
possibility, that at last the problem of aerial navigation has been
solved, and that the world may be astonished with the most wonderful
invention of this or any other age .217

By April 12, several Duluth residents sat on the rooftops of buildings in the
business block with binoculars, refreshments, and cigars, hoping to glimpse the
much talked about vessel. Observations were confined to several lights in the
distance.218 On the night of the thirteenth, it was seen near Stillwater, while the
outline of the craft was spotted by fifty residents in Rogalton and near
Winona.219 At this point the press grew more skeptical, even blatantly cynical
in reporting claims. The St. Paul Pioneer-Press described these sightings with the
headline "Of Course They Saw It."zz°

On the evening of the fourteenth, thousands of people in Minneapolis were

greatly excited, gathering at various points throughout the city in expectation of
seeing the airship. One journalist noted that "groups were at every street corner;
passengers awaiting electric cars scanned the heavens."" At the corner of
Nicollet and Washington Avenues about two hundred citizens congregated,
while a similar scene was occurring one block over at Hennepin Avenue. Many
believed they had seen the vessel, including chief of detectives Schweitzer,"'
although one editor said that they were simply watching Venus "slowly sinking
to the horizon."123 The same paper published a cartoon depicting two
intoxicated citizens discussing the airship.' Another editor scoffed at the reports,
stating that they were "simply the star 'Alpha Orionis,' which has been
wandering about the heavens for ten million years" and was now prominent.725
Yet another editor jokingly warned that witnesses were "wrecking the church
standing of more than one ... truthful citizen."226 After the night of the fifteenth
when the flying machine was observed over Glencoe and Howard Lake," the
reports died out completely.
Kentucky

The Kentucky sightings persisted from mid-April to mid-May, and just before
they began, at least one resident in Morganfield was holding nightly parties on
the roof of his house in expectation of seeing the airship that had been reported
in other parts of the country.228 The first sighting occurred on Monday evening,
April 12, near Adairsville, in Robertson County. The airship caused a sensation
among the inhabitants when it was spotted at 8:30 P.M. nearly a mile high. It had
a bright headlight attached to a steel body twentyfive to thirty feet long that
sported wings or propellers and a red lantern on the tail.229 Many people
panicked at the sight and "shouted and prayed as if they thought the millennium
was at hand."' Early the next morning, two miles south of Louisville, farmer
Augustus Rodgers claimed to observe an illuminated oblong-shaped airship
traveling about one hundred miles per hour just four hundred feet above the
ground. Rodgers called to his wife, and they "saw a form, like that of a man,
standing at the front of the ship and directing its course," and the vessel soon
disappeared to the southeast." At about the same time, John S. McCollough, who
resided near Churchill Downs, reported that a brilliantly lighted airship passed
overhead while he was traveling near the city and that a piece of half-burned
coal fell from it.732

On the evening of April 15, several Russellville residents saw the airship
"plainly and distinctly," including Mayor Andrews and prominent dry goods
merchant Colonel James McCutchens. The illuminated object sailed out of sight
westward.233 It was also spotted that night by many people in the communities
of Todd' Clarksville," and Hopkinsville.6 The following day, the managers of
the Nashville Centennial Exposition used the growing public interest in the
airship to their advantage to gain free publicity by claiming that the vessel was
real and the owners were under contract to put it on display." On the sixteenth at
8:30 P.M., hundreds of people in Cairo saw the airship pass slowly just above
the western horizon.238 At about this time, Samuel Bunnel of Mercer County
made perhaps the most incredulous report when he claimed to have viewed the
airship through his telescope and saw that it contained exquisitely garbed,
winged angels.?

On April 18 scores of people in Bowling Green saw a large moving light in

the western sky for about an hour, which was widely assumed to have been the
airship.240 There was "great excitement" in Madisonville on the night of April
20 as "the streets were crowded with people watching the aerial wonder," among
them Mayor Holeman A. Worley.241 On the same evening, it was seen passing
over Rich Pond, and well-known merchant H. F. Jordan proclaimed: "I saw the
airship and it was a beautiful sight."242 By April 20, the craze had reached such
proportions that newspapers were carrying airship-related advertisements. For
instance, one ad read: "The Airship a Certainty-Make this doubly sure by buying
one of our choice carpets, and your 'HEIRSHIP' will not be questioned."243
Another proclaimed that the airship had been seen with two men on board, one
of whom dropped a message that urged people to attend a local sale.241

On the twenty-first several Louisville policemen and citizens spotted a
brilliant aerial light, which many assumed to be a flying machine. Captain John
Tully and his entire company of firefighters also witnessed the light upon
returning from a fire call. "One of the men called attention to the peculiar sight,
and the men at once concluded that it was the air ship," which disappeared to the
northwest.245 At about this time, three men in Berea claimed the airship passed
overhead at about 10 P.M.246 On April 23, numerous residents in Lewisburg
were convinced that they saw the craft pass to the southwest: "Its outlines were
plainly observed and many good citizens will swear that it was the aerial
flyer."247 One newspaper reported the incident as follows:

Lewisburg, April 24-A profound sensation was created here last night
by the discovery of the lights of an airship moving in a south of west
course and at a great height. It was witnessed by a great number of our
most reputable citizens. There can be no doubt whatever that it was the
airship that is said to have been seen in so many places.248

Also on the night of April 24, a Louisville man gave a particularly vivid
description of the vessel. Thomas J. Casey stated that he was behind his home at
1237 13th Street when he heard a buzzing sound and saw the cigarshaped ship
about two hundred feet up.249 He saw the outline of a man standing in the lower
rear section: "He looked at me and I waved my hat. Two other men were sitting
in the helm."' The object rapidly disappeared to the south. Station keeper
Thomas O'Neil of the central police station also reported seeing the airship at
about the same time." The ship which "carried a very bright light" was again
sighted by Clarksville residents on Sunday evening, April 25, flying half a mile
high to the southwest. 12

 There were other reports of close encounters with the airship's occupants:

Tuesday night about 7 o'clock as a family living south of town were

sitting at the supper-table, they were suddenly startled by the furious
barking of the ever-faithful watchdog, and as is usual with children,
they all rushed out to see what had caused the excitement of the
canine. They all rushed back pell-mel, headover-heels, exclaiming:
"Jack-o' lantern in the sky, mamma! Jacko' lantern in the sky!" The
wiser heads of the family, after close inspection ... [described seeing] a
large cigarshaped affair, with immense white wings. It was not very
high and the guy ropes and rods could be seen plainly. Three men were
visible and they frantically waved their hands as they passed. The
machine had a zig-zag course and seemed to be out of working order.

Any further information will be gladly furnished by Miss Katie

Barnes, Elkton, Ky."

Meanwhile, on the evening of April 17, three men in Lexington claimed to have
met an airship occupant, about forty years of age, who emerged from the vessel
with a bucket. After filling it with water from a nearby stream, he declined to
answer any questions and sailed off.754

Many newspaper editors were skeptical, attributing the observations either

to irrationality precipitated by emotional excitement, or to alcohol or opium
intake. The editors of the Paducah Daily News ridiculed witnesses, referring to
them as "rubbernecks" and to the airship as a "queer aerial voyager" and "strange
lightening bug."755 When hometown lawyers Tom Wallace and Jess Scott said
they watched the airship fly over Mayfield on April 14, the Mayfield Mirror
quipped that they must have been viewing the vessel "through a bottle." The
Louisville Courier-Journal sarcastically suggested that there must be an "aerial
flotilla" due to the volume of sightings.257

During late April the episode peaked, at which time the claims grew more
sensational, and the belief in the flying machine's existence began to rapidly
erode. As had occurred in other parts of the country, some Kentucky residents
maintained that they found letters dropped from the airship." In Corbin, a
businessman who also served as a church deacon claimed to be in possession of
a piece of metal that he said had fallen from the airship.'S9 By April 30, the
sightings had declined dramatically. One of the last observations was recorded
on the thirtieth when Gillis Hendricks, a section foreman with the Louisville and
Nashville railroad, reported seeing a coneshaped airship with blue and white
signal lights. The account states that "Hendricks' story is laughed at. "161

The Social Psychology of Airships

While it is tempting to conclude that these witnesses were acting irrationally or

exhibiting signs of mental disturbance, the airship sightings are explainable
using mainstream theories of social psychology. In examining the episode, we
are essentially left with eyewitness testimony, which is notoriously unreliable
and subject to error.261 Further, under ambiguous circumstances, such as
looking at the nighttime sky, stars can appear to change color, flicker, and
move.262 A person's mental set or frame of reference has a strong influence on
how external events are interpreted and internalized as reality.263 A classic
illustration of this occurred on March 3, 1968, as the Russian Zond 4 moon
probe plunged into the atmosphere, resulting in the appearance of several
"manmade meteors" in the northeastern United States.264 After witnessing the
reentry, one witness told Air Force investigators:

It appeared to have square-shaped windows along the side that was

facing us. It appeared to me that the fuselage was constructed of many
pieces of flat sheets of metal-like material with [a] "riveted-together
look ..." The many windows seemed to be lit up from the inside of the
fuselage....

When the craft was flying near us, it did seem to travel in a flat
trajectory. I toyed with the idea that it even slowed down somewhat,
for how else could we observe so much detail in a mere flash across
the sky? All three of us agreed that we had seen something other than
any planes we had seen or read about from our Earth, or that we had
seen a "craft from Outer Space."'

Since an observer's mental outlook at the time of the sighting is of key
importance, the context of the episode is very significant. The 1896-97 airship
sightings occurred amid widespread rumors that a flying machine was on the
verge of being perfected. Many Americans believed that such a dramatic
achievement was at hand, and their emotions were stoked by speculative and
often fabricated newspaper stories. As people began searching the skies for
confirmation of the airship-invention stories, they expected to see airships, and
did see them. Whereas modern sightings consist almost exclusively of "flying
saucers" from outer space, citizens in 1896-97 were predisposed by popular
literature of the era to see airships. The overwhelming majority of reports
occurred at night and described ambiguous lights viewed at a distance. It is not
surprising that given these circumstances, residents interpreted information in
ways that were consistent with their view of the world.

Studies on the fallible nature of human perception and the tendency for
people in group settings to conform are especially applicable." The human mind
does not gather information like a videotape recorder. Humans interpret events
as they perceive the world and often come to opposite interpretations of the same
event witnessed under nearly identical circumstances, as anyone who has
watched a hotly contested sporting event can attest. Perception is sometimes
based more on inference than on reality, allowing for interpretations that often
differ substantially from what actually exists. Research on autokinetic movement
is applicable to such situations, as it concerns problem-solving dynamics.26' The
variance of interpretations from what actually exists is especially noticeable with
the perception of ambiguous stimuli or conflicting patterns of information within
a group setting, which will result in members developing an increased need to
define the situation, depending less on their own judgment for reality validation
and more on the judgment of others for reality testing.

When the stimulus situation lacks objective structure, the effect of the
other's judgement is ... pronounced.... In one ... study of social factors
in perception utilizing the autokinetic phenomenon, an individual
judged distances of apparent movement first alone and then with two
or three other subjects. This unstruc tured situation arouses
considerable uncertainty. Even though they were not told to agree and
were cautioned against being influenced, the individuals in
togetherness situations shifted their judgement toward a common
standard or norm of judgement.... The influence of various individuals
differed, and the emerging common norm for judgement was in
various instances above or below the average of individual judgements
in the initial session alone.268

Research on the "autokinetic effect" is of more specific interest as it has

been shown that individual judgments tend to agree in a group setting while
observing the common stimulus of a pinpoint of light within a dark environment.
This effect is well known among social psychologists and was first demonstrated
in 1936.269 Individuals in situations lacking stable perceptual anchors begin to
feel a sense of uneasiness, then anxiety as they have a heightened need to
visually define or make sense of the light. In group settings, individuals will
attempt to reduce the anxieties created by an uncertain situation.

A viewer in a completely dark room seeing one pinpoint of light

experiences a visual stimulus without its normal attendant visual
context. Up, down, back, forward, far and near, exist in relation to
other stimuli and when this frame of reference is missing, the light is
free to roam in one's perceptual field. It is for this reason that
considerable random motion will be experienced by anyone viewing
the light.270

During highly ambiguous situations, such as people scanning the nighttime skies
for an imaginary but plausible airship, "inference can perform the work of
perception by filling in missing information in instances where perception is
either inefficient or inadequate.""'

Encounters with Airship Pilots and Crew

An interesting aspect of the airship wave were several dozen encounters

involving people who were usually alone in rural areas and claimed to have
conversed with the airship pilots or crew. However, unlike modern descriptions
of diminutive extraterrestrials emerging from flying saucers, most witnesses
described occupants who claimed to be Americans and who had perfected an
airship that would revolutionize travel."' Pilot-inventors and their crews typically
alighted in remote sections of the country in order to make repairs or obtain
provisions. In Chillicothe, Missouri, electrician Walter Baker said a stranger
woke him at 3:30 A.M. and took him to the nearby airship to help recharge its
fuel supply.273 Near Nora, Illinois, railroad worker Daniel Manley claimed to
have helped airship occupants repair a faulty steering apparatus.274 A Detroit
man observed an occupant "dressed in a checked hunting suit and wearing a long
peaked cap" fishing from an airship.275 In Woodson County, Kansas, farmer
Alexander Hamilton and his family reported a cigarshaped airship three hundred
feet long hovering over their cattle at 10 P.M. They saw a cable extending down
from the vessel and tied around a heifer's neck. They "stood in amazement to see
ship, cow and all rise slowly and sail off." Its hide, legs, and head were found in
a nearby field by a farmer the next day.276

Of course, our interest with these contact cases is in the narrative content of
the stories, and not their truth or falsity per se, although clearly they were
fictional. When persons perpetrate hoaxes, tell "tall tales," experience
hallucinations or vivid fantasies, the context of these occurrences is shaped by
their social and cultural background. This is evident in the airship closeencounter
stories, as none remotely resemble modern-day flying saucer occupant contacts.
A typical case was that of farmer Frank Nichols of Josserand, Texas, who
reported that an airship landed in his field and two men with buckets emerged
and asked permission to draw water. After readily granting them permission,

Mr. Nichols was kindly invited to accompany them to the ship. He

conversed freely with the crew, composed of six or eight individuals,
about the ship. The machinery was so complicated that in his short
interview he could gain no knowledge of its workings. However, one
of the crew told him the problem of aerial navigation had been solved.
The ship or car is built from a newly discovered material that has the
property of self-sustenance in the air, and the motive power is highly
condensed electricity. He was informed that five of these ships were
built in a small town in Iowa. Soon the invention will be given to the
public. An immense stock company is now being formed and within
the next year the machine will be in general use.

Mr. Nichols lives at Josserand, Trinity County, Texas, and will
convince any incredulous one by showing the place where the ship
rested.27

The small number of alleged encounters with extraterrestrials in this era

involved occupants in wooden and metallic airships sporting wings or
propellers.278 When their origin is mentioned, it is always said to be Mars,
reflecting popular interests of the period. The writings of American astronomer
Percival Lowell (1855-1916) discussed the artificial Martian canal system. His
theories of intelligent Martian life were widely known, and public acceptance of
the existence of such beings was high. Life on Mars was also consistent with the
popular mechanistic stories of Jules Verne. On the night of April 21, a man
walking home near Ogdin, West Virginia, said he saw an illuminated craft with
propellers land nearby. Eight Martians standing eleven to twelve feet tall
embarked from the ship. The creatures had huge heads, and said they were
exploring Earth, subsisting on small pills. They did not carry water but "drank
air." An hour later they flew off.279 The following report is typical, and
involved W. H. Hopkins of St. Louis, who claimed to have met two naked
Martians while he was walking through the hills east of Springfield, Missouri.

... coming to the brow of a hill overlooking a small ... clearing rested a
vessel similar in outline to the airship shown in the PostDispatch of a
few days ago.... The vessel itself was about twenty feet long and eight
feet in diameter and the propellers about six feet in diameter.

Near the vessel was the most beautiful being I ever beheld. She
was rather under medium size, but of the most exquisite form and
features such as would put to shame the forms as sculptured by the
ancient Greeks. She was dressed in nature's garb and her golden hair,
wavy and glossy, hung to her waist, unconfined excepting by a band of
glistening jewels that bound it back from her forehead.... In one hand
she carried a fan of curious design that she fanned herself vigorously
with, though to me the air was not warm and I wore an overcoat.

In the shade of the vessel lay a man of noble proportions and
majestic countenance. His hair of dark auburn fell to his shoulders in
wavy masses and his full beard of the same color, but lighter in shade,
reached to his breast. He also was fanning himself ... as if the heat
oppressed him.

I tried by signs to make them understand I meant no harm. Finally

his face lighted up with pleasure, and he turned and spoke to the
woman. She came hesitatingly forward.... I took her hand and kissed it
fervently. The color rose to her cheeks and she drew it hastily away.

I asked them by signs where they came from ... [and they
pronounced a word that] sounded like Mars. I pointed to the ship and
expressed my wonder in my countenance. He took me by the hand and
led me towards it. In the side was a small door. I looked in. There was
a luxurious couch....
 I pointed to the balls attached to the propellers. He gave each of
the strips of metal a rap, those attached to the propellers under the
vessel first. The balls began to revolve rapidly, and I felt the vessel
begin to rise, and I sprang out, and none too soon, for the vessel rose
as lightly as a bird, and shot away like an arrow . . . out of sight. The
two stood laughing and waving their hands at me.280

One miscellaneous contact claim involved inhabitants from the North Pole,
which was considered the Holy Grail of the era, one part of Earth that had been
inaccessible to explorers despite many well-publicized attempts. Swedish
explorer Salomon Andree's unsuccessful balloon expeditions to the pole in 1896,
and a subsequent fatal attempt in 1897, generated intense global interest.
Correspondingly, two men fishing by a creek near Waxachie, Texas, reportedly
encountered "North Pole people" resting on "furs" and "smoking pipes" near a
cigarshaped airship. The men said they learned to speak English from a polar
expedition in 1553, which was believed lost. The buildings and soil of the North
Pole were heated by pipes containing steam, and the country was "lighted by
electricity" generated by melting icebergs.281

The Symbolism of Airships

When we compare the events of the airship episode with contemporary UFO and
flying saucer sighting waves, the similarities are striking. Perhaps most
conspicuous is the complete absence of flying saucers or tiny extraterrestrials
with technology far in advance of our own. What people claim to observe and
experience are reflections of popular social and cultural expectations of a
particular era. It is important to remember that humans are meaningoriented
beings capable of adapting to changes in their environment in a myriad of
creative and often unprecedented ways. New coping strategies and methods of
ordering reality provide meaning and stability. The emergence of the plausible
existence of the world's first practical airship in America during the late
nineteenth century embodied the promise of "magical" science during a secular
age. The airship itself seemed to have quasi-supernatural qualities as it appeared
to be omnipresent and often performed maneuvers beyond the capability of our
most sophisticated modern aircraft.

Aircraft occupants often gave predictions mirroring divine revelations in a

different functional guise. While the mere presence of the airship implicitly
portends a dawning futuristic world revolutionized by science and technology,
occupants eagerly provided vivid accounts of these secular images. Within this
context, one airship pilot predicted that "all principal points in the world" would
soon be connected by aerial navigation, implying that the inventor would
accomplish this through a capitalistic venture.282 Another pilot claimed to have
invented "perpetual motion," which would soon be revealed, but only after
securing patents in every country.283 A prominent Harrisburg, Arkansas,
resident reported that an airship had landed near his home and discussed the
possibility of using an antigravity invention to "kill off the Spanish" in Cuba.284
Instead of dynamite, the craft carried a newly perfected weapon and gravitational
control device, the description of which sounds supernatural:

Weight is no object to me. I suspend all gravitation by placing a small

wire around the object. You see I have a four-ton improved Hotchkiss
gun on board,... we only have to pour the cartridges into the hopper
and press a button and it fires 53,000 times per minute ... place my
wire across this four-ton gun and hold it out with one hand and take
aim.'

These inventors were refined, gentlemanly, intellectual, and civilized, offering a

glimpse of the impending semiutopian social order that was believed to be
evolving rapidly through adherence to secular philosophies. The narrative
imagery of these reports underscores the boundless faith that Americans placed
in the rapidly evolving trinity of science, technology, and rationalism. It would
take the passage of fifty years, two world wars, and a depression before a similar
optimism reappeared. The immediate postwar era was another period of
"magical" science where nearly all things seemed possible, paving the way for a
symbol far exceeding the power and function of the airship-the flying saucer.

While it was an era of great advancements in science and technology, there

was also considerable uncertainty and anxiety. The airship sightings and
reported encounters with occupants appear to have served a useful function as a
reassuring symbol. Sciencefiction stories were predicting the day when flying
vessels would drop bombs from above. It was comforting to believe that
Americans were in control of this technology. Perhaps the most extraordinary
aspect of the airship episode was the sheer volume of reported observations and
encounters. As one newspaper editor commented, "This has certainly been one
of the most remarkable crazes in the history of human delusions.""'

Notes

1. Quoted in 1893 in C. H. GibbsSmith, Aviation: An Historical Survey

from Its Origins to the End of World War II (London: Her Majesty's Stationery
Office, 1985), p. 221.

2. I. F. Clarke, "American Anticipations: The First of the Futurists,"

Futures 18 (1986): 584-96. See p. 589.

3. T. E. Bullard, "Mysteries in the Eye of the Beholder: UFOs and Their

Correlates as a Folkloric Theme Past and Present" (Ph.D. diss., Indiana
University Folklore Department, 1982), p. 203.

4. Ibid.

5. V. Sanarov, "On the Nature and Origin of Flying Saucers and Little
Green Men," Current Anthropology 22 (1981): 163-67; C. H. GibbsSmith, The
Aeroplane: An Historical Survey of Its Origins and Development (London: Her
Majesty's Stationery Office, 1960); GibbsSmith, Aviation.

6. D. M. Jacobs, The UFO Controversy in America (New York: Signet,

1975), pp. 27-28.

7. J. Clark and L. Coleman, The Unidentified: Notes Toward Solving the

UFO Mystery (New York: Warner, 1975), p. 133.

8. For actual reproductions of some of the original patents, see G. Lore

and H. Deneault, Mysteries of the Skies: UFOs in Perspective (Englewood
Cliffs, N.J.: PrenticeHall, 1968), pp. 16-17, 38-39.

9. D. Jacobs, The 'UFO Controversy in America, pp. 27-28.

10. "Voices in the Sky ... People Declare They Heard Them and Saw a
Light," Sacramento Evening Bee, November 18, 1896, p. 1.

11. Ibid.
 12. Ibid.

13. "A Lawyer's Word for That Airship," San Francisco Chronicle,
November 22, 1896, p. 16.

14. "More of a Hoax Than an Airship," San Francisco Chronicle, November

20, 1896, p. 13; "The Disease Still Spreading," San Francisco Chronicle,
November 25, 1896, p. 16; "Attractive Venus. Her Charms Still Beguiling Many
of the Uninitiated," The Call (San Francisco), November 26,1896, p. 1; "The
Airship Craze Fast Fading Away," San Francisco Chronicle, November 26,
1896, p. 14; "The Scarecrow Fly-by-Night," San Francisco Examiner, November
26, 1896, p. 10; "A Fake," Weekly Telegraph (Folsom, Calif.), November 28,
1896, p. 2; "Either Mars or Venus," Oakland Tribune, November 30, 1896, p. 5.

15. "That Peculiar Night Visitant," The Call (San Francisco), November
20,1896, p. 1; "Floating in the Air ... All the Stories Coincide," Oakland Tribune,
November 23, 1896, p. 1; "Body Like a Bird," The Call (San Francisco),
November 24, 1896, p. 1; "Mission of the Aerial Ship," The Call (San
Francisco), November 25, 1896, p. 1; "New Converts," The Call (San
Francisco), November 26, 1896, p. 1; "Saw the Airship," San Jose Daily
Mercury, November 26, 1896, p. 5.

16. "Strange Tale of a Flying Machine . . . ," San Francisco Chronicle,

November 19, 1896, p. 5; "The New Air Ship," The Mail (Los Gatos, Calif.),
November 26,1896, p. 1.

17. "Airships Over Oakland Grouped in Flocks in the Sky," San Francisco
Examiner, November 26, 1896, p. 10.

18. "The Scarecrow Fly-by-Night," San Francisco Examiner, November 26,
1896, p. 10.

19. "Singular Phenomenon," Western Watchman (Eureka, Calif.),

November 21, 1896, p. 3; "That Mysterious March," Western Watchman,
November 28, 1896, p. 3.

20. "Sailed High Overhead," The Call (San Francisco), November 22, 1896,
p. 13.
 21. "That Airship Again," The Call (San Francisco), November 21, 1896, p.
3.

22. "Saw the Mystic Flying Light," The Call (San Francisco), November
22, 1896, p. 13.

23. "Have We Got 'Em Again," Sacramento Evening Bee, November

23,1896, p. 1.

24. "A Singular Phenomenon. Was It an Airship?" Red Bluff Daily People's
Cause, November 24, 1896.

25. "The Airship Again," Riverside Daily Press, December 10, 1896, p. 5.

26. "A Strange Phantom," Weekly Antioch Ledger, November 28,1896, p.

3.

27. "Seen Again. Many People of Chico Gaze at the Supposed Airship,"
Morning Chronicle-Record (Chico, Calif.), November 25, 1896, p. 3.

28. "The Air Ship," Weekly Visalia Delta, November 26, 1896, p. 2.

29. "Seen at Hanford," Weekly Visalia Delta, November 26, 1896, p. 2;

"The Air Ship. The Vessel Seen Again... ," Weekly Visalia Delta, December 3,
1896, p. 1.

30. "Was It an AirShip?" Ferndale Semi-Weekly Enterprise, December 1,

1896, p. 5.

31. "The Air Ship," Riverside Daily Press, December 2, 1896, p. 5.

32. "Observations," Daily Colusa, December 1, 1896, p. 2.

33. "County News," Daily Colusa, December 3, 1896, p. 3.

34. "Our Neighbors," Weekly Visalia Delta, December 3, 1896, p. 3; "The

Air Ship at Tulare," Tulare County Times (Visalia, Calif.), December 3, 1896, p.
4.

35. Merced Express, December 4, 1896, p. 3.

 36. Fresno County Enterprise (Selma, Calif.), November 27, 1896, p. 4.

37. "Pennington Points," Sutter County Farmer (Yuba City, Calif.),

December 4, 1896, p. 6.

38. McMinnville Telephone-Register (Ore.), November 26, 1896, p. 3.

39. "The Tourist of the Air," Tacoma News (Wash.), November 28, 1896,
p. 4; "Beats the Airship," Tacoma News (Wash.), November 30, 1896, p. 2.

40. "The Airship of Winnemucca," Carson City Morning Appeal,
November 26, 1896, p. 3; "The Airship," Reno Evening Gazette, December 3,
1896, p. 1; "The Airship Again," Reno Evening Gazette, December 5, 1896, p. 3;
"That Airship," Carson City Morning Appeal, December 6, 1896, p. 2; "Airship
Burned," Carson City Morning Appeal, December 9, 1896, p. 3; "Airship
Yarns," Territorial Enterprise (Virginia, Nev.), December 12, 1896, p. 2; "What
Could It Have Been?" Central Nevadan, December 10, 1896, p. 3; "The Air
Ship. It Reached Carson Saturday Night," Carson Weekly, December 7, 1896, p.
6.

41. "Local Briefs," Arizona Gazette (Phoenix, Ariz.), December 4,1896, p.

8.

42. "Others Who Saw It" (letter), The Call (San Francisco), November 23,
1896.

43. "Three Strange Visitors. Who Possibly Came from the Planet Mars,"
Evening Mail (Stockton, Calif.), November 27, 1896, p. 1.

44. "Piercing the Void, or on to Honolulu," San Francisco Examiner,

December 2, 1896; "How About This. A San Josean Declares That He Traveled
on the Ship," Oakland Tribune, December 1, 1896, p. 1; "We Are in It," San
Luis Obispo Tribune, December 11, 1896, p. 1; San Jose Daily Mercury,
December 1, 1896, p. 8.

45. Marysville Daily Appeal, December 2, 1896, p. 3.

46. "The Airship Described by Fishermen," The Call (San Francisco),

December 3, 1896, p. 1.
 47. "Strange and Circumstantial Story of a Sailor Passenger," The Call (San
Francisco), December 5, 1896, p. 2.

48. "San Diego to Heaven," San Diego Union, December 10, 1896, p. 5.

49. R. Hiebert, T. Bohn, and D. Ungurait, Mass Media III (New York:
Longman, 1982).

50. "The Airship Nuisance," San Francisco Examiner, December 5, 1896, p.

6.

51. "A Necessity," San Luis Obispo Tribune, December 18, 1896, p. 3;
"California's Fake," Dalles Times Mountaineer (Ore.), November 28, 1896, p. 2;
"A Journalistic Failure," San Francisco Examiner, December 6,1896, p. 6;
"Coincidents," Roseburg Plaindealer (Ore.), November 30, 1896, p. 6; Merced
Express (Merced, Calif.), December 4, 1896, p. 3; "Credit Where It Is Due," San
Francisco Chronicle, December 5, 1896, p. 6; "The Airship," Spokane
Spokesman-Review (Wash.), April 17, 1897, p. 4; "The Airship Fake," Daily
News (Lincoln, Nebr.), April 22, 1897, p. 4; Daily Free Press (Streator, Ill.),
April 22, 1897, p. 2.

52. "The Liar of the Faker," Portland Oregonian, November 29, 1896, p. 4.

53. See, for example, Nevada State Journal (Reno), December 5, 1896, p. 3.

54. "A Winged Ship in the Sky," The Call (San Francisco), November 23,
1896, p. 1.

55. "Stories of the Airship.... Believe that Clinton A. Case Has Carried Out
His Ideas to a Successful Conclusion," Omaha World-Herald, April 25, 1897, p.
12; "Says He Sailed the Airship," Chicago Record, April 24, 1897, p. 2.

56. Omaha Globe-Democrat, April 10, 1897.

57. "Local News Items," Darby Sentinel (Mont.), May 11, 1897, p. 1.

58. "Is It Solved?" Salem Daily Herald (Ohio), May 8, 1897, p. 2.

59. "An Air Ship Located. G. D. Schultz has one locked up in his barn,"
Kansas City Times, April 3, 1897, p. 1.

60. "An AirShip Inventor," Weekly Visalia Delta (Calif.), December 10,
1896, p. 4; "An Inventor. Dr. E. H. Benjamin of San Francisco in Visalis,"
Tulare County Times (Visalis, Calif.), December 10, 1896, p. 4; "Aerial
Navigation," Woodland California Daily Democrat, November 23, 1896, p. 3.

61. San Francisco Chronicle, November 23, 1896, p. 12.

62. See, for example: "It Was Seen Here," Calaveras Prospect (San
Andreas, Calif.), November 21, 1896, p. 3; "Lights Aloft," Oakland Times,
November 25, 1896, p. 3; "Was It an Airship?" Woodland Daily Democrat,
November 24, 1896, p. 3; "People in Winnemucca Saw the Airship One Day
Before Sacramentans," Silver State (Winnemucca, Nev.), November 23,1896, p.
3; "Sighted Triple Lights," The Call (San Francisco), November 25, 1896, p. 1.

63. "Saw the Mystic Flying Light," The Call (San Francisco), November
22, 1896.

64. Fire balloons were popular during this period and were typically sold at
shops selling pyrotechnics. They consisted of paper balloons with candles
attached near the mouth and were made buoyant by the generation of heat.

65. San Francisco Examiner, November 24, 1896.

66. Perhaps the most extreme position is that of mass behavior as

pathological. A classic textbook in the field of collective behavior by Kurt and
Gladys Lang, Collective Dynamics (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1961),
views collective behavior psychopathologically, stating: "This view that the
'crowd' brings pathological elements to the fore is more than an ideological
assumption ... especially considering that large unities often act irrationally and
under the impact of emotion." The most influential and comprehensive modern
collective behavior paradigm remains Neil J. Smelser's Theory of Collective
Behavior (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: PrenticeHall, 1962). In it he views mass
phenomena, including sightings of phantom airships and flying saucers, as
"hysterical" and irrational.

67. Gustave LeBon, Psychologie des Foules, 2d ed. (Paris: Felix Alcan,
1896). LeBon likened "emotional contagion" to a form of shared madness,
believing that ideas, emotions and beliefs infect crowds in a contagious manner
"as intense as that of microbes.... Cerebral disorders, like madness, are
contagious.... One knows how frequent madness is among doctors for the
insane" (pp. 113-14).

68. From the Latin, literally meaning "trembling delirium," the term refers
to a violent form of delirium that is characterized by muscular tremors,
frightening hallucinations, and restlessness. This condition is typically triggered
by excessive, prolonged consumption of alcoholic substances.

69. "Bad Case of 'Em at Hastings," Beatrice Weekly Express (Nebr.),

February 11, 1897, p. 4.

70. "The AirShip," Nevada Morning Appeal, December 10, 1896, p. 3.

71. "Experts on the Airship," Omaha World-Herald (Nebr.), March 2, 1897,

p. 6.

72. "Topeka's Vision," St. Joseph Daily Herald (Mo.), March 30, 1897, p. 4.

73. "Tales of the Town," Kearney Hub, April 14, 1897, p. 2. This verse read
in part: "There are airships in the sky, Rock and rye. Don't you see them as they
fly, Rock and rye.... If you don't believe it try, Rock and rye.

74. "Milwaukee's Flying Machine," Chicago Tribune, December 7, 1896, p.

4.

75. Ibid.

76. "Says He Saw the Airship. Lake Mills Man Describes the Aerial
Conveyance," Milwaukee Sentinel, April 11, 1897, p. 11.

77. "Saw the Airship. Lake Mills People Watched It Ten Minutes,"
Wisconsin State Journal (Madison), April 10, 1897, p. 1.

78. "Airship Comes North. Or Else the Citizens of Wausau Have Been
Imbibing in Strong Drinks," Milwaukee Journal, April 9, 1897, p. 2.

79. Evening News (Kenosha, Wis.), April 10, 1897, p. 3.

 80. "Seen in Oshkosh," Oshkosh Daily Northwestern, April 10, 1897, p.1.

81. "They Saw the Airship.... Eminent Green Bay Citizens Willing to Make
Oath," Milwaukee Sentinel, April 11, 1897, p. 1.

82. "The Following Dispatch Was Received by The Sentinel from

Marshfield," Milwaukee Sentinel, April 11, 1897, p. 1.

83. "Here is the report from Green Bay," Milwaukee Sentinel, April 11,
1897, p. 1.

84. "Look for Airships. And Green Bay Always Gets What She Wants,"
Green Bay Gazette, April 12, 1897, pp. 1 and 5; "Secret of an Airship. It Was a
Big Hot Air Balloon That Deceived All Green Bay," Milwaukee Journal, April
12, 1897, p. 2.

85. "The Fiery Airship. Fond du Lacers Have Visions of the

'Airship,"Daily Commonwealth (Fond du Lac, Wis.), April 12, 1897, p. 3.

86. Ibid.

87. "Claims He Saw It," Racine Daily Journal, April 10, 1897, p. 5.

88. "Appleton Saw Only a Star," Milwaukee Journal, April 12, 1897, p.
2.

89. Evening News (Kenosha, Wis.), April 12,1897, p. 3.

90. Evening News (Kenosha, Wis.), April 13, 1897, p. 3.

91. "Identity of 'Airship,' " Milwaukee Sentinel, April 13, 1897.

92. "Airship Is Seen Again," Milwaukee Sentinel, April 12, 1897, p. 1.

93. "City Affairs," Daily Register (Portage, Wis.), April 14, 1897, p. 6.

94. "They Saw the Air Ship," Racine Daily Journal, April 15, 1897, p. 1.

95. "Saw the 'Air Ship,' " Beloit Weekly Free Press, April 22,1897, p. 3.

96. Wisconsin State Journal, April 13, 1897, p. 2.

 96. Wisconsin State Journal, April 13, 1897, p. 2.

97. Wisconsin State Journal, April 15, 1897, p. 2.

98. "The Airship Mystery," Evening Wisconsin (Milwaukee), April 12,

1897, p. 4.

99. Racine Daily Journal, April 12, 1897, p. 2.

100. "Keeps on Sailing," Racine Daily Journal, April 12, 1897, p. 2.

101. "A Thrilling Story," Minneapolis Tribune, April 13, 1897, p. 1.

102. "Proof Beyond Controversy," The Times (London, Ohio), April 29,
1897, p. 1, citing the Inter Ocean (Chicago), April 26, 1897.

103. "The Great Air Ship. The Imagination of Some People Is

Remarkable," Racine Daily Journal, April 16, 1897, p. 1.

104. "Strange Aerial Craft," Saginaw Courier-Herald, April 11, 1897, p. 4.

105. "Wolverine Tidbits," Detroit Free Press, March 24, 1897, p. 4.

106. "Weird Lights. Seen in Two Little Lakes in Ogemaw County," Detroit
Evening News, March 29, 1897, p. 4.

107. "Caseville Has a Mystery. Strange Light Moves at Night in the Bay ...
," Saginaw Globe, March 30, 1897, p. 1.

108. "State Notes," Detroit Free Press, April 9, 1897, p. 3.

109. "Mysterious Airship," Saginaw Courier-Mail, April 14, 1897, p. 3.

110. "Airship Seen Here. It Was Moving in a Northwesterly Direction . . . ,"

Benton Harbor Evening News, April 12, 1897, p. 1.

111. "It Bore Colored Lights. Benton Harbor People Claim They Saw the
Airship," Detroit Free Press, April 14, 1897, p. 3.

112. "Is Seen at Holland," Benton Harbor Evening News, April 12, 1897, p.
1; Grand Haven Daily Tribune, April 12, 1897, p. 1.

113. "Queer Object. Seen in the Skies Last Evening-Might Have Been
Airship," Niles Daily Star, April 12, 1897, p. 2.

114. "All Sorts," Evening News (Detroit), April 15, 1897, p. 4.

115. "The Air Ship. It Was Seen to Pass Over Battle Creek Last Night,"
Battle Creek Daily Moon, April 13,1897, p. 4; "The Airship with Us. It Was
Seen by Responsible Citizens in a Number of Cities...," Saginaw Evening News,
April 13, 1897, p. 2.

116. Ibid., p. 4.

117. "High in the Air. Airship Taking Spin over Michigan. If the Testimony
of Sober Men Is Accepted," Evening News (Detroit), April 13,1897, p. 4.

118. "Shower of Sparks. Marks the Air Ship's Path in Michigan ... ," Grand
Rapids Evening Press, April 13, 1897, p. 3.

119. "Air Ship or Not," Kalamazoo Gazette, April 14, 1897, p. 4;

"Shakespheare Saw It. The Kalamazoo Editor Gives His Version of the Air
Ship," Saginaw Evening News, April 16, 1897, p. 1.

120. "Went to Smash. Airship Said to Be Scattered Over Kalamazoo

County," Evening News (Detroit), April 13, 1897, p. 4.

121. "Not an Air Ship. Just a Reflection in the Sky of the Light from a
Burning Barn," Kalamazoo Gazette, April 14, 1897, p. 1.

122. "Airship Again. Broken Wheel Dug up Near Battle Creek," Evening
News (Detroit), April 15, 1897, p. 4; "That Airship. Well-to-Do Battle Creek
Farmer Claims to Have Found a Wheel from the Mysterious Craft," Saginaw
Courier-Herald, April 16, 1897, p. 1.

123. "Dropped from the Clouds. A Message from the Airship Picked Up on
Maple Street," Battle Creek Daily Moon, April 16, 1897, p. 5; "Letter from
Airship. Received by a paper in Battle Creek," Evening News (Detroit), April
16, 1897, p. 4.
 124. "Trip of the Airship . . . ," Saginaw Courier-Herald, April 17, 1897, p.
5.

125. "Seems to be Catching. Stories Told about an Airship in Michigan,"

Detroit Free Press, April 17, 1897, p. 3.

126. State Republican (Lansing, Mich.), April 17, 1897, p. 1.

127. Ibid.

128. "Trip of the Airship.... Seen at Different Points Throughout the State
as Well as in Other Parts of the Country," Saginaw Courier-Herald, April 17,
1897, p. 5.

129. "That Air Ship. The CigarShaped Body Gives Us a Call," Manistee
Daily News, April 17, 1897, p. 5; "Was It an Air Ship?" Manistee Daily
Advocate, April 20, 1897, p. 1.

130. "People Who Saw It. Three Citizens of Saginaw Claim to Have Been
Favored," Saginaw Evening News, April 17, 1897, p. 7; "That Airship Again ...
," Saginaw Courier-Herald, April 21, 1897, p. 5.

131. "Are Adrift in the Air-," Flint Daily News, April 19,1897, p. 3.

132. "Michigan News. Some Citizens of Three Rivers Are Positive the
Airship Passed Over that Place Saturday Night," Saginaw Globe, April 19, 1897,
p. 2.

133. "Beats Any Fish Story . . . ," Detroit Free Press, April 20, 1897, p. 3.

134. "That Rapid Airship. Now the Citizens of Grant, Newaygo County,
Claim to Have Spied It," Muskegon Daily Chronicle, April 20,1897, p. 2.

135. "Air Ship Passed Over . . . ," Daily Mining Journal (Marquette), April
23, 1897, p. 8; "Out in Broad Daylight ... ," Flint Daily News, April 24, 1897, p.
3.

136. Daily Chronicle (Marshall), April 27, 1897, p. 3.

137. "The Airship at Geneseeville," Flint Daily News, April 28, 1897, p. 2.
 138. "Airship Seen at Sidnaw," Daily Mining Journal (Marquette), April
28,1897, p. 8.

139. "Fragments of Flint," Flint Daily News, May 1, 1897, p. 3.

140. "The Airship in Flint," Flint Daily News, May 11, 1897, p. 3.

141. "Saw the Airship. Bock Beer Season Has Opened ... ," Evening News
(Detroit), April 18, 1897, p. 9.

142. Ibid., p. 2.

143. "Around the State," Muskegon Daily Chronicle, April 14, 1897.

144. Saginaw Globe, April 26, 1897, p. 2.

145. Detroit Free Press, May 3, 1897, p. 4.

146. Kalamazoo Gazette, April 23, 1897, p. 4.

147. "Stories of the State," Evening Press (Grand Rapids, Mich.), April 23,
1897, p. 3.

148. "Moving Lights in the Sky," Indianapolis Journal, April 11, 1897, p. 6;
Hoosier State (Newport, Mich.), April 14, 1897, p. 4.

149. "Mysterious Air Ship," Indianapolis Journal, April 15, 1897, p. 4.

150. Ibid.

151. "Lowell Items," Lake County Star (Crown Point, Ind.), April 16, 1897,
p. 2.

152. "Misled by a Meteor," Indianapolis News, April 12, 1897, p. 9.

153. "Passed Over New Carlisle," Indianapolis News, April 12,1897, p. 9;
"Where It Has Been," Indianapolis Journal, April 15, 1897, p. 4.

154. "Saw It at New Carlisle," South-Bend Daily Tribune, April 12, 1897,
p. 1.
 155. "Headed Northwest," Indianapolis News, April 12, 1897, p. 9; South-
Bend Daily Tribune, April 13, 1897, p. 1.

156. "The Airship.... Several Towns and Villages Claim to Have Witnessed
Its Flight," Indianapolis News, April 12, 1897, p. 9.

157. "Saw the Airship at Elkhart," Indianapolis Journal, April 13, 1897, p.
2.

158. Magic lanterns were a crude precursor of the modern slide projector.

159. "Mysterious Airship," Logansport Daily Reporter, April 12, 1897.

160. "Saw an Air Ship. Residents of South 10th Street Think They Have
Seen the Electric Air Ship," Terre Haute Evening Gazette, April 13, 1897, p. 2.

161. "Danville Has 'Em," Daily Banner Times (Greencastle), April 15,
1897, p. 1; "Merry Party on the Ship," Indianapolis Journal, April 15, 1897, p.4.

162. "That 'Airship' Again," Michigan City Dispatch, April 15, 1897, p. 8;
"Chesterton Chips," Westchester Tribune, April 17, 1897, p. 4.

163. "Air Ship Passes Over Brook," Brook Reporter, April 16, 1897, p.1.

164. "Landed at Gas City," Indianapolis Sentinel, April 15, 1897, p. 6; "No
Affidavit to This. The Mysterious Air Ship Alleged to Have Rested in a Field,"
Indianapolis Journal, April 15, 1897, p. 4; "Airship Comes to Earth," Logansport
Daily Reporter, April 16, 1897, p. 4; "Indiana News . . . ," Marion Daily Leader,
April 15, 1897, p. 1.

165. "The Mysterious Air Ship," Kokomo Daily Tribune, April 16,1897, p.
5.

166. "Valparaiso Sees the Ship," Indianapolis Journal, April 15, 1897, p. 4.

167. "Passed over Princeton," Indianapolis Sentinel, April 15, 1897, p. 6.

168. "That Mysterious Airship," Indianapolis Sentinel, April 15, 1897, p. 6.

169. "Saw the Air Ship," Terre Haute Evening Gazette, April 15, 1897, p. 5.
 170. "Sighted Here," Fort Wayne Weekly Gazette, April 15, 1897, p.1.

171. "The Ship," Martinsville Republican, April 15,1897, p. 6; "Airship Is

in Brown. It Is Waiting on Weed Patch Hill for Repairs," Columbus Evening
Republican, April 21, 1897, p. 1; "The Airship Located. It Is on Weed Patch
Hill...," Martinsville Republican, April 22, 1897, p. 6.

172. "Albany Gets a Sight of the Ship," Indianapolis journal, April 17,
1897, p. 1.

173. "Message from the Airship. Note Tied to a Screw Found...

Indianapolis Sentinel, April 17, 1897, p. 6.

174. "That Air Ship," Daily Banner-Times (Greencastle), April 17, 1897, p.
1; "They Saw a 'Strange Body,' " Indianapolis Journal, April 17, 1897, p. 1.

175. "The Airship Fake. Muncie People Duped by a Quartet of Balloons,"

Indianapolis Sentinel, April 19, 1897, p. 6.

176. "Two Men in the Ship ... Spiritualists Make a Discovery," Fort Wayne
Weekly Gazette, April 22, 1897, p. 12.

177. "The Air Ship in Greenfield," Hancock Democrat, April 29, 1897, p. 1.

178. "Saw the Airship ... ," Indianapolis Journal, April 13, 1897, p. 2.

179. "Danville Has 'Em," Daily Banner-Times (Greencastle), April 15,

1897, p. 1.

180. Indianapolis News, April 13, 1897, p. 4.

181. "That Air Ship," Daily Banner Times (Greencastle), April 14,1897, p.
1.

182. Lebanon Patriot, April 15, 1897, p. 8.

183. "Anent the Airship," Evening Republican (Columbus), April 15, 1897,
p. 2.

184. "Wawaka News Nuggets," Ligonier Banner, April 22, 1897, p. 1.

 185. See Monticello Herald, May 6, 1897, p. 1; "Richmond Sees the Air
Ship," Hartford City Telegram, May 5, 1897, p. 2; "The Air Ship Is Found,"
Daily Banner Times (Greencastle), April 20, 1897, p. 4.

186. Indianapolis Journal, May 9, 1897, p. 2.

187. Indianapolis Sentinel, April 19, 1897, p. 6.

188. "Brevities of Local Interest," Angola Herald (Steuben City), April 21,
1897, p. 5.

189. "Lake Station," Hobart Gazette, April 30, 1897, p. 8.

190. Rensselaer Republican, April 22, 1897, p. 1.

191. "That Air Ship," Mitchell Commercial (Lawrence City), April 22,
1897, p. 1.

192. "The Greensburg Liar Loose Again," Greensburg Review, April 17,
1897, p. 1.

193. Ibid.

194. "Landed at Monon," Indianapolis Sentinel, April 17, 1897, p. 6.

195. Monitor (Upland), April 22, 1897, p. 1.

196. "Mysterious AirShip," Rushville Republican, April 20, 1897, p. 3.

197. The Times (London, Ohio), April 29, 1897, p. 1, citing the Inter Ocean
(Chicago), April 26, 1897.

198. "Local News," Hamilton County Ledger (Noblesville), April 23, 1897,
p. 8.

199. "Very Hard to Believe," Indianapolis Sentinel, April 21, 1897, p. 6.

200. "Saw the Air Ship," Terre Haute Evening Gazette, April 22, 1897, p. 4.

201. "The Mysterious Air Ship," Kokomo Daily Tribune, April 23, 1897, p.
4; "On Their Oaths," Kokomo Dispatch, April 23,1897, p. 4.

202. "Saw the Airship," Logansport Daily Register, April 23, 1897.

203. "Right in the Swim," Cannelton Inquirer, April 24,1897, p. 1; "An Odd
Light Seen ... Was It the Air Ship?" Davies County Democrat (Wash.), April 24,
1897, p. 2.

204. "Did They See It?" Logansport Daily Reporter, April 26, 1897, p. 5;
"The Air Ship in Greenfield," Hancock Democrat, April 29, 1897, p. 1.

205. "Looked Like a Kite," Logansport Daily Reporter, April 27, 1897, p. 3.

206. "Saw the Airship," Auburn Courier, April 29, 1897, p. 1.

207. "Sure It Was the Air Ship," Indianapolis Journal, May 9,1897, p. 2.

208. "The Wonder Grows," Minneapolis Tribune, April 9, 1897, p. 1.

209. "License Fluid. What Is This That Enabled Them to See the Air Ship?"
St. Paul Pioneer Press, April 10, 1897, p. 2.

210. "The Wonder ... ," Minneapolis Tribune, April 9, 1897, p. 1.

211. "Genuine! The Mysterious Airship Hovers about Minneapolis,"

Minneapolis Tribune, April 11, 1897, p. 1.

212. "That Airship Again Seen by Albert Lea Citizens," St. Paul Pioneer
Press, April 12, 1897, p. 4.

213. "Special Telegram to the Tribune," Minneapolis Tribune, April 11,

1897, p. 1.

214. "Navigator of the Air Ship," St. Paul Pioneer Press, April 12, 1897, p.
4.

215. "Mysterious Airship seen by Stuart Mackroth," Minneapolis Tribune,

April 13, 1897, p. 1.

216. "Anoka See the Airship," St. Paul Dispatch, April 12, 1897, p. 4.
 217. "That Air Ship," Minneapolis Tribune, April 12, 1897, p. 4.

218. "Whole Fleet of Airships. Witnessed by Duluthians," St. Paul Pioneer

Press, April 13, 1897, p. 2; "See the Air Ship," Duluth News-Tribune, April 17,
1897, p. 6.

219. "More of 'Em," St. Paul Pioneer-Press, April 15, 1897.

220. St. Paul Pioneer-Press, April 14, 1897, p. 2.

221. "Mystery of the Airship Yet to Be Solved," Minneapolis Tribune,

April 14, 1897, p. 5.

222. "Schweitzer Saw It. Latest Testimony Respecting the Airship," St.
Paul Dispatch, April 14, 1897, p. 4.

223. Ibid.

224. Ibid.

225. Minneapolis Tribune, April 12, 1897, p. 4.

226. "It Was ... Scott's ... Airship," St. Paul Dispatch, April 20, 1897, p. 4.

227. "The Airship Visits Portions of Minnesota Yesterday and Created

Unusual Sensation," Minneapolis Tribune, April 16, 1897, p. 5.

228. "Party of Morganfield People Anxious to See the Airship," Louisville

Evening Post, April 13, 1897, p. 3.

229. "The AirShip in Kentucky," Louisville Courier-journal, April 15,

1897, p. 5.

230. Ibid.

231. "Airship Passed in the Night," Louisville Evening Post, April 13,
1897, p. 6.

232. Ibid.
 233. "Airship. Mayor and Reputable Citizens of Russellville Saw It Last
Night," Louisville Evening Post, April 16, 1897, p. 5. Also see: Owensboro
Daily Inquirer, April 16, 1897, p. 1.

234. "Todd People Saw It," Louisville Evening Post, April 16, 1897, p. 5.

235. "Seen in Clarksville," Louisville Evening Post, April 16,1897, p. 5.

236. "Seen in Christian County," Louisville Evening Post, April 16, 1897,
p. 5.

237. "Nashville's Centennial Managers Say It Will Be Exhibited There,"

Louisville Evening Post, April 16, 1897, p. 2.

238. The Cairo Bulletin, April 17, 1897.

239. "Must Have Been Hitting the Pipe," Louisville Times, April 19, 1897,
p. 2.

240. "The Airship Seen by Bowling Green People Last Night," Louisville
Evening Post, April 19, 1897, p. 3.

241. "Flitted By," Louisville Evening Post, April 21, 1897, p. 2;

"Madisonville's Got 'Em Now," Louisville Courier-Journal, April 22, 1897, p. 4.

242. "Omnipresent. That Airship Is Everywhere ... ," Louisville Evening

Post, April 23, 1897, p. 3.

243. Louisville Evening Post, April 20, 1897, p. 8.

244. Owensville Messenger, April 27, 1897, p. 5.

245. "Pillar of Fire. Strange Light Seen in the Northern Heavens,"

Louisville Courier-Journal, April 22, 1897, p. 9.

246. "Seeing the Airship," Owensville Messenger, April 24, 1897, p. 4.

247. "Aerial Flyer. Seen by Reputable Citizens of Lewisburg Last Night,"

Louisville Evening Post, April 24, 1897, p. 2.
 248. "Saw the Airship," Owensboro Daily Inquirer, April 25, 1897, p. 1.

249. Another Press Account Gives His Address as 1227 13th Street.

250. "Saw the Air Ship," Louisville Courier-journal, April 25,1897, sec.
2,p.6.

251. Ibid.

252. "They Saw It," Louisville Evening Post, April 26, 1897, p. 2.

253. "Saw the Airship," Daily Leaf-Chronicle, May 1, 1897, p. 2, quoting

verbatim from the Todd County Times, April 30,1897.

254. Cincinnati Enquirer, April 19, 1897, p. 5.

255. "Made of Thin Air," Daily News, April 19, 1897, p. 2. For similar
descriptions, see "News via Airship. A Heavenly Lightning Bug ... ," Paducah
Daily News, April 23, 1897, p. 3.

256. Mayfield Mirror, April 16, 1897.

257. "Madisonville's Got 'Em Now," Louisville Courier-Journal, April 22,

1897, p. 4.

258. "That Air Ship," Louisville Courier Journal, April 30, 1897, p. 5.

259. "Dropped from the Airship as It Passes over Corbin," Louisville

Evening Post, April 27, 1897, p. 5; "Letter. From the Navigator in the Air Ship,"
Louisville Courier-journal, May 1, 1897, p. 9.

260. "Saw the Airship. A Middlesborough Man Willing to Make an

Affidavit," Louisville Courier-Journal, May 2, 1897, section I, p. 10.

261. E. M. Borchard, Convicting the Innocent: Errors of Criminal Justice

(New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1932); E. Loftus, Eyewitness
Testimony (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1979); R. Buckhout,
"Nearly 2000 Witnesses Can Be Wrong," Bulletin of the Psychonomic Society
16 (1980): 307-10; G. Wells and J. Turtle, "Eyewitness Identification: The
Importance of Lineup Models," Psychological Bulletin 99 (1986): 320-29; D. F.
Ross, J. D. Read, and M. P. Toglia, Adult Eyewitness Testimony: Current
Trends and Developments (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994).

262. E. U. Condon and D. S. Gillmor, eds., Scientific Study of Unidentified

Flying Objects (New York: Bantam, 1969); W. R. Corliss, ed., Handbook of
Unusual Natural Phenomena (Glen Arm, Md.: The Sourcebook Pro ject, 1977);
W. R. Corliss, ed., Mysterious Universe: A Handbook of Astronomical
Anomalies (Glen Arm, Md.: The Sourcebook Project, 1979).

263. R. Buckhout, "Eyewitness Testimony," Scientific American 231
(1974): 23-31.

264. P. Klass, UFOs-Explained (New York: Random House, 1976), pp. 14-
15.

265. Bullard, Mysteries in the Eye of the Beholder, pp. 10-11.

266. S. E. Asch, "Studies of Independence and Conformity: A Minority of

One Against a Unanimous Majority," Psychological Monographs, 70 (1956); D.
Krech, R. S. Crutchfield, and E. L. Ballschey, Individual and Society (New
York: McGraw-Hill, 1962).

267. R. Turner, and L. Killian, Collective Behavior (Englewood Cliffs,

N.J.: PrenticeHall, 1972), p. 35.

268. M. Sherif and O. J. Harvey, "A Study in Ego Functioning: Elimination

of Stable Anchorages in Individual and Group Situations," Sociometry 15
(1952): 272-305.

269. M. Sherif, The Psychology of Social Norms (New York: Harper and
Row, 1936).

270. R. Beeson, "The Improbable Primate and the Modern Myth," in G.

Krantz and R. Sprague, eds., The Scientist Looks at the Sasquatch II. (Moscow,
Idaho: University Press of Idaho, 1979), p. 180.

271. C. M. Massad, M. Hubbard, and D. Newston, "Selective Perception of

Events," Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 15 (1979): 513-32.
 272. For examples of "encounters" see: "The Airship," Morning Appeal
(Carson City, Nev.), December 10, 1896, p. 3; "Joe Saw It," Waterloo Daily
Courier (Iowa), April 10, 1897; "That Blooming Ship," Daily Republic
(Rockford, Ill.), April 12, 1897, p. 1; "Rode in a Flying Machine," Pittsburgh
Dispatch, April 12, 1897, p. 2; "The Aerial Mystery," Daily Pantagraph (Ill.),
April 17, 1897, p. 5; "A Visit of the Airship," Quincy Daily Herald (Ill.), April
13, 1897, p. 3; "Mystery Solved," Springfield News (Ill.), April 15, 1897, p. 1;
"Airship Story," Decatur Evening Republican (111.), April 15, 1897, p. 8; "The
Airship," Daily Picayune (La.), April 25,1897, p. 7; "Oft-Seen AirShip," Fort
Worth Register (Tex.), April 18, 1897, p. 11; "Trip of the Airship," Saginaw
Courier-Herald, (Mich.), April 17, 1897, p. 5; "Was Plainly Seen," Cincinnati
Commercial Tribune, April 18, 1897, p. 20; "Air Ship in Bryan," Bryan Texas
Daily Eagle, April 20, 1897, p. 4; "Inspected the Air Ship," Houston Daily Post,
April 21,1897, p. 2; "Saw the Air Ship," Arkansas Gazette, April 22, 1897, p. 3;
"The Work of the Air Ship," West Virginia Daily Oil News (Sisterville), April
21, 1897, p. 2; "The Airship Located," Martinsville Republican (Ind.), April 22,
1897, p. 6; "The Airship in west Texas," Galveston Daily News, April 24, 1897,
p. 3; "The AirShip," Fort Worth Register, April 24, 1897, p. 5; "Supplies for
Airship," Houston Post, April 25, 1897, p. 13; "Aeribarkque," Cincinnati
Enquirer, April 25,1897, p. 9; "Loveland Is Way Ahead," Loveland Reporter,
April 29, 1897, p. 4; Avalanche (Glenwood Springs, Colo.), May 4, 1897, p. 1.

273. "Airship at Chillicothe," Trenton Morning Tribune, April 16, 1897, p.
3.

274. Warren Sentinel (Ill.), April 21, 1897.

275. "Sees Man Fishing from Air Ship," Chicago Tribune, April 16, 1897,
p. 4.

276. "Air Ship Steals a Calf," Kansas City Times, April 27, 1897, p. 1.

277. "That Airship. Farmer Near Josserand Conversed with the Crew,"
Houston Post, April 26, 1897, p. 2.

278. See, for instance: "Three Strange Visitors," Evening Mail (Stockton,
Calif.), November 27, 1896, p. 1; St. Louis Globe-Democrat, April 12, 1897, p.
12; "Startling!" Bellefontaine Republican (Ohio), May 14,1897, p. 1.
 279. "The Worst Yet," Parsons Advocate (W. Va.), April 23, 1897, p. 2.

280. "Golden Haired Girl Is in It. The Airship Discovered . . . ," St. Louis
PostDispatch, April 19, 1897, p. 1.

281. Dallas Morning News, April 19, 1897, p. 5.

282. Minneapolis Journal, April 9, 1897, p. 2.

283. Cincinnati Enquirer, April 25, 1897, p. 9.

284. Cubans staged several revolts during the nineteenth century, and
although there was much discussion of annexing Cuba as a state, the U.S.
government declined to intervene. American sympathies strongly sided with the
Cubans, as many Cuban-Americans solicited funds for arms and food shipments.
Sensational newspaper stories depicting Spanish atrocities against Cubans
further crystallized American sentiments.

285. Harrisburg Modern News, April 23, 1897, p. 2.

286. "Time for a Rest," San Francisco Examiner, November 26, 1896, p. 6.

 Tain't what a man don't know that hurts him; it's what he knows that
just ain't so!

-Frank McKinney Hubbard

n the waning months of the airship wave, another remarkable social

delusion occurred in America. In 1885 Thomas Edison had conducted a series of
experiments involving wireless telegraphy between two balloons near his
laboratory in his hometown of Menlo Park, New Jersey. Achieving better results
at night, he began sending balloons aloft with lights attached. As a result of press
publicity surrounding these balloon experiments, sporadic rumors and sightings
of the "Edison Star" were reported for years afterward.' An intense spate of
sightings occurred between late March and mid-April of 1897, when this
remarkable social delusion arose at numerous locations across the United States,
tens of thousands of citizens reporting seeing what they assumed to be a giant
imaginary arc lamp suspended in the sky.

During 1897, amid rumors that Edison was conducting "electric balloon"
experiments with lamps of phenomenal candle power along with powerful
reflectors to determine how far the light could be seen, the unusual series of
reports began. On Tuesday evening, March 29, a large crowd gathered in the city
of Iron Mountain, Michigan, as rumors spread that a conspicuous object in the
evening sky "was an electric light hoisted two miles high over St. Paul" in the
adjacent state of Minnesota. One man claimed that it consisted of a storage
battery attached to a tethered balloon.2 A story circulated that the light was sent
up at about 5 P.M., was visible across the entire United States, and was taken
down midevening. Correspondingly, many residents claimed that they could see
the balloon being slowly reeled in toward the ground at about 9 P.M.3 The
following night in Portland, Maine, a large number of people gathered at various
street corners and stared at Venus under the delusion that it was a "mammoth
electric searchlight suspended by a block and tackle."4 The "electric balloon"
was seen in the Portland vicinity for several days in early April, and one
newspaper noted that "Nine out of ten men and women who parade the streets
nowadays are excited over it."5 It was widely believed that they had observed an
electric light suspended atop New Hampshire's Mount Washington, and residents
in Dover and Foxcroft, Maine refused to accept that it was Venus.' In Bangor,
Maine, one man was emphatic that he could see "by the light of the balloon, a
faint outline of the frame which sustained the machinery." Meanwhile, a
sensation was created in Waterville and throughout the Kennebec valley in
Maine as the light was seen to suddenly move "as if it had been pulled down
with a rope."'

During early April, rumors of the electric balloon swept across America,
and it was even sighted for a week over Montreal, Canada.' One newspaper
editor remarked that "no blizzard ... ever swept over the country with greater
rapidity or more thoroughly."' The Augusta Chronicle editors commented on the
extent of the delusion: "[J]ust think of the people of New England, the cultured
east, in the state of Massachusetts where Boston is, taking the planet Venus for
an electric light swung in the sky by Mr. Edison."10 A Boston astronomer
remarked that he was unable to work as he was inundated with queries about
"Edison's experimental star."11 In Berrien Springs, Michigan, the "electric star"
was rumored to have been a monumental advertising ploy to promote a popular
brand of soap manufactured in Michigan City. In sup porting this story, one
press account stated that "we all now know that many things are possible to
electrical engineers."12

To understand the sightings, we need to examine their context in relation to
the events in America during the latter nineteenth century. It was the same
context that engendered the phantom airship sightings-only this time the image
had changed. The period between 1850 and 1897 was marked by unprecedented
technological changes," the most visible highlight of which was the installation
of electric lights that were dotting the countryside and quickly changing
lifestyles forever; a marvelous and practical example of the Enlightenment faith
in science and technology. The sightings were a symbolic projection of the
prevailing technological mania and seemingly limitless faith in science and
inventions that was sweeping America.

In his biography of Thomas Edison, Francis Jones commented that Edison

"often had a quiet chuckle" over the stories of his experimental light. Edison
"received many letters on the subject, but he never replied to them, hoping that
the absurd story would die a natural death," which it eventually did.14 A quasi-
religious mythos surrounded Edison, who was appropriately dubbed "the
Wizard." According to Edison biographer Matthew Josephson,

the rustic neighbors of Menlo Park and nearby Metuchen gossiped

about his having machines that could overhear farmers talking or even
cows munching the grass in the fields a mile away. It was said that he
had another machine which was supposed to measure the heat of the
stars; and that illuminations of meteoric brilliance were seen blazing
up through the windows of his laboratory and were extinguished as
suddenly and mysteriously as they had appeared. Catching glimpses of
figures gliding about the fields near his laboratory at midnight with
lights and equipment, bent on missions none of them could understand
.... 15

What can be learned from the episode of the "Edison Star" and other
attempts to superimpose magical qualities to his abilities and inventions? We
should be mindful that history repeats itself. During the late nineteenth century,
astronomer Percival Lowell, blinded by the hope of extraterrestrial life, was
certain that he could see through his telescope a complex system of Martian
made canals on the surface of Mars. As new inventors arrive on our modern
scene and new technologies are developed, it will be interesting to observe what
social delusions they will engender. During the past two centuries, the rise of
secularized governments and technological innovations has coincided with a
growing hope that science and technology will provide humanity with answers
to questions that have until recently been the exclusive domain of magic and
religion. As the world grows ever more technologically sophisticated, people
will increasingly turn to science for the answers to religious and philosophical
questions. In this regard it may be prudent to recall the words of the late
astronomer Carl Sagan: "Wherever we have strong emotions we are liable to fool
ourselves. "16

Notes

We acknowledge our indebtedness to Thomas E. Bullard, who provided the

press accounts about the "Edison Star," and who indicated specific references
about this social delusion, in biographies of Edison.

1. R. Conot, A Streak of Luck (New York: Seaview, 1979).

2. "There Is No String to It. Venus, the Evening Star ... ," Daily Tribune
(Iron Mountain, Mich.), March 30, 1897, p. 3.

3. Ibid.

4. "Venus Was Bright," Daily Eastern Argus, March 31, 1897, p. 3.

5. "See That Balloon? Everybody Is Staring at Venus and Venus Is

Fooling Everybody . . . ," Bangor Daily Commercial, April 3, 1897, p. 3.

6. "Dover and Foxcroft Locals," Bangor Daily Commercial, April 2,

1897, p. 7.

7. Ibid.

8. "Puzzled Over a Light. Citizens of Montreal See a Strange Star and

Wonder Increases," Piedmont Herald (W.Va.), April 16, 1897.

9. "Venus Maligned," Milwaukee Journal, April 6, 1897, p. 4.

10. "A Light in the East," Times and Democrat (Orangeburg, S.C.), April 7,
1897, p. 4, citing verbatim from the Augusta Chronicle (Maine).

11. "That Experimental Star," Boston Evening Transcript, April 15, 1897,
p. 4.

12. "It Is No Fake," Berrien Springs Era (Mich.), April 7, 1897, p. 3.

 13. E. de Bono, Eureka! An Illustrated History of Inventions from the
Wheel to the Computer (London: Thames and Hudson, 1979).

14. F. A. Jones, The Life Story of Thomas Alva Edison (New York:
Grosset & Dunlap, 1931), pp. 174-75.

15. M. Josephson, Edison: A Biography (London: Eyre & Spottis-woode,

1961), p. 170.

16. C. Sagan, Cosmos (London: Macdonald Futura, 1981).

 It is difficult to imagine today the enthusiasm of those who hailed the
miracle [of balloon flight] come true.

-J.
Jobe'

s we discussed in chapter 1, numerous experimental studies .attest to the

notorious unreliability of human perception, including the effect of an
individual's mental set or frame of reference in significantly influencing his or
her interpretation of visual stimuli. For instance, on the evening of October 30,
1938, many Americans panicked after listening to a realistic radio play directed
by Orson Welles depicting a Martian invasion of New Jersey.' Several New
Jersey residents telephoned police to report their observations "of Martians on
their giant machines poised on the Jersey Palisades."3 An interesting historical
example of this process occurred over western Canada during 1896-97,
coinciding with heavy press coverage of daring plans by Swedish scientist
Salomon Andree to navigate a balloon to the North Pole.
 During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, popular interest in
ballooning and various record-setting feats attempted by their pilots and crews
captivated much of Europe and North America, culminating in Andree's
penultimate exploit of attempting to reach the Pole.' Andree's announcement in
1893 that he had received sufficient funds to undertake the journey was afforded
spectacular press coverage. Such a voyage to this uncharted territory was
considered to be one of the last great challenges. Meticulous planning went into
the trip and constructing the balloon, the Ornen ("Eagle"). Andree's preparations
made headlines around the world from 1893 until he and his two crewmen froze
to death in 1897, without ever reaching the Pole.

This is only part of a more fascinating story. In 1896, the year before his
death, Andree and his crew traveled to Danes Island on the northwestern tip of
Spitzbergen, where he had ordered the construction of a giant building to shelter
his balloon from the harsh elements so it would be in optimum condition for the
ascent. Andree had originally intended to make his polar expedition in 1896, and
on June 30 of that year, the balloon was inflated inside the shelter as he and the
crew waited for favorable weather conditions. The world's attention was focused
on Andree, and governments with territory in the polar regions were asked to
inform their citizens of the event and to render any assistance to the balloonists
should they land there. The Canadian government and the Hudson Bay Company
publicized to Native Canadian peoples that "it was probable the aerial voyagers
might be driven southerly" and stray into western Canada.5 But the balloonists
waited until mid-August, at which time they abandoned the attempt due to poor
weather. However, the isolated communities in northwestern Canada were not
immediately informed of the expedition's cancellation, and they remained on the
lookout for his famous balloon.

Reports of phantom balloon sightings began on the afternoon of July 1,

1896, when residents of Winnipeg, Manitoba, claimed to see a balloon flying
rapidly in the distance 6 While several observers thought "that it was Andree's
balloon," they were subsequently informed of the latest reports indicating that
Andree had yet to depart. Once they realized this, there was some discussion that
the sighting could have been of a "toy balloon sent up in honor of the
Confederation holiday." The press report concluded by noting that "whether
miniature or real, the passage of the mysterious balloon caused a good deal of
talk among citizens last night."'

 On August 12, a sensational story appeared in the press, discussing an
apparent sighting of Andree's balloon. The government office in Ottawa received
a telegram on August 11 from the Superintendent of Indian Affairs in British
Columbia, A. W. Vowell. It stated: "Credible information received by Agent
Lomas from two Indian parties, separated by long distance at time of
observation, that the Andree balloon had been sighted in latitude 55.15,
longitude 127.40, pursuing a northerly course."8 The location described in
Vowell's dispatch would have placed the sighting about one hundred miles up
the Skeena River, some five hundred miles north of Victoria. At the time of the
observation, local residents were unaware that Andree had not begun his
voyage.'

The following day, August 13, more details of the dispatch became public.
Dated July 3, it was sent from Hazelton and told of a boy who reported seeing a
semicircular black object near the setting sun, which disappeared about forty feet
above the timber line. The dispatch, sent to Vowell by agent R. E. Loring,
concluded by noting that "the boy's description of the balloon and its action
leaves no doubt as to its reality, and is no doubt Andree's balloon expected to
have left Spitzbergen for the north pole" on July 1.10 A second dispatch was
also detailed in the same press account, again sent by Loring to Vowell from
Hazelton on July 10. He wrote that Ghali, chief of the Kispiox, had seen a
balloonlike object while trapping with a group of Indians on Blackwater Lake,
above the head waters of the Skeena on the evening of July 3. The object was
brightly illuminated and traveling almost due north. Loring also noted that the
Indians living along the Skeena "were made aware that they were liable to see
during the beginning of this month, a balloon going north, and of the purpose of
its occupants, etc., and to report to me anything noticed by them of that
description.""

The 1897 Episode

Andree's second and final attempt to reach the North Pole transpired on July 11,
1897, when he ascended from Danes Island. The exact details of his demise were
not known until 1930, when sailors stopping at White Island discovered the
expedition's remains, including undeveloped film and notes describing the
tragedy that befell them. Sixtyfive hours after taking off, Andree was forced to
land just three hundred miles from his departure point after an ice coating
formed on the balloon. He and his crew died on the arduous trek back to
civilization. It was not until thirty-three years after the event, however, that the
world learned his fate. In the days and weeks after Andree and his crew sailed
into oblivion, his whereabouts were again the subject of intense press discussion,
and those living in northern countries were told to keep a watch for his balloon.

The first sighting of the 1897 episode was reported in northern British
Columbia by Rivers Inlet fisherman W. S. Fitzgerald, who was salmon fishing
with a companion on the morning of July 10. At about 2:45 A.M. they spotted a
"great balloon-shaped body" that was "powerfully illuminated" floating about a
mile above a mountain range, when "all at once the thought burst upon us that it
was a balloon and none other than Andree's."12 The light appeared to drift
southwest for about two hours, when it faded out of sight.13 On July 12, several
residents of a nursing home at Kamlooms, British Columbia, reported a similar
illuminated object "fluttering" for over two hours before disappearing to the
southwest.14 Over the course of several days between the last week of July and
August 3, several sightings of a "mysterious balloon or pillar of fire" were
recorded in Victoria, British Columbia, including by three women camping at
Sidney, who watched it drift north over Salt Spring Island." On early Sunday
morning, August 1, three young men camping near Goldstream also reported
what appeared to be "a brilliantly lighted balloon."16

On August 5 at Douglas, Manitoba, several residents watched an

illuminated object at about 11 P.M., swaying in the sky, "resembling the shape
of a massive balloon." It was traveling northward, disappeared after fortyfive
minutes, and was assumed to be Andree's balloon." During the early morning
hours of August 6, two firemen on the Victoria city brigade observed a bright
aerial light hovering above Discovery Island for over two hours, moving in a
general western direction. At one point the pair thought they could discern "a
dark body outlined behind the circle of intense light."18 When the observation
was denounced as the likely mis perception of a toy balloon," several local
residents wrote in to support their claims." On August 8 at 12:30 A.M., a family
living on the outskirts of Winnipeg also thought they saw Andree's balloon
shining a bright light as it disappeared to the northwest after fortyfive minutes.21
On August 13 at about 9 P.M., "a very bright red star surrounded by a luminous
halo" swiftly traversing the southern sky was seen for nearly fifteen minutes by
thousands of Vancouver residents. This followed a sighting by several prominent
citizens of Rossland, who watched it hover for some time before fading from
sight to the south.22

There were two final reports in September. The first occurred on the
evening of the seventeenth, as several farmers residing near Souris, Manitoba,
"distinctly saw a balloon floating over them at considerable height" traveling
southwesterly. It was in sight for five minutes, and the farmers were certain that
a flag was protruding from the top of the vessel, suggesting that Andree was
making a triumphant return.3 Coincidentally, at this time there was much
speculation that Andree may have already reached the North Pole and was
heading back, although he planned to trek back on foot. The last report was by
William Graham of Honora, Manitoulin Island in Lake Huron, who stated that
on September 11 at 10 P.M., he and several neighbors saw an illuminated object
change from red to white to blue, which was also seen at nearby Gore Bay.
Graham suggested that the object was Andree's balloon?"

It must be emphasized that almost certainly no one could or would have

been able to fly in a balloon above Canada at this time, particularly under the
conditions observed. First, most balloons were tethered to a rope and used for
show purposes. A so-called "free-flying" balloon traveling in such northern
regions, and at night, would have been almost certainly suicidal and would have
required considerable investment of time and money, yet no attempt at such was
ever recorded.

Contemporary Canadian Anomalies

The phantom sightings of Andree's balloon are a classic example of the power
expectation has over perception. The sky became a Rorschach inkblot test,
mirroring the social expectations. Contemporary waves of claims and public
discourse surrounding observations of other strange aerial phenomena across
Canada continue today, such as thunderbirds and flying saucers. While
eyewitnesses are often stereotyped by scientists and the public as mentally
disturbed, in both instances there are social and cultural traditions that observers
are usually aware of that influence their perceptual orientations. For instance, the
Ojibway Indians of Ontario continue to see "thunderbirds" the size of airplanes,
which is entirely consistent with their cultural worldview.ZS These folk beliefs
are often reinforced through oral traditions, the mass media, and popular
literature.

Notes

1. J. Jobe, preface to The Romance of Ballooning: The Story of the Early

Aeronauts, by P. Stephens and E. Lausanne (London: Patrick Stevens, 1971), p.
11.

2. H. Cantril, The Invasion from Mars: A Study in the Psychology of

Panic (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1940).

3. R.E. Markush, "Mental Epidemics: A Review of the Old to Prepare for

the New," Public Health Reviews 2 (1973): 353-442. See p. 379.

4. L. Rolt, The Aeronauts: A History of Ballooning 1783-1903 (London:

Longmans, 1966).

5. "Can It Be Andree? British Columbia Indians Saw a Balloon ... The

Explorers Driven Far Out of Their Course ... ," Manitoba Morning Free Press,
August 12, 1896, p. 1.

6. "A Mysterious Balloon. Where Was It from and Whither Bound?"

Manitoba Morning Free Press, July 2, 1896, p. 4.

7. Ibid.

8. "Can it Be Andree... ," Manitoba Morning Free Press, August 12,

1896, p. 1.

9. Ibid.

10. "It Was No Dream. The Ghostly Balloon Seen by Winnipeggers,"

Manitoba Morning Free Press, August 13, 1896, p. 2.

11. Ibid.

12. "That Pillar of Fire. The Mysterious Visitor Seen Again Drifting over
Northern British Columbia ...... Victoria Daily Colonist (British Columbia), July
18, 1897, p. 5; "Aerial Mystery. The Wonderful Sight Witnessed by Two
Fishermen ...... Manitoba Free Press, July 20, 1897, p. 1.

13. "Aerial Mystery . . . ," Manitoba Free Press, July 20, 1897, p. 1.
 14. "What Is It?" Daily Colonist, July 20, 1897, p. 4.

