Contactees
From The Book of THoTH (Leaves of Wisdom)
Contactees are persons who claim to be in regular contact with extraterrestrials. Contactees have typically reported that they were given messages or profound wisdom by Aliens, and that they were compelled to share these messages.
As a cultural phenomenon, Contactees perhaps had their greatest notoriety from the late 1940s to the late 1950s, but individuals make similar claims to the present day, one of the best known currently being Swiss cult leader Billy Meier. Some shared their messages with small groups of followers, and many issued newsletters or spoke at UFO conventions.
The stories of contactees contained much material that has not stood the test of time, such as claims that there were unknown planets within our solar system, and that all the planets of our solar system are inhabited by human beings physically like us, but more spiritually evolved. Certainly at least some of the claims were fraudulent (Spencer 1991:82).
Randles and Hough write that, "The contactee movement is a rich treat for anthroplogists, sticky with sincere and sincerely deluded individuals. Were the contactees in touch with anything other than their own internal fantasies?" (Randles and Hough, 108)
Contactee accounts are generally different from those who allege alien abduction: While contactees usually describe beneficial, human-like aliens, abductees rarely describe their experiences positively.
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Overview
Astronomer J. Allen Hynek described Contactees as asserting "the visitation to the earth of generally benign beings whose ostensible purpose is to communicate (generally to a relatively few selected and favored persons --- almost invariably without witnesses) messages of 'cosmic importance'. These chosen recipients generally have repeated contact experiences, involving additional messages. The transmission of such messages to willing and uncritical true believers frequently, in turn, leads to the formation of a flying saucer cult, with the 'communicator' or 'contactee' the willing and obvious cult leader. Although relatively few in number, such flying saucer advocates have by their irrational acts strongly influenced public opinion." (Hynek, 5)
Contactees usually portrayed the "Space Brothers" as more or less identical in appearance and mannerisms to humans. The Brothers are also almost invariably reported as disturbed by the violence, crime and wars that infest the earth, and by the possession of various earth nations of nuclear and thermonuclear weapons. However, despite their global concerns, the Brothers never landed in front of the United Nations building, the White House or the Kremlin to spread their message. Instead, they invariably selected obscure people, dishwashers, road crew members, assembly-line workers, sign-painters and taxi-drivers, often having a long prior history of involvement with mystical sects.
Peebles (1991:146) summarizes the common features of many contactee claims:
- Certain humans have had personal and/or mental contact with friendly, completely human-appearing space aliens.
- The contactees have also flown aboard flying saucers, and traveled into space and to other planets.
- The Space Brothers invariably come from Utopian societies which are free of war, death, crime, disease, or any other vexing human problem.
- The Space Brothers want to help mankind solve its problems, to stop nuclear testing and prevent the otherwise inevitable destruction of the human race.
- This will be accomplished very simply by the brotherhood spreading a message of love and brotherhood across the world.
- Other sinister beings, the Men in Black, use threats and force to continue the cover-up of UFOs and suppress the message of hope.
By the late 1950s, many contactees were no longer claiming to have been physically visited by aliens; rather, they were more often in psychic contact with the aliens, who passed their messages on to people in trances. However, alien contact via Ouija board, spirit mediums and channelling was fairly common even in the early 1950s. Eventually, there was a complicated crossover with the later "psychic channeling" movement, which found a degree of renewed popularity beginning in the late 1960s.
For over two decades, contactee George Van Tassel hosted the annual "Giant Rock Interplanetary Spacecraft Convention" in the Mojave Desert.[1] Another 1950s contactee, Buck Nelson, held a similar convention in the Ozarks of Missouri up until 1965.
In support of their claims, contactees often produced photographs of the alleged flying saucers or their occupants. A number of photos of a "Venusian scout ship" proffered by George Adamski and identified by him as a typical extraterrestrial flying saucer were noticed to bear a suspicious resemblance to a type of once commonly available chicken egg incubator, complete with three light bulbs which Adamski said were "landing gear." (See [2]).
Response to Contactee claims
Though contactees earned a degree of mainstream attention, most mainstream observers seem to have concluded that the claimants were either hoaxers or mentally ill.
