Strange Encounters of the Unusual Kind

In this section of the House of the Sun, I am giving the accounts of strange experiences I heard from people I know personally, and whom I trust, plus email replies from people who have read my articles and relate their own experiences. The stories often came out when I mentioned my interest in unusual experiences or when I spoke about the unusual experiences of other people. All too often it was the first time these people had spoken about what they had experienced, as they had been afraid that they would not be believed or that they would be ridiculed. To help people overcome this fear is one of the reasons I have put these stories up here.

We live in a world where there is a lot of pressure for everything to be mainstream, where you have to be 'civilized', predictable, obedient and 'normal'. But life does not care about all that. Reality does not always behave in the way that present day science dictates. My grandmother lived in a time where the unusual was common and accepted. They often did not understand the true nature of their unusual experiences, nevertheless they were incorporated in their lives. My grandmother told me about big light balls flying through the fields (in Belgium) from which music was heard. Many people saw them, but they had no idea what they were. Life is a complex web of energies, dimensions, beings of all kinds that interact with each other. Once I was visiting the Findhorn Community in Scotland, when I briefly met an old Dutch woman (also a visitor) who could see gnomes, elves and other nature spirits, but she didn't want to talk about it. At night she would go out and converse with these beings. I have met many people who have had strange experiences or have seen strange things, what has let me to believe that these are actually not rare at all.

I am giving you these stories so you will know you are not the only one who had or is having strange experiences or has seen a most unusual thing. I have put the stories up for the purpose of showing you what kind of reality we live in.

I did not go out and look for stories. What you can find here is a selection gathered over a long period of time, from people who voluntarily told me what happened to them. I have let the people speak for themselves without asking questions or steering them in any direction. I believe that the way in which a person experiences a happening is as important as the objective account of the happening. This fact is often neglected when such accounts are reported by investigators who often change the original story to fit what they find is believable, rational, and logical, or what they think the experience is about. I have kept every detail of what people had to say, even if it is apparently irrelevant or taboo. Reality does not care about what we think, so we should not leave details out because we are afraid that these details might discredit the entire story.

The drawings are all based on actual drawings by the witnesses.

Visit from a Light Vehicle

Ruth, born in 1918, was formerly a fashion designer. She was living in Woodstock, NY, and was a nice, intelligent woman who likes a good chat. She was not interested in anything alternative, but after the encounter she wanted to more about it.

"It happened on the night of June 15, 1987. It was a warm night and my windows were open in the bedroom. My dog was sleeping next to the bed on the floor. Some time during that night she started growling, half barking, half growling as she was laying there. I kept saying "Oh Stella, I am so tired, please let me go to sleep, it is only a deer or a raccoon out there." But her barking and growling went on for about 20 minutes. Finally she got up and started running around through the living room, the kitchen, and the garden room. She was absolutely hysterical. She was barking but also crying. From time to time she would come is to the bed as if she wanted to say "Get up and do something". Something was really bothering here, so I got up to see what it was. I walked out of my bedroom and entered the living room. The living room was filled with such bright light that you could hardly see. It was pulsating too. I thought "What the devil is going on?" I looked outside the window to see if something, the police for example, was outside with spotlights. When I looked outside the whole yard and the patio were so bright and so intense that you could hardly see anything. You couldn't even see the street. I went to the other window and looked out to the garden. All I could see was this tremendous light. When I looked up I saw this thing, this huge light. It was lighting up everything. A few moments later it started to move in the northeast direction. As it moved away, it started to make a shape. I thought "My God, it is a ship of some kind!" How far above the trees it was I have no idea, but it looked as if it was right above them. Suddenly it took off with a tremendous speed. As it took off, five or six balls of light appeared. I don't know what they were or if they had any contact with this big ship.

"The thing must have been around for a while because Stella was barking and crying by my bed for twenty minutes. After the ship left, I sat down and my dog was still so hysterical that I had to settle her down. I called the police but nobody had reported anything. later I heard that a neighbor said that during that night his dogs kept on barking. He couldn't figure out what they were barking at.

"The only aftereffect I had immediately after the encounter was that my breasts became so tender and so sore, they filled up like I was 16 years old. I also had trouble sleeping in the following two weeks.

"The strange thing is that my bedroom door opens into the living room, and this door was not closed but open. However, in my bedroom it was dark, there was no light coming in from the living room or from the outside. From the moment I entered the living room through the open door I stepped into bright light which filled the living room completely, and also the yard outside. Why did the light not shine in my bedroom? That was strange."

Twelve Balls of Light in Formation

Joanna Saber, born in 1953, was living in Woodstock, NY when I met her. Joanna was an intuitive woman who has channeled in the past, but had decided to devote herself to healing.

"The following happened around 1979. At that time I lived with my husband, Marc, in North Salem, on a dead end street that was on a peninsula out into a reservoir. At the tip of that peninsula an old couple had a property of about 50 acres with the main house in which they were living, and a smaller caretaker's house that was vacant.

"One night we were walking to the point, and passing by the borderline of their property. We both noticed that there was a stationary, steady light over the cottage, the caretaker's house in which nobody was living. The light was white and bright, circular, and hovering above this house. We figured out that it was not a star because it was too big, and it was too close. As we watched, the lights inside the house began to turn on and off, which was going on for several minutes. Marc and I decided to run back to our house and get a camera. When we got back, the light was not there anymore.

In 1988 I was living in Golden Bridge, when one night I saw what looked like a searchlight, making a figure 8 over my house. The searchlight made a reflection on the clouds. At that time I took it as an actual searchlight, but in 993 I had a similar but more complex sighting that makes it more mysterious. It might be significant, or not, but that same night I had just seen an aurora borealis, which is very unusual at that latitude.

"In the area of Danbury, NY, which is located nearby the famous 684 corridor, I saw several times unexplainable lights moving and hovering in the landscape. The 684 corridor is notorious for UFO sightings. It is in Westchester County of new York state, bordering with Connecticut state.

After moving to a Woodstock, in 1993, I saw almost the same thing again over my house. Only this time it was a series of twelve balls that would circle, move away and come back circling in the opposite direction. We were arriving home when my child, who was ten years old, first saw it. When I looked up I saw those twelve balls moving, in formation, in a circle clockwise above the house and then leaving to the east. Then they would come back from the east, moving in a circle counterclockwise and leaving to the west. This happened a few times, then I got scared. Usually I am very intrigued by UFOs and the like. When I saw Close Encounters of the Third Kind, I fantasized that i would be of the first to go aboard the spaceship. But for the first time in my life, these things frightened me. We left in the car, but when driving down the road, I noticed that they were over our heads the whole time until we actually turned into town. And then they were gone. We spent the night at a friend's house, because I didn't want to be in my house that night.

"The balls resembled disks or circles of white light, but they were transparent."

A Ball of Energy in the room

From an email:

Hello,

I hope this is still an active email address for you. I have just stumbled on your website and been reading some of its pages. Thank you so much for these contributions.

For most of my life I have searched for the answers to some questions and found very few on a particular topic. Your pages on light - sound beings comes closer than anything I've found.

It started when I was about 18 years old, maybe 19...I am now 40. I was laying in bed one night, situated on my back and was drifting into sleep when suddenly there was a presence in the room. It had an incredible amount of energy and presented to me as "a ball of energy" or "fire ball." It was a glowing burnt orange about the size of a small cantaloupe. I saw it with my minds eye.

As quickly as it had entered the room, it began to slingshot around the room with a sound or vibration like if a person were to sling something tied to a string in a great circle. The thing slung itself around the room quickly and powerfully and at each revolution in entered one side of my head and left the other. This scared me. I was never so intimidated in my life. I wanted it to stop, but it continued for quite sometime, I'm not sure how long. Each time it entered my consciousness, I would go blank until it left the other side of my head. It entered on the left and exited on the right, going round and round and then disappearing just as quickly as it came.

I was shaken and deeply disturbed. I soon moved to another home after repeated visits from this "energy ball." I thought it must be some sort of unfriendly spirit because, in my mind, only an unfriendly energy would frighten me so and not head my command to leave me.

The energy soon taught me that it would not be so easily ignored. It came to me in the next house, and the next, and the next. It still comes today, but is very dim now and the visits a few and far between. It still does the same thing it always has, but I am no longer aware of it until it enters my consciousness. It still causes me to be blank for the short time it inhabits my space. I have never had the ability to move my body while it is present with me...not until it leaves.

For over 20 years this being has been a part of my life, mostly secret, although I have shared it with a select few hoping for answers. I'm sure there is a purpose. During a recent visit to a Native American sweat lodge, I spoke with a Shaman about it. During the ceremony and prayers he spoke to me about this energy. He said that it is not there to harm me, but to help me...raising my level of spiritual consciousness and balance. Pushing me forward to advance more quickly spiritually. He said not to be afraid, but to be thankful for it, even though it can be uncomfortable at times. He said growth is not always comfortable.