15. "Victoria News," Daily News-Advertiser, August 3, 1897, p. 5.

16. Ibid.

17. "Again the Airship. Can Andree's Balloon Be Visiting These Parts . . . ,"
Manitoba Free Press, August 9, 1897, p. 3.

18. "That Light in the Air ...... Victoria Daily Colonist, August 7, 1897, p.
7.

19. "The Ruddy Moon. Late Hours Prove Too Much ... ," Victoria Daily
Colonist, August 8, 1897, p. 2.

20. "That Morning Mystery," Victoria Daily Colonist, August 12, 1897, p.
6.

21. "Another Aerial Visitor," Manitoba Morning Free Press, August 10,
1897, p. 5.

22. "News from the Province," Daily News-Advertiser, August 15, 1897, p.
6.

23. "A Balloon Again. This Time One Is Seen Near Souris," Manitoba Free
Press, September 20, 1897, p. 8.

24. "Another Andree Mystery," Manitoba Morning Free Press, September

28, 1897, p. 4.

25. For an account of a contemporary sighting, see: J. Bord and C. Bord,

Alien Animals (Granada: London, 1985), p. 116.

 in collaboration with Bryan Dickeson

n 1908 a frightening realization became evident in political circles across

the United Kingdom, which soon sent shock waves to British subjects
throughout the Commonwealth in the form of press reports, commentaries, and
debates. For centuries British citizens had slept peacefully, knowing that they
possessed the world's unrivaled naval power and that an invasion of the
motherland was inconceivable. The security of Britain's naval dominance was
also felt in its colonies around the world. Yet suddenly in 1908 this image of
security and stability was shattered. In the wake of rapid aeronautical
advancements, coupled with Germany's Zeppelin development, the British
Empire was vulnerable to attack by air.

The year 1909 was a turbulent year in New Zealand's history, characterized
by enthusiasm over rapid and dramatic aeronautical achievements, xenophobia,
fears of invasion, and a sudden perception of vulnerability. Amid this setting, a
remarkable event occurred. Between Sunday evening, July 11, and September 2,
tens of thousands of New Zealanders reported seeing Zeppelin-type dirigibles.
Equally remarkable is that the episode has yet to be thoroughly documented' and
has been virtually forgotten by contemporary scholars.

Two subjects dominated New Zealand newspaper headlines prior to the
sightings: rapid aviation advancement and concern over the adequacy of the
country's defense from a potential German invasion. While in early 1909 press
discussion focused on the likelihood of Germany's directly attacking the British
Isles, by midyear there was concern that they might instead attack the Empire's
more vulnerable, remote outposts, which engendered considerable anxiety,
especially in distant New Zealand. New Zealand had one of the world's most
dynamic economies, with such natural resources as gold, minerals, timber, beef,
sheep, wool, hides, forestry products, and farm and refrigerated produce, which
likely fostered a perception by many of its citizens that it was a prime German
target.

In the months prior to and encompassing the sightings, invasion fears

intensified as New Zealand newspapers described "the wild rate at which
shipbuilding is proceeding in Germany and England."' Responding to fears that
the German military would soon supersede Britain's long-held naval superiority,
the British concentrated its naval fleet near the motherland, further fostering
perceptions that Australia and New Zealand were vulnerable to potentially
hostile foreign powers. The former commander of the Australasian naval force,
British Admiral Bowden Smith, summarized the situation:

I think New Zealand and Australia should be awakened to the matter

of defense. We have withdrawn our ships ... from foreign stations, and
concentrated them round ... Britain. We all know ... [why]. Germany is
showing such a feverish haste to build up a big navy.... In the event of
attack by armed fleets New Zealand and Australia would have nothing
to show against them.'

Heavy press coverage detailing the inadequacy of British defenses and the
German military buildup began on March 22, when the New Zealand
government made a heavily publicized decision to offer Britain funding for one
and possibly two dreadnought battleships to bolster its defenses. Throughout this
time until June 14, when Parliament approved the offer, there was virtually daily
press coverage of the issue and the general inadequacy of New Zealand
defenses.

The dreadnought offer kindled patriotic feelings toward the motherland, and
the New Zealand government began holding public meetings to debate the
suitability of compulsory military conscription in response to the perceived
threat. On May 12, the New Zealand press reported on the British House of
Commons's "Great Debate" on military strategy for Empire defense. A New
Zealand correspondent in attendance reported on the sense of "semi-hysteria."4
Similar patriotic fervor was expressed at town meetings across New Zealand as
citizens debated the conscription issue. The following display of emotionalism at
one meeting was typical: "The resolution was received with loud applause,
mingled with hooting. A few of the audience commenced to sing 'Rule
Britannia,' but their voices became inaudible when a score or two Socialists sang
a few lines of 'The Red Flag.' "5

From Dreadnoughts to Zeppelins: The Plausible Threat Solidifies

Simultaneous with the press accounts describing Germany's threat to the British
Isles, and New Zealand in particular, numerous reports detailed rapid aviation
advancements. At the forefront of this technology was the Zeppelin, which
remained impractical but was slowly gaining in scope and capability. During
1909 "the aeroplane came of age" with French aeronaut Louis Bleriot's dramatic
flight across the English Channel on July 25, and gained rapid acceptance as a
potentially practical device for long-distance transportation.' Then suddenly, on
May 19, it was widely reported that Germany was contemplating a shift in its
military strategy away from naval warship construction and toward producing a
fleet of Zeppelins capable of traveling long distances in short periods while
transporting soldiers and ordnance.' Some letters from worried citizens appeared
in the press, supporting earlier accounts exaggerating the German threat. Once
the danger was defined as real and the belief that the British defense scheme was
inadequate, citizens began redefining what had once been perceived as an ade
quate local defense force. For example, in mid-September 1908, the annual
report of New Zealand's chief artillery instructor noted that despite deficiencies,
"the records of the field garrison artillery volunteers show that considerable
progress has been made in both efficiency and shooting.... [A]rtillery volunteers
throughout the Dominion were never more efficient than they are now."8
However, the dominion's military capability was still viewed as ill-prepared and
inadequate, a position espoused in many editorials. For instance, one newspaper
editor stated that defenses were insufficient to repel a single "good" enemy ship
and complained of insufficient artillery, ammunition, manpower, and
searchlights in Auckland Harbour, concluding by saying that "citizens may well
wonder what the Government has been doing that it should have left the country
in such a defenseless state."9

From about 1880 to the early twentieth century, a wave of popular science-
fiction literature appeared on the scene, trumpeting the wonders of science and
technology." But during the first decade of the twentieth century, amid rapid
aviation advances, Germany's growing naval prowess and its leadership in aerial
technology, popular fiction took on a more dark and sinister tone. The notion of
aerial warfare became a popular science-fiction theme," following the
widespread press discussion of the likelihood that aircraft would soon play a
major part in a looming confrontation with Germany. In 1908 the influential H.
G. Wells novel The War in the Air was published and serialized in Pall Mall
Magazine. In the book airships inflicted horrific damage on New York by
dropping bombs. Literary serials sharing a similar theme were common. For
instance, Chums published a lengthy series of stories by Captain Frank Shaw in
1908, The Peril of the Motherland, in which Russia declared war on Britain,
wreaking havoc with a fleet of airships. It was within this sociopolitical context
that Zeppelin invasion rumors circulated across New Zealand and the first
sightings occurred."

The Zeppelin Sightings

The episode began on the evening of July 11 on the south island, when several
Kaitangata residents reported seeing the mysterious light of a possible airship for
thirty minutes as it bobbed in and out of view to the east over the Wangaloa
Hills. The witnesses were prepared to sign an affidavit as to their veracity.13 It
was widely rumored that the German vessel Sees tern, which had recently left
Brisbane, was somewhere off the south island where it had "set the airship free"
for secret aerial reconnaissance flights.14

On July 19, a mysterious flickering light was reported by three residents in
Oamaru.15 Widespread sightings began on the twentyfourth, the day after a
spectacular daylight incident at Kelso, where twenty-three schoolchildren and an
adult described a Zeppelin-type airship that swooped low over the township.
Four detailed sketches were made by witnesses, and an excited reporter
proclaimed it to be "nothing short of dumbfounding."
Thomas Jenkins gave a very clear account of the whole incident. He
saw the vessel first at 12 o'clock as he was going home from school. It
had come over the hill on the east side of the school ... and sailed
across the plain to the gorge on the other side. He watched it all the
time, and saw it altogether about ten minutes. ... As it passed over he
saw that it had supports on each side ... but these sails did not move.
There was a wheel at the rear revolving very rapidly. There was a box
beneath the body of the ship.... The vessel was entirely black in color...

Cyril Falconer was with other boys on the school ground when
the airship passed over. A big wheel was revolving at the rear. He saw
this reversed, and the vessel suddenly turned.... This boy drew an
angular picture, which appeared to represent the ship as it was turning,
with a wheel at the back. Other children saw it but these gave the
clearest accounts.

Mrs. Russell, evidently the only adult who saw the phenomenon,
said she ... saw a streak of blackness shoot over the hill on the left and
apparently come straight towards her. Then it suddenly turned and
swerved away over some trees out of her sight. ... In appearance it was
just like a boat. It was black in colour. She saw it for just a few
minutes. It was travelling very fast at first, but when it turned it came
lower and went somewhat slower. She did not notice any wheel at the
rear or any sails, but was very flustered, as she thought the end of the
world had come.16

Shortly after the sighting a party of young men from Kelso trekked into the
nearby Blue Mountains in a vain attempt to locate the vessel," and local police
also searched.18 The incident received heavy press coverage, and a deluge of
reports followed over the next ten days. On the following evening, July 24, just a
few miles away at Kaka Point, another dramatic account was recorded of an
airship flying over the beach. A Mr. Bates and several boys observed "a huge
illuminated object moving about in the air." The vessel seemed like it was going
to land, and in apparent fear that it was a German Zeppelin, thinking it had been
attracted by their lantern, the boys ran off, leaving it behind.19 If the vessel flew
within close range again, some of the boys said they would "try to 'prick the
bubble' with a bullet. "10

Near Gore on July 30, two mining dredge hands working the night shift
claimed to see an airship at 5 A.M. descend in the fog and circle the area, with
"two figures ... plainly discernible on board."21 Later that day a rumor began
that a Zeppelin had crashed at Waikaka, killing two or three Germans.22 The
report by the dredge hands followed other airship sightings in the Gore vicinity
over the previous several nights23 as well as local reports of mysterious
luminous lights.24 On Sunday evening, August 1, a large crowd gathered in
front of the post office at Temuka, debating the origin of a mysterious luminous
orb, which was soon revealed as a prank played by some boys who had placed a
candle in a hollowed turnip and raised it to the top of the high school flagpole.25

On Tuesday night, August 3, on the north island, a Waipawa man stated

that while riding his horse near the racecourse, a large, gray, torpedo-shaped
vessel with lights at the prow and stem passed overhead, and one of three visible
passengers "shouted out to him in an unknown tongue." The ship rose to a great
height, circled and disappeared behind a hill.26 By early August the New
Zealand reports began to wane, with the last known sighting of the month near
the gold mining community of Waihi on the ninth.27

Once the Zeppelin's existence was widely accepted, various past and
present events and situations that would have ordinarily received prosaic
interpretations were redefined as airship-related. On the night of July 14, Mary
Guinan of Kelso watched a gradually dimming "star," but after hearing of
subsequent airship sightings, "she at once concluded that it was this she had
seen."28 A mysterious "swaying light" observed by several Christchurch
residents for three weeks "excited little comment" until the airship reports, and
one witness said that it "seemed to be attached to some object moving gently
across the line of sight."29 When a farmer in the Black Hills found two gas cans
on a remote slope inaccessible by car, it was suggested that the oil was used to
fuel an airship motor.30 In the Otama district, another farmer thought an airship
may have landed for repairs after he found several screw wrenches in his field.31
W. S. McIntosh of Hedgehope reported that when he and two friends were
trapping near Glenham during the previous winter, they had seen a mysterious
aerial illumination "resembling a searchlight" hovering about thirty-five feet off
the ground three hundred yards away from them. McIntosh said, "At the time ... I
did not say much about it, as I knew people would not credit it."32

While a Zeppelin was the prominent explanation for these sightings,
alternative folk theories included a local inventor's secret airship trial flights; 3 a
luminous cloth attached to a carrier pigeon or sea gull,' "a visitation from another
world,"35 and 31 myriad atmospheric and meteorological phenomena.

Many press accounts described the airship's presence factually, especially at

the beginning of the episode, when ambiguous aerial "lights" were often
depicted as "airships."37 However, as the episode continued, the press generally
grew more incredulous. One editorial associated the reports to alcohol
consumption, noting that airship sightings "may mean development of the keg
business."' In accordance with prevailing psychological theories of the period,
namely Gustave LeBon's view of crowd contagion as a form of mental disorder,
psychopathological explanations were often advanced. One press columnist
compared sightings to religious revivals, implying that LeBon's concept of
primitive instinct was aroused and rationality was lost.

Revival excitements, like airship excitements, are matter for public

comment; in neither case is it sacrilege to suggest natural causes....
Natural causes?-given a crowd, speaker that can play upon its
emotions, with a singer that teaches it to express them in voluptuous
dance rhythms, and you have for your revival excitement some very
obvious natural causes.39

Some witnesses were characterized as suffering from "aerialitis."'° A letter

published in the Otago Daily Times described the sightings as a "craze," warning
of the danger of lost self-control. The author classifies the reports as a "popular
delusion" in reference to Charles Mackay's classic book on the subject."

Sir.-The airship craze is getting beyond a joke. There is a danger of

our level-headed community becoming the laughing stock ... [of] the
greater world. We do not want to be advertised in that way. ... The
world has had a great many examples of "extraordinary popular
delusions," such as the South Sea Bubble, the tulip mania in Holland ...
 the persecution of witches.... These phenomena arise in times of public
excitement, when every whisper and shrug is taken as evidence, and
the capacity to weigh matters is for the time submerged by some
human passion, such as fear or greed.

The author concluded by noting that the "German scare, the Dreadnought
episode, and the conquest of the air" had combined to create an improbable yet
plausible threat that culminated in a popular delusion. One resident wrote to
express surprise at the public's gullibility, facetiously noting that a Zeppelin
invasion by the Germans or Japanese was remote, but the episode was almost
certainly an attack by octopuslike Martians: "The presence of a dead squid on
the beach at Burkes a few days ago is fairly conclusive evidence."43 It was
widely noted in many newspapers from late July that sales of fire balloons' had
increased dramatically," and their remains were often found in the vicinity of
sightings. Press accounts became increasingly skeptical in early August 96 as
numerous reports of mysterious aerial lights were increasingly described as
stars" or fire balloons.48

On July 29, the New Zealand Herald editor described them as "flights of
fancy," while commentary in the Evening Post referred to them as "hot-air"
ships, remarking that a combination of hoaxes and misperceptions of heavenly
bodies composed "the nucleus of an aerial German invasion."49 After residents
reported seeing what appeared to be a searchlight circling above the town of
Nelson, a reporter quipped: "It has come at last. We have been expecting the
dread news for weeks ...... 50 By early August, press accounts became still more
incredulous, even despite vivid descriptions:

Nelson took more interest in astronomy last evening than it has ever
done before. People in all directions stood and stared upwards at the
sky. An airship had come to Nelson.

There it was, plain enough. Some people could even tell that it
had an acetylene lamp at the front of the car [gondola] which was
shining so brightly. Others declared that there were lights shining, just
as is the case with a motor car.

Attempts, fortunately unsuccessful, were made to break into the
 Atkinson Observatory and Mr. F. G. Gibbs was literally besieged by
telephone and callers. The fact that the light was seen to move was
what particularly gave rise to the opinion that the "airship" which was
making those night attacks down south, had at last arrived in Nelson,
and was skimming about in the air above the towns'

The Timaru Post described this account as a case of "airship fever."52 On

August 4, the Otago Witness reported that their offices had been "inundated with
various cartoons mostly depicting a person under the influence of 'John
Barleycorn,' gazing with drunken gravity at a street lamp or the town clock or
some kind of light which no sober individual would ever mistake for an
airship."53 Another newspaper attributed the sightings to "the silly season," a
term used to describe the tendency of reporters to print articles on trivial topics
for lack of more worthy news.54 When the sightings reached the capital, the
Southland Times sarcastically announced: "Wellington Bitten at Last."55

Advertisers capitalized on the airship sightings, with one proclaiming: "The

latest news by air ship sent to Kelso was that Anderson's selling out sale is still
booming."56 Mr. G. Whealer of Bluff, an agent for a local liquor manufacturer,
wrote that a message was dropped from the airship by Martians on Bluff Hill,
requesting ten thousand more cases of Gilmour and Thompson's Scotch
Whisky.57

During August, there was a brief spate of sightings over Australia, almost
exclusively confined to the east coast between August 9 and 14. The Australian
press discussion of the perceived German invasion threat was much lower key,
and the number of subsequent airship sightings over Australia was much lower,
confined to just a few days and almost universally described as the work of a
local, nonthreatening airship inventor. All of the press reports describe the
airship with different degrees of skepticism, most attributing the observations to
overactive imaginations.58 One reporter used the headline "Aerial Hysteria,"
cautioning that the reports were not to be taken seriously.59 The Australian
episode occurred as the New Zealand reports were waning, and since no
invasion had occurred, a popular view among some Australians was that a local
inventor had perfected the world's first practical airship and was making secret
trial flights. Correspondingly, the Australian reports were exclusively described
as mysterious lights or airships, not Zeppelins, and citizens were enthusiastic
during sightings, not anxious as they were in New Zealand.60

 After a three-week absence of reports in New Zealand, a final flurry of
sightings took place at Gore, as hundreds reported a dark cigarshaped object near
the Tapanui Hills between 4:30 and 6 P.M. on September 1 and 2.61 The reports
abruptly ended when a press correspondent visited the site and found that the
sensation was caused by "repeated flights of thousands of starlings, which, prior
to nesting season, were making their temporary homes in a clump of pine trees."

About 5:00 P.M. movements from the pine trees commenced. The
birds would rise up in one thick black mass and circle round in the sky.
Their evolutions were wonderful to behold. At first they would look
like a dark cloud; then they would assume the shape of a very long
strip, darting up into the air and then descending with very great
rapidity towards earth, at one minute compressed formation, and at
another in extended line.... As they ascended into the air their numbers
were so great that their wings make a great noise, just as if it was the
whirl of machinery in motion.

The reporter quipped that " 'birds; only birds!' soon became the general cry."62
With the Gore sightings, the New Zealand airship scare had come to a close.

Notes

1. Discussion of the phantom Zeppelin sightings has been almost

exclusively confined to several contemporary books on unidentified flying
objects, with suggestions that they represent extraterrestrial spaceships. See M.
Stott, Aliens Over Antipodes (Sydney: Space-Time Press, 1984), pp. 9-54; M.
Dykes, Strangers in Our Skies: UFOs Over New Zealand (Lower Hutt, 1981),
pp. 16-31; H. Fulton, "Mysterious Objects Haunt Skies of 1909, Many Strange
Sights Witnessed Some 40 Years Ago," Official Quarterly Journal of Civilian
Saucer Investigation (New Zealand) 4, no. 4 (1957): 23-26.

2. Wellington Dominion, May 1, 1909, p. 3.

3. Wellington Dominion, May 8, 1909, p. 5.

4. Wellington Dominion, May 12, 1909, p. 5.

5. Wellington Dominion, May 14, 1909, p. 5.

 6. C. GibbsSmith, Aviation: An Historical Survey from Its Origins to the
End of World War II (London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1985), pp. 145-
46.

7. The following headline typified press reaction: "Military Airship

Preferred to Dreadnoughts.... A Remarkable Agitation Is Going on in Germany
to Build a Huge Aerial Fleet, Instead of Many Dreadnoughts," Wellington
Dominion, May 19, 1909, p. 7.

8. Wellington Dominion, May 19, 1909, p. 8.

9. The New Zealand Herald, May 1, 1909.

10. I. F. Clarke, "American Anticipations: The First of the Futurists,"

Futures 18 (1986): 584-96.

11. J. Clute, Science Fiction: The Illustrated Encyclopedia (New York:

Dorling Kindersley, 1995), pp. 44-45.

12. It is notable that just prior to and encompassing the New Zealand
sightings, a spate of phantom airships, typically described as Zeppelins, were
observed across England, accounts of which appeared widely in the New
Zealand press. See "Airships and Scareships," Evening Star, July 7, 1909, and
numerous other New Zealand newspapers. The following is an excerpt from this
account: "The people who are always discovering German spies in England
disguised as waiters or tourists have found a new occupation of apparently
absorbing interest. They are writing to the papers to report having seen
mysterious airships making midnight voyages over various parts of England.
The ghostly vessels have been seen at spots as distant from each other as Belfast
and East Ham, but the most numerous reports are from the eastern counties. The
'Daily Express' is full of dark tales of a long, cigarshaped craft dimly visible
through the night air, passing overhead with a whirring noise. Those watchers
who are particularly lucky espy searchlights and hear 'foreign sounding' voices."
For similar accounts in the New Zealand press, see "Mysterious Airships,"
Timaru Herald, July 23, 1909; "Real Scareship," Timaru Herald, August 14,
1909.

13. Otago Daily Times, July 16, 1909, p. 10; "A Mysterious Light. Was It
an Airship? Excitement in the South," The New Zealand Herald, July 27, 1909.

14. The following account appeared in "Was It Made in Germany?"
Evening Star, July 27, 1909: "The explanation that is finding favor with those
who have put two and two together is that the fact that German vessels are in
New Zealand waters is responsible for it. They aver that the German
Government yacht Seestern, for which the German warship Condor, which left
Auckland on Sunday, is 'supposed' to search for (the Seestern being said to be
considerably overdue at the Island from Brisbane), is, they state, in reality off the
New Zealand coast. They are not backward in advancing the theory that the
Seestern set the airship free somewhere in the neighborhood of the Nuggets,
where it was first observed.... A thorough elucidation of the whole mystery is
awaited with keen interest." For similar discussions of the German origin of the
mysterious lights, refer to: "The 'German' Theory," Evening Star, July 29, 1909;
"The German Scare," Timaru Post, July 28, 1909; "Airship Mysteries," The New
Zealand Herald, July 27, 1909. In a letter to the editor of the Otago Daily Times,
August 3, 1909, one resident proclaimed: "Now, with regard to the origin of this
airship, I pinned my faith at the start to the German cruiser theory, and I will
stick to that.... Where is this cruiser Seestern and where is the Condor? One or
both of these boats may have dirigibles of this type stowed away on board.
Deflated, 'the thing' may be quite compact, and the gas generator-of course, a
more unwieldy piece of goods-remains on board when 'the bird' flies away."

15. A. Brunt, "The New Zealand UFO Wave of 1909," Xenolog 101
(1975): 2.

16. "The Airship Mystery. Stories of Mysterious Lights," Otago Witness,

August 4, 1909.

17. "The Mysterious Lights. Seen in Widely Separated Districts," Otago

Daily Times, July 30, 1909.

18. "Searching at Kelso," Evening Star, July 29, 1909.

19. Clutha Leader, July 27, 1909.

20. Ibid.

21. "Two Miners See the 'Ship,' " Dominion, July 31, 1909; "Airship Seen
by Two Dredge Hands. At Close Quarters. Two Persons on Board," Evening
Star, July 30, 1909; "Close View of the Craft," The Auckland Star, July 31,
1909. The time and location of this sighting suggests that they misidentified the
moon.

22. "Testimony by School Children. A Black Object," Evening Star, July

31, 1909.

23. "With a Headlight Attached," Dominion, July 31,1909; "More Airship

Stories," The Auckland Star, July 30, 1909. This included a report in early
August of a Gore man who observed an airship that appeared to sport two large
fans. Refer to Waikato Argus, August 3, 1909.

24. "In the Gore District," Evening Star, July 29, 1909.

25. Geraldine Guardian, August 3, 1909.

26. Hawkes Bay Herald, August 6, 1909.

27. Brunt, "The New Zealand UFO Wave," p. 7, quoting a New Zealand
Broadcasting Service documentary from 1961; "The Mysterious Lights,"
Geraldine Guardian, August 12, 1909.

28. "The Mysterious Lights," Otago Witness, August 4, 1909.

29. "A Strange Light in Canterbury," Evening Star, July 29, 1909.

30. Timaru Post, August 11, 1909.

31. Ibid.

32. "Seen Last Winter," Otago Witness, August 4, 1909.

33. "Was It an Airship?" Timaru Post, July 14,1909; "One Man Sees an
Airship," Dominion, July 31, 1909.

34. "Observed at Wide Intervals," Otago Witness, August 4, 1909.

35. Cluth Leader, July 30, 1909.

36. "Oamaru Opinions," Otago Witness, August 4, 1909; "A Possible

Explanation," Dominion, August 3, 1909. One man suggested the possibility of
"a luminous haze or cloud." See Otago Daily Times, July 30, 1909. For a
suggestion that some reports were ignis fatuus, or "will-o'-the wisp"
(phosphorescent light generated from decaying organic material), or electrical
discharges common on ships at sea during foggy weather (corposant or St.
Elmo's Fire), see "Jack in the Lantern," Evening Star, July 30, 1909; "Seen at
Temuka," Geraldine Guardian, July 31, 1909; "Atmospheric Luminosity"
(letter), Southland Times, July 31, 1909; "The Mysterious Light. Supposed
Airship," Timaru Post, July 30, 1909.

37. "The Airship Mystery Seen at Dunedin," Evening Star, July 28, 1909, p.
4; "Clear Evidence," Evening Star, July 29, 1909, p. 4; "The Kelso Airship.
Cumulative Evidence," Otago Daily Times, July 29, 1909, p. 7; "The Airship,
Seen in North Otago," Otago Daily Times, July 30, 1909, p. 8; "What the
Dredge-Men Saw," Auckland Weekly News, August 5, 1909, p. 21; "The
Airship. Further Evidence from Kelso. Statements by Eyewitnesses," Otago
Daily Times, August 6, 1909, p. 5.

38. Wellington Dominion, July 28, 1909, p. 6.

39. Otago Daily Times, August 7, 1909, p. 6.

40. Dunedin Evening Star, August 4, 1909, p. 5; Wellington Dominion,

August 11, 1909, p. 8.

41. C. Mackay, Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the

Madness of Crowds, vol. 2 (London: Office of the National Illustrated Library,
1852). In the preface to his book, Mackay remarked that, "We find that whole
communities suddenly fix their minds on one object, and go mad in its pursuit....
Men, it has been well said, think in herds, it will be seen that they go mad in
herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one" (pp. vii-viii).

42. Letter to The Otago Daily Times, August 3, 1909, p. 10.

43. "That Flying Machine" (letter), Evening Star, August 3, 1909.

44. Fire balloons were available in New Zealand during this period and
typically sold at shops selling pyrotechnics. They consisted of paper balloons
with candles attached near the mouth and were made buoyant by the generation
of heat. The stimulus for artificial devices sent aloft during the Zeppelin
sightings was more likely to have been kites, which were more popular and
cheaper.

45. "Possible Explanations," Otago Daily Times, August 30, 1909; "Fire
Balloons Suggested," Evening Star, July 29, 1909; "A Fire Balloon Found in
Dunedin," Geraldine Guardian, July 31, 1909.

46. For instance, on the evening of August 10, four reports of mysterious
lights were recorded in the Southland Times, August 11, 1909. The first two
were from Goulburn and Moss Vale in Australia, the other two from Waihi and
Stony Creek in New Zealand. The reports were limited to no more than four
sentences and appeared as follows: "In the Air. Glimmers at Goulburn," "Visions
in Victoria," Wonder at Waihi," and "Stony Creek Stratagem."

47. "A Remarkable Sight. Strange Movements of a Star," Dominion,

August 7, 1909.

48. "A Fire Balloon. Found in York Place," Otago Daily Times, July 30,
1909; "Fire Balloons," Tapanui Courier, August 4, 1909.

49. "Hot-air Ships," Evening Post, August 2, 1909.

50. Thames Star, July 31, 1909.

51. The Nelson Mail, August 3, 1909.

52. "The Supposed Airship. Nelson People Hoaxed," Timaru Post, August
3, 1909.

53. "The Mysterious Lights. Seen in Widely Separated Districts," Otago

Witness, August 4, 1909.

54. "The 'Airship,'" Tapanui Courier, August 4, 1909.

55. Southland Times, August 4, 1909.

56. Tapanui Courier, July 28, 1909.

57. Southland Times, August 2, 1909, p. 5.

 58. "Another Aerial Mystery. Mysterious Light in Victoria," Sydney
Morning Herald, August 9,1909, p. 7; "Lights in the Air," Melbourne Argus,
August 9,1909, p. 7; "Is It an Airship?" Sydney Morning Herald, August 10,
1909, p. 7; "The Goldburn 'Airship.' Lights Reported for a Week," Sydney
Morning Herald, August 11, 1909, p. 10; "Mysterious Lights Seen in New South
Wales," Melbourne Argus, August 11, 1909, p. 6; "Venus and Jupiter. Planets in
Conjunction," Melbourne Argus, August 13, 1909, p. 7; "Stars in Conjunction,"
The Mercury (Hobart), August 13, 1909; "Mysterious Lights," The Mercury
(Hobart), August 14, 1909, p. 4; "Celestial Phenomenon Lights Visible in
Sydney," Sydney Morning Herald, August 14, 1909, p. 14; "Mysterious Lights.
Astronomical Lights.... A Feasible Explanation," Sydney Morning Herald,
August 14, 1909, p. 10. Consider the following characteristic report filed from
Zeehan, Tasmania, on August 13, appearing in The Mercury [Hobart], August
14, 1909, under the headline: "Phenomenon in the Sky": "A number of residents
of Zeehan report today having seen mysterious lights in the sky shortly after 7
o'clock last night. There were two lights, white and brilliant, which seemed to be
travelling rapidly in a northwesterly direction against the wind, and soon
disappeared behind a cloud. As the lights travelled, one appeared to grow
smaller and the other larger.

This phenomenon was, doubtless, the conjunction of the stars, Venus and
Jupiter."

59. Sydney Morning Herald, August 7, 1909, p. 13; "Venus and Jupiter,"
The Mercury (Hobart), August 16, 1909.

60. The following report is typical:

"Moss Vale, Monday-A good deal of excitement was occasioned tonight by

the appearance of a mysterious light or an illuminated body to the southeast of
the town. Quite a number of people gathered in the main street, and speculation
was rife as to the meaning of the strange illumination. Above the large light
some large body was distinctly visible, as the rays of light were reflected upon
its surface. The supposition generally held is that the mysterious floating light is
either a large balloon or airship....

"Passengers on tonight's Melbourne express were afforded a view of the

mysterious night-light which has been observed floating above the southern
highlands and coast between Mittagong and Wollongong during the last two
nights. When the express reached Hilltop quite a score of passengers crowded on
the platform at each end of the corridor carriages on the lookout for the 'airship,'
as it was called. Their vigilance was soon rewarded, for as soon as the express
hauled out from the deep cuttings, a large, bright light became visible a few
miles away towards the coast. Apparently it was in motion, and could be plainly
distinguished from the stars, but the distance was too great to detect the nature of
the floating body. Its elevation appeared to be about 2000 ft" (Goulburn Evening
Penny Post, August 10, 1909).

61. "More Seeing at Gore," The Southland Times, September 2, 1909; The
Southland Times, August 3, 1909.

62. The Southland Times, September 4, 1909.

 etween December 13, 1909, and January 23, 1910, residents of the New
England seaboard region of the northeastern United States were convinced that a
local businessman had invented the world's first practical heavierthan-air flying
machine. This longanticipated invention would revolutionize aviation. While
large portions of entire states believed the rumors, tens of thousands of
seemingly stolid, responsible citizens actually reported sighting the vessel sailing
through the frosty night sky. The rumors and subsequent sightings triggered an
extensive search to uncover the vessel's whereabouts. No abandoned farmhouse
or local eccentric escaped inquiry from the determined army of inquisitive
reporters. Journalists from across the United States and from as far away as
Europe soon converged on Boston and Worcester, Massachusetts, where most
observations were reported. It was hailed as the story of the century, perhaps
even the millennium. At the height of the episode, even representatives of
foreign governments arrived in order to assess the potential commercial and
military applications of such a vessel.

Following intense press scrutiny and an investigation of the reports, it soon

became evident that the ship's existence was a colossal hoax. Yet before the
deception was realized, scores of eyewitnesses, including businessmen, police
officers, prominent politicians, and judges, believed that they had actually seen
the vessel. Many were certain that they could discern the roar of its powerful
engine churning in the distance, while a few even emphatically claimed to
distinguish the outline of the pilot maneuvering through the nighttime sky.

The highest concentration of sightings was over Massachusetts (sixty-one),
with other sightings in Rhode Island (ten), Connecticut (seven), Vermont (six),
New York (one), and Maine (one). Sightings often involved large portions of
towns and cities. The predominant folk theory held that prominent local
entrepreneur, inventor, and businessman Wallace E. Tillinghast was making
secret nocturnal flights of his newly perfected airship.

Prelude to the Delusion

In the years immediately preceding the episode, intense excitement swept across
Europe and North America in anticipation of the first practical, mechanically
powered heavierthan-air flight. Enthusiasm waxed and waned with each of the
five attempts at piloted powered flight between 1874 and 1899. These crude,
modest successes were interspersed with numerous failures. From the first
known attempt in 1874 until 1899, there were just five successful documented
flights. Each was erratic, brief, and mundane by contemporary standards.
However, with the dawn of the twentieth century there were rapid, dramatic
advances coupled with heavy newspaper coverage of powered flight attempts,
leading to a spectacular climax just prior to the airship delusion.

The years 1908-9, brought wide publicity and belated acclaim.

Orville's tests for the War Department ... and Wilbur's flights in
Europe before enthralled crowds, including the kings of Spain and
England, became ... front-page news. Meanwhile, the flights of other
pioneers, like Glenn Curtiss, stirred additional interest in aviation.'

It was during 1909 that British aviation historian Charles H. GibbsSmith noted
that "the aeroplane came of age" and was accepted as a practical vehicle for two
reasons: Louis Bleriot's flight across the English Channel on July 25 and the
world's first aviation meeting in France, from August 22 to 29:

If the Channel crossing made the greatest impact on the public, it was
the Reims aviation week which provided the greatest technical and
governmental stimulus to aviation, and proved to officialdom and the
public alike that the airplane had indeed "arrived." .. .
 Reims marked the true acceptance of the airplane as a practical
vehicle, and as such was a major milestone in the world's history.'

GibbsSmith has compiled a chronological list of all known piloted powered

flight between 1874 and 1908. Rapid progress in powered flight was especially
dramatic in the two years immediately preceding the episode. In 1907 there were
an unprecedented fourteen such flights, climaxing in forty-seven in 1908.3
Another measure of intense public exposure to aviation feats immediately prior
to the 1909 episode can be obtained by examining the New York Times Index
for the years 1900-1909. In 1900, under the listing of "aeronautics," one article
appeared. By 1905, this figure had reached 58; and it rose quickly to 138 in
1907, 466 in 1908, and 964 in 1909, the year of the hoax.

Chronology of Events

It is within this historical setting that the Boston Herald of December 13,1909,
published a lengthy newspaper interview with prominent local businessman
Wallace Tillinghast, a credible and creative figure,' in which he confidently
proclaimed to have perfected and flown the world's first sophisticated airship, far
exceeding any devices of the period. Tillinghast also asserted that his
experimental flights were continuing. This fantastic account appeared in
spectacular front-page headlines:

TELLS OF FLIGHT 30 MILES IN THE AIR

Engineer says he sailed from Worcester to New York to New

York Harbor at Night in Aeroplane of his Own Invention

CLAIMS CIRCLING STATUE WHEN 4000 FEET UP

Wallace E. Tillinghast says He Invented Machine Under Cover and is Going to

Smash International Records

WORCESTER, Dec. 12-Wallace E. Tillinghast of this city, vicepresident of a

manufacturing company here, made public a story today ... [that] he invented,
built, and tested an aeroplane capable of carrying three passengers with a weight
limit of six hundred pounds, a distance of about three hundred miles with a stop
to replenish the supply of petrol, at a rate of 120 miles an hour.
 He refuses to say where his flying machine is ... as he wants to enter into
Boston contests next year as a sure winner. He says that on Sept. 8 he made a
night trip to New York and return, at which time the machine was thoroughly
tested....

In describing his machine, Mr. Tillinghast says: "It is one of the monoplane
type, with a spread of 72 feet, a weight of 1550 pounds, and furnished with a
120-horsepower gasoline engine made under my own directions and
specifications. It differs from others in the spread of the canvas, the spread of the
plane and in stability features. Special attention is given in making it adaptable
for high speed. All the important parts are covered by patents.

"Other distinguishing features are that it cannot be capsized, is easily

controlled and the occupants ride on the body of the machine instead of having
the body of the machine behind them. The headlight is made by the use of
acetylene gas generated on the machine. I decline to say where the machine was
built or is stationed, because it is the business of no one but myself and my
mechanics.

"I also decline to say what is the limit of speed of the aeroplane or the
highest altitude that I can reach, because I wish to enter the international races in
a fair trial and without rivals knowing what speed reported at the recent meeting
at Reims that I feel sure the result will be that the Tillinghast aeroplane is more
than an 'also ran.' .. .

"The machine is no experiment, as it has been thoroughly tested. All of the

tests have been under the cover of night and have been considered successful."

Tillinghast stated that he had made trial flights on four different machines in
recent years, including eighteen in the most highly perfected vessel, and claimed
that his secret workshop and testing area were unknown "to everyone except
himself and his workmen, and even the inhabitants of that district do not know
what is going on." He was also cunning, aware at the time of his Boston Herald
interview that a lifeguard on Fire Island claimed to have heard a noise like an
aeroplane engine in the distance on an evening in early December. Ever the
opportunist, Tillinghast revealed in his interview that on the evening of
December 8, he and two mechanics had flown from the vicinity of Worcester to
New York City, where he circled the Statue of Liberty in New York harbor
before returning to his secret airstrip and shop. He claimed that when passing
Fire Island, one of the cylinders began making an irregular noise and he was
forced to fly near the beach. Before giving his interview, he would have almost
certainly been aware of press reports appearing several days earlier, in which
lifeguard William Leach reported hearing the sound of "an aeroplane pass high
above him while he was doing patrol duty."5

While Tillinghast's story was a hoax, it seemed plausible in the wake of his
reputation as an inventor, coupled with recent rapid progress in aerial flight
technology and the expectant social climate. Within two days of the published
interview, news of Tillinghast's purported feats made headlines in virtually every
New England newspaper and many others throughout the world. The heavy
press coverage included conflicting opinions regarding the legitimacy of his
claims by aviation experts, local authorities, and newspaper editors. Wilbur
Wright scoffed at the notion, while avi-ationist Glenn Curtiss declared it to be
"extraordinary if facts can be improved."6 The ensuing newspaper debate
provided a degree of legitimacy to the initial hoax interview. It was at this point
that many locals believing claims to be true, began rethinking various past
events in light of this new worldview.

The day following Tillinghast's hoax interview, December 14, E. B. Hanna

of Willimantic reported that on the same night that Tillinghast claimed to circle
the Statue of Liberty, he saw a "bright light" crossing the nighttime sky for about
an hour.' Upon reading the Tillinghast interview, Mr. Hanna concluded that it
was likely his flying machine. Despite the ambiguous nature of the sighting, the
Willimantic Chronicle printed the speculative headlines "What Mr. Hanna Saw
May Have Been the Worcester Airship! ... Now Thinks That It May Have Been
the Aeroplane in Which Wallace E. Tillinghast Claims to Have Made a Flight
from Boston to New York and Return."8

The next sighting occurred over Boston Harbor early on December 20, and
it received sensational front-page headlines. Immigration inspector Arthur Hoe
reported seeing an airship flying rapidly through the clear nighttime sky,' but it
was later determined that Hoe had mistaken the masts of the steamship Whitney
for the circling airship.'° Despite the vagueness of Hoe's observation, in light of
widespread recent press publicity given to Tillinghast's spectacular claims, the
Globe published Hoe's account, reporting as fact that an airship, most likely
belonging to Wallace Tillinghast, was seen." The combination of widespread
press coverage of Tillinghast's interview, Hoe's sighting, and press accounts of
the earlier sightings by Hanna and lifeguard William Leach lent plausibility to
the vessel's existence. New England residents began reinterpreting recent events
as airship-related and scrutinized the skies for evidence of the mysterious vessel.

Cyril Herrick wrote in a letter to the Boston Globe that the most likely
explanation for his sighting of a "double meteor" during the previous year was
the Tillinghast airship:

I [would like to] recount the following, seen while in camp on the
shores of Lake Winnipesankee last August. Shortly after dark one
evening we saw approaching from Meredith way, two bright lights in
the sky a fixed distance apart, high in the air and drawing near with
lightning speed. Passing our camp, whatever it was, disappeared over
toward the Ossipee hills. Only the great speed of the lights marred our
belief that it was an aircraft. All doubt was dispelled the next morning
by news received from two vacation people a half-mile distant-Dr.
Frank Chapman of Grovetown, N.H., and Dr. Walter Westwood of
Beachmont, but saw them returning about an hour later. Thus the
meteor theory is disposed of, and this news from Worcester as to
Tillinghast offers itself as a refreshing possible hypothesis in
explanation of the strange sight we saw that night.12

Meanwhile, several Willimantic, Connecticut, residents told a reporter from the
Hartford Daily Times that one night in early September they had spotted an
unusual aerial object that, in light of recent events, must have been the airship.13

The first mass observations in the vicinity of Worcester took place on the
evening of December 22, as an airship was reported by over two thousand
people, "circling" Boston several times and remaining visible for some three
hours and twenty minutes. The incident began at about 5:40 P.M., when a squad
of police officers noticed an unusual aerial light." By about 6:30, a crowd of
Christmas shoppers and several policemen reported an unusual light estimated to
be one thousand feet aloft in the southeast, steadily growing in size. By seven
o'clock the "airship" had "sailed over the city," remaining stationary for several
minutes over the State Mutual Life Insurance building.15 An "airship" was also
sighted at about six the same evening in nearby Marlboro, heading northwest.16
There were hundreds of reports in nearby Worcester, Marlboro, Cambridge,
Revere, Greendale, Nahant, Maynard, Fitchburg, Leominster, and Westboro,
which spread over the telephone. As with previous press coverage, the airship's
existence was typically reported as factual, although the Berkshire Evening
Eagle described it as a "fire balloon."" One report said that Tillinghast "was seen
by fully a thousand residents here tonight repeatedly circling the city in a huge
airship."" Another account stated that "there is no doubt that some person was
navigating a heavierthan-air machine here."19

The mass sightings continued for several days and were concentrated in the
vicinity of Boston and Worcester. On December 23, the vessel reappeared above
Worcester and several nearby communities between 6:00 and 7:30 P.M. In
Worcester an estimated fifty thousand residents poured into the streets and
nearly brought the city to a standstill:20 "In the main thoroughfares people with
bundles stood agape.... Men and boys poured from the clubrooms and women
rushed from the houses to view this phenomenon. The streets were thronged."21
While the Boston Globe reported that the Worcester sightings were of Venus,
mass observations in Boston, Revere, Cambridge, and Willimantic were
described with less skepticism.22 Other press accounts continued to lend
plausibility to the airship stories, such as the Boston Herald's headline
"Mysterious Air Craft Circles About Boston for Nearly Six Hours."13 Alex
Randell of Revere even claimed to see "the frame quite plainly,"24 while Baltic
resident P. D. Donahue stated that he could make out two men in the vessel as it
passed overhead.' When the strange light was seen by many residents above
Willimantic, even its mayor, Daniel Dunn, said that "there was no doubt but that
it was an airship."26

The episode peaked on Christmas Eve, with thirty-three separate reports
from Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut to Vermont, New York, and
Maine. In Boston, on December 24 "thousands upon thousands of people ...
stood on sidewalks, street corners and squares from soon after dark till well on
toward midnight" hoping for a glimpse of the airship. Most were rewarded.

Lower Washington st, Dock sq, Scolay sq, Tremont row, Court st,
Bowdoin sq, Court sq, Tremont st and the Common were haunted by
large groups of more or less excited and awe-struck belated Christmas
shoppers, many of them laden with bundles, all gazing well up into the
zenith at the gleaming lights....
 At the corner of Washington and Summer sts the elevated roads
starter had the hardest job he had since the last big fire in his district,
all owing to the crowd of sky gazers that would persist in obstructing
the car track.

On the Common a policeman got extremely angry at a bystander

who undertook to argue against the genuineness of the airship and to
suggest that the signal lanterns might be stars. "Haven't I seen the
airship standing here?" demanded the bluecoat with an asperity that
discouraged argument to the point....

Another man plainly distinguished that one of the twin lights was
green, the other red, as they should be to conform to the rules of
navigation, and he flatly told an observer at his elbow that he must be
blind not to be able to see the difference in the color of the lights.

Another man expressed doubt whether the airship was really

moving but he was assured in gentle but firm tones by another that
undoubtedly the operator had temporarily shut off his power, but that
the machine had been moving unmistakably a few minutes before.

A large majority of observers commented on the frequent ascent
or descent of one end of the airship. Now it appeared to be gliding
higher in space, then taking a chute downward in a gradual and
graceful plane.

A large group at the corner of Bromfield and Tremont sts showed

the most marked agitation seen during the evening, for at one time,
from that point, the airship appeared to be a few feet lower than the top
of Park-st church steeple and so near that everybody felt sure that it
was certain to crash into the steeple.

Just when the nervous tension had reached its most critical stage,
apparently, the operator appeared to see his danger, for the machine
approached no nearer and appeared to be at a standstill as the crowd
uttered a concerted sigh of relief and dispersed, to be succeeded by
another a moment later.27

Many of Tillinghast's actions were deliberately ambiguous in an obvious

effort to bask in the notoriety as well as to solidify the rapidly emerging
consensus that he was the airship inventor. While he continually noted that he
had never sought the initial publicity for his invention, and in fact had been
hounded by an industrious journalist to obtain the initial interview, a reporter for
a rival newspaper, the Boston Globe, subsequently learned that the reporter who
obtained the original interview "with the great inventor, didn't have to spend any
sleepless nights running down Mr. Tillinghast." The day before the interview
Tillinghast had telephoned the Boston Herald and requested to meet with a
journalist the following day, "as he had an item to get out."28

Tillinghast was the perceived inventor and pilot, and his movements were
closely monitored.

[P]eople who saw the airship took it for granted that Tillinghast was
the aviator, and a Journal reporter, with others, at once made inquiries
and learned that Mr. Tillinghast was away from home and that he
telephoned his house from his office at four o'clock in the afternoon
that he would not be home tonight. Further, [he] usually goes to where
he says his aeroplane is hidden in [an] automobile but his auto is now
out of repair, and he was seen taking a train shortly after four o'clock
this afternoon. At eleven o'clock tonight he had not returned to his
home and he was not expected until morning. All this taken into
consideration, together with the... thin black form of the airship
hovering about the city from almost every point ... leaves no doubt in
the minds of all who witnessed it that Mr. Tillinghast was the operator
and the airship was his own invention.29

On December 24, when numerous sightings were reported across New England,
the Boston Journal reported that when Tillinghast returned home in the morning,
"his eyes were terribly bloodshot and his face was cut and wind tanned, showing
every evidence of having been out in a strong high and cold wind for a long
while." On the basis of this description, the reporter concluded that it was
"almost certain Mr. Tillinghast is the mysterious aviator of the marvelous
airship."'

Tillinghast's silence about his airship during this time served only to
enhance the claims made during his hoax newspaper interview and was
interpreted as affirming the evidence. He was characterized as secretive, a
common stereotype of inventors of the period. As the search for the secret
location of Tillinghast's airship broadened, scores of sheds and buildings in
remote locations were scrutinized as possible hiding places. One reporter was
arrested for trespassing on private property while checking a shed owned by a
business associate of Tillinghast. While not actually seeing the vessel, the
reporter concluded that it must be the secret machine shop, for why else would
they have arrested him?31

The reports tailed off dramatically from Christmas to the end of the month
with the exception of six sightings on December 27. Newspaper editors and
citizens were increasingly skeptical. People began evoking the popular ideas of
French psychologist Gustave LeBon, which attributed the sightings to
individual, "primitive" impulses activated within emotional situations that
produced a form of temporary irrationality or madness.32 While a Boston Globe
reporter described the city of Marlboro, Massachusetts, as "airship crazy,"33 a
reporter in nearby Rhode Island depicted it as "airship mad," implicitly
comparing it to LeBon's contagious mental disease model, which was well
known during this period.

The epidemic of infected vision that has turned Massachusetts upside

down struck town with a bang late yesterday afternoon. From the time
that the sun went down until the last shopper had found his way home
this morning all kinds of aerial craft circled over the city... On the
streets the greeting wasn't "Merry Christmas." It was "Did you see it?"'

One newspaper editor commented that "these must, indeed, be times sorely
troublesome to the human imagination." He concluded that rapid progress in
knowledge and technology "have no doubt brought the popular mind under no
little strain and made it more susceptible than common to seeing phantoms in the
air if not ghosts on the earth."35

By December 26, a deluge of skeptical press accounts began to. appear. The
Boston Globe expressed concern that residents of Worcester and its environs
would soon become the laughingstocks of the world, since reporters representing
newspapers from around the globe were wiring information that there was
apparently little basis for the "fantastic stories."36 That same day C. D. Rawson
of Worcester confessed to sending up large owls with lanterns and a reflector
attached to their legs.37 A letter to the editor noted that most observations were
consistent with misidentifications of Venus, which was prominent in the western
sky in the early evening.38 One press correspondent wired back to his West
Virginia office, noting the growing doubts of the remarkable claims: "Go where
you will in New England today and you will hear them talk about Tillinghast and
his mysterious airship. The majority of New Englanders don't believe in
Tillinghast."39 By December 27, several correspondents with a vested interest in
keeping the sensational story alive were criticized by their colleagues. One editor
commented that while the mysterious light was seen on three consecutive
evenings in the same position of the sky between 6 and 7 P.M. and corresponded
exactly with Venus, "one ambitious news writer ... sent long dispatches to two
New York papers, telling how hundreds had stood out and watched the airship
maneuver, and the metropolitan papers printed the story along with the story of
Tillinghast's ship, giving the impression that it was the Worcester man." The
editor concluded that the brilliant light "without doubt, is Venus.""

The steadily increasing skepticism soon turned to embarrassment and then
hostility, as residents in Boston and especially Worcester were becoming the butt
of jokes and ridicule by the national press, and there were fears that the publicity
would have a negative impact on business investment in the region. This led to
demands that Tillinghast either prove his assertions or refrain from making such
claims.

The rather ridiculous advertising which is coming to Worcester in this

way annoys the staid folks who are proud of the commercial reputation
of their city. They have awakened to the fact that the weird stories of
flying marvels are not simply local in their effect and therefore are
planning to take action.

Several members of the Worcester Automobile Club, who are

affiliated with the Worcester Board of Trade, propose to ask that body
to take steps either to justify the stories that have gone all over the
world or to ask for some reasonable explanation.

They feel that the Board of Trade should ask Wallace E.

Tillinghast to corroborate the wonderful tales of his aeroplane. It is
their intention ... that he must back up his statements with some
reasonable proof or deny that he is responsible for the stories.
 It is their purpose to prove to the world either that there is a
wonderful airship in the vicinity of Worcester or that the whole thing
is a hoax and that the city does not sanction the peculiar brand of
notoriety in which it has basked.... They want to settle the thing once
and for all time....

Tillinghast will be asked to show his machine to a reputable

delegation of citizens and some newspapermen. If he really says that
he has some kind of ship and wishes to protect it provision will be
made to insure him profound secrecy as to his plans.

The main point is that the citizens who are interested in the move
believe they should protect the reputation of their city... If there be
absolutely no basis for all the airship worries which have descended
upon New England, they want to publish the fact to the world and
close the incident.

It is planned to put this "proposition" before Secretary Davidson

of the Board of Trade on Monday"

While such attempts failed, Tillinghast and his family were overwhelmed
by the media spotlight. He was a virtual prisoner in his home and was constantly
followed wherever he went. This seemed to accomplish what the business
community could not achieve-to silence Tillinghast.

Tillinghast ... is absolutely incommunicado. The notoriety that has

followed him since the mysterious lights were seen has seriously
interfered with his business and with his home life. He has not been
permitted an hour's peace. At his office there are constantly two or
three persons who want to know something. At the door of his place of
business and at his home he is closely watched by mysterious men.
When he is at home his telephone rings constantly.... [T]he constant
clangor is not conducive to his good nature.42

Only four sightings were reported during January, and these were met with
great incredulity. When several Willimantic residents, including a police officer,
noted an unusual nocturnal light in early January, the press descriptions were
restricted to just two small paragraphs. There was no credible suggestion that an
airship was actually sighted, and one newspaper proclaimed: "Willimantic
people have been 'seeing things' again."43 When the airship was sighted by R.
W. Tyler of East Poultney, Vermont, on the evening of January 6, a local press
account began sarcastically: "The expected has occurred, the inevitable has come
to pass. Rutland county has seen the airship."44 On the evening of January 19,
several Fair Haven Heights, Connecticut, residents reported observing the
airship, at which time the local newspaper prominently published the opinion of
a local astronomer who had studied the object through a telescope and was
certain that it was the star Sirus45 It was at this point that the reports ceased,
ending the remarkable and strange sequence of events.

Notes

1. R. E. Bilstein, Flight in America 1900-1983: From the Wrights to the

Astronauts (London: John Hopkins University Press, 1984), p. 15.

2. C. H. GibbsSmith, Aviation: An Historical Survey from Its Origins to

the End of World War II (London: her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1985), pp.
145-46.

3. Ibid., pp. 231-36.

4. "Tillinghast to His Story Clings," Berkshire Evening Eagle, December

14, 1909.

5. "Noise Like an Aeroplane. Fire Island Surfman Heard It in Air; Sure It

Was Not Geese," Boston Herald, December 13, 1909, p. 1.

6. "Tillinghast to His Story Clings," Berkshire Evening Eagle, December

14, 1909.

7. "What Mr. Hanna Saw May Have Been the Worcester Airship!"
Willimantic Chronicle, December 14, 1909, p. 8.

8. "What Mr. Hanna Saw...," Willimantic Chronicle, December 14, 1909,

p. 8.

9. "Sailed Over the Harbor. Unknown Airship Makes a Flight in Night....

Immigration Inspector Hoe Able to Distinguish Part of Framework of Craft,"
Boston Globe evening edition, December 20, 1909, p. 1.

10. "Boston Airship a Boat's Masts. Inspector Hoe Mistook Towering

Sticks of the James S. Whitney for Framework of Mysterious Night Flier,"
Boston Herald, December 21, 1909, p. 12.

11. "Sailed Over the Harbor ... ," Boston Globe evening edition, December
20, 1909, p. 1.

12. "Air Ships Seen at Night," Boston Globe, December 23, 1909, p. 6.

13. "Light Seen in Hartford, Also," Hartford Daily Times, December 24,
1909, p. 3.

14. "Worcester Agape at Airship Lights. Wallace E. Tillinghast May Have

Been Flying Above City. Business at Standstill While People Watch_," Boston
Herald, December 23, 1909, p. 1.

15. "Worcester Palpitating. All Excitement Today Over That Airship.

Tillinghast Generally Given Credit for Being the Man. So Many People Saw It
That No Question Is Raised of Some Craft Making Flight," Boston Globe
evening edition, December 3, 1909, p. 1.

16. Boston Herald, December 23, 1909, p. 1.

17. "Light Caused by a Toy Balloon," Berkshire Evening Eagle, December

23, 1909, p. 1.

18. "Thousands See Big Airship Over Worcester ... Machine Circles City
Several Times at Height of Two Thousand Feet," Boston journal, December 23,
1909, p. 1.

19. "Worcester Palpitating ... ," Boston Globe evening edition, December
23, 1909, p. 1.

20. "Mysterious Air Craft Circles about Boston for Nearly Six Hours. Some
Declare They Discern Outlines of Monoplane Bearing Two Men ... ," Boston
Herald, December 24, 1909, p. 1.

 21. "Airship Is Just Venus," Boston Globe, December 24, 1909, p. 1.

22. Refer to the following press accounts appearing in the Boston Globe,
December 24, 1909, p. 1: "Seen in Boston. Many Persons Positive They Saw the
Light of Some Mysterious Navigator of the Air"; "Revere Sees Its Wings.
Several Observers Say They Were Able to Make Out Outlines of the Airship";
"Cambridge Also Sees It. Airship Described as Moving from West to East and
Then in Opposite Direction"; "Again the Searchlight."

23. "Mysterious Air Craft Circles about Boston . . . ," Boston Herald,
December 24, 1909, p. 1.

24. "Skyship of Mystery Flies above Boston. Revere Man Gets Close
Enough to See Framework and Hears the Engine ... ," Boston Journal, December
24, 1909, p. 1.

25. "Mystery Airship Just Like Venus. Machine Hovers Over Willimantic,"
Daily Times, December 24, 1909, p. 3.

26. Ibid.

27. "Certain as the Stars. Airship Again on Route. Even Skeptics See Its
Changing Lights," Boston Globe, December 25, 1909, p. 1.

28. "Tillinghast Very Modest," Boston Globe, December 20,1909, p. 14.

29. "Mr. Tillinghast Absent," Boston Journal, December 23, 1909, p. 1.

30. "Skyship of Mystery Flies above Boston ... Worcester Man Again
Absent from Home All the Evening," Boston Herald, December 24, 1909, p.1.

31. "Craft of Mystery Finally Tracked to Its Lair-Perhaps! Home of the

Worcester Aeroplane Located in West Boyleson, Massachusetts, It Is Believed
... ," Willimantic Daily Chronicle, December 24, 1909, p. 1.

32. G. LeBon, Psychologie des joules, 2d ed. (Paris: Felix Alcan, 1896).

33. "Marlboro Has It, Too," Boston Globe evening edition, December 23,
1909, p. 1.
 34. "City Is Airship Mad. All Kinds of Aeroplanes Flying About,
According to Reports," Providence journal, December 25, 1909, p. 2.

35. Springfield Republican (editorial), January 2, 1910, p. 6.

36. "Airship Story Worries Them ... ," Boston Globe, December 26, 1909,
p. 14.

37. "Airship Owl Is Worcester Tale. C. D. Rawson Says He Hitched Lights

to Birds and Let Them Fly on Nights Skycraft Was Seen," Boston Sunday
Herald, December 26, 1909, p. 15.

38. "Venus and the Public Rye," Providence Sunday Journal, December 26,
1909, sec. 2, p. 5.

39. "Tillinghast in His Shop, Not in His Airship. New Englanders Probably
Mistake Venus for a Soaring Flying Machine and Get Excited," Wheeling
Register, December 26, 1909.

40. "Willimantic Laughs at the Airship Faking," Hartford Daily Times,
December 27, 1909, p. 11.

41. "Worcester Angry Over Airship. City, Tired of Notoriety, Wants

Tillinghast Asked to Prove Assertions," Providence Journal, December 27, 1909,
p. 11.

42. Ibid.

43. "The Inky Sky, and Not a Star in Sight," Willimantic Daily Chronicle,
January 7, 1910, p. 1; "Willimantic Men See Things Again," Hartford Courant,
January 8, 1910, p. 1.

44. "The Inevitable Airship," Rutland Daily Herald (Vermont), January 10,
1910, p. 4.

45. "Fair Haven Sees Phantom Airship ... Astronomer Has Solution,"
Hartford Daily Times, January 19, 1910, p. 9.

 It was realized, though certainly not universally, that as soon as an
efficient flying machine made its appearance England lay open to an
invasion from the air, that her traditional reliance upon the Navy and
seapower was no longer so valid as it had been in what was looked
upon as the dawn of a new age, the air age. As one contemporary
expressed it... "England is no longer an island."

-Alfred
Gollin'

his chapter describes the context of a collective delusion that occurred in

Great Britain over a five-month period during 1912-13, involving the mass
sightings of imaginary Zeppelins. This episode was precipitated, as were many
of them, by rumors exacerbated by widespread press speculation concerning a
possible aerial invasion and the tendency of newspapers to present many claims
as factual. The rumors were rendered plausible in the wake of rapid aeronautical
advancements coupled with the German armament buildup. The phantom
Zeppelins symbolized prevailing xenophobic sentiments that typified the period.

The War Scare Context

Between October 14, 1912, and March 1, 1913, tens of thousands of people
across Great Britain reported seeing Zeppelins that far exceeded the
technological capability of the period. The popular folk theory held that the
sightings were of hostile German Zeppelins on aerial reconnaissance missions as
a prelude to invasion. In the years immediately preceding the episode, anti-
German sentiments rose steadily. The period between 1907 and the start of
World War I was characterized by extraordinary public fear over the growing
strength of the German military, especially relative to Zeppelin airships and
dreadnought naval vessels, and the perceived weakening of the British navy.

In 1909 Britain's vulnerability to aerial attack was recognized and its long-
standing rule as the unrivaled sea power suddenly questioned? "Hysteria
germanica" began to grow3 and continued to wax and wane until the beginning
of World War 1.1 Here is a summary of Anglo-German relations in 1909:

The Admiralty in these circumstances feared that Germany might, by a

sudden spurt in shipbuilding, overtake the British superiority in
Dreadnoughts. Technical experts in every Navy in the world believed
that victory or defeat in the next war at sea would turn upon ... ships of
this class or type.

These anxieties were intensified by the novelty of the situation.

No ote in authority had any genuine experience of this kind of arms
race. When the idea of German acceleration found its way into the
German popular press a national panic was the result. There were no
sane limits to the fears expressed in Britain in March and April 1909.
Liberal Ministers were roundly condemned as traitors who had abused
the trust placed in them by the nation. Some sections of the Press
proclaimed that Britain's centuries-long ... superiority at sea was ...
about to be lost to the Germans. It was widely believed that deadly
balances were being altered and that Britain, owing to the lack of
vigilance of the Liberal Government, was in mortal peril of a naval
defeat and a consequent German invasion.'

Despite a general acknowledgment of Germany's naval challenge and
increasing military strength between October 1906 and 1909, there had been no
great concern over Britain's immediate security relative to hostile German
intentions.6 In 1906 Sir C. Hardinge foresaw no immediate German naval threat,
concluding that "it is not likely to be made for some years to come."' From this
period until 1909, although Anglo-German relations were unfriendly, most
major British political figures believed that a German challenge to Britain's long-
held naval superiority was in the distant future.'

Anglo-German tensions and mistrust had been steadily growing from 1907
to the start of World War I in 1914, but in 1912 "the naval race" between the two
powers was especially daunting, and by late April "London and Berlin were as
far apart as possible."' With news of a German plan to construct three additional
battleships, the British Admiralty became concerned with the large increase of
German battleships on active service. This led to a vigorous debate in which the
Admiralty considered ordering its remaining large ships home from the
Mediterranean," provoking "a furious row throughout the rest of the year over
whether Britain was still an 'imperial' power or merely a North Sea one.""

Through the first half of 1912, there were several well-publicized attempts
by the British to achieve a German arms agreement, but all efforts failed to reach
a compromise. Tensions escalated further in October 1912 with the outbreak of
the first of three Balkan wars, which had a negative impact on Anglo-German
relations. During November 1912, the month of the first documented Zeppelin
sighting, so concerned were Britain and France by the possibility of a war with
Germany, that they implemented the Grey-Cambon exchange, which morally
obligated Britain to aid France in the event of a Franco-German altercation.12
This agreement heightened Belgian distrust of Britain and fueled concerns that
Belgium, a French neighbor, might side with Germany. Between February 1909
until the German invasion to Belgium on August 2, 1914, fears of a secret
German-Belgian agreement were reported in Britain," During the period of the
Zeppelin sightings through 1914, the distance between England and Germany
was "as wide as ever," and the political mood in Britain prior to World War I
was filled with anxiety:

The country was, to be sure, unusually turbulent in the years 1911-

1914; the constitutional crisis, the industrial unrest, most dangerous of
all, the Ulster question were producing bitterness, intransigence and a
willingness to contemplate the use of violence which had rarely been
seen in Britain for seventy or eighty years.14
 During a naval crisis symposium in June and July 1912, Prime Minister
Arthur Balfour also voiced concern that Germany would soon overtake Britain's
long-held stranglehold as the world's superior naval power.

The Ascendancy of Aerial Technology

Rapid advancements in German aerial technology, making Germany the

unquestioned world leader with its Zeppelin airships, further heightened invasion
fears and lent plausibility to rumors of a potential invasion of Britain. The
British preoccupation with such an invasion was expressed in various science-
fiction novels during the latter nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.15 The
main theme of these books was arguing for "higher budgets and a stronger war
machine."" Yet many other magazines and nonfiction books expressed concern
over Britain's poor standing in the field of aerial technology, and discussed
instead the potential of such technology to result in unprecedented destruction,
including books like H. G. Wells's novel The War in the Air (1908).17

In factual articles the danger that Britain was lagging behind the
aeronautical developments of Russia, Germany and France were
constantly brought to our attention. One good example of this type of
warning appeared in The Strand Magazine of July 1911. The article by
a well-known and respected aviator, Claude Grahame-White, was
titled "The Aerial Menace. Why There Is Danger In England's
Apathy." Accompanying it is an aerial view of London at night. The
sky is full of aeroplanes and the caption informs us that they are, "A
Fleet of Two Thousand Aeroplanes Dropping Bombs on London."
Grahame-White sums-up the situation by noting that:

As each year goes by this peril of the destructive potentialities of
the aeroplane will increase. Its scouting powers will improve also. The
longer we delay in England in this regard to placing ourselves abreast
of other nations in aerial armaments the worse our position will be.18

It is within this environment that the "Zeppelin" sightings occurred.

The Zeppelin Sightings

The waves of claims and public discourse about Zeppelin incursions over Britain
began at Sheerness on October 14, 1912, when several residents including
Lieutenant Raymond Fitzmaurice, claimed to hear an aircraft at about 6:45 P.M.,
and some saw a distant aerial light which they assumed emanated from an
airship. The incident did not receive widespread publicity until November 21,
when Member of Parliament Mr. Joynson-Nicks inquired about the rumored
Zeppelin sighting, which was to become popularly known as "the Sheerness
Incident," asking Winston Churchill if Britain had airships "equivalent in size
and power ... capable of travelling at the rate of sixty miles an hour, and Mr.
Churchill replied in the negative."19 An examination of the minutes of the
meeting of the Committee of Imperial Defence held on December 6, 1912,
revealed that despite public denials, Churchill privately believed the sighting
was of a Zeppelin.20 Several days later the editors of The Aeroplane concluded
that the "Sheerness incident" was almost certainly a Zeppelin, warning that
"never was the 'Wake up England' spirit more immediately of importance. 1121
This story prompted intense British press speculation that Zeppelins were flying
over England, and on December 3 an airship was reported near Portsmouth.'
With continued press coverage of the issue, a deluge of reports soon began to
pour in from across the country.

Just before daybreak on January 4, 1913, road inspector John Hobbs

reported a bright light over Dover, which he assumed to be an airship and which
several newspapers described as fact! At dusk on January 18, the Glamorgan
chief constable Captain Lionel Lindsay claimed to see an airship emitting a trail
of black smoke, although conditions were so foggy and poor "that one could not
define it."24 While the Yorkshire Post cautiously stated that Captain Lindsay
saw "what he believes to have been a large aircraft,"25 many press accounts
described this fleeting observation as an airship.26 Over the next several days
many people came forward claiming that they too had seen the airship light that
evening27 or in the days prior to Captain Lindsay's report.28 In the wake of
these reports, Mr. Joynson-Hicks told a reporter of his belief that "foreign
dirigibles are crossing the English Channel at will," displaying his alarm at the
state of British defenses.29 The sightings continued virtually unabated, with
reports of airships almost nightly until March 7, when they suddenly stopped.
The following press account summarizes the reports over a one-week period in
late February:

 Everyday new reports arrive of more airships....

FRIDAY. Scarborough (searchlight seen and engine heard).

Bridlington (lights and dim shape seen). Selby (long cigarshaped body,
searchlight ... other lights ... noise of motor heard). Hunstanton
(rapidly moving lights seen).

SATURDAY. Scarborough (lights and dim shape seen).

Corbridge-on-Tyne (lights seen). MONDAY. Sanday, Orkney Isles
(airship seen). Witherness (lights and ... body of the vessel seen).

Portsmouth (lights seen). Ipswich (ordinary lights, powerful

searchlight, and body of the vessel seen; throb of engine heard).

TUESDAY. Horsea (white and red lights and cone of airship

seen). Hull (lights seen). Grimsby (lights and dim shape seen). Leeds
(bright light and dim shape seen). Seaforth, Liverpool (bright light and
outline of vessel ... whirring of propeller and throb of the engine
heard). Portishead, Somerset (lights and outlines of airship seen).
Castle Dommington, Derbyshire (lights seen; engine heard). Dover
(lights seen; engine heard). Hunstanton (bright lights seen).

WEDNESDAY. Portland Harbour (dazzling searchlight and clear

outline of airship seen; sound of propeller heard). Hyde (flashing lights
and long, dark moving object seen). Romiley (... vivid searchlight
seen). Avonmouth, Bristol (two lights seen).

THURSDAY. Hucknall, Nottinghamshire (airship and powerful
searchlight seen). Kirkcaldy and Rosyth (brilliant light and dimly
outlined airship seen). Liverpool and New Brighton (bright lights and
dim shape seen). Ardwick, Manchester (two head lights and a tail light
seen).'

The sightings in South Wales were mystifying, as the Zeppelin would have
had to have crossed the English Channel in daylight, yet there were no
corresponding sightings in England.31 This prompted speculation in some
quarters that the mysterious vessel was actually an airship that was being
secretly developed by a local inventor," or more likely by the War Office in
response to the Zeppelin threat.33
 As the sightings continued, what had earlier been described as a possible or
actual airship of unknown origin was increasingly referred to as a hostile
Zeppelin. Cardiff aeronaut E. T. Willows made headlines when he suggested that
it could have been one of several Zeppelins that were capable of making the
journey.34 On January 23 a Knowle resident expressed fear that a man-o-war
airship was recently seen over Bristol.35 A Manchester man described his
displeasure with the government for allowing Britain's lack of aerial
preparedness: "The country will not be satisfied with a reassurance that the
Admiralty has the matter in hand."-6A former naval officer noted the enormous
advantages of a foreign power's knowing the nocturnal geography and suggested
bolstering coastal defense.31 A British press correspondent in Germany warned
of the German superiority in airship technology, remarking ominously that
"England's maritime superiority [had] lost its whole significance, as superiority
in the air [now] brings mastery of the world."' A technical editor of the leading
aviation journal Flight, A. F. Berriman expressed his conviction that Zeppelins
were capable of making long-distance voyages over England.39

Skeptical press reports grew more common, especially from February 6

onward. One common explanation for the sightings was the misidentification of
Venus,' which was prominent in the evening sky during the episode. Fire
balloons were found near some sites and were suspected as the stimulus for
several sightings 41 More novel explanations included the theory that a local
aeronautical expert had anchored a small model airship to a moving motor car,
42 and rubber balloons with an attached battery and light were used to determine
wind direction.' Some hypothesized that the noise often associated with the aerial
light may have been "flocks of wild geese."44 Unusual atmospheric illusions45
were also suspects.

Actions by the British government only reinforced the belief in Zeppelin
aerial incursions. During the second week of February, Parliament passed a bill
giving officers the right to fire at any mysterious aircraft. The bill was approved
with virtually no discussion, so people assumed that "naval and military
authorities had received confidential reports which assured them that the airships
of foreign powers [Germany] were making reconnaissances."' At a meeting of
the Aeronautical Society, Major Sykes of the Royal Flying Corps declared,
"Great Britain is no longer an island. Since Nelson defeated the united fleet at
Trafalgar, Great Britain has held the mastery of the sea ... [and] invasion was
always improbable, if not even impossible. But the aeroplane has destroyed the
inviolability of the English air."" Major B. Baden-Powell warned of the
possibility of German airships carrying bombs that could be dropped on London,
drawing parallels to H. G. Wells's War in the Air, in which London was
destroyed by an aerial attack.98

Near the end of the sighting reports, many Britons ridiculed the witnesses,
something that the German press had done since the start of the episode. A
Penarth resident wrote: "The German airship Flying Venus, showing bright
headlight, with no body discernible, was plainly seen between eight and ten
o'clock this evening," signing his name "SCARED ONE."49 German
newspapers typically referred to the "airship ghost.""' Psychopathological
explanations were also discussed in the press, especially in the waning two
weeks. The editors of the London Daily Mirror suggested that England was in
the midst of an epidemic of "air-shipitis" and quoted a prominent mental doctor
who claimed that mass hallucinations were responsible.51 A psychologist was
quoted as saying that "the idea of a wandering ship ... is so firmly fixed ... that
these mind impressions succeed in rendering it visible."52 When a couple in
Kilmarnock, Scotland, attributed a distant light to the vessel, a local newspaper
proclaimed: "The Airship Epidemic ... Breaks Out."53 Many German
newspapers described the reports in pathological terms. One press headline
stated: "The Airship Psychosis in England."54 The Germania, Berlin organ of
the Centre Party, said the reports were laughable, the result of "iniquitous
influencing of the masses,"55 while another account referred to it as "the new
English sickness."56

The phantom Zeppelin sightings reflected the prevailing sociopolitical
climate in Britain just prior to World War I. The skies reflected the collective
psyche, and a variety of ambiguous, prosaic, almost exclusively nocturnal aerial
stimuli, circumstances, and events were widely redefined. For over a century
prior to the episode, Britain's status as the world's naval leader was never
seriously challenged, but this long-held rule was suddenly shattered with the
advent of rapid aeronautical advancements.

Notes

1. A. Gollin, No Longer an Island: Britain and the Wright Brothers,

1902-1909 (London: Heinemann, 1984), p. 2.
 2. Ibid., p. 433.

3. Ibid., p. 437.

4. P. M. Kennedy, The Rise of the Anglo-German Antagonism 18601914

(London: George Allen and Unwin, 1980), pp. 441-63.

5. Gollin, No Longer an Island, p. 437.

6. Ibid., pp. 1-2.

7. K. M. Wilson, The Policy of the Entente: Essays on the Determinants

of the British Foreign Policy 1904-1914 (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1985), p. 106.

8. Ibid. Wilson documents this complacency: "Admiral Sir A. K. Wilson

... [stated] in May 1907 on current Admiralty War Plans ... of the case of a
purely Anglo-German conflict, that 'it was difficult to see how such a way could
arise,'... Grey himself noted in November 1907 that the Germans were 'a long
way behind' in dreadnoughts: 'We shall have 7 Dreadnoughts afloat, before they
have one, without our laying down anymore. In 1910 they will have 4 to our 7,
but between now and then there is plenty of time to lay down new ones if they
do so.... The Foreign Office know that the German Navy posed no
insurmountable threat to British Superiority at sea; that the risk of invasion, as
distinct from raids, was minute; that the Germany were more afraid of attack by
Britain ... than vice versa.' "

9. Kennedy, Rise of Anglo-German Antagonism, p. 451.

10. S. R. Williamson, The Politics of Grand Strategy: Britain and France

Prepare for War, 1904-1914 (Cambridge, Mass., 1969), pp. 227-99; P. G.
Halpern, The Mediterranean Naval Situation 1908-1914 (Cambridge, Mass.,
1971), pp. 1-110.

11. Kennedy, Rise of Anglo-German Antagonism, p. 451.

12. Ibid., p. 452.

13. B. J. Weiss, "The Evolution of Britain's Military and Diplomatic

Commitment to France, 1904-1914" (Ph.D. diss., History Department,
University of Illinois at Urbana, 1967).

14. Kennedy, Rise of Anglo-German Antagonism, p. 454.

15. N. Watson, G. Oldroyd, and D. Clarke, The 1912-1913 British Phantom

Airship Scare (Mount Rainier, Md.: Fund for UFO Research, 1988).

16. D. Suvin, "The Extraordinary Voyage, the Future War, and Bul-wer's
'The Coming Race': Three Sub-Genres in British Science Fiction, 1871-1885,"
Literature and History 10 (1984).

17. Watson, British Phantom Airship Scare, p. 3.

18. Ibid.

19. "The Alleged Visit of a Foreign Airship," London Times, November 22,
1912, p. 8.

20. Watson, British Phantom Airship Scare, p. 10.

21. The Aeroplane, November 28, 1912, p. 497.

22. "Airship over Portsmouth," London Times, December 4,1912, p. 6.

23. "Unknown Aircraft over Dover. Reported Night Visits of a Lighted

Machine," The Times of London, January 6, 1913, p. 6; "Aircraft from the Sea.
Mysterious Flight Before Daybreak," London Daily Express, January 6, 1913, p.
7; "Mysterious Airship. Flight over Dover," London Daily Telegraph, January 6,
1913, p. 10; "Dover Airship Mystery," Bristol Evening News, January 7, 1913,
p. 4; "Mystery Airships," London Daily Times, January 7, 1913, p. 5; "Airship
Mystery. Was It a Zeppelin? The Hansa at Sheerness," Bradford Daily
Telegraph, January 14, 1913.

24. "An Airship over Cardiff," Times of London, January 21, 1913, p. 10.

25. "A Mystery of the Sky. Chief Constable's Vision of an Airship,"

Yorkshire Post (Leeds), January 21, 1913. For another cautious press
description, see: "Airship Mystery. Cardiff Story of Unknown Vessel's Night
Flight," Nottingham Daily Express, January 21, 1913.
 26. "Mysteries of the Air. Unknown Craft Seen over Cardiff. Third in a
Month," South Wales Daily Post, January 21, 1913, p. 6.

27. "The Airship at Cardiff," Times of London, January 22, 1913, p. 10;
"Cardiff Airship Mystery. Chief Constable's Story Supported by Other
EyeWitnesses," Nottingham Daily Express, January 22, 1913; "Airship
Mystery," Western Mail (Cardiff), January 22, 1913, p. 6; "The Mysterious
Airship," Yorkshire Post, (Leeds), January 22, 1913. "Seemed to Carry a
Searchlight" (letter), Western Mail, January 25, 1913; "That Mysterious Airship.
Seen at Foxwood, Rogerstone, near Newport, Jan. 23" (letter), Monmouthshire
Evening Post (Newport), January 25, 1913, p. 5.