Even in ufology --- itself subject to at best very limited and sporadic mainstream scientific or academic interest --- contactees were generally seen as the lunatic fringe, and "serious" ufologists subsequently avoided the subject, for fear it would harm their attempts at "serious" study of the UFO phenomenon (Sheaffer 1986:17; 1998:34-35). Jacques Vallee notes that "No serious investigator has ever been very worried by the claims of 'contactees.'" (Vallee, 90)
Some time after the phenomenon had waned, historian David Michael Jacobs noted a few interesting facts: the accounts of the prominent contactees grew ever more elaborate, and as new claimants gained notoriety, they typically backdated their first encounter, claiming it occurred earlier than any one else's. Jacobs speculates that this was an attempt to gain a degree of "authenticity" to trump other contactees.
Were Contactees an attempt to discredit UFO studies?
There has been speculation that some Contactees were Central Intelligence Agency operatives following the Robertson Panel's directives to reduce public interest in UFOs and to infiltrate UFO groups.
Randles and Hough write, "Some historical analysts think that the sudden arrival of countless Americans claiming contact with 'space brothers', and the quirky behaviour of some of them, may not be coincidence. Were some of the more extreme cases planted by the CIA as a way to speed up the Robertson panel's requirements? They definitely tarnished UFO credibility." (Randles and Hough, 104).
However, no evidence whatsoever of such a scheme has turned up.
Historical Continuum
Though not specifically linked to flying saucers or odd aerial lights, it's perhaps worth noting that there is a long history of claims of contact with non-earthly intelligences. As early as the 1700s, people like Emanuel Swedenborg were claiming to be in psychic contact with inhabitants of other planets; Helena Blavatsky and others would later make similar claims. The founding revelations of many of the world's religions involve contact between the founder and an extraterrestrial source of wisdom, whether identified as an angel, a god in human form, or a spiritually-advanced "Space Brother." It would be expected that most of the 1950s contactees would form their own religions, with the contactee as sole spiritual leader, and that is just what happened, almost invariably.
Swiss cult leader Billy Meier has managed to include every one of the classic 1950s contactees within his own religious framework, and has made room for tens of thousands more, as this reported exchange between Meier and one of his extraterrestrial contacts indicates: "Meier: ... If you allow, I want to ask you about some matters respecting contacts. How many contactees exist in the world today...?" "Ptaah: The exact number of real contactees on Earth is presently 17,422 (1975). They are scattered over all your states and lands. Of that number only a few percent come to public attention. Many of them are working according to our advice at different labors and tasks.... In different cases such persons are also having contacts with us without being informed that we do not belong to Earth.... Of all these 17,422 contactees (the number increases continuously) only a few hundred are known publicly...."
List of Contactees
- George Adamski
- Wayne Sulo Aho
- Orfeo Angelucci
- Truman Bethurum
- Albert Coe
- Daniel Fry
- William A. Ferguson
- Gabriel Green
- Dana Howard (Contactee)
- Marian Keech/Dorothy Martin
- George King (Aetherius Society)
- Dino Kraspedon (aka Oswaldo Pedrosa)
- Gloria Lee
- Dan Martin
- Billy Meier
- Howard Menger
- Buck Nelson
- Reinhold O. Schmidt
- Frances Swan
- George Van Tassel
- Samuel Eaton Thompson
- George Hunt Williamson
Sources
- J. Allen Hynek (1972), The UFO Experience: A Scientific Inquiry, Henry Regenery Company
- David Michael Jacobs (1975). The UFO Controversy In America. Indiana University Press, ISBN 0253190061
- Curtis Peebles (1994). Watch the Skies: A Chronicle of the Flying Saucer Myth. Smithsonian Institution ISBN 1-56098-343-4 (Chapter 7, pages 93-108, is about the contactee era.)
- Jenny Randles and Peter Houghe (1994).The Complete Book of UFOs: An Investigation into Alien Contact and Encounters. Sterling Publishing Co, ISBN 0806981326
- Robert Sheaffer (1986). The UFO Verdict: Examining the Evidence, Prometheus Books ISBN 0-89775-338-2
- Robert Sheaffer (1998). UFO Sightings: The Evidence, Prometheus Books ISBN 1-57392-213-7
- John Spencer (1991). The UFO Encyclopedia. Avon Books ISBN 0-380-76887-9
- Jacques Vallee (1965). Anatomy of a Phenomenon: Unidentified Objects in Space, A Scientific Appraisal. Henry Regnery Company, ISBN 0809298880