Joska Soos' paintings come closer to visually matching this energy than anything I have ever seen. The first one I saw on your website caused me to think, "there you are, right on this man's canvas. He has seen you too." But, as I read on I found that he states he could not get near them. This leaves me confused yet again. I would still like answers on this topic. There has not been anything from this entity that would shed any light on its presence in my life. It is all in secret that it comes and goes and does as it sees fit without the slightest hint of its nature or mission.

The only thing I can say is that I have been said to be somewhat clairvoyant all my life from childhood on. I have had an inner drive to search for the answers to cosmic questions. I experience conscious knowledge of energies seen and unseen. I am aware of the presence of most entities. These abilities have peaks and valleys in my life. I know that I am on my journey and that it is my job to be both teacher and student, helper and the helped. I have a fairly clear sense that I must accomplish certain tasks that will help others on to this same path.

A Ball of Golden Light

From an email:

Dear Carol and Dirk,

I have been reading about light-sound beings at your web site, partially because the paintings by Joska Soos are incredible, but also because I think I experienced one of these light beings several years ago.

It was after having experienced an incredible orgasm (this is a little embarrassing for me to write, especially since I was alone), and I was just laying there, enjoying a feeling of incredible satisfaction and contentment when out of the light socket came this ball of light. I didn't actually see it come out of the light socket, but am assuming it did because the socket was hidden behind some boxes. I simply saw a burst of light from underneath the desk and behind the boxes, and then all of a sudden, this ball of golden light that reminded me of a fourth of July sparkler comes floating over me as I lay on my back, then floated behind the curtain, bounced off the window, floated back through the curtain and across me and then disappeared down the side of the bed and into the floor. I tracked its progress in startled amazement and I know I was wide awake.

Actually, it scared me, because I'd never seen anything like it before, and I rushed to turn the light on before it disappeared but didn't quite make it. I just sat there shaking my head. I thought perhaps my cat may have seen something, but he just looked at me from the foot of the bed, sleepy-eyed and probably wondering what the heck was wrong with me.

Could this have been one of these light beings?

Healing by Light Orbs

This email is from Kris Manalien, a British painter, and expert artists with jewels and lights.

Since the beginning of 2006 I have been working on new digital artwork, and after several visits from glowing orbs of light in my home over the past couple of weeks, which I believe have performed a miracle on my parrot who was due to have an operation for a broken leg, and after these light visitors, she did not require one, the bone had healed perfectly a day before the planned
operation. We have x-rays before and after and they show a miracle realignment and perfect repair to the point you would never know there had been a break. Well, I have been receiving very strong images in meditation and have been guided to create some lovely work

Be Light, namaste, Kris.

Healed by Loving Light

Hello Dirk,

Thank you for replying... the questions, specifically regarding your light experience, were answered by other pages in your site. Significant was your statement, although there were others, that this has been an experience which you return to for comfort - which is something I always find from mine, along with wonder...

I've wondered about my experience for a long time - it was twenty years ago, and still as vivid. I've never met anyone before who described anything as close as yours to mine, although I've read of those who have.

This experience is one of my most precious memories. In difficult times it helps me to remind myself that I am not alone in this world, that the Divine in its form of the Feminine is looking over me. It keeps me on the spiritual path which it loaded with doubt, self-doubt and sometimes desperation. Having had an experience like this is like a light beacon in the dark.

Similarly, mine is one of my most precious memories, and the most extraordinary... very late at night, in distress, weeping, and in such despair I was reaching out, asking for something... not praying, not addressing myself to anything specific - I had no belief in God, and hadn't since I was 16 - this happened when I was 32 - and suddenly the room was filled with light, pure light, no shadows, a misty white light like none I'd ever known, intense and bright yet soft and not blinding - my eyes were wide open - gazing round the room, seeing the fuzzy outline of pieces of furniture... I remember looking at the light switch, to see if it had come on somehow... no, and there was no direction it was coming from either, it just filled the room. That took a couple of seconds I think, and then I became aware of being filled with the most intense feeling of being loved - a certain, unmistakable knowledge of love - as if this light WAS love and I had breathed it in, and like oxygen it had entered every cell. Does that make sense? It was only very recently it occurred to me that perhaps I'd breathed it in - like the 'breath of God' so many Sacred Texts have spoken of. I've wondered about it for years, ever since, of course, and read widely, and talked, although seldom, of it when I thought it might be useful to someone or where I thought I might learn something about it... I could never align it to a religion though, but I can align it to the mystical writings of so many texts, from the most ancient to the modern... from ancient myth, Sufi poetry and much much esoteric teaching to people like Thomas Merton, Bede Griffiths, poets like Rilke, and many many others...

Anyway, it is like a sacred beacon in my life, like a sacred tree, a source of strength and awe and certainty, and it has given me courage to explore myself, to learn about myself and to go beyond the self into acceptance and a profound joy in living, being on this beautiful, beautiful planet... despite all the horror and hardships each person endures, despite the inequalities which we have created... not that I don't suffer or that I can ever dismiss the suffering of others because I feel it as my own, but that I can see beauty and perfection even as it is held up against all the pain and ugliness - because of it - and see that the negative cannot negate the positive, and that it is all part of the everything which is life. That's in my best moments, and they are becoming more easily accessible somehow - hard to describe - as I continue to learn and suffer and grow.

So thank you!

Warm regards

Teresa

Light Flashes

Bright Flashes

Davida, born in 1954, lives in New York state, and is very experienced as a holistic and psychic counselor. She is a also a vocalist and song-writer. She uses clairvoyance in healing work which is based on balancing masculine and feminine energies. She has always been aware and open to other kinds of realities.

"It happened in the summer of 1976, when I was living in Brooklyn, New York. I was 23 years old and my fiancé, Paco, was walking me home at about three o'clock in the morning to my parents' house. It was a two family house. so there was a very long flight upstairs. Right at the stairs was a driveway and a garage. Left of the stairs were some tall trees. I walked up the stairs, and Paco was standing at the base of the stairs watching me. As I walked up I saw everything light up, twice, very quickly and very, very brightly. It was intense white light, brighter then lighting, yet it was silent, there was no sound to it. It lit everything up, and I felt like the source of the light had been behind me. I turned around to look at Paco. He was standing at the bottom of the stairs, and he had apparently seen the same thing because he was looking around and he was white, a little scared by this. He had seen two lights sources above the garage. I was excited, I felt like something real neat was happening. We were standing there and looking around for a moment, and it happened again. I saw two very bright white sources of light, very small. I couldn't tell if they were near or far. But they appeared between me and the trees; the trees were only about eight feet away from us. They were very small, about the size of my thumb. They were very close together. they flashed brightly in very quick succession, two times. Everything lit up each time, brighter than sunshine, and silently. Paco also saw it again, looking in that direction, and he was freaked out. I ran down to him because I wanted to tell him that something really neat was happening, but he was pretty shaken up. He couldn't even speak. We were looking around for a few moments again. This time we saw them out in the street between us and the houses across the street, 15 or 20 feet up in the air. They flashed again. Paco wasn't facing the street, I was. So he saw everything lightning up. It was difficult to tell actually how far they were. They seemed like they were in another dimension. The next time they appeared, we were standing out in the street, looking for them, and we were facing towards the house. We saw them again between us and the garage. So they were closer to the ground again. They lit everything up again, silent, very quick, very bright flashes of extreme white light.

"Afterwards we discussed the event. We saw the same thing and in the same places but from different perspectives. We both felt that it was difficult to tell how far or how close they were. It seemed that they were in another dimension, yet they were physically lighting everything up. It was like light coming from another dimension. I felt that it was like a friendly contact from somewhere. I felt really charged up and excited."

Unknown Metallic Ships

Hitler and Flying Saucers; and A Mother Ship Releasing Several Smaller Flying Saucers

During my visit to the Findhorn Foundation -an alternative open community west of Inverness, Scotland- in the early eighties, I met a remarkable woman. Diane Duurland was born in 1939, she spent her childhood in Belgium, after which she moved to The Netherlands. During our stay at Findhorn, she told me about UFO experiences she had while living in Belgium. In 1995 I visited her in her Amsterdam apartment where another, more recent UFO story emerged. I should also mention here that Diane is gifted with psychic talents which she uses for healing.