28. "Two Mysterious Aircraft," London Daily Express, January 22, 1913, p.
5.

29. "Is There Secret Garage in This Country? War Time Danger. M.P.
Alarmed at Country's Lack of Preparation," Daily Dispatch (Manchester
edition), January 22, 1913.

30. "Seeing Airships. Everybody's Doing It," Manchester Guardian, March

1, 1913, p. 9.

31. "Airship Mystery. Sighted by Many People," South Wales Daily Post
(Swansea), January 22, 1913, p. 3.

32. "Mysterious Airship. Seen for a Seventh Time," Liverpool Courier,

February 3, 1913.

33. "The Mysterious Airship. Seen over Bristol," Bristol Evening News,
February 7, 1913, p. 3; "That All!" The Wiltshire Telegraph (Devizes,
Wiltshire), February 15,1913, p. 2; "Fly-by-Night. Another Cruise by the
Mysterious Airship," Bath and Wilts Chronicle (Bath, Somerset), February 8,
1913, p. 3.

34. "Welsh Airship Mystery," London Daily Express, January 23, 1913, p.
5; "Is It a German? The Mystery of the Airship. Mr. E. T. Willows' Opinion,"
South Wales Daily Post, January 23, 1913, p. 6; "The Mystery Airship. Track of
Craft Through Glamorgan. Is It a German Vessel? Suggestion by Mr. E. T.
Willows," Western Mail (Cardiff), January 23, 1913, p. 5.
 35. "Correspondence. Airships over Bristol?" (letter), Bristol Times and
Mirror, January 25, 1913.

36. "Germany's Aerial Fleet... 'Menace' to Our Navy," Manchester

Guardian, February 27, 1913, p. 8.

37. "Airships or Scareships," The Aeroplane, January 30, 1913, p. 111.

38. "The English Phantom Airship," Berliner Tageblatt (Berlin) February

25, 1913.

39. "Long-Distance Journeys. Great Possibilities of the German Airships,"

London Daily Express, February 25, 1913, p. 1.

40. "The Planet Venus Responsible," Manchester Guardian, February

27,1913, p. 8; "Mystery Airship. Excitement at Newport," The South Wales
Argus, February 6, 1913, p. 6; "Did You See It? Some Reflections on the 'Light'
in the Sky. Venus the Beautiful," The Cambria Daily Leader, February 6, 1913,
p. 7; "The Mysterious Airship. Seen Over Wells and Shepton Mallet," The
Western Gazette (Yeovil, Somerset), February 7,1913, p. 2; "Day by Day," Bath
Herald, February 8, 1913, p. 3; "Notes & Comments," The Blackburn Times,
February 8, 1913, p. 7; "Venus of an Airship? Attempt to Explain the Mysterious
Lights," The Evening News (London), February 8, 1913, p. 2.

41. "Airship Hoax," London Daily Telegraph, March 1, 1913, p. 9; "Airship
Mystery. A Gamekeeper's Find. Fire Balloon in a Moor," Manchester Guardian,
February 28, 1913, p. 7; "Swansea's 'Airship.' An Explanation," South Wales
Daily Post, January 22, 1913, p. 5; "Mysterious Airships," Neath and County
Standard (Neath, Glamorganshire), January 25, 1913, p. 4; "The Airship
Rumors. Fire Balloon Found in Yorkshire," London Times, February 28, 1913,
p. 5; "Strange Lights in the Sky. Fire Balloon Discovered," Manchester
Guardian, February 28, 1913, p. 7.

42. "A Mysterious Airship," The Bath Herald, March 11, 1913, p. 4;
"Mysterious Light. What a Newport Man Saw," The South Wales Argus, March
10, 1913, p. 4.

43. "The Explanation of the Phantom Airship (Ghost Balloon). Glowing in

a Rubber Balloon," Berliner Tageblatt (Berlin), February 28, 1913.
 44. "Airship or Geese? Midnight Mystery ... ," London Daily Express,
January 27, 1913, p. 7.

45. "E. J. P. Writes" (letter), Manchester Guardian, February 27,1913, p. 8;

"Is It Auroral Light?" Manchester Guardian, March 1, 1913, p. 9.

46. "Night Raids by Air. German Dirigibles Flights over England. The New
Peril. Wanted, 1,000,000 to Meet It," London Daily Express, February 25, 1913,
p. 1.

47. "A Propaganda Campaign Over Mastery of the Air," Berliner Tageblatt
(Berlin), February 27, 1913.

48. "The Reported Lights," London Times, February 27, 1913, p. 6.

49. "Flying Venus" (letter), South Wales Daily News, March 3, 1913, p. 5.
For similar examples of sarcasm, see: "Correspondence. The Airship Again,"
The Bury Times, March 8, 1913, p. 4; "Fly-by-Night. Another Cruise by the
Mysterious Airship. Star-Gazing in Bath," Bath and Wilts Chronicle (Bath,
Somerset), February 8, 1913, p. 3.

50. "About the Airship Ghost," Neue Preussische Zeitune (Berlin), March
8,1913, Sunday evening edition, p. 2. For other German examples, see "German
Ridicule," London Daily Telegraph, February 26, 1913, p. 11; "The German
Airship Scare. Incredulity in Berlin. John Bull's Powers of Seeing Visions,"
Manchester Guardian, February 26, 1913, p. 6.

51. London Daily Mirror, February 26, 1913.

52. London Daily Chronicle, February 27, 1913.

53. "Local Notes. Kilmarnock. The Airship Epidemic. Breaks Out in

Kilmarnock," Ardrossan & Saltcoats Herald (Ardrossan, Ayrshire, Scotland),
March 7, 1913, p. 8.

54. "The Airship Psychosis in England," Berliner Tageblatt (Berlin),

February 26, 1913.

55. Morning Post, February 28, 1913.

 56. "Seeing Airships. Everybody's Doing It," Manchester Guardian, March
1, 1913, p. 9.

[U]nder certain conditions men respond as powerfully to fictions as
they do to realities, and ... in many cases they help to create the very
fictions to which they respond. Let him cast the first stone who ... did
not accept any tail of atrocities without direct proof, and never saw a
plot, a traitor, or a spy where there was none. Let him cast the first
stone who never passed on as the real inside truth what he had heard
someone say who knew no more than he did.
 -Walter Lippman'

War Hysteria in Quebec and Ontario during "The Great War"

'n late August of 1914, Canada entered World War I following the
.unanimous vote of a special session of Parliament. This event occurred amid
great exuberance and unanimity and was marked by "parades, decorations,
cheering crowds and patriotic speeches."' Canada was far from the European
front lines, and its distant, vast land mass and cold climate also contributed to a
feeling of invulnerability to attack or invasion. However, despite an initial
enthusiasm to enter the war and a general feeling of distance from its unfolding
events, there was a rapidly growing realization that German sympathizers and
enemy agents might pose a more immediate threat.

During World War I a series of espionage dramas unfolded. Canada and the
United States had their share of actual spy scandals, acts of subversion and
sabotage, and there was considerable concern among Canadians that German-
Americans and sympathizers acting on orders from Berlin or independently
might cross the border and cripple Canada's war efforts. In reality, the acts of
espionage, sabotage, and subversion that took place had relatively little impact
on everyday life in the United States or Canada, or on the war's outcome. The
few successful incidents that did occur only heightened fears and suspicions
surrounding the intentions of German sympathizers in Canada and especially in
the United States. It is difficult to give an exact figure for the number of enemy
acts in Canada, since during the war "there was hardly a major fire, explosion, or
industrial accident which was not attributed to enemy sabotage," and by the time
an incident had been thoroughly investigated, it "invariably led elsewhere."3
Beginning in 1914, anti-German hysteria steadily rose in North America and did
not subside until well after the armistice agreement that ended the war on
November 11, 1918.

During the Great War vivid imaginations and wild rumors were the order of
the day, and politicians did little to ease fears. For instance, U.S. President
Woodrow Wilson told Congress that Germans "filled our unsuspecting
communities with spies and conspirators."' The German scare in America
reached such proportions that foods, streets, schools, businesses, and cities with
Germanic names were renamed; communities prohibited German music or
theater performances; and suspected traitors were occasionally assaulted, tarred
and feathered, or hanged by vigilantes.' Similar social paranoia swept across
Canada as schools and universities stopped teaching German, the city of Berlin
was renamed Kitchener, and the Anti-German League was formed to rid Canada
of all German influence, including products and immigrants.' In August 1915,
miners in Fernie, British Columbia, refused to work until immigrant employees
at the Crow's Nest Pass Coal Company were dismissed, after which they were
promptly placed in a makeshift internment camp.' As in the United States,
politicians further stoked the fires of public hysteria. For instance, the former
Saskatchewan lieutenant governor made the sensational claim that 30 percent of
Canada's newer provinces were composed of "alien enemies, who made little
secret of their desire to see the flag of Germany waving over the Canadian
West."' Between 1914 and 1918, 8,579 men of German and Austro-Hungarian
background were placed in internment camps.' But Canadians clearly viewed the
greater threat as coming from the United States, where in 1910 there were nearly
ten million German-Americans.10 The German scare was initially more intense
in Canada, who entered the war in 1914, while the United States remained
neutral until April 1917.

Of the many rumors circulating across Canada during the war, one was
particularly persistent and widespread. From the very onset of hostilities it was
widely rumored that German-Americans sympathetic to the kaiser had been
secretly training for large-scale military raids or an invasion into Canada."
During January 1915 the British consul in Los Angeles warned Canadian
authorities that German sympathizers were planning attacks on Port Arthur, Fort
William, and Winnipeg." Meanwhile,

the consul general in New York, growing increasingly agitated,

claimed that a raid on Canada was imminent and that the Germans had
mustered five thousand men in Chicago and up to four thousand in
Buffalo. The foreign office in London [claimed] ... that a "reliable
source" had reported that a group of eight thousand men had been
formed in Boston and that bombing raids on Halifax and St. John's
could be expected."

As "imaginations ran wild, and on the flimsiest of what passed as

evidence," there were scores of false accusations about scheming Germans on
both sides of the border.14 British consulgeneral Sir Courtney Bennett, stationed
in New York, held top honors for being the worst offender.15 In the early
months of 1915 Bennett made several sensational claims about a plan in which
as many as eighty thousand well-armed, highly trained Germans who had been
drilling in Niagara Falls and Buffalo, New York, were planning to invade
Canada from New York State. Despite the incredulity of his assertions, Prime
Minister Sir Robert Borden requested a report on the invasion stories, a
testament to the deep anxiety and suspicion of the period. Canadian Police
Commissioner Sherwood assessed the rumors to be without foundation.16

In conjunction with the German scare, Canadians were also worried that
they could be vulnerable to an aerial attack. Amid these concerns, rumors
circulated that German sympathizers from Canada or the United States (almost
exclusively the latter) were planning to launch surprise bombing raids or
espionage missions using aeroplanes flown from secret airstrips."

It was within this setting that a series of phantom aeroplane scares swept
across Ontario and Quebec between 1914 and 1916. Aeroplanes of the period
were crude affairs, very limited in maneuverability, and night flying held its own
risks, with the first nocturnal flight occurring not until 1910 and lasting just
twenty kilometers," yet sightings over Canada during the war took place almost
exclusively at night.

The first reports were confined to southeastern Ontario and began in the
village of Sweaburg, six miles south of Woodstock, on Wednesday evening,
August 13, 1914, when High County constable Hobson and many others
reported seeing "two large aeroplanes" pass from east to west.19 Sporadic
sightings of mysterious aeroplanes continued over the next two weeks in such
places as Aylmer, Tillsonburg, and Port Stanley.20 As a result, a special guard
was installed at the radio station in Port Burwell on Lake Erie.21 The next major
incident occurred at about 9 P.M. on September 3, when three aeroplanes, with
powerful searchlights sweeping the countryside, were spotted in the oil town of
Petrolea.22 Scores of residents watched for hours as "every field glass in
Petrolea was brought into requisition."'3 The "aeroplanes" were widely thought
"to have some connection with Great Britain's war against Germany."24 One
"plane" flew in the direction of Oil Springs, while a second hovered near
Kingscourt and a third appeared to travel eastward toward London along the
Grand Trunk, "evidently scanning the line carefully."" Petrolea police chief
Fletcher was in communication with nearby towns and immediately began inter
viewing witnesses.26 Meanwhile, military authorities attempted to allay fears by
suggesting the possibility that the planes were merely privately owned
aircraft.21 There were also reports that the planes were owned by an American
pilot who crossed the border at night.28

Several "mysterious aeroplane[s]" were reported near Hamilton during
early September, prompting military personnel to investigate.29 After a spate of
sightings between September 8 and 10 at Springbank, residents were "greatly
stirred."30 One witness was Fred Bridge, who urged Canadian authorities to take
the reports seriously.

With my neighbor, I have seen the flashlights which swept the

countryside and have heard the roar of the motors. Last night three of
them came down over Springbank....

The people of London [Ontario] are not taking this matter

seriously enough. Some of those fellows will drop something in the
reservoir and cause no end of trouble. I am a time-expired man of the
British army ... [and if] the call is urgent I am prepared to respond....
[E]very farmer in the community should be given a rifle and service
ammunition by the department of militia, that these spy aviators might
be brought down.31

By mid-September the military had issued orders to fire on aeroplanes seen

within fourteen miles of any radio stations," and one American plane was even
shot at near the border.33 As the tension grew, a short-lived panic took place in
Toronto. On Saturday morning, October 10, a large fluttering kite flown in the
city center caused a traffic jam as anxious crowds gathered to try to identify the
object, and some even dove for cover. The incident exemplified the "nervous
state into which even Toronto is thrown by the talk of war and of raiding
aeroplanes."-' During mid-October, several people on the outskirts of Sault
Sainte Marie claimed to have watched an illuminated aeroplane rise into the sky
from the American side of the border near Soo Locks and sail over the river
above the Canadian locks, which were under close guard by militiamen.35

The city of London was greatly alarmed on the morning of October 21,
when several soldiers reported that an aeroplane car rying a powerful spotlight
flew directly over the Welseley Barracks and nearby ordnance stores early in the
morning. Sergeant Joseph, who was on guard duty, stated:

It was an aeroplane all right ... I and three members of the guard were
sitting around the camp fire when we heard the purr of engines and
looking up saw the aeroplane coming from the northeast of the
barracks. It had a bright light and was traveling rapidly. It came
practically over us and the ordnance stores and then turned to the east
and south. There was no use firing at it for it flew too high and at too
rapid a rate. It was an aeroplane, of that we are sure.36

This incident followed a series of aeroplane sightings and reports of aerial motor
sounds in the London vicinity over the previous several weeks, which
investigations had traced to causes such as toy balloons or boat engines.37
Meanwhile, shortly after the barracks sighting at London, Canadian military
authorities once again reiterated the implausibility of a spy or war plane flying
overhead, since, it was argued, spies could travel in the city unmolested in broad
daylight and achieve similar results. They also wondered why planes on a secret
mission would use brilliant searchlights that would surely attract attention.m

Scattered sightings continued during November. Guards watching over the

Toronto power plant reported seeing what appeared to be signal lights flashing
from the American side of the border across Lake Ontario. The red, yellow, and
green lights appeared during the early morning hours. The militiamen believed
the lights were flashed in order "to form different combinations. A close watch is
being kept for spies."39 During this period there were also rumors of sightings in
numerous Canadian villages, including Forestville, Quebec.40

In the early morning hours of December 3 another major scare in Toronto

took place. A series of ambiguous rumbling noises was widely thought to be an
aeroplane raid, but it was later suggested that the city's cyclone dredge, in
conjunction with war jitters, was responsible for the scare. The Toronto Daily
Star described the episode somewhat sarcastically:

Aeroplane Raid Robs Citizens of Slumber

Ominous Rumbling, Apparently ... from Sky, Caused Widespread Uneasiness

 Half of Toronto sat up in bed last night and held its breath, listening to
the Germans in aeroplanes flying about over the roof. Towards five
o'clock ... the Star office was deluged with reports that included
window and picture rattling, purring noises and everything but bombs.
From their reports it was learned that the Germans had investigated
Bleecker street at 12 Pmt., Indian road and Clinton street at 4 A.M.,
and had stood directly over 45 St. George street at 4:30 A.M.41

Sightings were sporadic until mid-February, with reports of aeroplanes near

Niagara Falls on December 1042 and Montreal during the early morning hours
of January 11.43

The biggest scare began on Sunday night, February 14, at Brockville, a

town on the U.S. border nestled along the St. Lawrence River. Constables
Storey, Thompson, and Glacier, and several townspeople were convinced that
three or four aeroplanes had passed by the city to the northeast, heading in the
direction of Ottawa, about sixty miles due north. The actual sightings were
vague, with the exception of "light balls" falling from the sky:" "The first
machine was flying very rapidly and very high. Very little could be seen, but the
unmistakable sounds of the whirring motor made the presence of the aircraft
known."45 Five minutes later a second machine was heard, then suddenly three
balls of light fell from the sky, plunging several hundred feet and extinguishing
as they hit the river. A few minutes thereafter two more aeroplanes passed over
the city.46

As word of the sightings spread throughout Brockville, its inhabitants

became "wildly excited."47 At 10:30 Pmt., the Brockville police chief sent an
urgent telegram to Premier Sir Robert Borden, who summoned Colonel Percy
Sherwood, chief of dominion police, and after consultation with military
authorities, all lights in the Parliament buildings were extinguished and every
blind drawn.48 Marksmen were posted at several vantage points on Parliament
Hill, while the premier and cabinet ministers kept in close communication in the
event of an attack during the night. News of the possible attack spread rapidly,
and several members of Parliament rushed to the roof of the main building to see
if they could spot any aircraft.

The scare in Canada was intensified the following morning, when the
Toronto Globe implied that the incident had actually happened. Its front-page
headline stated: "Ottawa in Darkness Awaits Aeroplane Raid. Several
Aeroplanes Make a Raid into the Dominion of Canada. Entire City of Ottawa in
Darkness, Fearing Bomb-Droppers. Machines Crossed St. Lawrence River ...
Seen by Many Citizens Heading for the Capital-One Was Equipped with
Powerful Searchlights-Fire Balls Dropped." On the American side, the New
York Times's description of the incident the next morning was much more
cautious, with its headlines stating in part: "Scare in Ottawa over Air Raid ... but
Police Chief's Report is Vague." The same paper also noted that the police chief
in Ogdensburg, New York, just twelve miles down the St. Lawrence River from
Brockville, stated that no one had reported seeing or hearing anything at the time
the aeroplanes were said to have passed near Brockville. In addition, flying
machines were also sighted at Gananoque, in Ontario 49 and earlier sightings of
unusual aerial objects were subsequently rethought. For instance, once the news
of the sightings spread, an Ogdensburg farmer told police that he had seen an
aeroplane on February 12 flying toward Canada.50

Within the context of the outbreak of World War I and Canada's

involvement, the aeroplane raid appeared plausible. One press account stated,
"The fact that the country is at war and the Germans and pro-Germans abound
across the border renders it quite within the bounds of possibility, if not
probability, that such a raid might occur. "51

On the following night, February 15, and the early morning hours of the
sixteenth, the Parliament buildings again remained dark, and marksmen were
posted at strategic locations.52 This was both a precautionary and a face-saving
measure, for information was rapidly coming to light, indicating that a series of
toy balloons had been sent aloft the previous night on the American side and was
mistaken for enemy aeroplanes. Premier Robert Borden was defensive, and
when asked for information on the "invasion," he replied that when told of the
reports, he had left the matter to the judgment of the chief of staff and chief of
dominion police.53 The Toronto Globe was also embarrassed, since it had
reported the aerial incursion as fact in its previous edition. However, in its next
edition it blamed the affair on "hysterical" residents in Brockville.' Meanwhile,
the charred remains of two large toy balloons had been found near Brockville,
which local residents, in turn, blamed on boys from nearby Morristown.55 A
number of toy balloons in other locations had also been sent aloft by Americans
on February 14 and 15, in commemoration of the centenary of peace.56 An
adviser for the Canadian Aviation Corps, J. D. McCurdy, stated that a mission
by German sympathizers from northern New York was highly improbable,
especially given the difficulty in night flying.57

The last major sighting wave during World War I occurred during mid-July.
In the first week of the month, an aeroplane reportedly landed in a field near
Nolan Junction, Quebec. Two men carrying plans and papers supposedly
disembarked, then shortly after flew off toward Montreal.58 On July 16, an
illuminated aeroplane was seen by Silvanus Edworthy in London,' while on the
morning of the seventeenth a craft was seen near Massena, Ontario 60 During
midmonth, aeroplanes were widely reported by many people in the vicinity of
Quebec City61 and Montreal.62 When the craft was spotted near a factory in
Rigaud, the lights were extinguished and precautions "taken to protect the place
from possible attack."63 On Sunday night, the eighteenth, a military guard at the
Point Edward radio station fired five shots at what he took to be aeroplanes, and
two large paper balloons plummeted to the ground.64

At 11 P.M. on July 20, a mysterious aircraft was seen by several citizens of

Chateauguay, near Montreal, who speculated that a German man who had lived
in town for the past five years had secretly flown across the border to the United
States. The man had been watched closely since the outbreak of hostilities and
disappeared the night the plane was sighted.65

Widely scattered nighttime airplane sightings continued from the latter half
of 1915 until July 1916, including sightings at Tillsonburg on July 221 and at
London on August 8 of 1915.67 On February 5, 1916, a railway worker spotted
two aeroplanes near Montreal. There was thought to be a connection between
this sighting and a suspicious man who was seen at about the same time under
the Victoria Bridge. Fearing an attempt to blow up the bridge, guards on the
structure opened fire on the figure, who fled.' Several days later on February 13,
a rare configuration of Venus and Jupiter resulted in a brilliant light in the
western sky that was mistaken by hundreds of residents of London as an
aeroplane about to attack.69 The last known scare during the war occurred at
Windsor on July 6, when a biplane was sighted' by hundreds of anxious people
for about thirty minutes. Several people using binoculars actually claimed "to
distinguish the figure of the aviator.70

Two War Scares in the United States

As spy and subversion fears increased steadily in the United States with the
outbreak of the First World War, numerous books, pamphlets, and newspaper
articles, such as Frederic Wile's The German-American Plot, and William
Skaggs's German-American Conspiracies in America," warned of the national
security dangers posed by German-Americans. Within this climate of social and
political paranoia, the most outlandish rumors about German spies, traitors, and
subversives spread like wildfire across the country. These included claims that
German submarine captains would disembark from their vessels in secret coastal
locations and attend the theater in order to spread influenza and that "a new
species of pigeon, thought to be German, was shot"72 in Michigan. By 1916 fear
over the allegiance of German-Americans reached a fever pitch, and there was
growing anxiety that America might soon be drawn into the war. Further fueling
anxieties was an emotional debate over who to support in the event America
entered the war, as many German-Americans publicly pledged their allegiance to
the German motherland." German undersecretary Arthur Zimmermann only
exacerbated American fears by claiming that in the event the United States
decided to enter the war against Germany, "five hundred thousand trained
Germans in America ... [would] start a revolution."74 The eastern seaboard was
particularly tense, since if war was declared it was closest to Europe and situated
along the vital Atlantic Ocean shipping lanes. Thus, military installations along
the coast would be prime targets. It was within this setting of war anxiety that a
spate of mysterious aeroplane sightings occurred in Delaware and along its
borders with neighboring states.

The Delaware Region during 1916

The scare began on Monday evening, January 31, 1916, when a mysterious
"aeroplane" was spotted flying near the large gunpowder plants owned by the
duPont Company at both Carney's Point and Deep Water Point, just across the
Delaware border in New Jersey. Company employees, including guard Captain
Albert J. Parsons, reported seeing the craft. Parsons told an excited press corps
that the aeroplane was flying at about fifteen hundred feet and was visible for
some fifteen minutes before disappearing to the southeast.75 "The light and the
blurred object about it hovered about the powder plant ... [moving] at times and
then appeared to be still and then it seemed to be going up and down or moving
in a semi-circle."76 There was considerable press speculation that the plane was
going to drop bombs or was reconnoitering the area for a future attack." A few
days later an illuminated aeroplane was seen by several people near Fenton
Beach, where "one man declared that his wife started praying that a bomb would
not be dropped close by."78 When an astronomer correlated their sighting with
the positions of Jupiter and Venus, the Fenton Beach witnesses steadfastly
refused to believe it.79

On Saturday night, February 12, the aeroplane was seen over Dover,
Delaware, by two people,' while on the evening of the fifteenth, at least two
dozen residents of Middletown reported seeing the aeroplane in the eastern sky,
shining three lights-one red, one white, the other bluish green. It was first spotted
by Mr. and Mrs. Norman Beale, hovering above the Delaware River in the
direction of Odessa. Mr. Norman called the telephone switchboard with the
news, and word quickly spread. One of those who was alerted, town druggist
Ernest A. Truitt, claimed that he could not only see the object from his Cochrane
Street home, but was "positive he heard a whirring noise, like the noise of a
gasoline engine."81

A major scare took place in Wilmington on Sunday evening, February 13.
People were greatly excited by what was thought to have been a German
aeroplane between 8 and 9 P.M. During the sighting, the Wilmington Morning
News alone received over one hundred telephone calls from anxious citizens
who gathered in crowds across the city to gain a better vantage point.

The first report received at this office stated that the airship was ...
hovering ... over Ninth and Broome streets, and it was "just floating,
with practically no motion." Roofward went the entire office force....

[I]n a few minutes... [it] was reported as having circled the

Baltimore and Ohio railroad station at Delaware avenue and duPont
streets, flying low, and then had sheered off toward the Rockford
water tower...

But there was no time for speculation before, according to the

next call ... which came from the Pennsylvania station, the mysterious
aircraft was seen slowly circling over the center of the city...

Another caller said it was floating, apparently only a few hundred

feet in the air, over Richardson Park .81
On the same evening, shortly after the eight o'clock services began at the Lyon
Tabernacle, several people inside thought they heard an aeroplane, and police
officers and ushers promptly left the building to look for the flying machine.83
Witnesses said it appeared to drift along Brandywine Creek, then hovered over
the Washington Street Bridge before slowly turning and flying out of sight to the
southwest.84 It was also spotted by groups at Queens Anne in Maryland, and
Clayton and Dover in Delaware.85

The sightings quickly died down when several regional newspapers

reported that, after examining the reports, their times of appearance and location
in the nighttime sky, it was evident that Venus and Jupiter, being in near
conjunction, had created an unusually brilliant light on the horizon-a light that
was interpreted according to the predominate concerns of the day.

New Hampshire's War Scare Hysteria of 1917

On April 6, 1917, the United States Congress voted to enter World War I against
Germany. There was much debate in the press over the possibility that Germany
might launch small raids on U.S. territory in order to disrupt the American war
effort, or that sympathizers residing within the United States might mount their
own subversion campaign. As with the incident in the Delaware region, the
prime target for such activities was assumed to be military installations along the
Atlantic coast. Further, on January 31, 1917, Germany announced a renewal of
its policy on unrestricted submarine warfare, and there were fears that a German
victory would result in their control of the Atlantic Ocean and vital American
shipping routes.86

During the early morning hours of Friday, April 13, 1917, two national
guardsmen from Company L of the Sixth Massachusetts Infantry were stationed
on the bridge linking Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and Kittery, Maine, when
they thought they heard an aeroplane. After catching sight of it, one of the
guards panicked, thinking that the plane was starting to descend to make a pass
over the bridge. He immediately fired his rifle at the object, at which point it
moved off and soon disappeared in the distance.87 On the same night, two
soldiers guarding a railway bridge at Penacook reported that two mysterious
intruders fired four shots in their direction before fleeing into the night. Not a
single clue as to these "attackers" was found," and it may have been a backfiring
motor or firecrackers in combination with war jitters. That a hostile aeroplane
was secretly operating in the skies above New Hampshire, taking off and landing
under cover of darkness from a secret air base in the mountains, performing
sophisticated maneuvers and remaining aloft for several hours at a time, as was
reported, was simply impossible.

Despite the vagueness of these two reports, they fostered considerable

anxiety across the state. While the Penacook incident was dismissed for lack of
evidence, the aeroplane reports still "caused alarm in military and naval circles,
as well as exciting the public."89 While the possibility that the aeroplane had
been launched from an enemy vessel situated off the coast was discussed, it was
widely believed that it had taken off from a secret, remote airstrip nestled in the
nearby mountains, and circled the area before returning to its point of departure.
Naval authorities ordered an investigation into the sightings and issued an urgent
appeal to the public in an attempt to determine the identity of the pilot, whom
they hoped was a local aviator. In the wake of the Portsmouth publicity, a police
officer on duty at Rochester, New Hampshire, claimed that while on patrol he
had also heard a noise, which he assumed to have been the "Portsmouth
aeroplane" as it passed overhead.90 Another report on the same night was from
James Walker, a motorman on the Dover, Rochester, and Somersworth railway.
He stated that the craft was "plainly visible" over Gonic and was "flying high
and headed north."91 By Tuesday, April 17, in the wake of much press publicity,
several residents in the East Manchester vicinity reported that they, too, had
observed the aeroplane or had heard the whirring of its propeller on Saturday
night as it traveled in a northeasterly direction.92

The phantom aeroplane sightings abated until the night of April 23, when
several residents of North Conway, New Hampshire, saw mysterious lights near
Kearsarge Mountain and speculated that "an aviator was maneuvering about the
summit."93 Immediately prior to the sightings rumors had been circulating in the
vicinity of North Conway that "a small party of strangers" were recently seen
east of Kearsarge, and rumor had it that they were involved with the
aeroplane.94 On April 30 prominent local horseman Charles Churchill of
Deerfield was awakened by a peculiar noise, only to discover an aeroplane
hovering in the distance and apparently flashing signals toward Portsmouth.95
About an hour earlier Mrs. Edson Roberts of Wolfeboro had heard the craft
above her house, near the East Alton line.

By May 2, however, the aeroplane hysteria subsided in the wake of there

being not a single shred of tangible evidence to support the rumors that German
sympathizers were engaged in secret reconnaissance missions over the
Portsmouth naval base. Another reason for the decline in reports was an
embarrassing disclosure about the aeroplane sightings of the previous night. The
press reported that the aeroplane heard whirring above Deerfield was actually a
large truck rumbling through town in the middle of the night. There is little
doubt that the press skepticism following this incident and its ridicule of
witnesses discouraged further reports of enemy aeroplanes flying above New
Hampshire.96 The account appeared as follows:

The still, cool air at Deerfield was rent, late Monday night, by a sound
unfamiliar to the ear of residents, and in the distance, an uncertain light
was seen to flicker higher and yawn-no, yon.

Numerous night-capped heads poked sleepily through bedroom

windows of several farmhouses, spotted the light and located the
unusual noises.

"Airships," said one resident, and at once the farmers' phone lines
became active. All agreed, as they say in the country press, that
Deerfield was menaced by hostile aircraft. All still agree, perchance,
and would doubtless continue to agree, except for the fact that
somebody always has to take the joy out of life.

In this case it is E. E. Holmes, Manchester truckman, who comes

to bat as the Union goes to press, and announces that the strange
Zeppelin was his big motor truck, which went through Deerfield with a
heavy load in the dead of the night.97

South Africa's Mystery Monoplanes

Whether it is a British or German aeroplane nobody knows. Where it

comes from is equally a mystery. Where it goes to we cannot guess.
How it lands for re-petrolling and where the pilot gets his food are
insoluble mysteries.... Why it should carry headlights is hard to say....
Why, too, should it fly by night? Much more useful and interesting
observations could be made by daylight.... And why, if it dare not
 appear by day, does it advertise its whereabouts ... after dark? ... There
is a baffling mystery about it all 98

Aeroplane scares during World War I were not confined to North America.
Thousands of residents of British South Africa claimed to observe a sinister
German monoplane between August 11 and September 9,1914. It appeared
almost exclusively at night and at a dis tance, and coincided with the war's
outbreak in Europe. But there were no aeroplanes in British South Africa during
this period., Although three German monoplanes were known to be in adjacent
German SouthWest Africa during this period, none was capable of the
sophisticated maneuvers performed, such as remaining in flight for many hours
and traveling great distances without refu-eling.100 Only after the wave had
ceased was it revealed that two of these three German planes had been disabled
during this time, while the third was for show purposes and of little practical
use.101

War had broken out in Europe, but not in British South Africa. However,
rumors began circulating across the country that a German monoplane was
conducting spy missions for an eventual attack that would involve bombing
various targets. In conjunction with these rumors, during the first week of
August there were scattered sightings of a mystery plane in the Cape Peninsula
region. In discussing the reports, one prominent newspaper stated that "there is
no reason to suppose that their information is incorrect, as wholly independent
reports seem to establish the fact."102 From this point on, the floodgates opened,
and phantom monoplanes were frightening people in widely spaced areas.

On the evening of August 16, an aeroplane with "a very strong headlight"
was seen by fifteen people near Worcester.103 There were also many sightings
near Cape Town and the western districts of the province, prompting appeals to
the public to look for the plane so that "its movements could be communicated to
the military authorities or the police without delay."104 When residents near
Vryburg reported seeing a mysterious aerial light the previous week,105 one
newspaper heightened concern by proclaiming: "Aerial Scouts! German
Aeroplane Near Vryburg."106

Press coverage was instrumental in the spread of the aeroplane scare and
gave credence to the initial rumors of a German attack. By August 22 six
prominent newspapers had all published accountsdescribed as fact-that one or
more potentially hostile German monoplanes were traversing the skies.107 As is
typical with war scares, once the situation was legitimized as real, various
mundane events and circumstances were redefined as monoplane-related. For
instance, in the Durban district a quantity of sugar that was burned under
ambiguous circumstances was blamed on the plane:

Reports as to the passage of aeroplanes over the Natal coast districts

persist, and one statement, with apparently some authenticity behind it,
is that soon after the appearance over his plantation of this supposed
object, a considerable quantity of a planter's growing sugar had been
found to have been burned during the night.108

Once the episode was under way, many vague aerial objects that had been
casually noted in the previous weeks and months were often recategorized as
having been a German plane. In the following incident from Germiston, what
was originally thought to have been a shooting star over Pretoria becomes an
aeroplane, presumably of German origin.

Yesterday I received the following interesting communication from a

former resident of Pretoria, now of Benoni, which is not without some
piquant interest: In regard to the presumed German aeroplane said to
have been seen over Pretoria, I should like to relate to you a little
experience of my own while in that town. One evening in January,
between 9 and 10 P.M., the children called me to the verandah to see a
shooting star. We all went to the gate and watched. The supposed star
proved to be a powerful light or lamp attached to what appeared to be
an aeroplane in shape. For some time the machine circled over the
town and then descended about 11:30 P.M. as far as I could guess on
to the roof of the Law Courts, not far from where we were. As the
machine circled in the air it made a loud swishing kind of noise. I
spoke of the matter next day, yet, strange to say, the only one who had
noticed it was an old native man.'"

On August 27 large numbers of people in Durban had become alarmed that

falling bombs from German aeroplanes were "about to deal death and
destruction from on high," and they began fleeing to their kraals (villages)
during the crisis.10 In some cases extra guards were posted at companies
employing workers to prevent them from deserting. One whaling company alone
reported losing "as many as sixty [men].""' The sightings peaked during the last
week of August with nighttime observations across South Africa.112

By the end of August, the press had grown increasingly skeptical, and
sighting reports began to rapidly tail off to a trickle in early September, until
ceasing altogether after the second week.13 The editor of the Natal Advertiser
told readers of his growing impatience, noting that the topic was surfacing "with
nauseating frequency." He continued: "A man comes up to you and says, with all
the solemnity of a judge, that he has seen what he calls 'the aeroplane.' You
know that he has not, but you cannot very well tell him that he is a blithering
idiot."14 Astronomers noted a remarkable coincidence about most sightings-they
took place during the evening and involved a strong headlight-suggesting that
they were misidentifications of Venus."' Other authorities, including
meteorologists1' and journalists,"' concurred that people were mistaking stars
and planets. One incredulous editor sarcastically described an incident over East
London:

East London, and particularly Oxford-street, was agog with excitement

on Saturday evening. At every corner ... were ... groups of men,
women and children, with eyes goggling, fingers pointing heavenward,
and tongues going twentyfour to the dozen as they gaze at an alleged
aeroplane in the western heavens. There it was sure enough, visible to
all but the blind: at least, a very brilliant light was visible. An
aeroplane it was, and of that there was no doubt, for according to
various observers it went through all the tricks in an up-to-date
airman's repertoire. It looped the loop, squared the circle, spiralled up
and spiralled down, volplaned, tangoed to the right and one-stepped to
the left, advanced, retired, set to partners, hands down the middle, did
everything except ... descend in the Recreation Ground of the Market
Square. And that searchlight, what did that not do? It waxed and
waned, appeared and disappeared, twinkled, winked the other eye, and
signalled in the Morse code in English, French, Dutch, German ... and
Pitman's shorthand. And all the time it was getting further and further
away, though never diminishing in brightness, so that it must have
been carried in the tail of the machine.

And oh, the theories that were advanced. Men laid down the
law.... Ladies became alarmed and wanted to go home and protect
 their babies from bombs.... And it was not until it disap peared behind
a heavy bank of clouds in the west that East Londoners breathed a sigh
of relief at another happy escape, and went home to dip their pens in
the candle and write to the "Daily Dispatch" to describe in letters of
fire and words of flames the dastardly attempt to blow up an
undefended city.

Judge of the general surprise when the same aeroplane appeared
yesterday in about the same place. However, it is safe to predict that it
may be looked for again tonight and for several following nights. As a
matter of fact what was seen was the evening star, Venus, which
happened to be particularly brilliant. A heavy bank of clouds fringed
with flying scud and aided by vivid imaginations accounted for all the
evolutions and manoeuvres, and we have to hesitate in assuring
everyone that they may sleep in peace, for if it depends upon this
particular aeroplane, no bombs will be dropped on East London.1'

Notes

1. W. Lippman, Public Opinion (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1922),

cited in F. MacDonnell, Insidious Foes (New York: Oxford University Press,
1995), p. 2.

2. D. Creighton, Dominion of the North: A History of Canada (London:

Macmillan & Company, 1958), p. 437.

3. D. Morton, "Sir William Otter and Internment Operations in Canada

During the First World War," Canadian Historical Review 55, no. 1 (1974): 32-
58. See p. 36.

4. MacDonnell, Insidious Foes, p. 23.

5. Ibid., pp. 25-26.

6. Morton, "Sir William Otter."

7. Ibid., p. 46.

8. Ibid., pp. 48-49.

 8. Ibid., pp. 48-49.

9. Ibid., p. 33; R. H. Keyserlingk, "'Agents within the Gates': The Search

for Nazi Subversives in Canada During World War II," Canadian Historical
Review 66, no. 2 (1985): 211-39.

10. MacDonnell, Insidious Foes, p. 21.

11. M. Kitchen, "The German Invasion of Canada in the First World

War," The International History Review 7, no. 2 (1985): 245-60.

12. Ibid., p. 246.

13. Ibid., p. 246.

14. Ibid.

15. G. S. Mount, Canada's Enemies: Spies and Spying in the Peaceable

Kingdom (Toronto: Dundurn Press, 1993), p. 40.

16. Ibid.

17. Throughout this chapter we will refer to aircraft of the period as

"aeroplanes" instead of the present spelling "airplane," as the former spelling
was the standard usage at the time.

18. C. GibbsSmith, Aviation: An Historical Survey from Its Origins to

the End of World War II (London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1985), p.
152.

19. "Reports Aeroplanes Over Oxford Village," London Free Press

(Ontario), August 13, 1914, p. 2.

20. "Airship in Western Ontario," Toronto Star, August 31, 1914, p. 5.

21. Ibid.

22. Presently spelled "Petrolia."

23. "Three Aeroplanes Scan Topography of the Province," London Free

Press, September 5, 1914, p. 8.
 24. Ibid.

25. Ibid.

26. "Petrolea Planes.... Military Men Say, 'We Shouldn't Worry,' "
London Free Press, September 5, 1914, p. 2.

27. "Why Get Excited?" London Free Press, September 5, 1914, p. 16.

28. "Believe 'Aeroplane' Is an American One," London Free Press,

September 5, 1914, p. 16.

29. "Mysterious Flyer Now at Hamilton," London Free Press, September

12, 1914, p. 5.

30. "Pipe Line Road Saw Three Aeroplanes. Mr. Fred Bridge ... and
Other People Say They Saw Spies," London Free Press, September 11, 1914, p.
9.

31. Ibid.

32. "Airships Restricted in Flights in Canada," Toronto Globe,

September 18, 1914, p. 7; "Asks Permission to Fly over Ontario," London Free
Press, September 28, 1914, p. 3.

33. Niagara Falls Gazette, September 17, 1914, p. 1.

34. "Had an Aeroplane Scare," Toronto Star, October 10, 1914, p. 10.

35. "Aeroplane Reported Hovering Over Soo Locks. Residents Claim to

Have Seen Craft Rise from South of American Canal," Toronto Globe, October
20, 1914, p. 9.

36. "Soldiers Claim They Saw Airship Over Barracks.... Flew Directly
Over the Ordnance Stores Department. Men Are Emphatic There Was No
Mistake," London Evening Free Press (Ontario), October 21, 1914, p. 1.

37. "Many Reports," London Evening Free Press, October 21, 1914, p.1.

38. "Still See Them, But Military Authorities Are Not Worrying,"
London Free Press, October 23, 1914, p. 2.

39. "Signal Across River?" Buffalo Express, November 19, 1914, p. 7.

40. "Seeing Things in Air. Forestville Man Says Two Aeroplanes Went
Over Town in Dark," Buffalo Express, November 21, 1914, p. 7.

41. "Aeroplane Raid," Toronto Daily Star, December 4, 1914, p. 6.

42. "Saw an Aeroplane," Niagara Falls Gazette, December 12, 1914, p. 9.

43. "Strange Aeroplane Appears Six Miles from Montreal. Ottawa

Officials ... Will Investigate Matter Immediately," London Evening Free Press,
January 11, 1915, p. 2.

44. "Brockville's Story of the Air Craft. Dropped Fireballs as They

Crossed River," Toronto Globe, February 15, 1915.

45. Ibid.

46. Ibid.

47. Ibid.

48. "Scare in Ottawa Over Air Raid. Parliament Buildings Darkened on

Report That Three Aeroplanes Crossed the Border," New York Times, February
15, 1915, p. 1.

49. "Were Also Seen at Gananoque," New York Times, February 15,
1915, p. 1; "Brockville's Story of the Air Craft," Toronto Globe, February 15,
1915.

50. "Ogdensburg Heard of This Friday," New York Times, February 15,
1915, p. 1.

51. "Police Force Augmented," London Evening Free Press, February 15,
1915, p. 1.

52. "Ottawa Again Dark," New York Times, February 16, 1915, p. 4.

53. "Parliament Hill in Darkness," Toronto Globe, February 16, 1915, p.

2.

54. "Were Toy Balloons and Not Aeroplanes! Brockville's Latest on

Sunday Night's Scare," Toronto Globe, February 16, 1915, p. 1.

55. Ibid.

56. "Ottawa Again Dark," New York Times, February 16, 1915, p. 4;
"Were Toy Balloons," Toronto Globe, February 16, 1915, pp. 1-2.

57. "Air Raid from the States Improbable," Toronto Globe, February 16,
1915, p. 7.

58. "Saw Aeroplane ... After Landing, Took Flight Towards Montreal,"
London Free Press (Ontario), July 6, 1915, p. 1.

59. "Saw an Aeroplane... Passed Over the Southern Part of City," London
Evening Free Press, July 17, 1915, p. 3.

60. "People Near Massena, Ont., Spy Strange Lights in Heavens,"

London Evening Free Press, July 20, 1915, p. 9.

61. "Saw Aeroplanes Hovering Over City of Quebec. Fully Creditable

Persons Reported to Have Noticed Mysterious Aircraft," London Evening Free
Press, July 21, 1915, p. 1.

62. "Strange Airships Seen Hovering Near Montreal," London Evening

Free Press, July 19, 1915, p. 7.

63. Ibid.

64. "Point Edward Guard Brings Down Balloons. Were at First Thought
to Be Aeroplanes," London Evening Free Press, July 21, 1915, p. 7.

65. "French Believe German Officer 'Flew the Loop,"London Evening

Free Press, July 22, 1915, p. 1.

66. "Mysterious Light Passes Tillsonburg," London Daily Free Press,

July 23, 1915, p. 2.
 67. "Another Aeroplane Seen Over the City," London Free Press
(Ontario), August 9, 1915, p. 2.

68. "Two Aeroplanes Reported Close to Montreal," London Evening

Free Press, February 7, 1916, p. 1.

69. "Display in Sky Mistaken for an Aerial Invasion," London Evening

Free Press, February 14, 1916, p. 12.

70. "Unknown Aviator Surveys Windsor," London Evening Free Press,

July 7, 1916, p. 14.

71. MacDonnell, Insidious Foes, p. 20.

72. W. Chafee, Freedom of Speech in War Time (New York: Cambridge

University Press, 1954), p. 70.

73. L. Shores, ed., "World War I," in Collier's Encyclopedia, vol. 23

(New York: Crowell-Collier Publishing, 1965), p. 599.

74. MacDonnell, Insidious Foes, p. 21.

75. "Mystery Airship Hovering Over Powder Plants ... Mission

Unknown; Rouses Suspicion," Every Evening (Wilmington, Delaware),
February 3, 1916, pp. 1, 6.

76. "Powder Guard Says He Saw Airship," The Wilmington News,

February 4, 1916, p. 1.

77. Ibid.

78. "Still Sky Gazing at Fenton Beach," Delmarvia Star (Wilmington,

Delaware), February 13, 1916.

79. "Studying Astronomy with a Searchlight," Sunday Morning
Magazine (Wilmington, Delaware), February 20, 1916, part 3, p. 1.

80. "Air Ship," Every Evening, February 19, 1916.

81. "Are Sure They Saw an Aeroplane," Every Evening, February 16,
1916.

82. "Citizens Declare They Saw Airship," Wilmington Morning News,

February 14, 1916, pp. 1-2.

83. "They Heard Something," Every Evening, February 14,1916, p. 7.

84. "Honest, Now, Did You Yourself See That Aeroplane?" Every
Evening, February 14, 1916, p. 7.

85. "Kent County Reports Seeing an Airship," Every Evening, February

14, 1916, p. 7.

86. Shores, "World War I," p. 600.

87. "Hunt for Aircraft Base. Fire at Aircraft Near Portsmouth. Effort
Now to Trace Its Course-Shots Aimed at Penacook Sentries," "Portsmouth
Guards Fire at Plane-Course Is Changed at Once," Manchester Union, April 14,
1917, pp. 1, 3.

88. "Hunt for Aircraft," Manchester Union, April 14, 1917, pp. 1, 3.

89. "Portsmouth Guards," Manchester Union, April 14,1917, pp. 1, 3.

90. "Strange Aeroplane Heard and Seen by Rochester People,"

Manchester Union, April 14, 1917, pp. 1, 3.

91. Ibid.

92. "Aeroplane Heard Over East Side. Darkness Prevents Clear View of
It," Manchester Union, April 17, 1917, p. 14.

93. "Lights Hover Over Kearsarge. Movements Suggest AirplaneClose

Watch Kept on Mountain," Manchester Union, April 26,1917, p. 1.

94. Ibid.

95. "Aeroplane Seen at Deerfield. Awakened Resident Observes Flashing

of Lights-Report from Wolfeboro," Manchester Union, May 1, 1917, p. 1.

96. For instance, the next report of a phantom aeroplane over New
Hampshire occurred on May 20 and consisted of a tiny article three short
sentences in length, on page 2 of the Manchester Union. The account simply
described the report of Dover resident Mrs. Arabella R. Mason, who claimed to
see an aeroplane fly over her farm on Middle Road. See "Airship Seen above
Dover," Manchester Union, May 21, 1917, p. 2.

97. "Deerfield Zeppelin Has Domestic Tinge," Manchester Union, May

2, 1917, p. 5.

98. Natal Advertiser (Durban), August 29, 1914, p. 7.

99. "Defense Department and Aeroplanes. No Union Machines," Cape

Times, August 29, 1914, p. 8; "Those Aeroplanes," Rand Daily Mail
(Johannesburg), August 29, 1914, p. 5.

100. "Once a Week," Natal Advertiser (Durban), August 29,1914, p. 7;
"Our Aeroplanes," Pretoria News, September 2, 1914, p. 5; "Aviator Discusses
Air Visitors. John Weston 's Views," Cape Times, September 5, 1914, p. 5.

101. "Aeroplanes in German SouthWest. Only One Efficient," Cape Times,

September 21, 1914, p. 8.

102. "Cape Town and Peninsula. Mysterious Airplane Flight," Cape Times,
August 15, 1914, p. 7.

103. "Aeroplane Sighted," Cape Times, August 18, 1914, p. 3.

104. "News of the Day," Cape Times, August 18, 1914, p. 5.

105. "Aeroplane Seen at Vryburg," Cape Times, August 19, 1914, p. 5.

106. "Aerial Scouts!" Rand Daily Mail (Johannesburg), August 19, 1914, p.
5.

107. "The Aeroplane ... On Table Mountain," Cape Times, August 20,
1914, p. 5; "The Aeroplane. Seen at Porterville," Cape Argus, August 21, 1914,
p. 5; "At Ashton," Johannesburg Star, August 21, 1914, p. 4; "That Aeroplane,"
Rand Daily Mail (Johannesburg), August 21, 1914, p. 5; "The Mysterious
Aeroplane," Natal Advertiser (Durban), August 22, 1914, p. 1; "The Mysterious
Aeroplane," Rand Daily Mail (Johannesburg), August 22, 1914, p. 5.

108. "Mysterious Aeroplanes. A Natal Report," Cape Argus, September 9,

1914, second edition, p. 5.

109. "Something Seen in January," Johannesburg Star, August 26, 1914,

second edition, p. 4.

110. "Native Restlessness. The Folly of Wild Rumors," Natal Advertiser

(Durban), August 27, 1914, p. 8.

111. "Alleged Native Restlessness. What the Officials Have Done," Natal
Advertiser (Durban), August 2, 1914, p. 14.

112. "The Aeroplane Again," Cape Argus, August 25,1914, p. 3; "That

Aeroplane! Return Visit to the East," Cape Times, August 25, 1914, p. 5; "Seen
at Hoetjes Bay," Cape Argus, August 26, 1914, second edition, p. 5; "Aeroplane
Reports," Cape Times, August 26, 1914, p. 5; "Sea Point Aeroplane," Cape
Argus, August 28, 1914, p. 4; "Day by Day," Pretoria News, August 29, 1914, p.
5; " 'Aeroplanes' in Natal," Rand Daily Mail, August 29, 1914, p. 5; "Headlight,"
Cape Argus, August 31, 1914, p. 3; "The Mysterious Aeroplane," Natal
Advertiser, September 31, 1914, p. 1; "Cape Argus. The Aeroplane Again."
Natal Advertiser, August 31, 1914, p. 5; "Aeroplane at Skinner's Court," Pretoria
News, August 31, 1914, p. 5.

113. "That Aeroplane. Natal Reports," Cape Argus, September 5, 1914, p.
7; "That Aeroplane!" Natal Advertiser, September 7, 1914; "That Aeroplane
Seen at Warmbaths," Rand Daily Mail (Johannesburg), September 10, 1914, p.
2.

114. Natal Advertiser (Durban), September 5, 1914, p. 7.

115. "Aeroplane or Planet?" Johannesburg Star, August 28, 1914, second

edition, p. 5.

116. "Aeroplane Problem. Maritzburg Optician's Solution," Cape Times,

September 10, 1914, p. 5.

117. "Coloured Planet," Johannesburg Star, August 31, 1914, p. 3.

 118. "The Mysterious Aeroplane. What East London Saw," Cape Argus,
August 27, 1914, second edition, p. 5.

 in collaboration with Anders Liljegren and Clas Svahn

etween early May and September 30, 1946, a panic swept like wildfire
across Sweden as tens of thousands of people reported seeing missiles.' This led
to the widespread folk theory that remote-controlled German V-rockets
confiscated by the Soviets at the close of World War II were being test fired as a
form of political intimidation or as a prelude to an invasion. Despite the widely
publicized views of Swedish and foreign politicians, military officials,
newspaper editors, and scientists supporting the rocket's existence, and
voluminous press reports often treating the rockets as fact, no concrete physical
evidence was ever found. By the episode's end, Swedish military investigators
concluded that most observations were of meteors and related celestial
phenomena, and of those that were unexplained, none were V-rockets. This
phantom rocket hysteria was one in a long history of Soviet invasion fears that
have preoccupied Swedes for centuries.

Historical Sociopolitical Context

The Soviet relationship with northern Europe was characterized by two hundred
years of ideological conflict and distrust, exchanges of political rhetoric, spy
accusations, border disputes, wars, and fears of invasion.' From 1899 to 1914,
itinerant Russian workmen traveled the Swedish countryside. They were called
"saw-filers" (sagfilare), as they were renowned for sharpening various tools,
especially saws. Most were Russian farmers from the Novgorod region who
traveled to Sweden in the autumn and remained through the winter. Between
fifty and three hundred saw-filers came to Sweden each winter to earn good
wages.' The term eventually became synonymous in Sweden with Russian spies,
although the saw-filers' intention of spying was never confirmed.° Speculations
as to their possible clandestine purpose were particularly intense between 1899
and 1902 and from 1910 to 1914.5 Swedish police maintained a close
surveillance on them and even masqueraded as saw-filers, but none was ever
caught in the act of spying. Newspaper editorials were primarily responsible for
portraying saw-filers as possible spies.'

During the 1930s, mysterious "ghost planes" were seen across northern
Sweden. Also popularly known as "ghost fliers" or "flier x," they were typically
described as gray monoplanes with no identifying insignias or markings. They
were sometimes seen or heard during fierce blizzard conditions, occasionally
landing and taking off, and always in remote areas. Sightings of the phantom
plane were almost exclusively nocturnal, and there was typically a searchlight
beam coming from the craft. Despite a pervasive folk belief in the flier's
existence, no plane or secret airfield was ever found. The flier possessed quasi-
supernatural qualities, because period aircraft were incapable of operating under
treacherous blizzard conditions for hours at a time, performing the daring
maneuvers described by witnesses, and eluding the massive military search that
ensued during the heaviest concentration of sightings, between December 1933
and February 1934. Many thought the fliers may have been liquor smugglers
avoiding customs,' or possibly weapons smugglers.' The most prominent and
more sinister theory held that they were potentially hostile reconnaissance
missions from Russia,' Germany," or Japan."

Since the early 1980s there have been thousands of reports of phantom
submarines in Swedish territorial waters, which are popularly assumed to be
Soviet spy missions. The Swedish government's Submarine Commission was
given the task of assessing over six thousand reports of suspected underwater
incursions between 1981 and 1994.12 While the Commission's report focuses on
a few major incidents that were concluded to have involved Soviet vessels, most
cases were ambiguous visual sightings that could not be accurately evaluated,
including reports of wave movements, marine lights and sounds, and possible
divers. The Commission stated that "many different objects and conditions ...
can be interpreted as being connected to underwater activity," noting that natural
explanations had been found for a "great number of reports." It also remarked on
the influx of cases in proportion to media publicity.13 Waves of claims and
public discourse about Soviet submarines routinely violating Swedish territory
have occurred intermittently throughout this century, becoming particularly
intense after 1981, when a Soviet Whiskey Class U137 probably carrying
nuclear weapons ran aground during a reconnaissance mission, which resulted in
an international incident that engendered Swedish political protests and intense
media publicity.14

This poem appeared in a regular column called "This Day's Melody." Entitled
"The Big Street," it begins with: "What kinds of machines are those, traveling
late in the evenings and frightening each and everyone?" Source: The
Stockholms-Tidningen, August 18, 1946.

Near the end of World War II, German V-rockets devastated parts of the
United Kingdom. Occasionally the rockets strayed into Scandinavia, causing no
damage but raising concerns. One V-2 fell near Backebo in southeastern
Sweden, leaving a crater sixteen feet wide and nine feet deep. Fears of a
destruction like that in England were rekindled in Sweden during 1946, since
Russian forces occupied Peenemunde, the former center of German rocket
science. Soviet troops controlled much of northern Europe during this time, and
it was unclear as to how much Scandinavian territory they might claim in the
political uncertainty following the war.15

There was speculation as early as March 19 that the Soviets would soon
begin test firing rocket bombs. A newswire from the Swedish newspaper agency
Tidningarnas Telegrambyra appeared in numerous newspapers on March 19,
including Sydostra Sveriges Dagblad, Umebladet, and Norra Vasterbotten, and
served as a prelude of what was to come in the spring and summer. It quotes the
London Daily Mirror's Berlin correspondent as stating that "German scientists
and technicians who work under Russian supervision will shortly release a
number of V-2 bombs from secret research stations on the Baltic." Xenophobia
resurfaced between April 23 and 26, 1946, as a series of earth tremors were
reported in the Swedish counties of Blekinge, Skane, and Kalmar, and in the
vicinity of the Danish island of Bornholm in the southern Baltic. One newspaper
suggested that they were Russian tests of nuclear weapons.16 On April 28
Swedish foreign affairs minister Osten Unden met privately with his Norwegian
counterpart Halyard Lange, who warned that there was great consternation in
American political circles that the Soviets would soon possess atomic weapons.
Lange stated "that there was an imminent danger of war" and that a group
aligned with General Dwight Eisenhower felt that "differences between the U.S.
and the Soviets had taken on such a nature that the U.S. ought to strike with a
preventative war. President Truman, however, was opposed to this. The rumours
came from the U.S."17

The Genesis of the Episode

Astronomer Louis Winkler correlates the rocket sightings to a rare confluence of

astronomical and meteorological events: geomagnetic comets and the occasional
disbursement of their orbital streams in conjunction with exceptionally high
solar activity," which generated spectacular auroras, meteors, and cometary
spray streaking through the atmosphere.19 Unusual aerial phenomena were first
noted in January of 1946, with reports of meteors and strange glowing clouds.
On the morning of January 4, observers across southern Sweden reported that
luminous clouds cast eerie red, green, and purple hues on the snowy landscape.
At the Revingehed military training field, "army watchdogs crawled into their
kennels," while a horse "lowered his head towards his legs," remaining so for the
duration of the twentyfive-minute display.20 These luminous phenomena were
interpreted as extraordinary and intense, but auroral in nature. There were also
reports of meteors at Fransborg, northwest of Stockholm, on January 9,21 above
Ljung-dalen in Jamtland later that same afternoon,' as well as a bright fireball
with a long glowing tail seen by many across Dalarna County on January 17.23
Intermittent reports of fireballs and mysterious auroral activity continued
through early May and were almost exclusively defined as natural
phenomena.24 Various other strange celestial activity was reported between
January and May of 1946, including a mirage at Gagnef involving a lake, a hill,
and several buildings," a mirage of an aerial cargo ship at Visby on Gotland
Island; 6 an eerie nocturnal light in Dalarna County,27 a rainbow-colored halo
near the sun at Helsingfors,28 sun-dogs above Fagerhult that appeared "like two
suns had risen," 29 and unusual spheres of electricity (ball lightning) at
Vaderobod30 and Svaneke.31

On the evening of May 3, a "mysterious light" was seen over Stockholm,"
and on May 21 a yellowish fireball was observed in Halsingborg.33 While some
residents were "disturbed,"-' there remained little indication of any potential
hostility. However, by May 24, earlier reports of celestial phenomena were being
reinterpreted as missiles, starting with the early morning sighting of an object
over Landskrona. While night watchmen had reported seeing a "fireball with a
tail," another observer now described it as a "wingless cigarshaped body"
spurting exhaust sparks.35 While most press reports were skeptical that it was a
missile, newspapers began using such descriptions as "rocket bomb,"36
"remotedirected bombs,"37 "projectile,"3S "V-bomb,"39 and "V-1-bomb."40
Media speculation that some sightings were of guided missiles provided a label
with which to classify unfamiliar stimuli. As the sightings continued, the
Swedish and foreign press began claiming that the rockets really existed, and the
burgeoning reports of meteors, luminous phenomena, and fireballs were
increasingly depicted as being Soviet weapons. As Swedish reports of ghost
rockets declined dramatically in September, during September and October most
Swedish and Scandinavian press reports dealt with non-Swedish sightings."

Sketch entitled "Postwar Vweapons," the caption reads: "Shouldn't we be able to
join the UN, we who is the only nation with a war going on!" It appeared in one
of Norway's largest newspapers, Verdens Gang, August 16, 1946.

By May 27, following sightings of fireballs and wingless planes near
Karlskrona, Halsingborg, Huddinge, and Hagalund, some newspapers suggested
that secret foreign experiments with "new remotely controlled bombs"42 were
the culprit. Sporadic observations of aerial objects occurred through early June
in such places as Eskilstuna, Gavle, Kroksjo, Trehorningen, and southern
Finland, with descriptions vacillating between a meteor or a missile.43 On May
28 a metallic object emitting engine sounds passed over Kvicksund and crashed
into Lake Malaren.44 In Katrineholm on May 31 an object resembling "a silver
glistening rocket" and traveling at a speed greater than "the fastest fighter plane"
was seen at 11:43 A.M.45 On a road between Uppsala and Rasbo, a driver
claimed to have chased a wingless, noiseless, metallic object for three miles.46
On June 8 an ex-pilot in Eskilstuna reported seeing "a rocket with intermittent
exhausts."47 On June 9 a spectacular "ghost rocket" with a tail streaked across
southern Finland, igniting public debate in Finland as to its origin while further
heightening concern in Sweden.' Just three days earlier Swedish Supreme
Commander General Helge Jung warned of the perils of a possible confrontation
between the United States and Soviets, as "the flight tracks between Russian and
American bases go close by, and over, our country... We must, therefore, count
on that a super power is willing to occupy the whole, or parts of, our country
before or after such a big conflict."49 In the wake of the sightings and growing
concern over the nature of the mysterious objects, the Swedish Defense Staff
sent a memo to national and regional staffs and units in the army, navy, and air
force, requesting them to fill out a detailed questionnaire on sightings of
mysterious aerial phenomena. The memo stated that "it cannot be ruled out that
these [recent sightings] could be connected to tests, by a foreign power, of types
of remotely-piloted weapons." The memo also gave guidelines for interviewing
civilians who report sightings to military personnel.s°

As intermittent reports of fireballs and missiles continued through the rest
of June and early July, a widespread consensus emerged in Sweden that the
Soviets were indeed testing V-rockets. On June 16 an engineer with the railroad
stated that he saw a glistening, wingless object emitting a sound like "a two-
stroke engine" in Bohuslan.51 On the night of July 1, "a torpedo-shaped object"
was seen two miles south of Tossene at about twelve hundred feet, emitting a
loud "humming noise" that gradually faded. "The object was fully visible, had
small wings and a tube [pipe] on its stern."52 A "swallow-like object"
resembling a V-2 was spotted over Malmo, in the Skane province, on July 6 by
Sydsvenska Dagbladet draughtsman Torsten Frykmar.53

At 2:30 P.M. on July 9, a spectacular luminous object that was later

identified as a bolideTM entered the atmosphere and was seen across the
Swedish eastern coast, marking the beginning of massive, widespread missile
reports and intensifying press coverage of sightings through September. The
bolide was widely thought to be a "radio bomb,"55 and a Sundsvall newspaper
described it as a radio-guided projectile." By July 10, the Defense Staff exhorted
the public to report any mysterious aerial sights or sounds to their nearest troop
unit 57 an action that demonstrated concern and the potential seriousness of the
situation to the public. The military's involvement in and high-profile inspections
of numerous "crash" sites also reinforced the plausible belief that the Soviets
were test firing V-rockets. Military officials conducted field investigations of at
least twenty-eight cases,-"' and thirty "ghost bomb" fragments were obtained and
examined by the military from about one hundred "crash sites."59 While the
existence of even a single rocket was never verified, interviews and press
descriptions of these "crashes" reinforced the prevailing mindset.60 By early
August, the chief of Sweden's air defense division, Major Nils Ahlgren, reported
that while investigations into the sightings had uncovered no definitive evidence,
he was convinced that some were rocket experiments.61

This cartoon shows a Russian face on the rockets; reflecting the popular folk
belief that they were of Soviet origin. The caption read: "The Ghost Rocket:
More and more people state that they have seen the ghost rocket." Source: The
Norwegian daily paper Friheten, August 18, 1946.

Once the rockets' existence was widely accepted, people began rethinking
past sightings and redefining them in light of the current rocket mania. Two fires
that had no obvious cause were attributed to bombs. On a farmstead in
Somlingbacken, Jamtland, Mrs. Maria Vastfeldt heard a loud noise right before
her henhouse was consumed by flames," but a subsequent investigation
determined the cause as a blasting cap and nitrolite cartridge.63 Another fire of
undetermined origin in the Svartvik sulfite factory's timber store located five
miles south of Sundsvall was also attributed to a "ghost bomb fall," despite the
police's finding no specific evidence to support the theory.64 The Institute of
Criminology Research subsequently identified the probable cause as an
overheated bearing in an engine transmission.65 On Sunday afternoon, August
11, a barn in a mid-Norrland village collapsed without apparent cause.66 The
incident was "connected to the appearance of the ghost rockets" which had been
seen the same day. A police inquiry later concluded that a tornado was
responsible.67 In Jamtland, the mysterious death of three cows belonging to
farmer Andera Edsasen was blamed on a rocket projectile containing poisonous
material 61 In mid-July, when an infestation of metal fly caterpillar occurred in
the southern Swedish provinces of Skane, Blekinge, and Oland, one citizen
wrote to the Defense Staff theorizing a connection with ghost bombs, arguing
that they were designed to drop caterpillar eggs. There were also rumors of
leaflets falling from flying bombs.69 The crash of a Swedish B-18 bomber at
Valdshult on Monday, August 12, at 10 A.M. prompted intense speculation that
it had collided with a space rocket, since witnesses noted that it suddenly
plunged almost vertically to the ground,' but an inquiry commission later
dismissed the theory." On August 12 at 3 P.M., eight concerned citizens
telephoned the offices of the Varmlands Folkblad, exclaiming that several small,
luminous ghost bombs were traveling north over Karlstad just a few hundred feet
above the ground. A later investigation determined that "the ghost projectiles
were soap bubbles made by a little boy who sat on a sofa ... with a newly bought
bubble apparatus and a can of soap-water."72

 "Sweden and the Ghost Rockets." This cartoon depicts Sweden as a dart
board. It says: "If I cannot stop the shooting-then at least I can avoid
marking the hits." Source: Expressen, August 1, 1946.

Throughout the phantom rocket episode, various ordinary ground markings
and objects located near recent sightings were intensely scrutinized for their
potential association with the rockets. In central Sweden a "pit in the ground"
was examined by defense personnel as a possible "ghost bomb mark."73 A
certain deposit of slag and coal-like material was assumed to have fallen from
the sky, and people demanded an investigation." One typical "projectile find" in
the vicinity of a "crash" site was identified as a steam valve spindle.75 On
August 5, a farmer in southern Sweden told of discovering a "missile" embedded
up to a foot into the ground in a remote area of Blekinge.76 Authorities later
identified it as a dislodged airplane antenna."

Skeptical opinions were common from newspaper editors, defense people,

and scientists. On July 25 Defense Staff officials noted that many reports were
the result of overactive imaginations, warning that sightings were becoming
"something of a psychosis." One authority said that "clouds, stars and even boat
engines" were precipitating reports.78 A spurt of sightings over Stockholm was
caused by fireworks accompanying the city's "frenzied crab-eating parties."79 A
"mysterious projectile" that exploded on the night of July 13 in Bjorklinge was
the subject of police and military investigations and was finally identified as
fireworks.S° One "ghost bomb" sighting in the northern Stockholm suburbs was
dismissed after a municipal worker found a radiosonde balloon in the vicinity,"
while observations of a luminous object over Ulvsundasjon and Stocksund were
caused by the same type of balloon from the Bromma weather station.82 An
uproar occurred in Nyhem on the evening of August 20 when residents were
convinced that a ghost rocket was being tested after they saw "a dark object
which, with moderate speed, steep-dived towards the upper part of the village,"
soon exploding in a flash of light. The next morning the mystery was solved
when the remains of a magpie "which had met its fate in the high voltage
lines"83 were found. On September 16, Swedish Nobel Prize-winning nuclear
physicist Manne Siegbahn (1886-1978) dismissed the rocket speculation, noting
the absence of "clear evidence that any guided missiles have been flying over
Sweden," and instead suggested "hysteria" as a factor." The head of the
Rosersberg artillery school, Colonel Sven Ramstrom, asserted that the "bombs"
were simply meteorites and pleaded for a reduction in "the bomb psychosis."' In
late July several newspaper editors expressed this opinion, describing the
prevailing mindset in such terms as "rocket psychosis"' and "war psychosis.""
Even a bulletin issued on August 7 by the commanding officer of Sweden's Air
Defense Department used the term "rocket psychosis."' It is evident from the
content of these accounts that such descriptions were not intended to suggest that
witnesses were mentally disturbed, but only that they were acting irrationally
and had overactive imaginations.


The words beneath the man say "Defense Staff," and the woman is "Mother
Svea," the traditional name for Sweden depicted as a giant woman. The
poem says: "The swarms of rockets unfortunately cannot be expelled. Do
they come from other planets? Or are they a closer threat?Damned, where's
the wasp's nest? asks the (Defense) General Staff, and we agree." Source:
Morgon Tidningen, August 13, 1946.
 Morgon Tidningen, August 13, 1946.

The Swedes and the Soviets traded political accusations about the rockets'
origins. The Soviet journal Novoie Vremia denounced the test-firing claims as
anti-Soviet "slander which is poisoning the international atmosphere."89 The
same publication quoted by a Swedish source characterized the allegations as
"Swedish lies" precipitated by mass panic.90 When the Swedish Defense
Department issued its August 6 communique vindicating foreign-power
involvement in the "rocket" sightings, Ny Dag, a Communist newspaper
published in Stockholm, chided the "meddlesome" Swedish press for blaming
the Russians and made disparaging references to the truth content of their reports
in noting that "the nose is lengthened ... among the Swedish newspaper
family."91 One editor commented that the Russians were using Sweden "as a
shooting range and as a guinea pig at trials with new weapons."92 Some circles
speculated that the missiles were being guided over Sweden as a tactic of
intimidation either to "scare us somehow"93 or as a Soviet response to the well-
publicized atomic detonations on Pacific atolls.94

Many authorities discussed their most dreaded fear: that the Soviet's newly
captured missile technology would soon bear atomic weapons. Political writer
Marquis Childs warned in the New York Post that the rocket intrusions were an
omen of how the next war would be fought. "If the arms race ends in a new
andmore terrible war, Sweden's advanced civilization will be torn asunder along
with nearly any other.... It is this which makes the use of Sweden as a suitable
military laboratory so serious."95 The Svenska Dagbladet's New York editor,
Per Persson, concurred with this assessment and the peril, of Sweden: "If these
projectiles carried explosive charges of atomic bomb character and if they were
directed against industrial centers ... Sweden would be destroyed and the war
would be over."96 Swedish magazine Se described the rocket episode as "a
premonition of 'push-button war.' "97 A press editor confidently asserted: "Now
we know what it's all abouttrial shootings. And Sweden is the target, or a part of
it."" One press columnist suggested that the United States should drop "atom
bombs on Moscow, before ... the ghost rockets become palpable,"' and other
commentators expressed their fear in poems.100

American assistance to Sweden during the ghost bomb crisis reflected their
concern over the Soviet's long-range missile deployment capacity, given the
widespread conviction that they would soon develop atomic weaponry.
American aerial warfare expert General James Doolittle flew to Sweden and
discussed the sightings with Swedish air force commanders on August 21,101
the same day that Swedish officials approached Great Britain about buying radar
equipment to track the "rockets, 11112 since British radar experts had reportedly
visited Sweden to provide firsthand evaluations of radar investigations.103
Curiously, a British intelligence report ("Investigation of missile activity in
Scandinavia," dated September 9) bears no evidence of such a visit. Most of the
data in this report are from Norway, and nothing is said about radar sightings or
analysis thereof. The radar cases that have been documented in the Swedish
Defense Staff archives are unimpressive and are judged as such by competent
Swedish air force personnel. Meanwhile, phantom rockets were occasionally
sighted during this time in other Scandinavian countries,104 and to a lesser
extent in Europe,"'- 'but none matched the Swedish reports in terms of volume
and social reaction.

In regard to foreign reactions, a London Daily Mail journalist, Alexander

Clifford, who flew to Sweden to report on the crisis, remarked that the Swedes
were acutely "aware of their position as the 'filling in the sandwich' between East
and West, and they are a very good and tasty filling too."106 A British editorial
accusing the Russians of testing German missiles warned that the projectile's
estimated range of six hundred miles was the approximate distance from
Peenemunde to London.107 The Berlin correspondent for the New York Herald
Tribune alleged that the Russian war industry in the German occupation zone
included one thousand German specialists overseen by Russian officers who
were manufacturing V-4 rocket bombs.108 A German socialist party official
claimed that Soviet occupying forces were using secret underground German
rocket workshops and captured scientists to conduct aerial experiments.109

The End of the Phantom-Rocket Episode

On October 10 the Defense Staff announced the results of its fourmonth

investigation. It concluded that 80 percent of approximately one thousand
reports were attributable to "celestial phenomena," and of the 20 percent that
were unexplainable, there was no conclusive evidence that any were V-type
rockets or other objects of foreign-government origin."' It read in part:

The majority of sightings with certainty result from celestial

 phenomena ... [which] often occur but usually do not attract any
special attention. Since the interest of the general public was awoken
... [they] started to take a closer note of them ... therefore the large
number of reports.

Some sightings cannot, however, be explained but this should not

be attributed to some sort of object of a different kind. Not enough
information is in hand ... to be able to draw firm conclusions with any
certainty concerning their nature, origin and appearance....

Through a collaboration with astronomers it was clear that the

two "peaks" in July and August probably were caused by meteors or
meteorites.

Even at an early date measures were taken through which the

military authorities tried to maintain a certain watch over the aerial
territory, seeking to clarify the origin of the phenomena. ... [Radar
tracking] proved impossible to establish ... what kind of object it
was....

[Of the many alleged crashes] ... remains mainly consist of coke
or slag-like formations.... In no case has anything come forth that can
be considered as if the material came from any kind of space
projectile. In certain lakes very thorough investigations have been
made because of supposed crashes. So far, however, no find has turned
up which can be presumed to originate from a V-type weapon.

During 1947, the year after the rocket crisis had passed, there were more
reports of mysterious aerial objects over Sweden, with most observations being
described as "flying saucers,""' reflecting heavy Swedish press coverage of the
massive flying-disk sightings in the United States during that summer. There
were also many reports of objects thought to be meteors,"' but just a few
scattered ghost rocket sightings. 113

The Swedish ghost rocket episode of 1946 is prominent in its lengthy
history of security scares involving the Soviet Union as the primary alleged
antagonist. There were many major exaggerated security concerns, from the
saw-filers to the ghost flier to phantom rockets and mystery submarines. There is
no reason to doubt that future episodes will continue-instigated by social and
political fears and a relatively small number of perhaps legitimate espionage
attempts. Only the form these sightings take will change to reflect the changing
political and technological circumstances.

Notes

1. While a small percentage of overall "rocket" observations were

reported across Scandinavia and the rest of Europe, the overwhelming majority
of cases emanated from Sweden.

2. R. Vayrynen, Conflicts in Finnish-Soviet Relations: Three

Comparative Case Studies (Tampere: Tampere University, 1972); N. Orvik,
Europe's Northern Cap and the Soviet Union (New York: AMS, 1973).

3. F. Lindberg, "Var Sagfilarna Ryska Spioner?" (Were the SawFilers

Russian Spies?) Horde ni, 1953: 341-47; F. Lindberg, Den Svenska
Utrikespolitikens Historia (History of Swedish Foreign Policy) (Stockholm: P.
A. Norstedt & Sorter, 1958), pp. 117-19, 123-24, 282-83.

4. National Encyclopedia [of Sweden], vol. 18, p. 11 (Bokforlaget Bra

Bocker: Hoganas, 1995); "Saw Filers and Ghost Fliers," an editorial in the right-
wing Norrbottens-Kuriren, January 20, 1934.

5. Ibid.

6. Ibid.

7. "The Mysterious Light Still Haunts. Airplanes Seen in Norway and in

the North. What's the Truth? Liquor Traders Attend Their Customers in a
Modem Way?" Vasterbottens Folkblad, December 27,1933, p. 1; "Liquor by Air
from a Depot Outside Norway. The Mysterious Airplane in the Mountains
Receives Its Explanation," Svenska Dagbladet, December 28, 1933, p. 6; "The
Giant Airplane Goes with Liquor over Norrland. A Regular Smuggler's Line
between Vasa and Mo in Northern Norway," Stockholm-Tidningen, December
28, 1933, p. 1; "Liquor Smugglers Use the Air for Their Own Purposes,"
Vasterbottens Folkblad, December 28, 1933, p. 1; "Finnish Customs Convinced
That Smugglers Fly the Atlantic-the Gulf of Bothnia. Transport Cost Would Be
Almost Three Crowns per Liter Through the Air," Norrlandska Social-
Demokraten, December 28, 1933, p. 1.

8. "Weapons Smuggling by the Mysterious Flights? The Guverte Plateau
a Possible Depot," Nya Dagligt Allehanda, December 31, 1933, p. 1.

9. "The 'Sawfilers' of the Air Guilty of the Disorder by Mountains and

Coasts?" Vasterbottens Folkblad, January 10, 1934, p. 1; "The Ghost Fliers of
Norrland Soviet-Russian Military Experts!" Nya Dagligt Allehanda, January 10,
1934, p. 1; "Soviet Machines That Haunt Us," Umebladet, January 11, 1934, p.
1; "Systematic Military Espionage Is the Mission of the Ghost Flier in
Norrland," Aftonbladet, January 13, 1934, p. 1; "Soviet Machines That Cross
Over Swedish Areas? The Boden Fort a Taboo for Strangers. Both Swedish and
Norwegian Government Take On Special Measures," Umebladet, January 15,
1934, p. 1; "The Flying X's Soviet-Russian Planes in Spite of Denials,"
Norrbottens-Kuriren, January 16, 1934, p. 4; "The Night Fliers Soviet-Russian,"
Umebladet, January 18, 1934, p. 1; "The Ghost Flier Over Kemi Was a Russian.
Finnish Authorities 'Confirm," Norrbottens-Kuriren, January 27, 1934, p. 15;
"The Ghost Fliers ... Base and Depot in the Vicinity of Boris Gleb," Aftonbladet,
January 27,1934, p. 18; "Do Finnish Authorities Have a Solution? Mysterious
Light on the Ice Outside Kemi. Is the Flier of Russian Nationality?" Svenska
Dagbladet, January 28, 1934, pp. 3, 6; "Is Weapons Transport the Ghost Flier's
Main Purpose ... Russian Base, Thinks Finnish Expert," Svenska Dagbladet,
January 30, 1934; "Do the Russians Want to Intimidate Scandinavia? The Ghost
Raids Russian War Plans, Says Finnish Air Expert," Aftonbladet, January 30,
1934, p. 1; "Base of the Ghost Flier," Nya Dagligt Allehanda, February 12, 1934,
p. 8; "The Secretary of Defense, 'the Ghost Fliers' and the Mysterious Radio
Signals," Nya Dagligt Allehanda, April 17, 1934.

10. "The Fliers German Front Pilots," Stockholms-Tidningen, December

29,1933, p. 20; "The Hauntings Arranged to Motivate the Demand for New
Bombers. Has the Nazi Junker Works and Air Administration Arranged the
Matter Together," Ny Dag (Communist daily), January 17, 1934, p. 1; "New
Theory on the Ghost. German Rockets," Hufvudstadsbladet (Helsinki, Finland),
February 9, 1934, p. 3; "Crossmarked Airplane Seen at Low Level Over
Jokkmokk.... Only German Machines Carry Crossmarks," Social-Demokraten,
March 16, 1937.

11. "The Ghost Flier a Japanese Machine," Umebladet, January 23, 1934,
p. 3; "The Japanese Warship Near Lofoten?" Umebladet, January 24, 1934, p. 1;
"The Ghost Flights Now Directed from the White Sea Coasts?" Vasterbottens-
Kuriren, January 25, 1934; "Japanese Help Cruiser Confirmed Off the Coast of
Northern Norway," Norrbottens-Kuriren, January 31, 1934, p. 7.

12. Statens Offentliga Utredningar (Official Swedish committee reports).
Forsvarsdepartementet (Ministry of Defense), 1995, p. 135; Ubats-fragan 1981-
1994 (The submarine question, 1981-1994). Report from the Submarine
Commission: Stockholm.

13. For a discussion on the submarine debate in the Swedish media, refer
to M. Leitenberg, Soviet Submarine Operations in Swedish Waters 1980-1986
(Washington, D.C.: The Center for Strategic and International Studies; New
York: Praeger, 1987); A. Hasselbohm, Ubatshotet. En Kritisk Granskning av
Harsfjardenincidenten och Ubatsskyddskommissionens Rapport (Stockholm:
Prisma, 1984); Q. Agrell, Bakom Ubatskrisen. Militar Verk-samhet,
Krigsplanlaggning och Diplomati i Ostersjoomradet (Stockholm: Liber, 1986);
H. von Hofsten, I Kamp mot Overheten (Stockholm: T. Fischer & Co., 1993).

14. It was never conclusively proven that the vessel carried nuclear
weapons, although analysts from the Research Institute of National Defense
found traces suggestive of nuclear activity.

15. B. Sundelius, ed., Foreign Policies of Northern Europe (Boulder,

Colo.: Westview, 1982).

16. "Nuclear Tests or Settling on the Bottom of the Baltic?" Helsingborgs

Dagblad, April 27, 1946.

17. Y. Moller, Osten Unden: A Biography (Stockholm: Norstedts, 1986),

p. 291.

18. "A New Aurora-the Most Beautiful for Ages," Sydostra Sveriges
Dagblad, March 29, 1946; "The Magnetic Storm the Most Powerful Ever,"
Sydostra Sveriges Dagblad, March 30, 1946.

19. L. Winkler, Catalogue of UFO-Like Data Before 1947 (Mt. Ranier,

Md.: Fund for UFO Research, 1984), p. 4, states that "the uniqueness of the
ghost rocket activity is emphasized by additional and accompanying phenomena.
Scandinavian newspapers gave accounts of spectacular auroras occurring over
Helsinki on Feb 26 and Stockholm on July 26. The preliminary aurora correlates
well with the spray date of Encke on February 25, whereas the July 26 aurora
corresponds to the onset of the main ghost rocket activity."

20. "Luminous Morning Clouds Frightened Horses and Dogs," newswire

report from the Swedish newspaper agency Tidningarnas Telegrambyra
appearing in various newspapers on January 8. The atypical nature of the
phenomena was noted by weather observers in Horby and Uppsala, according to
the 1946 edition of The Swedish Weather Bureau Yearbook.

21. Letter from Defense Staff archives from Alice Ahlsen, Fransborg,
Barkarby, July 11, 1946.

22. The Swedish Weather Bureau Yearbook, 1946.

23. Borlange Tidning, January 18, 19, 24, 26, and February 2, 1946;
Dala-Demokraten, January 19, 1946; Saters Tidning, January 19, 1946.

24. There were also numerous reports of meteoric and auroral activity
between February and early May 1946. Among the most prominent was a
fireball in Vasterbotten County, parts of Vasternorrland and Norrbotten, and in
western Finland on February 17, and a possible train of meteors on February 21
in the counties of Vasterbotten, Vastemor-rland, Kopparberg, Gavleborg,
Uppsala, Ostergotland, and Skaraborg, while an unprecedented aurora borealis
was reported for several days in late March. For descriptions of these and other
reports, see Norra Vasterbotten, February 19-21; Vasterbottens-Kuriren,
February 21-23; Orn-skoldsviks-Posten, February 18; Hufvudstadsbladet,
Helsinki, Finland, February 22, 24, 26, 28, and March 3, 7, 10; Borlange
Tidning, February 22; Sundsvalls Tidning, February 23; Falu-Kuriren, February
22; Smalands Dagblad, February 22; Mora Tidning, February 25; "Northern
Lights Continue," Norra Vasterbotten, March 26; "Fireball Flew Over the Town
Yesterday," Sundsvalls Tidning, April 25.

25. Mora Tidning, January 14, 1946.

26. "Ship Among the Clouds," Sydostra Sveriges Dagblad, May 27,
1946.

27. Saters Tidning, January 15, 1946; Mora Tidning, January 18, 1946.
 28. Hufvudstadsbladet, February 22, 1946.

29. The Swedish Weather Bureau Yearbook, 1946.

30. Smalands Dagblad, April 6, 1946.

31. "Ball Lightning Knocked Down Pedestrians in the Streets," Sydostra

Sveriges Dagblad, May 4, 1946.

32. "Does a Mysterious Light Betoken Clearer May Weather?" Morgon-

Tidningen, May 4, 1946, p. 1.

33. "Mysterious Fireball Also Observed in Halsingborg," Helsingborgs

Dagblad, May 29, 1946.

34. J. Vallee, Anatomy of a Phenomenon: UFOs in Space (New York:

Ballantine, 1965), p. 43.

35. "Mystery in the Sky in Skane: 'Wingless, CigarShaped Body' Amazes

Landskrona Inhabitants," Morgon-Tidningen, May 28, 1946, p. 12. A sighting at
about the same time by a Danish border guard near the parish of Rudbbl
described a rapidly moving "bright light, followed by a tail." See "The Danes
See a Mysterious Fireball Too," Morgon-Tidningen, May 29,1946, p. 7.

36. "Night Workers Took Shelter from the Rocket Bomb in Landskrona,"
Aftonbladet, May 25, 1946; "Rocket Bomb or What? Strange Aerial Body over
Landskrona," Landskrona-Posten, May 25, 1946.

37. "RemoteDirected Bombs Haunt Both Here and There," Morgon-

Tidningen, May 27, 1946; "Ghost Flier or Remote-Controlled Bombs?"
Aftontidningen, May 27, 1946.

38. "Fire-Spewing 'Log'-Meteor or Projectile?" Expressen, May 25, 1946.

39. "The V-Bomb Over Landskrona a Piece of Fireworks?" Goteborgs-

Tidningen, May 25, 1946.

40. "The Wingless Airplane Could Be a V-Bomb," Dagens Nyheter, May

26, 1946.
 41. For a sighting in Greece during this period see "Rocket Bomb Over
Saloniki," Nationen (Oslo, Norway), September 6, 1946; for reports in Denmark:
"Unknown Airplanes or Ghost Rockets Over Denmark," Nationen, September
12, 1946; "Ghost Rocket Explodes Over Sjalland," Stockholms-Tidningen,
September 15, 1946; for the Netherlands: "Flying Fireballs Over the
Netherlands," Stockholms-Tidningen, September 15,1946; "Ghost Bombs Over
Holland," Helsingborgs Dagblad, September 29, 1946. For sightings in other
regions, see: "Ghost Bomb Over Italy," Helsingborgs Dagblad, September
23,1946; "Mysterious Fireballs Over Northern Africa," Stockholms-Tidningen,
September 21, 1946; "Strange Heavenly Sights Over Portugal," Sydostra
Sveriges Dagblad, September 19, 1946.

42. "The Meteor Over Karlskrona-Remote Directed Experiment Bomb,"

May 27,1946, Sydostra Sveriges Dagblad, May 27,1946; "New Mysterious
'Fireball' over Naval Yard. Experiment with Secret Weapon?" Expressen, May
27, 1946; "Mysterious Sky Appearance Also in Stockholm," Morgon-Tidningen,
May 28, 1946, p. 12.

43. "Sky Phenomenon in Eskilstuna," Morgon-Tidningen, June 13, 1946,

p. 5; "Flaming Red Meteor in Southern Finland," Morgon-Tidningen, June
22,1946, p. 6; "Mysterious Plane Over Gavle. Long Grey Object Disappears in
Smoke Cloud," Svenska Dagbladet, July 2, 1946, p. 3; "Mysterious Object
Crossed Through the Sky Over Flurkmark," Vasterbottens-Kuriren, June 5,
1946, and police reports from investigation in Trehorningen, September 20 in
Defense Staff files; Kroksjo information taken from Defense Staff files, War
Archives, Stockholm.

44. Defense Staff files.

45. "A 'Silver Cigar' Flies as Rapidly as a Fighter Plane," Morgon-
Tidningen, June 1, 1946, p. 11.

46. "Ghost Rocket Hunted by Car in Roslagen," Aftonbladet, May 28,

1946; Defense Staff files.

47. "V-Bomb Seen Over Hugelsta on Whitsun Eve," Eskilstuna-Kuriren,

June 11, 1946; Dagens Nyheter, June 11, 1946; Svenska Dagbladet, June 12,
1946; Notes in Defense Staff files.
 48. "Ghost Rocket Also Over Our Country. Sightings in Several Places,"
Hufvudstadsbladet, June 11, 1946; Helsingin Sanomat, June 11, 1946; "Ghost
Rocket an Ordinary Meteor," Dagens Nyheter, June 12, 1946; "Flying Bomb or
Meteor, One Asks in Finland," Helsingborgs Dagblad, June 12, 1946;
Tidningarnas Telegrambyra newswire reports on June 10-11, 1946; reports
number 68/3:43/1946, 69 3:43 1946 and 82 3:55 1946 from the military attache
from the Defense Staff files.

49. Sydostra Sveriges Dagblad, June 7, 1946.

50. Memo entitled "Headquarters, Defence Staff Department L [Air

Defense] nr 7:49. June 12, 1946. Reports Concerning Light Phenomena." The
memo was issued "On Order of the Supreme Commander" and signed by T.
Bonde (acting chief of the Defense Staff) and cosigned by Nils Ahlgren (head of
the Air Defense department of the Defense Staff).

51. Letter in Defense Staff files, from S. H. Liljhage, chief of staff of the
western airbase, Gothenburg, describing a telephone report to the local base by
engineer Berglund.

52. Report filled in on July 5, 1946, at 6 P.M. to the research officer on

duty at the Defense Staff from the duty officer at the 117 infantry regiment at
Uddevalla filed in the Defense Staff archives.

53. Report to the Malmo regional defense area staff to the Defense Staff
on July 11, 1946.

54. Astronomer Yngve Ohman of the Stockholm Observatory studied the

sightings and concluded that the most likely explanation was a bolide.

55. "Meteor or Radio Bomb," Svenska Dagbladet, July 10, 1946, p. 3.

56. "A Radio-Controlled Projectile Over Medepad Yesterday,"

Sundsvalls Tidning, July 10, 1946; "Rocket Projectiles Have Taken Over the
Ghost Flier's Role. Vaxholm and Sundsvall Saw Mysterious Space Rockets,"
Morgon-Tidningen, July 10, 1946, p. 1; "The Rocket-Projectile Crashed on
Bjorkon," Sundsvalls Tidning, July 11, 1946; "The Light Phenomena Continue.
No Solution Yet to the Findings at Nolvikssand," Sundsvalls Tidning, July 12,
1946
 57. "Enigmatical Paper Find from 'Ghost Bomb.' Dalarma-Varm- land
Also Has Had Visits," Morgon-Tidningen, July 11, 1946, p. 1; "The Military Has
a Bomb Fragment," Svenska Dagbladet, July 11, 1946, p. 9.

58. Based on a large number of former secret documents from Defense
Staff archives examined by Anders Liljegren and Clas Svahn. In numerous other
cases, local police were ordered to conduct investigations.

59. A. Liljegren and C. Svahn, "Ghost Rockets and Phantom Aircraft," in

J. Spencer and H. Evans, eds., Phenomenon: Forty Years of Flying Saucers
(New York: Avon, 1989), pp. 53-60.

60. For descriptions of "ghost bomb" crashes in which "missile"

fragments were initially believed to have been found, refer to "The Space
Projectile," Sundsvalls Tidning, July 13, 1946; "The Njurunda Findings Not
Meteorite Stones Declares Research Institute," Sundsvalls Tidning, July 14,
1946, p. 1; "Distinct and Good Reports About Bomb and Light Phenomena,"
Goteborgs Handels-och Sjofarts Tidning, July 13, 1946, p. 22; "Space Projectile
in Nederkalix," Svenska Dagbladet, July 19, 1946, p. 3; "Two Rockets Down in
Lake Mjosa? Seen by Several People," Aftenposten (Oslo), July 19, 1946;
"Rocket Bomb Falls in Mjosa," Svenska Dagbladet, July 20, 1946, p. 9; "Ghost
Rocket Down in Norrbotten Lake. Two-MeterLong Projectile-Huge Pillar of
Water," Norrbottens-Kuriren, July 20, 1946; "Ghost Projectile Delved for in
Norrland Lake," Svenska Dagbladet, July 21, 1946, p. 3; "Another Space
Projectile Down in Norrbotten Lake," Norrbottens-Kuriren, July 22, 1946;
"Projectile Crash Also in Njutanger," Sundsvalls Tidning, July 23, 1946; "Lake
Bottom in the 'Bomb Lake' Searched Through," Morgon-Tidningen, July 23,
1946, p. 5; "The Bomb Disappeared into the Water and the Swedes Will Now
Empty the Lake," Arbeiderbladet (Oslo), July 30, 1946; "Mysterious Object Has
Been Found in Bleklinge," Sydostra Sveriges Dagblad, August 5, 1946, p. 1;
"Mysterious Fireball Over Stockholm, Crash Seen," Dagens Nyheter, August 10,
1946, p. 1; "Cyclist Nearly Struck by Fist-Sized 'Ghost Rocket,'" Morgon-Tid-
ningen, August 10, 1946, p. 10; "Danes Find Metal Piece of a Ghost Bomb,"
Morgon-Tidningen, August 22, 1946, p. 1.

61. "Three Hundred Reports So Far of Luminous Phenomena in the Air.

No Definite Results Yet," Svenska Dagbladet, August 7, 1946, p. 4; "A
Projectile Steers Back Southward?" Svenska Dagbladet, August 8, 1946, p. 7.
 62. Tidningarnas Telegrambyra newswire of July 27, 1946; "Ghost
Rocket in the Hen House?" Stockholms-Tidningen, July 28, 1946; "Space
Projectile Causes a Fire?" Svenska Dagbladet, July 28, 1946, p. 5.

63. "MT Continues to Say There Have Been Many Fires ... in the Dry
Weather, Some Probably Started By Arson. Sparks Not Ghost Bomb, the True
Cause ... a Blasting Cap," Morgon-Tidningen, August 1, 1946, p. 3.

64. "Ghost Rocket Caused the Svartvik Fire?" Sundsvalls Tidning, July
31, 1946; "Ghost Bomb Was Not the Cause of the Svartvik Fire," Svenska
Dagbladet, August 1, 1946, p. 1.

65. "OverHeating Thought to Have Caused the Svartvik Fire," Sundsvalls

Tidning, August 16, 1946.

66. "Ghost Rocket Crashed a Barn in a Norrland Village," Goteborgs-

Tidningen, August 12, 1946.

67. "A Tornado Demolished the Barn," Stockholms-Tidningen, August

13, 1946.

68. "Poisonous Material from Rocket Bombs?" Morgon-Tidningen,

August 13, 1946, p. 7.

69. Letter from Jan Flinta, Stockholm, August 9, 1946 to the Defense
Staff; Varmlands Folkblad, July 19, 1946; Sundsvalls Tidning, July 20, 1946;
Nya Wermlands-Tidningen, August 1, 1946.

70. "Did the Accident Plane Collide with a Returning Ghost Rocket?"
Expressen, August 13, 1946.

71. "Space Rocket Not the Cause for the Valdshult Accident,"
Jonkopings-Posten, July 15, 1946; "Investigation of the B18 Accident: The Pilot
Lost Control," Expressen, August 16, 1946; "Fatal Accident: The ... Crash Not
Because of Space Rocket," Morgon Tidningen, August 16, 1946, p. 11.

72. "Ghost Bomb Theory Fell Apart Like a Soap-Bubble," farmlands

Folkblad, August 13, 1946; Expressen, August 13, 1946.
 73. "Pit in the Ground a Ghost Bomb Mark?" Svenska Dagbladet, August
3, 1946, p. 3.

74. "Mysterious Projectile Falls from the Air," Svenska Dagbladet,

August 9, 1946, p. 3.

75. "The 'Projectile' Is a Steam Valve Part. Experts Agree," Svenska

Dagbladet, August 16, 1946, p. 3; "Ghost Bomb Screw a Steam Valve,"
Morgon-Tidningen, August 16, 1946, p. 7.

76. "Ghost Phenomenon Hidden in a Moss in a Blekinge Wood," Dagens

Nyheter, August 4, 1946.

77. "Airplane Antenna Taken for a Ghost Bomb," Morgon-Tidningen,

August 6, 1946, p. 7; "The Mysterious Find Was an Airplane Antenna," Sydostra
Sveriges Dagblad, August 6, 1946.

78. "Clouds, Stars and Engines: Ghost Flights Starting to Become a

Psychosis, Air Defense Thinks," Expressen, July 25, 1946.

79. "Ghost Phenomenon Was Crab Party Rocket?" Morgon-Tid- ningen,

August 9, 1946, p. 8.

80. "Space Projectile Was Boys' Fireworks," Morgon-Tidningen, July 21,

1946; " 'Radio Bomb' Exploded," Svenska Dagbladet, July 16, 1946.

81. "The 'Ghost Bomb' Found," Svenska Dagbladet, August 24, 1946, p.
20.

82. "Ghost Bomb Was a Wind Balloon. Observatory Saw an Exploding

Star," Svenska Dagbladet, August 23, 1946, p. 3.

83. "Steep-Diving Magpie in Nyhem Causes Ghost Rocket Fever,"

Ostersunds-Posten, August 22, 1946.

84. "'Missile' Is a Meteorite. Swedish Physicist Is Skeptical About

Reports of Firing," New York Times, September 17, 1946, p. 8.

85. "Bomb Crash at Sigtuna Exposed as Meteorite," Stockholms-Tid-

ningen, July 24, 1946.

86. "The Reality Behind the 'Ghost Bombs,' " Stockholms Tidningen,
July 26, 1946.

87. "The Ghost Bombing," Halsingborgs Dagblad, July 27, 1946.

88. "The Ghost Rockets," Expressen, August 7, 1946.

89. "Russians Cry 'Slander' to Rocket-Firing Charge," New York Times,

September 4, 1946, p. 10.

90. "The Russians Talk About Lies and Panic," Svenska Dagbladet,
September 4, 1946, p. 3.

91. "Sic Transit," Ny Dag, August 6, 1946.

92. "Sweden Used as a Shooting Range," Halsingborgs Dagblad, July 26,

1946.

93. "Rocket, Meteor or Phantom?" Aftonbladet, August 7, 1946.

94. Smalands Folkblad, July 27, 1946.

95. "The Ghost Bomb a Serious Threat. 'Monster in Miniature for the
Next War,' " Svenska Dagbladet, August 7, 1946, p. 7.

96. Ibid.

97. Advertisement for Se magazine appearing in Svenska Dagbladet,

August 16, 1946, p. 9.

98. "The Ghost Bombs," Vasternorrlands Folkblad, July 26, 1946.

99. "Around" (column), Svenska Dagbladet, August 18, 1946, p. 4.

100. The following appeared in the Morgon-Tidningen, July 12, 1946, p. 8:

"Trembling people walk about wondering what will happen.... Limitless is our
wonder, no one knows what it will bring, just now upon the sky, here the horned
beast was seen.... Terrible is a summer's night, listen to the laughter of the
ghosts, when on the wheels of the atom bombs, they play tag in the heavens." A
poem in Copenhagen's Berlingske Tidende, July 31, 1946, on the last page, made
reference to a recent sensational ghost rocket sighting over Byen, expressing
relief that the "rocket" was actually a meteor: "People breathed a little scared in
Hong.... It was like a great meteor in and arc over the region below. People
thought at once of this rocket which travels so mysteriously.... But surely people
can be at ease in Hong. It was not a great power on an expedition of war." On
July 12, a poem titled 'Anxiety on the Air" appeared in the Vasterbottens
Folkblad, stating in part: "What is it that's flying here and there.... That man can
never rest in peace, of atoms and other troublesome things, in a calmer world
some may believe-but I, I believe in nothing." Other poems on the ghost rockets
include: "The Great Riddle," Stockholms-Tid- ningen, August 18,1946; "The
Ghost Rocket in Denmark," Dagens Nyheter, August 19, 1946.

101. "Doolittle Consulted by Swedes in Bombs," New York Times, August
22, 1946, p. 2.

102. "Special to the New York Times," New York Times, August 22, 1946,
p. 2.

103. "Inquiry into Arms in Germany Seen," New York Times, August 23,
1946, p. 6.

104. "Ghost Rocket Explodes in Denmark," Svenska Dagbladet, August 14,

1946, last page; "Space Projectile Over Helsinki," Svenska Dagbladet, August
15, 1946, last page; "Another Danish Sighting," Svenska Dagbladet, August
15,1946, p. 3; "Many Ghost Rockets Over Denmark," Svenska Dagbladet,
August 17, 1946, p. 13; "Danes Find Metal Piece of a Ghost Bomb," Morgon-
Tidningen, August 22, 1946. p. 1; "Twelve 'Ghost Bombs' Up Till Now Over
Denmark," Svenska Dagbladet, August 22, 1946, p. 13; "Ghost Rockets Over
Norway," Svenska Dagbladet, July 19, 1946, last page.

105. "Ghost Rockets Over France Too," Svenska Dagbladet, August 21,
1946, last page; "Carrier Cancels Athens Air Show," New York Times,
September 6, 1946, pp. 1, 11; "Ghost Bomb Over Austria," Svenska Dagbladet,
September 13, 1946, last page. A survey of fourteen Italian daily newspapers
between July and October 1946 yielded seventy articles primarily describing
sightings of mysterious aerial objects over Italy. Edoardo Russo of Torino, Italy
(personal communication, 16 January 1997), summarizes these: " 'strange
bolides' at Imola and 'rocket projectiles' in Bologna of September 17, 'flying
bombs' over Vercelli and a 'fire bolide' again at Imola on the 18th, 'luminous
bolides' at Turin on the 19th, at Florence on the 21st and on the 22nd, 'bright
signals' over Rome on the 20th, more 'rocket projectiles' at Livorno on
September 20 and in Bari on October 5, 'flying bolides' in Trieste on October 12
and even a 'fire disc' at Varazze on October 4." Russo remarks that most reports
described rapidly moving luminous objects with tails, which, although initially
connected to the Scandinavian phenomena in the press, were subsequently
explained as meteorological events by astronomers. For details on these
sightings, refer to the following Italian press reports: "Bombe Volanti Anche a
Vercelli?" Il Giornale Di Torino, September 20, 1946; "Il Bolide Luminoso. Chi
l'ha Visto?" Gazzetta d'Italia, September 21, 1946; "Un Bolide Luminoso Nel
Cielo di Firenze, Nazione Del Popolo, September 22, 1946; "I Bolidi Misteriosi.
L'opinione di un Astronomo sull Natura," Nazione Del Popolo, September 24,
1946; "1 Proiettili Razzo sull'Italia Sono Fenomeni Cosmici," Corriere Di
Sicilia, September 25, 1946; "Proiettile Razzo Nel Cielo di Livorno," Corriere
Tridentino, October 1, 1946; "Un Corpo Luminoso Nel Cielo di Bari, Giornale
Alleato, October 6, 1946; "Un Bolide Volante Avvistato a Bari," La Prealpina,
October 6, 1946; "Anche Nel Cielo di Trieste i Misteriosi Razzi," Voce Libera,
October 10, 1946; "I Razzi Luminosi di Trieste Sono Frammenti di una
Cometa," La Prealpina, October 13, 1946.

106. "Ghost Bomb Awakens Interest in England. Star Reporter Sent to
Sweden," Svenska Dagbladet, September 4, 1946, p. 3.

107. "Sweden's Bomb," Manchester Guardian, August 13, 1946, p. 4.

108. "Rocket Bomb Made in the Hars," Svenska Dagbladet, September 8,

1946, last page.

109. "The Russians Experiment with New Rocket Weapon," Svenska

Dagbladet, August 13, 1946, p. 3.

110. Press release from the Defense Staff published by the Tidningaras
Telegrambyra news agency, October 10, 1946.

111. "Flying Saucer Over Stockholm," Stockholms-Tidningen, July 12,

1947; "'Flying Saucer' Over Ostersund," Stockholms-Tidningen, July 25, 1947;
"Flying Saucer Over Haparanda," Norrlandska Social-Demokraten, August 6,
1947; "Flying Saucer Over Finspang," Ostergotlands Dagblad, August 18, 1947;
"Flying Saucer or Meteor Over Helsingborg," Helsingborgs Dagblad, October
19, 1947.

112. "Fireball with Tail Appeared Before Lulea Inhabitants," Norrlandska

Social-Demokraten, August 5, 1947; "Fireball Over Stockholm," Ostergotlands
Dagblad, December 22, 1947; Letter in the Defense Staff Archives from G.
Pettersson, warrant officer with Gota Artillerirege-mente, Gothenburg, submitted
to the Stockholm Defense Department on November 20, 1947, describing a
luminous ball over Gothenburg, November 17, 1947 at 1740 hours.

113. "Ghost Rockets Over Hudiksvall," Aftonbladet, October 7, 1947; "

'Space Projectile' Over Appelviken," Dagens Nyheter, October 23, 1947, and
Ministry of Foreign Affairs Archive.

 [T]he airship ... the flying saucer are images that carry the same
functional load.... [T]hey are not real, but symbolic. The differences in
the imaginative expression of this symbol are due to the "set" of the
individual (the "eyewitness"): level of social development, situation,
beliefs.... Differences in subjective perceptions of UFOs are
conspicuous today.... The task of specialists remains to explain this
symbol's meaning.

-Varerii
Sanarov'

'bile there are a few scattered and often vague historical references to
disc or saucershaped objects-and a variety of other shapes, for that matter-being
sighted in the sky, no consistent pattern emerged until 1947. Prior to this time
there is not a single recorded episode involving mass sightings of saucerlike
objects. The genesis of the flyingsaucer wave of 1947 and numerous sighting
clusters that have followed can be traced to the western United States during the
summer of 1947. On June 24, Boise, Idaho, businessman Kenneth Arnold was
flying his private plane over the Cascade Mountains of Washington State when
he saw near Mount Rainer what appeared to be nine glittering objects flying like
geese in formation. He kept the rapidly moving objects in sight for about three
minutes. His subsequent use of the word "saucer" when he later reported the
event received intense media coverage and is generally credited with providing
the impetus for the massive wave of worldwide flying saucer sightings that
almost immediately followed during that year,' and the many other waves since.'
Despite this deluge of saucer reports, a review of Arnold's original news
conference reveals that he described the objects as crescent-shaped, and said
only that they moved "like a saucer would if you skipped it across the water."'
Unlike previous sighting waves, there were no mass reports of phantom airships
or ghost rockets.' Conditioned by the media, scores of individuals with a saucer
mindset saw flying saucers around the globe.

The Associated Press story describing Arnold's "saucers" appeared in over
150 newspapers, encouraging others who had witnessed mysterious aerial
phenomena to report their sightings, which numbered in the tens of thousands'
The descriptive phrase "flying saucer" allowed people "to place seemingly
inexplicable observations in a new category."' The text of the original Associated
Press dispatch describing the existence of the "saucers" appeared as follows:

Nine bright saucerlike objects flying at "incredible speed" at 10,000

feet altitude were reported here today by Kenneth Arnold, Boise,
Idaho, pilot who said he could not hazard a guess as to what they were.

Arnold, a United States Forest Service employee engaged in

searching for a missing plane, said he sighted the mysterious objects
yesterday at three P.m. They were flying between Mount Rainier and
Mount Adams, in Washington State, he said, and appeared to weave in
and out of formation. Arnold said that he clocked and estimated their
speed at 1200 miles an hour.

Enquiries at Yakima last night brought only blank stares, he said,

but he added he talked today with an unidentified man from Utah,
south of here, who said he had seen similar objects over the mountains
near Ukiah yesterday.

"It seems impossible," Arnold said, "but there it is."

Sightings of flying saucers are a social construction unique to the twentieth

century, a manufactured concept propagated by the mass media.' As with the
airship episode, there were widely differing views on the stimulus for the saucer
reports. While some media reporters ridiculed the sightings,' others considered
claims plausible,10 as did numerous scientists" and authorities reporting
sightings.12 Further, the official military investigation of the reports fostered
public belief in their existence.13

The Unique Context of the 1947 Saucer Scare

The post-World War II cold war fostered considerable tension between East and
West, beginning with the U.S. foreign policy of intervention to halt the spread of
communism, which first occurred in Greece during 1947. Fighting was limited,
and most of the conflict was waged through ideological, economic, and political
maneuvering, but this fostered a fear of communism that resulted in numerous
witch-hunts spearheaded by U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy. Of even greater
concern than ideological communist infiltration of the United States was the
possibility that for the first time in history, a devastating atomic war could ensue.
Soon atomic fallout shelters were constructed in every American community,
and public schools were required to conduct mock attack drills. It is within this
setting that the 1947 flying saucer sightings took place.

For the past fifty years or so the most common folk theory about UFO
reports involves the existence of extraterrestrials. However, given Americans'
cold war mindset, this view was not expressed at the time of Kenneth Arnold's
highly publicized "saucer" sighting. The American obsession with the cold war
and possible atomic conflict was reflected in the explanations for the sightings.
On August 15,1947, a Gallup poll revealed that 90 percent of Americans
surveyed were aware of the flyingsaucer sightings and that most believed that
U.S. or foreign secret weapons, hoaxes, and balloons were responsible.14
"Nothing [in the poll] was said about 'alien visitors,' not even a measurable 1
percent toyed with the concept."15 In fact, Kenneth Arnold made his now-
famous sighting public, despite possible ridicule, "for patriotic reasons,"16
telling the Associated Press on June 26, 1947, that he believed they may have
been "guided missiles." For several weeks following Arnold's sighting, the
Federal Bureau of Investigation seriously entertained the possibility that many
reports were emanating from Soviet agents who were attempting to promote fear
and panic by spreading disinformation. As a result, according to FBI Bulletin
Number 42, as of late July, local bureau offices were asked to conduct
background checks on saucer witnesses.17 These concerns reflect American
preoccupation with the spread of communism during this time. These concerns
and a belief that many of the flying objects were remote-controlled rockets
reflect a transition from the Scandinavian "ghost rocket" sightings of the
previous year, which received considerable U.S. and foreign press coverage.
However, with the great number of sightings during mid-and late 1947, it soon
became obvious that no communist saucer conspiracy existed.

Once flying saucers became part of taken-for-granted reality, people began
to act within a different frame of meaning. Such retrospective interpretation was
applied to observations occurring long before the 1947 saucer wave. For
instance, in 1910 a minister claimed to see three rapidly moving objects at night,
which he believed were meteors, until decades later when flying saucers gained
notoriety.18 On July 15, 1947, a flaming, twenty-eight-inch "saucer" was
discovered on a Seattle, Washington, rooftop. After firefighters extinguished the
turpentine-soaked object, one observer claimed to see a hammer and sickle on
the disc, which, although unfounded, resulted in FBI personnel and military
bomb experts rushing to the site.19 Eight days later, the four-hundred-foot
wooden Salmon River Bridge in Oregon was destroyed by a fire of
undetermined origin. The FBI investigated the possibility of communist
sabotage, but it was also mysterious that the bridge's steel suspension cables had
melted in several places, since heat from a wood fire would not ordinarily reach
the melting point of steel (2800° F). The ambiguous nature of the fire and its
occurrence near the peak of a UFO wave led to speculation that flying saucers
were responsible.20

The common notion that flying saucers represented a U.S. or foreign secret
weapon continued to dominate popular opinion through May 1950, when a
Public Opinion Quarterly poll appeared.21 Of the 94 percent of Americans
surveyed who had heard of "flying saucers," most (23 percent) believed them to
be secret military devices. Only 5 percent placed them in the category of
"comets, shooting stars; something from another planet." Later in 1950 the
secret-weapon explanation dramatically shifted to an extraterrestrial explanation,
and has remained so ever since. The primary reason for this attitude change was
the publication of several popular books and magazine articles advocating the
extraterrestrial hypothesis. A bestselling book, The Flying Saucers Are Real
(1950), by retired Marine Major Donald Keyhoe, is one example. Frank Scully's
Behind the Flying Saucers (1950) claimed that extraterrestrials from a crashed
saucer were being kept at a secret U.S. military installation.' The book sold sixty
thousand copies and was later revealed as a hoax.23 In The Riddle of the Flying
Saucers: Is Another World Watching? (1950), science writer Gerald Heard
claimed that extraterrestrial "bees" were responsible for the sighting reports." As
a result of these books and continued press accounts of sightings, numerous
popular articles soon appeared in such magazines as Life, Look, Time,
Newsweek, and Popular Science, typically emphasizing the extraterrestrial
hypothesis. From the standpoint of popular literature, it is interesting that
between 1947 and January 9, 1950, The Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature
lists eight magazine articles on flying saucers. However, reflecting the period's
popular belief, these articles were listed under the headings of "Illusions and
Hallucinations," "Aeronautics," "Aeroplanes," and "Balloons-Use in Research."'s
Beginning in 1952, and continuing to the present, the extraterrestrial theory was
solidified 16 as the dominant motif in UFO movie and television portrayals.

The most significant aspect of the transition from the belief that flying
saucers were weapons to the idea that they are extraterrestrials' spacecraft is
found in the explanation put forth by the writers of these popular articles:
concern over A-bomb development and the aliens' desire to help earthlings
survive a dangerous period. This belief continues to be the most favored
explanation for the persistence of contemporary UFO reports.

Stereotypes of UFO Witnesses

Ever since worldwide sightings of flying saucers were triggered by Kenneth

Arnold's report in 1947, individuals reporting saucerlike objects in the sky have
been typically branded as irrational or psychologically disturbed, due to the
fantastic nature of their claims and stereotypes of such witnesses, and not
firsthand psychiatric evaluation. This stigma has continued despite repeated
scientific findings demonstrating the highly unreliable nature of human
perception, as discussed in chapter 1. The vast majority of flyingsaucer reports
involve distant lights at night, which is strongly suggestive of misinterpretations
of mundane natural or humanmade stimuli such as stars, planets, airplanes,
satellites and so on. But clearly, in all but a small percentage of cases,
mainstream theories of social psychology can explain clusters of mass
flyingsaucer sightings as normal behavior. Various atmospheric effects can also
engender misidentifications. Under certain conditions that are not infrequent,
stars and planets can appear to jump, flicker, pulsate, or change colors. It does
not matter whether witnesses are well educated in other fields. Former U.S.
president Jimmy Carter even appeared to have mistaken Venus for a UFO.27
Sociologist Ron Westrum recounts a cautionary tale:

I have had a witness of high education point to the star Arcturus as an

anomalous object in the sky. I myself once watched a strange light
 bobbing on the horizon. This turned out to be a porch light, as I
determined by training a telescope on it; but someone unfamiliar with
the autokinetic effect might well have believed that they were
witnessing a genuine anomaly. (In fact, the persons who were with me
were not entirely convinced even after I trained the telescope on the
object.)"

American sociologist David Swift documents how the popular Western

assumption that UFO enthusiasts are socially deprived or are believers in occult
philosophy and as such encompass only a small portion of the population is an
underlying theme in literature on the subject.29 Sociologist Marcello Truzzi has
placed UFO beliefs in a "waste basket" category of the occult that encompasses
such "esoteric" items as belief in the "prophet" Edgar Cayce, sea serpents,
werewolves, Sasquatch, and vampires. In placing UFOs in this category, Truzzi
claims that belief in these items "either have small scope and influence or are in
an actual state of decline."' The very fact that Truzzi, a prominent scholar of the
supernatural and the sociology of knowledge, can make such comments
underscores the extent to which social scientists misjudge the appeal of
secularized magic in modern times. Religious scholar Robert Ellwood also
places the UFO movement within the context of various occult groups,
contending that the number of UFO believers is small, with little promise of
future growth:

Only an ignorance of history could lead to the feeling that spirituality

of the alternative reality type is really more widespread in America
today than at many other points in European and American History.
Regardless of publicity, the total number of people affected by all the
movements in this book do not represent more than a few percent of
the population of America, and the percentage is not likely to grow
much in the future.31

The assumption that UFO believers represent a small, albeit deviant, irrational or
psychopathological portion of the population is strongly disputed in the results
of Gallup polls of 1966, 1973, and 1978.32 In 1966 46 percent surveyed
believed that UFOs "are something real," and 29 percent responded that they
were "imaginary." By 1978, the figures had increased to 57 percent believing
they were real and 27 percent thinking they were imaginary.
 Flying saucer witnesses and nonwitnesses who simply believe in the
existence of such objects have often been called hysterical and irrational.
Sociologist Neil J. Smelser's classic book on collective behavior views the
etiology of "saucer" sightings within this category, depicting witnesses as
emotionally unbalanced.33 Writing in the Journal of Popular Culture, popular
UFO author John Keel applies a psychoanalytic perspective to members of the
flyingsaucer subculture and classifies many members of flyingsaucer clubs as
"neurotic and paranoid personalities."34 He offers the following typical
personality profile of a person interested in the study of UFOs or involved with
the UFO social world:

The teen-aged ufologist [UFO researcher] is most often isolated on a

farm, or separated from his peers because of his eccentric personality.
The housewives are often suffering from marital problems (the divorce
rate among female ufologists is high), or are the type of personality
who busies herself with all kinds of community and social affairs,
merely adding UFOlogy to her list of escapist activities.... The
hardcore believer has an extremely suspicious nature, perhaps because
he/she has created an imaginary self-image and constructed the
necessary lies to maintain it. Thus they tend to believe that everyone
else shares these personality flaws. They often project or transfer their
own problems to the UFO witnesses they interview,... [who] have been
branded liars by UFO enthusiasts who thought they detected their own
behavioral problems in them.... The two types of distinguishable
personalities present at UFO conventions and club meetings are the
obsessive-compulsive and the paranoid-schizophrenic."

While famous psychoanalyst Carl Jung and physician J. A. Meerloo relate the
phenomena to the need for the existence of a higher power, they also suggest the
likelihood that many experiences result from repressed, infantile, sexually
oriented conflicts.36 In his witty expose of pseudoscientific eccentrics and their
followers, science writer Martin Gardner assumes that most saucer "cults" are
composed of "neurotic middle-aged ladies."37 Smelser contends that participants
in all UFO "cults," and for that matter any norm or value-oriented social
movement, are engaging in irrational, "hysterical" behavior. Canadian
sociologist H. Taylor Buckner has characterized members of flyingsaucer "cults"
as mentally ill and unbalanced, based on his observations at numerous
meetings.38 Buckner writes that "by any conventional definition the mental
health ... is quite low. Hallucinations are quite common.... If one were to attend a
meeting and watch the action without knowing in advance whether the audience
was in a mental hospital or not, it would be very difficult to tell, because many
symptoms of serious illness are displayed."39 This interpretation is not unlike
medical historian Gregory Zilboorg's portrayal of people alleged to be witches
during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries as typically suffering mental
illness,' a contention which has received much recent criticism.41

Religious cult author Christopher Evans views many of those who believe
in flying saucers as partaking in a "cult of unreason,"42 while D. W. Swift notes
that several skeptics have erroneously branded anyone who thinks UFOs are
extraterrestrial spacecraft as belonging to "the lunatic fringe."43 Scientist and
writer Arthur C. Clarke takes this position, describing flying saucer witnesses as
typically exhibiting "irrationality" and "nuttiness."' Other scholars have labeled
many witnesses as mentally ill or hallucinating. Psychiatrist Berthold Schwarz
notes that until recently, the mass media have attributed UFO sightings to mental
disturbances in observers despite contrary evidence.45 Dr. Herbert Strentz
analyzed 511 UFO news items selected from U.S. Air Force and civilian files.
Of these, ninety-four (18.4 percent) included references to witnesses who
refused to be identified or who said they would never again publicly make
another report or who suggested that people who see or report UFOs "could be
considered gullible, untrustworthy, drunk, unstable or have other characteristics
that may make them fit subjects for ridicule ... [or] mentioned physical, personal
or property damage a person suffered after making public a report of a UFO."46

The Symbolic Significance of Modern Flying Saucer Waves

The persistent, widespread beliefs in extraterrestrials and the reports that

supposedly confirm the presence of alien craft coincide with and reflect the
secularization of American society and Western societies in general. It is as if
many people are attempting to resurrect the power and function of God within a
plausible rationalistic framework. In other words, UFOs seem to be a substitute
for God. Hundreds of UFO organizations have been formed since 1947.
Members meet regularly to reinforce their beliefs in UFOs and often hear
"testimony" from witnesses or pseudoscientific lectures purporting to provide
proof of alien visitations. Since these "proofs" are vague and cannot be verified
by the general scientific community, the people in these "congregations" are
forced to rely on faith. Prophets throughout history have gone on wilderness
vision quests and zealously described how they were rewarded for their pure
character. Correspondingly, the classic UFO closeencounter witness is almost
always alone in a remote location and purports to be chosen as an intermediary
between otherworldly beings and humanity to deliver a vital message that must
be heeded, which is frequently so ecstatic as to be indescribable.

In the transition from the era of airships and phantom rockets to flying
saucers, the full transcendent meaning of sightings is resurrected, free of the
rationalistic limitations that previously muted their power, having been removed
by the exaggerated hope and optimism from the very technology in which they
are clothed. Soon after the extraterrestrial hypothesis became widely accepted
during the early 1950s, many people claimed to have conversed with
otherworldly beings. While the airship "inventors" espoused the virtues of
imminent technological advancements, extraterrestrials perform a more overtly
divine function and are often described in fantastic terms. These beings
commonly possess the ability to float, walk through walls, communicate
telepathically, heal, and foresee future events.

A central theme in alien encounters is that the extraterrestrials are visiting

Earth to save humanity from nuclear destruction.41 Apocalyptic portents are
also common, such as nuclear or natural disasters destroying large portions of
civilization if humans do not recant their sinister ways, as well as other evil
outcomes. 48 Warnings primarily center on technological misuse, such as
genetic engineering, the depletion of natural resources," and the hole in the
ozone layer.50 Sometimes the aliens perform benevolent deeds, such as offering
gifts51 or special knowledge about their utopian otherworld, or provide trips to
this otherworld.52 These accounts of otherworldly contact have more in
common with biblical revelation than with mundane airship inventors. While the
images are different from contact stories in the recent past, they are similar to
events described in mythology. Ancient narratives describe angels carrying
mortals to heaven and providing visions of a future new world order that all
humanity can share if they conform to certain truths. Today spaceships transport
beings of superior technology and intelligence-so advanced that they possess
magical qualities that offer the promise of conquering humanity's most daunting
problems.' Taken to its logical extreme, if aliens do make contact, perhaps their
"magical" technology can perform transcendent functions other than saving
Earth from nuclear disaster, such as curing various ailments. Extraterrestrials
have reportedly cured cancer,' chronic pain,55 healed injured legs56 and arms,"
allowed an infertile woman to bear children," cured a kidney ailment,-" ear-
ache,60 myopia, and rheumatism.61 Further, since such beings are often
described as immortal or having lengthy lifespans in comparison to humans '61
they could share their technology and transform humans to the immortal realm
of gods.

Scientists have dismissed reports of fairies, religious encounters, and other
such unprovable phenomena as implausible and in so doing have transferred
people's belief in the spiritual realm and its powers to aliens. In noting the
parallels between fairy lore and UFO lore, many UFO researchers have
reinterpreted the thousands of documented fairy sightings, conversations, and
abductions before the twentieth century63 as encounters with extraterrestrials by
people preconditioned to see fairies' The power and function of the UFO symbol
has increased exponentially over the past one hundred years to the point where
modern alien encounters resemble accounts of early religious prophets and tales
of witches and fairies. In the last fifty years we have evolved from the
descriptions of antiquated flying saucers of the 1940s and 1950s, complete with
clumsy exhaust systems and clunky ladders, cumbersome Buck Rogers-style
helmets and human appearance, to descriptions of diminutive beings with large
heads who float from their vessels, often materialize or vanish in an instant, and
communicate telepathically.

It is important that scientists not dismiss UFOs simply as the product of

deviance, irrationality, or mental disturbance. The emphasis on scientific
approaches to understanding the social sciences is primarily responsible for the
present pseudoscientific status of UFOs, as is the failure to recognize or take as
problematic the notion of rationality as a cultural category. Consequently, the
symbolic significance of UFOs has been obscured. Contemporary interpretations
of UFOs serve the unconscious longing for omnipotent beings in a secular age.
Folklorist Thomas Bullard observes that the seemingly limitless possibilities of
extraterrestrial science border on the magical. Science may have evicted ghosts
and witches from our beliefs, but it just as quickly filled the vacancy with aliens
having the same qualities. Only the outer trappings are new.65

To obscure the meaning of UFOs is to risk viewing diversity as eccentricity
or creativity as abnormality. To do so is to deprive the Western world of its own
cultural heritage and censor the ethnographic record. The answer to the UFO
mystery is not likely to be found by scrutinizing the skies, but instead by looking
to ourselves and understanding the human mind and why the flying saucer
symbol has captivated the imagination of the world. Perhaps it is a reflection of
ourselves and the times we live in.

The Roswell "Crashed" Saucer

History is a valuable tool in the arsenal of scientists because it distances

participants from the events they participated in, allowing them to obtain a less
emotional, more contextual perspective in understanding and assessing
extraordinary claims. For instance, in past centuries, a popular folk belief in
witches and fairies with magical powers was prevalent in Western societies. So
pervasive was this belief in everyday life during the seventeenth century that
such acclaimed scientists as Robert Boyle, Francis Bacon, Sir Isaac Newton, and
Thomas Hobbes could not liberate their writings from the superstitions of their
milieu.66 Boyle suggested interviewing British miners to determine if any had
encountered subterranean demons, while Bacon believed "malign spirits" may
have been be responsible for witchcraft. In John Locke's celebrated Essay
Concerning Human Understanding, he wrote that "spirits can assume bodies of
different bulk, figure or configuration."67 Virtually all modem-day scientists
would dismiss claims of real witches or fairies as ridiculous, yet many of these
same academics are likely to believe in the existence of alien visitors and
abductions, or that satanic cults kidnap thousands of children for ritual sacrifices.
Such is the power of our social environment.

Between 1900 and 1950, humanlike aliens typically landed in crude saucers
that rested on large metal legs, climbed down ladders brandishing ray guns that
were attached to Batman-style utility belts around the waist, and claimed to hail
from Mars. This caricature is laughable in comparison to present-day aliens with
large heads and bulbous eyes who instantly materialize or vanish and usually
claim to have traveled from outside our solar system. The same comparative
historical approach can be fruitfully applied to crashed-saucer claims in order to
show that they are part of a broader myth.

In July 1947 a flying saucer supposedly crashed during a thunderstorm in
the desert near Roswell, New Mexico, killing or critically injuring its crew. It is
claimed that the U.S. military sealed off the area, carted away the evidence, and
has engaged in a cover-up ever since to protect the public from mass panic. The
best evidence to verify these claims is of the "soft" variety-verbal accounts by
alleged eyewitnesses. Most of these narratives are secondhand and hearsay,
commonly referred to in folklore literature as "friend of a friend stories." There
is overwhelming evidence that the "saucer" was actually debris from a top secret
experiment being conducted at Alamogordo, New Mexico, called Project Mogul.
New York University scientists were involved in a project that flew balloons into
the atmosphere with instrument packages attached to detect pressure waves
emitted from Soviet nuclear-weapons tests.68 Claims that the U.S. government
had a crashed saucer in its possession were originally made by the military itself
during the initial stages of the investigation on July 8.69 By the following day, it
correctly announced that the object was instead part of a balloon launch."

In evaluating the accuracy of the Roswell incident, it is interesting to note

that there have been several other claims of crashed saucers in various parts of
the world since 1947, including other crash claims in the southwestern United
States. But is it really credible to believe that it would be possible to keep such a
secret from the public? Even the atomic bomb secrets were leaked to the Soviets.
Further, why spend hundreds of millions of dollars on radio telescopes for the
SETI program (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) if the government
already knows what's out there? Important pieces of evidence for understanding
what lies behind these crashed saucer stories can be garnered from history,
folklore, and psychology, for accounts of crashed UFOs and dead aliens have
circulated since the nineteenth century.

The following letter appeared in the Sunday morning edition of the Houston
Post, May 2, 1897, page 4, signed by a Mr. John Leander.

There is an old sailor living now in El Campo [Texas] with his

daughter who has proclaimed that he ... had actually seen people from
another world. His immediate relatives have known of the
circumstances for some years, but he says the story has never been
published. The name of the old gentleman is Mr. Oleson, and for many
years he was a boatswain in the Danish navy, but at the time he saw
the airship he was a mate on the Danish brig Christine.
 In September 1862, the Christine was wrecked [during a fierce
storm] in the Indian ocean on a desert rock or island several miles in
size. This rock is set down on charts of the ocean, but is not mentioned
in geographies....

[The survivors] had given up all hope and had clustered at the
base of a cliff waiting for the awful end, while the wind howled and
the furious waves dashed against the rock.

Suddenly another terror was added to the horrors of the scene, for
high in the air they saw what seemed to be an immense ship driven,
uncontrolled in the elements ... and it crashed against the cliff a few
hundred yards from the miserable sailors.

Speechless with fear, they crept toward the wreck. It seemed a

vessel as large as a modern battleship, but the machinery was so
crushed that they could form no idea as to how the power was applied
to the wings or sails, for they could plainly discern the fact that it was
propelled by four huge wings. Strange implements and articles of
furniture could be seen jumbled in an almost shapeless mass. They
found in metal boxes covered with strange characters what they
afterward discovered to be very wholesome and palatable food which,
with the water in the rocks, saved them from immediate death.

But their horror was intensified when they found the bodies of
more than a dozen men dressed in garments of strange fashion and
texture. The bodies were a dark bronze color. But the strangest feature
of all was the immense size of the men. They had no means of
measuring the bodies, but estimated them to be more than twelve feet
high. Their hair and beard were also long and as soft and silky as the
hair of an infant.

They found tools of almost every kind but they were so large that
few of them could be used. They were stupefied with fright and one
man, driven insane, jumped from the cliff into the boiling waves and
was seen no more.

The others fled in horror from the fearful sight, and it was two
days before hunger could drive them back to the wreck. After eating
 heartily of the strange food, they summoned courage to drag the
gigantic bodies to the cliff and tumble them over.

Then with feverish haste they built a raft of the wreck, erected
sails and gladly quit the horrible island.... They tried as best they could
to steer for Vergulen island, but fortunately in about sixty hours fell in
with a Russian vessel headed for Australia. Three more of the old
man's companions succumbed to their injuries and the awful mental
strain and died before reaching port.

Fortunately as a partial confirmation of the truth of his story, Mr.

Oleson took from one of the bodies a finger ring of immense size. It is
made of a compound of metals unknown to any jeweler who has seen
it, and is set with two reddish stones, the name of which are unknown
to anyone who has ever examined it. The ring was taken from a thumb
of the owner and measures 21/4 inches in diameter.

Several elements of this story bear a strong resemblance to the Roswell

incident: A secondhand narrative of alien creatures in a space vessel that crashes
in a remote, barren location. The craft is destroyed and foreign writing is found
inside. Their bodies are disposed of and the debris lost. A piece of confirming
evidence is salvaged.

Compare this narrative with one purported to have occurred in Aurora,

Texas, near the turn of the twentieth century, filed by journalist S. E. Haydon.
Remember that our interest in these accounts is their narrative content and not
their truth or falsity per se.

About six o'clock this morning the early risers of Aurora were
astonished at the sudden appearance of the airship which has been
sailing through the country.

It was traveling due north, and much nearer the earth than ever
before. Evidently some of the machinery was out of order for it was
making a speed of only ten or twelve miles an hour and gradually
settling toward the earth. It sailed directly over the public square, and
when it reached the north part of town collided with the tower of Judge
Proctor's windmill and went to pieces with a terrific explosion,
scattering debris over several acres of ground, wrecking the windmill
 and water tank and destroying the judge's flower garden.

The pilot of the ship is supposed to have been the only one on
board, and while his remains are badly disfigured, enough of the
original has been picked up to show that he was not an inhabitant of
this world.

Mr. T. J. Weems, the United States signal service officer at this

place and an authority on astronomy, gives it as his opinion that he
was a native of the planet Mars.

Papers found on his person-evidently the records of his travels-

are written in some unknown hieroglyphics, and can not be
deciphered.

The ship was too badly wrecked to form any conclusion as to its
construction or motive power. It was built of an unknown metal,
resembling somewhat a mixture of aluminum and silver, and it must
have weighed several tons.

The town is full of people to-day who are viewing the wreck and
gathering specimens of the strange metal from the debris. The pilot's
funeral will take place at noon tomorrow."

In his book UFOs-Explained, the former senior editor of the respected

publication Aviation Week and Space Technology, Philip Klass, meticulously
investigated this case and pronounced it to be a hoax.72 Despite these
conclusions, some UFO researchers continue to travel to the tiny community of
Aurora, armed with cameras, Geiger counters, metal detectors, pickaxes, and
shovels in hopes of locating the purported grave of the unfortunate alien.

There were other alleged UFO crashes in America during the nineteenth
century, most coinciding with the 1896-97 wave of imaginary airship sightings.
Like contemporary saucer conspiracy theories, there were even claims of a
government cover-up during the airship wave. According to one account, the
airship sightings were secret military experiments: "A profound secrecy has been
maintained as to what has been accomplished, even army officers themselves
only getting vague inklings of what is going on."73 There were also claims that
airships were being constructed and hidden in U.S. military installations,
including Fort Sheridan near Chicago and Fort Logan in Colorado.74

On the night of December 3,1896, a wrecked airship was found in the gully
of a cow pasture in a San Francisco suburb after dairy farmers heard a loud bang
followed by cries for help. Rushing to the scene, they found two dazed
occupants staggering near a fortyfoot coneshaped tube of galvanized iron with
broken wings and propellers. After causing a local sensation, and under cross-
examination by those inspecting the "wreckage," the alleged pilot, J. D. deGear,
eventually confessed that the "ship" had been pulled to the top of the hill in a
wagon and pushed over.75 The spot had been chosen for its strategic location
behind a clump of trees less than one hundred feet from the road and a nearby
saloon (which, incidentally, enjoyed a boom in business during the spectacle).76

On the evening of April 4,1897, an airship supposedly crashed on the J.

Sims farm near Bethany, Missouri, killing its pilot." Less than a week later, a
flying machine reportedly plunged into a reservoir near Rhodes, Iowa.' A search
proved fruitless. On April 16 another vessel allegedly crash landed outside
Waterloo, Iowa.79 In Tennessee, it was rumored that an aircraft had plunged to
earth in the middle of the night, sinking without a trace into Sycamore Creek in
Cheathma County," while, according to another account, the airship had met
with an accident in the Tennessee mountains, where it was being repaired by the
inventor."

Claims of pre-Roswell UFO crashes were not limited to the United States.
For instance, during the Second World War, the British government allegedly
obtained the wreckage of a downed saucer containing tiny aliens." And there
have been numerous claims of crashed UFOs around the world since the Roswell
incident 13

The Psychology of Crashed UFO Narratives

The solution to the crashed UFO accounts is not likely to be obtained by

examining some remote desert locale in hopes of finding a piece of alien
spacecraft or by watching the heavens, but instead by asking ourselves what
hidden psychological needs are being satisfied. Folklorist Jan Brunvand
contends that for legends to persist in modern society "as living narrative
folklore" they must contain three key elements: "a strong basic story-appeal, a
foundation in actual belief, and a meaningful message or 'moral.' " Accounts of
crashed saucers and government cover-ups easily meet each of these criteria.
They make for fascinating reading and discussion and are made believable in
scores of popular books and films. These narratives contain a poignant message
about our secular age, in which science and reason have expelled gods, ghosts,
and demons from our minds, quickly replacing their absence with more plausible
and equally compelling contemporary themes to stimulate our imaginations:
complex government conspiracies and alien creatures. That many people
envisage such an exciting and wondrous universe over a godless, alienless,
mechanistic existence should come as no surprise.

Notes

1. V. Sanarov, "On the Nature and Origin of Flying Saucers and Little
Green Men," Current Anthropology 22 (1981): 165.

2. D. B. Johnson, "Flying Saucers-Fact or Fiction?" (Ph.D. diss.,

University of California journalism department, 1950).

3. R. Sheaffer, The UFO Verdict (Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books,

1981); T. E. Bullard, "Mysteries in the Eye of the Beholder: UFOs and Their
Correlates as a Folklore Theme Past and Present" (Ph.D. diss., Indiana
University folklore department, 1982).

4. M. Gardner, Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science (New York:

Dover, 1957), p. 56; R. D. Story, The Encyclopedia of UFOs (New York:
Doubleday, 1980), p. 25; M. Sachs, The UFO Encyclopedia (New York:
Perigee, 1980), pp. 207-208.

5. From the time of Arnold's sighting until 1950, there were numerous
reports of missilelike aerial objects, reflecting the popular notion that the
mysterious sightings represented a domestic or foreign secret weapon. While
there were several missile reports, from the very beginning of the 1947 wave,
and subsequently, most objects were saucershaped. For instance, T. Bloecher's
1967 Report on the UFO Wave of 1947 catalogs a minimum of eight hundred
sightings during this wave alone. Of these, approximately two-thirds were
saucershaped (Bullard, "Mysteries," p. 259). Accounts of missile sightings
include: "Glowing Missile Seen in Sky-by Five Persons," San Francisco News,
October 14, 1947; "Cavalry to Aid Mexico Mystery Bomb Search," San
Francisco Examiner, October 14, 1947.

6. T. Bloecher, Report on the UFO Wave of 1947 (Washington D.C.:
self-published, 1967).

7. D. Jacobs, The UFO Controversy in America (New York: Signet,

1975), p. 37.

8. H. Hackett, "The Flying Saucer: A Manufactured Concept," Sociology

and Social Research 32 (1948): 869-73.

9. "Just Seeing Things, Scientists Assert," St. Louis Star Times, July 9,
1947, p. 1; H. W. Blakeslee, "Optical Laws May Explain Flying Saucers," St.
Louis PostDispatch, July 7, 1947, p. 7.

10. Jacobs, UFO Controversy, pp. 35-62.

11. "Flying Saucer Mystery.... Science Observer Believes Objects Radio-

Controlled," Medford Mail Tribune (Medford, Ore.), July 6, 1947; "Flying
Saucers Are Real Space Ships, Navy Rocket Aide Says," Oakland PostEnquirer,
February 23, 1950; F. Brutto, "Nazis Pioneered 'Saucers': Scientist Says They're
Real," Oakland PostEnquirer, March 24, 1950; "UC Scientist Admits He's
Baffled by Saucer Reports," Berkeley Daily Gazette, July 28, 1952.

12. "Pilots Report Seeing Discs," Boise Statesman (Idaho), August 20,
1947; "More Flying Saucers: Air Force Boys Saw 'Em," Oakland PostEnquirer,
March 23, 1950; "AF Reports 'Saucers' on Radar," Berkeley Daily Gazette, July
22, 1952; "Fighter Pilot Chases Disc 37,000 Feet," Oakland PostEnquirer, March
8, 1950; "Noted Astronomer Admits He Was 'Flying Disc' Viewer," Berkeley
Daily Gazette, July 8, 1952.

13. A. J. Snider, "Radar Crews Keep Watch for Saucers," San Francisco
Chronicle, August 11, 1952; "Flying Saucer Radar, Spotter Posts Are Urged,"
Richmond Independent, February 26, 1951, p. 16; "Fourth Air Force Drops Disc
Inquiry; Search Held Futile," San Francisco Examiner, August 9, 1947.

14. G. Gallup, "Nine Out of Ten Heard of Flying Saucers," Public Opinion
News Service, Princeton, N.J., August 15, 1947.
 15. L. Gross, UFOs: A History, Volume 1, July 1947-December 1948
(Scotia, N.Y.: Arcturus Books, 1982), p. 30.

16. Ibid., p. 11.

17. B. Maccabee, "UFO Related Information from FBI File: Part 1," The
UFO Investigator (November 1977), p. 3 (official publication of the National
Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena); Gross, UFOs: A History, p.
16.

18. C. Lorenzen and J. Lorenzen, LIFOs Over the Americas (London:
N.E.L. [Signet], 1968).

19. Gross, UFOs: A History, p. 37.

20. K. Arnold and R. Palmer, The Coming of the Saucers (Wisconsin:

Amherst, 1952), pp. 188-89; Gross, UFOs: A History, p. 29.

21. Public Opinion Quarterly (1950), pp. 597-98.

22. F. Scully, Behind the Flying Saucers (New York: Henry Holt, 1950).

23. Bullard, "Mysteries," p. 251; G. Little, The Archetype Experience

(Moore Haven, Fla.: Rainbow, 1984), p. 52

24. G. Heard, The Riddle of the Flying Saucers (London: Carroll &
Nicholson, 1950).

25. J. A. Blake, "Ufology: The Intellectual Development and Social Context

of the Study of Unidentified Flying Objects," in R. Wallis, ed., Sociological
Review Monographs 27 (1979), pp. 315-37, On the Margins of Science: The
Social Construction of Rejected Knowledge.

26. A. Simon, "The Zeitgeist and the UFO Phenomenon," in R. Haines, ed.,
UFO Phenomenon and the Behavioral Scientist (Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow,
1979), pp. 43-59; J. Keel, "The Flying Saucer Subculture," Journal of Popular
Culture 8, no. 4 (1975): 871-96, see p. 877.

27. Sheaffer, UFO Verdict.

 28. R. M. Westrum, "Witnesses of UFOs and Other Anomalies," in R.
Haines, ed., UFO Phenomena and the Behavioral Scientist (Metuchen, N.J.:
Scarecrow, 1979), p. 96.

29. H. T. Buckner, "The Flying Saucerians: An Open Door Cult," in M.

Truzzi, ed., Sociology in Everyday Life (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: PrenticeHall,
1968); D. I. Warren, "Status Inconsistency Theory and Flying Saucer Sightings,"
Science 170 (1970): 559-603; D. H. Menzel, "UFOs-the Modern Myth," in C.
Sagan and T. Page, eds., UFOs -A Scientific Debate (New York: W. W. Norton,
1972); R. Ellwood, Religious and Spiritual Groups in Modern America
(Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: PrenticeHall, 1973).

30. M. Truzzi, "The Occult Revival as Popular Culture: Some Random

Observations on the Old and Nouveau Witch," in M. Truzzi, ed., Sociology for
Pleasure (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: PrenticeHall, 1974), p. 399.

31. Ellwood, Religious and Spiritual Groups, p. 298.

32. D. W. Swift, "Who Believes in UFOs?" Journal of UFO Studies 2

(1980): 7-12.

33. N. Smelser, Theory of Collective Behavior (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.:

PrenticeHall, 1962).

34. J. Keel, "The Flying Saucer Subculture," Journal of Popular Culture 8
(1975): 871-96.

35. Ibid., pp. 873-74.

36. C. G. Jung, Flying Saucers: A Modern Myth of Things Seen in the Sky
(New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1959); J. A. M. Meerloo, "The Flying
Saucer Syndrome and the Need for Miracles," Journal of the American Medical
Association 203, no. 12 (1968): 170; J. A. M. Meerloo, "Le Syndrome des
Soucoupes Volantes," Medecine et Hygiene 25 (1967): 992-96.

37. Gardner, Fads and Fallacies, p. 329.

38. However, these qualitative impressions have failed to be substantiated

by sociologists George Kirkpatrick and Diana Tumminia, who conducted
demographic surveys of a California flyingsaucer cult. See Kirkpatrick and
Tumminia, "A Case Study of a Southern California Flying Saucer Cult," a paper
presented at the eighty-fourth annual meeting of the American Sociological
Association, August 9-13, 1989, in San Francisco, California. A minority of
researchers do not share Buckner's typification of UFO "cults." These include
religious scholar J. Gordon Melton, who contends that typical members are
"ordinary people with some extraordinary beliefs" (p. 38). See R. Westrum, D.
Swift, and D. Stupple, "Little Green Men and All That," Society 21, no. 148
(1984): 37-44. R. Balch and D. Taylor, ("Seekers and Saucers: The Role of the
Cultic Milieu in Joining a UFO Cult," in J. Richardson, ed., Conversion careers:
In and Out of the New Religions [London: Sage, 1978]) emphasize "the
importance of studying religious cults in their social and cultural context" (p.
62). Thus, a belief in the prophecies of two people calling themselves "Bo" and
Peep" and claiming that during an impending apocalypse their followers would
be safely transported to heaven in a UFO may sound bizarre to outsider
observers and prompt abnormal or psychopathological labels of members.
However, Balch and Taylor note that the message "was firmly grounded in the
metaphysical worldview. Bo and Peep put together an eclectic mixture of
metaphysics and Christianity that many seekers found appealing because it
integrated a variety of taken-for-granted beliefs, including flying saucers,
reincarnation, Biblical revelations, and the physical resurrection of Jesus" (p.
56).

39. H. Buckner, "The Flying Saucerians," pp. 226, 228. Buckner (personal
communication, 1989) writes that, regarding the attribution of mental illness to
flyingsaucer clubs, "I would not write now as I did in the 1960s." He goes on to
emphasize the importance of "part-time alternate reality" in shaping UFO-related
mind outlooks.

40. G. Zilboorg, The Medical Man and the Witch during the Renaissance
(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1935). He states: "No doubt is left
in our mind that the millions of witches, sorcerers, possessed and obsessed were
an enormous mass of severe neurotics, psychotics, and considerable deteriorated
organic deliria ... for many years the world looked like a veritable insane asylum
without a proper mental hospital" (p. 73).

41. See T. Szasz, The Manufacture of Madness (New York: Harper & Row,
1970); R. Neugebauer, "Treatment of the Mentally Ill in Medieval and Early
Modern England: A Reappraisal," Journal of the History of the Behavioral
Sciences 14 (1978): 158-69; T. J. Schoeneman, "Criticisms of the
Psychopathological Interpretation of Witch Hunts: A Review," American
Journal of Psychiatry 139, no. 8 (1982): 1028-32; T. J. Schoeneman, "The
Mentally Ill Witch in Textbooks of Abnormal Psychology: Current Status and
Implications of a Fallacy," Professional Psychology: Research and Practice 15,
no. 3 (1984): 299-314.

42. C. R. Evans, Cults of Unreason (London: Harrap, 1973).

43. Swift, "Who Believes in UFOs?" p. 11.

44. A. C. Clarke, Voices from the Sky (New York: Pocket, 1980), pp. 197-
202.

45. B. E. Schwarz, "Psychiatric and Parapsychiatric Dimensions of UFOs,"

in R. F. Haines, ed., UFO Phenomena and the Behavioral Scientist (Metuchen,
N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1979); B. E. Schwarz, "Saucers, Psi and Psychiatry," in
Proceedings of the 1974 MUFON Symposium, sponsored by the Mutual UFO
Network, Akron, Ohio, June 22, 1974; B. E. Schwarz, "Psychiatric Aspects of
UFOlogy," in Proceedings of the Eastern UFO Symposium, sponsored by the
Aerial Phenomena Research Organization, Baltimore, Maryland, January 23,
1971; B. E. Schwarz, "UFOs in New Jersey," Journal of the Medical Society of
New Jersey 66, no. 8 (1969): 460-64; D. C. Overlade, "Psychological Evaluation
of Mr. Ed," Mutual UFO Network journal (December 1988): 7-8.

46. H. J. Strentz, "A Survey of Press Coverage of Unidentified Flying

Objects, 1947-1966" (Ph.D. diss., Northwestern University department of
journalism), p. 125.

47. For typical accounts, refer to W. Ferguson, My Trip to Mars (Potomac,

Md.: Cosmic Study Center, 1954); G. Adamski, Inside the Spaceships (New
York: Alelard-Schuman, 1955); O. Angelucci, The Secret of the Saucers
(Wisconsin: Amherst, 1955); H. Menger, From Outer Space to You (Clarksburg,
W.Va.: Saucerian Press, 1959); Lorenzen and Lorenzen, UFOs Over the
Americas; T. Bethurum, People of Planet Clarion (Clarksburg, W. Va.:
Saucerian Press, 1970); J. Spencer, The UFO Yearbook (Springfield, Mass.:
Phillips, 1976), pp. 65-69; G. Creighton, "The Humanoids in Latin America," in
C. Bowen, ed., The Humanoids (Great Britain: Futura, 1977), pp. 84-129; R. L.
Sprinkle, ed., Proceedings of the Rocky Mountain Conference on UFO
Investigation (Laramie: University of Wyoming, 1981). Of primary importance
is the narrative content of these fantastic reports. Thomas Bullard amplifies the
contention that such reports are a valid subject of study in his article "UFO
Abduction Reports: The Supernatural Kidnap Narrative Returns in
Technological Guise," Journal of American Folklore 102 (1989): 148: "What
matters here is not the ultimate nature of the reports but their status as narratives,
their form, content, and relationship to comparable accounts of the supernatural
encounter."

48. D. Kraspedon, My Contact with Flying Saucers (London: Neville
Spearman, 1959); P. M. H. Edwards, "MIB Activity Reported from Victoria,
B.C.," Flying Saucer Review (London) 27, no. 4 (1981): 7-12; N. Blundell and
R. Boar, The World's Greatest UFO Mysteries (New York: Exeter, 1983), p.
189; B. Hopkins, The Haunting of Kitley Woods, Mutual UFO Network 1982
UFO Symposium Proceedings, 1984, pp. 168-84; J. Rimmer, The Evidence for
Alien Abductions (Wellingborough: Aquarian, 1984); D. S. Rogo, UFO
Abductions (New York: Signet, 1980).

49. E. Macer-Story, "Pennsylvania Woman Healed by Alien Practitioner,"

Pursuit: Journal of the Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained 13
(1980): 146-49.

50. W. Strieber, Transformation (New York: Beach Tree Books/Morrow,

1988).

51. J. G. Fuller, The Interrupted Journey (New York: Dial, 1966); T.

Bullard, UFO Abduction Reports: The Measure of a Mystery, Volume 1:
Comparative Study of UFO Abductions (Mt. Rainier, Md.: Fund for UFO
Studies, 1987), p. 141.

52. A. Berlot, Discos Voadores da Utopia a Realidade (Rio de Janeiro:

Arturo Berlet, 1967); R. Fowler, The Andreasson Affair (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.:
PrenticeHall, 1979); L. Sprinkle, "Investigation of the Alleged UFO Experience
of Carl Higdon," in R. Haines, ed., UFO Phenomena and the Behavioral
Scientist (Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow, 1979), pp. 225-357; Proceedings of the
Rocky Mountain Conference, pp. 81-83; F. Whiting, "The Abduction of Harry
Joe Turner," Mutual UFO Journal 145 (1980): 3-7; R. Marshland, "Two Claimed
Abductions in Brazil," Aerial Phenomena Research Organization Bulletin 31, no.
10 (1983): 1-2.

53. My thanks to Thomas Bullard for this observation.

54. R. Bartholomew, UFOlore: A Social Psychological Study of a Modern

Myth in the Making (Stone Mt., Ga.: Arcturus, 1989). pp. 179, 235.

55. H. Holzer, The UFOnauts (New York: Fawcett, 1976), pp. 58-68.

56. G. Creighton, "Healing from UFOs," Flying Saucer Review 15, no. 5
(1969): 21-22; R. Sigismond, "CE Ills: New Dimensions in Investigations," The
International UFO Reporter 7, no. 5 (1982): 9-15.

57. T. A. Hartman, "Another Abduction by Extraterrestrials," Mutual UFO

Network journal 141 (1979): 3-4.

58. Macer-Story, "Pennsylvania Woman Healed."

59. I. Granchi, "An Encounter with 'Rat Faces' in Brazil," Flying Saucer
Review (London) 29, no. 1 (1983): 6-13.

60. L. Willis, "Mother and Child Texas Abduction Case," Mutual UFO
Network journal 167 (1982): 3-7.

61. R. Blum and J. Blum, Beyond Earth: Man's Contact with UFOs (New
York: Bantam, 1974), p. 147.

62. T. Bethurum, Aboard a Flying Saucer (Los Angeles: De Vorss, 1954);

J. Keel, Our Haunted Planet (Connecticut: Fawcell Books, 1971), pp. 183-84.

63. T. Keightley, The Fairy Mythology (London: Longman, 1882); R. Kirk,

The Secret Commonwealth of Elves, Fauns and Fairies (London: Longman,
1815); W. Y. Evans-Wentz, The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries, Its
Psychological Origin and Nature (Rennes, France: Oberthur, 1909).

64. J. Michell, The Flying Saucer Vision (New York: Ace, 1974), pp. 57-
58; G. Creighton, Postscript to the Most Amazing Case of All," Flying Saucer
Review (London) 11, no. 4 (1965): 24-25; J. Vallee, Passport to Magonia: From
Folklore to Flying Saucers (Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1969).

65. Bullard, "UFO Abudction Reports," p. 168.

66. P. Hughes, Witchcraft (Baltimore: Penguin, 1952); E. Goode and N.

Ben-Yehuda, Moral Panics: The Social Construction of Deviance (Cambridge,
Mass.: Blackwell, 1994).

67. M. Wolf, "Witchcraft and Mass Hysteria in Terms of Current

Psychological Theories," Journal of Practical Nursing and Mental Health
Services (March 1976): 23-28.

68. R. L. Weaver, "Air Force Report on the Roswell Incident," in K.

Frazier, B. Karr, and J. Nickell, eds., The UFO Invasion (Amherst, N.Y.:
Prometheus Books, 1997), pp. 98-112; D. E. Thomas, "The Roswell Incident and
Project Mogul," in ibid., pp. 113-22.

69. "RAAF Captures Flying Saucer on Ranch in Roswell Region. No

Details of Flying Disk Are Revealed," Roswell Daily Record, July 8,1947, p. 1;
"Army Announces Finding 'Saucer,'" Rapid City Daily Journal (South Dakota),
July 8,1947; "Disk Lands on Ranch in N.M.-Is Held by Army," Seattle Times,
July 8, 1947; "U.S. Army to Examine a 'Flying Disk,' " London Times, July 9,
1947.

70. "Flying Disk Part of Weather Balloon," St. Louis PostDispatch, July 9,
1947, p. 1; " 'Disk' Found in New Mexico Declared Weather Balloon," The
Oregonian, July 9,1947; "Airmen End Excitement Over Object," The Oregonian,
July 9, 1947; "Report of Finding Disc Explodes; It's a Weather Balloon," St.
Louis Star Times, July 9, 1947.

71. "A Windmill Demolishes It," Dallas Morning News, April 19,1897, p.
5.

72. P. Klass, UFOs-Explained (New York: Random House, 1976).

73. "Airships May Be Uncle Sam's," The Galveston Daily News, April 29,
1897, p. 10.

74. Ibid.
 75. "An Airship which Rode in a Wagon. Was Planted in a Gulch," San
Francisco Chronicle, December 4, 1896, p. 5.

76. "Plunged from a Dizzy Height.... It Landed Suddenly in a Ditch," The

Call (San Francisco), December 4, 1896, p. 1; "An Airship in the Mud. Night of
Weird Whirrings, Cries and Crashes behind Twin Peaks," San Francisco
Examiner, December 5, 1896, p. 1.

77. "An Inquest Now in Order. Air Ship Falls Near Bethany and One Man
Said to Be Killed," St. Joseph Daily Herald, April 6, 1897, p. 5.

78. "Stranger Than Fiction," Iowa State Register, April 13, 1897, p. 1.

79. "Is a Clever Fake. Airship Comes Down at Waterloo with One
Passenger," Cedar Rapids Evening Gazette, April 16, 1897, p. 1.

80. "Hypothetical Fate of the Wonderful Airship," Nashville Banner, April

17, 1897, p. 1.

81. "That Airship. It Is Out of Order and Is Now Resting for Repairs in the
Tennessee Mountains," St. Louis PostDispatch, April 25, 1897, p. 10.

82. T. Good, Beyond Top Secret (London: Pan, 1997), p. 21.

83. S. Friedman and D. Berliner, Crash at Corona (New York: Paragon

House, 1992); K. Randle, A History of UFO Crashes (New York: Avon, 1995).