"When I was a child I lived in Beveren, a small town which is now part of the city of Roesalare, in Belgium. In the winter of 1944, I often saw Hitler driving by in his car as he used to visit Beveren frequently at that time (there was a German car factory in Beveren). My mother was sick during this winter, so I had to do all the errands because I was the oldest of the five children. One dark evening I went, once more, to the farm of the Sommers family to get milk. I was walking down the main road, when suddenly I noticed a strange swift movement from behind the hedge of the Belgian cemetery, which is next to the German cemetery. It was a strange vehicle of a silvery, metallic color and partially transparent, hovering about one meter (three feet) about the road (see fig. 1a and 1b). First I thought that Hitler had gotten a new car, a round car without wheels. Red, blue, yellow and white colors were flashing from this vehicle; also inside were colored lights. It had three light sources underneath emanating a dazzling light towards the road. It made a strange zooming sound, but not like a car engine. I noticed one dark being inside, but things were going too quickly to make out any details. It was also too close to me and moving to fast. As soon as I realized that the thing was really weird, I became frightened and jumped into a patch of tall stinging nettles beside the road. When the vehicle passed and flew into a field, it dissolved at the spot. It didn't even stop, it just vanished. I was so frightened that i ran straight back home. My mother wouldn't believe, although she went with me to the field, where it disappeared. Of course, nothing was there anymore. I was sent out again to get the milk. Mrs. Sommers however was more open to the story. She told me that a lot of flying saucers (people used the dialect word of saucer because these things looked exactly like it) were seen around, but people didn't talk about it. People who had seen these strange things in the sky were shot or sent away to the camps by the Germans.

small flying saucer with lights

"The vehicle I saw was circular and saucer shaped. You could also compare it with an umbrella with a white edge on it that kept turning. The colored lights cane from the dome of the object, the rest of which was of a silvery metallic color. It was as large as a car. It was opaque or semi-transparent.

"I also remember that at the end of the war a lot of lamp posts or telephone poles were put in all the fields by the Germans, to prevent that these flying saucers would land. Where they afraid of it? The entire village had frequently witnessed those strange objects hovering in the air. They came and went, moved and turned, but remained in a hovering position at the same spot. Sometimes 7 to 18 saucers, even up to 40 saucers, were seen together. Sometimes they would appear between 10 and 12 o'clock in the morning, between 15 and 16 o'clock in the afternoon, and also in the evening. The saucers would hang in the air about 20-30 minutes, and then suddenly they were all gone, or they went up in the air and then they disappeared. They didn't have any colors. One would immediately call their neighbors, so their appearances was witnessed by a lot of people. One would say that the flying saucers were new war weapons, or that someone was working with apparatus, or that they were spies from other countries. Nobody actually knew what it really was. People were a bit scared of it. However I was not afraid of it.. Deep inside myself I felt that once they would come and help the world.

map of the area

"The entire event lasted for about 6 to 8 weeks. After we saw them a few times a day, the frequency decreased. Then we saw them once a day, once every three or four days, and suddenly they didn't show up anymore.

"The second time when I saw a flying saucer was in 1988 on my vacation in the French village of Rouvenac, which borders the Spanish Pyrenees. It was a late evening in August, between midnight and one o'clock. I was resting, but not yet asleep, actually I was very lucid. Suddenly i felt a strong urge to sit on my knees on my bed. A strange tension made me look through the window. I guess I was under the influence of a telepathic message. After some 15-20 minutes of staring outside, I saw a flying saucer arriving in the sky from the Spanish Pyrenees. It was flying very fast with sharp movements over the mountains. It looked like it was looking for something. Finally the saucer came to a stop and hovered. It was very big, silvery metallic and it radiated light. It descended a bit, then it ascended and hovered again. It was too far to hear any possible sounds. The ship emanated a particular light underneath, and I also saw light through the shining portholes.

"Suddenly a kind of lid opened, and one little flying saucer after another emerged and flew away to all directions (figure 1c). I didn't count them, but I estimate that they were 15 of them. They too radiated light. Then the lid closed. The saucer descended and disappeared behind a mountain. I was quite astonished and thought "Why am I seeing this? Where are they coming from, and where are they going to?" I didn't sleep that night, I kept looking and listening to the stillness of the night.

a mother ship

"Between 4 and 5 o'clock in the morning, just before sunrise, I went outside to take a deep breath. While I was standing there on the veranda, the big mother ship came back at the same place. From all directions, the little saucers arrived and hovered around the mother ship. The lid opened again and they all flew in, one after another, which took 2-3 minutes. The ship had to wait before the last one arrived and went in. Half an hour had passed now and the lid closed. The mother ship went straight up into the sky, towards the Spanish Pyrenees. At that time the sun was rising. It was such a nice happening!

"I even took my binoculars, which I always have with me to look at the mountains and the watch birds, to have a better view. That morning I couldn't sleep anymore. I was so happy that I was allowed to behold all this.

"At that time a lot of UFOs were seen all over France."

A Metallic Cylinder

Dacey, born in 1937, was an artist and worked in film production. He has been interested in UFOs and related subjects all his life, and has learned to remain open-minded about these matters. One day he saw an unidentified flying object himself unexpectedly. It was really starling to him.

"It happened in Woodstock, NY. The time was August or September 1984, on a moonlit night. Around midnight I decided to get out the house for some fresh air. I was lying in the hammock and looking straight up the sky, enjoying a nice evening. The sky was clear, the stars brilliant. After some twenty minutes, I noticed a shadow moving before the moon at my left side. I turned towards the moon, and a cylindrical object was moving across the sky. It started to reveal itself as it was crossing my vision. It was coming from the north, going to the south, over the mountain and in the direction of the town's valley. My head was facing north and I had a good look at the object. I started to realize that it was flying over very low, I estimated it was a thousand feet above me. It looked like a metallic cylinder, dark black or silvery in color, but it didn't have a shine like an airplane. Its length was about 300-400 feet, its width 20-30 feet. It had no writing on it, no lights, no wings, except in the very back of the 'tail' where a little configuration like a fin was visible. It didn't look like any spaceship or saucer I had ever seen in magazines, books and so on. For a moment I thought I saw at the end something blinking, but I am not sure. Maybe my mind didn't want me to see those lights. I wanted to believe that this was an unidentified flying object that was out of this world. However, it looked like a kind of military object. The most remarkable thing about this object was that it moved without making any noise at all. It was completely silent. I didn't see any engine or moving parts. It just quietly moved across at low altitude.

"The entire sighting lasted for about a half minute during which I was able to have a good look at it. I have flown airplanes, but I have never seen anything like this."

Close Encounter at a Cornfield

E., born in 1972, lives in Woodstock, NY. Music being his passion, he plays piano and drums and write lyrics. He has strong intuitive capacities. Although young, ha has had several spiritual and UFO experiences, most of which he wishes to keep to himself.

"I was about 19. One autumn night, I was driving with a friend through town to get a pack of cigarettes. It was about 9 pm and the sky was full of stars, with a crescent moon just above the horizon. We were about to make a left turn into Zena Road when I looked up over the trees. At a distance, and above the cornfield, next to the pines trees the sky seemed to be metamorphosing into a huge object (see fig. 2). I was wondering why I was seeing such a thing or if I was the only one who saw it. So, I asked my friend if he saw anything in the sky, not telling him of anything I saw in order to avoid suggestion. He immediately jumped and grabbed my arm yelling: "Yoo, that is a freaking UFO." We were looking at it as it was literally metamorphosing from a patch of sky into a visible ship. Somehow they must have cloaked themselves. The ship was black in color. It was approximately 150 to 200 feet long, 50 feet high, and it was hovering about 30 feet above the tops of the pine trees. It had a whole row of rectangular lights on it. I couldn't believe what I saw. The lights were steady and bright, white in color. The ship had an oval shape, and the lights were in a row in the middle of it. There was also a sort of insignia on the left which looked like a kind of writing. The closest thing in comparison is the sign of Capricorn. Up to now the ship was hovering in a horizontal position. In about three seconds it turned in a right angle to a vertical position. It stayed like that for a second, then it gently slid down in an arc towards the ground, where it landed. At that point my friend was too scared and wanted to leave the place, so we moved on to the store."

a materializing spaceship

Strange Beings

Visit from an Ethereal Being

This is my own story. "On the night of February 3rd, 1994, I woke up and heard noise on the roof. I thought that maybe the teenage boys of our neighbor Isaac were running on the roof again, maybe they were checking a water leak on their roof (our houses are joined), but then again it was freezing too hard for a leak.

"The next morning our neighbor Isaac told us that in the middle of the night, after having read a book, he didn't fall asleep immediately, but was slumbering. Then he heard sound, music woven into music, that he described as the rustling of metal feathers. The sound moved around him and he felt the presence of a being he described as unearthly, ethereal. The being moved around him and showed signs of curiosity. With its hand It touched Isaac's cheek, neck and shoulders. It tried to implant into F's mind the idea of a $35 electronic toy. Isaac was very nervous, but the being did not feel malevolent.