84. J. H. Brunvand, The Vanishing Hitchhiker (New York: W. W. Norton,

1981).

 he word "delusion" is used by psychiatrists to describe a persistent
pathological belief associated with serious mental disturbance, usually
psychosis. Sociologists and social psychologists use the term "collective
delusion" or "mass delusion" in a different sense, to describe the spontaneous,
temporary spread of false beliefs within a given population. Excluded from this
definition are mistaken beliefs that occur in an organized or ritualistic manner.
This term is also a common source of confusion since it is often used as a catch-
all category to describe a variety of different behaviors under one convenient
heading. There are several types of mass delusions, four of which have some
association with UFOs: immediate community threats, community flight panics,
wish-fulfillment, and small-group scares. Mass delusions differ from prominent
religious myths and popular folk beliefs in that the former occur in an
unorganized, spontaneous fashion, although they may become institutionalized.
Examples of such institutionalization include forming organizations intended to
confirm the existence of alien visitors.

History is replete with examples of group delusion, many of which may

seem humorous to those outside the historical or cul tural setting. For instance,
in 1806 near Leeds, England, people became terror-stricken, believing that the
end of the world was imminent after a hen began laying eggs with the inscription
"Christ Is Coming." Masses of people thronged to glimpse the miraculous bird
until it was discovered that the eggs had been inscribed with a corrosive ink and
forced back into its body. This is one of many examples from Charles Mackay's
1852 classic, Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of
Crowds.' Unfortunately, the outcomes of group delusions are often more sinister:
Nazism, mass suicide, moral witch-hunts, hunts for real witches, Communist
infiltration scares, the Crusades, and unfounded fears about the casual
transmission of AIDS, to name but a few.

While some historical episodes of collective delusions are legendary,
modern occurrences are remarkably similar. The four types of delusion
mentioned above all involve a rapid spread of false-but plausible-exaggerated
beliefs that gain credibility within a particular social and cultural context. They
can be positive and take the form of wish-fulfillment, but are more often
negative and spread by fear. Rumors are an essential ingredient common to each
category of delusion. As people attempt to confirm or dismiss the accuracy of
these unsubstantiated stories, everyday objects, events, and circumstances that
would ordinarily receive scant attention become the subject of extraordinary
scrutiny. Ambiguous happenings are soon redefined according to the new
definition, resulting in a self-fulfilling prophecy. Many factors contribute to the
spread of delusional episodes: the mass media, low education levels, the
fallibility of human perception, cultural superstitions and stereotypes, group
conformity, and reinforcing actions by authority figures, such as politicians, or
institutions of social control, such as police or the military.

Immediate Community Threats

The first type of mass delusion involves exaggerated feelings of danger within
communities, where members of the affected population are concerned about
what is believed to be an immediate personal threat. Episodes usually persist for
a few weeks to several months and often recur periodically. Participants may
express excitement and concern, but not panic and take flight. The underlying
process of fantasy creation involves the flaws of human perception and the
tendency for people in group settings who share similar beliefs to yield to the
majority consensus.

 Examples of immediate community threats include each of the war-scare
UFO waves discussed previously. But there are many similar examples of
community threats that have nothing to do with UFOs. For instance,
occasionally the feared agent is a mysterious attacker believed to be terrorizing
an area. During a two-week period in 1956, newspapers in a Taiwan community
reported that a maniacal figure was randomly slashing victims with a razor or
some such weapon.2 At least twenty-one people reported attacks. N. Jacobs,
who studied the events concluded that affected persons, mainly women and
children of low income and education, reinterpreted ordinary scratches and slash
marks to a crazed slasher. The social delusion was amplified by sensational press
coverage that treated the enigmatic figure's existence as reality. In the wake of
plausible newspaper accounts that manipulated people's perceptions to include
the existence of a daring slasher, police eventually determined that various
ordinary lacerations were erroneously attributed to the phantom. In one case, a
middle-aged man described to police in vivid detail how he was slashed by a
cavorting figure who was carrying a mysterious black bag. After a physician
determined that the wound could not have resulted from a razor, but came
instead from a blunt object, the "victim" admitted to being unable to recall the
circumstances surrounding the wound's appearance, assuming he was slashed
"because of all the talk going around." Another incident involved an elderly man
who sought medical treatment for a wrist laceration. The man's doctor reported
the incident to the police after the man casually described being touched by a
stranger and then noticed he was bleeding. It was subsequently determined that
the "slash" was actually an old wound that had been reopened by inadvertent
scratching.

There are other historical examples of imaginary attackers. In Paris, near

the turn of the twentieth century, many people mistakenly reported being
"pricked with a long hat pin or the like,"3 while several communities in
Yorkshire, England, between 1938 and 1939 recounted attacks by "a razor-
welding maniac," until police determined that the episode was entirely
imaginary.4

A different twist on slasher-related social delusions involves rumors of
cattle mutilations reported across the midwestern United States between 1969
and 1980.5 Hundreds of dead cattle were found with one or more parts missing,
most commonly the sex organs, ears, and mouth. Rumors flew that Satan
worshippers or extraterrestrials were responsible. The belief in extraterrestrial
visitors was common in the United States during this period, with several
popular books6 and television programs' suggesting an association between the
mutilations and either cultists or extraterrestrials. Hundreds of circumstantial
UFO and cult-related newspaper articles appeared during this time in ordinarily
credible media,' which lent further plausibility to the rumors. As mutilation
stories gained widespread media attention, the number of cases rose
dramatically. While dead cattle often have their organs consumed by various
natural predators, many ranchers who would not ordinarily pay close attention to
their animal carcasses began examining the cadavers for evidence of alleged
alien or cultic surgical removal of body parts. According to sociologist James
Stewart, the "mutilations" were caused by small nocturnal predators that are
unable to easily penetrate cattle hides and gravitate to the most exposed and
softest parts, their sharp side teeth giving the impression of surgical incisions.'
And the lack of blood in many of the animals still gave credence to the blood-
cult rumors, despite veterinarians who cautioned that the blood in dead animals
coagulates after several days, making it look as if the carcass were drained.10

Sometimes the imaginary threat is from an agent that is believed to cause

illness, such as the series of phantom attacks in Mattoon, Illinois, during two
weeks in 1944, involving a "mad gasser."" In Auckland, New Zealand, in 1973,
fifty drums of the compound merphos were being unloaded at a wharf when it
was suddenly noticed that several barrels were leaking, and a chemical-like
smell began permeating the air. After immediate requests for information on its
toxicity, authorities were wrongly informed that it was extremely toxic, after
which at least four hundred dock workers and nearby residents received
treatment for a variety of psychosomatic complaints, such as headache, difficulty
breathing, and eye irritation.12

In non-Western societies, immediate community threats are often closely
associated with cultural traditions, as in the case of headhunting panics that have
occurred for centuries in remote parts of Malaysia and Indonesia.13 These
episodes represent fears by "primitive" peoples of losing political control to a
distant central government. Headhunting scares are characterized by sightings of
head-takers and finding their alleged paraphernalia. Just as the vast, ambiguous
nighttime sky is an excellent catalyst for spawning UFO sightings, and lakes are
conducive to sea-serpent reports, the thickly vegetated southeast Asian jungle is
ideal for imagining head-hunters lurking in the dense foliage. Villages are often
paralyzed with fear, travel is severely restricted, sentries are posted, and schools
commonly closed for months. Most headhunting scares coincide with the nearby
construction of a government bridge or building, during which it is widely
believed that one or more human heads are required to produce a strong,
enduring foundation. These fears are a projection of the status of tribal-state
relations and reflect "ideological warfare between the administrators and the
administrated."14

Community Flight Panics

A second type of collective delusion is the community flight panic, where people
attempt to flee from an imaginary threat. This category is rarely associated with
UFOs, but when they do occur in conjunction, the results can be spectacular.
Episodes may last a few hours to several days or weeks, subsiding only when it
is realized that the harmful agent did not materialize. Perhaps the bestknown
example is the panic that ensued in the United States on Halloween eve, 1938,
following the radio reenactment of H. G. Wells's book War of the Worlds by the
CBS Mercury Theater.15 Author H. Cantril noted that in general those who
panicked failed to exercise critical thinking, such as calling the police or
checking other media sources. There remains a great potential for similar hoaxes
to recur if they are presented with plausibility and a degree of realism. A similar
broadcast in South America nearly a decade later had disastrous consequences.
During 1949, near Quito, Ecuador, a radio play based on War of the Worlds
resulted in tens of thousands of frantic residents pouring into the streets and
running for their lives, preparing to defend themselves against Martian gas raids.
Broadcast in Spanish, the program was highly realistic and used the name of a
local community, Cotocallo, as the Martian landing site. The play included
impersonations of politicians, vivid eyewitness descriptions, and was so
convincing that police rushed to the nearby town to repel the invaders. Quito was
left with a skeleton police force that was unable to prevent an angry mob from
burning down the radio station that broadcast the drama, killing fifteen people,
including the event's mastermind.16

Spontaneous mass flights from the city of London have occurred over the
centuries in response to prophesies of its destruction by a great flood in 1524, the
day of judgment in 1736, and an earthquake in 1761." One of many
contemporary examples involving apocalyptic prophesies and mass panic
occurred in Adelaide, Australia, in the month leading up to January 19, 1976.
Many people fled the city and some even sold their homes after "psychic" John
Nash predicted that an earthquake and tidal wave would strike at midday. In
examining the circumstances of the event, many of those who sold their homes
or ran to the hills for the day were first-generation Greeks and Italians. Both
countries have a long history of devastating earthquakes, and the belief in
clairvoyants is generally taken very seriously there."

Collective Wish-Fulfillment

Mass wish-fulfillment involves processes similar to those that cause community

threats, except the object of interest is esteemed and satisfies psychological
needs. Cases typically last for a few weeks or months and recur periodically in
clusters. Episodes involve a subconscious wish that is related to human mortality
in conjunction with a plausible belief, fostering a collective quest for
transcendence. Examples include Virgin Mary "appearances,"19 "moving"
religious statues in Ireland,' waves of claims and public discourse surrounding
reports of fairies in England before the twentieth century," and flyingsaucer
sightings?2

On May 25,1953, more than 150,000 people converged on a tenacre site
surrounding a well at Rincorn, Puerto Rico, awaiting the appearance of the
Virgin Mary predicted by seven local children. As the purported hour
approached, many miracles were reported: colored rings around the sun, the
Virgin silhouetted among the clouds, healings, and a general sense of well-
being.' By 5 P.M., when most of the crowd had dispersed, many had seen or
experienced nothing extraordinary. Intense media publicity had preceded the
event, and a local politician had enthusiastically endorsed the prediction,
organizing the children to lead throngs of pilgrims in mass prayers and
processions prior to the event 24 During the "miracle" a team of sociologists
who mingled with the crowd and conducted interviews found that the majority of
pilgrims believed in the authenticity of the children's claim and were seeking
cures for either themselves or friends and relatives.25 A variety of ambiguous
objects in the immediate surroundings mirrored the hopeful and expectant
religious state of mind of many participants26

On the night of July 29, 1992, beginning at about 11 P.M., nearly two
hundred students and a female instructor at the Hishamuddin Secondary Islamic
School in Klang, Malaysia, observed a variety of seemingly miraculous sights in
the sky during a five-hour period, including the word "Allah" (God) in Arabic. A
total of twenty-six images were reported. The following evening, July 30, the
words "Allah" and "Muhammad" reportedly appeared while the students were
praying in a school field. Unlike the first episode, this time the script was much
larger. The images in both instances were reportedly formed in, on, or by clouds.
Twenty-six drawings of the images were made by students," yet they appear to
have misperceived clouds in the night sky reflective of their religious
background.28

Mass wish-fulfillments fill the spiritual void left by the ascendancy of

rationalism and secular humanism. Within this context, and fostered by
sensationalized documentaries, movies, and books, contemporary people have
been conditioned to scan the heavens for "UFOs" representing "technological
angels."29 These sightings serve as a projected Rorschach inkblot test of the
collective psyche, underscoring the promise of rapid technological advancement
during a period of spiritual decline.

Accounts of UFO occupants and fairies depict godlike beings capable of

transcending natural laws and thus potentially elevating humans to their
immortal realm. They reflect similar themes found in religion, mythology, and
folklore throughout the world, camouflaged for contemporary acceptance3°
Transcendence and magical or supernatural powers are an underlying theme in
most wish-fulfillments. Even observations of imaginary or extinct creatures such
as Bigfoot and the Tasmanian tiger, once considered the sole domains of
zoology, have undergone recent transformations with the emergence of a new
motif among paranormal researchers that links extraterrestrial or paranormal
themes with phantom animals.31 The existence of such animals can be viewed
as antiscientific symbols undermining secularism. Like claims of contact with
UFOs or the Virgin Mary, evidence for the existence of Bigfoot and Tasmanian
tigers ultimately rests with eyewitness testimony which is usually unreliable.

Small Group Scares

Small group scares is another category of collective delusion that has yet to be
discussed in scientific literature. These involve individuals in close physical
proximity, within temporarily close settings, where escape routes are limited.
Incidents occur in isolated, ambiguous geographical surroundings, when
participants panic after seeing something unusual that is assumed to pose an
immediate threat. Thus, an aerial light source is transformed into a flying saucer,
or bushes rustling or an unfamiliar noise becomes Bigfoot. Table 1 lists fourteen
cases of small-group pursuits, sieges, or attacks. Most involve sightings of UFOs
and mysterious creatures. While the factual quality of such reports varies, and
there are numerous historical reports, only episodes that were thoroughly
investigated by reputable authorities are included. In all cases investigators
possess doctorates, are police officers, or are personally known to the authors.
Small group scares often occur during UFO waves and can contribute
significantly to an escalation of community excitement and interest, since they
tend to receive widespread and spectacular press coverage.




UFO Examples

On the evening of August 21, 1955, members of the Sutton family reported
being terrorized by space creatures on their remote farm near the tiny community
of Kelly, Kentucky.33 Ten family members (seven adults, three children) were
inside the farmhouse with landlord William Taylor. Taylor told police that while
drawing water from a backyard well at about 7 P.M., he saw a luminous "flying
saucer" land in a nearby gully. The family was incredulous to Taylor's account,
believing it to be an embellishment of a falling meteor. By 7:30, after a pet dog
started barking uncontrollably, Taylor and Sutton reported seeing a faint glow in
a distant field, which appeared to be slowly approaching the house. They soon
saw what looked like a three-and-a-half-foottall creature with an oversized head,
elongated arms, and elephantlike ears. Panicking, they grabbed their guns,
withdrew to just inside the house, and began firing. During the next three and a
half hours, the creatures peered into windows on several occasions and were shot
at. By 11 P.M., with the children in hysterics, everyone crammed into two cars
to summon the police. A search of the house and surroundings revealed nothing
extraordinary, and the last officer departed by 2:15 A.M. Soon after, the family's
mother, who was lying in bed staring at a window, became convinced that a
creature was peering in. After alerting the household, more sightings and
intermittent shooting continued until 5:15 A.M., just prior to sunrise. All eleven
people reported seeing the creatures at some point. A subsequent investigation
by police revealed no unusual physical evidence, only a house riddled with
bullets and frightened occupants.

Perhaps the most well-publicized phantom scare involves the purported

contact with extraterrestrials by Betty and Barney Hill of Portsmouth, New
Hampshire. The couple was driving on a remote section of the Daniel Webster
Highway in September of 1961 when Betty noticed a bright "star" in the sky.
They became increasingly excited after watching the object for thirty miles
along the highway. Barney stopped the car several times so his wife could get a
better view with the binoculars. Betty was convinced that the object was a
spaceship. Finally Barney stopped the car and stepped out for a closer look.
Peering through binoculars, he thought he saw humanoid figures and bands of
light around a spacecraft. He panicked, began laughing and crying hysterically
while repeating, "They're going to capture us." He ran back to the car, and they
hastily sped off.

They arrived home two and a half hours behind schedule, so they
eventually underwent regressive hypnosis to account for the "missing time" and
their recurring nightmares. The therapy revealed an apparent kidnapping by
aliens.

In retrospect, however, the couple almost certainly misinterpreted Jupiter

for a spaceship. Betty reported that she saw two objects near the moon, a star
below it, and a more brilliant starlike object above it, which she thought was a
spacecraft. On the night in question, Saturn was the bright star below the moon,
"with Jupiter a more illuminated starlike object above it. Thus, Mrs. Hill's
description of the initial sighting of the supposed UFO strongly suggests that she
mistook the planet Jupiter for a UFO."-'

Australian UFO Scares

On the afternoon of January 19, 1988, in Perth, western Australia, a domestic

dispute broke out between members of the Knowles family, resulting in Faye
Knowles and her three sons, Wayne, eighteen, Sean, twenty-one, and Patrick,
twentyfour, piling into their car and setting out to visit relatives in Melbourne,
several thousand miles away. After thirteen hours of virtual nonstop traveling,
the exhausted group passed between the tiny towns of Madura and Mundrabilla,
in remote western Australia, before dawn. Sean, the driver, was the first to notice
a strange light on the road that he thought was a spaceship. The object was
brilliant white and soon disappeared. Shortly afterward a similar light appeared
behind their car. Sean panicked and accelerated quickly to get away from the
light.

The group reported that their car was raised into the air and then dropped, at
which point the rear tire blew out. After changing the tire, they traveled on to
Mundrabilla, where two truck drivers saw the family and noted that they looked
very disturbed. One of the truck drivers said there was an unusual "black ash" on
the family's car, whereas the other noted only normal road grime. The episode
made world headlines when the family was interviewed by police and claimed
that their car had literally been picked up by a UFO and was covered in black
ash. However, when a policeman inspected their car, he reported only normal
road dirt. UFO researcher Keith Basterfield conducted a thorough investigation
of the incident and obtained a copy of the police record interview, police photos
of the car, and even tracked down the two truckers. One truck driver had been
driving behind the family and reported that she had not seen anything unusual,
despite clear skies and a flat horizon. The Australian Mineral Development
Laboratory examined the car and its flat tire, finding nothing out of the ordinary.
After the lab obtained a sample of the "ash" from the police department, analysis
of the sample revealed that it was composed entirely of clay and salt particles-
just what would be expected on a vehicle traveling across the sandy Nullarbor
Plains near the Great Southern Ocean.

In a separate incident in western Australia at 7:45 P.M. on March 27, 1982,
Francis Collins, a thirty-four-yearold shop owner, and Maggie Yeend, a forty-
two-yearold potter and weaver, left Merredin in the evening for a lengthy
journey to their home town of Esperance, four hundred miles southeast of Perth.
The two friends were tired even before setting out and decided to take turns
driving for one hour, then sleeping the next. By 3 A.M. they were fifty miles
west of their destination when Maggie noticed a light in the sky near the horizon,
watched it for several moments, then woke Francis, saying, "There's a UFO in
front of us." Both women described a large ball of white light ahead to their left,
which seemed to be on a collision course with them. Frances's first thoughts
were "that it was coming for us, would explode the van and I could not get home
to my children and no one would know what happened." At one point, Maggie
shouted, "Frances, look behind us. Is it another one?" This light turned out to be
a truck. They decided that their van was having engine trouble, as it would not
go faster than fortyfive miles per hour. Convinced that they had had a close
encounter with a UFO, which had affected the van's performance, they reported
the incident to police upon arriving in Esperance. An investigation by Keith
Basterfield revealed that they almost certainly mistook Venus for a spacecraft
and convinced themselves that it was affecting their van. At 2:27 on the morning
in question, Venus rose as azimuth 105 degrees; at 3 A.M. it was at 7 degrees
elevation and azimuth 101 degrees; and at 3:45 was at 17 degrees elevation and
azimuth 94 degrees. Its astronomical magnitude was 4.1, the brightest object in
the sky. Basterfield examined a detailed map of the road they were on at 3 A.M.,
noting that it ran azimuth 135 degrees for 15 miles, then 070 degrees for the next
20 miles, and 20 miles at roughly 090 degrees before turning 160 degrees for the
final 7 miles. Thus, the positions they reported their UFO had been in matched
the positions of Venus. Their descriptions fit that of Venus, and they did not
report seeing both Venus and the UFO in the morning sky.

In another incident, a phantom overnight siege was reported by people in a
sparsely inhabited area near Lowell, Michigan, in 1978. According to sociologist
Ron Westrum,35 who interviewed the people a month after the episode, Masters,
a twentyfour-yearold suspected drug dealer, and Cordell, twenty-nine (not their
real names), became increasingly suspicious of mundane events near the house,
such as finding half of a grape bubble-gum wrapper on the roof and the other
half near a wood pile. They also thought there were people peering in the
windows at night.

By the afternoon of November 7, both men suspected the house was being
watched and so were "on the lookout." They saw several fleeting figures lurking
outside during the day. Near dusk, the two thought they saw a "kid" in a
camouflage suit. Cordell pursued the figure unsuccessfully, then warned "the
people he felt were hiding but could not see that if the nonsense did not stop
somebody was going to get shot." Shortly thereafter, both men thought they
heard people near the back door. Cordell fired a warning shot. Masters
telephoned a friend to bring over some more guns. A third companion, Hamby,
twenty-three, soon joined them. Keeping a watchful vigil, at about 1:30 A.M.,
they fired ten shots at "figures" near the house. When Hamby insisted that he did
not see or hear anyone, they thought they may have imagined it. However, they
continued to hear and see intermittent noises and figures throughout the
morning. Near 5 A.M., they panicked, after believing they were under attack,
and began firing indiscriminately. Cordell was certain that he shot someone
hanging from the roof in front of the bedroom window.

Hamby fired a .44 magnum through a refrigerator-I saw the hole

myself-at a person in the kitchen, whom he heard slam against the
sink, fall on the floor, and make gurgling noises, as if critically
wounded.... All three were extremely scared; Masters to the point
where he was re-loading spent cartridges into the revolver. At 5:30
A.M., they called the sheriff's department. Because one of them was
on parole, and had a real interest in not being associated with firearms
or drugs, it demonstrates the degree of their desperation .31

After Hamby fired a shotgun blast that was intended to draw the attention of a
police car, but struck its windshield instead, the three were charged with assault
with intent to commit murder, which was later reduced to firearm misuse. A
police search yielded no evidence of intruders or of bullets fired by anyone but
the three.

Common Features

All fourteen episodes listed in Table 1 took place at night in dark, isolated
environments, with the group "leader" often remarking that he or she was
physically or mentally fatigued, which enhances suggestibility and reduces
critical thinking ability. In popular folklore dark, isolated environments are
populated with nefarious creatures or agents, which correspond to the phantom
attack scenarios. All such cases involve relatives or close friends. The primary
witness (the first to draw attention to the unusual agent, to initiate detailed
discussion as to its origin, or to panic) almost always holds an influential social
position (is the oldest in the group, household head, vehicle driver, or group
leader) and is the one who interprets the stimulus as a potential threat. In each
case, the group soon reaches a bogus consensus that the object or agent is
pursuing them. The ambiguous stimulus is then rapidly defined within popular
cultural labels (Bigfoot, extraterrestrial spacecraft, drug dealers or drug police).

From a psychiatric standpoint, there is no evidence of "generalized anxiety

disorder," or "specific" or "social phobia." However, in five instances, the
dominant social figure exhibited characteristic features of acute stress disorder,
as defined in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders." In four
such cases, a panic ensued when the driver of a car, after believing the vehicle
was being pursued by an alien spaceship, suddenly exhibited dissociative
symptoms, became unresponsive and accelerated the motor vehicle, heightening
fear and panic among the other passengers. 31 A fifth case, involved a boy who
seemed to be possessed shortly after he and a group of onlookers claimed to see
a UFO and strange creatures in a wooded area of Uniontown, Pennsylvania.39

Many people begin to have breathing problems, nausea, dizziness, blurred
vision, rashes, and headache as a result of the incident, all of which are common
psychogenic features of anxietygenerated conversion reactions. Similar
psychogenic symptoms are especially common in cases involving a purported
pursuit by extraterrestrials.40

Once the episode ends, people often cannot account for "lost" time and have
difficulty recalling the event. However, time estimates are very poor when one is
under extreme stress, and are subject to wide variability," while, as discussed in
chapter 1, the accuracy of eyewitness recall and memory reconstruction are also
notoriously unreliable. This effect is especially pronounced when one is under
great stress, such as a perceived threat to self and family or friends. Further,
various astronomical," meteorological," and geophysical phenomena" are
commonly misidentified as UFOs. Each episode in Table 1 is characterized by a
conspicuous absence of confirming physical evidence. For example, the media
made much of the mysterious black dust in the Mundrabilla case, but on
examination, it was found to be entirely mundane. All that remains is eyewitness
testimony from a small, socially cohesive unit, with no independent observers
from outside of the particular social dynamic.

Non-Western Social Delusions

Human gullibility is limited only by plausibility. This is especially apparent in

non-Western countries where superstitions are often rampant. For example, in
some cultures it is believed that eating certain foods or having contact with
"ghosts" can cause one's sex organs to rapidly shrivel. It is a remarkable example
of the power of self-delusion that men in parts of Asia continue to experience
"koro" epidemics, convinced that they are the victims of a contagious disease
that causes their penises to shrink 45 Episodes are triggered by rumors and last
from a few days to several months and often affect thousands. Victims suffer
intense anxiety, sweating, palpitations, insomnia, and often take the extreme
measure of placing clamps or strings onto the penis or having family members
hold it in relays until treatment is obtained, usually from native healers.
Occasionally women are affected, believing that their breasts and vagina are
being pulled into their bodies. During an episode on the tiny island nation of
Singapore in 1967, thousands of citizens, both male and female, were affected,
forcing the government to declare an emergency.46 Pandemonium reigned
during another outbreak in northeast India in 1982. So widespread was the panic
that medical authorities took the drastic measure of touring the region with
loudspeakers to reassure anxious residents and measuring penises at intervals to
demonstrate that no shrinkage was taking place .47

The Lure of UFOs

UFOs have a special place in the history of social delusions. It is ironic that
religious themes increasingly dominate the symbolic imagery of mysterious
aerial objects. Imaginary sightings of Andree's balloon over Canada during the
late nineteenth century coincided with intense interest in his attempt to reach the
North Pole and a feeling that this age-old dream was finally possible. During the
American airship waves of 1896-97 and 1909 there were widespread rumors that
a scientist was about to conquer the heavens and an exaggerated optimism that
an American would be the first person to perfect a heavierthan-air flying
machine. Observations of Thomas Edison's "electric star" further reflected the
boundless optimism that Americans placed in science and inventive ingenuity.
All of these episodes served as a projection of the collective psyche,
underscoring the promise of rapid technological advancement during a period of
spiritual decline.

Since 1947 and the dawn of the flying saucer era, we have been confronted
with "magical" machines that carry the functional equivalent of "technological
angels."' UFOs possess a powerful, seductive lure that continuously changes to
confirm our deepest fears or realize our greatest desires. Only the form changes
to reflect the social and cultural context. To marginalize or pathologize these
beliefs based on the fantastic nature of the reports per se is to obscure their
symbolic significance and underestimate the innovative human capacity to adapt
to change and find meaning in myriad ways. As technology continues to advance
and the human imagination becomes increasingly transfixed on the vast
possibilities that await us in space, what new symbols will emerge?

Notes

1. C. Mackay, Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the

Madness of Crowds (London: Office of the National Illustrated Library, 1852).

2. N. Jacobs, "The Phantom Slasher of Taipei: Mass Hysteria in a Non-

Western Society," Social Problems 12 (1965): 318-28.

3. W. H. Burnham, The Normal Mind (New York: D. Appleton-Century,

1924), pp. 337-38.

4. P. Sieveking, "Fear and Loathing in France," Fortean Times 67 (1993):

47.
 5. J. R. Stewart, "Cattle Mutilations: An Episode of Collective Delusion,"
Zetetic (presently the Skeptical Inquirer) 1, no. 2 (1977): 55-66; T. Hines,
Pseudoscience and the Paranormal (Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 1988),
pp. 278-80.

6. F. Smith, Cattle Mutilations: The Unthinkable Truth (Cedar Mesa,

Colo.: Freeland Publishers, 1976); J. J. Dalton, The Cattle Mutilators (New
York: Manor, 1980).

7. See, for example, L. Howe, "A Strange Harvest," TV documentary,

KMGH, channel 7, Denver, Colorado, May 25, 1980.

8. See for example: "Cattle Mutilations Remain a Mystery," Eagle River

News Review (Wisconsin), January 26, 1978; "Mystery Still Surrounds Animal
Mutilations," Springdale News (Arizona), November 26, 1978; "Tracking the
Cattle Mutilators: Satanic Groups Suspected," Newsweek, 95, p. 16 (January 21,
1980); "Did Horse Mutilator Come from Outer Space?" Gastonia Gazette (North
Carolina), May 24, 1980; "Cattle Ripper Returns," The Sun (Edmonton,
Canada), September 17, 1981; "Dluce Rancher Loses Another Cow to
Mysterious Mutilation," Albuquerque Journal (New Mexico), May 31, 1982.

9. Stewart, "Cattle Mutilations," pp. 64-65.

10. In terms of legitimation by institutions of social control and authority

figures, during April of 1979, the federal government approved a $44,170 grant
to investigate a series of mutilations in New Mexico. Despite finding only
prosaic explanations-predators, scavengers, decomposition-U.S. Senator and
former astronaut Harrison Schmitt continued to focus national attention on the
issue by urging the Justice Department to initiate a separate probe (See G. Olson,
"Schmitt Urges Federal Mutilation Probe," Rio Grande Sun, April 17, 1980). For
an examination of the apparent genesis of the cattle mutilation myth, refer to R.
E. Bartholomew, "Mutilation Mania-The Witch Craze Revisited: An Essay
Review of An Alien Harvest," The Anthropology of Consciousness 3, nos. 1-2
(1992): 34-35.

11. D. Johnson, "The 'Phantom Anesthetist' of Mattoon: A Field Study of

Mass Hysteria," Journal of Abnormal Psychology 40 (1945):175-86.

12. W. R. McLeod, "Merphos Poisoning or Mass Panic?" Australian and

New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry 9 (1975): 225-29.

13. G. Forth, "Construction Sacrifice and HeadHunting Rumours in Central

Flores (Eastern Indonesia): A Comparative Note," Oceania 61 (1991): 257-66;
R. H. Barnes, "Construction Sacrifice, Kidnapping and HeadHunting Rumours
on Flores and Elsewhere in Indonesia," Oceania 64 (1993): 146-58.

14. R. A. Drake, "Construction Sacrifice and Kidnapping: Rumour Panics

in Borneo," Oceania 59 (1989): 269-78.

15. H. Cantril, The Invasion from Mars: A Study in the Psychology of

Panic (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1940).

16. "Mars Raiders Caused Quito Panic; Mob Burns Radio Plant, Kills 15,"
New York Times, February 14, 1949, pp. 1, 7.

17. Mackay, Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions.

18. R. E. Bartholomew, "A Brief History of Mass Hysteria in Australia,"

Skeptic 12 (1992): 23-26.

19. M. Persinger and J. Derr, "Geophysical Variables and Behavior: LIV.

Zeitoun (Egypt) Apparitions of the Virgin Mary as Tectonic Straininduced
Luminosities," Perceptual and Motor Skills 68 (1989): 123-28; R. Yassa, "A
Sociopsychiatric Study of an Egyptian Phenomenon," American Journal of
Psychotherapy 34 (1980): 246-51.

20. C. Toibin, Moving Statues in Ireland: Seeing Is Believing (County

Laois, Ireland: Pilgrim Press, 1985).

21. R. Kirk, The Secret Commonwealth of Elves, Fauns and Fairies
(London: Longman, 1812); W. Evans-Wentz, The Fairy-Faith in Celtic
Countries (Rennes, France, 1909).

22. R. Sheaffer, The UFO Verdict (Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books,

1981).

23. M. Tumin and A. S. Feldman, "The Miracle at Sabana Grande," Public

Opinion Quarterly 19 (1955): 124-39.
 24. E. Goode, Collective Behavior (New York: Harcourt Brace, Jovano-
vich, 1992).

25. Tumin and Feldman, "Miracle at Sabana Grande."

26. There are numerous similar reports among religious faithful claiming to
observe miraculous events or objects. In 1986 a devout Catholic grandmother,
Rita Ratchen, who lived in a tiny Ohio town, was driving along a road when she
saw what appeared to be a miraculous image on the side of a soybean oil tank.
The yellowish-orange tank had rust spots that resembled an image of a man
dressed in robes with outstretched arms. A child appeared next to the man. The
figure was thought to be that of Jesus Christ. Once the media reported the story,
hundreds of people began flocking to the tower, many of whom agreed that on it
was a miraculous image. It is noteworthy that the tower "image" was highly
ambiguous. The perceived figures were so faint that when a local newspaper
published a picture of the tower, the editor had to get an artist to enhance the
photos!

In 1988 a somewhat similar incident occurred at a church in Lubbock,

Texas. The pastor had recently returned from a pilgrimage to Yugoslavia, where
visions of the Virgin Mary had been reported for years. Several reportedly
miraculous occurrences were witnessed by church members, including the
smelling of an odor resembling roses, and visions. In August, about 12,000
people were attending a celebration of the Virgin Mary's alleged ascension into
heaven when several extraordinary events happened. One man said that he could
see a flock of doves flying over the church. Sociologist Erich Goode remarks
that during a mass at the church conducted near dusk, shrieks could be heard
from some crowd members as the sun began to shine through the clouds. In
response, "some prayed, and some pointed toward the clouds. Others said they
saw Jesus in the clouds, some saw Mary, and some saw heaven's gates. Church
deacons took testimony from individuals who had seen visions and
apparitions...." For a discussion of these two cases, refer to Goode, Collective
Behavior, p. 171, citing G. Jaynes, "In Ohio: A Vision West of Town," Time,
September 29, 1986, pp. 8, 14; L. Belkin, "Reports of Miracles Draw Throngs,"
New York Times, August 17, 1988.

27. J. Abdullah, A Report of the Interview with the Female Teacher and
Students at the Hishamuddin Secondary Islamic School, Klang (Confidential
report, n.d.).

28. R.E. Bartholomew, Miracle or Mass Delusion?: What Happened in

Kiang, Malaysia? Study compiled for Pusat Islam (Islamic Center), the Prime
Minister's Department, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. A similar incident was
reported on June 12, 1990, in Algeria, when the Islamic Salvation Front Party
won an upset election victory. While the party leader was speaking to a crowd of
supporters who were standing and shouting, "Allah Akhbar" ("God is Great!"), a
cloud reportedly formed the shape of the word Allah (God) in the direction of
the Muslim holy city of Mecca, (refer to The Daily Telegraph, London, June 16,
1990). Since 1990, there have been numerous reports of Muslims reporting the
appearance of Islamic symbols, most typically Arabic script, in a variety of
countries and settings.

29. C. Jung, Flying Saucers: A Modern Myth of Things Seen in the Sky
(New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1959).

30. T. Bullard, "UFO Abduction Reports," Journal of American Folklore

102 (1989).

31. J. Clark and L. Coleman, Creatures of the Outer Edge (New York:
Warner, 1978); T. Healy and P. Cropper, Out of the Shadows: Mystery Animals
of Australia (Chippendale, New South Wales, Australia: Ironbark,1994).

32. For a list of the sources for cases cited in Table 1, see, in order of
appearance: D. Rogo, UFO Abductions (New York: Signet, 1980); C. Hind,
UFOs: Close Encounters of an African Kind (Salisbury, Zimbabwe: Gemini,
1982); B. Schwarz, UFO Dynamics: Psychiatric and Psychic Aspects of the
UFO Syndrome, vols. 1 and 2 (Florida: Rainbow Books, 1983); Story, The
Encyclopedia of UFOs (1980); F. Johnson, The Janos People (London:
Spearman, 1980); R. Sheaffer, UFO Verdict; H. Evans, UFOs: The Greatest
Mystery (London: Albany, 1979); Keith Basterfield, personal communication
(1997); I. Davis and T. Bloecher, Close Encounter at Kelly and Others of 1955
(Evanston, Ill.: Center for UFO Studies, 1978); P. Bartholomew, R. E.
Bartholomew, B. Braun, and B. Hallenbeck, Monsters of the Northwoods: An
Investigation of Bigfoot Sightings in New York and Vermont (Utica, N.Y.:
Northcountry, 1992); R. Westrum, "Phantom Attackers," Fortean Times (Winter
1985): 54-58.
 33. Davis and Bloecher, Close Encounter at Kelly; J. A. Hynek and J.
Vallee, The Edge of Reality: A Progress Report on Unidentified Flying Objects
(Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1975); R. J. M. Rickard, "More Phantom Sieges,"
Fortean Times (Winter 1985): 58-61; Story, The Encyclopedia of UFOs.

34. Sheaffer in Story, The Encyclopedia of UFOs, p. 176.

35. Westrum, "Phantom Attackers."

36. Ibid., p. 55.

37. American Psychiatric Association, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of

Mental Disorders, 4th ed. (Washington, D.C.: American Psychiatric Association,
1994).

38. R. Story, The Encyclopedia of UFOs; Johnson, Janos People; Hind,

UFOs: Close Encounters; Schwarz, UFO Dynamics.

39. Schwarz, UFO Dynamics.

40. R. E. Bartholomew, K. Basterfield, and G. S. Howard, "UFO Abductees

and Contactees: Psychopathology or FantasyProneness?" Professional
Psychology: Research and Practice 22 (1991): 215-22.

41. R. Buckhout, "Eyewitness Testimony," Scientific American 231 (1974):

23-31. See p. 25.

42. W. R. Corliss, Handbook of Unusual Natural Phenomena (Glen Arm,

Md.: The Sourcebook Project, 1977).

43. E. Condon, Scientific Study of Unidentified Flying Objects (New York:

Bantam, 1969).

44. M. Persinger and J. S. Den, "Geophysical Variables and Human

Behavior: XIX. Strong Temporal Relationships between Inclusive Seismic
Measures and UFO Reports within Washington State," Perceptual and Motor
Skills 59 (1984): 551-56; M. Persinger and J. Den, "Geophysical Variables and
Behavior: XXIII. Relations between UFO Reports within the Uinta Basin and
Local Seismicity," Perceptual and Motor Skills 60 (1985): 143-52.
 45. Collective koro is unlike sporadic individual cases without social or
cultural beliefs related to sexual organ shrinkage. There have only been about 40
documented cases of individual koro in the scientific literature, and in virtually
all of these subjects their condition was associated with major psychiatric
conditions, organic disease, or drug intake. Victims of group koro appear
psychologically and physically normal, their symptoms are brief and they are
most appropriately described as experiencing a social delusion related to
sociocultural convictions. See R. E. Bartholomew, "The Social Psychology of
'Epidemic' Koro," International Journal of Social Psychiatry 40, no. 1 (1994):
46-60.

46. A. L. Gwee, "Koro-Its Origin and Nature as a Disease Entity,"

Singapore Medical journal 9, no. 1 (1968): 3-6; C. I. Mun, "Epidemic Koro in
Singapore," letter, British Medical Journal (March 9, 1968): 640-41.

47. A. Chakraborty, S. Das, and A. Mukherji, "Koro Epidemic in India,"

Transcultural Psychiatric Research Review 20 (1983): 150-51.

48. Jung, Flying Saucers.

 part I clearly demonstrates that any one of us could misinterpret things
seen in the sky. This tendency is especially pronounced during times of stress or
great anticipation. To experience such an event really has little to do with a
person's mental health or rationality. A claim that someone saw something that
looked like a UFO is not grounds for doubting that person's sanity or judgment.
Recent Gallup polls show that millions of people around the world claim to have
seen UFOs.

A claim that one has been contacted or abducted by aliens is much more
serious. Such phenomena will be considered separately. Part I presented the data
on which we based our analysis of UFO sightings and the conclusions drawn
from the data. The picture that emerges from examining the cases of alien
contact or abduction in part II is more tentative due to the nature of the data.
There is a certain amount of overlap between the data used in parts I and II.
Recall, for example, that a few people reported having conversed with space
beings who emerged from UFOs. However, the overwhelming majority of
reports in part I were of people who claimed to have seen strange things in the
sky.

The fundamental assumption of part II is that we have not been contacted

by aliens. Every scientific investigation must rest on basic assumptions in order
to proceed, and this is, by far, our most important presupposition. Readers who
are convinced of alien contact might be thinking, Bartholomew and Howard are
typical scientists-they have made their minds up ahead of time, and this study is
just a rubber stamp of their personal prejudices. Science is based on evidence,
reason, and logic, not on emotions and wishful thinking. Does this mean we are
certain aliens have not contacted Earth? No. But based on the evidence to date
there is no clear evidence of alien contact that is acceptable to the general
scientific community; hence, it seems a prudent assumption.

Some readers may now be saying to themselves, How can you say that
there's no good evidence? What about scientists like john Mack at Harvard, who
has concluded that there is enough evidence to prove the existence of aliens?
While Mack has made such assertions, he is certainly in a small minority of
scientists. The same is also true of evidence for ESP or Bigfoot. Rupert
Sheldrake, a former researcher in biochemistry in Cambridge, England, believes
in ESP. Grover Krantz at Washington State University is convinced that Bigfoot
exists. There are a small number of scientists who claim to have proof or believe
the evidence favors the existence of aliens, but we are referring to the majority
of the scientific community. This is not to suggest that Mack is crazy or
incompetent, but just that scientists are human too. Perhaps Mack is right and
aliens are here. In his opinion there is enough evidence, but this conclusion has
yet to be established for the majority in the scientific community.

 I've seen many tragedies in my life-fortunately, most of them never
occurred.

-Mark
Twain

he humor in Mark Twain's quip comes from our almost unassailable

belief in the phrase "seeing is believing." If one actually sees something occur,
then one has excellent grounds for believing. While we know there can be
enormous discrepancies in interpreting the meaning of a certain event (as the
research on eyewitness testimony amply demonstrates'), we all accept that
something did occur if people actually say they saw it happen. For example,
while we might get wildly different stories from four eyewitnesses of how a car
accident occurred, our sanity would be questioned if we wondered whether
anything had actually occurred. "Are you out of your mind?" the four
eyewitnesses would cry in unison. "Why do you think that ambulance took that
person to the hospital? How did those two cars get turned into wrecks? Why is
there stalled traffic in every direction as far as the eye can see?"

While corroborating evidence (e.g., bodies, wreckage) is helpful, it is

merely circumstantial to the most important evidence four competent observers
claim to actually have seen the accident occur! In the absence of eyewitnesses,
we might suspect that the circumstantial evidence had been produced by a traffic
accident, but other explanations are still possible (e.g., a tornado). However, all
such speculation melts away the moment a disinterested (i.e., neutral) spectator
steps forward and declares that he or she actually saw the event occur. The
humor in Twain's quip results from his first declaring himself a credible
eyewitness ("I've seen many ... and then stating an impossibility (". . . that never
occurred").

"Excuse me, Mr. Twain!" you might sputter in righteous indignation. "If
you saw something, then it must have occurred!" The twinkle in the mischievous
midwesterner's eye signals that you've been had. There is ambiguity in how one
can "see." The mind can see in several ways. In one form of sight, the eyes are
used-vision. In another approach to seeing, the intellect is used-foresight.
Finally, in a third mode of sight, the imagination is used to seefantasy. It is clear
that Twain was able to "see" more important truths with his intellect and
imagination than he saw with his eyes. Perhaps he suspected that his quip might
catch us unaware, because he knew that most people are overreliant upon their
eyes and under-use their intellect and imagination.

In Praise of Foresight

Foresight works so well, and in so many ways, that some people mistakenly
think that foresight and thinking are synonymous. They are not. For example,
one can use the intellect to analyze past events, but this does not involve
foresight. One uses foresight when one tells a possibly true tale of the future and
then mentally examines the outcomes of this possible future in order to
determine whether or not it would represent an acceptable outcome.

For example, it is now 2:30, and my sons expect me to pick them up from
school at 3:00. Should I first go get another cup of coffee and then pick them up?
The ideal time to leave my office is 2:40. (Anything later than a 2:55 departure
guarantees that I'll arrive late, and thus I will incur a cash penalty for each son
for afterschool care.) Getting coffee can take from five to fifteen min utes-
depending on who I meet between my office and the coffee lounge. Once back
in my office, it takes me from ten to thirty minutes to drink the coffee. Assuming
all goes perfectly (five minutes to get the coffee and ten minutes to drink it), I
will leave at 2:45, five minutes later than ideal but still early enough. Assuming
typical times (ten minutes to get the coffee and twenty minutes to drink it), I
leave at 3:00 and am certain to pay afterschool fees-one heck of an expensive
cup of coffee!

Or perhaps Twain had the following sort of tragedy in mind as one he
foresaw and thus took steps to ensure that it never occurred: "If I attend the party
alone, I might be propositioned by someone, but I'm sure I'll be able to decline if
my wife is present. If she is not present, then I can still decline unless I am
drunk. Here's how I'll avoid a tragedy: I'll invite my wife to attend the party. If
she accepts, I can drink if I wish. If she declines, I either go but don't drink or, if
I can't be certain that I won't drink, I simply will not go."

I've foreseen many tragedies in my life (e.g., being late when picking up my
boys; falling prey to temptations), but fortunately most of them never occurred.
In the first case, my foresight actually might have been the cause of the bad luck
(e.g., meeting someone interesting on my way to the coffee lounge) not
occurring. In the second case my wife's presence at a party might preclude a
proposition that would have occurred had she stayed home. Or the proposition
might occur in spite of her presence at the party, but under those circumstances I
would be able (whether drunk or sober) to respond, "No. That really wouldn't be
a good idea."

These are but two of literally millions of examples of how foresight can be
an invaluable tool in enriching our lives. In the next chapter we will learn that
the meaning of an alien "abduction" or a prolonged "contact" is ambiguous and
the interpretation of the event's meaning is up to us. So how ought we to
interpret the event? It turns out that foresight provides the crucial tool in helping
us to determine the meaning of the "contact" or "abduction" event for ourselves,
for potential helpers (e.g., therapists, family members), and for society at large.

In Praise of Fantasy

Someone once said that novelists are the luckiest people, for they live many
lives-whereas the rest of us live but one. Since the events in a novel never
actually occurred, one is totally dependent on the novelist's imagination to
determine not only what can and cannot occur but also what will occur. The
novelist's imagination becomes lord over all it surveys in its fantasies. And what
of the demands of reality? Are there absolutely no constraints on a novelist's
fantasy? Apparently little or none. As Henry James wrote, "The only obligation
to which in advance we may hold a novel, without incurring the accusation of
being arbitrary, is that it be interesting."2

A young infant's attention is drawn by almost anything. As infants grow

into young boys and girls their interests become more refined (e.g., they enjoy
stories, cartoons, as well as objects, such as toys, which they can use to create
their own fantasies). During this stage of development, the fact that many of
these fantasies "could not possibly occur" does not bother these youngsters in the
slightest.

Children roam freely in the world of unfettered fantasy because it is the

most interesting and exciting world they know. However, with time and training
young men and women acquire a taste for more realistic stories-some of which
actually occurred (i.e., nonfiction stories). The point of interest here is that
children originally travel between the world of fantasy and reality quite freely-
often not "knowing" that they are crossing a significant divide.

Because life is more interesting on the fantasy side, a child would be crazy
not to spend more time there than on the boring, constraining, "real" side of his
or her experience. Since a child can create a perfect, imaginary playmate so
easily, why wouldn't he or she enjoy spending more time with this ideal
companion than with hurtful, frustrating, or noncompliant peers? Young boys
and girls relish their hours engaged in rich, satisfying fantasies, and over time
they begrudgingly learn to spend greater amounts of time living in the "real
world."

One reason that young children can be oblivious to reality for so many
years is because we adults protect them from the world's worries and dangers.
Many lower organisms like fish, frogs, or insects never see their parents. Not
only do adults of many species fail to protect their young, but they are often their
offspring's most lethal predators. Why has nature molded human parents into
such dedicated protectors of their young? What developmental tasks could
possibly have such evolutionary importance that they justify leaving human
children virtually defenseless-save for their parents' intercession-for over a
decade?

 An enormously long period of dependency is required to develop higher
mental processes such as language use, the mores of social life, and the creative
use of capacities like foresight and fantasy. Humans spend decades puzzling
over the question of what is real and what is fantasy. Each of us has come to a
very sophisticated answer to the question of what is real and what is fantasy. We
all think we know where the line of demarcation between the real and the
fanciful is. Fortunately or unfortunately, we don't always agree with one another
on the positioning of that line.

For example, is God real? Some people believe that all Godtalk lies in the
domain of fantasy. For others, God represents the most concrete and important
of all realities. Similarly, where do you stand on the reality of black holes,
quasars, pulsars, fuzzy attractors, free will, superconductivity, and cold fusion?
This book's second author is old enough to remember a time when all of these
concepts were nothing more than scientists' fantasies. How many of them do you
think have now passed into the land of the real? Any? Yes! All? No! Is it simply
a matter of time until all of these scientists' fictions make it into the domain of
reality? Probably not-in our opinion. We wager that at least one of these
concepts-cold fusion-will never make it into the land of the real. If we are
correct, it will enter the "nice try but no go" category of failed scientific
concepts, where it will join the ether, phrenology, astrology, ESP, Lamarkean
evolution, and many other scientific fictions that proved to be less than
satisfactory, and therefore have not been demonstrated to be "real."3

The point of this discussion-how science transports certain fictions into

reality while denying other fictions admittance-is to highlight the fact that
enormous changes have occurred in the second half of the twentieth century
regarding the relationship among fantasy (creative theorizing), reality (concepts
and the theories currently in closest agreement with the epistemic values); and
science (the social activity whereby scientific fictions are tested and improved).'
When something is said to represent a "scientifically proven fact," what that
means is now up for grabs (in both the philosophic and the scientific
communities) as it never has been before.'

Happily, all of the newer understandings of why science progresses as well
as it does heighten the importance of the role of scientific creative fantasies.
Perhaps we now better appreciate the crucial role that disciplined fantasy plays
in the continuing evolution and refinement of modem thought. Nature was
prescient in providing humans with long periods where they could refine the
creativity and discipline of fantasy. Without this skill, the achievements of
modern science would not be possible. As distinguished philosopher of science
Carl P. Hempel is reported to have once marveled, "What is the world that it can
be known by mind? What is the mind that it can know the world?"

Unfortunately, some people have not kept current with the revolution in the
philosophy of science over the last twenty years. Those people are probably still
operating with a vision of how science works that has now been discredited.
Perhaps you've heard of the realist-antirealist debates in philosophy of science,
or the objectivist-constructivist debates in many scientific disciplines.'
Regardless of how these controversies eventually settle out, they are destroying
our old positivistic, objectivistic understandings of how science works. These
older views of science were based largely on what philosopher Richard Rorty
refers to as "mirror of nature" images.' The newer notions of science rely on
different construals of "truth" and "reality" in their appreciations of how science
progresses.

Reality-What a Concept!

For most people, the reality of God and religion is so strong that they are willing
to live their lives according to the dictates of their religious beliefs. But to this
book's authors, all of our life experiences appear to have been completely natural
(as opposed to supernatural-demanding a religious explanation). Similarly, no
experience in my life suggests that aliens have made contact with humans. Thus
my own experiences do not now compel me to be a theist or a believer in aliens.
Consequently, I might choose either to believe or not to believe in these
possibilities (God or aliens). If it is important to God or to aliens that I believe in
them, then they must make themselves better known to me than they have done
to date.

I am, however, open to new experiences. Consider the following thought
experiment (a research strategy of ever-increasing importance in contemporary
science) on what experiences might actually change my mind about the
existence of God or aliens. The Saint Paul story furnishes a tale of a dramatic
conversion of an anti-Christian (Saul) into the most committed of Christians
(Paul). We put a new spin on the Saint Paul story to highlight the kind of
evidence (i.e., experiences) that would compel us to alter our present beliefs.
This is a humorous thought experiment, in the hope that (with apologies to
William Congreve) "humor has charms to soothe the overcommitted breast."

Imagine that in the near future the second author finds himself riding on a
horse from Jerusalem to Damascus in order to torture and murder some poor
alien abductees if they are unwilling to admit that UFOs do not exist. Suddenly
the skies darken, and I say, "Whoa! This don't look so good." A bolt of lightning
then knocks me off the horse, and I think, No big deal! People get struck by
lightning all the time-I'm just glad to be alive to interpret the experience. But
when a booming voice from out of the heavens says, "George, George, why
doest thou persecute righteous UFO abductees so?" that's when it becomes a
nonnatural experience for me. The voice orders, "You are no longer to be called
George; henceforth you are to be known as 'Stupid.' "

"I've always thought stupidity was an underappreciated trait in humans," I

reply. "I'm thrilled to be known as 'Stupid.' By the way, Lord, how do your
friends address you?" If the voice says, "Yahweh," I'm suddenly Jewish. If God
says, "Allah," then I believe in Islam. If "Buddah," I'm a Buddhist. If "Jesus," a
Christian. If the voice says, "Zarathustra," I'm momentarily confused. But so
great is my commitment to empiricism9-even in the religion domain-that
eventually I'd be thrilled to be known as "Stupid the Zoroastrian"!

Or imagine that the lightning bolt had been a laser, and the booming voice
replied, "I am Jaopg from the planet Rooze." Sud denly this experience would
have nothing to do with God and religion. I would immediately believe
completely in the "reality" of alien contact. However, since no experience in my
life currently suggests the existence of visitors from another world, I choose not
to believe in aliens for pragmatic reasons. The next chapter will spell out the
pragmatic consequences of belief or nonbelief in aliens in most contemporary
societies.

All of this talk of belief (or nonbelief) in God or aliens for pragmatic
reasons probably strikes most readers as a bit odd. This is because most people
believe in the existence of a free standing, objective reality. Black holes either
do or do not exist; aliens either have or have not contacted humans; there either
is or is not a God; humans either do or do not possess ESP; and so forth. It is the
job of science to go out and get hard, objective evidence of the existence (or
nonexistence) of any of these entities or human powers. Then rational humans
will believe in aliens, if aliens do exist; we will believe in ESP, if humans
possess that power; and so forth. This is the position contained in the "spectator
view of science" or "science as the mirror of nature." On this view, one holds the
world up to science and the undistorted "Truth" or "Reality" about the world will
then pop out at you. Again, this represents an older, less sophisticated
understanding of what science is able to achieve.

Instead, think of scientific evidence as a possible truth that is created when

the world (or specific entities such as human beings or aliens) are approached
from a particular system of beliefs. Might that evidence tell us something of
importance about our objects of study? Absolutely! Does science tell us the
Truth (the complete truth and the final truth) about our objects of investigation?
Absolutely not! Finally, the newer construals of how science works its wonders
highlight the importance of disciplined fantasy (creative theories) and accurate
foresight (as seen in the predicative accuracy or empirical adequacy of these
theories) in the progress of scientific rationality. Because of our newer, more
sophisticated understanding of how science works its wonders, fantasy and
foresight are two human powers that deserve even greater praise than we had
imagined.

Notes

1. E. F. Loftus, "Memory and Its Distortions," in A. G. Kraut, ed., G.

Stanley Hall Lectures (Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association,
1982), pp. 119-54; E. F. Loftus and K. Ketcham, Witness for the Defense (New
York: St. Martin's Press, 1991).

2. Henry James, The Art of Fiction and Other Essays (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1948).

3. By the way, how many of you chose "free will" as a concept that science
wouldn't demonstrate as real? Sorry folks! Free will passed into scientific reality
a few years ago. G. S. Howard and C. G. Conway, "Can There Be an Empirical
Science of Volitional Action?" American Psychologist 41 (1986): 1241-51. D. L.
Lazarick, S. S. Fishbein, M. J. Loiello, and G. S. Howard, "Practical
Investigations of Volition," Journal of Counseling Psychology 35 (1988): 1-26.
G. S. Howard, "Some Varieties of Free Will Worth Practicing," Journal of
Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology 14 (1994): 50-61. Self-determination
(or freedom of the will) is now every bit as much a scientific reality as are, for
example, black holes and superconductivity.

4. T. Kuhn, The Essential Tension (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,

1977).

5. Ibid.; E. McMullin, "Values in Science," in P. D. Asquith and T. Nickles,

eds., Proceedings of the 1982 Philosophy of Science Association, vol. 2 (East
Lansing, Mich.: Philosophy of Science Association, 1983), pp. 3-23; G. S.
Howard, "The Role of Values in the Science of Psychology," American
Psychologist 40 (1988): 255-65.

6. R. Rorty, Objectivity, Relativism and Truth: Philosophical Papers, vol. 1

(New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991).

7. H. Putnam, The Many Faces of Realism (LaSalle, Ill.: Open Court,

1987); G. S. Howard, "Culture Tales: A Narrative Approach to Thinking, Cross-
Cultural Psychology, and Psychotherapy," American Psychologist 46 (1991):
187-97.

8. R. Rorty, Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton

University Press, 1980).

9. Technically, I am now describing the philosophic principle of radical

empiricism that was first promulgated by William James, Essays in Radical
Empiricism (New York: Longmans, Green & Co., 1912).

Whatever these anomalies may or may not be, one thing is certain:
they keep on happening. They have survived centuries of
misattribution and misunderstanding, of doubt and debunking.
Prophets and psychics still perform ... prodigies, ordinary men and
women continue to report extraordinary sights and sounds. If this is all
 an illusion, then it is high time that the mechanism of such persistent
illusion was revealed.

-Hilary
Evans'

,sychopathological interpretations of individuals claiming contacts with

extraterrestrials typify the few psychiatric evaluations of such behavior. This
chapter will present biographical analysis performed on 154 subjects reporting
temporary abductions or persistent contacts with UFO occupants. The 154 case
histories are remarkably devoid of a history of mental illness. However, in 132
cases, identifications were made with one and often several major characteristics
of what psychologists S. C. Wilson and T. X. Barber2 first identified as the
fantasyprone personality (FPP), a set of characteristics not typically found in the
general population. While functioning as normal, healthy adults, FPPs
experience rich fantasy lives, scoring dramatically higher (relative to control
groups) on such characteristics as hypnotic susceptibility, psychic ability,
healing, out-of-body experiences, automatic writing, religious visions, and
apparitional experiences. In our study, UFO "abductees" and "contactees"
evidence a similar pattern of characteristics to FPPs.

Are You Crazy?

Imagine you have a new neighbor whom you meet for the first time. The
neighbor calmly describes the following event: "I know you'll find this hard to
believe, but last week I was abducted by aliens who held me for about seven
hours in their spaceship." After careful questioning, you find that your new
neighbor believes that he is also telepathic, has had religious visions in the past,
and spent a large part of his childhood conversing with an imaginary playmate.
You describe the neighbor to a friend, who asks, "Is there extreme
psychopathology here? Do you believe your neighbor is severely disturbed?"
What would be your answer?

Ever since mass sightings of flying saucers were first reported, those
claiming contact with saucer occupants (or even some claiming to watch such
craft at a distance) were often labeled socially deviant or mentally disturbed.
Such diagnoses were often based on the fantastic nature of the claims and not on
firsthand psychological evaluation. Despite the unreliability of eyewitness
testimony3 and the ambiguous nature of most flying saucer reports (usually
misinterpretations of ordinary celestial objects4), the media has typically
attributed sightings to "psychopathological disturbances in the witness."5

While there are few psychological studies of people claiming regular

communication with extraterrestrials-contactees-or temporary abductions aboard
a spaceship-abductees-virtually all such people have been characterized as
mentally disturbed or irrational. Psychologists Lester Grinspoon and Alan D.
Persky,b for instance, explain many contact claims as psychopathological, the
result of folie a deux psychosis and psychopathic personalities, yet these authors
failed to study witnesses firsthand or cite a single case. Of six patients claiming
contacts with extraterrestrials, psychiatrists L. Mavrakis and J. Bocquet'
diagnosed five as suffering from a paranoid delusional state. In applying a
psychoanalytic perspective to members of the "flying saucer subculture," John
A. Keel' classifies many contactees as "neurotic and paranoid personalities" (p.
871). Both Carl Jung and Joost Meerloo9 relate the phenomena to the need for
the existence of a higher power and the likelihood that many experiences result
from repressed, infantile sexually orientated conflicts. Similar interpretations
have been made by sociologists who characterize typical members of
flyingsaucer clubs, particularly those reporting contacts, as mentally ill:

[In] flying saucer clubs I have had contact with ... by any conventional
definition the mental health ... is quite low. Hallucinations are quite
common.... If one were to attend a meeting and watch the action
without knowing in advance whether the audience was in a mental
hospital or not, it would be very difficult to tell, because many
symptoms of serious illness are displayed.'°

This psychopathological interpretation is not unlike the labels ascribed to

people accused of witchcraft during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
"Witches" were considered "maniacs or melancholics," "detracted in mind,"" or
suffering from disorders of "neuropathology," as was believed by Charcot,
Esquirol, Janet, and Freud." This classification has held until recent times, with
the work of Zilboorg,13 that most medieval witches were considered mentally
ill. The predominant interpretation of witchcraft during the past twenty years,
however, has shifted. The contemporary view is predicated on detailed historical
and archival research and has shifted toward a culturally relativistic position
considering the unique historical sociocultural milieu of individuals and their
behavior. 14

Boston-area psychiatrist Dr. Benjamin Simon's use of hypnotherapy with a

couple claiming a UFO abduction," Florida psychiatrist Dr. Bertold Schwarz's
in-depth evaluations of abduction and contact victims who were found to be
mentally healthy," and Mavrakis and Bocquet's17 examination of contact and
abduction subjects are the only firsthand psychological studies of UFO
abductees and contactees known to exist. While such firsthand evaluations are
beyond the scope of the present study, we will compare the characteristics of a
sample of UFO abductees and contactees from archival data with the
"fantasyprone personality"18 (FPP). On the basis of this comparison,
suggestions for the psychological understanding of such cases will be discussed.

The FantasyProne Personality

There is an entire class of normal, healthy individuals who are prone to

experiencing exceptionally vivid and involved fantasies. Such people often have
difficulty distinguishing between fantasy and reality and tend to keep their
fantasy worlds closely guarded secrets. Based on preliminary research by J. R.
Hilgard19 and subsequent work by Wilson and Barber,20 approximately 4
percent of the population falls into the FPP category, ranging in degree from
mild to intense. Wilson and Barber uncovered this category while administering
a battery of tests and interviews to twenty-seven "excellent" and twentyfive
"nonexcellent" female hypnotic subjects.21 Their findings have since received
support in studies using more heterogeneous samples.22 The results of these
investigations have implications for understanding an important component in
many UFO abduction and contact reports, especially those who persistently
report such phenomena and who have typically been considered to be
psychopathological.

In providing a brief overview of their findings, Wilson and Barber noted

that most fantasyprone subjects (92 percent) estimated spending half or more of
their working day fantasizing, compared to 0 percent in their control group? In
discussing the vividness of their subjects' experiences, Wilson and Barber found
that the fantasyprone actually "see," "hear," "smell," and "feel" what is being
described in conversations or on television.24 Sixtyfive percent of the FPPs
reported that their fantasies were "as real as real" (hallucinatory) in all sense
modalities and were experienced in an "automatic" or "involuntary" manner
(compared to 0 percent in the control group).

They see sights equally well with their eyes opened or closed. Also,
imagined aromas are sensed, imagined sounds are heard, and imagined
tactile sensations are felt as convincingly as those produced by actual
stimuli.... Almost all of the fantasyprone subjects have vivid sexual
fantasies that they experience "as real as real" with all the sights,
sounds, smells, emotions, feelings, and physical sensations ... [and
they] are so realistic that 75 percent of the fantasizers report that they
have had orgasms produced solely by sexual fantasies!

Fifty-eight percent of the FPPs (8 percent in the control group) reported

spending a "large part" of their childhood playing or interacting with fantasized
people or animals (so-called imaginary friends), claiming to have "clearly seen,
heard and felt them in the same way that they perceived living people and
animals."26

As children, all but one of the FPPs lived in a make-believe world much or
most of the time. Of those playing with dolls or toy animals, 80 percent believed
them to be living, with unique feelings and personalities. While imaginary
playmates are common in children, and in recent years have been viewed as a
sign of mental health and creativity," there are important differences between the
fantasyprone and control groups on this dimension.

Many of the twentyfive subjects in the comparison group also

pretended their dolls or stuffed animals were alive; however, with
three exceptions, they did so only when they were playing with them.
Although they made-believe that the dolls and toy animals had
personalities and said and did specific things, the make-believe play
was always confined to a specific period and the toys did not seem to
have an independent life.28

While most (perhaps all) children play make-believe games, it is uncommon for
them to continue with imaginary companions into adulthood. But the
extensiveness and vividness of imaginary companions apparently does not
decrease substantially for the fantasyprone group as adults. Based on their
findings, Wilson and Barber hypothesized that many figures from history who
claimed psychic or paranormal experiences may have been fantasyprone.29

The Present Study

Extensive personal UFO literature collections provided us with sufficient

material to test a parallel hypothesis to that of Wilson and Barber by comparing
a sample of abductees and contactees to Wilson and Barber's FPP and control
groups. Our sample consisted of 154 UFO abductees and contactees on whom
there was biographical information. Biographies ranged from less than a
paragraph in a few cases to an entire book or series of books. Data cover reports
of alien contacts from the sixteenth century through 1988, with over 90 percent
of the reported cases having taken place between 1950 and the present. This
study assesses the percentage of subjects who exhibit major FPP symptoms. The
analysis represents an extremely conservative estimate of the incidence of FPP
symptoms in abductees and contactees, since the symptoms of the FPP were not
known until recently, and many abductees and contactees were simply not asked
whether they experienced all of the symptoms of the FPP syndrome. All such
instances would make the present data set look more like the Wilson and Barber
control group and less like their FPP group. Table 2 presents 132 cases out of the
154 (86 percent) where one or more of the major symptoms of the FPP profile
were reported.

Table 2* Summary of 132 Alleged UFO Abductees and Contactees with Major
FantasyProne Personality Characteristics Based on a Sample of 154 Subjects







UFOs and Psychic" Phenomena: Results

Wilson and Barber have noted a significant relationship between subjects

reporting frequent "psychic" occurrences and FPPs. For example, while 92
percent of the FPPs they studied see themselves as psychic or sensitive and
report numerous telepathic and precognitive experiences, just 16 percent of the
comparison group reported such experiences.30 In the present sample, 75
percent were categorized as psychic and/or telepathic or experiencing poltergeist
activity. It seems plausible that psychic incidents may have been perceived by a
greater number of subjects but were unreported in the biographies, as most of the
subjects' accounts typically center on the UFO experience, not their psychic
history.

Out-of-Body Experiences

Of Wilson and Barber's fantasy group 88 percent (compared to 8 percent of

comparison group subjects) reported "realistic out-ofthe-body experiences."31
By comparison, in our sample 21 percent reported "astral travel," "astral
projection," "out-of-body experiences," "bi-location," or body floating. Again,
because of the differences in data collection procedures employed with our
sample of subjects, this 21 percent estimate could well be a serious
underestimate. These experiences typically occur about equally with lone
subjects or within a seance with multiple witnesses. During the 1860s, William
Denton of Massachusetts was a popular spirit medium and lecturer who claimed
to astrally project his body, enabling him to contact beings from Venus and
describe to onlookers the content of his experiences.'Z

Automatic Writing, Healing, Apparitions, Religious Visions

While 50 percent of Wilson and Barber's fantasizers (8 percent in the control

group) reported automatic writing by a guiding "spirit or a higher intelligence,"
about 8 percent of our biographies mentioned automatic writing ability. Such
writing typically occurred on a daily basis, and after the initial few experiences
subjects had the ability to write spontaneously. Twentyfour percent of our
sample described themselves as channels for regular written messages but
technically could not be classified in this category, as automatic writing was not
explicitly mentioned. But if the two categories are combined, it would represent
32 percent of our sample.

Wilson and Barber found that over two-thirds of their subjects labeled as
FPPs reported the ability to heal (0 percent in comparison group), while 73
percent of fantasizers reported apparitions (16 percent in the control group). In
our sample just over 14 percent reported apparitions, and just under 6 percent
claimed healing ability. While six FPPs (none in the comparison group) reported
religious visions, 11 percent of our sample mentioned such experiences. Under
the category "religious visions" are included only those experiences of a
religious or spiritual nature interpreted by subjects as separate from the UFO
experience. However, to have included all alleged UFO encounters by aliens
claiming to be acting on behalf of a god (almost always Christ), easily half of
our sample could be categorized as religious visionaries.;'

Hypnotic Susceptibility

The hypnotic susceptibility category is difficult to evaluate, since the majority of

the UFO abductees and contactees had never been hypnotized. Just 9 percent of
our sample were described as excellent hypnotic subjects. There is, however,
anecdotal evidence within the UFO contactee and abductee literature supporting
a relationship between ease and degree of hypnotic states and the UFO
percipient. Consider the following three opinions by UFO researchers who have
been involved firsthand with hypnotic regressions. The first is by psychiatrist
Berthold Schwarz.

In my experience UFO contactees, unlike most across-the-board

psychiatric patients, or so-called healthy people, have been usually
easy to hypnotize or almost always go rapidly into deep
somnambulistic trances.34

UFO author-investigator Ann Druffel's35 experience coincides with that of Dr.

William McCall, who has regressed numerous UFO abductees and found that
reluctance on the part of the other witness or witnesses "seems to be part of a
peculiar pattern." Druffel continues,

Time and time again in various cases, a primary witness will be easily
 regressed, giving a vivid and full account of the experience; any
corroborating witness to the same case will either resist hypnosis
altogether or prove a very poor trance subject.36

Similar findings have been mentioned by other UFO researchers who have
conducted firsthand interviews with alleged abductees or contactees.37 These
general anecdotal findings on hypnotic susceptibility correspond with results by
Wilson and Barber and Lynn and Rhue.38 In each study a strong relationship
was found between FPPs and hypnotic susceptibility.

Physiological Effects

Wilson and Barber note that a high proportion of their FPP sample reported
physiological effects in conjunction with fantasies. Nineteen FPPs, and only two
in the comparison group, reported sickness or physical symptoms corresponding
with their fantasy content.

[M]ost said they had experienced quite frequently throughout their

lives something such as the following: becoming physically ill when
they thought (incorrectly) that they had eaten spoiled food or
developing an uncomfortable and continuous itch when they
(incorrectly) believed that they had been contaminated with lice....
[One subject] told us about the time she recaptured a neighboring
child's pet frog that had escaped, remembered that she had been told
that frogs cause warts, and then developed a wart on her hand that was
highly resistant to treatment.39

Further, fifteen FPPs would become physically ill while watching television
violence, and seventeen experienced heat or cold as if it were affecting them
directly. One subject told "how she was freezing as she sat bundled in a warm
living room while she was watching Dr. Zhivago in Siberia on television. "I

Numerous subjects in our sample reported a variety of physiological

symptoms in the wake of their alien contacts. These aftereffects were consistent
with and reflective of their contact scenarios. For instance, Barney Hill
developed a ring of warts around his genital area corresponding to the position
of a cuplike device he said was placed there by his abductors." During
subsequent hypnotic regressions the warts became inflamed.42 Following an
alleged abduction near Norway, Maine, in 1975, David Stephens, a twenty-one-
yearold poultry processing worker, reported that he had reddish skin, general
soreness, burning eyes, swollen hands and feet, breathing difficulty, a sore
throat, and chills.43 Correspondingly, Stephens said that during the abduction
there was intense light, blood and body samples were extracted from him, and he
was examined by "a type of X-Ray machine" that went "all over him."' During a
now famous abduction near Sao Francisco de Sales, Brazil, on October 15, 1957,
farmer Antonio Villas Boas claimed to have been taken aboard an alien craft and
given a medical examination. Boas reported numerous symptoms in conjunction
with the incident to gastroenterologist Olavo T. Fontes of the Brazilian National
School of Medicine. These included nausea, headache, sudden onset of
sleepiness, general fatigue, severe watering of the eyes, appetite loss, and "his
body hurt all over."45

The most frequently reported symptoms in our sample involved rashlike
facial and body marks, itchiness, headache, dizziness, and burning or watery
eyes. These symptoms typically occur in cases involving medical examinations
by aliens where the subject is often stuck with a needlelike device and blood is
extracted, or the subject is exposed to bright lights or X-rays. In a similar
manner, psychosomatic reactions reported during mass hysteria outbreaks
correspond with the prevailing social norm. According to investigators,
psychosomatic symptoms occurring in cases of hysterical conversion and mass
hysteria in general include skin rashes, fainting, trance states, dizziness, bad
mouth taste, blurred vision, stomach complaints, sleepiness, headache, vomiting,
and dry mouth.46 A variety of similar symptoms were associated with "witches"
and their victims during the Salem witch trials of the late seventeenth century.47

Within our sample, there are numerous instances of reported copulation and
general mischievous sexual encounters with aliens. Sexual encounters can take
the form of ongoing contacts or singular events. Brazilian subject Antonio Villas
Boas falls into the latter category, claiming to have been taken aboard an
ovalshaped craft, undressed, and seduced by an extremely fairskinned, freckled
young female with high cheekbones. Regarding the sex act, he said it was a
normal act, and she behaved just as any woman would.'

Spiritual Themes
In addition to frequently interacting with imaginary companions, FPPs
fantasized a supernatural worldview that typically included the taken-for-granted
existence of a variety of mythical guardians and spirit beings.

When they were children, almost all of the fantasizers believed in

fairies, leprechauns, elves, guardian angels, and other such beings....
[F]or some, encounters ... were vivid and "as real as real"; for instance,
one told us how as a child she would spend hours watching in
fascination the little people who lived in her grandmother's cactus
garden that adults kept insisting were not there. With few exceptions,
their belief in elves, fairies, guardian angels, tree spirits, and other
such creatures did not terminate during childhood; as adults they either
still believe in them or are not absolutely sure that they really do not
exist.49

Several subjects in our sample mentioned their belief in seen or unseen

guardians or spirits. These beings almost without exception were viewed in a
religious context (guardian angels, Jesus, a famous saint), or the subjects have
one or a combination of extraterrestrial guardian contacts or ongoing encounters
with mythical beings, such as fairies.

The case of Jessica Rolfe is typical. She claims that at age five, while living
with her family in Miami Beach, Florida, she was visited one night in bed by
three well-built tall "men" with golden skin. They lifted her from bed,
telepathically asking, "Would you like to come with us now?" After refusing the
invitation, they returned her to her bed, and comforted her before disappearing.
She claims that ever since various alien males from the same race visit her
bedside and teach her many things.-'O

Although in our sample we were able to identify only twenty instances

where UFO witnesses discussed their interactions with guardian angels, spirits,
or unseen beings (and their belief in them as adults), the following statement
from a UFO researcher who has interviewed numerous contactees is interesting.

About eight years ago, as he traveled around the country while

lecturing, well-known parapsychologist Brad Steiger noticed that
many men and women he met, actually claimed memories of having
come to this planet from "somewhere else," or to have experienced an
 interaction with paranormal entities since their earliest childhood.
Steiger came to call these individuals "Star People" and noticed that
they had many ... physiological anomalies which obviously placed
them apart from the rest of society...

[T]he pattern profile of the "Star People" contains the following
elements:... Had unseen companions as a child. Natural abilities with
art, music, healing, or acting. Experienced ... psychic events. Had an
unusual experience ... [at an early age] which often took the form of ...
a visitation by human-type beings who gave information and comfort.
Have since maintained a continuing series of episodes with "angels,"
"elves," "masters," or openly declared UFO intelligences.... [D]espite a
seemingly bizarre belief that they are not from here,... all appear
normal and rational otherwise 51

It is important to mention here that about 45 percent of our sample claimed

to have undergone multiple experiences. In many other instances it was implied
that these were ongoing, yet they were left out, as it was not possible to be
certain.52

Relating These Results to the Contemporary Social Context

The current social milieu plays a role in the relationship between the
fantasyprone process and the FPPs' worldview. The FPPs living in the twentieth
century are heavily exposed to books, television programs, and movies on the
subject of extraterrestrial visitation. It is only natural, therefore, to expect their
experiences to reflect the science-fiction and popular beliefs of the time. This
could explain why prior to the nineteenth century there are virtually no explicit
reported contacts with extraterrestrials. Yet, in the United Kingdom and Europe
especially, there were thousands of reported sightings, abductions, and contacts
with fairies at this time.53 This relationship between UFO encounters and fairy
lore was first mentioned by British investigator Gordon Creighton and later by
French astrophysicist Dr. Jacques Vallee, Loren Coleman, Jerome Clark, John
Rimmer, and Hilary Evans.'

Our preliminary findings suggest that the similarities between

characteristics of FPPs and UFO abudctees and contactees is a potentially
fruitful avenue of research. While not all UFO abductees and contactees are
FPPs, this exploratory study supports the hypothesis that a significant portion of
this population falls into the FPP category. Unfortunately, FPPs experiencing
UFO-related contacts and abductions may have often been labeled as
psychopathological. In this regard, it is appropriate to quote from Wilson and
Barber, who hint at the potential for significant others or therapists to enrich the
lives of FPPs by helping them understand their syndrome.

Most of those we saw again later told us that our interviews had made
a significant difference in their lives. They typically stated that they
had gained greater understanding of themselves and felt less alone-
previously they had assumed that no one else was like them. Following
participation in our project, some of the fantasizers felt ready to share
their "secret" with important people in their lives. One told her
husband of twenty years and gave him a copy of our preliminary report
of the study55 so that he could see her as she really was. Another gave
a copy ... to her counselor so that he could understand her.'

Finally, it is interesting to note the shifting content of contemporary FPPs.

If abductees and contactees are overrepresented as fantasyprone personalities,
instead of romantic visions of fairies of yesteryear, the images of the modem-day
FPP reflect the period and culture into which they are born. It is not surprising,
then, that the earliest, most common alien messages concerned fear of nuclear
destruction. Recently, the messages have warned of the approaching ecological
problems that face our planet.

[A]bduction reports are important. They contain a message about

ourselves ... a message put forward by a growing number of people
who have perhaps no other way of expressing the anxieties and crises
of their lives.... It is a message given to us by the hidden parts of our
being, and it is a message we should listen to carefully"

We are all frightened by the possibilities of a catastrophic future for our

world. If humans are to take effective actions to forestall such horrors, someone
must first identify the horrific possibilities. Our problem is that articulating
anticipated catastrophes is a diffi cult task for many people. Perhaps having God
speak through a prophet or an alien speak through an abductee represents a
psychologically easier way to address future nuclear or ecological horrors. The
messages of modem UFO abductees and contactees mirror the anxieties
prevalent in the societies of their times.

Notes

1. H. Evans, Intrusions-Society and the Paranormal (London: Routledge

and Kegan Paul, 1982).

2. S. C. Wilson and T. X. Barber, "Vivid Fantasy and Hallucinatory

Abilities in the Life Histories of Excellent Hypnotic Subjects ('Somnambules'):
Preliminary Report with Female Subjects," in E. Klinger, ed., Imagery, Volume
2, Concepts, Results, and Applications (New York: Plenum Press, 1981).

3. R. Buckhout, "Eyewitness Testimony," Scientific American 231

(1974): 23-31; E. F. Loftus and J. C. Palmer, "Reconstruction of Automobile
Destruction: An Example of the Interaction Between Language and Memory,"
Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior 13 (1974): 585-89; G. Wells
and J. Turtle, "Eyewitness Identification: The Importance of Lineup Models,"
Psychological Bulletin 99 (1968): 320-29.

4. J. A. M. Meerloo, "Le Syndrome des Soucoupes Volantes," Medecine

et Hygiene 25 (1967): 992-96.

5. B. Schwarz, "Psychiatric and Parapsychiatric Dimensions of UFOs," in

R. Haines, ed., UFO Phenomena and the Behavioral Scientist (Metuchen, N.J.:
Scarecrow Press, 1979).

6. L. Grinspoon and A. D. Persky, "Psychiatry and UFO Reports," in C.

Sagan and T. Page, eds., UFOs: A Scientific Debate (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell
University Press, 1973).

7. D. Mavrakis and J. Bocquet, "Psychoses et Objets Volants Non

Identifies" [Psychoses and unidentified flying objects], Canadian Journal of
Psychiatry 28 (1983): 199-201.

8. J. A. Keel, "The Flying Saucer Subculture," Journal of Popular Culture

5 (1975): 871-96.

9. C. G. Jung, Flying Saucers: A Modern Myth of Things Seen in the

Sky, trans. R. F. C. Hull (New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1959);
Meerloo, "Le Syndrome"; J. A. M. Meerloo, "The Flying Saucer Syndrome and
the Need for Miracles," Journal of the American Medical Association 203
(1968): 170.

10. H. T. Buckner, "The Flying Saucerians: An Open Door Cult," in M.
Truzzi, ed., Sociology in Everyday Life (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: PrenticeHall,
1968).

11. W. E. H. Lecky, History of European Morals Volumes I and II (reprint,

New York: Braziller, 1955).

12. T. S. Szasz, The Manufacture of Madness (New York: Harper & Row,
1970); T. J. Schoeneman, "Criticisms of the Psychopathological Interpretation of
Witch Hunts: A Review," American Journal of Psychiatry 139 (1982): 1028-32.

13. G. A. Zilboorg, The Medical Man and the Witch during the
Renaissance, The Hideyo Nogushi Lecures (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press,
1935); G. A. Zilboorg and G. W. Henry, History of Medical Psychology (New
York: W. W. Norton, 1941).

14. G. Rosen, Madness in Society: Chapters in the Historical Sociology of

Mental Illness (New York: Harper & Row, 1968); Szasz, Manufacture of
Madness; J. Kroll, "A Reappraisal of Psychiatry in the Middle Ages," Archives
of General Psychiatry 29 (1973): 276-83; N. P. Spanos, "Witchcraft in Histories
of Psychiatry: A Critical Analysis and an Alternative Conceptualization,"
Psychological Bulletin 85 (1978): 417-39; R. Neugebauer, "Treatment of the
Mentally Ill in Medieval and Early Modern England: A Reappraisal," Journal of
the History of the Behavioral Sciences 14 (1978): 158-69; Schoeneman,
"Criticisms of Psychopathological Interpretation."

15. B. Simon, "Hypnosis in the Treatment of Military Neuroses,"

Psychiatric Opinion 4 (1967): 24-29.

16. B. E. Schwarz, "UFOs: Delusion or Dilemma?" Medical Times 96

(1968): 967-81; B. E. Schwarz, "UFOs in New Jersey," Journal of the Medical
Society of New Jersey 68 (1969): 460-64. B. E. Schwarz, "UFO Contactee Stella
Lansing: Possible Medical Implications of Her Motion Picture Experiments,"
paper presented at 1975 annual meeting of the American Society of
Psychosomatic Dentistry and Medicine, Montclair, N.J., September 21, 1975.
This paper was published the next year in Journal of the American Society of
Psychosomatic Dentistry and the American Society of Psychosomatic Denistry
and Medicine 23 (1976): 60-68; B. E. Schwarz, UFO Dynamics: Book I
(Florida: Rainbow, 1983a); B. E. Schwarz, UFO Dynamics: Book II (Florida:
Rainbow, 1983b).

17. Mavrakis and Bocquet, "Psychoses et Objets Volants Non Identifies."

18. Wilson and Barber, "Vivid Fantasy and Hallucinatory Abilities."

19. J. R. Hilgard, Personality and Hypnosis: A Study of Imaginative

Involvement (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970); J. R. Hilgard, Per
sonality and Hypnosis: A Study of Imaginative Involvement, 2d ed. (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1979).

20. Wilson and Barber, "Vivid Fantasy and Hallucinatory Abilities"; S. C.
Wilson and T. X. Barber, "The FantasyProne Personality: For Understanding
Imagery, Hypnosis, and Parapsychological Phenomena," in A. A. Sheikh, ed.,
Imagery: Current Theory, Research, and Application (New York: Wiley, 1983).

21. Wilson and Barber, "FantasyProne Personality."

22. S. Myers and H. Austrin, "Distal Eidetic Technology: Further

Characteristics of the FantasyProne Personality," Journal of Mental Imagery 9
(1985): 7-66; S. Lynn and J. Rhue, "The FantasyProne Person: Hypnosis,
Imagination, and Creativity," Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 51
(1986): 404-408; S. Lynn and J. Rhue, "FantasyProneness and
Psychopathology," Personality and Social Psychology 53 (1987): 327-36; S.
Lynn and S. Rhue, "Fantasy Proneness: Developmental Antecedents," Journal of
Personality 55 (1987): 1.

23. Wilson and Barber, "FantasyProne Personality."

24. Ibid.

25. Ibid., p. 351.

26. Ibid., p. 346.

 27. M. Pines, "Invisible Playmates," Psychology Today 12 (1978): 38-42.

28. Wilson and Barber, "FantasyProne Personality," p. 346.

29. Ibid.

30. Ibid.

31. Ibid.

32. W. Denton, The Soul of Things (Boston: privately published, 1873); J.

Hudson, Those Sexy Saucer People (San Diego: Greenleaf Classics, 1967);
Keel, "Flying Saucer Subculture," pp. 871-96. Of lone percipients reporting
astral experiences, a quiet setting, such as meditation or resting in bed prior to
sleep, appears to induce the experience. Contactee William Ferguson always
began his numerous encounters during meditation. His experiences were
consciousness-raising, providing keen insights into his life.

Upon my return to Earth.... I thought I would go into the living room

where an old gentleman ... was staying at my house ... to see if he
would recognize me. As I went into the living room I spoke to him, but
there was no response. He couldn't see nor hear me.... There were a lot
of things I could do and think about and understand, that I never could
have understood before. So I went back to the room where I had been
relaxing,... and I looked for my body, but my body isn't there,... I again
placed myself upon the lounge and remained quiet until my being was
transformed back into this three-dimensional dense matter projection,
and thereupon went into the dining room and told my wife about my
experience. (W. Ferguson, My Trip to Mars [Potomac, Md.: Cosmic
Study Center, 1954]).

33. Between one-quarter and one-third of our sample reported a quasi-
religious tone in the content of their alien messages. Buck Nelson, a famous
1950s contactee, was instructed during a trip on a flying saucer to write the
"Twelve Laws of God on Venus," paralleling the Ten Commandments (W.
Brownell, UFOs: Key to the Earth's Destiny [Little Creek, Calif.: Legion of
Light Publications, 1980], pp. 68-72), while the multiple abductee claims of
Betty Andreasson reflect her fundamentalist Christian background, claiming to
have communicated with God and been given a Bible during some encounters
(R. Fowler, The Andreasson Affair [Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: PrenticeHall,
1979]). While both abductees and contactees report UFO experiences with
religious overtones, contactees generally keep a higher public profile, founding
organizations and writing books and pamphlets, most privately published.
Brownell, for instance, lists twenty-one different organizations for contactees in
the United States alone, and this is far from exhaustive.

34. Schwarz, "Psychiatric and Parapsychiatric Dimensions of UFOs."

35. A. Druffel, "Encounter on Dapple Gray Lane: Part 2," Flying Saucer
Review 23 (1977): 2.

36. Ibid., p. 21.

37. J. Rimmer, The Evidence for Alien Abductions (Wellingborough,

Northamptonshire: Aquarian, 1984); A. Lawson, "What Can We Learn from
Hypnosis of Imaginary Abductees?" Mutual UFO Network journal 120 (1977):
7-9; M. Moravec, "Psychological Influences on UFO 'Abductee' Testimonies,"
M. Moravec and J. Prytz, eds., UFOs over Australia: A Selection of Australian
Centre for UFO Studies Research Findings and Debate, published by the
Australian Centre for UFO Studies, 1985.

38. Lynn and Rhue, "FantasyProneness and Psychopathology"; "Fantasy

Proneness: Developmental Antecedents."

39. Wilson and Barber, "FantasyProne Personality," p. 358.

40. Ibid.

41. Rimmer, Evidence for Alien Abductions.

42. J. Fuller, The Interrupted Journey (New York: Dial, 1966).

43. Schwarz, UFO Dynamics: Book I; Rimmer, Evidence for Alien

Abductions.

44. J. Lorenzen and C. Lorenzen, Abducted! Confrontations with Beings
from Outer Space (New York: Berkeley, 1977).
 45. R. Story, The Encyclopedia of UFOs (New York: Doubleday, 1980); G.
Creighton, "Postscript to the Most Amazing Case of All," Flying Saucer Review
11 (1965): 24-25.

46. M. J. Colligan and L. R. Murphy, "A Review of Mass Psychogenic

Illness in Work Settings," in Mass Psychogenic Illness: A Social Psychological
Analysis, ed. M. Colligan, J. Pennebaker, L. Murphy (Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence
Erlbaum Associates, (1982).

47. C. Hansen, Witchcraft at Salem (New York: George Braziller, 1969).

48. Ongoing sexual contacts were more common. Typical is the case of
Elizabeth Klarer of Drakensberg, South Africa. A seemingly sincere lady who
has come under extreme criticism and ridicule in the press, she has staunchly
maintained that since April 7, 1956, she has had sex with and a child by "Akon"
from the planet "Menton." Akon contacted her for "breeding" purposes as their
race needed "new blood" and she was chosen for one of their "experiments."
They fell in love and had a son, "Alying," who she often visits along with Akon
on Menton. True to the typical FPP sexual profile, her alien companion was very
handsome and ideal, while the planet Menton was a utopian existence, having no
war, politics, or disease (C. Hind, "UFOs: African Encounters" [Zimbabwe:
Gemini, 19821; E. Klarer, Beyond the Light Barrier [Cape Town, South Africa:
Timmons, 1980]).

49. Wilson and Barber, "FantasyProne Personality," p. 346.

50. A. Gansberg and J. Gansberg, Direct Encounters: The Personal

Histories of UFO Abductees (New York: Walker and Walker, 1980).

51. T. G. Beckley, Timothy G. Beckley's Book of Space Contacts (New

York: Global Communications, 1980), pp. 33-34.

52. Interestingly, both Wilson and Barber ("FantasyProne Personality") and

Lynn and Rhue ("Fantasy Proneness Developmental Antecedents") found greater
levels of punishment during childhood among subjects classified as
fantasyprone. Although unable to find data on this category in our biographical
analysis, given the sensitive nature of the category and the accompanying social
stigma, this is understandable. Further, it would seem unlikely for instances of
childhood punishment or abuse to appear in a book where UFO experiences are
the primary topic. In this regard, it is worth noting the view of James Lorenzen,
the late international director of the Aerial Phenomena Research Organization:

One thing we have learned when we have gone into the background of
persons who claim to have been abducted by UFOs, to have had
contacts with UFOs, or to have received messages from space is that
for the most part they have a history of being battered children or have
had sad histories in other ways. (C. G. Fuller, comp. and ed.,
Proceedings of the First International UFO Congress [New York:
Warner, 1980], p. 325)

53. R. Kirk, The Secret Commonwealth of Elves, Fauns and Fairies
(London: Longman, 1815); T. Keightley, The Fairy Mythology (England, n.p.,
1815); W. Y. Evans-Wentz, The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries (Rennes,
France, 1909); K. Briggs, An Encyclopedia of Fairies (New York: Pantheon,
1976).

54. Creighton, "Postscript," pp. 24-25; J. Vallee, Passport to Magonia-From

Folklore to Flying Saucers (Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1969); L. Coleman and J.
Clark, The Unidentified (New York: Warner, 1975); Rimmer, Evidence for
Alien Abductions; H. Evans, The Evidence for UFOs (Wellingborough:
Aquarian, 1983); H. Evans, Visions, Apparitions, Alien Visitors
(Wellingborough: Aquarian, 1984).

55. Wilson and Barber, "Vivid Fantasy and Hallucinatory Abilities."

56. Wilson and Barber, "FantasyProne Personality," p. 367.

57. Rimmer, Evidence for Alien Abductions, p. 153.

 he study presented in chapter 12 suggests that UFO abductees and
contactees more closely resemble normal subjects who exhibit the FPP
syndrome than they do the non-FPP control group. But this finding does not
suggest that the group of percipients exhibits fewer psychopathological
symptoms than a control group of normal subjects. The critical issue is not
whether one diagnostic categorization (normal/pathological, FPP/non-FPP) is
more correct than the other. Recall that all conceptual schemes are human
creations that help us to understand phenomena and direct us toward effective
practice. The normal/abnormal distinction has often served as the vantage point
from which mental health professionals tried to understand the puzzling reports
of abduction or contact by aliens. Since these people report an experience that
society believes could not possibly have occurred, they possess
psychopathological symptoms. Thus, it is definitionally true that they can be
categorized as pathological individuals. However, they also are (in all
likelihood) fantasyprone personalities. In putting such individuals in two
conceptual groups, we now provide an additional degree of freedom for
understanding or therapeutic intervention. Fantasy is an important human
characteristic.

Seeing UFO abductees and contactees as otherwise normal people who happen
to be overactive fantasizers will be socially and therapeutically beneficial to the
UFO witnesses.

William James an Truth and Reality

William James, founder of scientific psychology in America,' offers insights that

can be applied to UFO witnesses. One of James's most basic philosophical
principles is the pragmatic view of truth and reality.

In the relative sense, then, the sense in which we contrast reality with
simple unreality, and in which one thing is said to have more reality
than another, and to be more believed, reality means simply relation to
our emotional and active life. This is the only sense which the word
ever has in the mouths of practical men. In this sense, whatever excites
and stimulates our interest is real: whenever an object so appeals to us
that we turn to it, accept it, fill our mind with it, or practically take
account of it, so far it is real for us, and we believe it. Whenever, on
the contrary, we ignore it, fail to consider it or act upon it, despise it,
reject it, forget it, so far it is unreal for us and disbelieved?

In a little less than two decades, James had refined this perspective into his
instrumental (or pragmatic) view of reality and truth:

Let me now say only this, that truth is one species of good, and not, as
is usually supposed, a category distinct from good, and coordinate with
it. The true is the name of whatever proves itself to be good in the way
of belief, and good, too, for definite, assignable reasons.3

This view of truth or reality as that which is significant or useful clashes

with the objectivist notion that truth and reality reside in characteristics of the
real world (as envisioned in the mirror-of-nature view of reality presented in
chapter 11). Many have claimed that the most profound recent advance in the
philosophy of science is in the shift away from this objectivist metaphor for
science toward a Jamesian, instrumentalist view that truth lies in what is useful
or practical.

Because mental-health professionals have always been confronted with the
immediate problem of what to do with the clients sitting before them, they have
always been sensitive to the importance of an idea's practicality. But this
penchant for seeing value in the utility of an idea, technique, or diagnosis has
often clashed with the long-standing Western belief that truth involves
something more than what is individually significant or pragmatically useful.

For example, James might have argued that clinicians have used diagnostic
categories over the years because diagnostic systems enable them to conceive of
clients' problems in ways that lead them to helpful therapeutic interventions.
Such utility is the chief argument for the validity of any diagnostic
categorization scheme. But scientist-practitioners are committed to periodically
testing the utility of various diagnostic practices by comparing their beliefs with
possible alternatives. Such periodic testing, with the possibility of revising one's
beliefs, lies at the very heart of scientific rationality and clinical wisdom.

The narrative approach to human thought is now sweeping psychology.'

From a narrative perspective, assigning a particular diagnosis to a certain set of
symptoms tells a particular story about the meaning of the symptoms. Doing so
is justified to the extent that the story helps to understand the client, the etiology
of the problem, the ways in which the symptoms might be ameliorated, and so
forth. But the essence of rationality for the scientist-practitioner lies in the
periodic testing, honing, refining, and possible revising of modes of thought and
action. This involves the scientist or clinician telling another possibly true story
about the meaning of the pattern of symptoms in question. To the extent that this
changed story makes an important difference (i.e., possesses greater practical
utility, represents a more intellectually satisfying understanding, produces
additional ethical or professional benefits, suggests novel predictions that are
later empirically corroborated, etc.5) relative to the initial story, to that extent is
its probable superior truth affirmed. This is how contemporary scientists employ
James's pragmatic criterion of truth in their work.

This book presents a story that depicts some UFO abductees and contactees
as fantasy prone rather than as severely disturbed individuals. In addition to
furnishing mental-health professionals with an alternative scheme for diagnosis
and treatment of such clients, we hope to demonstrate to scientist-practitioners
that the heart of professional rationality rests not in the truth of current beliefs,
but in a commitment to improving these beliefs. As philosopher of science
Stephen Toulmin put it, "A man demonstrates his rationality not by a
commitment to fixed ideas, stereotyped procedures, or immutable concepts, but
by the manner in which, and the occasions on which, he changes those ideas,
procedures, and concepts."6

The emergence of this constructivist metatheory in psychology' has moved
us away from either/ or considerations of the truth value of differing
conceptualizations (e.g., psychopathological or fantasy prone). Issues of "truth"
often give way to considerations of utility. Because human thought might be
understood as instances of storytelling,' psychotherapy can be seen as instances
of story elaboration, narrative modification and repair.' The critical issue, for the
diagnosis of UFO abductees and contactees, takes on a different hue in a
constructivist perspective. Is it helpful to the course of therapy to identify the
client as a person whose rich and absorbing fantasy life can sometimes be
harnessed to produce creative and productive personal and professional lives (as
was often the case with Wilson and Barber's10 normal FPP sample), or as one
whose runaway fantasies invite derision and potentially risk the diminishment of
the quality of life and societal status? Can therapy framed in this manner help
UFO witnesses more than therapeutic efforts grounded in the view that such
clients' psychopathology is pervasive? We'll never know the answer to these last
questions until mental health professionals begin to treat these clients from the
FPP perspective.

UFO Clubs

More generally, how might abductees and contactees themselves think of their
experiences with aliens? At present, most people who "come out" publicly with
their stories risk ridicule, but it is natural for people to talk about such unsettling
experiences, despite society's generally unsupportive attitude. Thus, many such
people have sought out support groups of like-minded individuals.

While William James would see UFO groups as a healthy way to deal with
the experience of UFO contact, these pro-UFO groups often fall into the same
mistakes as society in general-they tend to focus on the reality of specific aliens
and alien contact. In doing so, group members simply take the opposite stance
against the objectivist majority in (what James believes to be) a completely
wrongheaded conversation. Does anyone really believe that the possibility of the
existence of aliens will be settled by people stating their beliefs, and objecting to
the beliefs of people who think differently? Of course not! The more important
function for UFO groups (from James's perspective) would be to help people
think pragmatically about the consequences of their beliefs and how they will act
(or refrain from acting) on those beliefs in their everyday lives.

Recall our praise of foresight in chapter 11. UFO clubs could be helpful to
the extent that they encourage people to use their foresight to determine and deal
with the likely pragmatic consequences of their belief or their decision not to
believe that their experiences with aliens: (a) really occurred; (b) reflect their
fantasyproneness; (c) represent pervasive psychopathology; (d) suggest that they
should let only their most intimate friends know their beliefs; (e) suggest that
they announce their beliefs to the world; and so forth. While UFO clubs often
already serve this important function, there is a strong temptation for groups to
lapse into an unhelpful fixation on objectivist, ontological concerns, such as
"What were your aliens like?" and "Did your abduction include experimentation
and questioning?" Further, conversations at clubs could well devolve into
conspiracy theories, which are pragmatically unhelpful.

If you are convinced that aliens do not exist and that no contacts or
abductions have occurred, you may well believe that UFO percipients are either
hoaxers or crazy. From this perspective, any solution, such as seeing the issue as
a case of overactive fantasies, is suspect because it gives some degree of
credence to either a lie or craziness. Thus, all talk of seeing the abduction as the
result of an overactive fantasy that may or may not be pragmatically useful to
continue to believe might strike you as ill-advised and potentially dangerous.

But consider the case of Whitley Strieber.

Prior to the night of December 26, 1985, fantasy novelist Whitley Strieber
had it all: wealth, fame, a loving wife, a successful career. During the 1970s and
early 1980s he attained global notoriety as an author of bestselling novels. The
Wolfen, The Hunger, and Black Magic are but a few. Some were even made into
movies. But something bizarre happened to him that night.

Strieber was asleep with his wife, Anne, in a picturesque log cabin nestled
in upstate New York. Snow fell lightly outside. Sometime during the night he
awoke with a bolt. Startled upon hearing an unnerving swirling sound in the
downstairs living room, he stiffened with fear, peering intensely at the bedside
burglar alarm panel. All was normal according to the reassuring glow of lights.
Then, still puzzled but beginning to reassure himself, he was suddenly overcome
with disbelief. One of the bedroom doors was opening. A small figure edged
around the corner. Strieber lay mute and paralyzed with wonder and fright. It
was impossible, yet it was happening. The silhouette of a three-and-a-half-
foottall creature moved forward. Glaring brightness suddenly flooded the room
as the motion-sensitive light went on. Strieber groped for the shotgun by the bed
and pursued the creature downstairs, but a search of the premises revealed
nothing. Confused, he returned to the bedroom. Without warning the figure
jumped out and rushed toward him. Everything went black. He next recalls being
paralyzed and floating into what appeared to be an alien spacecraft, where tiny
creatures probed his mind. This incident is one of several contacts Strieber has
claimed since.

Strieber's 1987 book Communion: A True Story" is a confession of his

belief that he has been visited by aliens over many years, twice abducted and
examined by them. That the book sold more than five million copies suggests
that many people find the topic worthy of attention. In it Strieber describes his
extreme agitation and numerous paranoid symptoms that appeared to be
worsening until he "admitted the truth" to himself that the aliens and his
abductions were real. The book documents how this decision led to a remission
of his symptoms and an improvement in his relationships with family and
friends.

Although Strieber's decision to see the aliens as real fits his life nicely, we
suspect that few clinicians could feel comfortable in endorsing Strieber's
accommodation with reality. But his options were extremely limited: either the
aliens did not exist and he was delusional, or the aliens were real and society is
struggling mightily to repress that terrifying reality. If you were Whitley
Strieber, which option would you choose?

What about a third possibility-that the aliens did not exist and that Strieber
is a fantasyprone personality type? He gave evidence of virtually every FPP
symptom in Communion. Might Strieber, his family and friends stand a better
chance of understanding his experiences from the perspective of an FPP
storyline?

Alien Contact and the Search for Truth

Are there aliens out there? Have they already made contact with humans?
Appendix A presents over two hundred brief case histories of reported
communication between aliens and humans. Far from exhaustive, this
compilation represents but the tip of the iceberg of a growing social
phenomenon. What cannot be denied is that science is searching for answers to
this question with all the intellectual and technological resources in its power.
Similarly, the explosion of books, movies, and television programs that posit
alien contact proves that the imaginations of the creative and artistic
communities are consumed with this idea. Why wouldn't the rest of humanity
want to get in on this exciting exploration into the possibility that there might be
other forms of intelligent life out there? Don't many scientists in their enthusiasm
sometimes overstate their scientific claims? Don't members of the artistic
community sometimes go overboard and produce bad books, bad movies, and
bad TV? Then why is it a surprise that some ordinary people also get carried
away?

Of course, this book cannot be drawn to a close without restating the

assumption upon which the entire project rests-that the UFO sightings, contacts,
and abductions do not occur. Consider a parallel phenomenon-belief in God.
Some have the gift of faith, and others do not. To the believer, proof of the
existence of God is unnecessary; to the nonbeliever, proof is impossible. While
religious believers attempt to share their "truth" with others they are often
scorned and derided by society. But only if the final judgment comes will the
prophet have honor in his own country.12 If aliens arrive among us, who
wouldn't be proud to have been the first to have been contacted or abducted?

Since most people probably don't believe that the day of unquestioned alien
contact will ever arrive, it is more important to examine the opposite side of the
God/ alien parallel above. What if God didn't create humans-what if humans
created the idea of God?13 Would we then have to decry all believers in religion
as having been "out of touch with reality" all their lives? Of course not! Their
belief in God made religion a part of the reality of their lives. On balance,
religion seems to be a useful and good influence on humans.14 One is hard-
pressed to come up with an alternative worldview (e.g., liberal democracy,
secular humanism, communism, free market capitalism) upon which to stake
one's life that produces more positive and fewer negative benefits overall."
Religion helps most people to lead happier, healthier, and more charitable lives
than they might have lived with alternative worldviews. But even if your
summary evaluation on religion is more negative, most of us would still defend
theists' right to think, believe, and say whatever they desire, so long as it doesn't
infringe on the rights of others.

So what is the pragmatic evaluation of belief in aliens if aliens don't exist?

Obviously that will vary from person to person. Suppose belief in aliens leads a
young person to pursue a career in astronomy that eventually produces great
scientific breakthroughs. Was her belief in an "untrue fiction" a bane upon her
existence? What of Whitley Strieber's experience? He got a book, a movie, fame,
fortune, relief from noxious psychological symptoms, and more out of his
experience. Is this not a blessing overall? Perhaps, perhaps not. There are
negative aspects to Strieber's and everyone's choice of belief systems. Every
choice of which stories we believe about reality as if they were literally true,
involves both gains and losses. Thus it is the utility of the various belief systems
available to us that ought to hold the key to our decisions regarding what we
ought to believe.

If we someday learn that there is no God, how will we evaluate the history
of religious belief? Did we learn anything about our nature as humans from our
experiment with religion? What of the good that came from the many billions of
people whose lives were enriched by their beliefs of God? Were these not
enormous benefits to derive from a "failed" experiment?

Similarly, imagine that someday humanity's great experiment to determine
if Earth holds the only intelligent life in our universe is answered negatively.
Will all our efforts then have to be counted as wasted? Certainly not! For this
end returns us to our beginning-all that will remain are humans seeking meaning
in life and companionship in an otherwise cold and lonely universe. Does this
not tell us something very important about ourselves? Even this meager reward
would be rich indeed, for it would help us to better understand what it means to
be human.

Yet what if our spiritual journey leads us to God and our scientific journey
leads us to other intelligent beings? Then no honest scientist, theologian, or
believer who played any role at all in these journeys would need to justify their
part in humankind's great adventures of discovery.

Notes
 1. E. G. Boring, A History of Experimental Psychology (New York:
Century, 1929).

2. W. James, The Principles of Psychology (New York: Holt, 1890), p.

924.

3. W. James, Pragmatism (New York: Longmans, 1907), pp. 76-77.

4. J. Bruner, Actual Minds, Possible Worlds (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard

University Press, 1986); L. Cochran, Portrait and Story (Westport, Conn.:
Greenwood, 1986); G. S. Howard, A Tale of Two Stories: Excursions into a
Narrative Approach to Psychology (Notre Dame, Ind.: Academic Publications,
1989); M. Mair, Between Psychology and Psychotherapy: A Poetics of
Experience (London: Routledge, 1989); D. McAdams, Power, Intimacy and the
Life Story (Homewood, Ill.: Dorsey, 1985); D. P. Polkinghome, Narrative
Psychology (Albany: SUNY Press, 1988); T. R. Sarbin, ed., Narrative
Psychology: The Storied Nature of Human Conduct (New York: Praeger, 1986);
D. Spence, Narrative Truth and Historical Truth (New York: Norton, 1982); E.
Stone, Black Sheep and Kissing Cousins (New York: Penguin, 1988).

5. G. S. Howard, "The Role of Values in the Science of Psychology,"
American Psychologist 40 (1985): 255-65; T. Kuhn, The Essential Tension
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1977); E. McMullin, "Values in
Science," in P. D. Asquith and T. Nickles, eds., Proceedings of the 1982
Philosophy of Science Association, vol. 2 (East Lansing, Mich.: Philosophy of
Science Association, 1983), pp. 3-23.

6. S. Toulmin, Human Understanding (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton

University Press, 1972), p. x.

7. J. S. Efran, R. J. Lukens, and M. D. Lukens, "Constructivism: What's

In It for You?" The Family Therapy Networker 12 (1988): 26-35; K. J. Gergen,
"The Social Constructionist Movement in Modern Psychology," American
Psychologist 40 (1985): 266-75; S. Scarr, "Constructing Psychology: Making
Facts and Fables for Our Times," American Psychologist 40 (1985): 499-512.

8. Polkinghorne, Narrative Psychology; Mair, Between Psychology and

Psychotherapy; G. S. Howard, (1991). op. cit.
 9. Howard, Tale of Two Stories.

10. S. C. Wilson and T. X. Barber, "Vivid Fantasy and Hallucinatory

Abilities in the Life Histories of Excellent Hypnotic Subjects ('Somnambules'):
Preliminary Report with Female Subjects," in E. Klinger, ed., Imagery, Volume
2, Concepts, Results and Applications (New York: Plenum Press, 1981).

11. W. Strieber, Communion: A True Story (New York: Avon, 1987).

12. To paraphrase the Gospel of Matthew 13:57.

13. Social scientists have a long tradition of putting a decidedly negative

spin on the role of religion in human lives. For example, Karl Marx considered
religion to be the "opiate of the masses," while Sigmund Freud saw all religion
as infantile attempts at wish fulfillment (S. Freud, "The Future of an Illusion," in
James Strachey, ed., The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works
of Sigmund Freud, vol. 21 [London: Hogarth Press, 19611, pp. 3-56 [original
work published in 1927]). However, from the pragmatic point of view (W.
James, Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking [New York:
Longmans, Green & Co., 1907]; W. James, The Varieties of Religious
Experience: A Study in Human Nature [New York: Longmans, Green & Co.,
19021; W. James, A Pluralistic Universe: Hibbert Lectures at Manchester
College on the Present Situation in Philosophy [New York: Longmans, Green &
Co., 1909]), such attempts to "explain away" religion miss the point of religion
completely. The present authors agree with James's view in this regard.

14. In spite of our overall positive evaluation of religion, the authors

recognize that religious belief is rarely an unqualified good. For example, in
spite of the tremendous good that the Catholic Church has produced over the
years, it is still is at least partially responsible for the Crusades, the Inquisition,
the Hundred Years' War, the current strife in Northern Ireland, and many other
regrettable historical events.

15. Recognize that a believer in a particular worldview is the person least
likely to be able to list that perspective's drawbacks. Thus, if readers have a
difficult time imagining the downside to any of the worldviews noted above,
they might need to do some homework. For example, for all the benefits of free-
market capitalism, it has been criticized for what it does to the working class (by
Karl Marx) and more recently for the ecological destruction it wreaks upon our
earth (see G. Hardin, Living within Limits: Ecology, Economics and Population
Taboos [New York: Oxford University Press, 1993]; G. S. Howard, Ecological
Psychology: Creating a More Earth-Friendly Human Nature [Notre Dame, Ind.:
University of Notre Dame Press, 1997]).

A Chronological Listing of over Two Hundred Cases of Reported
Communication between Aliens and Humans
1. 1906, South Dakota
Watching a craft land near a well, Herbert V. DeMott (age nine) approached it,
and "a door rolled back and I was welcomed inside." The occupants, ordinary-
looking men, "sat on camp stools." He was told the craft's outer shell contained
"helium gas, and when the lever was moved the magnetism from the earth was
cut off," which enabled the vessel to rise. The occupants took water from a horse
trough for use "in making electricity."

Democrat-Herald (Albany, Oregon), August 27, 1973.

2. Late July 1909, Port Molyneux, New Zealand
An airship landed and the witness reportedly talked with its Japanese-appearing
occupants.

The Bruce Herald (Milton, New Zealand), August 2, 1909, citing a 1909 letter
sent to and published in The Free Press (Clutha, New Zealand).
3. 1912, western Canada, morning
A sixyear-old boy living on a farm claims to have been in contact with "space
men" in a round craft resembling a helicopter. The short male beings had no
knees or elbows and had circular feet; they examined the boy, communicating
telepathically.

John B. Musgrave, UFO Occupants & Critters (Amherst, Wis.: Amherst Press
and Global Communications, 1980), pp. 40, 56, citing a personal phone
conversation between John Brent Musgrave and the witness, in addition to a
letter at the Center for UFO Studies, Evanston, Illinois.
4. Summer, 1920, Mattawa River, Ontario, Canada
As a teen, Albert Coe claims to have been walking in a rocky area and heard a
young blond, blue-eyed boy caught in the rocks, yelling for help. He wore a
silvery, leatherlike suit with broken "dials and instruments" on his chest. The
boy said he had landed his "plane" nearby, stopping to fish. Helping him back to
the "plane," Coe found a silver-colored saucer (about twenty feet in diameter)
standing on three legs. The boy made Coe vow secrecy about the incident, and
Coe pushed the boy up into the vessel, which flew off.

Coe claims a series of contacts with the being over the years, often fishing
together. He was one of one hundred volunteers sent "at the turn of the century"
to monitor Earth's technological development and encourage peace. The entity
and his companions are from Tau Ceti but now live on Venus. They've placed an
"ionized neutralizing screen" around Earth, preventing "any hydrogen chain
reaction" which could destroy it. They have life spans of six hundred years, are
vegetarians, and have the sole intent "to help their fellow man."

Daily News (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania), July 5-7,1967, in articles by Jack

Helsel.
5. August 20, 1924, Denver, Colorado
Mrs. H. C. Hutchinson claims to have received psychic messages from Elder
Brothers on Mars. They said Martians colonized Earth two million years ago-
building Atlantis, Lemuria, and Antarctic cities. Martians now live underground
on Mars. She was told that Martians don't make love, but healthy, intelligent
females have babies via parthenogenesis, which is frustrating to Martian men
and one of the reasons they are visiting Earth-to reconquer it. ("Parthenogenesis"
is defined in Webster's as "reproduction by the development of an unfertilized
ovum, seed, or spore, as in certain insects, algae, etc.")

W. Raymond Drake, Gods and Spacemen in the Ancient West (New York: New
American Library, 1974), p. 15, citing Robert Ernest Dickhoff, Homecoming of
the Martians (Makelumna Hill, Calif.: Health Research).

6. 1924, Holy Name Convent School, Dade City, Florida, day

Mrs. Evelyn Wendt, beauty salon operator, recalls an incident fifty years earlier,
when she was a schoolgirl playing in the yard of the Holy Name Convent
School. "The first thing I remember is that this eggshaped thing was on the
ground, and this bright light was shining in my eyes." The light went out, a
"hatch" opened, and little robot people emerged. "They were smaller than I and
resembled animated flowers with faces where the bud would be. Remember, I
was just a bitty thing then, and kids don't fear flowers."

They carried a weaponlike device to the school's science building. "I

wanted to help them, but someone said, 'Stop.' I replied that they were so small, I
was going to assist. The creatures let me try, but I couldn't even budge the
machine. I was told they were going to stop the work that was being done in the
science building and they said if the work continued, they would destroy the
place." Asked what the "work" was, she said she didn't know. "All I know is
later I heard the place was a shambles."

She said, "There seemed to be a man with the little people ... everything
looked real, even though I wasn't so sure. The conversation wasn't real talking,"
but she understood mentally what was being said. As they were leaving, "they
asked if I wanted to go. I said, 'No,' but I could have gone." She adds, "They
promised to come back for me in thirty-five years, but that was up a long time
ago, and nothing happened that I know of." Then the "saucer" flew straight up,
hovered a minute and disappeared.

Timothy G. Beckley, Timothy G. Beckley's Book of Space Contacts (New York:

Global Communications, 1981), pp. 26-27, quoting from The Weekday
newspaper (West Palm Beach, Florida).
7. October 15, 1928, Lake Geneva, Wisconsin
Farmer Velma Thayer claims a flying saucer landed and "little fellows" (blond
and four feet six inches to five feet three inches tall) emerged and stayed for ten
days. One of them, Ramu, said they hailed from Saturn and were part of a scout
ship with peaceful intentions. She claims the U.S. military placed a single guard
around the saucer and high-ranking officials inspected it. The saucer flew off
when the guard fell asleep. Thayer says she occasionally makes contact with the
beings.

Enquirer (Cincinnati, Ohio), August 1955.

8. May 4, 1932, 150 miles north of Toronto, Canada

A retired minister claims to have seen bright lights and visions when having to
make important decisions about church affairs. "All at once the main street was
lit up with the whitest of white lights. It was much brighter than the Sun at noon
days ... the City lights looked like globs of blood in the whiteness. The light
came from 'a round Cloud' with an 'etched' or 'scalloped' outer edge ... a light
streamed down like a laser beam, which I've seen since." He then turned and saw
"standing beside me ... a young man with golden hair" and a similar colored suit.
"He had radiant blue eyes, [was] about my height-he smiled, oh how beautiful he
was. He told me my real work would be training ... in that City, he said
remember the cottage in the rear of the Mansions are as important as those who
dwell in the mansions...."

Personal letter from John B. Musgrave, citing a letter written to him by a retired
(anonymous) minister, dated March 16, 1976. Musgrave is employed with the
Mobile Planetarium Project of the Provincial Museum of Alberta, Edmonton,
Canada.
9. 1932, New Jersey
At age ten, sign painter Howard Menger claims to have encountered "the most
exquisite woman my young eyes had ever beheld." She had golden hair and eyes
and wore a shiny, nylonlike seamless outfit similar to what a skier would wear.
"I have come a long way to see you, Howard ... and to talk with you." She "knew
where I had come from and what my purpose would be on Earth." She said "her
people" had been watching him for a long time and "we are contacting our own."
The woman "answered questions before I could ask them ... she seemed to know
all my thoughts." She was "about my mother's height." She told Howard "of a
great change to take place ... wasteful wars, torture and destruction would be
brought on by misunderstandings of people." Before leaving, she told him they
would meet again and that "they will always be around-watching out for you ...
guiding you."

In his several subsequent contacts, he described the aliens as looking "just
like we do," except for their dress. They "come from Mars, Saturn, Venus and
probably Jupiter." Because they are "our brothers" and "love us," their purpose is
to create a higher understanding "so we can help ourselves in preventing any
future destruction of our planet." They are vegetarians, and have schools, cities,
factories, and gardens. During a later contact, Menger says he was flown to the
moon in a bell-shaped craft, and he saw many buildings and was able to breathe
comfortably in the atmosphere.

Howard Menger, From Outer Space (New York: Pyramid, 1967), also published
as From Outer Space to You (Clarksburg, W.Va.: Saucerian Press, 1959).
10. Winter, 1936, near Port Colborne, Ontario,
Canada
At age fifteen, Johann Purchalski observed "a saucer type object" pass over Port
Colborne and land in a nearby field. While investigating, he found a "space ship"
and was introduced to the occupants. Johann said "they did not wish to cause any
harm by killing any of the earth people." After being shown "their machinery, I
left." He was given a metal badge which "states that [the ship] was owned by a
member of the Planet Mars Police Force in the main city, Marsopolis."

Personal letter from John B. Musgrave, Mobile Planetarium Project at the

Provincial Museum of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada, citing Saucers, Space &
Science, 1965 yearbook, p. 21.

11. January 12, 1947, northeastern USA, 7:30 P.M.

At age forty-six, William Ferguson was heavily into meditation and relaxation
techniques, and while in a deep meditation state he traveled at "the speed of
consciousness" and reached Mars within ten seconds. A "great Celestial Being"
greeted him and said he wanted to discuss "the observations that we have made
of your planet ... and we also want to tell you things that we want you to say to
Earthlings." The "Celestial Being," called Khauga, showed him a great canal
network and large cities enclosed in an electromagnetic field. Martians moved
via levitation. They all had red hair and were about a foot shorter than humans,
with broad features (not sharp) and red complexions. Their scientists (called
Uniphysicists) dressed in cream-colored gold-trimmed robes and had
shoulderlength hair. Ferguson was asked, "Is it true ... people on your planet go
out and kill one another in battle?" Khauga replied, "The very thought ... to us is
abhorrent." Martians "are twenty thousand years ahead of us in all kinds of
thinking, consciousness, spiritual development, and scientific development."
Knowing Earth has "been passing through a great crisis ... and that they needed
assistance," the Martians told Ferguson, "We are going to release positive energy
particles into the Earth's atmosphere ... to counteract the negative energy
particles that man himself has released." Khauga wanted the following message
relayed: "To all fellow Earthmen, I can assure you we are now in a wonderful
development period in our Earth's history. We have entered the expansion phase
of our development, and as a result, all things will become new and finer for the
enjoyment and happiness for each and every being."

William Ferguson, My Trip to Mars, a 13-page pamphlet published by the
Cosmic Study Center, 7405 Masters Drive, Potomac, Maryland 20854 USA,
September 1954.

12. July 23, 1947, near Bauru, state of Sao Paulo, Brazil

Jose C. Higgins heard a highpitched whistle as he watched a large grayish-white

metallic disc land, resting on three legs. After his coworkers fled, he found
himself alone with three seven-foot-tall entities in "transparent suits covering
head and body, and inflated like rubber bags." They carried "metal boxes" on
their backs. Clothing, visible through the suits, resembled brightly colored paper.
The beings, all identical, had large bald heads, huge round eyes, no eyebrows,
and legs longer in proportion than ours. Higgins found them strangely beautiful.

They surrounded him and apparently tried to lure him into the disc, but,
seeing they shunned sunlight, he managed to elude them and hid nearby for half
an hour. Watching from thick shrubs, he watched them move with extraordinary
agility, frolicking about and tossing huge stones. They then reentered the craft
and flew off.

Gordon Creighton, "The Humanoids in Latin America," in C. Bowen, ed., The
Humanoids (Great Britain: Futura, 1977), pp. 88-89, citing Diari da Tarde
(Curitiba), Brazil, August 8, 1947; 0 Cruzeiro (Rio de Janeiro), 1954; La Razon
(Buenos Aires), Argentina, April 13, 1950; Flying Saucer Review 7
(NovemberDecember 1961), which cites a report from the Aerial Phenomena
Research Organization.
13. 1948, Lineville, Alabama
An anonymous woman was drawing water from a well when a bright round
object landed in a nearby cornfield. Two men with long hair and beards and
wearing long robes emerged. One approached and told her in accented English
not to be afraid, assuring her no harm if she would cooperate and answer some
questions. After they talked for about thirty minutes, she ran into her house, but
the other being stood in the doorway. The two beings then reentered the craft
and flew off.

Alabama Times, March 25, 1973.

14. December 4, 1949, Volta Redonda, Brazil
Mario Restier claims to have been taken to an unknown planet in an object
similar to a "bathtub" filled with liquid. He passed out during the trip and awoke
upon landing to find a planet of handsome beings about five feet ten inches tall.
Told to wear their clothing, he put on a toga and electric shoes and was shown a
space museum, factories, and "study district." After staying for about three days,
he returned to Earth and found four months had passed. Restier also claims a
later contact.

SBEDV Bulletin, April 15, 1968; also SBEDV Special Bulletin of Humanoid
Cases, 1975.

15. March 13, 1950, Penon de los Banos, Mexico

A ship "equipped with a powerful propeller" landed and a pilot emerged

speaking Spanish. The Martian told a native that cities on Mars were
underground and Venus was very hot, humid, and overrun with flying reptiles.
He said Earth will destroy itself in World War III, after which Martians will
colonize our planet. A strong sulphur smell filled the air as the ship left.

El Universal (Mexico City), March 14, 1950.

16. July 23, 1950, near Guyancourt Airport, France, 11 P.m.

Claude Blondeau saw two round objects "resembling two enormous folded
napkins, one upside down on the other" hovering above the ground. A
normalsized man in a "flying suit" emerged from each craft. They "installed or
moved" a "plate that rested on a base similar to rubber." Blondeau approached,
asking if they were having trouble. One replied (in French), "Yes, but not for
long." The inside was brilliantly lit and contained a chair next to a control
console, with a large steering wheel. Asking how the ship was operated, the man
replied, "Energy." The being reentered the craft, the portholes glowing as it left.
The entire episode lasted two minutes.

Jimmy Guieu, Flying Saucers Come from Another World (London: Hutchinson,
1956), pp. 229-31.
17. Summer 1950, Manitoba, Canada
After seeing an NBC-TV documentary in January 1979 on UFO abductions,
Virginia Horton (pseudonym) told UFO investigator Budd Hopkins that at age
six on her grandfather's Manitoba farm, while going to gather eggs in a barn, she
remembered standing in the yard and her leg being wet. Her left leg had a
painless one-halfinch-deep by one-inch-long incision, but no tear in her jeans.
She requested regressive hypnosis, which was performed by New York
psychologist Dr. Aphrodite Clamar in 1979. She told that while walking to the
barn, she was suddenly lying on a "couch" and seeing "plenty of light" (soft
grayish in tint). She was told that her leg cut wouldn't hurt, "that they need a
little bitty piece of you for understanding." An unseen being said, "We're from a
long way away" in the sky and that there are many inhabited worlds similar to
Earth. The being said his place of origin was "nice" and "he was very happy." He
offered to take her at a later time to visit other worlds, but cautioned: "Your
Mom would be upset if we went away for a while."

Horton was reminded by her mother (during a 1979 phone conversation)

that ten years later, while on a picnic with her parents in a wooded area in
France, she emerging from the woods with blood on her blouse and no apparent
memory of what happened. Under hypnosis with Dr. Clamar, she recalled
hearing her name being called telepathically, and she walked to a grounded
UFO, was escorted inside and made to feel happy. Tissue and blood samples
from inside her nose were taken. She was told to forget the experience.

Budd Hopkins, Missing Time: A Documented Study of UFO Abductions (New
York: Richard Marek, 1981), pp. 128-53, 184-215.
18. July 1951, Atlanta, Georgia
Fred Reagan claims that while flying his Piper Cub, a bright "lozenge" collided
with him, causing the plane to crash from a height of eight thousand feet. After
several seconds he stopped falling and was drawn up into the object. Inside was
a trio of threefeet-high beings looking like "stalks of metallic asparagus."
Reagan passed out and later regained consciousness, finding himself lying on a
soft substance and hearing a mechanical-sounding voice. It said, "We have
corrected an abnormality in your body, called cancer ... we offer this as slight
reparation for the loss we have caused you." The beings were on Earth "to
observe" our "primitive civilization." He passed out again and awakened in a
hospital after being found near his wrecked plane. Reagan reportedly died soon
after from brain tissue degeneration due to radiation exposure.

Action Magazine, May 1955.

19. 1951, Spain
Someone named Bordas claims to have met and supplied food to aliens and has
since been contacted regularly. They come from "Titan."

Jacques Vallee, Messengers of Deception (New York: Bantam, 1980), pp. 59,
90-93, originally published in June 1979, Berkeley, Calif.: And/Or Press.

20. May 23, 1952, Los Angeles, California, 12:45 P.M.

Orfeo Angelucci suffers a prickling sensation in the hands, arms, back, and feet
during the approach of thunderstorms, and claims similar "symptoms" just prior
to or after alien contact. He claims to have seen a flying saucer in Trenton, New
Jersey, August 4,1946. Contact was allegedly made on May 23, 1952. Driving
home from work just outside Los Angeles, he felt a prickling sensation while
observing a red, luminous, ovalshaped object in the sky. Angelucci followed it
off a side, road where it hovered above a field. Several beings appeared on a
luminous screen, communicating telepathically. He was told that friendly,
helpful beings were visiting Earth because life on Earth was at a crisis point.

During a later contact (August 2, 1952), he described meeting a spaceman
who was taller than he, well-built, wearing a tightfitting, seamless uniform. The
alien was totally solid but wavered like a ghost. He said Earth was called "the
home of sorrows" and we face a crisis which in history will be known as "the
Great Accident." Space people are here to assist humanity during this critical
period. Bryant Reeve and Helen Reeve, Flying Saucer Pilgrimage (Amherst,
Wis.: Amherst Press, 1957), pp. 222-32.

21. Late July 1952, near Mormon Mesa, Nevada, about 5 A.M.

Falling asleep in his truck in the Nevada desert, Truman Bethurum awoke
surrounded by "eight to ten small men, all about four feet eight inches to five
feet high." He said the beings were fully developed men. They spoke English,
saying, "We have no trouble with any language." Bethurum was invited aboard a
nearby saucershaped "space scow" and was introduced to their captain, Aura
Rhanes, whose "smooth skin was beautiful olive and roses." The thirty-two-man
crew were "Latin types ... [with complexions] something like Italians." All were
neatly dressed in uniforms similar to those "worn by Greyhound bus drivers."
All had coal-black hair and dark eyes. Aura Rhanes wore a black skirt and red
blouse. She was four and a half feet tall, and she said they hailed from the planet
Clarion. They came to Earth to rekindle old values like family and home in order
to prevent a nuclear holocaust and bring humanity closer to God. Bethurum
wasn't told how old Aura was because, like Earth women, she was cautious
about revealing her age, but she assured him she was "under a thousand." Based
on conversations with Captain Rhanes, Bethurum predicted that "there will be no
atomic or hydrogen warfare, ever," and that "our fiveyear-old children of today
will not marry soldiers. We are on the threshold of a lasting peace and prosperity
era."

Truman Bethurum's personal scrapbook (original copy), courtesy of Robert C.

Girard, UFO book dealer, Scotia, New York.

22. October 14, 1952, Bakersfield, California, 9:30 A.M.

Auto repair shop owner Cecil Michael observed a flying saucer with two
humanlike occupants near Bakersfield in mid-August. He viewed the craft "too
closely" and "had been spotted and tagged for a return visit."

At about 9:30 A.M. on October 14, Michael was working alone in his shop
when two "big men" (some 220 pounds and about six feet tall) walked in. They
had "medium dark" complexions, were "smooth-shaven" and "athletic"
appearing. They asked telepathically: "Did we scare you, Red?" "You sure as
hell did," he replied. The beings stayed for a couple of months, vanishing
whenever customers came.

One day, the beings put Michael in a "trance" state, taking him on a
telepathic trip. He was tied up inside a saucer, and the two beings took him to an
orange planet that was very hot (about one hundred degrees), where he met the
"devil." Suddenly, "In the middle of a light, Christ appeared in plain view.... I
turned to the old bum [the devil] and, pointing my hand to the light, said, "If you
don't let me go, He will send for me." The devil responded: 'Yes, He is always
interfering.'" Michael was returned to Earth after spending about two and a half
weeks on the planet. Upon returning, the two space beings tried to regain his
friendship, asking him to write the story of the incident with the devil for the
benefit of humanity. The beings then left, never to return.
Cecil Michael, Round Trip to Hell in a Flying Saucer (Auckland, New Zealand:
Phoenix, 1971), originally published by Vantage Press, n.p., 1955.
23. November 20, 1952, California desert, afternoon
Prior to his initial contact, George Adamski claims to have taken over five
hundred photos of UFOs. After several unsuccessful expeditions to the
California desert in hopes of meeting aliens, he reported contact on November
20. A "gigantic cigarshaped silvery ship without wings or appendages" landed in
a flash of light. A man from Venus, shorter than Adamski, but generally human
in appearance, with long, beautiful golden hair, emerged. They communicated
telepathically for about an hour. "Orthon" said the friendly Venusians "are
concerned about the buildup of radioactivity in the Earth's atmosphere. They feel
the radiation from the U.S. and Russian atomic tests is a danger to our planet."
On several future occasions Adamski claims contacts with space beings,
frequently being invited to board ships from Venus, Mars, Saturn, and Jupiter,
often enjoying the company of "beautiful" female inhabitants. The beings were
normal enough in appearance that they often made contact with humans in bars
and nightclubs before inviting them aboard. An elderly space being, "The
Master," told Adamski that the space people came to save Earth from nuclear
destruction and that Adamski had been selected to warn humankind.

George Adamski, Inside the Spaceships (New York: Abelard-Schuman, 1955).

24. 1952, Angatuba Mountains, state of Sao Paulo, Brazil

Aladina Felix (alias Dino Kraspedon) claims that a bell-shaped UFO landed in
the mountains, and he entered it and made contact. One of the occupants, a man
over six feet tall, told him they lived on lo and Ganymede (two moons of
Jupiter), where there were races of tall, medium, and small people, including
races of black, white, and red-skinned beings. The craft then left.

In March 1954, Felix claims a male Venusian pilot came to his house in a
cashmere suit, white shirt, and blue tie. They have met on numerous occasions
since, discussing flying saucers, how they fly, and the universe.

In 1965, Felix warned of disasters to hit Sao Paulo, and in 1968 predicted a
wave of violence in the city. He was correct. In 1968 public buildings and police
stations were dynamited. When the perpetrators were caught, Felix was named
as leader and arrested on August 22, 1968. The group reportedly planned to take
over Brazil via a series of assassinations.

Dino Kraspedon, My Contact with Flying Saucers (London: Neville Spearman,

1959); John A. Keel, Why UFOs (New York: Manor, 1970), pp. 26163; also
published as UFOs: Operation Trojan Horse (New York: Putnam's Sons, 1970);
Gordon Creighton, "The Humanoids in Latin America," in Charles Bowen, ed.,
The Humanoids (Great Britain: Futura, 1977), p. 90, citing in part, Dino
Kraspedon, Meu Contacto com os Discs Voadores (Rio de Janeiro, 1958), the
original Portuguese edition of My Contact with Flying Saucers.

25. 1952, Lomo de Ballena, Peru, 4:30 P.M.

Driving north on the Pan-American Highway, an anonymous male identified

only as C.A.V. said he saw a shining metallic, sandy-colored disc hovering just
above the ground. He approached it and three "mummylike" figures (five feet
tall) emerged. Their legs were "joined together" like "twin bananas" standing on
"one large foot." Their "head had no features" except for a transparent jellylike
substance "with a bubble in the middle" where the eyes should be. They were
naked, showed "no sign of sex," and had "towely skin." They asked (in English)
if they were in North America. Upon being told it was South America, they
spoke Spanish. They came from another star, they said, and asked C.A.V. to take
them to his leader. "They were frightened that, by playing ... with atomic
explosions ... we would not only destroy the world but endanger the universe."
They never "fought over silly things like flags and lands" and "had no sex
problems like us humans." In fact, they "did not practice sex," claiming to be
asexual, reproducing by fission. During the encounter, one did so. C.A.V.
boarded the craft, was taken on a brief trip and returned. The beings then flew
off.

Jim Lorenzen and Coral Lorenzen, UFOs over the Americas (London: N.E.L.
[Signet Paperback, 1968]), pp. 122-48; Flying Saucer Review 16, no. 6 (1970):
12.

26. Between August 17 and 20,1953, Ciudad Valleys, Mexico, 6 P.M.

Working underneath his broken-down vehicle on the side of a highway, Salvador

Villanueva, a Mexican taxicab driver noticed two pairs of legs standing nearby.
He discovered two pleasantlooking men, each about four and a half feet tall and
clad in onepiece "seamless gray corduroy" garments from neck to toe, with wide
shiny boxes on their backs. Under their arms they held "helmets like those worn
by pilots or by American football players." As many Mexican Indians are short,
their height didn't alarm him.

Only one of the men spoke (in Spanish), "stringing the words together" in a
strange accent, while the other apparently understood the conversation but did
not speak. At first they discussed trivial matters, including his car. Then, at one
point, the man said, "We are not of this planet. We come from one far distant,
but we know much about your world."

At dawn Villanueva went with them to their saucershaped craft, located in a
clearing by the road. They crossed a swampy area in which Villanueva's legs
sank deeply, but the legs of both men remained clean. "When their feet touched
the muddy pools, their belts glowed, and the mud sprang away as if repelled by
some invisible force."

Villanueva was invited aboard the craft, which stood on three great metal
spheres, but he declined and ran away. The craft rose, began glowing intensely,
then shot off at fantastic speed.

Gordon Creighton, "The Humanoids in Latin America," in Charles Bowen, ed.,

The Humanoids (Great Britain: Futura), pp. 90-91, citing Desmond Leslie,
"Mexican Taxi Driver Meets Saucer Crew?" in Flying Saucer Review 5
(March/April 1959): 8.

27. March, 1954, near Santa Maria, state of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil

Rubem Hellwig claims to have twice contacted aliens. The first encounter
(March 1954) occurred as he was driving down a road and saw a melon-shaped
craft about the size of a Volkswagon car resting near the road. The crew
consisted of two men (about five feet tall) with slim builds and brown faces.
Hellwig stopped the car and approached. One man was inside the object and the
other was collecting specimens of grass. Hellwig claims he somehow understood
what they asked him, which was where could they get some ammonia. After he
directed them to a nearby town, the craft emitted bright blue and yellow flames
as it vanished silently and instantly.

Early the next day, Hellwig claimed to have contacted a similar machine
but with a different crew. The trio said they were scientists, they spoke
enthusiastically of Brazil's natural resources, and were surprised that unlike other
people they encountered, Hellwig didn't flee in fear.

Gordon Creighton, "The Humanoids in Latin America," in Charles Bowen, ed.,

The Humanoids (Great Britain: Futura, 1977), pp. 91-92, citing Diario de
Noticias (Rio de Janeiro), August 25, 1965.
28. August 15, 1954, Dewey County, Oklahoma, day
Gladys White Eagle claims to have heard a loud noise and seen a flying saucer
land near a riverbank. A tall, thin, dark-skinned male with a long beard emerged
and said the United States would be destroyed by an earthquake and a bomb on
October 13, then he laughed. He told her to return to the same location on
September 17, but she was too frightened.

Daily News (Clinton, Oklahoma), September 17, 1954, p. 1; Daily News,

September 19, 1954, p. 1.
29. October 4, 1954, Chaleix, Dordogne, France
A cauldron-shaped object about the size of a small truck landed in a Mr.
Garreau's field. A door opened and two normal Europeanlooking men in brown
coveralls emerged and shook hands with him. They asked, "Paris? North?" The
farmer was so shocked he didn't reply. The beings then stroked his dog before
they flew off. Jacques Vallee, Passport to Magonia (Chicago: Henry Regnery,
1969), p. 226.
30. October 12, 1954, Montlucon, France, evening
A railroad worker, Mr. M. Laugere, encountered a metallic torpedo-shaped
object near a gas-oil tank. A being "covered with hair or wearing a long, hairy
overcoat" stood nearby. Laugere asked what he wanted, and the being spoke a
word that sounded like "gasoil." As Laugere fled, the craft flew away.

Christian Science Monitor, October 15, 1954. Jacques Vallee, Passport to

Magonia (Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1969), p. 226.

31. October 12, 1954, Sainte-Marie d'Herblay, France, 10:30 P.M.

Gilbert Lelay was walking and saw a "phosphorescent cigar" in a pasture and a
man in a gray suit, boots, and gray hat nearby. The man put his hand on Lelay's
shoulder and said in French, "Look, but don't touch." He held a flashing sphere
emitting purple rays in his other hand. He then reentered the craft, which had
colored lights and what appeared to be a control console. The door shut, the
object rose up, made two loops, and flew off while radiating light.

Jacques Vallee, Passport to Magonia (Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1969), p. 147.

32. October 14, 1954, island of d'Oleron, Bay of Biscay, France

Jules Martin, a schoolmaster, claims to have encountered two beautiful females

from Mars. They wore leather helmets, boots, and gloves. The pair borrowed his
pen to write down hieroglyphs, then left-apparently flying off.

Harold T. Wilkins, Flying Saucers Uncensored (New York: Pyramid, 1974), p.

245, originally published in 1955 by Citadel Press (New York).
33. 1954, near Lansing, Michigan
Charles A. Laughead, staff medical officer at Michigan State University,
Lansing, Michigan, began communicating with beings from "outer space"
mainly via trance mediums. After receiving several prophecies that came true, an
alien called Ashtar told him the world would end December 21,1954, when
North America would split in two, with the Atlantic coast sinking into the ocean.
Also, France, England, and Russia would sink. Ashtar said Laughead and a few
select followers would be saved by spaceships. On that day, he and a small
group of believers gathered in a garden to be rescued. They were told not to wear
metal items and thus discarded their pens, belt buckles, cigarette lighters, etc.
Nothing happened.

John A. Keel, Why UFOs (New York: Manor, 1970), pp. 260-61.

34. 1954, Raon-1'Etape, Vosges, France, 2:30 A.M.

A Czechoslovakian citizen living in France, Lazlo Ujvari was heading for work
starting at 3 A.M. when he met a portly man of medium height a quarter mile
from his house. The man wore a gray jacket with shoulder insignias, a
motorcycle helmet and was carrying a gun. After the man addressed Ujvari in an
unknown language, Ujvari tried speaking Russian, to which the stranger
immediately responded, asking in a highpitched voice, "Where am I? In Italy, in
Spain?" He then asked how far he was from the German border, and, "What time
is it?" Ujvari replied, "It's 2:30." The being then pulled out a watch and bluntly
snapped, "You lie-it is four o'clock." He then inquired how far and in what
direction Marseilles was. He had Ujvari walk on the road with him. They soon
came upon a grayish saucershaped craft (three feet high and five feet in diameter
with an antenna on top) on the road. Ujvari approached to within thirty feet
when the man told him to move away. The object soon flew off "with the noise
of a sewing machine."

Jacques Vallee, The Invisible College (New York: E. P. Dutton paperback
edition, 1976), pp. 26-27; Jacques Vallee, Passport to Magonia (Chicago: Henry
Regnery, 1969), pp. 146-47; Allan Hendry, The UFO Handbook (New York:
Doubleday, 1979), p. 141.
35. August 30, 1955, Mulberry Corners, Ohio, 1:45 A.M.

Driving home, David Ankenbrandt saw a bright yellow light land. He stopped,
approached and found a domed craft (thirty feet in diameter). A paralyzing green
ray hit him and a man (at least six feet tall) in a onepiece outfit came out and
said in a highpitched voice to tell the government to stop all wars. The being
reentered the object and flew off. Two days later, Ankenbrandt went to the spot
and encountered the same being, who repeated the earlier message. Report filed
by O. D. Hill, Project Bluebook.
36. 1955, Toronto, Canada
An inner circle of twelve people claim to have made "tele-contact" with "saucer
people." Their voice carried an unearthly accent which varied depending on
which planet a particular speaker was from. They found English difficult to
speak and said they had to learn it before being able to communicate with the
group. One of the lectures was on vegetarianism.

Personal letter from John B. Musgrave, employee of the Mobile Planetarium

Project at the Provincial Museum of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada, citing the
publication Canadian Flying Saucers by Michael, pp. 3-4.
37. 1955, near Jacksonville, Florida, late afternoon
At age nine, Lydia Stalnaker was with her bother and sister walking on a dirt
road to her parents' farm. A bright light suddenly flashed and a man appeared on
the road. They panicked, fleeing and "hysterically crying." For several days the
three were scared. A search of the area revealed nothing. The children's "fearful
dreams" continued. One night in August 1974, Stalnaker (now a divorcee with
two daughters) saw a bright light while driving near Jacksonville, Florida. She
pulled off the road to get a better view. Another car stopped and a vaguely
familiar man sat watching with her, com menting, "Yes, and it's right on time."
He was under five feet five inches with a dark complexion. At his suggestion, at
about 9 P.M. they drove in his car to the site of what she thought was a crashed
plane. She began having breathing difficulties and next recalled returning to
Jacksonville with the man, her forehead hurting and stomach nauseated. When
she reached her car it was midnight, but it seemed just a few minutes had passed.
She felt sick for several days but soon felt better. She then began hearing
mysterious voices encouraging her to improve her physical condition. She
obeyed, taking vitamins, fasting, taking karate lessons, and finding "religion
again." She also experienced nightmares of being operated on by masked people
in a brightly illuminated room. After seeking psychiatric aid no mental problems
could be detected.

In May 1975, Arizona hypnotist Dr. Art Winkler suggested that she may
have seen a UFO during the unaccountable time, something she doubted. Under
hypnosis she experienced intense pain (yelling, screaming, gasping for air), and
the session was ended. Dr. James Harder later hypnotized her, and in
combination with partial-memory conscious recall Stalnaker told of being put on
an operating table after boarding a UFO. She saw three types of beings. One was
a "large, fearsome-looking creature with no hair, large ears ... small facial
features-small cheekbones and mouth-but large fire-red eyes and ash gray skin."
The other types appeared to be subservient. One closely resembled humans but
were extremely attractive and had tannish-gold skin. She was stuck with needles
while on the table, and the beings tried to reassure her despite the pain. They
said she was "chosen ... because of her chemistry."

Stalnaker also remembered under hypnosis being abducted at age nine,

taken aboard a UFO with similar-type creatures, and undergoing a similar
experience on an operating table. They "took knowledge out of my head-they
know all about me." They said she had been "chosen" and they would return.
Stalnaker saw her brother and sister also being examined. The being said they
hailed "from a galaxy to the right of our galaxy" and they have a base off the
Florida coast under the ocean. She also claims to be able to heal the sick after the
encounters. "The aliens told me I was going to get it."

Alan Gansberg and Judith Gansberg, Direct Encounters: The Personal Histories
of UFO Abductees (New York: Walker & Walker, 1980).

38. April 7, 1956, Drakensberg, South Africa, early morning

After sighting UFOs on several previous occasions, on April 7 Elizabeth Klarer

got a feeling to return to her parents' farm. She walked to a nearby hill where she
had seen UFOs before, and a huge metallic spacecraft rested there. A man (six
feet six inches tall) stood by the saucer. He had longer than normal hair which
was white at the temples, a deeply lined face and gray eyes. His cheekbones
were high and prominent, his eyes slanting strangely toward the temples. He
wore a onepiece cream-colored suit. He took Elizabeth's hand, saying, "Not
afraid this time?" Akon said he and another similar-looking man on the ship
were from the planet Menton, 4.2 light-years from Earth. The ship had three
rooms: a main cabin, a cooking and eating section and a bathroom. Akon had
contacted Klarer for breeding purposes, as their race needed new blood. She was
chosen for one of their experiments. They fell in love and had a son, Alying,
whom she visits often along with Akon on Menton. Elizabeth says Menton has
no politics, war, or disease. She communicated both by speech and
telepathically.

Natal Witness (South Africa), April 16, 1983. Cynthia Hind, UFOs: African
Encounters (Zimbabwe: Gemini, 1982), pp. 21-43.

39. July 17, 1956, Van Nuys, California, 4:20 A.M.

Todd Kittredge was awakened by a loud noise and his barking dogs and watched
an eight-feet gold-colored sphere land in his yard. Three men about six feet five
inches tall with long blond hair and green onepiece outfits came out. Todd shook
hands with them, and they said in mechanical-sounding voices that they hailed
from Venus and were on a mission to help Earthlings. Todd claimed several later
encounters.

C.S.I. Newsletter, no. 6; Project Bluebook.

40. April 1957, near Pajas Blancas Airport, Cordoba, Argentina

Riding along a road, a man's motorcycle quit. Dismounting to investigate, he

hides in a nearby ditch upon noticing a large disc near the ground just ahead. A
man (about five feet eight inches tall) emerges, gently coaxing the motorcyclist
out of the ditch then stroking his forehead to calm him. The stranger wore a
tightfitting outfit similar to a diver's suit, apparently made of some kind of
plastic.

Entering the craft, the man saw five or six similarly dressed men seated
before instrument panels. An intensely bright light filled the cabin, which had
several large square portholes. After the man was escorted back to his
motorcycle, his companion placed a hand on his shoulder and then reentered the
disc, which appeared to be of an iridescent bluish-green metallic composition. It
then flew rapidly away. Gordon Creighton, "The Humanoids in Latin America,"
in Charles Bowen, ed., The Humanoids (Great Britain: Futura, 1977), pp. 98-99,
citing Diario de Cordoba (Cordoba), Argentina, May 1, 1957, and Charles
Bowen, "A South American Trio," Flying Saucer Review 11 (January /February
1965): 19.

41. July 1957, Croara Ridge, near Rome, Italy, day

After eating lunch, Luciano Galli left home and was headed back to work when
a black car pulled up and a man he had met once on a Rome street asked him to
take a ride. He agreed, and a third man drove them to a saucer by Croara Ridge.
Galli followed the tall, dark-complexioned, black-eyed man into the craft.
Suddenly, two lights flashed and he was told, "We have just taken your picture."
He was taken for a ride to a nearby two-thousand-foot-long cigarshaped space
station, which several saucers were entering and leaving. They went into a
chamber with "four or five hundred people there ... standing and walking
around." After touring the complex, Galli was returned to Croara Ridge. The
whole episode lasted less than four hours.

John A. Keel, Why UFOs (New York: Manor, 1970), pp. 186-87, also published
as UFOs: Operation Trojan Horse (New York: Putnum's Sons, 1970).
42. July 1957, Bela Island, Brazil, evening
Brazillian lawyer Joao de Freitas Guimaraes was walking alone on a beach when
a pot-bellied object surfaced and came ashore. Two men, about five feet ten
inches tall wearing tight green uniforms, emerged. He tried Portuguese, Italian,
English, and French, but they didn't understand anything. The pair helped him
climb the long ladder into the craft. As the ship flew off, water splashed against
the portholes. Guimaraes asked if it was raining, and he got a telepathic reply.
For the forty minutes they flew in the upper atmosphere he felt pain, along with
a cold feeling in his genitals. He was then dropped off at the same spot he was
picked up.

John A. Keel, Why UFOs (New York: Manor, 1970), pp. 187-88, also published
as UFOs: Operation Trojan Horse (New York: Putnum's Sons, 1970).

43. August 20,1957, near Quilino, province of Cordoba, Argentina, evening

On a mission with two other officers to guard a downed air force plane until
proper men and equipment could reach the site and recover it, an unnamed male
officer was left alone in a tent while his companions went for supplies. He heard
a highpitched hum; and a large, bright metal disc was hovering above him. The
disc slowly descended, causing grass and plants to flutter wildly. Frantically
tugging on his gun, the officer could not unholster it. A gentle voice (in Spanish)
said not to fear, explaining that the interplanetary spaceship had a base in the
nearby province of Salta. "We intend to help you," it said, "for the misuse of
atomic energy threatens to destroy you." The voice then predicted that the entire
world would soon know of the saucers. Bushes and trees rustled as the craft flew
off.

Gordon Creighton, "The Humanoids in Latin America," in Charles Bowen, ed.,

The Humanoids (Great Britain: Futura, 1977), p. 100, citing Diario de Cordoba,
August 22, 1957; Flying Saucer Review 11 (July/August 1965): 30; John A.
Keel, Why UFOs (New York: Manor, 1970), p. 183, also published as UFOs:
Operation Trojan Horse (New York: Putnum's Sons, 1970).

44. September 7, 1957, near Runcorn, Cheshire, England, 2:15 A.M.

James Cook saw a luminous object change from blue to white to blue and finally
dark red. It then landed a few feet from him. A ladder came down and a voice
said, "Jump onto the ladder. Do not step onto it. The ground is damp." Leaping
on, he climbed into an empty room filled with a bright light. The voice instructed
Cook to disrobe and put on plastic coveralls. He was asked to enter another
nearby craft, agreed, and found twenty occupants there, all much taller than he.
During the ride, Cook was told that the craft is from Zomdic, located in another
galaxy, and that the ship can't operate in damp weather as it's surrounded by a
type of electrified field. "The inhabitants of your planet will upset the balance if
they per sist in using force instead of harmony," the beings said. "Warn them of
the danger." They also explained that their vehicles were used only in Earth's
vicinity and couldn't function in outer space.

John A. Keel, Why UFOs (New York: Manor, 1970), pp. 185-86, also published
as UFOs: Operation Trojan Horse (New York: Putnum's Sons, 1970).

45. October 15 and 16, 1957, near Sao Francisco de Sales, state of Minas Gerais,
Brazil, night

During the night of October 15 and 16, farmer Antonio Villas Boas reportedly
witnessed a birdlike object land nearby as he was plowing with a tractor. The
craft stood on three legs and emitted a blinding red light and was covered with
small purple lights. After his tractor engine stopped Boas ran, but he was
grabbed by four people in rough, gray, onepiece garments and helmets. He was
taken aboard, undressed, and seduced by an extremely fairskinned, freckled
young female with high cheekbones, a very pointed chin, and vivid "Chinese-
type" slanted eyes. Regarding the sex act, Antonio said "It was a normal act, and
she behaved just as any woman would...." Shortly after the act, the woman
"pointed at her belly and then pointed toward the sky." She stood five feet eight
inches without a helmet.

Boas claimed they communicated to one another by a series of "barks," like

a dog, but he couldn't understand it. They used strange instruments to take skin
and blood samples, and then he was taken to the room with the woman, left
alone, and they mated again. The rest of the crew (never seen without helmets or
spacesuits) were thought to be some five feet four inches. Boas was later let off
the craft, and it flew away.
Gordon Creighton, "The Humanoids in Latin America," in Charles Bowen, ed.,
The Humanoids (Great Britain: Futura, 1977), pp. 101, 200-38, citing SBEDV
Bulletin, no. 26/27 (April/July 1962); Flying Saucer Review 11
(January/February 1965, March/April 1965, July/August 1965); Antonio Villas
Boas, "Declaration" (Depoimento), dated February 22, 1958, Rio de Janeiro,
before Dr. Olava Fontes, M.D., and Senhor Joao Martins; Dr. Olava Fontes,
M.D., "Medical Report on Antonio Villas Boas," Rio de Janeiro, February 22,
1958; Dr. Olava Fontes, M.D., Letter dated April 25, 1966, to Gordon
Creighton; Flying Saucer Review 12 (July/ August 1966), and various
subsequent issues.
46. November 5, 1957, near Kearney, Nebraska,
afternoon
Driving near Kearney, Reinhold Schmidt said his car quit while he saw a silver
blimp-shaped object standing on four postlike legs twenty yards away. He
approached the craft and a "staircase" came out, two middle-aged "men"
emerged and searched him for weapons, then took him inside for half an hour,
explaining they would be there for a while anyway, so he "might as well come
inside."

The occupants, two men and two women (all middle-aged), wore ordinary
clothing and were working on some wiring. Instead of walking, the beings "slid."
Schmidt was told to tell people they meant no harm, and in "a short time" he
might "know all about it." After being asked to leave, the ship silently lifted
straight up and disappeared. After it left, Schmidt's car engine was able to be
started.

Coral Lorenzen, "UFO Occupants in the United States," in Charles Bowen, ed.,
The Humanoids (Great Britain: Futura, 1977), p. 153, citing reports by United
Press International, Associated Press, Chicago Sun Times, November 8, 1957.

47. November 6, 1957, near Playa del Rey, California, 5:40 A.M.

Richard Keyhoe claims that while driving along the Vista del Mar roadway, his
engine stopped, as did those of three other cars. The drivers saw an eggshaped
object enveloped in a "blue haze" on the nearby beach. According to Keyhoe,
two "little men" (five feet five inches tall) left the object and began asking
questions of him and other drivers, such as "where we were going, who we were,
what time it was, etc." Keyhoe said their skin was yellowish-green, but
otherwise they were normal. They wore black leather pants, white belts and
light-colored jerseys. After telling the beings he had to go to work, they
reentered the ship and flew off. The presence of the other witnesses has never
been corroborated.

Coral Lorenzen, "UFO Occupants in the United States," in Charles Bowen, ed.,
The Humanoids (Great Britain: Futura, 1977), pp. 156-57, citing C.S.I.
Newsletter, December 1957.
48. November 6, 1957, Everittstown, New Jersey,
evening
John Trasco walked outside to feed his dog and saw a brilliant eggshaped object
hovering in front of his barn. Confronted by a three foottall being with large
froglike eyes, Trasco thought the "little man" said, in broken English, "We are
peaceful people, we only want your dog." Frightened, he replied, "Get the hell
out of here."

Mrs. Trasco saw the object from inside the house, but the shrubbery
prevented her from seeing the creature. It was dressed in a green suit with shiny
buttons, a green tam-o-shanter-like cap, and gloves with a shiny object at the tip
of each finger. His "putty-colored" face had a nose and chin. After Trasco yelled
at the creature to leave, it fled into the craft, which took off rapidly. Trasco
reportedly had a green powder on his wrist and under his fingernails, which
washed off.

Coral Lorenzen, "UFO Occupants in the United States," in Charles Bowen, ed.,
The Humanoids (Great Britain: Futura), p. 156, citing the Knoxville News-
Sentinel (Tennessee), 6, 1957; the Delaware Valley News, November 15, 1957;
C.S.I. Newsletter, December 1957.

49. November 18, 1957, Cynthia Appleton house, Birmingham, England, 3 P.M.

While entering an upstairs sitting-room to check on her baby daughter, Mrs.

Cynthia Appleton saw the figure of a "man" appear by the fireplace. The
"image" appeared like a TV picture, first blurred, then clear. A whistling noise
accompanied the materialization. The man was tall and fair, clad in a tightfitting
garb made of a plasticlike substance. He had shoulderlength hair and his lips
moved as to speak, but she heard nothing. She then realized that questions in her
mind were being answered telepathically.

The man said he was from another world and was looking for a certain
substance, which Appleton thought sounded like "titium," but which her metal-
worker husband later suggested might be titanium. She agreed that was the
name. Through a mysterious process involving his hand, the stranger conveyed
the picture of a saucershaped craft with a transparent dome. The visitor indicated
that he came from a world of peace and harmony. At the end of the contact
"suddenly he wasn't there anymore."