"There might be a correlation with what my wife and I experienced a week ago. It had snowed a lot and we had removed the snow from our roof. In the evening, while in bed but not asleep yet, we heard a sudden, very loud but soft impact on the roof (our bedroom is under the roof). It happened again twice that evening, and once at six o'clock in the morning. We could not find any reasonable explanation for it. The closest thing I could compare it to, was that a big ball of snow had fallen on the roof from very high up. In the morning I checked the roof but there was nothing.

"The day before Isaac was visited by the ethereal being, in the morning between sleeping and waking, I was aware of an explosion nearby on the ethereal level. I interpreted it at that time that something was coming."

Strange Creature at the Side of the Road

Joseph., born in 1936, is a New York state employee. An adventurous man, he has worked in photography, film and theater, in addition he is well disciplined in yoga, mysticism and esoteric studies. He has no interest in UFOs or aliens, and with his sense of humor he states that "hopefully they are not interested in me", suggesting that alien civilizations might be less restricted than ours and might use humans in ways which are objectionable.

"I happened on January 15, 1992. At that time I was working as a night courier for the state of New York, driving an off-track betting route. I would service nine offices of the Off-Tracking-Betting Corporation. I drove their truck about 250 miles each night I worked.

"About 4 o'clock in the morning I was on Duchess county route 55 from the town of Pawling, NY, on my way to my next stop in Freedom Plains about 20 minutes away. I had been doing this route several nights a week since December 1985. One of the worst things that can happen on this job is hitting an animal. There are a lot of animals moving around at night: skunks, opossums, raccoons, grey and red foxes, various night birds and deer. I learned the habits of the animals of the night who allow themselves to be seen. Along the highway there are three little mountains to cross. Passing over the first one, Harmony Hill, I approached one of the curves in the road and I noticed some sort of creature standing, not in the road, but just on the other side of a low barrier about two feet (60 cm) high. This barrier was made of corrugated steel and bolted to posts to prevent a sliding car from going over the embankment. At the other side of this barrier was a creature standing which looked like it was standing on its hind feet. The most obvious thing about it was that the lights of the truck, which were on high beam, were reflecting from the retina of the eyes of the creature. Each animal has a characteristic retina (red eye) reflection, appearance and color. The height of the two eyes I saw was too high for a deer. The only possibility would have been a bear standing on his hind legs. I thought: "HM, maybe a bear?" However the size of these eyes was very unusual. In my seven years of driving at night I had not seen anything like those eyes, that is, never that large. I didn't know any creature on earth had eyes that big. Judging by the height of the barrier at his knees, this thing was about five and a half feet (165 cm) tall. "Hm, a bear? But it is January 15 and all the bears are hibernating now. So it can't be a bear. therefore it had to be a person, because only a person can be that big. Yet people don't have eyes that big." These eyes were a good three and a half inches (6 cm) across each. The size of the retina reflection back was completely different from what you would have in a 'red eye' photograph. I have worked a lot with photography, so I know all the different kinds of red eye reflections. In a red eye photograph of a person you can still see a little centerpiece. The creature's eyes were complete disks which had no little something in the center. Yet I could see lines in the retina that moved towards or from a center point, like an iris that was completely closed, yet it was reflecting back red. So I was looking at these red eyes, looking at the spacing in between them, and thinking there isn't anything that looks like that. "I can't be a human, because humans don't have eyes that big, so it must be a bear. But bears are hibernating, and besides bears have eyes that are smaller than humans. So it must be a human..." Those were the two possibilities reverberating in my mind. Each one cancelled out the other one. I was lost in my attempt to operate my knowledge of the world, as Carlos Castaneda said in Tales of Power. Then the figure moved. It tilted his head down towards its feet. At that point the red eye effect had disappeared and it was as if this creature was wearing goggles, but they weren't broad banded. It was two large surfaces. As they looked down at the snow, the snow reflected in these "lenses" and I got reflections in my view of line. I saw the white of the snow reflected in the lenses of the eyes.

"I also have extensive experience in reading body language as I have also worked in the theater and movies. I noticed that in the way the figure moved when it was looking down, that it had eyes that did not swivel as ours do. We can look from left to right, up and down without moving our head. This figure had eyes that did not move. It was required to move its whole head. That was my first thought. Later I included goggles that cut peripheral vision enough to require that much head tilt. Nobody was out there to perpetrate a hoax as it was about 15°F (-10°C) on the top of a mountain at 4 o'clock in the morning in the dead of winter. The figure was also moving away, about to disappear. He went down the slope of the embankment, got out of my way and disappeared. It didn't realize that i already had already seen it through the retina reflection of its eyes. It looked down to its feet, turned his head and went down the slope. Within ten seconds I was at the place where it had been standing. As I tried to look over the embankment -I even eased the truck over a little bit- I saw that the place where it had been standing was a foot lower than the roadway, so the creature must have been six and a half feet tall. i couldn't see the figure anymore. I remember that it has arms that were held close to its body. it didn't have any tension as its turned its head, looked down and so forth, which indicated that it was not alarmed or anxious. It looked down very deliberately and went down the embankment to get out of my way. Apparently it didn't realize or care that I had already picked up the reflection of its retina. Also, I asked myself, what world does this creature come from that it doesn't know that light directly in ones eyes allows you to see the 'red eye' reflection from their eyes? Is it the protocol that light handling in their world is such that one would never do such a thing as shine a light directly in someone's eyes? It wasn't trying to be seen, it was belatedly trying not be seen. Was this an inexperienced guardian or sentry, as revealed by the fact that I had spotted it? What was it doing here? I tried to amusedly think about it, but after that I never gave it any further thought.

"Some part of my mind was in an alert mode when I saw the creature. I new that this was something strange and unrecognizable. I didn't want to know about it, I didn't want to probe it. I wasn't mentally as I would ordinarily be. I didn't send out a mental inquiry, which I ordinarily do if I see anybody out in the night. I always want to know who he/she is and what he/she is doing there because by experience I know that people can be in trouble. When I saw this figure I noticed that I wasn't sending it any mental questions, and that I didn't try to find out what it was. There was a kind of blankness in my mind. Whatever it was, it wasn't probing me either, mentally. There was absolutely nothing coming from it.

"Well, I didn't really allow myself to realize what that might be for a very long time. I was putting it in denial. Finally, about 18 months later, in the summer of 1993, I allowed myself to realize what it was I had seen. This was something not from this planet. This was not human. This was an extraterrestrial. It was humanoid, it radiated intelligence, awareness, discretion, avoidance, and also a sense of doing guard duty. This creature was a guard or a sentry. So finally I pulled up that summer's night in 1993 and stood at the other side of the guard rail where it had been standing. I looked around, and saw what its point of view was. I instantly realized a couple of things. The position where it had been standing was such that it had a perfect view as far down the road that I had come up, and as far up the road where I was going. From that particular spot on the outside of the curve it had the longest view of the road along both sides of the curve in the road. From the point of view of the sentry, its ship might have landed on the other side of the road also because it was also seeing everything inside the curve and towards the very top of the hill. I also realized it couldn't watch the whole space up there. There must have been more than one. What they were doing up there I don't know. That is all speculation.

"I should tell you one thing more. After I had stopped there and accepted that I had seen some extraterrestrial being, I became frightened. I allowed myself to realize the possible dangers. For example, I don't know if it had forsaken cruelty in its high intelligence. I might have been easy prey. Not knowing the values of these beings, not knowing their rhythms, their morality and their ethics made me afraid. This fear lasted for the next five or six weeks each time I went by there."

The Hermits of Hickory Hollow

M., born in 1951, living in Woodstock, New York, is a professional sculptor and artist who has a lot of experience in scenic design in the movie industry. he is a practical, robust man and very down to earth. Before he was visited by strange beings, he had neither been interested in them or related subjects, nor was he interested in the Inner Earth hypothesis and peripheral vision. I have seen his sculptures of the beings, which reminded me of the European satyrs. They look very friendly to me, and radiate a warm, loving feeling. Somehow they have a simple, almost childlike aura around them. However, M. told me that most people, when seeing his sculptures, are afraid of them. Do people unconsciously feel that these creatures might really exist? Here is his story:

"My experiences started in 1986 and ended with the fire in my working studio which destroyed all the sculptures of the little beings, in February 1994. I was pilled into some force field these little people generated. During these years I woke up from dreams and sculpted the image from my dream. Every time I saw something, I saw a being, I woke up and created him. It was a very natural process. The beings appeared in my dreams and I could recreate them when I was sculpting.

(click on images to see a larger picture)

I do not see the images as holographic, it was more like a push inside me that came from my dreams. I was driven to repeatedly reproduce these images from the same basic field. It was like a birth. The dreams in which these beings appeared were like all other dreams, the only difference was that they were mixed in it. I would wake up with an image in my head, a very strong image, a very strong impulse that lasted for a few years, and then it was gone. I sculpted about 150 of them. They all looked very much alike. They seem to belong to a family, a tribe. It felt definitely as if an external force were acting upon me. After I created one, He would come back the next time and introduce me to another one in a dream. I would remember the one I sculpted before, and I would then sculpt the other one.