Appleton has since claimed several other contacts. During one encounter
two beings appeared in her home and in a foreignsounding English said they
appear only to her because her brain was suitably fitted for such contacts. On
one particular occasion she was told, "The Deity itself dwells at the heart and
core of the atom." Charles Bowen, "Few and Far Between," in Charles Bowen,
ed., The Humanoids (Great Britain: Futura, 1977), pp. 17-18, citing
"Birmingham Woman Meets Spacemen," Flying Saucer Review 4 (March/April
1958).
50. December 1957, El Cajon, California, night
Awakened by a roaring sound, Edmund Rucker saw an object land near his
house. He saw four creatures with large heads through the lighted windows.
When they emerged, he noticed they had domed foreheads and bulging eyes.
They communicated to him in English their philanthropic and scientific motives.

Metempirical UFO Bulletin (MUFOB) 46, no. 12 (Autumn 1978): 9, citing

Flying Saucers Magazine (July 1958). The account appears in MUFOB as part
of Peter Rogerson's international catalogue of "type-1" UFO records.
51. December 1957, Snyders Lake, New York, night
Driving on Route 66 in the rain, Mr. L. Robinson saw an object fall into Snyders
Lake. Investigating, he noticed a blue light being given off from a small
semicircular object. A bluish-gold light flashed three times and three men of
normal height appeared. They wore golden suits that radiated changing colors.
One approached and talked to Robinson in "perfect English" for three hours. The
men then left.

Metempirical UFO Bulletin (MUFOB), 14, no. 48 (Spring 1979): 10, citing UFO
Critical Bulletin 111 2: 5. Also, Saucers, Space & Science (March 1959). The
account appears in MUFOB as part of Peter Rogerson's international catalogue
of "type 1" UFO records.
52. 1957, Bayswater, western Australia, evening
Early one evening a "strange object in the sky" was seen by Mr. Laurie
Campbell while he was driving with friends. Later the same evening, a five-feet
twoinch being with "human features" came to his house and spoke telepathically
"about various things." Campbell says, "Since then I have been obsessed with
outer space." Sunday Times (Perth), western Australia, September 16, 1984.

53. May 14, 1958, Sarandi, Brazil, 7 P.M.

Mr. A. Berlet was hitchhiking and saw a light on the ground. He approached it
and found a round object (one hundred feet in diam eter). When he was within
about thirty yards of the object he was hit by a light and passed out. He awoke to
find himself tied to a bed in the craft. He was untied and dressed in skin-tight
clothing, then left the craft and walked through a city of large glowing buildings.
He was fed meat and bread, felt unusually light, and given a bath in water that
didn't feel heavy. After trying several languages, including Spanish and Italian,
only German evoked a response. A guide called Acorc said that he was on Acart,
thirtyone million miles from Earth. It has a population of ninety million in its
capital city and is faced with serious overcrowding. They plan to colonize Earth
soon, after we've destroyed ourselves. After eight days on the planet, Berlet was
returned to Earth (three miles from Sarandi), but it took him three hours to walk
home as he had to readjust to the heavy gravity.

SBEDV Special Bulletin, 1975, pp. 49-51, citing a publication by A. Berlet,
Discos Voadores da Utopia a Realidade, published privately in Rio de Janeiro,
1967.
54. Approximately 1958, Miami Beach, Florida, night
Jessica Rolfe (pseudonym) was living at age five in Miami Beach, Florida, with
her adoptive parents. One night three well-built, tall "men" with golden skin and
brownish-gold hair materialized in her room. They lifted her from bed,
telepathically saying, "Would you like to come with us now?" She replied, "No,
I like it here." The men then returned her to bed and said it was okay, and then
disappeared. Between ages five and fourteen, she claims various alien males
from the same race would visit her bedside, teaching her many things. At age
fourteen, she "chose" to ride in their spacecraft "powered by ... magnetic energy
and the energy of the navigator." The race of beings is highly evolved relative to
Earth and often act as guides for other alien races visiting Earth. She decided to
call them the Kuran race. According to their version of creation, several species
of beings which once inhabited a planet in our solar system were offered the
chance to be transported to other planets before their planet broke up into what is
now the asteroid belt. Of the two races that agreed, Cro-Magnon was put on
Earth; the other race went to a planet in the Pegasus constellation. Another alien
race inhabited Earth at the time (known as Bigfoot today) but were unable to
leave because of a transportation problem. Rolfe says she has read extensively in
the paranormal.

Alan Gansberg and Judith Gansberg, Direct Encounters: The Personal Histories
of UFO Abductions (New York: Walker & Walker, 1980), pp. 29-37.

55. April 18, 1961, Eagle River, Wisconsin, 11 A.M.

Watching a silvery object descend in his yard, chicken farmer Joe Simonton
approached it without fear. A "hatch" opened and he saw three dark-skinned men
inside. One of them handed him a silver-colored jug with two handles and made
a motion like drinking, apparently indicating he wanted water. Simonton took
the jug, filled it, and handed it back.

Looking into the object, he saw a man "cooking" or "frying" something on

a flameless cooking apparatus. There were several small perforated cookielike
objects beside the griddle, and Simonton motioned that he wanted some,
whereupon one of the men handed him four. The craft then flew off rapidly. The
beings appeared to be twentyfive to thirty years old and had dark hair. They
were small (about five feet tall), wore dark blue knit outfits with turtlenecks and
knit cloth (like that worn under race car drivers' helmets) covering part of the
head. The entire episode lasted about five minutes.

An analysis of one of the cookies indicated it was made of corn, wheat

flour, and other ordinary ingredients. Simonton tried a cookie and said it "tasted
like cardboard."

Aerial Phenomena Research Organization Bulletin, May 1961, pp. 1-3.

56. Spring 1961, near Lake Huron, Michigan
An unnamed gas station owner near Lake Huron claims a flying saucer
occasionally lands at a nearby island and beings from Venus talk to him, in
English, sometimes in the presence of his wife and son. They are technologically
advanced and visit Earth to promote lasting peace.

Aerial Phenomena Research Organization Bulletin, September 1961, p. 4.

57. July 1961, Massachusetts, night
Listening to various shortwave radio bands at home, Bob Renaud heard a "soft,
warm, crystal-clear feminine voice" saying, 'Bob, we'd like you to stay on this
frequency for a while." During the next several months, space female Linn-Erri
told him what was right and wrong with the world. He later claimed to talk with
her over a TV set. She was a beautiful blonde of seventy-four years, "which in
our society is the prime of life." On another occasion, three ordinary-looking
men drove up and took him to a secret underground UFO base in Massachusetts.

John A. Keel, Our Haunted Planet (Conn.: Fawcett Gold Medal, 1971), pp. 183-
84.

58. August 8, 1961, Alberta, Canada, 3:30 A.M.

Awakening from sleep, an unnamed man notices two small men standing next to
his bed. He is suddenly paralyzed, but strangely content and fearless. The beings
(four to five feet tall) were clad in dark-colored two-piece garments with a belt
around the middle. One of the two "beautifully proportioned" men appeared
older and had a receding hairline. They didn't walk, but floated. They spoke for
about a minute, intimating that they would visit again. One of the visitors then
said to the other, "I think he's waking up on us. We'd better go." The figures
vanished while a hissing sound was heard. As soon as they disappeared the man
was no longer frozen. His wife (also in the house) recounted a similar experience
of seeing two men and being unable to move.

A neighbor claims at the same time the experience occurred to have seen a
brilliant blue globe in front of the couple's house, which slowly flew off.

Aerial Phenomena Research Bulletin, April 1977, p. 6.

59. September 19-20, 1961, Indian Head, New Hampshire, about midnight

In what is perhaps the most well-publicized closeencounter case in UFO history,

Betty and Barney Hill of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, were returning from a
Canadian vacation. Driving on Route 3, Betty spotted a starlike object that began
to pace their car, gradually growing in size. After watching it for about thirty
miles, an unconcerned Barney was persuaded to stop, after Betty became
hysterical. She believed the object to be of extraterrestrial origin. While Betty
remained inside, Barney left the car and watched the "craft" seventy-five to one
hundred feet off through binoculars. He saw a row of lights and six occupants.
He ran back to the car, yelling to his wife that they were about to be captured.
He sped off and they arrived home two hours late.

Ten days after the incident, Betty had a series of dreams which showed her
and Barney being abducted by aliens and subjected to examinations aboard a
spacecraft.

On February 22, 1962, Barney, after suffering from extreme tension and
nervousness (apparently attributable to high blood pressure), sought prescribed
hypnotic regression with Dr. Benjamin Simon, a psychiatrist and neurologist.
Barney recounted how he and Betty had been escorted to a craft by short beings
with large, hairless heads, slits for nostrils, and metallic skin. They were given
medical exams and were told they would forget the experience and be released.
Barney was given a posthypnotic suggestion by Dr. Simon that he would not be
able to consciously recall the abduction. Then, unbeknownst to Betty, Simon
regressed her and found a very similar abduction story. Betty was told the reason
for her regression was medical in nature. She had no prior knowledge of
Barney's story.

Betty told of having a needlelike instrument pushed into her navel during
the alien exam. The beings said it was a pregnancy test. Barney had a cuplike
device placed over his genitals and experienced coldness and pain there. After
the incident he developed a mysterious ring of warts around his genitals.

Ronald Story, Sightings (New York: Quill, 1982); Coral Lorenzen and Jim
Lorenzen, Abducted!: Confrontations with Beings from Outer Space (Berkeley,
Calif.: Medallion, 1977); R. Sheaffer, The UFO Verdict (Amherst, N.Y.:
Prometheus Books, 1981); J. G. Fuller, The Interrupted Journey (New York:
Dial, 1977).

60. September 1961, near Salado River, Buenos Aires, Argentina

Fishing on a branch of the Salado River, a man saw an object (thirty-three feet in
diameter) land nearby and approached it. Two beings (four and a half to five feet
tall) wearing what appeared to be plastic diving suits came near him, inviting
him aboard via drawings and signs. He was sprayed to protect him from the
craft's interior atmosphere. The craft began whistling and rotating, then he was
taken for a ride.

La Razon (Buenos Aires), October 3, 1961.

61. Late November 1961, northern plains of the USA, night

Returning from a hunting trip, four men were in a car driving through freezing
rain and sleet. Only the driver was awake, who saw a brilliantly illuminated
object descending one-half mile ahead to the right of the highway. They soon
came upon the glowing tail of a silverish "silo-appearing type craft" protruding
from the ground about one hundred fifty yards off and four "people" who were
"standing around it." Thinking a plane had crashed, they pulled over and shone a
flashlight on the scene. One of the "people" was close enough to be able to get a
fairly good description-five feet five inches tall or less wearing a white coverall
garment. They appeared to be humans. Surprisingly, "he made this gesture of,
well, move back, or get out of here!" After summoning a highway patrolman
they had passed earlier on the road, the men returned to the site to find
everything gone. Seeing a taillight off in a field, they drove "right up behind this
'vehicle,' its lights went out and it vanished." There were no indications that any
object had been there, despite heavy mud in the area. After the perplexed officer
left, the men drove two miles and saw a glowing object land one hundred fifty
yards away. One of the hunters then shot toward the object, hitting "the right
shoulder of one of the 'forms.' " It spun to its knees, "got up with the other guys'
assistance ... and said, or hollered, 'Now what the hell did you do that for?' " The
men ran back to the car and drove off. They also reported a period of lost time en
route home.

J. A. Hynek and J. Vallee, The Edge of Reality: A Progress Report on

Unidentified Flying Objects (Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1975), pp. 129-42, based
on a transcribed taped interview with one of the witnesses, conducted by a U.S.
Treasury agent who wished to be anonymous.

62. 1961, one hundred miles from Welland, Ontario, Canada

A Canadian now living in Auckland, New Zealand, Mr. I. Boyes claims he was
telepathically attracted to a spacecraft one hundred miles from his Ontario home.
He hitchhiked to the spot and was taken aboard a circular craft (one hundred feet
in diameter). The three crewmen said they came from the Earth's "coniferous"
age (coniferous refers to pine trees!) and time-traveled to the present. They had
white hair, bronze skin, and spoke highly accented English. Boyes says he was
picked to help form a group, which he is presently promoting, called "Integral
Structures Utopia."

Personal letter from John B. Musgrave, employee of the Mobile Planetarium
Project at the Provincial Museum of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada, citing the New
Zealand Herald, April 24, 1972.

63. Approximately 1961, Brown Mountain, near Morganton, North Carolina,

night

Investigating the source of mysterious nocturnal lights often seen on Brown

Mountain, Ralph Lael made contact with aliens. By asking questions, the lights
moved up and down for "yes" and side to side for "no." Lael says one of the
lights indicated that he should approach a concealed door in the mountainside.
There, "intelligent beings" producing the lights were based. Inside the mountain,
he was led to a room (eight feet square) with walls "clear as glass." Suddenly a
voice said, "Do not fear; there is no danger here." The voice said Lael had been
chosen to tell others about the true history of the lights. Lael says the voice
claimed humans were created on the planet Pewam, which, he explained, is now
a waste of asteroids between Mars and Jupiter.

In October 1961, Lael visited the mountainside, again entering the invisible
door. This time he was offered and accepted a ride to Venus. Two days later he
arrived on what he believed was Venus, and met direct descendants of people
from Pewam. He described an attractive female named Noma, scantily clad in a
bra and panties. While on Venus, he was also shown what appeared to be
newsreels showing the destruction of Pewam, along with scenes of early humans
on Earth.

Milt Machlin and Timothy G. Beckley, UFO (New York: Quick Fox, 1981), p.
108.

64. April 10 or 11, 1962, Cerbaia, Italy, night

Returning home from visiting a sick friend, tailor Mario Zuccula skirted a
cemetery. Suddenly feeling a current of air from behind, he saw a gray or white
metallic object hovering seven feet off the ground, from which a small metallic
cylinder detached itself and landed. An intense bright light radiated from the
door and two small men (about four and a half feet) emerged. The men, wearing
hoods over their heads, approached, lifted Zuccula up, and carried him into the
cylinder. They spoke in a serious tone (in Italian), which seemed to come from
an amplifier. One of them said that "at the end of the fourth moon, about one
hour from morning, we will return to give you a message to humanity." Zuccula
next recalls standing near his house, where he was found.

Aerial Phenomena Research Organization Bulletin, January 1963, p. 6; Flying
Saucer Review 8, no. 4 (1962). The accounts conflict slightly. FSR has the date
April 10, while APRO gives April 11. APRO says the mother ship was white;
FSR, gray.

65. April 30, 1962, Mount Manfre, near Sicily, Italy, night

Telepathically summoned to Mount Manfre, Eugenio Siragusa encountered two

extraterrestrials of average height standing by a glowing saucer. They wore
metallic clothes, helmets, and belts emitting flashing greenish-blue lights. He
was given a message in Italian for "the most powerful man of Earth," warning
countries to stop all H-bomb testing.

On the night of September 5, 1962, he was again mentally summoned to the

mountain and beings (from a craft eighty feet in diameter resembling a spinning
top) imparted a message for humanity.

Flying Saucer Review 9, no. 1 (1963).

66. August 19 and 20, 1962, Duas Pontes, near Diamantina, state of Minas
Gerais, Brazil, night

In the early 1960s, several newspapers carried the fantastic story of twelve-year-
old Raimundo Aleluia Mafra, who, after his father (Rivalino Mafra da Silva) was
reported missing, claimed that he was abducted by a UFO. The boy says on the
night of August 19, his family was in bed-himself, his father, and two brothers
(six yearold Fatimo, two-year-old Dirceu)-when he heard a noise and saw a
strange silhouette floating in the house. "It was a weird shadow, not looking like
a human being." It looked at him and his two brothers "for a long time" before it
left the room. Soon he heard a voice say, "This one looks like Rivalino." The
boy says he then heard the entities talking outside the house, saying they were
going to kill his father.

The next morning, two floating spheres were seen hovering near the ground
by the house. One globe was black, while the other was black and white. Both
had antennalike protuberances and gave off fire through an opening. The objects
then merged and slowly moved toward his father, enveloping him in yellow
smoke. "Then the yellow smoke dissolved. The balls were gone. My father was
gone."

Aerial Phenomena Research Organization Bulletin (September 1962): 1, 3, 4, 5;

and Gordon Creighton, "The Humanoids in Latin America," in Charles Bowen,
ed., The Humanoids (Great Britain: Futura, 1977), pp. 103-104, citing Diariode
Minas, Belo Horizonte (Brazil), August 26, 1962; Ultima Hora, Belo Horizonte,
August 28, 1962; Tribuna da Imprensa, Rio de Janeiro, August 29, 1962; Flying
Saucer Review, November/ December 1962.
67. September 5, 1962, Wasserbillig, West Germany,
night
Bound for Luxembourg on a coal train, Hans Klotzbach jumped off just before
reaching Wasserbillig, suffering severe leg injuries. Crippled and losing blood,
he lost consciousness but regained awareness inside a saucershaped craft in a
room drenched in opal-blue light. A voice said in German that it had found him
and felt sorry for him and also predicted future world disasters. Klotzbach fell
asleep and awoke four days later, his legs healed, but with dried blood on them.

Gordon Creighton, "Healing from UFOs," Flying Saucer Review 15, no. 5
(1969): 20.

68. October 1963 Whidbey Island, Washington State, 9 A.M.

A woman saw a gray object hovering off the ground. Three occupants were
visible through a transparent front section. One of the entities was suddenly
standing outside the craft, wearing "asbestos-textured coveralls." Its face, hands,
and feet were not visible. After asking, "What do you want?" the entity replied in
English: "One of our party knows you; we will return." The object began to get
smaller, tilted, sank partially into the ground, expanded to its earlier size and
flew east, giving off steam, a flash, and noise.

Jacques Vallee, Passport to Magonia (Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1969), p. 294.

69. December 1963, Japan
A flying saucer landed near a man's farm and he conversed with the lone
occupant.

Vaughn Greene, Astronauts of Ancient Japan (Millbrae, Calif.: Merlin Engine

Works, 1978).

70. April 24, 1964, Tioga City, New York, approximately 10 A.M.

Farmer Gary Wilcox was spreading fertilizer in an open field when he stopped to
check on another field nearby. Approaching the field, he saw a tiny eggshaped
object on the ground. He saw two small men (about four feet) clad in seamless
outfits with hoods completely covering their faces. Each carried a tray with what
appeared to be soil. One of them told Wilcox they were from Mars and that he
need not be afraid, as they had talked to people before. The man's voice (he
spoke smooth, effortless English) seemed to come from his body rather than his
head. They then discussed organic material, including fertilizers. Wilcox was
told that on Mars, food was grown in the atmosphere. The being said they could
travel to Earth only every two years. They then asked for fertilizer, but when
Wilcox went to get it, the craft flew off. Wilcox got a bag of fertilizer and left it
in the field; he claimed it was gone the next day.

Coral Lorenzen, "UFO Occupants in the United States," in Charles Bowen,' ed.,
The Humanoids (Great Britain: Futura, 1977), pp. 163-64, citing Sun-Bulletin
(Binghamton, N.Y.), May 1, 1964.

71. June 5, 1964, Pajas Blancas, province of Cordoba, Argentina, 4 A.M.

While driving near Pajas Blancas International Airport, an unidentified couple's

car engine failed, and they were soon confronted by a large machine blocking
the road. The craft's powerful light went out, leaving only a mild violetcolored
illumination. They watched it for twenty minutes, when suddenly a figure
approached their car, asking (in Spanish), "What's the matter, my friend?" The
driver replied that his engine quit. The being suggested that he try again, which
he did, and the engine started. The stranger then said, "Don't be afraid. I am a
terrestrial. I am carrying out a mission on Earth. My name is R. D. Tell mankind
about it in your own fashion." He then walked slowly away, joining two other
beings (all dressed in gray) who had now appeared. They entered the craft,
which rose rapidly and vanished from sight, leaving a violetcolored trail.

Gordon Creighton, "The Humanoids in Latin America," in Charles Bowen, ed.,
The Humanoids (Great Britain: Futura, 1977), p. 108, citing Cordoba pub.
Cordoba, November 29, 1964; Flying Saucer Review 12 (March /April 1966):
25.
72. June 15, 1964, near Arica, Chile
Rafael Aguirre Donoso, a Chilean miner, saw a strange object land near a road
where he was driving. Two fair-complexioned men, speaking a mixture of
Spanish and English, asked for water. After he gave them some they reentered
the object, which rose and disappeared.

Gordon Creighton, "The Humanoids in Latin America," in Charles Bowen, ed.,

The Humanoids (Great Britain: Futura, 1977), p. 108, citing La Razon (Buenos
Aires), June 21, 1964; Flying Saucer Review 11 (March/April 1965).
73. June 1964, Sagrada Familia, Brazil, night
While lying down, Luis Muzio Ambrosio, a medium, saw a yellow-orange light
come into the room and heard a voice state, "We are friends and we are in our
spaceship on the roof of your house." Nearby children reportedly said they saw a
bright object land on his house. He also claims a series of later contacts.

Flying Saucer Review 17, no. 1 (1971).

74. July 16, 1964, Conklin, New York, 3 P.M.

Several boys saw a human-looking dwarf in a black suit with a helmet and glass
in front of his face. He spoke in a strange voice "as if it came from a pipe." He
walked into a shiny object in some nearby brush as the boys raced home. The
witnesses were Randy Travis, age nine; Edmund Travis, age nine; Floyd Moore,
age ten; and two other boys.

Jacques Vallee, Passport to Magonia (Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1969), p. 301.

75. Summer 1964, Little Lever, England, night
After seeing a glowing orange sphere silently explode near her house earlier in
the evening, an anonymous woman later encountered a five-foot-tall being
without a face in her bedroom. It wore an outfit composed of small rings. She
was told telepathically not to be afraid, that a group of such entities was
temporarily stranded on Earth.

In a later contact, three beings appeared in the bedroom, thanked her for not
being afraid, and said that they were leaving soon.

Flying Saucer Review 22, no. 3 (1976): 27; Northern UFO Network News, no.
25 (1976); Awareness (Autumn 1976): 9.
76. August, 1964, northern New Jersey, afternoon
During the morning, a group of thirteen people, including Robert A. Wilson, saw
a saucershaped object land on a hill. Some of the witnesses saw what appeared
to be humanoid occupants wearing silverish suits. During the afternoon, Wilson's
fiveyear-old son, Graham, met an "extraterrestrial" in a wooded area near the
same hill. She had silverish skin and told him he should become a medical
doctor as an adult.

Robert A. Wilson, The Cosmic Trigger (Berkeley, Calif.: And/Or Press, 1977).
77. Approximately 1964, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Philip Osborne watched a 1979 NBC-TV documentary on UFO abductions
featuring researcher Budd Hopkins. A few weeks later he became paralyzed for
about a minute in the middle of the night. He called Hopkins and told him of a
similar experience in 1964, while at Carnegie Tech in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania,
when he awoke during the night paralyzed with the feeling that someone was
watching him. He recalled another childhood experience (at age six or seven)
while vacationing in the Tennessee Smoky Mountains. He became frightened
while searching for his brother's lost jacket at night near a remote picnic site.

On April 28, 1979, he underwent regressive hypnosis by New York

psychologist Dr. Aphrodite Clamar. He told of having been in a large,
illuminated "dome" and experiencing a floating sensation.

The next week, during another hypnosis session, he said that he thought he
was carried to "a large, illuminated, round spherical" object. He felt calm and
saw "a large eye.. . staring at me," possibly suspended overhead. During the
incident he also saw a metallic arm which he associated with a cut on his leg.

Regarding the Carnegie Tech incident, he told of walking outside after the
one-minute paralysis and being "led" to the remote grounds of the Heinz
mansion. He saw a light and was drawn to a group of beings behind the mansion
who had big foreheads and "metallic" eyes.

A third session with Dr. Clamar occurred June 7, 1979, again concentrating
on this experience. He described seeing a being with pinkish skin. Then he
"suddenly ... felt much more calm." The being's eyes were deep-set under its
protruding forehead. A voice said, "Everything will be all right."

He had a fourth hypnotic session April 12, 1980, and remembered that a
"flying saucer" was near the Heinz mansion and he soon realized he was inside a
dome-shaped room with two glowing spheres hovering on each side of his head,
apparently calming him. In addition to the large-headed humanoids, there was at
least one tiny robotlike figure present.

Budd Hopkins, Missing Time: A Documented Study of UFO Abductions (New

York: Richard Marek, 1981), pp. 154-83.
78. Early 1965, Brasilia, Brazil
Abducted by a UFO crew and taken to their cold, thin-aired planet pocked with
craters, an unnamed male claimed to see thousands of UFOs that were to be used
in "a peaceful invasion" of Earth in 1966.

Coral Lorenzen, Flying Saucers: The Startling Evidence of the Invasion from
Outer Space (New York: Signet, 1966), p. 80, originally published as The Great
Flying Saucer Hoax (Tucson: William-Frederick Press, 1962).

79. January 30, 1965, near Monterey, California, early morning

Walking along Manresa Beach, Mr. S. Padrick came upon a landed object, and a
voice invited him inside. He met a man about five feet ten inches tall with short
auburn hair, a pale face, sharp chin and nose, and long fingers. He called himself
Zeeno.

John A. Keel, Why UFOs (New York: Manor, 1970), p. 212, also published as
UFOs: Operation Trojan Horse (New York: Putnum's Sons, 1970).

80. February 21, 1965, Chalac, near Formosa, Argentina-Paraguay frontier

One of several saucers seen in flight landed. About fifty Toba Indians, along
with Argentine police, allegedly watched as three tall beings descended from the
craft and slowly approached. The Indians knelt, praising them with uplifted arms
in the traditional sun-worshiping ceremony of their ancestors, when they heard a
voice from either the beings or their craft. It said they should not fear, for the
space people would soon return to convince Earthmen of their existence, and
bring peace. One Indian attempted to approach the machine but was dissuaded
by gestures. The creatures (all the time enveloped in luminous halos) then slowly
returned to the saucer. Luminous beams seemed to emanate from small wings on
the craft. The luminosity became blinding as it took off. Several photos were
reportedly taken.

Gordon Creighton, "The Humanoids in Latin America," in Charles Bowen, ed.,

The Humanoids (Great Britain: Futura, 1977), p. 110, citing Cordoba pub.
Cordoba, February 25,1965; Flying Saucer Review 11 (July/August 1965): 30.
81. April 24, 1965, near Scorition, South Devon, England, 5:30 P.M.

While walking in the country at Scorition Down, E. A. Bryant, a retired prison

officer, suddenly encountered a large object which soon hovered some three feet
off the ground. An opening appeared in the side of the saucer, and three human-
shaped figures in "diving gear" appeared. The beings removed their helmets, and
two of them had very high foreheads, blue eyes, and fair hair. The third, who
was smaller, looked about fifteen years old and had normal features with dark
hair and brown eyes.

A conversation in English ensued, and the darkhaired man said he was

Yamski or a similar-sounding name. Yamski said it was unfortunate that
someone called Des or Les wasn't there to see the visitation as he would
understand. The occupants told Bryant they hailed from Venus and would return
in a month bringing with them "proof of Mantell" or a similar name. (Mantell
appar ently refers to the highly publicized, January 7, 1948, death of U.S. Air
Force Captain Thomas Mantell, who died after his plane crashed while pursuing
a UFO.)

Charles Bowen, "Few and Far Between," in Charles Bowen; ed., The Humanoids
(Great Britain: Futura, 1977), pp. 20-21, citing an address given by N. Oliver
and E. Buckle at a public meeting of the British UFO Research Association
(BUFORA), February 26,1966; Plymouth Independent (Devon), August 8, 1965.

82. April 1965, near Monte Grande, province of Entre Rios, Argentina

Shopkeeper Felipe Martinez claims to have seen a large eggshaped craft while
hunting. It was hovering silently just off the ground, and as he rushed
enthusiastically toward it, shouting "Amigo!" (Spanish for "friend"), he suddenly
became paralyzed. A door in the object opened, and a man (three feet tall)
wearing a "diver's costume" stepped out. Two cables ran from his helmet to the
saucer. As they talked, the entity spoke slowly, with difficulty. He said his
people were friendly and "came from near the moon." He called his machine a
"sil" and told Martinez they would meet again May 3, 1965. He also said they
needed help from us. Martinez replied that he wasn't in a position to give them
much help, but that he'd report the contact to the local radio station. "Yes, we
know," the little man said, extending a clammy hand and promising to see him
again May 3.
 Martinez claims to have met with aliens on May 3 and several occasions
since. After a third alleged meeting (11 P.M. on July 21, 1965), he told the same
little man his difficulty in finding anyone to believe him, to which the being
replied they would soon show themselves to people everywhere on Earth. He
was then warned if he failed to keep a December 3,1965, rendezvous, they
would take him and his family away, then burn Earth as punishment for failing
to accept their existence.

Gordon Creighton, "The Humanoids in Latin America," in Charles Bowen, ed.,

The Humanoids (Great Britain: Futura, 1977), pp. 111-13, citing Sydney Herald,
August 2, 1965; La Cronica Matutina (Buenos Aires), October 8, 1965; La
Cronica (Buenos Aires), August 8, 1965.

83. Early August 1965, Paraiba, Cruzeiros, state of Sao Paulo, Brazil

While quietly fishing in the River Paraiba, Joao do Rio, a railway worker,
noticed a saucer land nearby. A strange man, just over two tall feet with large
luminous eyes, approached him. Speaking perfect Portuguese, he said he was
from a flying saucer from another world and told him to relate his contact to
fellow countrymen. Before reentering the saucer, he gave the man a piece of
metal, which was later analyzed with inconclusive results.

Gordon Creighton, "The Humanoids in Latin America," in Charles Bowen, ed.,

The Humanoids (Great Britain: Futura), pp. 115-16, citing the Yorkshire Post
(August 1965); Jornal do Brasil, Rio de Janeiro, August 13, 1965; La Cronica
(Buenos Aires), August 14, 1965.
84. August 7, 1965, Venezuela
A UFO landed and two occupants seven to eight feet tall with long hair and big
eyes conversed with three humans. They wore coverall-like clothes and
communicated telepathically. When asked if any aliens live among us, they
replied yes: "Two million, four hundred and seventeen thousand, eight hundred
and five."

John A. Keel, Our Haunted Planet (Conn.: Fawcett Gold Medal, 1971), p. 123.
85. August 23, 1965, near Mexico City, night
Three students of La Salle University claim to have seen a shiny 160-foot disc
emitting an intense white light land just outside Mexico City. The fair-haired,
blue-eyed beings looked entirely like Earthlings, but towered over seven feet
high. They wore seamless onepiece garb, metallic in appearance. The students
were invited into the ship and taken for a three-hour journey to a large space
station. The saucer ride was exceptionally quiet, and the beings said they
communicated with each other telepathically. Their instruments were also
operated by thought-power. The space station was occupied by aliens of
different sizes and appearance from various parts of our solar system. The
students also claimed to have met aboard the space station a Brazilian family
who became lost in the jungles of their own country whom the aliens picked up.
The beings who picked the students up hailed from Ganymede, the third moon of
Jupiter. The visitors said they were a thousand years ahead of Earth and that they
knew seven hundred Earth languages in addition to Spanish. The aliens said they
would make a mass landing on Earth in October 1965 to effect a peaceful
conquest and teach us how to use the power of thought properly and
constructively, not destructively, as we presently do.

Gordon Creighton, "The Humanoids in Latin America," in Charles Bowen, ed.,
The Humanoids (Great Britain: Futura, 1977), pp. 118-19, citing Ultimas
Noticias (Mexico City), August 22, 1965; Ultima Hora (Buenos Aires), August
22, 1965 (which gives full names of all students); Noticias Populares (Sao
Paulo), August 23, 1965; La Montagne (France), August 23, 1965; Bayreuther
Tagblatt (Germany), September 28, 1965.
86. August 23, 1965, near Mexico City, night
A trio of boys from a secondary school claimed to have contacted occupants
from a saucer which landed by a road outside Mexico City, on the same night,
time, and location as the three La Salle University students in the previous case.
Their stories are identical in every respect.

Ibid.

87. About September 15, 1965, near Lima, Peru, night

A popular musician and a companion were driving when their car stopped and
rose into the air. A voice said, "We come from a distant star ... know your ...
languages.... We like music very much, and ... especially esteem yours." They
also said, "We believe in God." The car was then returned to the ground.

Listing of "Type 1" Cases, compiled by Richard Heiden, date unknown.

88. November 9,1965, New York City, night
Trapped in his room on the twelfth floor of a hotel during the famous 1965
power blackout, actor Stuart Whitman heard a "whippoorwill" whistling sound
outside the window where two luminous discs, one blue, one orange, hovered. A
voice told Whitman, "They were fearful of Earth because Earthlings were
messing around with unknown quantities and might disrupt the balance of the
universe and their planet.... The blackout was just a little demonstration of their
power, and they could do a lot more with almost no effort. They said they could
stop our whole planet from functioning." No one else reported seeing or hearing
the object or voice.

John A. Keel, Why UFOs (New York: Manor, 1970), p. 184, also published as
UFOs: Operation Trojan Horse (New York: Putnum's Sons, 1970).

89. About February 15, 1966, Ballard, Washington State, night

Helping another man deliver oil barrels by truck, an unnamed mechanic claims
to have set a homing device in a field. He said then a saucershaped object (thirty
feet in diameter) set down on three legs. The five-foot-tall pilot inside allowed
him to come aboard, telling him in Spanish that the craft was used only for
travelling on Earth and that it took eighteen to twenty years to reach Earth. The
witness also claims to have received letters from an alien living in Seattle,
Washington.

Times (Seattle, Washington), March 21,1966 (column by Donald Duncan).

90. July 31, 1966, between Chatham and Rochester, England, 12 P.m.

Kevin Kane heard a hum and saw a round object (about sixty feet in diameter)
with wings and an antenna. "Everything glowed" upon the craft's landing. A six-
foot-tall man dressed in black "told me to say no more than I have said," and
snatched his camera. Male crew members wore black; the women, white. The
craft then flew off.

A report by Kevin Kane to the UFO Investigation Centre (Sydney, Australia).

91. August 11, 1966, Victoria, New South Wales, Australia, night

Walking to a local shop, Miss M. Travers noticed a humming sound

accompanied by the landing of a luminous silvery disc (fifty feet by ten feet). A
door slid open and a tall, handsome man wearing a loose-fitting, metallic green
tunic emerged. He spoke telepathically. He touched her, and she felt compelled
to obey. She was taken inside the craft where the man allegedly had sex with
her. After being released, she tripped and burned her ankle, losing
consciousness. She awoke in a paddock where the encounter originated, and the
object was gone. Travers later claims to have become pregnant.

Keith Basterfield, An Indepth Review of Australasian UFO Related Entity
Reports (Australian Centre for UFO Studies, June 1980), p. 34; Otto Binder,
Unsolved Mysteries of the Past (New York: Tower Publications, 1968); Frank
Edwards, Flying Saucers Here and Now! (New York: Lyle Stuart, 1967), p. 147.

92. October 2, 1966, Cincinnati, Ohio, 8:20 P.M.

Inside her home, Mrs. Everett Steward smelled a bad odor, felt someone was
watching her, and went to the bedroom where she saw an eggshaped object with
revolving red, green, and white lights and portholes. Several other people
claimed to have seen it (seventy-five to one hundred feet off the ground).

After she went to bed, a bright white light filled the room, then vanished.
Suddenly, a glowing globe appeared at the end of her bed, containing five "non-
human" beings with bald heads and oval sunken eyes. They had slits for noses,
appeared mouthless, and repeated the mental "We have made contact" message
several times.

Leonard Stringfield, Situation Red: The UFO Siege! (Garden City, N.Y.:
Doubleday, 1977), pp. 33-36.

93. November 2, 1966, between Mineral Wells, West Virginia, and Marginia,
Ohio, night

Woodrow Derenberger was driving home to Mineral Wells when something

"like the chimney of a kerosene lamp" landed on the road ahead. He stopped and
saw a six-foot-tall, dark-skinned man with slightly elongated eyes approach him.
His dark coat and blue pants were shiny. He also had a fixed grin. The man
spoke telepathically, asking him to roll down the window, saying his name was
Cold and he was from "a country much less powerful" than the United States.
The man said he would return, reentered the craft, and flew away.

Derenberger claims several visits with Indrid Cold since. Cold and
companions often arrive by car. They hail from Lanulos in "the galaxy of
Genemedes." Derenberger says he was taken there and saw many cities and
people with "colorful shorts" and signs written in Chinese-type script. The air
and climate are identical to Earth.

John A. Keel, Why UFOs (New York: Manor, 1970), pp. 178-80, also published
as UFOs: Operation Trojan Horse (New York: Putnum's Sons, 1970). 94.
November 17, 1966, Gaffney, South Carolina, 4 A.M.

Two Gaffney, South Carolina, police officers (Charles Hutchins and A. G.
Huskey) were patroling an isolated road when they saw a gold metallic sphere
with a wide flat rim hovered just above the ground. A small door opened and a
tiny ladder came down. They had a conversation with a four-foot-tall man.
Hutchins said, "He talked real good ... like a college graduate ... acted like he
knew exactly what he was saying and doing ... didn't make any quick or false
moves ... just stood there and talked to us." Hutchins asked what he was doing
and where he was from, but "he just laughed ... a funny kind of laugh." The
being asked "why we were both dressed alike...." The conversation lasted two or
three minutes. Speaking slowly and precisely, the small man declared, "I ... will
... return ... in ... two ... days," climbed up the ladder, and took off with a noise
"like an engine with a muffler on it." The being never returned.

John A. Keel, Strange Creatures from Time and Space (Conn.: Fawcett Gold
Medal, 1970), pp. 149, 157-61.

95. January 25, 1967, South Ashburnham, Massachusetts, 6:35 P.M.

Betty Andreasson, a deeply religious fundamentalist Christian, was at her rural

home with her parents and seven kids while her husband, injured the previous
month in a serious car accident, remained hospitalized. Their electricity went out
for about thirty seconds, during which time Betty saw a pulsating pink light
outside the kitchen window. Her father saw "Halloween" creatures jumping "one
after the other just like grasshoppers." Suddenly several aliens came through the
wall, but Betty could recall nothing further. With the exception of her daughter
Beckey, who saw an unusual light in the window, the rest of the family-in the
TV room-saw nothing.

Under regressive hypnosis ten years later, Betty said she saw four aliens
(about three feet tall) in dark blue uniforms and having big pear-shaped heads.
Their outfits had a bird insignia on the left sleeve. They had gray claylike skin,
slit mouths, and lined up one next to the other. The leader (taller than the rest-
about five feet) telepathically communicated his name as Quazgaa. Like the
others, he had two holes for a nose, a hole for each ear, and threefingered hands
covered with gloves. Betty offered them food, but Quazgaa said they needed
mind food. Betty gave him a Bible, and in return she got a thin blue book. Betty
was taken to an ovalshaped craft hovering in the back garden.

Inside the object, Betty saw a brilliant white light. She was told to undress,
was given a white garment to wear, and was examined. A probe was pushed up
her nose, while another entered her navel. They said she was being "measured
for procreation."

Betty then passed through a glass wall with two humanoids to a red region
where reptilelike beings were crawling everywhere. They next entered a very
beautiful area where everything was green. Floating over a pyramid, she saw a
crystal city where she was taken inside one of the structures. There she saw a
large bird. The room was suddenly bathed in heat and light, hurting Betty. When
the temperature dropped, the bird was gone, leaving only a mound of embers
from which a "big fat worm" emerged. Betty then heard what she believed to be
the voice of God.

The beings appeared to Betty in order to "reveal to man his true nature....
Man seeks to destroy himself. Greed, greed, greed ... it draws all foul things...."
She says they want "the truth-freedomlove-to understand man's hatred-to deal
with it righteously."

Under hypnosis, Betty's daughter Beckey also told of seeing the beings.
Betty, who at the time of the original incident was thirty years old and
unemployed, claims further contact since.

Raymond Fowler, The Andreasson Affair (N.J.: PrenticeHall, 1979); John

Rimmer, The Evidence for Alien Abductions (Britain: The Aquarian Press,
1974), pp. 69-71.

96. February 16, 1967, off Highway 70 near St. Louis, Missouri, morning

A 180-feet cigarshaped object landed in a field, and three beings in silver suits
invited Raymond Wettling inside for breakfast. They talked over coffee for an
hour and fortyfive minutes, and he was given a tour of the vessel's two rooms,
one engulfed in bright red light and the other looking like an office. He left the
craft, and it flew away vertically very fast.

Chicago American, February 16, 1967.

97. March 1, 1967, near Eden, New York, 1:30 A.M.

While racoon hunting in the woods, DeWitt Baldwin heard a buzzing sound and
saw a gold-colored circular object land. A door slid open and a man in a
tightfitting suit with a helmet and some type of goggles "asked me what I was
doing ... he talked very plainly with no accent. I told him I was hunting. He
asked if I was born here and I said no.... He told me he would be back." The man
reentered the saucer and "seconds later zipped out of sight."

Baldwin claimed a second contact March 3, 1967, while returning to the

site to get his wallet.

Buffalo Evening News (Buffalo, N.Y.), March 4, 1967, p. 1;. John A. Keel, Our
Haunted Planet (Greenwich, Conn.: Fawcett Gold Medal, 1971), p. 110; also, a
copy of a report by James Reed Jr. on the incident to the National Investigations
Committee on Aerial Phenomena (NICAP), via Robert C. Girard, UFO book
dealer, Scotia, N.Y.

98. March 20, 1967, near Butler, Pennsylvania, 10:45 P.M.

An anonymous Butler man saw an unusual aerial light and with his daughter left
the house to investigate. He drove the family Volkswagen to the edge of town.
Minutes after parking on a back road, they spotted two spheres of light, which
rapidly picked up speed. The pair braced for a collision which never came. The
globes changed and took the forms of five beings who stood only feet from the
car. The humanlike entities had faces "totally devoid of expression.... Their
noses were narrow and pointed, and their mouths were slits like the eyes." Their
skin was like scar tissue or skin which has been severely burned. They wore
grayish-green shirts and pants, helmets which were flat on top, and had blond
hair. They stood five feet seven inches tall, although one was about five feet.
The daughter said there was "no noise in connection with either the lights or the
figures." The couple hurried into the car and sped away. The daughter later
remarked that when the lights approached the car, she could hear a telepathic
"chorus of voices" in her mind. "The voices said: 'Don't move ... don't move.'
They kept repeating 'Don't move ... don't move,' but they dragged out the words-
'Dooooooonnnn'tttt Mooooove.' When the lights vanished, the voices stopped at
once." Her father heard no voices.

Brad Steiger, Alien Meetings (New York: Grosset and Dunlap, 1978), pp. 52-54.

99. March 31, 1967, near Loco, Texas, 10:30 P.M.

While driving home, Carroll Watts saw an unusual light and turned his car off
the main road to get closer. He came upon a craft (one hundred feet by eight to
ten feet), left the car, and approached. A door slid open and a voice asked if he
would submit to a physical exam. The voice said it was needed if he wished to
take a ride-that any man passing the exam could fly with them-but women and
children weren't allowed. Watts was asked to stand in front of a device in order
to pass the test. He never saw an occupant, but just heard a voice: "They were
stationed all over the world and could come and go as they pleased-no one could
stop them.... When I declined the physical, they told me that several people had
taken the test and made flights." Watts returned to his car, and the craft flew off
silently.

Two weeks later, while driving near his home, Watts saw a light, and his
pickup truck stalled. An eggshaped craft landed, and he talked to four muscular
men (five feet tall) with slit mouths and elongated eyes and wearing white
coverall-type suits. When speaking, their mouths remained still. He was taken to
a bigger craft and examined with a machine that probed his body with wires.
Watts claims several contacts since.

John A. Keel, Strange Creatures from Time and Space (Conn.: Fawcett Gold
Medal, 1970), pp. 155-57.
100. March 1967, Mexico City, midnight
While Maria Cristina Leguizamo listened to the radio, a flying saucer landed in
her yard and an "extremely handsome man with green eyes" and shoulderlength
silver hair invited her to take a ride. She was told to remove her shoes first. The
being hailed from "the Green Planet" and said that the planet Arcobolus is
pulling Earth "little by little toward the sun." He also said "neither Russians nor
Americans will ever arrive at the moon."

General News (Mexico City), June 22, 1968.

101. April 21, 1967, near Rapid City, Michigan, 9 P.M.

The witness was returning from work and saw a round bluishwhite object land in
a wooded area. After alerting the sheriff's department, he drove to the area with
his wife and kids. The man and officers split up and searched the region, and the
witness saw a craft sitting in a swampy area and a man (five and a half feet tall)
nearby. After yelling hello a couple of times, he got a telepathic message to "get
away from here!" The witness fled back to the car.

Copy of a letter from the wife of the witness to the National Investigations
Committee on Aerial Phenomena (NICAP), via Robert C. Girard, UFO book
dealer, Scotia, N.Y.

102. June 9, 1967, Seattle, Washington, 9 P.M.

A red sphere came through the bathroom window, struck a sixyear-old boy on
the forehead, and then traveled "up through the ceiling." Outside the window
there were bright red and blue lights and a lipless being with short horns and
slanted eyes. The entity asked the boy about the composition of the garden soil,
then asked him to "watch the rocketship" as he "would be right back." The being
(with two tanks on its back jetting white exhaust) flew to the roof. There were
two more beings in the ship. One of them came over and asked the boy what a
tree was. When it pointed a gunlike object at him, the boy ran out of the
bathroom, screaming.

Copy of a letter from the boy's mother to the National Investigations Committee
on Aerial Phenomena, via Robert Girard, UFO book dealer, Scotia, N.Y. The
letter is dated June 22, 1967.

103. Late June 1967, Wild Plum Campground near Downieville, California,
evening

A group of tourists claim they were camping at the Wild Plum Campground and
heard a highpitched whistle. They saw a saucershaped object land in a gravel
parking area. A mechanical voice then requested they "identify themselves from
left to right," and they complied. The craft gave a whistling sound again and flew
straight up.

Mountain Messenger (Downieville, California), June 29, 1967.

104. July 18, 1967, Boardman, Ohio, 1:30 A.M.

Awakened by a sound similar to background music in a science-fiction TV

show, Reverend Anthony de Polo felt an "impulse" to go downstairs and look
out the window. He did so and saw a figure in a luminous suit between his and
the neighbor's house. He went outside, and the sound started again and he
received the apparently telepathic message "You have nothing to fear. I shall not
hurt you, and I know you will not harm me." De Polo moved closer, heard the
sound again, and got another message: "Danger. I must leave." The figure turned
into a shapeless glow and vanished.

Jacques Vallee, Passport to Magonia (Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1969), pp. 147-
48, 347.

105. July 26, 1967, near Big Tujunga Canyon, California

Driving near Big Tujunga Canyon, Mrs. Maris De Long and Michael Kisner
both heard a voice tell them to look for something unusual. They soon saw a
flash, and a disc-shaped object appeared. A creature called Kronin emerged,
saying he was "a space robot encased in a time capsule." He was very tall,
boneless, eyeless, and was head of the Kronian race.

De Long later claimed several more contacts-including phone conversations

with Kronin.
John A. Keel, The Mothman Prophecies (New York: Signet, 1975), p. 135.
106. Summer 1967, near Cochrane, Canada
A park ranger says he talked with friendly extraterrestrials and was taken on a
spaceship ride. The man was a University of Toronto student manning a lookout
post when he conversed with the furry, English-speaking visitors.

Personal letter from John B. Musgrave of the Mobile Planetarium Project at the
Provincial Museum of Alberta, Canada, citing a Dusbury, Ontario (Canada),
newspaper dated autumn 1967.
107. August 16, 1967, Caracas, Venezuela
A four-foot-tall being with a big head and big eyes and wearing a shiny outfit
told Pedro Ramirez he was here because the Earth was "cracking and they
wished to save it."

Allan Hendry, The UFO Handbook (New York: Doubleday, 1979), p. 141; also
a copy of a letter to the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena
written by Vladimir Scheffer, August 22, 1967, via Robert C. Girard, UFO book
dealer, Scotia, N.Y.
108. August 29, 1967, Craddle Hill, Warminster,
England
A fiery, coneshaped object with a revolving rim landed, and Arthur Shuttlewood
claims to have approached and talked with a being during a "reassuring
meeting." The craft "blacked out" after six minutes, and he soon heard a
thumping noise pass by and felt a gust of wind.

Arthur Shuttlewood, Warnings from Flying Friends (Warminster, England:

Portway Press, 1968), p. 53.
109. September 3, 1967, Caracas, Venezuela
Suffering a bad headache, Paula Valdez came home after work and went to bed.
Shortly after falling asleep, a whistling sound woke her. A small manlike being
with a big head and bulging eyes was leaning over her and said, "I want you to
come with us so that you will know other worlds. You will realize how small
your world is." She screamed, and the figure floated from the room. Her family
came in, but none saw the being.

Daniel Cohen, Creatures from UFO's (New York: Archway, 1979), p. 104.

110. September 9, 1967, Valencia, Venezuela, 5 A.M.

In front of city hall police officer Porfirio Andrade saw a four-foottall man with
bulging, red glowing eyes wearing a silver uniform. He pointed his gun at it
when a voice from a disc-shaped object overhead said, "Don't do him any harm.
We are here on a peaceful mission. He'll do you no harm." Then the being on the
ground began talking, first repeating that they were peaceful and saying "they"
wanted Andrade to go with them to another planet where he would enjoy many
benefits over being on Earth. Frightened, Andrade refused, saying he was on
duty. The creature flew to the disc, into a door, and it flew away. The object
emitted flame and noise as it left.

Daniel Cohen, Creatures from UFO's (New York: Archway, 1979), pp. 104-105.

111. September 14, 1967, La Baleia, Minas Gerais, Brazil

A domed object (sixty feet in diameter) with portholes landed on a football field.
Underneath the object were red, blue, and yellow flashing lights. As Fabio Jose
Diniz (age sixteen) approached, two men (seven feet tall) in tightfitting, green
"diver suits" emerged, saying (in Portuguese): "Don't run away-come back!"
They said, "Appear here tomorrow, or we will take your family." They reentered
the craft and flew away. Their suits obscured part of their faces. Their large
round eyes were set far apart, and they appeared to have green skin and
triangular-shaped eyebrows.

The next day Diniz returned to the site with a UFO investigator without
incident.

Dr. Hulvio B. Aleixo, "Humanoids Encountered at La Balea, Parts 1 and 2,"

Flying Saucer Review 14, no. 6 (1968): 8-11, 20; 15, no. 1 (1969): 12-14.
112. October 6, 1967, Belfast, Northern Ireland, night
Walking home from a jazz club, Eugene Browne saw an object approach from
the sky. Suddenly, a yellow light streamed out, the beam slowly intensifying.
Within five minutes he lost consciousness. He awoke strapped to a table in a
windowless room filled with blue light. Four friendly looking men and a girl, all
in onepiece outfits, stood around him. The tallest-a six-foot-tall mansaid, "At
last, someone. You will do." Then he was freed from the table and led to the girl,
who had blue eyes, long blonde hair, high cheekbones, thin lips, and freckled,
fair skin. She initiated a sex act and explained they were from another galaxy
and that they wanted the seed of Earth men. Eugene was returned to the table
and told, "It will not be the last you will see of us." He soon awoke a mile from
the original encounter scene and saw the ship fly off with a whistle.

Brinsley Le Poer Trench, Operation Earth (Aylesbury: Tandem, 1975), pp. 18-
19.

113. October 10, 1967, Lakewood, Colorado, 12:45 A.M.

A six-foot-tall man with a goatee flagged down an anonymous male on his way
home and telepathically asked the location of the North Star and the current date.
He wore a jacket with four gold bars on both shoulders. He asked and was told
that the witness had a cigarette in his mouth, and he said, "Oh, one of your
primitive vices." After asking what the man was driving, the being responded,
"Oh, your primitive mode of transportation." When the witness asked where he
was from, the entity said he couldn't say, "but my colleagues and I will return."
He then walked a few feet away and disappeared. The witness next heard a
whining noise and saw an object (one hundred yards long) rise straight up to
where two other objects were, and they flew off rapidly.

Project Bluebook, case investigated by Lieutenant Colonel A. P. Webb, U.S. Air
Force.

114. November 28, 1967, near Americana, Brazil, 2:30 A.M.

Upon seeing a huge, bright metallic object with "enormous rivets on it" hovering
fifty feet off the ground, an unnamed highway patrolman heard a humming noise
and experienced a headache. His police car's engine and lights failed. When the
object left, his vehicle acted normally. About forty-eight hours later, on
November 28, the object returned, the officer again became paralyzed and two
men in tightfitting clothes with glowing belts emerged on a cylinder under the
craft. The witness was told in Portuguese not to be frightened and to put away
his gun. They said that they would return. The craft then flew away.

Aerial Phenomena Research Organization Bulletin (APRO) (SeptemberOctober

1968): 5.

115. December 3, 1967, near Ashland, Nebraska, 2:30 A.M.

His patrol car engulfed in a bright light on the edge of town, Ashland police
officer Herbert Schirmer recalls seeing a UFO fly away. Unable to account for
missing time, he underwent regressive hypnosis, during which he recounted that
his engine quit, his headlights and two-way radio failed. A football-shaped
object with "tripod legs" landed in a nearby field. He was paralyzed, and several
beings approached his car and invited him aboard. They communicated
mentally, explaining they are from "a nearby galaxy," with bases on Venus and
Jupiter. Climbing a ladder into the ship, he was taken into a room with red
lighting. The interior contained computerlike machines and two triangular-
backed chairs in front of a "vision screen." Inside the ship was cold. The four
alien men (four and a half to five feet tall) had muscular limbs. Their "chest[s
were] larger and bigger than you might expect on someone of their size." Their
posture was rigid and they walked with a definite military motion. Their heads
were long and thin, with "large Oriental eyes ... more like cat's eyes." Their faces
were "a pastry dough color." They had five fingers and wore silvery-gray gloves
and boots. Seamless coverall garments "resembling a flight suit you buy at the
Army surplus stores" covered their bodies, extending over their heads like a
helmet with a little "antennae" protruding from the sides of the head. They had
"funny-looking lips" and long, flat noses. Each wore a flashlightlike gun in a
holster on the waist, capable of producing a paralyzing ray. While on board, two
beings paced back and forth outside the ship "like regular soldiers on guard duty
... looking as they walked." The ship was made entirely of magnesium, he was
told. They landed to "take some electricity from the powerlines.... This is an
observation ship ... they have been observing us for a long time ... they put out
reports slowly to prepare us ... for the invasion ... not to conquer the world, just a
showing of themselves.... He did not tell me why they are here." He was returned
to the car as the ship emitted a reddish glow, followed by a highpitched whine.
The tripod legs retracted as the vessel rapidly flew away.

Warren Smith, The Book of Encounters (New York: Kensington Publishing,
1976), pp. 87-113.

116. December 12, 1967, between Ithaca and Auburn, New York, 7:00 P.M.

Driving home from visiting a friend in North Lansing, Rita Malley with her son
Dana in the back seat were southbound on remote Route 34. Midway between
North and South Lansing, the car was drenched in a red light from a circular
dome-shaped object with brilliant red and green lights, moving as quickly as the
car. Glancing back, Dana "was sitting straight up. His eyes were just bugging
right out of his head.... I yelled at him.... His response was-nothing." The object
"extended a white beam of light ... and it was just completely right over the
controls of my car. My car stopped.... I kept stamping the accelerator-but the car
wouldn't move." Soon she heard a "low humming ... like a whole swarm of
bees." Suddenly the hum stopped and "voices came out of the ... hovering object
... my car windows were rolled up tight ... they were all talking at the same time,
saying the same thing,.. . as if what they were saying was being translated into
English." The "voices were not impressions in my mind. They were external,
coming from that hovering thing ... like ... they were talking through a
loudspeaker, but not quite. I couldn't tell whether they were male or female ...
there were so many of them all at once." They said: "Paul Donalds, Moravia,
killed ... near or in Massena in a tractor-trailer owned by Joe Etinger, Moravia."
The voices then said that Dana would not recall the incident. Malley gradually
regained control of the car, and the object left. Both statements reportedly
proved true. The next day she learned the man was killed exactly as predicted.
Her son did not recall any of the experience.

The Official Guide to UFOs (New York: Ace, 1968), pp. 67-74. The case is
written by and based upon a personal interview by Lloyd Mallan with Rita
Malley.
117. December 1967, near Adelphi, Maryland
A psychology major in college, Tom Monteleone claims to have talked with a
man, Vadig, from a grounded UFO on four separate occasions. During a later
encounter Vadig came to a Washington, D.C., restaurant dressed in conventional
clothes, where Monteleone was a waiter. Vadig appeared normal, except for
bulging "thyroid eyes." Each encounter ended with the alien saying, "I'll see you
in time."

John A. Keel, Why UFOs (New York: Manor), pp. 173-74.

118. May or June 1968, Buenos Aires, Argentina, after midnight

Walking home from a Buenos Aires theater in the fog, Benjamin Solari
Parravicini, an Argentine painter/sculptor, encountered a man at the corner of
Avenida Belgrano and Avenida 9 de Julio. He was a fairskinned Nordic type
"whose eyes were so light in color that it looked as though he were blind." The
man spoke in an unintelligible guttural language, his manner "kindly and gentle."
Looking upward, Parravicini saw an aerial ship without lights.

Overcome by dizziness, he awoke inside the craft, which was in flight, in
the presence of three beings. A very handsome alien questioned him in an
unintelligible language, yet he understood. He was told not to be alarmed; they
would take him on a trip around the Earth, returning him precisely where they
found him. He next found himself on the same street corner from where he left.

Charles Bowen, ed., Encounter Cases from Flying Saucer Review (New York:
Signet, 1977), pp. 41-42.

119. June 1968, Carlos Paz, Argentina, 12:50 A.M.

Motel owner Pedro Pretzel saw an object with two bright red headlights on the
road. Arriving home, he found his daughter unconscious. Upon reviving, she
told of a blond man (about six feet five inches tall) in a bright blue outfit and
holding a light-blue globe in his hand, who had talked to her.

Jacques Vallee, Passport to Magonia (Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1969), p. 357.

120. July 2, 1968, Sierra Chica, near Olavarria, province of Buenos Aires,
Argentina, 11:30 A.M.

Riding horseback on his father's farm near Sierra Chica, Oscar Hariberto Iriart
noticed three men (five and a half feet tall) standing near a wire fence, making
signs which appeared to be encouraging him to approach. Thinking they could
be bird hunters, he rode over. He found two white-haired men wearing red shirts.
"Apart from the constant unblinking way in which they gazed fixedly at me with
their deep-set eyes, they might have been just any ordinary men such as we see
everyday," except they had transparent eyes. The boy could see through to the
grass behind them. The following conversation ensued:

Visitor: "You are going to know the world."

Boy: "Yes, of course-when I have enough money."

Visitor: "No. We will take you. We cannot take you now, as we have a big
load."

The strangers then showed him a silvery-colored ellipticalshaped craft

standing on three legs in a muddy drainage ditch nearby. He was given an
envelope, saying it was a message for him. The man told him to dip the letter in
a nearby water puddle. Upon doing so, he noticed that his hands and the
envelope were entirely dry. The message was in Spanish (written in a childlike
manner), saying, "You are going to know the world. F. Saucer." The word "you"
was misspelled.

They climbed back onto the machine, lifted the top, and got in. Lights
flashed as it shot up vertically, almost instantly reducing to a speck in the sky.
Oscar felt "as though he had been asleep" and raced home. He noticed his horse
and dog were paralyzed, remaining so for several minutes.

Charles Bowen, ed., Encounter Cases from Flying Saucer Review (New York:
Signet, 1977), pp. 50-53.

121. July 22, 1968, St. Bruno, Quebec, evening

Six girls (ranging in age from seven to thirteen) claim they saw a dark hexagonal
object in the sky. Inside was a figure wearing a white veil. Two of the six,
Manon Saint-Jean and Line Grise, reported hearing a "soft and slow" voice
advising them to pray and promising to return on Monday, October 7. The voice
also promised that other signs would appear. The Virgin Mary also spoke to
them concerning peace and brotherhood. Other UFOs were reported in the area
at the time. It is unknown if the object and being reappeared October 7.

John A. Keel, Why UFOs (New York: Manor, 1970), p. 251, also published as
UFOs: Operation Trojan Horse (New York: Putnum's Sons, 1970); personal
letter from John B. Musgrave, employee of the Mobile Planetarium Project at the
Provincial Museum of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada, citing Montreal U.F.O.
Newsletter, no. 3: 18-19. It should be noted that Saucer News, no. 74 (Spring-
Summer 1969): 34, describes the object as a cloud.
122. August 31, 1968, South America, early morning
Two unidentified male casino cashiers were driving home from work when their
car quit. Investigating the cause, the pair found themselves surrounded by four
small men who were entirely bald and stocky. They talked without moving their
lips, and the men said they felt like a transmitter inside their heads was
generating the words "Don't fear, don't fear." During their conversation, the little
men said that the sun is "the reason for everything" and that mathematics is the
universal language. Something resembling a TV screen was then produced,
which projected a scene resembling Niagara Falls, a giant descending cloud,
then what appeared to be Niagara Falls but without water. The creatures took
blood samples by pricking the middle finger of both men.

Although frightened, the pair could do nothing until the visitors finished,
whereupon they disappeared into an illuminated disc hovering some three feet
off the ground. After the object left, the car started without difficulty.

Aerial Phenomena Research Organization Bulletin (SeptemberOctober 1968): 1,

3.
123. August 1968, Brasilia, Brazil, night
After claiming telepathic contact with extraterrestrials, Wilson da Silva says he
predicted that a UFO would land on his property. A glowing disc landed while
he was reportedly with a group of followers. He left the group and approached
the disc, seeing a man of average height in a blue onepiece outfit and belt who
emerged and contacted him. Upon returning, he told the group he could recall
nothing but the following: "We are peaceful. Your atomic experiments are
causing an imbalance in our world." The ship flew off rapidly. Da Silva claims
additional contacts.

O Dia (Rio de Janeiro), a nine-article series by Eduardo Santa Maria between

October 26 and November 4, 1970.
124. August 1968, near Toronto, Canada
In downtown Toronto, a car pulled up in front of "Mr. S" and the two men inside
asked him by name if he'd like to go for a ride. He next recalled being left out in
the country by a flying saucer. There were five men in dark brown clothing who
said the craft was piloted by an unnamed female, whom he didn't see. They
explained everything about the propulsion system. Mr. S declined an offer to
ride in the saucer, saying he had to return to work. He was taken back to Yonge
Street but couldn't recall the trip back.

Personal letter from John B. Musgrave, Mobile Planetarium Project at the

Provincial Museum of Alberta, Canada, citing a letter from Vera Kolver to
Saucers, Space & Science, no. 59 (1970): 15.

125. September 1, 1968, Mendoza, Argentina, 3:30 P.M.

Two men were returning home when their car's engine and headlights quit. After
getting out and checking under the hood, they saw a large circular object
hovering near them. They saw a trio of small humanoids, and the men suffered
paralysis. Two other figures were seen near the object as well. The three
communicated telepathically and showed pictures to them before reentering the
craft and flying off rapidly.

Flying Saucer Review 14 (November 1968).

126. October 1968, Mar del Plata (Buenos Aires), Argentina, 3:00 P.M.

Ignacio Papaleo's small truck suddenly stopped on National Highway 2. Getting

out to check the engine, he saw a glowing object just above his head and became
paralyzed. Seconds later, a small ladder came out and a small man gestured for
him to come aboard, then verbally asked him. He was told the contact was to see
if he could be reproduced within the alien's atmosphere. He was helped up the
ladder and passed out, later waking up in his truck with several puncture marks
on his forearm.

Feomenologia, no. 41, citing 7 Dias Ilustrados (Buenos Aires), December 1968.
127. December 28, 1968, Goulburn, New South Wales, Australia

An unnamed male carpenter encountered a craft in a rural area and approached

it. The entity-human in appearance-stood four and a half feet, had long hair,
young features, and silver clothes, and said it came from Saturn. The man talked
with the being for three minutes before it reentered the object and flew off.

Ten years prior to this encounter, the same man, while foxhunting, says he
shot at an aerial disc-shaped object near the same spot. After firing, there was a
flash of light, and the man says he was burned.

Keith Basterfield, An Indepth Review of Australasian UFO Related Entity

Reports (Australian Centre for UFO Studies, Juue 1980), p. 37.

128. February 7, 1969, near Pirassununga, state of Sao Paulo, Brazil, 7:00 A.M.

Tiago Machado was awakened by shouts from area residents who were watching
a parachute-shaped object emitting a blue light. Running to where the object was
seen, he reportedly encountered a disc from which two small men (three feet
eight inches tall), emerged, clad in silvery-colored outfits, including gloves and
boots. The faces looked yellow through their helmets and they had noses
"squashed" at the ends. The men seemed to fly from the craft's opening to the
ground. The figures spoke in unintelligible hoarse guttural sounds, which
appeared to come from a tube projecting down from their chin. Nervous, Tiago
then lit up a cigarette and began smoking, causing the creatures to laugh (when
they did so, he noticed their teeth were black). He then laid the pack on the
ground and pushed it toward them with his foot. One of them extended his hand
above the cigarette pack, and it rose up into his palm. He then made a quick
movement toward his body and the pack disappeared.

Appearing to converse by signs, the men made the outline of a sphere in the
air, then indicated a motion which Tiago interpreted as denoting a craft falling or
drifting to the ground. About this time, shouts of others could be heard, and the
creatures drifted into the object. One pointed a pipe-shaped object at Tiago's
legs, causing him to fall. The disc then flew away.

Aerial Phenomena Research Organization Bulletin (March-April 1969): 5.

129. Early May 1969, Brazil
A disc-shaped object landed, and three small yellowish-colored men with long
hair and beards and prominent cheekbones emerged. They carried what appeared
to be weapons, which were pointed at the legs of Brazilian army soldier Jose
Antonio, paralyzing him. They placed a plastic helmet over his head and took
him aboard. He was put into a seat, a safety belt was fastened, and he was taken
for a ride. At one point the craft flew near something which was very bright,
appearing to be the sun.

After the craft landed (not on Earth), Antonio was taken into a brilliant gray
room where bodies of humans were lying at one side. He was forced to drink a
greenish liquid and asked many questions about Earth conditions. Once he drank
the liquid he was better able to understand what they were saying. They wanted
his help in staying on Earth, but he refused, pointing to his rosary. Then a
Christlike man appeared and gave him a message in Portuguese, which Antonio
promised not to disclose. The disc then returned to Earth, and he was let out in
the darkness about two hundred miles from the original incident. The encounter
lasted forty-eight hours, but he claims four and a half Earth days had passed
during the period.

He claims another contact May 21, 1969, in which the beings wanted him
to "work against my own people." He became scared that the world was in grave
danger.

Aerial Phenomena Research Organization Bulletin (May-June 1969): 8; H. B.

Aleixo, "Abduction at Bebedouro," Flying Saucer Review 19, no. 6 (1973): 6-
14; Gordon Creighton, "Forty-Eight Hours in a Flying Saucer," Flying Saucer
Review 17, no. 6 (1971): 15-17.
130. Summer 1969, Utah, midnight
Bill, Nora, and her two-and-a-half-yearold son, Alan, had driven continuously
for thirty-six hours on a trip from western Minnesota to Los Angeles. Suddenly,
while driving at ninety m.p.h., Bill was unable to control the steering wheel, and
the car veered into a road post. All were shaken but uninjured. Bill fixed the flat
tire and drove on. Feeling they were being followed, Nora looked in the rearview
mirror and saw what appeared to be a motorcycle light in the distance, but on the
wrong side of the road. She called it to Bill's attention, and he soon noticed it
was flying in the air. Soon the object (fish-shaped with a fin and a red light on
top) came within two hundred feet and emitted a humming sound. They felt
unusual vibrations in the car. Alan began crying, and Bill and Nora were soon
hysterical. Despite flooring the accelerator, the car would not top fifty-five
m.p.h. They soon came upon a parked, lighted camper on the roadside, and
pulled over. Bill was about to approach the camper and point out the UFO to the
occupants, but decided to stay in the car after seeing a bony-faced, inhuman
being peering out the window. Bill then saw an entity in a white, rub-berish
outfit and no apparent arm or leg joints approaching the car from near the
camper. Nora saw nothing, but she noted that Bill appeared in a trancelike state.
He experienced timelessness and a blank mind. Nora drove off, and the object
finally flew away at about 6:30 A.M.

Later in the morning they passed what appeared to be the same camper.
Nora became hysterical when she saw two inhuman entities inside the cab
wearing black suits and gloves. They appeared almost headless, with vague
outlines where the heads should have been and big "Cheshire catlike" grins.

Under regressive hypnosis five years later, Bill and Nora recounted similar
stories of being taken aboard a ship and seeing grasshopperlike creatures with
large heads, huge eyes, and telepathic communication. The beings apparently
examined them as they were placed on a reclining chair or table.

J. Clark, "The Ultimate Alien Encounter," in D. S. Rogo, UFO Abductions: True

Cases of Alien Kidnappings (New York: Signet, 1980), pp. 191-209.
131. October 17, 1969, Helsinki, Finland, evening
An anonymous Helsinki man was in his kitchen and was suddenly pulled
backward by a beam of light. He saw a shapeless glow one and a half feet off the
floor and twelve feet away. Above the light a voice said in Finnish that he had
been chosen for contact as he would not be frightened. The voice said they
"wished the people well." The voice said he wouldn't reveal himself because
their teleporting device gave off a sound that infuriated dogs. The voice then said
he would visit again in two years.

Pyhala Timo, "Contact in Helsinki," Flying Saucer Review Case Histories, no. 8
(December 1971): 7-8.
132. About 1969, Belfast, Northern Ireland
A married mother of three claims to have been taken aboard a spaceship several
times by "perfect human beings" with shoulderlength hair. The inside is white,
has large rooms with circular furniture, and a kitchen. She was actually "shown
some cooking methods that she has since tried with success." The aliens speak
English and proposed a peaceful solution to the Northern Ireland fighting and
asked her to write a book on it. The beings are here to aid humans. They hail
from different planets, some from the dark side of the moon.

Northern UFOlogy, no. 1 (October 1976).
133. 1970, near East Lancashire, England
An anonymous East Lancashire woman's car stalled while she watched a red and
blue UFO. Soon after, "UFOs started talking to me. They said they had been
watching me. I had been ill but they made me well by operating on my brain"
telepathically. They made contact because of her telepathic abilities. "They ...
watched me from birth. It took them six years to sort out our languagethey
whistle to communicate to each other and hoot in case of danger. I have seen
them through my telepathic eye. They have large heads ... high foreheads.
Beauty to them is a large brain."

She claims "they gave me a boyfriend in space and we made love by

telepathy-I seemed to leave my body and then come back." It took three months
for the crew to reach Earth at the speed of light. She also said they have cured
cancer and study us like we study animals.

Lancashire Evening Telegram (Blackburn, England), August 29, 1980.

134. June 15, 1971, Alton, Illinois, 8:55 P.M.

Anthony Wilkens reported to the Alton police that a silver craft emitting green
lights appeared by his back porch and two humanoids inside telepathically gave
him a formula giving him "the universe at his fingertips," which was in turn
given to police. After he refused an invitation to ride in the craft, they left,
promising to return August 3. No contact was reported on that date, however.
Wilkens was a patient in Alton's state mental institution at the time.

Evening Telegraph (Alton, I11.), June 16, 1971, p. 1; various wire sources, June
1971.

135. August 17, 1971, Palos Verdes, California, 2:00 A.M.

Leaving a friend's house at 2 A.M., John Hodges, a twenty-nineyear-old security

officer, pulled out of the driveway in the fog and saw two extraterrestrial beings
in the headlights. They were shaped like human brains, one the size of a human
body trunk, the other the size of an overgrown softball. Companion Peter
Rodriguez, an operating room technician in his twenties, saw only the larger one.
After dropping Peter off five minutes later Hodges could not account for two and
a half hours.

Under regressive hypnosis, Hodges recalled being taken to a room
containing several telepathic brainlike creatures who warned him that Earth
would be destroyed in 1971 by atomic bombs "if we don't take the time to
understand ourselves." Rodriguez underwent one reluctant and limited hypnosis
session, generally corroborating Hodges's hypnotic account.

D. S. Rogo, UFO Abductions: True Cases of Alien Kidnappings (New York:

Signet, 1980); A. Hendry, The UFO Handbook (New York: Doubleday, 1979);
J. Rimmer, The Evidence for Alien Abductions (London: Aquarian, 1984).
136. November 1971, Kansas
Luke saw a silvery saucer while driving. It descended and hovered twelve feet
above a field. He approached it, and a door opened, a ramp came out, and two
beings (four and a half feet tall) with big hairless heads and wearing white robes
emerged. They telepathically relayed feelings "of calm security." After asking to
see the ship's interior, he was given a tour. It was brightly illuminated with
control panels and buttons, including two chairs on invisible swivels. He was
later walked down the ramp, and the ship flew off.

He claims to have contacted the aliens via astral projection since, but not in
person.

Beacon (Wichita, Kansas), June 2, 1978, article by J. Roe.

137. December 5, 1971, Rio Carangula, Brazil, 7:00 P.M.

After claiming to have seen a UFO and occupants on three previous occasions,
Paulo Caetano Silveira, a twenty-seven-yearold typewriter repairman, says that
he was invited inside a craft and heard the beings speaking in an
incomprehensible language to one another, without moving their mouths. He
was made to understand (apparently telepathically) that they were peaceful and
planned to prepare Earth for contact. The beings (twenty inches tall) had slanted
eyes, fair skin, spiked "Roman helmets," and onepiece blue outfits. The craft
gave off multicolored lights.

Dr. Walter Buhler, Flying Saucer Review Special Bulletin, no. 5 (November
1973): 11-25; Aerial Phenomena Research Organization Bulletin
(SeptemberOctober 1971): 1, 3; Ultima Hora (Rio de Janeiro), October 2, 1971;
Gordon Creighton, "Uproar in Brazil," Flying Saucer Review 17, no. 6
(NovemberDecember 1971): 24-26.
138. 1971, Cairns, Queensland, Australia
While looking for mushrooms, a young man came across a landed object and
talked with its humanoid occupants, who gave him a ride. He was let out on the
other side of Cairns. The conversation was apparently spiritual, with the beings
saying that Cairns, Byron, and Coff Harbour were the "greatest centers of
religion," implying such religion was due to UFO activity and "mushrooms" of a
hallucinogenic nature.

Keith Basterfield, An Indepth Review of Australasian UFO Related Entity

Reports (Australian Centre for UFO Studies, June 1980), p. 41, citing personal
communication of Bill Chalker, who got the story from a reporter.
139. 1971, Hamilton, Bermuda
While in Hamilton, Bermuda, orchestra leader Harry Nixon met an elderly man
at a park, who claimed to talk regularly with aliens, usually at night. He
described them as "men with wings and [three-toed] horses' feet." The beings
said that "Britain would again be the most powerful country in the world; and
that the Atlantic sea-floor was rising, and Bermuda would rise six hundred
feet.... The visitors are from a planet ninety-five million miles away and they go
around just as we do-in their own cars, too." Arthur Shuttlewood, The Flying
Saucerers (London: Sphere, 1976), pp. 8788, quoting a letter from orchestra
leader Harry Nixon, dated July 4, 1971.
140. March 16, 1972, Granadero, Argentina, dawn
Seeing a sparkling cloud in a field, truck driver Luis Bracamonte stopped his
truck and watched the cloud change form into a blinding light. He next saw a
rimmed oblong object one hundred yards off. Three broad-shouldered Chinese-
looking men walked out and approached Bracamonte, and one of them grabbed
his elbow. He was told telepathically not to be afraid.

La Union (Catamarca), March 22, 1972.

141. May 5, 1972, Imjarvi, Finland, 10:15 P.M.

Aarno Heinonen heard a noise in his house, and then a female voice told him to
go to a crossroad-which he did-where he found a four-foot eight-inch tall,
blonde-haired female in a luminous yellow outfit and silver-colored shoes. She
held a silver ball with three projections resembling antennas. The witness was
told in Finnish that the woman and her race hail from the other side of the Milky
Way, that she was 180 years old, and that aliens had landed at Imjarvi before. He
was told to keep silent about the encounter. He later reported further contacts
with the female alien.

On January 7, 1970, he reportedly saw a three-foot-tall being at Imjarvi,

wearing a light green onepiece suit and a coneshaped helmet, and having a pale
face and thin appendages. He later experienced vomiting and numbness in his
right leg.

Ufoaika (Finland), October 1972; Aerial Phenomena Research Organization

Bulletin (July-August 1970): 6-7; and Flying Saucer Review 16, no. 3 (May-
June 1970): 23-24; 16, no. 5 (SeptemberOctober 1970): 14-18; 16, no. 6
(NovemberDecember 1970): 22.
142. May 1972, near Volgograd, Soviet Union
Several people were in a car twelve miles west of Volgograd. After the engine
stopped, they saw a large "metallic mass" and heard a mental voice say, "We
come in peace. Do not fear us." The object flew off rapidly, after which the car
engine started by itself.

H. Gris and Dick William, The New Soviet Psychic Discoveries (New York:
Warner, 1979).

143. July 25, 1972, Frankston, Victoria, Australia, about 9:15 P.M.

On the evening of July 3, 1972, a thirty-seven-yearold housewife watched a

large silverish-blue iridescent disc hover over the car she was driving. On July
25, a similar object appeared over the road as the woman was driving home.
While she attempted to speed away, the engine stopped but the headlights stayed
on. She pumped the brake, changed gears, tried moving the steering wheel, but
all without success. The car then "controlled itself" off to the side of the road. A
voice gave her three messages, after which her vehicle started by itself and the
object flew off.

She later returned to the location of the encounter after hearing a mental
voice tell her to do so. While she was driving there, a man "materialized" and
later "dematerialized" inside the car. She met two other people at the encounter
site and became unconscious upon seeing a strange man. She told of being taken
inside an illuminated room. She later regained consciousness in the car. Neither
of the two people who were with her the entire time of the reported encounter
observed anything unusual, besides the woman lying unconscious.

Keith Basterfield, A Catalogue of the More Interesting Australian Close

Encounters (Australian Centre for UFO Studies, October 1981), citing personal
investigation by Garry Little and Bill Stapleton. Also Keith Basterfield, UFOs:
The Image Hypothesis. Close Encounters of an Australian Kind (Sydney: Reed,
1981), p. 95; Keith Basterfield, An Indepth Review of Australasian UFO Related
Entity Reports (Centre for UFO Studies, June 1980), pp. 97-98.

144. November 26,1972, near Cash Creek Bridge, West Woodland, California,
evening

Returning home from an outing with two women companions, legal secretary
Judy Kendall, recalls driving but "we didn't seem to be getting anywhere." They
remembered seeing a disc-shaped craft with bright lights hovering nearby. Under
regressive hypnosis she told of how the trio were abducted by aliens. She
described being physically examined by three types of creatures. One was
humanlike, while another group appeared to wear gas masks. "And then there
was one I nicknamed the witch doctor," Kendall said. "He was huge looking and
he had a large bulboustype head and grasshopper-type eyes and no ears. There
were holes on the sides of his head. He had a small nose and I couldn't see much
of a mouth. The only thing he said to me was, it will be OK." They expected to
arrive home at 8:30 P.M., but didn't make it until past midnight.

The Bee (Fresno, California), November 3, 1979.

145. September 1973, Ivy Tanks, South Australia, 3 A.M.

A thirty-two-yearold woman was asleep in the passenger seat of a semitrailer for

about one hour while crossing the remote Nullar bor Plains. She heard a voice
call her name, telling her to awaken and look out the side window. Upon doing
so, she saw a stationary eggshaped object (about ten feet high by twenty feet
long) on the ground which appeared to have a "force field" around it. The object
glowed and was semitransparent. She saw two entities-a man walking in the
direction of the object and a man sitting inside the craft. The illumination
engulfing the egg decreased in intensity until no glow existed, while a single
white light could be seen coming from the object. The figures were
indistinguishable from normal humans. The walking being was wearing a loose-
fitting white or silverish onepiece outfit which puffed up around the ankles and
wrist.

Keith Basterfield, An Indepth Review of Australasian UFO Related Entity
Reports (Australian Centre for UFO Studies, June 1980), pp. 8, 47, 71-73, 97,
also personal notes of Keith Basterfield on the case, based on his direct
investigation.
146. September 1973, near Atlanta, Georgia
An unnamed Georgia woman claimed to begin receiving communications with
Zandark, a "member of the United Cosmic Council; a Commander in Chief in
Charge of Directing Technical Transmissions Via Mental Telepathy of the
Combination of Mediumistic Telepathy under the Direction of the Confederation
of Cosmic Space Beings." He said they "come to bring peace" and claim to have
built structures such as the sphinx and the pyramids.

John A. Keel, The Mothman Prophecies (New York: Signet, 1975), p. 137.

147. Sometime after October 11, 1973, Pascagoula, Mississippi, 8:00 P.M.

Fishing on a Pascagoula River pier, Charles Hickson and Calvin Parker watched
a bright object descend. Three five-foot-tall entities with pointed ears, sharp
noses, crablike hands, and elephantlike skin emerged and approached. Parker
fainted and Hickson was floated aboard, examined by an eyelike device, and
twenty minutes later said that he and Parker were deposited outside.

Both passed polygraph exams, and Hickson underwent regressive hypnosis.

Although there was no apparent communication between the beings and the
witnesses during this encounter, Hick son later claimed to have been in contact
with telepathic extraterrestrials who claimed they would make themselves
known in 1983.

Coral Lorenzen and Jim Lorenzen, Abducted!: Confrontations with Beings from
Outer Space (New York: Berkley, 1977); M. Sachs, The UFO Encyclopedia
(New York: Perigee, 1980); Ronald Story, The Encyclopedia of UFOs (New
York: Doubleday, 1980); Ralph Blum and Judy Blum, Beyond Earth: Man's
Contact with UFOs (New York: Bantam, 1980).
148. October 16, 1973, Lehi, Utah, night
Patricia Roach was asleep during the first night in her new house with her kids.
She had been aware of reports of a local prowler. She awoke frightened with
vague memories of an intruder in the house. Suspecting a prowler, she notified
police and spent the rest of the night with a friend. The next day her daughter
Dottie (age seven) said, "It wasn't a prowler, Mama, it was a spaceman." Nearly
two years later, under regressive hypnosis, Roach told of being abducted by a
"bright light" with "two figures over me." She saw three of her children "floated"
into a bright room containing four or five beings and a lot of "machines and
buttons." They were just over four feet tall, very thin, with large slanted eyes,
long arms, and clawlike hands. They wore fluorescent clothing with belts and
gloves. Roach said "they wanted to know how our minds work ... to give them
certain information that they don't have yet. ... How we think. How we feel. Our
emotions."

Dottie hypnotically recalls seeing a dark Indian girl wearing a dress on the
UFO. She said "they put a needle in and they took my mind, my thoughts." A
regular-looking man participated in the exam. He was five feet five inches tall,
bald on top of his head with a fringe on the sides, dressed in black, wearing
horn-rimmed glasses and a rubber glove. The alien asked "what I love, what I
hate. What animals I like. They asked me about my family. They manipulated
me." At one point during the exam a needle was pushed into her abdomen
without pain. Daughter Betty also recalled her mother lying nude on the table
surrounded by three aliens and a tall human male.

Coral Lorenzen and Jim Lorenzen, Abducted!: Confrontations with Beings from
Outer Space (New York: Berkley, 1977); John Rimmer, The Evidence for Alien
Abductions (London: Aquarian, 1984); Ronald Story, The Encyclopedia of
UFOs (Garden City, N.Y: Doubleday, 1980).

149. October 25, 1973, Uniontown, Pennsylvania, 9:00 P.M.

At least sixteen people saw a red sphere of light hovering high above a field.
"Stephen" and two ten-year-old male friends drove out to investigate. His car
headlights weakened as they approached. They walked over a hill crest and saw
a domed-shaped object (one hundred feet in diameter) "like a big bubble ...
making a sound like a lawnmower." One of the young boys spotted the
silhouette of a hulking creature nearby. Stephen fired a tracer bullet above two
figures. In the light they could see two similar-looking seven-to eight-foot-tall
creatures walking along a fenceline. They had long dark hair and green eyes.
The arms were so long they almost touched the ground. The creatures were
apparently communicating to each other with sounds similar to a baby crying. A
burned rubber smell was also present. After Stephen fired three rounds of bullets
into the bigger creature, it whined, moved its right shoulder close to the other
creature, and the glowing object above the field vanished. The beings then
turned and slowly walked into the woods.

By 9:45 P.M. state trooper Byrne arrived. He and Stephen soon started
walking near the scene and heard a rustling. About a half hour later Stephen saw
something coming from the woods, and the pair drove off. Just prior to this the
officer let Stephen shoot his gun at a brown object nearby.

By 1:30 A.M., after being contacted by the police, a team of five UFO
investigators, Stephen, and his father were on the scene. At about 2 A.M. a bull
in a nearby field and Stephen's dog became excited. "Stephen began shaking
back and forth as if he were going to faint. George Lutz asked him if he was OK,
and Stephen then began shaking back and forth.... He began breathing very
heavily and started growling like an animal.... Stephen was running around,
swinging his arms, and loudly growling like an animal." After collapsing, he
soon regained consciousness, saying: "Get away from me. It's here. Get back....
Keep away from the corner. ... It's in the corner!" He later said during an
interview that he saw a man dressed in a black hat and coat, carrying a sickle. "I
kept seeing the date 1976. It popped out of my mouth: "If these people don't
straighten out, the whole world will burn." He continued: "I'm living in hell now.
What I'm telling you happened before. This is how the world was destroyed. It
will be very soon, and this world will be gone."

B. E. Schwarz, "Berserk: A UFO-Creature Encounter," Flying Saucer Review
20, no. 1 (1974); B. E. Schwarz, UFO Dynamics Book I: Psychiatric and Psychic
Dimensions of the UFO Syndrome (Florida: Rainbow, 1983), pp. 195-213.
Schwarz received his M.D. degree from New York University College of
Medicine and is a fellow in psychiatry at the Mayo Foundation. Schwarz based
his articles on an in-depth personal interview with Stephen and UFO
investigators on the scene, including Stan Gordon, head of the Westmoreland
County (Pennsylvania) UFO Study Group.

150. October 29, 1973, Toronto, Canada, 10:00 P.M.

While walking his dog in a park, a man watched a fluorescent bluegreen light
forming a circle on a brick wall. Inside this illuminated circle was a TV screen
that emitted images, including that of alien entities. The man then communicated
with the screen images. The witness became physically sick, and his dog was
very frightened.

J. B. Musgrave, UFO Occupants & Critters: The Patterns in Canada (Amherst,

Wis.: Amherst Press, in conjunction with Global Communications, 1980), pp.
51, 60, citing an investigation by Henry McKay.

151. November 2, 1973, between Manchester and Goffstown, New Hampshire,

early morning

Shortly after leaving work as a masseuse at the Swedish Sauna in Manchester,

Lyndia Morel noticed a big yellow light skyward while driving on Route 114A.
The bright light flashed green, red, and blue. After the light went out and came
back a couple of times, Morel saw it hovering in front of her. It was an orange
and gold sphere covered with honeycomb hexagons with an oval window in the
upper left. She heard a highpitched whine, coinciding with a tingling through her
body. Suddenly her eyes were drawn to it, her hands glued to the steering wheel
as she lost control and was drawn to the object. She saw a being through the
craft window. The face was lighter than the rest of the body, with a grayish,
circular head. Its face had elephantlike wrinkles, and eggshaped eyes with dark
pupils that grabbed her attention. It had no nose or ears and a slitlike mouth. At
this point she felt something was telling her "Don't be afraid."

Morel managed to pull off the road, run to a nearby house, and summon
help. She told the startled couple inside, "Help me! I'm not drunk! I'm not on
drugs! A UFO just tried to pick me up!" Although the couple could not hear the
noise, Morel says the whine and tingling sensation continued for another two
minutes. The investigating police officer, the couple, and Morel later saw a
vague light in the sky, matching the appearance and location of Mars.

Aerial Phenomena Research Organization Bulletin (January-February 1974).

152. 1973, near Frederick, Maryland, night
"Steven Kilburn" said that while he was an undergraduate arts student at the
University of Maryland he had had a strong feeling that "something happened to
me ... when I was driving home." He couldn't be more specific, "but something
has always bothered me about a certain stretch of road I used to pass through
whenever I left my girlfriend's house in Maryland." More specifically, it was ten
to fifteen miles of desolate Route 40 between Frederick and Baltimore,
Maryland. He consciously recalled the car stopping, getting out and feeling
being watched. After discussing the incident with UFO researcher Budd
Hopkins, psychologist Girard Franklin put Kilburn under regressive hypnosis.
He told of the car stopping and getting out. His recall of the experience was very
intense at this point, and tears streamed down his cheeks. An object clamped
onto his body, immobilized him in pain, and turned him around as a very bright
light and at least three beings "all dressed in black" were seen.

Seven months later he underwent another hypnotic session with

psychologist Aphrodite Clamar. He told of the car moving by itself "like a
magnet just sucked it over to the right." He now states that he previously had
seen two hazy, whitish UFOs high over the road. At least three beings
approached, but he no longer feared them. They had "chalky" or "putty" skin. He
was touched with "white plastic tubes," causing him pain. One of the beings
appeared to be "the boss." He had big black almond-shaped, shiny eyes without
pupils and walked "like he had two really bad knees. He was hobbling almost ...
shifting his weight to the left and right. He had a very skinny build, extremely
thin arms, legs, club feet, a pointed chin, thin neck and slit mouth."

By the fall of 1979, Kilburn could consciously recall being taken aboard a
UFO and examined. During a fourth hypnotic session (January 1980), he said the
beings gestured to him to enter a saucer where he was escorted through a tunnel
to a white room with several beings inside. He was put on a table. He next
realized he was clad only in a diaperlike outfit and apparently examined by a
device from the ceiling. They then asked him to turn on his stomach. Two days
after the hypnosis session he consciously recalled feeling "physically dirty, and
wanted very much to shower," although he was too tired and went to sleep
instead.
Budd Hopkins, Missing Time: A Documented Study of UFO Abductions (New
York: Richard Marek, 1981), pp. 51-88.

153. April 6, 1974, Kitami City, Japan, 3:00 A.M.

Checking on his barking dog, Yoshiro Fujiwara claims to have seen a three-foot-
tall "starfish" creature which held out an appendage, resulting in Fujiwara's
being pulled about seventy feet off the ground and into a hovering object. After
passing out, he awoke to see two beings with toadlike skin and a bad odor
holding him down. After being told not to be frightened, he remained
panicstricken. Soon the craft landed, and a door opened, and he left.

That same evening he was in mental contact with "spacemen." Two

evenings later, the beings returned in a craft, taking him around Earth twice and
the moon once. After the trip, he was found partially conscious on the ground.
During a later contact, he claims to have been taken to Jupiter and given a rock.
Analysis showed it was limestone.

Copy of a letter stating details of the report by Junichi Takanashi for the Mutual
UFO Network via Robert C. Girard, UFO book dealer, Scotia, N.Y; also Caveat
Emptor (SeptemberOctober 1974).

154. June 1, 1974, Fort Victoria, Zimbabwe, 2:00 A.M.

While driving from Salisbury, Zimbabwe, to Beitbridge, South Africa, "Peter"

(twenty-three) and his wife, Francis (twenty-one), saw a metallic figure
crouching by the road. A half-hour later, a light on a distant hill approached the
car, and their vehicle's headlights dimmed, but Peter continued using the "intense
blue-white light around the car" to drive by. He was no longer controlling the
car, and it gradually gained speed as the inside grew cold. This continued for two
hours, until they neared Fort Victoria, when the light left and they regained
control of their car. Soon two objects appeared, and the entire scenario was
repeated, until they reached the Zimbabwe border, well after 6 A.M. The pair
then realized they had traveled 170 miles at an amazing speed on just a half
gallon of fuel.

Under regressive hypnosis, Peter said, "A space being was projected to the
back seat of the car and sat there for the entire journey." Although he never left
the car, he saw a similar type of being above in the ship. The figure in the car
told Peter in English, "I would see the being only as I wanted to see it. If I
wanted to see the being resemble a duck, it would look like a duck." The being
said, "Because as we look at a dog in comparison, saying, 'Stupid dog,' so they
look at us, saying, 'Stupid humans.' "

The two beings had "large chests, necks-[were] hairless, [had] two arms,
two legs, no toes" and no visible sex organs. The friendly figure came from the
"Outer Galaxy" and told Peter "they are time travelers, not space travelers." They
speak all languages and come from a system of twelve planets of the Milky
Way. "They don't fight, they have no wars ... they are 2,000 light-years ahead of
us." Peter also said there are thousands of them living with us as apparently
normal humans to "direct the Earth."

C. Hind, UFOs-African Encounters (Zimbabwe: Gemini, 1982); C. Bowen, ed.,

Encounter Cases from Flying Saucer Review (New York: Signet, 1977); Dr.
Carl Van Vlierden (Mutual UFO Network representative) conducted an in-depth
interview with the witnesses; hypnosis by Dr. Paul Obertik.

155. October 25, 1974, Medicine Bow National Forest, Wyoming, 4:00 P.M.

While hunting in the Medicine Bow Mountains, Carl Higdon spotted five elk. He
fired his rifle, but "the bullet only went about 50 feet and dropped." Retrieving
the bullet, he saw a six-foot twoinch, 180-pound "man" in a black outfit and
black shoes, wearing a belt with a star in the center. The bowlegged man had
human facial features, except for a slanted head, no chin and his hair stood
straight up. He called himself Ausso. Higdon said, "He asked me if I was hungry
and I said yea ... he tossed me some pills and I took one. I don't know why I did
it-I never take pills of any kind unless a doctor prescribed them, not even
aspirin." Another man appeared, asking if he wanted to go with them, and
Higdon said yes. A helmet was put over Higdon's head and he was told they
were going "home," 163,000 "light miles" away in a cubicle. He was taken to a
room with a ninety-foot tower, where a shield came out from the wall and stayed
in front of him for three to four minutes before retracting. Higdon was told he
wasn't what they needed and would be returned. He was floated back to the ship
and next found himself on a mountain slope. He fell on loose rock, injuring his
head, neck, and shoulder. He managed to walk back to his truck and call for help
on the C.B. radio, although he didn't know who or where he was. By 11:30 P.M.
sheriff's officers found him and brought him to the Carbon City Memorial
Hospital, where a physical exam by Dr. R. C. Tongco found nothing unusual
besides amnesia. Dr. Tongco stated that Higdon's eyes "could not be examined
properly because [Higdon] claims that the light is just too bright." Some of the
details of his experience were brought out under regressive hypnosis.

Rawlings Times (Wyoming), October 19, 1974, and June 7, 1978; Jim Lorenzen
and Coral Lorenzen, Abducted! Confrontations with Beings from Outer Space
(New York: Berkley, 1977). A copy of the original medical report on Higdon by
Dr. R. C. Tongco, dated October 26, 1974, appears in Leo Sprinkle,
"Investigation of the Alleged UFO Experience of Carl Higdon," in Richard
Haines, ed., UFO Phenomena and the Behavioral Scientist (Metuchen, N.J.:
Scarecrow, 1979), pp. 225-357.

156. October 27, 1974, Aveley, Essex, England, late evening

"John" and "Elaine Avis" and their three kids were returning home after visiting
Elaine's parents, when their son "Kevin" noticed a pale blue, ovalshaped aerial
object. The object was soon lost to view. Suddenly they drove into a green mist,
the car engine quit, the radio began smoking, and the car shook violently. Upon
arriving home at 1 A.M., they were unable to account for two and a half hours of
missing time. The family, especially John, began having dreams involving
strange creatures. John soon became obsessed with these dreams. After hearing a
UFO radio program, he contacted a UFO researcher and underwent regressive
hypnosis, during which he told of encountering apelike humanoids with beaklike
noses, triangular eyes, slanted mouths, pointed ears, and clawlike hands who
gave him a medical exam. They verbally communicated that Earth would be
destroyed by pollution. He was later returned to the car. Elaine later said she
could consciously recall generally similar details. She initially refused, but later
underwent limited hypnosis.

Andrew Collins, "The Aveley Abduction," Flying Saucer Review 23, no. 6
(April 1978), and 24, no. 1 (June 1978); Ronald Story, The Encyclopedia of
UFOs (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1980); Hilary Evans, UFOs-The Greatest
Mystery (Albany: London, 1979).

157. October 28, 1974, near Bahia Blanca, Argentina, 1:15 A.M.

Argentinian truck driver Dionisio Llanca was admitted to Bahia Blanca Hospital
at 7:45 A.M. Sunday morning, October 28, 1974, in a state of amnesia, after
being found stumbling about the Bahia Blanca railyards. Three days later he
related a fantastic story.

Llanca claims he was changing a tire outside Bahia Blanca on Route 3

when a bright yellow light illuminated the area. He became paralyzed and
noticed "a plate suspended in the air." Three beings appeared, who watched him
for about five minutes. There were two men and one woman. He was sure one
was female "because of the form of the breast" and long blonde hair. The two
men had short blond hair. All stood about five and a half feet tall and wore
tightfitting, single-piece, smoky-gray coverall suits. "Their faces were like ours
except for high foreheads and elongated eyes, like the Japanese, and a little
tilted." They wore long gloves and yellow boots, speaking "like a radio badly
tuned with chirps and buzzes." One held him while another placed an
"apparatus" in the base of his index finger. After it was removed there were two
drops of blood on his finger. He next remembered awakening among the railcars
and was later found by a motorist and taken to the hospital.

Aerial Phenomena Research Organization Bulletin (November 1973): 7-8;

(December 1973): 5-8.
158. January 28, 1975, near Hinwel, Switzerland
Swiss farmer Eduard Meir's first contact occurred after acting on an urge to go to
a place where a flying saucer later appeared. The beings were from the planet
Erra, in the star group Pleiades. They look similar to humans. Most of Meier's
contacts have been with a Pleiadian called Semjase, who appears "as a small
Nordic girl with fine features, eyes that are slightly slanted but not Oriental, a
slender figure, slender hands, skin that is very delicate and whiter than ours, thin
lips, small straight white teeth and shell ears ... set slightly lower than ours and
blend right into the neck." The aliens view Earth as an insane society, rushing to
our own suicide, and warned that the ionosphere is being destroyed by
pollutants.

Arizona Republic (Phoenix), December 16, 1979.
159. May 1975, Cali, Columbia
German Navarrete claims two Martian scientists, Ran Kar and Kepton, each with
an average life span of two hundred Earth years, telepathically told him many
large-scale natural disasters would occur over the next ten years. Among them,
most of Africa, North and South America, the Caribbean, and Pacific Islands
would sink. They also predicted atomic war between three superpowers in 1977
and that by 1983 two new planets would be identified, resulting in a new series
of "telluric movements" and "a ver-ticalization of the terrestrial axis." By 1988,
the vast geophysical destruction will have spared Australia and a few other
areas. They also said Mars has two humanoid races-one of tall, thin, and
powerful beings; the other having almost transparent skin, fair hair, blue eyes,
and advanced brains. The two Martian languages are Sans and Iridin, which are
communicated telepathically.

Llltima Hora (Buenos Aires), Argentina, evening edition, May 21, 1975; El
Cronista Comercial (Buenos Aires), Argentina, June 10, 1975; Flying Saucer
Review 21, nos. 3 and 4 (1975): 62.
160. June 9, 1975, Tenerife, Canary Islands
Spanish psychologist Emilio Bourgon claimed he and two others were taken into
an alien craft at Tenerife Beach. The group of aliens, tall males in black and
white outfits, huge gloves, and helmets, were "friendly," wanting "to help man."
They were "very concerned with misery, ignorance and insalubrity" on Earth.

Cronica (Buenos Aires), Argentina, April 12, 1978.

161. August 13, 1975, near Alamogordo, New Mexico, 1:20 A.M.

Watching a meteor shower on a deserted dirt road, U.S. Air Force Sergeant
Charles Moody claims to have seen a dull metallic object giving off a
highpitched sound, which suddenly stopped when he felt numb, peaceful, calm.
He was taken aboard and met several beings (about five feet tall) looking "much
like us" except they had large hairless heads, small ears and noses, big eyes and
thin lips. "There was speech, but their lips did not move." They wore black skin-
tight clothing, except one being "had on a silver-whitelooking suit." They
seemed to read his mind "and called me by my proper name-Charles-and did not
use my nickname, Chuck." Inside the craft was very clean.

At the end of the meeting, the leader or elder placed his hands on the sides
of Moody's head, said it was time to leave and asked him not to recall his
experience for two weeks. (Two weeks later he claims to have remembered.)
The being said they would meet again shortly and that he should see a doctor
soon. When asked why he was contacted, he was told that in time "you will
understand."

Moody later said a group of races is studying us and within three years
would make themselves known to all mankind. "It will not be a pleasant type of
meeting, for there will be warnings made to the people of this world. Their plan
is for limited contact and after twenty years, of further study and only after
deeper consideration will there be any type of closer contact. They fear for their
own lives and will protect themselves at all costs. Their intent is a peaceful one,
and if the leaders of this world will only heed their warnings we will find
ourselves a lot better off."
Aerial Phenomena Research Organization Bulletin (June 1976): 6 (July 1976): 5-
6.

162. October 12, 1975, Maple Ridge, British Columbia, Canada, evening

Mr. and Mrs. David Hamel were watching TV when it went "snowy." Two
beings emerged in "a silver dust." The entities-one male, one female-resembled
humans and wore onepiece suits. Coming to where David sat, they touched his
arm and telepathically explained they intended to elevate him to a spaceship
above his home, then did so.

Personal letter from John B. Musgrave, employee of the Mobile Planetarium
Project at the Provincial Museum of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada, citing
Canadian UFO Report, no. 34 (Spring 1979): 8-10.

163. October 27, 1975, Norway, Maine, 3:00 A.M.

David Stephens suggested to his friend "P" they take a ride. A few minutes later
P suddenly lost control of the van. Both panicked and soon saw multicolored
aerial lights nearby. When P regained control of the vehicle, they stopped, but
seeing aerial lights, they soon panicked and sped off. The van skidded sideways,
and the two lost consciousness. Upon regaining awareness, they drove on, then
returned to search for the lights. They saw an aerial object and P again lost
control of the van, which then stalled out. The vehicle was enveloped by a fog
and several objects were seen, which eventually flew off. Soon the van restarted.
Stephens experienced a series of nightmares after the incident. Both noticed a
period of missing time.

Under regressive hypnosis, Stephens said he was taken by a humanlike

creature with slanted eyes and was telepathically told not to worry. He was taken
to a room where his blood was extracted, and was later returned to the van. P
refused hypnosis.

B. E. Schwarz, UFO Dynamics: Book 1 (Florida: Rainbow, 1983); Coral

Lorenzen and Jim Lorenzen, Abducted!: Confrontations with Beings from Outer
Space (New York: Berkley, 1977); J. Rimmer, The Evidence for Alien
Abductions (London: Aquarian, 1984).

164. Approximately November 3, 1975, Bokoel, Florida, 2:00 A.M.

Richard Jackson awoke, went out of his trailer, and saw a domed craft and a set
of steps extending up to a door. He was invited inside by a five-foot-tall, chubby,
dark-skinned man with no shirt and wearing brown coveralls. He said in English
that they hailed from Planteh and were preparing a "neighboring planet" to be
colonized by Earthlings. Jackson was asked to assist them in recruiting
volunteers; in return he would be given perfect health. After an hour and a half,
he left the craft, which shot off. He next recalls being in his trailer.

News-Press (Fort Meyers, Florida), December 15, 1975.

165. December 2, 1975, Fargo, North Dakota, 4 A.M.

Sandra Larson awoke to see two beings with luminous, mummylike heads and
brown "vinyl" bodies standing at her bed. She was floated through a wall into a
nearby ship. When she was escorted from the craft, she was on another planet,
where she was taken to a square building, questioned telepathically, and later
taken home, floating through a closed door. As she began considering taking a
bath, one being asked what soap was. At this, she gave him a cup of laundry
detergent.

A report investigated by Jerome Clark in UFO Report, August 1976, pp. 21-23,
46-53.

166. January 6, 1976, near Hustonville, Kentucky, 11:15 P.M.

Driving down a highway, three women saw what they thought was a plane on
fire. Mona Stafford was the first to spot the object. She became frightened, as
did the others. Stafford says the car then drove by itself and accelerated to
eighty-five m.p.h. Soon the car slowed, and she gained control of it. Stafford
suffered severe eye irritation and red marks on her body, while Louise Smith
suffered minor eye irritation and red marks. Elaine Thomas reported minor eye
irritation. Unable to account for two hours and ten minutes of time in the auto,
the trio agreed to undergo regressive hypnosis.

Mona Stafford recounted lying alone on a white table or bed while a large
"eye" watched. She was then examined by four or five short humanoids wearing
"surgical masks." During this time a "power" transfixed her to the bed/table.

Elaine Thomas recalled being separated from her companions and taken
into a "chamber" containing a window. Humanoids with dark eyes and gray skin
moved back and forth in front of the window, appearing to watch her. A bullet-
shaped object (an inch and a half in diameter) was placed on her chest, causing
discomfort.

Louise Smith described being examined while lying down. The aliens
communicated telepathically. Specific details of her experience were withheld,
since she wanted to write a book outlining the incident.

Ronald Story, The Encyclopedia of UFOs (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday,

1980), based on a report in the Aerial Phenomena Research Organization
Bulletin (October 1976).

167. January 21, 1976, near Matias-Barbosa, Brazil, 11:30 P.M.

Driving the Rio de Janeiro-Belo Horizonte Highway, Erminio Reis felt "sleepy"
and pulled off to nap. Minutes later, his wife, Bianca Reis, saw a bluish light
illuminate the landscape. It advanced, and their Volkswagen "was absorbed as if
through a chimney" into "a kind of circular garage, intensely lighted." At this
point, Erminio was awake. Two dark male beings (about six feet six inches tall)
approached and signaled for them to leave the car. Bianca said "the ground
seemed to move." She also "felt as if drunk without having had anything to
drink." The two men talked in a strange language. They were then taken up a
staircase to a large room with many instruments. She said, "One of the strangers
gave us headsets, put a pair over his ears" and "plugged" them into a device. A
voice in Portuguese proclaimed, "My name is Karen, calm down...."

Bianca was given a series of medical tests. Later they were made to drink
an ill-tasting liquid substance. Then others, including a female, arrived. Karen
said, "We also perform medical research. Old age continues being an illness, but
we have been about to conquer it. In our world death does not exist." They were
later instructed not to "talk about what has happened," as people would think
they were crazy. "If you wish, we have a method to erase memories." The pair
declined. Since the incident, Bianca claims to have been contacted by a small
device the aliens use to measure brain waves.

La Nueva Province (Bahia Blanca, Argentina), September 17, 1978.

168. January 2, 1976, near Las Vegas, Nevada, 10:30 P.M.

Driving north toward Las Vegas after a singing performance in a nearby town,
country singer John Sands noticed an aerial light following him, slowly getting
closer. His car engine died as the object hovered one thousand feet above the car,
then slowly disappeared over a nearby mountain. He soon saw two motionless
figures in his headlights two hundred feet down the road. Suddenly, "I couldn't
move my body." The figures approached. One of the males was described in
detail: bald, of average height, without eyebrows or eyelashes, and pointed skin
flaps for ears. His eyes were sunken, his chin strong and squared, his mouth
tight-lipped. He wore a seam less black-silver skin-tight suit. "He started to talk,
but he didn't use his mouth. It sounded like two people talking on the telephone
long distance ... muffled and a little slower than our speech."

Sands was told Earth's nuclear explosions created serious lapses in time
sequences as we know it, resulting in faster aging and more disease. The
situation was also creating problems for the aliens' planet. They warned, "We are
going to stop it one way or another." They asked him what he was doing there,
why there were so many people in Las Vegas, and what our means of
communication is. To the last query, Sands said he didn't understand the
question, as there are many means of communication. Apparently irritated, one
of the humanoids replied, "Answer the question!" After Sands repeated that he
didn't understand, the questioner turned to his companion, and they silently
gazed at each other for two or three minutes. The questioner then extended his
left hand, brushed Sands's left hand, and said, "We know where you are and will
see you again." They turned and walked into the desert; a flash of light "came
up" and they were gone.

John Wallace Spencer, The UFO Yearbook (Springfield, Mass.: Phillips, 1976),
pp. 65-69.

169. March 3, 1976, near Refrigerio, Brazil, 4 P.M.

Walking home from school in a wooded area, twelve-year-old Francessco Ojeda

came upon a clearing and saw a shiny round craft (forty feet in diameter) sitting
on a small metal platform. Two beings (under five feet tall) in shiny suits were
apparently making repairs. Upon seeing Ojeda, they entered the ship, and a
blinding light hit him, knocking him partially unconscious. He vaguely recalls
being taken aboard, having his clothing removed, and being placed on a table
under a bright amber light. A telepathic voice reassured him of no harm, then
said, "We are coming here in great numbers to visit your planet." The boy was
later found by his parents, blind and with a "sunburn," wandering one mile from
his house. The following day his sight was restored.

Gray Barker in UFO Report 4, no. 2 (June 1977), quoting La Nacion.

170. August 22, 1976, Egg Harbor, Wisconsin, 4:15 A.M.

Using a riding lawn mower on a golf course, Dean Anderson stopped after
seeing a big orange object land nearby. Two beings floated out a door on a "band
of light." As they approached, the object left. They extended their hands, shaking
Anderson's hand, and the male said, "We come in peace. I am Sunar, from
Jupiter. This is Treena; she comes from Saturn." They said they were on a
scientific specimen-gathering mission. Treena had shoulderlength hair, bluish-
gray eyes, a light tan, stood five feet two inches tall, and resembled Elizabeth
Taylor. She wore a onepiece, skin-tight light green suit of a "glistening metallic
material." Sunar has copperlike skin and claimed to be over two hundred years
old.

After talking for twenty minutes, Anderson was given an envelope and
asked not to open it for five Earth days. They then left. When Anderson opened
it, it contained a golden "amulet" with a dovelike bird on one side; on the other
were the words "Peace and friendship forever, Treena and Sunar." Beside the
names were depictions of Saturn and Jupiter. Anderson will not allow the amulet
to be photographed. During the encounter, Sunar claimed to have once met the
Baha'u'llah, who founded the Baha'i religion (Anderson is chairman of the local
Baha'i chapter).

Keta Steebs, writing in The Advocate (Sturgeon Bay, Wis.), March 31, 1977.
171. December 1976, Ossining, New York
Self-proclaimed psychic Greta Woodrew claims that while in a deep hypnotic
trance during an experiment with parapsychologist Dr. Andrija Puharich she
contacted beings from the planet Ogatta, light-years away. She passed through a
long, shadowy tunnel which was guarded by Hshames, a humanlike being, along
with a pair of birdlike entities. Hshames was covered with tiny feathers and
stood just over five feet, had glowing, gold-speckled eyes with no lashes and an
upper lip that resembled a bird beak. They communicated telepathically, the
being telling her about Ogatta.

In a later contact, during her next hypnotic trance session, she says her soul
separated from her body and traveled to Ogatta, the surface of which was
covered with small glistening points of light that had a fluidlike appearance.

During the third experiment, a figure named Ogatta spoke, telling her that
"beings had set up a way-station on the minor planet Vesta in our solar system,
which will be used to help Earth. An armada of spacecraft would come down to
Earth after drastic changes occurred. Their preparations were well under way."
She was then showed scenes of the destruction to follow in the coming decades,
such as earthquakes, volcanic displays, floods, hurricanes, droughts, and
magnetic storms. Woodrew also said, "I was told by the extraterrestrials that they
were survivors of what could come."

N. Blundell and R. Boar, The World's Greatest UFO Mysteries (New York:
Exeter, 1983), p. 189.
172. 1976, British Columbia, Canada, night
Helene was dying of pancreatic cancer. She says a voice called her out of bed
two months before doctors predicted she would die. Called from her house to a
clearing several miles away, she came to a brilliant light and a spacecraft. "From
the center of this large craft came a cylinder of light, and in this cylinder these
two beings came down." The "small humanoids" wore "tightfitting suits." She
was floated to the ship where another being used several unusual instruments to
cure her. This was done, they said, because they might need her help in the
future. She was apparently still living in 1983.

Personal letter from John B. Musgrave, employee of the Mobile Planetarium

Project, Alberta, Edmonton, Canada, citing Arizona Daily Star (Tucson),
September 4, 1983.
173. 1976, Guadalajara, Mexico
Dr. Leopoldo Diaz claims two contacts with aliens. One day in 1976 a normal-
looking man walked into his office and insisted on a complete physical exam.
Diaz found him healthy, and the man said he was an alien. "He showed me a
great wisdom ... knowledge," and warned that humans are about to destroy
themselves because of divisions and separations which lead to selfishness, envy,
and deceit, resulting in war and death. Diaz says there are ten thousand space
beings living among us because "they want to help us." They will "speak more
and more. It is important to understand this."

During a second visit, Diaz claims he was instructed to proclaim the truth
far and wide. His message is that "God is everywhere ... all ... religions you
profess on Earth ... are only roads to the same purpose-to know God."

Daily Press (Virginia), April 11, 1980.

174. January 27, 1977, near Clarksville, Tennessee
Driving on 1-40, fifteen miles from Clarksville, farmer Donald Fender felt "like
someone wanted to talk to me." He traveled on a side road and encountered an
eggshaped "spaceship." Beings emerged, saying they were from an unknown
planet and were here as emissaries of peace. They stopped near Clarksville, the
only place they can enter Earth's atmosphere, for they travel via a space vacuum,
which is aligned where the road runs north and south through Clarksville. The
visitors told Fender that because the location is the only place where the time-
warp vacuum can be created, it will become a place from where all space travel
will originate. "They said they were coming back ... they didn't say when."

Timothy Green Beckley, Timothy Green Beckley's Book of Space Contacts

(New York: Global Communications, 1981), pp. 41-42, citing the Clarksville
Leaf-Chronicle (Tennessee), February 2, 1977.
175. Approximately February 7, 1977, near
Warminster, England
In November 1976, Mrs. Joyce Bowles was driving in a rural area with a family
friend, retired farm manager Ted Pratt, when she says the car suddenly seemed
to float before it stopped. Bowles started screaming in response to seeing a large
creature with pink eyes that were "horrible, as bright as the sun." The craft then
quickly rose and flew off.

In early February the pair were again driving in the country when they
heard a whistling sound. The car rocked and Bowles said, "Suddenly we were
both inside this machine.... One of the spacemen standing a few feet from me
was the same man I saw the first time. Lights were blinking and flashing
everywhere. The man told us this was his field, whatever that meant." The
beings wore luminous silvery suits and "high jackboots with pointed toes." At
the center of their belts was "a glittering stone, and the man next to me kept
pressing his stone or touching it." Suddenly they were back in the car.

Bowles claims at least two later contacts, one with sixty-fiveyear-old Ann
Strickland on March 7, 1977, and the other with Ted Pratt in June of 1977.

N. Blundell and R. Boar, The World's Greatest UFO Mysteries (New York:
Exeter, 1983), pp. 128-31.

176. March 12, 1977, Gisborne, New Zealand, 1:00 A.M.

Camping on a steep hill to watch for UFOs during a wave of sightings, three
women ("B," "S," and "I") talked intermittently and dozed. They recall
simultaneously waking in panic and fleeing to their car. Unable to account for
two hours, B said under hypnosis that she suddenly awoke at 1 A.M. and
touched a metallic boot. She turned away so as not to see the figure, looked at
her sleeping friends, remained calm, and fell back asleep. B was taken to a small
multicolored room and telepathically communicated with normalsized human-
looking male beings wearing white coveralls and boots. She also saw S in the
craft. B was beamed back to the hill and began kicking in her sleep, waking her
companions. They all panicked and fled.
M. Dykes, Strangers in Our Skies: UFOs Over New Zealand (Lower Hutt,
Wellington, New Zealand: INL Publications, 1981).

177. August 6, 1977, near Pelham, Georgia, between 6 A.M. and noon

Mr. Dawson was walking his two dogs near a cow pasture when a circular object
suddenly appeared in the sky and hovered above the ground. Paralyzed, he
noticed his dogs and some forty nearby cows were also "frozen." The craft
landed and a door opened; three men and two women emerged. They had pale
white skin, pointed ears, sharp turned-up noses, and no necks. Two were nude,
having hairless bodies. Clothing on the three other beings was "beautiful" and
both sexes dressed alike in "silky" shoes with toes pointing upward. Dawson was
given what he believes was a medical exam. He was fitted with a "skullcap" with
cords extending into a ringlike device containing dials. Near the end of the
exam, Dawson says a voice from inside the craft shouted, "I am Jimmy Hoffa! I
am Jimmy Hoffa! I am-" The cry abruptly stopped in mid-sentence. After the
exam, the beings got together and talked in unintelligible, shrill voices. They
then reentered the craft and flew off.

Milt Machlin with Timothy Green Beckley, UFO (New York: Quick Fox, 1981),
p. 48.

178. September 4, 1977, Barrio Abr Centro, Puerto Rico, 3:30 P.M.

Lying in a hammock, Luis Sandoval (a seventy-four-yearold farmer) felt an urge

to go to a nearby hill, where he heard a bang and saw a flash and a blue candle-
shaped object. A three-foot-tall humanoid with a round, unattractive face, long
pointed ears, big lips, a small mouth, and flaring nostrils emerged wearing what
appeared to be a jacket and small tie. It told him in Spanish to "have courage,"
then examined his body. Sandoval was not scared. The being claimed to be an
extraterrestrial, and said, "How nice Puerto Rico is." He stepped back and
immediately vanished in a blue fire that rapidly flew off.

El Vocero de Puerto Rico (San Juan), September 19, 1977.

179. 1977, near Bulloo River, southwest Queensland,
Australia
Three slim cylinders landed near a remote camp, and humanlike beings with
blue-gray skin emerged and began playing games with lightning spheres. A
prospector was told the beings hailed from Begua. Their women wore summer
clothes, while the males dressed in gray business-style suits. They left after two
days.

The prospector claims several UFO sightings in the vicinity, and on one
previous occasion he saw a male and a female being in an aerial object.

Keith Basterfield, in the Aerial Phenomena Research Organization Bulletin

(April 1979): 7-8.

180. 1977, near Paciencia, Brazil, 2:20 A.M.

Leaving his house at the usual hour of 2:20 A.M., Antonio La Rubia walked to a
nearby field where he noticed a gray object on the ground. As a bright blue light
enveloped the area, he became paralyzed as he suddenly noticed three "robots"
(four feet tall). They each had a single antenna jutting from the top of their
heads, which looked like a football placed sideways. A band of small, blue-
shaded mirrors extended across the middle of their heads. They had two long
armlike appendages (compared to an elephant's trunk) which narrowed to
pointed tips. Their bodies were covered with scales, and they had only one leg,
extending down from the center of the trunk. They didn't walk, but floated. One
robot pointed an instrument at Antonio, and he involuntarily moved toward the
disc, where inside he was shown a series of color pictures:

(1) Antonio naked, being examined by two robots.

(2) Antonio standing, still nude.

(3) Antonio clothed, carrying a shopping bag (his teeth were noticeably
chattering).

(4) A horse and cart being pulled over a dirt road.

 (5) Antonio inside a light orange-colored sphere.

(6) A blue sphere with one of the beings inside.

(7) A dog angrily barking at one of the beings.

(8) An apparent UFO factory where "millions" of "beings" or "robots"

milled around.

(9) An old windowless train disappearing into a tunnel.

(10) An avenue jammed with cars.

Antonio also told of being struck with a syringe in the middle finger,
removing some blood. Later he was thrown overboard and fell into a street near
the abduction site. The entire episode lasted about thirty minutes.

Aerial Phenomena Research Organization Bulletin (October 1977): 1-2.

181. Early January 1978, Iran
A twelve-year-old girl, Sara, claims to have communicated with a space being
five times over a seven-day period. The creature (about six feet seven inches tall)
had arms three times the length of humans and was covered with black fur. It
identified itself as "HONOR," who hails from a place that is ten light-years
ahead of Earth. The creature apparently gave Sara strange abilities, as she is
allegedly able to unplug wall sockets, move furniture, and turn the radio on and
off without touching any of the items.

Rhein Neckar (West Germany), January 10, 1978.

182. February 1978, Ermington, Devon, England
While pressing clothes in her backyard, Mrs. G. noticed a shining blue shape
approach her home from the north. She was soon engulfed "in bubbles of light."
Three apparently male beings (about five feet tall) wearing bluish-metallic
clothing approached. "They grasped me by the arms and we were lifted up [by] a
beam of light into a kind of room. There were more of the men there. I was
given the impression-I don't know how-that I would come to no harm." Later, "I
found myself back on my lawn. I felt a sharp blow on the back of my neck. I was
stunned but not hurt. When I looked around, the thing set off at great speed and
disappeared."

Nigel Blundell and Roger Boar, The World's Greatest UFO Mysteries (New
York: Exeter, 1984), p. 54, quoting an interview based on an investigation by the
British UFO group Contact UK.

183. March 18, 1978, North Charleston, South Carolina, night

Investigating a UFO in a field, auto mechanic William Herrmann left his mobile
home and next recalls being in a strange area with an object whirring overhead.
After flagging a car, he found it was several hours later than he thought.
Herrmann didn't recall the abduction until nearly a year later, when he says a
UFO raced toward him, projecting a blinding aquamarine light. "I tried to run,
but my legs wouldn't move ... I was paralyzed. I couldn't yell. I thought, oh God,
I'm going to die."

Later, he was "on this low examination table only two feet above the floor."
Three strange-looking beings watched him. "Their skin was the color of a
marshmallow. Their eyes were long and dark with a brown iris. Their heads
looked like overgrown human fetuses with no ears or hair. I heard a voice telling
me to have no fear." The aliens said there are three races of intelligent space
beings that visit Earth, conduct experiments, and observe life.

On April 21, 1979, he says a metal bar bearing the letters "MAN" and
mysterious symbols suddenly materialized in "a globe of bluegreen light" in his
bedroom. On a second trip aboard the UFO (May 16, 1979), he was told the bar
"was a gift ... signifying they were thankful for and appreciative of the way I
handled the situation" after the earlier abduction. A Massachusetts Institute of
Technology analysis of the bar revealed ordinary elements (a cast alloy of lead
and 6 percent antimony).

News and Courier (Charleston, South Carolina), November 18, 1979.
184. May 15, 1978, near Caujimolpa, Mexico
Walking along a road, Ignacio Sanchez Munoz saw a hovering multicolored
luminous cube emitting a buzzing sound and a yellow beam. He then received
telepathic thoughts saying the cube was empty, but soon humanlike beings
would arrive on Earth. After conversing with the voice for an hour, he was told,
"Soon we shall return to chat with you."

International UFO Reporter 3, no. 7 (July 1978): 2.

185. May 17, 1978, near Lublin, Poland, 8 A.M.

Driving a horse-drawn carriage in a wooded region, a seventyone-year-old

farmer saw at least two men in smooth, black, tightfitting "diver suits." They had
green faces, slanted eyes, webbed hands and moved in a jumping motion. He
was invited inside the white "bus-shaped" craft hovering close by. The inside
was entirely black and had benches. After being examined by an X-raylike
device, he declined an invitation to eat a transparent material which the beings
consumed. Rectangular footprints were later reportedly found at the site. A
separate UFO sighting took place in the area at about the same time.

International UFO Reporter 3, no. 7 (July 1978): 2, citing Polish newspaper,

Kurier Polski.

186. June 19, 1978, near Brockworth, Gloucestershire, England, 10:15 P.M.

John Mann and his family were driving home after visiting John's mother in
Reading. John noticed a light one mile ahead. The family soon all saw a huge,
multicolored, saucershaped object near Stanford-in-the-Vale, and they briefly
stopped to watch. Everyone became frightened by the sight. John panicked and
sped off. He then lost control of the car, which began driving by itself. The car
then slowed down, and John snapped out of a "dream" state. Within twenty
minutes they arrived at home, at 10:35 P.M., only to find the fortyfive-minute
trip took an hour longer. John developed skin irritation and itching. Soon, his
daughter Natasha dreamed about UFOs, and John and his sister Francis sought
and underwent regressive hypnosis. John described how the family was abducted
when they stopped by the road to watch the UFO. Everyone floated upward in a
"light beam" to a circular room where there were three men in metallic suits with
blue eyes and pale faces. They were given medical exams. A man called
Uxiaulia had a disc insignia on his uniform and told Francis that their planet,
Janos, was devastated by meteorites from nearby Sarton, a planet that got too
close to their sun and broke up. They escaped to a huge base ship which now
sends out explorer ships-like the one they were on-to find a suitable planet to
inhabit. She was told they "would like to live here." They were given fizzy
drinks as they left the ship "to help you forget ... you must forget because you
will be exploited. In time you will remember. We will meet again, and you will
know us." John's wife and two daughters did not undergo hypnosis, but Natasha
later consciously recounted details similar to the story told by John and Francis.

F. Johnson, The Janos People (London: Neville Spearman, 1980); N. Blundell
and R. Boar, The World's Greatest LIFO Mysteries (New York: Exeter, 1984).
187. September 14, 1978, near Belden, Nebraska,
night
While driving on Interstate 20, a prominent businessman watched a bright object
land on the road ahead. He stopped his car twenty yards from the object, which
closely resembled an army tank. As the witness began to exit the car, a door in
the craft opened and a man stepped out. He appeared normal in every respect-
darkhaired, of normal size, wearing white duck pants and a white shirt. He then
spoke, addressing the witness by his first name: "Well, Bob-what do you think of
this?" The man then reentered the object, which left the same way it came:
ascending on a brilliant column of light. A highpitched whine was heard as the
object left.

Aerial Phenomena Research Organization Bulletin (December 1978): 1, 3.

188. November 1978, near Trier, West Germany, about 10:15 P.M.

Driving home after visiting friends, Pam Owens, her husband and son saw a
rotating "ovalshaped" object with a red flashing light hover above the car.
Arriving home an hour and twenty minutes late from what is usually a thirty-
minute drive, Pam later underwent regressive hypnosis, recalling being "lifted"
by the UFO and examined by two aliens. "When the object appeared, I got off
the road" and stopped on the side. "The next thing I remember is lying on a table
... paralyzed, without being able to move arms or legs, only the eyes,... looking
in fright at the two beings.... They are bald ... their cranium was enormous ...
they had enormous, very deep-set eyes." Green skin covered their eight-foot-tall
bodies. "It seemed rough, like the wrapping of a mummy. They had four fingers
on each hand ... double as long as human fingers." As she wondered where son
Brian was, a thin voice replied, "We are taking care of him." Asking about her
husband, Chris, "the voice repeated that everything was all right. Then the two
creatures appeared. One told me all would be fine but did not move his lips.
They lifted my shirt and touched me as if trying to determine the size of the baby
and its position. I was five months pregnant. I then saw the needle." It was
inserted just above the navel. She next recalls being in the car and watching the
UFO leave. Four months later she gave birth to a normal girl.
El Independiente, January 22, 1980.

189. December 6, 1978, Torriglia, Italy, 11:30 P.M.

Fortunato "Piero" Zanfretta, an on-duty private security guard near a small house
in Marzano, observed four lights in a garden. Thinking they were thieves, he
tried to radio for help, but his car's radio, engine, and lights failed. He then
investigated with a flashlight and gun. Piero came face to face with a
monsterlike creature at least ten feet high with undulating gray skin. Fleeing, he
noticed a bright triangular object bigger than a house fly off.

Under regressive hypnosis, he told of being taken to a luminous hot place to

be examined and interrogated by creatures with pointed ears, dark green skin,
and dark gray tubes wrapped around their bodies. Each had a head two feet wide
with spines or thorns for hair, two triangular eyes, something like a human eye in
the center of the forehead, along with hands with fingernails. Although they
didn't speak Italian, they translated with a "luminous device." They hailed from
the "third galaxy" and wanted to talk. They said they will soon return in greater
numbers.

Three days later, at 11:45 P.M., Piero was driving and couldn't control the
car. After driving on its own for a mile and a half, the car suddenly stopped, and
Piero struck his head on the steering wheel.

During another hypnotic session, he said, "I know that you need me, but I
won't ... I'm not the qualified people you need! Why are you undressing me? I
won't.... This thing on my head ... it's hurting me.... You are telling me that next
time you'll bring me away. I won't. I won't. I'm well here with my wife and
sons."

International UFO Reporter 4, no. 5 (November 1979): 13-15, citing Gente

magazine, January 20, 1979, and Skywatch: Shado Italy News 1 (1979).
190. December 18,1978, Guadalajara province, Spain,
after midnight
Miguel Herrero Sierra's pickup truck suddenly lost its lights and radio, so he
pulled off the road to wait for daylight. A man in a diving suit approached him
and invited him into a nearby hatshaped craft. He stayed for three hours,
conversing telepathically with the crew before leaving.

Cronica (Buenos Aires, Argentina), January 26, 1978.

191. December 1978, between Harold Hill and Essex, England, 12:45 A.M.

John Day (thirty-three) and his wife, Sue (twenty-nine), were driving home after
visiting her parents, who lived thirty minutes away. They left at 9:20 P.M. and
arrived home at 12:45 A.M. During the trip the couple drove into a thick green
fog. Unable to account for two hours fifty-five minutes, and both suffering
recurrent nightmares of beings examining them on tables, John contacted a UFO
group and underwent regressive hypnosis. He told of a white light following the
car and landing by the road. John found himself in a large room with three
entities (seven feet tall) wearing onepiece, silver-gray clothes similar to body
stockings. Hoods covered the bottom parts of their faces, and they looked at him
with bright pink eyes which had no eyelids. They communicated telepathically,
asking him to lie on a table, which he did. "A metal arm swung over me,
scanning my body. Then, three other beings, squat and ugly like dwarfs,
appeared. One started to prod me with a pen-shaped object." They later agreed to
let him tour the ship. He was left alone in a room with "an incredibly beautiful
woman" who was surrounded by a gray mist and golden hair. She walked in but
soon vanished. He next recalls being back in the car and driving on the road.

Sue declined hypnosis. Later, when discussing John's statements, she claims
to have recalled part of the experience. "When I lay on the operating table they
painted me with a mauve liquid. Then they washed it off. They prodded me all
over with a penlike object and didn't spare my blushes. Then I screamed." A tall
being put his hand on her forehead and she lost consciousness. "Later they took
me on a tour round the ship ... I told the beings I didn't want to go back. I asked
if I could stay on the craft and they agreed. I saw John climb into the car and it
started to vanish. As it disappeared, I said I had changed my mind and wanted to
go back. Then I found myself sitting in the car."

Nigel Blundell and Roger Boar, The World's Greatest UFO Mysteries (New
York: Exeter, 1984); News of the World, England, 1980; article by John Clare,
specific date unknown.
192. 1978, Torrente, province of Valencia, Spain
Francisco Ramon Jimenez, age fourteen, says a dream about aliens while
hospitalized in Alencia Clinical Hospital at age eleven changed his life. He
claims to be an extraterrestrial and that he needed the successful leg operation
because "they crippled me coming out, with the foreceps." While he was
hospitalized, aliens appeared in a dream and have appeared every night since.
"When I sleep, my body remains on earth and I go to the planet Canymede. ...
They have explained to me how to cure people ... given me ... energy...." He
claims to cure all diseases by passing energy to the sick. He sees many patients
and takes donations. He claims his energy is something we all have but don't use.
It comes from another galaxy. Each night he "charges the batteries" by visiting
Canymede. Many cures, usually in the form of gradual improve ments, are
claimed. Yet, Francisco says, "I cannot even cure myself of a simple cold. All
the energy I have I must use for others."

CAMBIO 16, August 10, 1981.

193. January 4, 1979, Krugersdrop, South Africa, just after midnight

Meagan Quezet and her son Andre were looking for their dog and were driving
on a rural road when they noticed a strange aerial glow. They found the pet
twenty yards from an eggshaped, leadcolored "spaceship" that gave off a pink
glow and had spiderlike legs. Near it stood five or six olive-skinned beings. Two
of the men (all just over five feet tall) approached. One, assumed to be the
leader, was bearded. He looked at her with a penetrating stare, bowed at the
waist, and appeared to greet her, speaking in a highpitched, unintelligible,
Chinese-sounding voice. The figures wore white suits tinted pink. She told
Andre to get her husband. By the time Andre returned, he saw the ship flying off
in the distance.

Later, under regressive hypnosis, she revealed that the bearded entity asked
her in English to go away with him in the ship. "You know we'd like to take you
away. It's a lovely place where we are. Very nice. You'll be happy there." She
declined, saying, "I've got children. I don't think my husband would mind, but
what about the child ... I can't leave him." Inside the ship were chairs and panels,
along with a table in the center. She said she and Andre jumped from the vessel,
and Andre ran off to get his father. She was told she would receive a message
and "then you'll forget about it afterwards. You'll never remember." They tried to
persuade her to go, and then the legs of the craft retracted, and it flew off.

Cynthia Hind, UFOs-African Encounters (Zimbabwe: Gemini, 1982), 17298;

personal interview with witnesses by C. Hind; also personal interview between
Bob Bartholomew and C. Hind at the annual Conference of the Massachusetts
chapter of the Mutual UFO Network, August 1984.

194. Early January 1979, Rowley Regis, West Midlands, England

Jean Hingley was at her Bluestone Walk home when a flying saucer landed on
the lawn. "I opened the back door and there was a blinding light. Then these
three men bombed past me and went into the lounge. The little green men had
wings and horrible waxy faces, like corpses." She offered them coffee, but they
asked for a glass of water. Upon leaving, they took her mince pies and said they
would return some other time.

Northern Ohio UFO Group Newsletter, issue 12 (June 1979): 8.

195. July 25, 1979, near Canoga Park, California, night

Under regressive hypnosis, Shari N. said she left her car to get a better look at a
bright light. She claims to have been taken aboard an alien craft, strapped to a
metal table, and examined by a slimy robotlike "thing" with a small head, and no
shoulders, nose, or mouth. The creature poked at her with threefingered
appendages. When it touched her she felt an electric shock. She noticed other
creatures in the background, although she didn't describe them in detail.

Chronicle (Canoga Park, California), October 18, 1979.

196. August 28, 1979, near Winchester, Virginia, about 11:00 P.M.

Southbound on U.S. Route 17, just past Paris Mountain (seventeen miles from
Winchester, Virginia), in his tractor-trailer loaded with ketchup and mustard,
truck driver Harry Joe Turner noticed a bright illumination "like a helluva light
bulb" behind him. His rig "was vacuumed up into this thing" and taken to an
unidentified galactic community 6.8 light-years away and returned to a
Fredericksburg warehouse several hours later. His captors "were like you or me,
only dressed in white clothes like a surgeon." They also had white caps, and
"when they lifted up the fronts of them there were numbers, like identification
numbers, written across their foreheads." Turner felt he was taken to a city 2.5
light-years beyond Alpha Centauri. He also stopped on the moon and saw
astronaut Neil Armstrong's footprint. He said the alien city had undergone an
apparent nuclear holocaust long ago and that their mission was to prevent an
occurrence on Earth. "They want to help us, but ... things have gone pretty far
here and ... the end is coming soon." Before the ordeal, Turner never read
"anything but the Winchester Evening Star and Hustler magazine, but now reads
a variety of literature and has 'a craving' for bananas, coconut and deer, items he
never liked before."

Timothy G. Beckley, Timothy Green Beckley's Book of Space Contacts (New

York: Global Communications, 1981), pp. 13-15; Times-Dispatch (Richmond,
Va.), September 23, 1979.

197. November 30, 1979, near La Palma, Oaxaca, Mexico, 5:00 P.M.

Manuel Fidel Cruz Lopez was weeding his father's palm grove when eight armed
men approached after exiting a hovering saucershaped object. They looked like
tall Africans, were well dressed, had green lenses and radio transmitters, and
touted machine guns. Lopez was ordered to cut off his penis, which he did with
his machete. He got medical aid the next day after wandering that night in shock.

Four hours after the encounter, two schoolteachers saw a green object race
across the sky then back again within seconds.

Lopez, who has a wife and three kids, said, "I am not ashamed of being
castrated. That was fate and it could happen to anyone."

Probe (September 1980): 79, quoting Carteles del Sur, December 11, 1979. The
case is part of an article called "UFO update," written and researched by Allan
Hendry and J. Allen Hynek of the Center for UFO Studies.

198. December 4, 1979, Vastervik, Sweden, 1:00 A.M.

Taking an early morning walk in the Brevik Hills recreation area, Lilli-Ann
Karlsson was suddenly paralyzed. Ahead was a luminous object hovering above
the ground. A pair of five-foot-tall beings appeared from behind the object. "I
couldn't hear it, but in a strange way I sensed that they were discussing my
person. I felt ridiculous in their presence but suddenly heard a voice beside me
saying I shouldn't be afraid." They approached and one outstretched its hand to
her, but she remained paralyzed. They talked among themselves for a while and
returned to the craft, disappearing behind it as they had appeared. Smoke came
from the bottom, then suddenly it was not there.

UFO Journal (Cleveland, Ohio), issue 35 (July 1981), citing the Nyhetsblad
Newsletter (Sweden), April/September 1980, citing an investigation by Tor
Wiklund who wrote a report on the case in the publication UFO-Information
(Skanninge, Sweden), issue 4 (1980).
199. 1979, state of Parana, Brazil, night
On her way to chat with a neighbor, Yolanda Kmiecik, mother of six, claims she
was engulfed by an eerie foggy light that lifted her up and into a hovering disc.
The crew, "resembling earth men, but with leather clothes," treated her well,
serving a "viscous, tasteless liquid" before returning her. The crew said they
weren't hostile, but concerned by the "contamination of our race by pollution,
especially by the cigarette."

Milt Machlin with Timothy Green Beckley, UFO (New York: Quick Fox, 1981),
p. 77; Scientific Bureau of Investigation Report 1, no. 10 (1978): 49. The S.B.I.
account says it occurred in November, while Machlin dates it as August.
200. November 1980, near Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Concert pianist Luli Oswald was driving with her male companion, Fauze
Mehlen, when several unusual crafts emerged from the ocean. The car became
uncontrollable: weaving, doors opening and shutting. Suddenly the car stopped.
When they later arrived at a restaurant, they couldn't account for two hours.
Under regressive hypnosis, Oswald said the car was floated into the bottom of a
black disc. She next found herself out of the car and "They are putting a tube in
my ear ... tubes everywhere ... they are pulling my hair.... They look like rats ...
have huge horrible rat ears and their mouths are like slits. They are touching me
all over with their thin arms. There are five of them, their skin is gray and
sticky."

Oswald could also see Mehlen being examined on a table with a light ray.
The beings communicated telepathically, saying they were from Antarctica,
claiming, "There is a tunnel that goes under the South Pole, that's why they came
out of the water. Others are extraterrestrials." Two hours later they found
themselves back in the car on Earth.

Nigel Blundell and Roger Boar, The World's Greatest UFO Mysteries (New
York: Exeter, 1984), pp. 67-68.
201. Late November 1980, Braganca, Para, Brazil,
dawn
A luminous dot grew in size as it approached at an incredible speed and landed
on a nearby beach. Two beings resembling normal men emerged from a disc,
asking farmworker Domingos Monteiro Brito several questions in his native
language, including if there were large uninhabited areas in the neighborhood.
Paralyzed with fear, Brito says he couldn't remember how or if he replied. He
only recalls that before entering the craft, they promised to reappear at dawn on
November 25 for another contact.

0 Dia, December 14, 1980.
202. January 2, 1983, Chillan, Chile, night
Chilean schoolteacher Sergio Baeza claims telepathic communication with
extraterrestrials after "a powerful light descended" and came "to rest on the
ground" in a forest on the outskirts of Chillan. "When I thought of running away,
there was something that stopped me from doing so; it was as if it was
unnecessary, as if I knew that to attempt it would be useless." He says he felt the
presence of unseen aliens, and their intention was to make contact. "[They were]
asked mentally about the things I wanted to know, and they responded by
turning lights on and off in the negative or affirmative." He determined "their
intentions are peaceful" and they wish "to establish contact with us."

La Razon, January 8, 1983.

203. August 2, 1983, Aldershot, England, 1:15 A.M.

While fishing near Government Bridge over the Basing-stoke Canal, Alfred
Burtoo saw a flying saucer land and two forms (four feet tall) emerge. They
wore pale green suits, and dark visors covered their faces. After following them
inside the ship Burtoo was asked to stand under an amber light, and they told
him, "You can go. You are too old and too infirm for our purpose." Burtoo was
seventy-seven at the time.

Aldershot News (England), November 25, 1983.

204. August 7, 1983, Winifreda, Argentina
Opening a ranch gate on a farm where he was working, Julio Platner was blinded
by a bright white light. He lost consciousness and awoke in a room on an
"operating table" with four beings around him. They talked telepathically,
saying, "Don't be afraid. We would not harm you. What you are experiencing
now has happened to thousands of people before. You can reveal it if you wish."
He became "calm and comfortable." They took some blood from his left arm.
The entire experience lasted fifteen to twenty minutes. At the end of the
encounter, "I was told to stand up" and "the four beings disappeared and I found
myself sitting beside my van." The beings were humanlike with hairless heads,
small mouths, short noses, and flat ears hugging close to each side of their head.
They stood between five and five and a half feet tall. The female being was thin
and had what appeared to be breasts.

La Reforma (Buenos Aires, Argentina), August 12, 1983.
205. December 14, 1983, Chapeco, Santa Catarina,
Brazil
Antonio Nelso Tasca was returning to Chapeco from Colonia Cella on highway
BR-282. While passing a Coca-Cola factory, he felt an urge to stop. Looking up,
he saw a luminous bus-shaped object. A band of solid light struck and "caught"
him, pushing him into the craft. After losing consciousness, he awoke naked, and
two or three small creatures were examining him in a dark area. They left and
the place lit up. A door opened and a beautiful, small woman in light-colored
clothes entered, explaining telepathically she was Cabala from Agali. "Her eyes
were widely placed apart ... slanted. ... She was wearing slippers ... and
something like a nightgown." He was chosen to warn mankind of the Earth's
destruction.

Eight hours after first seeing the object, he awoke, lying beside highway
BR-282 near the Electro-Diesel Batistella works. He also claims to have
discovered a "W" with an exclamation mark imprinted into his back.

0 Estada (Florianoplia, Sta. Catarina, Brazil), date unknown.

A note about cases from 1984 to present: This list of contact cases since 1900 is
relatively comprehensive until 1983. However, since the early 1980s, UFO
groups, researchers, and authors have compiled thousands of claimed abductions
and contacts with aliens. To list them all is not necessary to the central purpose
of the catalogue. It is intended to show the content and form of the UFO contact
narrative over eight decades.

Adamski, G. 1955. Inside the Spaceships. New York: Abelard-Schuman.

. 1961. Flying Saucers Farewell. New York: Abelard-Schuman.

Adamski, G., and D. Leslie. 1953. Flying Saucers Have Landed. New York:
British Book Centre.

Anderson, C. 1956. Two Nights to Remember. Los Angeles: New Age

Publishing.

Angelucci, O. 1955. The Secret of the Saucers. Amherst, Wis.: Amherst Press.

Barker, G. 1956. They Knew Too Much About Flying Saucers. New York:
University Books.

1977, June. UFO Report 1, no. 2. Cites La Nacion (Buenos Aires).

. 1983. Men in Black: The Secret Terror Among Us. N.p.: New Age.

Bartholomew, R. E. 1989. LIFOlore. Stone Mt., Ga.: Arcturus Books.

Basterfield, K. 1980, June. An Indepth Review of Australasian UFO-Related

Entity Reports. N.p.: Australian Centre for UFO Studies.

1981a. The Image Hypothesis: Close Encounters of an Australian Kind. Sydney:

Reed.

1981b, October. A Catalogue of the More Interesting Australian Close

Encounters. Australian Centre for UFO Studies.

. 1987. "Your Mind: The Final Frontier." Unpublished manuscript, pp. 58-59.
1988. Abstracts of Possible Abduction Cases Where the Percipient Was in
Bed/Asleep. Adelaide, Australia: K. Basterfield. See page 4 citing Aerial
Phenomena Research Organization Bulletin 26, no. 5 (1977): 1-3.

Beckley, T. G. 1980. Psychic and UFO Revelations in the Last Days. New York:
Global Communications.

Bender, A. 1962. Flying Saucers and the Three Men. Clarksburg, W. Va.:
Saucerian Books.

Bethurum, T. 1954. Aboard a Flying Saucer. Los Angeles: DeVorss. Reprint,

Clarksburg, W. Va.: Saucerian Press, 1970.

Facing Reality. Prescott, Ariz.: Author.

Binder, O. 1968. Unsolved Mysteries of the Past. New York: Tower

Publications.

Blum, R., and J. Blum. 1980. Beyond Earth: Man's Contacts with UFOs. New
York: Bantam.

Blundell, N., and R. Boar. 1983. The World's Greatest UFO Mysteries. New
York: Exeter.

Bowen, C., ed. 1977a. Encounter Cases from Flying Saucer Review. New York:
Signet.

1977b. The Humanoids. Great Britain: Futura.

Brinkerhoff, M. 1979, April. "The Incredible UFO Photography of Mark

Brinkerhoff." UFO Review, No. 3.

Brownell, W. S. 1980. UFOs: Key to the Earth's Destiny. Lytle Creek, Calif.:
Legion of Light Publications.

Buhler, W. 1973, November. Flying Saucer Review Special Bulletin, no. 5: 11-
25.

Bullard, T. 1987. UFO Abductions: The Measure of a Mystery. Mount Rainier,

Md.: Fund for UFO Research.
Clark, J. 1976, August. In UFO Report: 21-23, 46-53.

Clark, J., and L. Coleman. 1975. The Unidentified: Notes Toward Solving the
UFO Mystery. New York: Warner.

Creighton, G. 1971, November/December. "Uproar in Brazil." Flying Saucer

Review 17, no. 6: 24-26.

Dickhoff, R. 1964. Homecoming of the Martians. Makelumna Hill, Calif.:

Health Research.

Drake, W. 1974. Gods and Spacemen in the Ancient West. New York: New
American Library.

Dykes, M. 1981. Strangers in Our Skies: UFOs Over New Zealand. Lower Hutt,
Wellington, New Zealand: NDL Publications.

Edwards, F. 1967. Flying Saucers Here and Now! New York: Lyle Stuart.

Evans, H. 1979. UFOs-The Greatest Mystery. Albany: London.

1984. Visions, Apparitions, Alien Visitors. Wellingborough, North-

hamptonshire: Aquarian.

Ferguson, W. 1954. My Trip to Mars. Potomac, Md.: Cosmic Study Center.

Festinger, L., H. Riecken, and S. Shacter. 1964. When Prophesy Fails. New
York: Harper and Row.

Flournoy, T. 1963. From India to the Planet Mars: A Study of a Case of

Somnambulism with Glossolalia. Hyde Park, N.Y.: University Books.

Fowler, R. 1979. The Andreasson Affair. New Jersey: PrenticeHall.

1982. The Andreasson Affair: Phase II. New Jersey: PrenticeHall.

Fry, D. 1954. The White Sands Incident. Los Angeles: New Age Publishing.

Fuller, C., comp. and ed. 1980. Proceedings of the First International UFO
Congress. New York: Warner.
Fuller, J. 1966. The Interrupted Journey. New York: Dial.

Gansberg, A., and J. Gansberg. 1980. Direct Encounters: The Personal Histories
of UFO Abductees. New York: Walker & Walker.

Girard, R. Truman Bethurum's personal scrapbook (original copy), courtesy of

Robert C. Girard, UFO book dealer, publisher, Scotia, N.Y. Published by
Arcturus Books, 1982.

Girvin, W. 1958. The Night Has a Thousand Saucers. El Monte, Calif.:

Understanding Publishing.

Haisell, D. 1978. The Missing Seven Hours. Markham: Paperjacks.

Hartman, T. 1979. "Another Abduction by Extraterrestrials." Mutual UFO

Network journal 141: 3-4.

Harris, L. 1976. Flying Saucer Review 22, no. 5: 3.

Hendry, A. 1980. Frontiers of Science 2, no. 4.

Hind, C. 1982. UFOs: African Encounters. Zimbabwe: Gemini.

Holzer, H. 1976. The UFOnauts. New York: Fawcett.

Hopkins, B. 1979. "Possible Abduction in New York State." Mutual UFO

Network journal 137: 10-12.

. 1981. Missing Time: A Documented Study of UFO Abductions. New York:

Richard Marek.

Jacobs, D. 1975. The UFO Controversy in America. New York: Signet.

Johnson, F. 1980. The Janos People. London: Neville Spearman.

Jung, C. 1959. Flying Saucers: A Modern Myth of Things Seen in the Sky. New
York: Harcourt, Brace & World.

Kask, G. 1976, March 31. "Introducing David Hamil-He Rides in Flying

Saucers." Maple Ridge Gazette (British Columbia).
Keel, J. 1970. Why UFOs. New York: Manor. Also published as UFOs:
Operation Trojan Horse (New York: Putnam's Sons, 1970).

. 1971. Our Haunted Planet. Connecticut: Fawcett.

. 1975. The Mothman Prophecies. New York: Signet.

Kinder, G. 1988. Light Years-The Best Documented, Most Credible UFO Case
Ever. London: Penguin.

King, G. 1962. My Contact with the Great White Brotherhood. Los Angeles:
Aetherius Society.

Klarer, E. 1980. Beyond the Light Barrier. Cape Town, South Africa: Timmins.

Kraspedon, D. 1959. My Contact with Flying Saucers. London: Neville

Spearman.

Lee, G. 1959. Why We Are Here! Los Angeles: DeVorss.

. 1962. The Changing Conditions of Your World. Los Angeles: DeVorss.

Little, G. 1980. Personal investigation report by the author.

Lorenzen, C. 1977. Abducted!: Confrontations with Beings from Outer Space.

Berkeley: Medallion.

Lorenzen, C., and J. Lorenzen. 1976. Encounters with UFO Occupants. New
York: Berkeley.

Machlin, M., and T. Beckley. 1981. UFO. New York: Quick Fox.

Maria, E. S. 0 Dia (Rio de Janeiro), series of nine articles appearing between

October 26 and November 4, 1970.

Martin, D. 1959. Seven Hours Aboard a Space Ship. Detroit: Author.

Menger, H. 1959. From Outer Space to You. Clarksburg, W. VA.: Saucerian

Press.
Menzel, D. 1953. Flying Saucers. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.

Michael, C. 1955. Round Trip to Hell in a Flying Saucer. N.p.: Vantage Press.
Reprint, Auckland, New Zealand: Phoenix, 1971.

1977. Signs and Wonders. Reseda, Calif.: Mojave Books.

Miller, W., and E. Miller. 1959. We of the New Dimension-Communications

with Other Worlds. Morongo Valley, Calif.: Authors.

Moore, R. 1977. In Search of White Crows: Spiritualism, Parapsychology, and

American Culture. New York: Oxford University Press.

Mundo, L. 1956. Flying Saucers and the Father's Plan. Clarksburg, W. Va.:
Saucerian Press.

1964. Pied Piper from Outer Space. Los Angeles: Planetary Space Center
Working Committee.

1970. Our Trip to the Moon and Venus. N.p.: Author.

1983. The Mundo UFO Report. N.p.: Vantage Press.

Musgrave, J. B. 1980. UFO Occupants & Critters. Amherst, Wis.: Amherst Press
and Global Communications. Cites a personal phone conversation between
Musgrave and the witness, in addition to a letter at the Center for UFO
Studies, Evanston, Ill.

1984. Personal communication citing a letter received from the percipient, dated
March 16, 1976. At the time of this correspondence, Musgrave was
employed at the Mobile Planetarium Project at the Provincial Museum of
Alberta, Edmonton, Canada.

Nebel, L. J. 1961. The Way Out World. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.

Nelson, B. 1956. My Trip to Mars, the Moon, and Venus. West Plains, Mo.

1960. Souvenir of Buck's Spacecraft Convention. West Plains, Mo.

Noonan, A. 1967. "I Went to Venus-And Beyond." New Report on Flying

 Saucers, no. 2.

Norman, R. 1980. Have You Lived on Other Worlds Before: An Emissary for
Thirty-Two Worlds Speaks to Earth. N.p.: Unarius.

Norman, R., and T. Miller. 1974. Telsa Speaks. N.p.: Unarius.

Owens, 11968. How to Contact Space People. Clarksburg, W. Va.: Saucerian

Press.

1972. Flying Saucer Intelligences Speak. Cape Charles, Va.: Author.

Painter, R. 1973, January 26. "Youth Claims 'Saucer' Landed on Highway 18."
Gaffney Ledger (S. C.).

Press. 1957a. Sociedade Brasiliera de Estudoes Sobre Discos Voadores Bulletin

(SBEDV), periodical of the SBEDV UFO research group, Rio de Janeiro,
Brazil, no. 4, July 1.

. 1957b. Flying Saucer Review, September/October.

. 1965. La Cronica Matutina (Buenos Aires), October 8; La Cronica (Buenos

Aires), August 8.

1968. La Razon (Buenos Aires), June 4; Correio do Povo (Porto Alegre, Brazil),
June 11.

. 1971a. Lancashire Evening Telegram (Blackburn, England), August 29, 1980.

1971b. Ultima Hora (Rio de Janeiro), October 2.

. 1972. La Union (Catamarca), March 22.

. 1975. Ultima Hora (Buenos Aires), evening edition, May 21; El Cronista
(Buenos Aires), June 10; Flying Saucer Review 21, nos. 2 and 4 (double
issue): 62.

. 1977. El Vocero de Puerto Rico (San Juan), September 19.

1978a. Rhein Neckar (West Germany), January 10.

. 1978b. La Cronica (Buenos Aires), January 26.

. 1978b. La Cronica (Buenos Aires), January 26.

1979. Arizona Republic (Phoenix), December 16.

. 1981. Cambio (Spanish magazine), August 10.

. 1983a. La Razon, January 8.

. 1983b. Aldershot News (United Kingdom), November 25.

Randles, J. 1976. "Two British 'Psychic Contactee' Cases." Flying Saucer

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. 1983. The Pennine Mystery. London: Granada.

Randles, J. 1988. Abduction. London: Robert Hale.

Rawcliffe, D. H. 1959. Illusions and Delusions of the Supernatural and the

Occult. New York: Dover.

Reeve, B., and H. Reeve. 1957. Flying Saucer Pilgrimage. Amherst, Wis.:
Amherst Press.

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About the Authors

Robert Bartholomew is a researcher in sociology at James Cook University of

North Queensland, Townsville, Australia, with a special interest in mass social
delusions and popular culture.

George S. Howard is professor of psychology at the University of Notre Dame,

Notre Dame, Indiana. His research and teaching interests are varied and include
narrative psychology, philosophy of the social sciences, and improving research
methods in several applied areas of psychology. Both have an enduring interest
in the UFO phenomenon.

About the Contributors

Clas Svahn is a journalist with Sweden's largest morning newspaper, Dagens

Nyheter.

Anders Liljegren is the director of archives for UFO Research.
Bryan Dickeson is a computer specialist.

Keith Basterfield personally conducted investigations of two Australian UFO

cases in chapter 10.















 Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Prologue
1. Wishful Thinking: The Great American Airship Mania of 1896-97
2. Thomas Edison's "Electric Star" Illusion of 1897
3. When Believing Is Seeing: Canada's Ghost Balloons of 1896-97
4. The New Zealand Zeppelin Scare of 1909
5. The New England Airship Hoax of 1909-10
6. The British UFO Panic of 1912-13
7. Phantom German Air Raids and Spy Missions over Canada, America, and
South Africa during World War
8. Sweden's Ghost Rocket Delusion of 1946
9. Flying Saucers Come of Age
10. UFOs as a Collective Delusion
11. In Praise of Foresight and Fantasy
12. UFO "Abductees" and "Contactees": Psychopathology or FantasyProne?
13. The Further Reaches of Human Experience
Appendix A: The UFO Contact Catalogue
Appendix B: Bibliography for Chapter 12
About the Authors and Contributors
Index