"Somehow I kept stumbling into them. A lot has to do with the town and the house I lived in. I only encountered them in this town. I do not really know why, but I guess they were living here. I started sculpting them three or four houses ago. But each time I moved into a new house they found me again. Then I had that terrible fire that destroyed my entire collection of sculptures. Maybe they had something to do with it. Maybe they were mad at me because I had sculpted their images without their permission. Since that fire they did not make contact again.

"The Hermits, as I called these beings, were nothing specific. They were just like regular beings existing in another part of the world. They have their own life, and are just living. It is very real. It sounds like it is something we cannot relate to. We cannot fit into their spaces, they live in their own world. They have really good intentions, very positive.

"These strange beings are about one foot tall, and have a lot of similar characteristics, a lot of weird and bizarre inclusions in their body, like lenses, rings, screens. Some had mirrors in their head. I am a sculptor, I was just recreating their images that exited somewhere else. I was always searching in my mind who they were, but I could never figure it out completely. I just woke up in the morning and made a new piece. They are real, physical beings like humans but just a lot smaller, with a lot of human characteristics, human language, human habitats and a a sense of humor.

"They are very close to the animal world. Actually they are like animals, like chipmunks or squirrels, anyway that is how I see them. They cannot be seen directly by humans, not because they are invisible, but because we lack the ability to see most animals, including these little guys, unless they are taken out of their environment. It is hard to see a deer in the woods because of its natural camouflage. The more foreign an animal is, the harder it is to see, because they are unfamiliar. In their environment they will disappear. However, under special circumstances you are able to see them from the corner of your eyes, with peripheral view, as they themselves taught me. The only sightings of those beings have ever been from the side, because straight ahead we do not have the power to see them. So I have seen them physically a few times, but only from the corner of my eye. Every time they came they taught me something. Our contact was one of teaching, that was their purpose. They wanted to teach me, for example, something about the animals in the woods I had never seen before. Peripheral vision was a constant issue.

"Some of the Hermits have wings, but that is rare. However the wings are not that powerful. Others have lenses and mirrors in their forehead. How they got it I do not know. The lenses are there to magnify light in dark places, I guess. Their bodies are thus very flexible in order to change their forms like that. Some of the Hermits have an 'omega' form; they have no torso. The legs come up right to the shoulders. It always came back, these multiple adaptations. They do have some internal organs, although I think they do not have as many. I think their internal organs are in each side of their body. I got the feeling once there were some experimentations made upon them, a kind of bio-experiments in the Renaissance period in Italy. A lot of dreams about the Medici family came trough.

"I never have been able to sculpt one of their women. They were not present here. Only the men were here, on a mission, a couple of hundred. They told me about their world, information I would consider to be crazy to this world.

"They had missions they spoke about, all kinds of images came to me. They had certain goals to achieve. That is why they encountered me. Basically they wanted to protect their world from ultraviolet radiation from the sun. They told me that they are living in the inside of the Earth. The Earth is hollow in in this Inner Earth there is another world of living beings. In the center of this Inner Earth is a Central Sun. Somehow the Central Sun is being vaporized by the increase in U.V. rays during the last couple of decades. I do not know how this process works, but this was a repetitive dream. Their message to me was "how is it possible to reduce the U.V. radiation increase, and was there anything I could do?" They came to me asking if I could stop this, and to prove to me that there is another world in which they live.

"Their most near relations would be human midgets. They told me that they are related to a particular type of midgets from the place they originated, namely the Nnotia in the former realm of Dahomey (now part of French West Africa). The name Dahomey came to me, like all other information, in dreams. I had never heard of it before. The Nnotia were very little people, around two feet tall. They no longer exist, but there is recorded history of them. They disappeared some 50-75 years ago, and went inside the earth. In the early 1900's they were snatched up and stolen for circuses and traveling shows. That is why they decided to go to the inside of the earth. The Hermits said that they themselves originated at the end of the shaft of the tunnel that goes to Dahomey. They still call it Dahomey although this name is not used anymore.

'My feeling was that they were looking for a kind of hero, somebody to rescue them. Otherwise they will be forced to leave the planet. The environment on the surface of the planet has become a threat to them> However I also got that mankind is going to solve the problem of the U.V. radiation, that they already have a plan to stop the increase of U.V. by restoring the ozone layer. This might be the reason why they left me, because I got too close to them. They do not want me to have their images. I did not ask their permission to sculpt them, they did not model for me.

"They also made a link between U.V. light and peripheral vision. They wanted me to have peripheral vision, otherwise I would not be able to see them. In order for people to have peripheral vision, the increase in U.V. light has to stop, otherwise this ability will be destroyed, and these little folks will never been seen again. The Hermits explained to me that the increase in U.V. began to burn the Central Sun in the Inner earth since the ozone layer began to be destroyed. When that happened they saw changes in their world. So they came to the surface to observe the outer world. One thing they noticed was that as their sun started to burn out, the ability for them to be seen became less and less. So they made a connection, and they found out that certain chemicals in the brain of humans, and of themselves as well, were affected by the U.V. process. This prevented not only the ability to see sideways but it also affects the heart too. When you stop seeing sideways your heart starts closing. This is a process they have noticed on the outside world. So they made a link between U.V. and a lot of problems on the earth. Physical problems that have to do with chemicals. They talked about imbalances, inhibitions and malfunctions of the neurotransmitters in the brain, causing a lot of anxiety in the people.

"The hermits travel from the surface to the Inner earth by corridors, tunnels and caves in the earth. There are also major shafts, like trunk lines. It takes a lot of time to get from one part of our world to one part of their world. I never had a dream of those tunnels, so I do not know anything about it, except they are really dark. that is why they have these adaptations, lenses, mirrors, wings. Apparently, it is a big journey for them. So the fact that there was maybe 200 of them here must have been to them a major mission. This group of 200 is part of a much larger group in their own world. There are thousands of them.

"I once had a dream about a ship they traveled in, a kind of bizarre ship, like an icosahedron, about 6 feet in diameter. At the intersection of twelve joints was a platform with a high seat with a being in it. They were floating on this ship one night with a zillion stars all around through the sky. These were the twelve more common of the 150 I have sculpted. These twelve were a core group who appeared constantly. The structure was only made of glassy rods and the seats. Everything else was empty, you could see through the structure. There were no surfaces on this icosahedron, no rooms inside it. I did not know where they were going, I just saw them flying through the night. It was a very peaceful, very pleasant dream. I called this vehicle "the Crystal Ship", the Hermits called it the "Aurora".

Rama Manoe

I found the following story in a small Dutch paranormal magazine Paravisie from the 1970's. It appeared in the column of reactions from readers, letters that Andre Groote would comment on (translation from the Dutch):

"In regards to the report in Paravisie, 4th year, number 5 about "The Spirit by the Book Shelf", I want to tell you about my own experience, a remarkable meeting with a strange bronze colored being at the coast of Costa Brava in the neighborhood of Blanes while on vacation in June 1987. [my own note: Costa Brava is a coastal region of northeastern Catalonia, Spain].

"I always went for a walk in the early morning hours. June 22nd, at approximately 7h30, I suddenly saw a man walking up straight out of the sea crossing the beach in my direction. He asked me where he was in impeccable and clear Dutch. I told him that we were on the beach in the neighborhood of Blanes. When he came out of the sea water, he was not wet, he didn't wear an oxygen cylinder or diver's glasses. His skin color was bronze, he was approximately 1,80 meters tall, and his eyes were of a chicory flower blue. Above his eyes he had thick very white eye brows. His hair was short and cut towards his back. His clothing was silvery grey. It resembled a work suit. His legs were in very white boots up to his knees. I asked him where he so suddenly came from, what his name was, and what human race he belonged to. He said that his name was Rama Manoe and that he belonged to the sixth human root race that once had lived on earth about 7,000 years ago in the Middle east. The civilization where he and his people had once lived on earth is called Cordemia. [my note: root race is a term used in theosophy]

"They had a supertechnological and high cultural civilization. When their land was swept away by a big, local flood, they were able by means of their supertechnological knowledge, to reach the oceans of the earth, and they built themselves a new existence on the bottom of it. After their disappearance, beings of the fourth human root race came to earth from space, after they had expelled a couple of thousand other beings from the fifth human root race from earth because they were different in character and form.

"On my question of what they actually were doing at the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea, he said that they were engaged in a large land project, because the earth minerals are loosing their energy, what can be dangerous for planet earth. By the decreasing energy of the minerals the earth might turn slower around its axis. Therefore they are doing all they can to make the earth turn faster, and they work with all their knowledge and technology at large new pieces of land and new minerals. Thus they are busy to make new minerals, land, to bring it up at a later time. All this many of us will experience, when it will happen. In the mean while, I took a cigarette from my right pocket, and he reached out his left hand, and the big red brilliant stone on his ring opened and showed a mini fire red glowing rod. he said that I could light my cigarette with this light-rod in order to cease with smoking, because it was very bad for my health and for the atmosphere in which we are living. He also told me that many millions of his people live on earth among us humans and there they do many good things. He also told or foretold me personal, surprising things which all have come true.

"After we had conversed for about an hour, we departed in good spirits. As a souvenir he gave me a piece of mineral and a strange coin which I have kept as relics. After I went back home, I often had dreams of things that would happen, as the stranger in Spain foretold me."

Dhr. T.L.S. from Z.

In a later issue of the magazine, there was a follow up letter from the same person:

"I would like to react on my own story in the December issue of Paravisie.

"After our meeting, on the third day, in my hotel room, when I was in a deep sleep, I had an interesting visionary dream out-of-the-body experience. I saw my body lying in the hotel bed, quietly breathing, and as if attracted by a mysterious force, I floated out of the hotel window. I went over large pieces of land to an island which had the form of a flying saucer. Nearby this island, I plunged into the blue profound depths. This island was Eastern Island in the Pacific Ocean. I arrived in a large room, many kilometers long, and I was received by a radiant female being. She was dressed in fire-red clothing embroidered with gold flowers and jewels. Her skin was bronze of color, her eyes chestnut brown. She had long wavy hair that reached to just above her shoulders. Her legs had gold colored groin boots. She was approximately 1.65 meters tall. She also was of the sixth human root race. She told me that her name was Venosia Shea and that she had been sent by the lords of the supreme knowing scientific college from the former Barata country to tell me everything I desired to know. Many members of this college had had very high functions on earth, and I had served them in my many of my previous lives.

"She told me interesting stories of that island above us that we know as Eastern Island. She told me its history, why all those stone statues were there. She also told me about the people of Atlantis who once had taught in large mystery schools, and she told me that they live again on earth now, and they are not older than forty-five years. Once they lived as magicians, astrologers, parapsychologists, clairvoyants and so on, in Atlantis. Now they they have been given another opportunity to take up their lost occupation.

"After I had seen a lot, I wanted to go back to my body. And immediately after my departure, I woke up in my bed with a blunt feeling in my head and heavily sweating."

Varia

Multiple UFO Sightings

Stephen Calkins, born in 1954, is residing in New York state, and is a teacher and custodial worker. He is interested in music, channeling and spiritual enlightenment. Since his youth he has had great interest in space and astronomy. He has been interested in UFOs since he became aware of their presence at age 12.

"The first encounter with a UFO I had was in late May or early June of 1968. I was a ninth grade student at the high school in Bath, NY. I was in the class room and had just terminated a two hour class examination. I walked over to the window to get my mind off it. Over the rolling hills the sky was perfectly clear and blue. I noticed to my right a jet airplane flying very high up. I watched it long enough for it to go out of sight. I was just about to turn and sit as something caught my attention in the corner of my eye. I looked over and something was moving very quickly against the blue sky. It was only a half mile away. The object was of a dark metallic gray, saucer like shape with no external windows. It was close enough to see that it had a perfectly smooth shell with an elevated center, a kind of dome. Its size was about 30-40 feet in diameter and about 10 feet high. I wanted to get the other students to get over but realized that they wouldn't get there in time, so I continued to watch it. It went all the way over the other way in a matter of seconds.

"The next experience happened in the winter of that same year at our house in Kanona, near Bath. It was evening and dark outside. First I should tell you that the previous night an elderly couple four houses down the road had said to the neighbors that they had seen something in the sky to the west of our house, which is also the side of the big picture window of the living room. Because the elderly couple was in their seventies and were somewhat considered as senile, nobody paid too much attention to what they said., So in the evening I was in the living room with my parents and four sisters. One of my childhood antics was to mildly aggravate my sisters by turning off the light in the room in which they were working. I turned the light off, having fun. One sister was near the window and turned to look outside where she saw something. She said: "Quick, come over here!" We went to the picture window and saw in the western sky a huge globe, completely spherical and of a brilliant white color. It was far away, but it was still very large. The distance was about six miles, near a hill. The size was about an eight to a quarter of a full moon. Every person in my family, and all the neighbors in the two houses next to ours had seen the light sphere. They were calling each other very quickly. Everybody was watching this thing as it was moving around in a very controlled way. I looked through my telescope which had a 100 times power at its largest lens setting. Every time I spotted it in my telescope it would move, it was so frustrating. The sight lasted for about 6 or 7 minutes and was very visible. Then it went down below the horizon from our point of view. It was actually so bright that it illuminated the skyline and made the trees on the hill luminous. It was just incredible.

"The following experience related to UFOs happened six years later when i was working in the Pentagon, where I had a top secret security clearance. I had joined the military, the Air-Force, right after high school. After some time I was transferred into the Pentagon, assigned to the Combined State Department Joint Field of Staff Air Force Computer Communication Center. I was receiving all messages that came through the State Department, the Joint Field of Staff and the Air Force, which had a combined service computer center where I worked. One day, having some free time between work, a certain captain whose name I don't remember anymore, came up and we were chatting. For some reason, I don't know what inspired me, I told him about my first UFO sighting. When I finished the story, he said; "You know, I need to tell you something. It is classified and don't want you to tell this to anybody. I used to work at the Air Force Project Blue Book. A few years ago when we were working with one of the investigation teams, we were contacted about a reported landing that had occurred somewhere in northern Texas. We went down to investigate it. When we arrived at the supposed sighting there was this big circular burn mark on the ground where something had evidently burned the soil. Nearby the ground had been dug up and put back in again at several places. So we dug it up again to see if something had been left in there. By doing this we recovered several bodies which were not of this world. The heads were much larger in proportion to the body. The skin color was grayish green, and much more scaly, not as smooth as our skin." The people of the investigation team put the bodies in bags, transferred them to a military base and did autopsies on them. From the autopsies they assumed that they had died in some kind of space accident. Evidently the craft has landed in purpose of disposing the bodies and had taken off. The captain who spoke to me said that he had actually seen and physically touched the alien bodies, and that it had made a profound impression on him.

"In March 1994, I had a particular encounter in my house in Ithaca, NY. A friend of mine had told me to watch a particular movie, Fire in the Sky, which is based on a true UFO case of Travis Watton. I was watching this video when all of a sudden I looked to the left and saw an incredible brilliant colored globe, or oval, appear in the room. The intensity of the colors was so brilliant that they made the colors of the room dull. A being also appeared which was very similar to the alien in the movie. Evidently this being was able to transpose itself in a light energy sense to this location. It or they were obviously cognizant that I was watching this movie, and that it or they had some direct connection to it. It was a form of clear communication. To me that was quite fascinating. It lasted for only 10-15 seconds at the most. Then it disappeared as quickly as it appeared.

"My next encounter with UFOs was on May 28, 1994. I had contacted an organization called CSETI, which is the acronym for the Center for the Study of Extraterrestrial Intelligence. It is a group of private citizens who have organized themselves independent of governmental structure with the purpose of attempting to create a non-governmentally influenced group that would actually make an open relationship with extraterrestrial beings. CSETI claims that the government doesn't allow the information about UFOs to become public, but seeks to control it. CSETI had been doing 'field events'. They would go into a remote field and play audiotapes of recordings of previous close encounters, and they would also shine laser lights into the sky. Group meditation was part of the events. They focused on a particular symbol to create a mental or spiritual atmosphere, in the hope of creating an encounter experience. When they told me they were going to have another field event, I decided to go with them. So, we went up a hilltop in Preble, NY, two miles west of the village center. Everything was set up and we were gathering in a circle. We were there for only five minutes, when looking to the south I saw a white sphere shaped light coming up from the south. For some reason it caught my attention. I was watching it for a while and said: "Hey, guys, look over here, there is a light and something is special about it." At about a mile and a half from us it stopped and didn't move anymore. we couldn't hear anything. The light source didn't emit any sound. Its height was about 2000-3000 feet. "Let's sit down, and see if it comes closer." We all sat down and after five minutes it was still there. Suddenly we started to notice other light sources appear at a greater distance than the first one. They started moving in the vicinity of where we were located. They were all in motion but didn't move in a particular pattern. I started to count, came up to 15 and stopped because there were too many. We were all excited about this splendid sighting. Then something quite remarkable happened. Suddenly a tremendous brilliant white light exploded all around us. It felt like a shockwave going through my entire body. It looked like an explosion although there was no sound, and no apparent direction where it came from. This brilliant light enveloped us just for an instant. This explosion of light happened three times with 10-15 minutes in between. We didn't know why this occurred.

"Some time after the third explosion of light, we were discussing what was going on. I said something especially related to the crafts. Exactly at the point I said it, there was a flash of light with a series of pulses coming from one of the light spheres. It seemed an acknowledgment of what I had said about it, a sort of immediate response. About that time it began to slowly overcast and the light spheres disappeared. Some people decided to go home. A number of them still wanted to stay. About half an hour later the lights reappeared again. The same type of thing occurred. The first one that arrived was the closest again. The others popped in and were moving around. There was also one explosion of light. This second event didn't take as long as the first one. After half an hour they disappeared.

"Three weeks later I told a friend of mine, who was half interested in the subject, about the experience we had had. She immediately asked me when it happened: "Was it three Saturdays ago?" "Yes, on May 28." "You know, that same night at 11:15 (which was the time when the second encounter ended) my husband and I were driving to the Cayuga Lake (which is 45 minutes south of the field where our encounter took place). We were driving along the lake when a brilliant white light came streaking up the lake, stopped on a dime and went immediately in the opposite direction. We were so startled that we pulled off the road rather brusquely, jumped out of the car to look at what was happening. A state trooper who happened to drive by at that time, saw them pull off the road abruptly and asked them why they had driven so abruptly to the road side. It is interesting that my friend had the same kind of experience on the same day and same time."

A Ring Burned into the Ground

C., born in 1952, woks in the art business. She is an active business woman with no interests in UFOs.

"This happened in Philadelphia, in Elkins Park, on Laburnum Lane. It is actually Wyncote, Pennsylvania. It must have been around 1959 when I was 7 or 8 years old. I was sleeping in my brother's room one night. My grandmother was down, she was staying in my room. I woke up in the middle of the night and looked out of the window. Beams of light were shooting and flashing around very quickly in a circle. My heart stopped beating because I had never seen anything like that. The lights were moving above four back yards which all met together. It looked almost like lightning. The lights were flashing around in a circle so quickly I froze, I was in a kind of shock. I couldn't move for about a minute. Then I went into my mom's room to wake her up and tell her what I had seen. Thinking I was just having a nightmare she sent me back. When I came back into the room, the flashing lights were no longer there, but I saw the fire-trucks and police cars which had arrived.

"In the morning, when I asked what had happened, the explanation given was that one of the electrical wires broke, starting an electrical fire. I went down the back yard to look around. I saw a huge ring burned into the ground, an inch or two wide, almost looking like a track. The entire ring was visible across the three back yards of our neighbors. The surface of the circle the ring contained was at least 2000 square feet.

"I never forget that event because it was washed over as some freak electrical accident, but I kept remembering that perfect circular ring. The electrical lines ran to the left of the area, down and right of it, as in a square. There was no line crossing the surface where the ring was burned into the ground.

"At that time I didn't know what it was. Later I heard about UFOs, I thought it might have been a UFO I had seen."

Propulsion of a Spaceship

Joseph, who had the experience described in Strange Creature at the Side of the Road had another strange, more recent encounter.

"It was spring 1967. I was living in New York city on Washington Square. One evening, at about 10-11 o'clock, I was lying down in bed enjoying a riff in thoughts that was going through my head. Suddenly I became aware that I wasn't on the same plane of consciousness anymore. I became very, very stimulated by something that had moved my level of consciousness by at least two steps in the scale of Gurdjieff. I recognized the state for what it was because I had studied Hatha Yoga for about ten years. The state was one I had experienced before, and normally I would be able to maintain it for some period of time. So it wasn't a strange state at all. It was quite recognizable and I knew exactly what it was. However, I always had to labor to get to that particular point. The state is reached after doing full yoga breathing for 20-25 minutes and 2 or 3 pranayama's. But on that evening there was absolutely no reason to be in that state, because I hadn't done anything. I knew something was going on. It was really unusual that I had suddenly shifted into this state, because I became completely lucid and very energized. I was lying down, but I instantly sat bolt upright in bed. All this took place in about two seconds. At the end of two seconds, not only did I know that I was in that state, I knew where it was coming from. I knew that some kind of spacecraft was hovering over Washington Square. I also knew that people weren't seeing it; it was invisible. I also knew that whoever was on board, at least one of these people was sending out a sort of a mental message, like a radio call. It wasn't directed to me in particular. There was no importance to me in this context. I knew that as well. It was a general call, but for everybody who was on that particular level of consciousness, or who could reach it. If you were not on that level of consciousness, or couldn't reach it, you couldn't see the ship and you couldn't get the message. or you couldn't get the request for communication. I had spent enough time in this particular state of consciousness, so that whatever energy these beings were sending out, they were able to trigger in me the response to go directly into that state. That is why I immediately shifted into that consciousness and stayed with that energy. So, they were not only sending a message to see if I could respond, they were also giving energy to be able to sustain it and to respond to it. Energy was part of the message. They were essentially saying: "We are here, and you can hear us if you are the right person, or if you can make the right adjustment." I would characterize it as a narrow band where there was a low frequency filter. If you were at a lower level you couldn't get it. There might have been a high band filter as well. I know at least that there was a low band filter and at the same time there was enough R.F. jolt to pick it up as a bit of interference if you had a transmitter on. Then you could have tuned into it if you had a sensitive enough receiver and if that had enough selectivity; if it could tune into that particular wavelength.

"The physical side of that that experience was physical animation, very high energy, very recognizable because I had been in stat state before. At the same moment I realized where it was coming from, and that it was a hovering craft of which the beings were announcing their presence.

"Apparently I already had a question in mind, one I had intended to ask if I ever happened to see a flying saucer land. I have a particular mind-set to ask people immediate questions about their profession. As soon as I identified what it was I was hearing from I immediately asked mentally: "How does your ship fly, what is the means of propulsion?" They immediately gave me the answer. There was no hesitation at all. They instantly gave me the answer I wanted which was very encouraging. It was as if they were friendly, had nothing to hide, but were unable to communicate with the very best people we have, or those who were sympathetic and knowledgeable and could do something with the knowledge, in their opinion. Any questions that came their way they would answer immediately to show their bonafides, their good intentions, or perhaps, their identification with God's ways. Instant answers.

"The answer they gave me came in a form with which I was already familiar, as I had studied it in Hatha Yoga. There is a mind-set that one can get into. When in this state and encountering people, if you ask them mentally questions, they give you mentally an answer. However, in that state of consciousness you have to have the speed to get the information that is being passed on. hen the people download the information to you, you have to be ready to get the information at the speed they are passing it on. This was the case with the beings of the hovering craft. When they downloaded the information to me it was so fast that, even though I was on that higher state of awareness, I still had not the speed to catch their message. I had failed to reach the state they were actually cueing me to. They were operating at a speed that is three or four times faster than ordinary human downloading of high speed stuff. So, I did not get it from the craft. It was all too fast for me. I got a few flashes of images, however the details were enormous. I said: "Could you run that by me again?" Instantly they ran it by me again. This time it took a little longer, it was maybe half again as fast. I noticed that the length of the ideas, the structure and the images had changed slightly. They gave me a slower speed explanation, but it was still too fast. I asked again: "Could you run that by me again?" We went through it about seven or eight times. I was picking up quite a lot of information by the third time, and each time they ran it by I got more of the details. Then I was able to ask some pointed questions which they immediately answered. By immediately I mean as I finished the question, they were already downloading the information. It was communication on their terms, on their "download protocol terns". It was as if they repeated and modified the information, clarified and simplified it. Although I was grateful for it, I also felt a little cheated. I wished I could have gotten it the first time because then it was more specific. I think there was a nugget about the power source.

"Asking how this ship flew, the information they gave me was essentially this. It was a round vehicle, apparently it was a generic craft they were showing me, just one type of craft or engine. I presume they were giving me the clearest demonstration or principle (see Fig. 4).

propulsion system

Imagine a round brass bowl, smaller in the opening than it is in its largeness if you measure its full width. A brass bowl with a very small opening in the top. Now imagine there is another bowl inside of that, slightly smaller, but not touching the other one. This second bowl is not touching the first one but suspended, as it were. Inside the second bowl was another bowl, but more shaped like a section of a cylinder like a hatbox. This was the innermost container which contained the main cabin and some sort of light emitting device, or en energy emitting device. They didn't particularize what it was; I lost that. I happily presumed a laser-like light. This stream of light was passing through the wall of the hatbox, through an opening and reflected on the inside of the second brass bowl. When I understood that, they showed me that this inner brass bowl was revolving. It was turning inside the inner and outer bowls. It was in a circular motion. It was as if the second bowl was suspended between inner box and outer bowl and twirling. The inner surface of the twirling bowl was faceted with polished mirrors. I presume that the facets were of varying size, this they didn't say. They also showed me that there were facet sized holes where the light could pass through the twirling brass bowl and strike the inner surface of the outer bowl, and that the inside of that was also faceted. So, light is coming out of the opening of the hatbox, strikes the inner bowl which is twirling, and is reflected again along a line to another facet or hole on the inside of the twirling bowl. At some point it passes through the end of its line, at the end of its interleaving and reverberating, and utilizes the facets on the inner wall of the outer bowl and then reflects on the twirling surface of the second bowl which is also faceted on this side. So, you have those two chambers, each of which has a stable wall, facing either the inner or outer surface of the twirling bowl. In some manner of interweaving mirrors and holes, the light is always striking a mirror which is moving away from it. the light is always striking a surface moving away, and thus it moves towards the red wavelength, experiencing a Doppler shift of the light. What they were showing me was not that they were tuning the light to a particular frequency, not that sensibility at all, but rather that they were degrading the light by changing its speed. If light speed is changed, its physical characteristics or properties change, which could be exploited in some way to cause the craft to be able to fly, or for whatever else the craft does. Eventually the bottom of the two outer bowls has a hole through which the light finally mirrors out of the bottom and is beamed down. It is this beam of light, an energy of physical properties, unknown to us, which enables the craft to fly. Once I understood that I sort of explained it back to them, asking "Is this right?", they approved of what I was saying, and added some little detail.

"So I thought about it for an hour and then I dropped it. I went off to sleep. I had house guests that weekend; my nephew had come up from Washington. The next day I explained to him what had happened in some detail as near as I could. I noticed that as I told it to him that there was a physical reaction on my part. It was as if the energy I had received was stored in my mind in the same way as the information, because as soon as I started to tell him about it, I reverted back to the same state of consciousness I had been in when I experienced it. hat was very interesting, I was pretty excited about it as I told him and realized what was happening. This was an information packet with an energy packet attached to it. then I remembered a friend of mine, a physicist. I gave him a ring and went over to his house, disguising the information source slightly, I explained to him the ideas and asked him what he thought about it as a physicist. Once again I noticed that the energy state was (kind of) evident. I was getting a lot of energy out of this passing on, and perhaps this was their intent. They would give the energy to pass the information along. I noticed for about one or two weeks, each time I thought about this information I reverted to this energy state. It was like a magic switch in my head. Eventually I was able to think about it without having the energy state. I don't think it was deterioration of the energy quantum they had given me. I think it was an attempt of my own mind to particularize the information and hide it while off the energy state so that I didn't experience that, since it was involuntary. My mind was searching for its own control.

"My physicist friend reminded me that the speed of light is constant and we gently moved on to other topics of the conversation. Of course, I neglected to recall that the constancy factors refer to a given medium, that the speed of light varies with the medium it passes through. The stick below the surface of the water appears to bend where it enters the air above. The sophistication of the otherworldly flying craft may exploit the speed shift as well. They didn't imply what medium the light was mirroring through."

In the latest years several scientist have claimed to to have send light and other energy waves faster than the speed of light, what is in contrast to what Einstein claimed when he said that nothing can move faster than the speed of light, as the speed of light is supposed to be constant.

Reality Shift

The following is a story I found in an early 80's Dutch paranormal magazine. It is the experience of "paragnost" (=psychic) Andre Groote. I have included it here because it brings up the interesting concept of an altered reality.

His experience dates from 1972. "Our vacation in France was coming to an end. We (Andre, his brother and sister-in-law) were getting bored with the city of Nice, going daily from the hotel to the beach and from the beach to the hotel. Every night we had dinner at a Vietnamese restaurant where we could eat for half-price because we committed to the entire week. Halfway through we regretted it, but a promise is a promise, so we stayed.

"We left early in the morning, taking a different route from the one we had arrived by. A large part of this route would take us through the French Alps. The first night we spent in something you could hardly call a hotel - a fruit juice bar would be a better name. We were having a chat at our table after dinner was finished when the owner of the place joined us. Up to that moment he had spoken correct French to us. Suddenly he started to speak German. He acted like I was someone from the Israeli Secret Service, and he started to excuse himself for his war past. I looked at him and thought: it is not possible that a man with such kind eyes has done such bad things. He gave the impression that I had been after him all his life and that in the end, he had decided to stop running away from me. He was looking for forgiveness. He spent an entire hour telling me everything he had done wrong. We were all perplexed, and I no longer recall what I replied. It probably did some good, since after all what did I have to forgive him for? Was there some connection to my memory of the ghetto of Warschau, where I had lived with my brother? We sat at the table looking at the man. While he talked it was as if he was fading slowly before our eyes, as if the entire scene was unreal, but the next day when we woke up, we were still in the same fruit juice bunker. However, the German Frenchman had disappeared. It was as if he had never existed, and that was how it felt too.

"This day would be one of the strangest days of our lives. All of the following happened that morning. We left the hotel and stopped shortly to get gas, after which our car acted like there was something wrong with it. We couldn't understand it. There was almost no traffic. By the time we realized that nothing was the matter with the car, we saw a mountaintop covered with snow on our right. We had gained a lot of altitude, the car was all right. Upon arriving at the highest point, traffic resumed and we decided to have some coffee. Suddenly I said: "Here!". My brother, Ben, stopped immediately; we were in front of a low house. A very small sign said "cafe". To the left of the house was a slightly taller barn. Hay hung out from two open doors on the second story. It was a strange French house, little windows, a low green door. We all had to duck to enter. Once inside we went to the table near the window. There was nothing to see, nothing to hear. In the direction where the kitchen ought to be, there was a curtain instead of a door. It was such a weird place. On the table was nothing except an ashtray, in Delft blue, with the word 'Indien' on it. This object intrigued me enormously because I had never seen one in France before. Even stranger, in each corner of the room was a very thin little shelf with a huge boulder on it. One would expect it to crash at any moment. The other strange thing is that we didn't even go up to have a look at it from close by. Instead we just sat at the table as if petrified. We had already been sitting there for a while, and still no one had shown up. We were also surprised to notice that suddenly it was so still. We no longer heard anything from outside. It was a strange, unreal silence. The first sound we heard was that from a parrot. Then we heard more parrots. Then we heard many different bird songs. It was as if a choir in the distance gradually approached. We had the feeling we were in the middle of a jungle. We experienced all this without speaking to each other.

"After the first movement of the curtain in the door opening, the head of a yellow cat appeared, looked at us, and withdrew. The curtain was gently pushed aside and the strangest being I have ever seen stepped through. A woman? Yes, but she had the kind of wispy beard as an adolescent might have, and a moustache. And legs! Such beautiful legs I had never seen in my life before. I couldn't tell her age. Her skin was light and ageless, almost grey. She came up to our table and asked with a very soft voice what we wanted to order. Although none of us can speak French, we all understood her perfectly. We realized this much later. We ordered coffee and she disappeared behind the curtain. Magda got our attention by calling out in a surprised voice: "Look at that!" We looked in the direction she pointed. Through the window we saw a garden full of tropical plants and flowering cactuses. You must understand that we were high up in the French Alps, and we had never seen so many tropical plants and cactuses.

"Magda had to go to the bathroom but she didn't dare to go outside. So Ben went outside to look for the bathroom. He was gone for quite a while. When he came back, he sat down cautiously and whispered to me: "You really have to go out to the bathroom, because I have never seen anything like that before." "What do you mean?" I asked him. "I don't really know, but it looks that there is a flying saucer behind the house. It looks like a bit peppermint, missing a corner, a Menthos peppermint. Even the color is exactly the same, white with grey. There is no opening." From that moment we felt even stranger, and I didn't really want to go outside to have a look. Although everything was peaceful, i had an eerie feeling. Then we all began to get very cold, and although Magda had to go urgently to the bathroom, she didn't want to go. the coffee hadn't arrived yet and I think we had been sitting there for some 25 minutes.

"I finally decided to have a look outside for myself. It was completely silent, there was no traffic at all. The garden was fantastic. Even on the mountain side there were cactuses, and it smelled delicious. The bathroom looked like a picturesque little house, and the huge Menthos was there, invisible from the road because it was behind the house on a kind of big table with three legs. After having a look first at the objects, I thought: it looks like mattress foam, a kind of foam plastic. However, when I touched it, it felt as hard as stone. It was an incomprehensible object. And the corner that was missing was not to be found anywhere near. It really looked like a constructed flying saucer, as if it were a museum piece from long ago. I went back inside. The woman still hadn't show up, and the three of us felt as if we were totally alone in that house, because the bird choir was gone too.

"But shortly after I came back, the elf came in to bring the coffee in a beautiful coffee set, all of it in the same Delft Blue as the ashtray. The coffee tasted like everything except coffee, nevertheless it was delicious. Magda was getting more and more anxious with the moment. Normally she is always cool in any situation, but this time she couldn't handle it and wanted to leave as soon as possible. I called the woman, who had disappeared behind the curtain. "Madame, could we get the bill please?" But she didn't come. So we put some francs on the table, left the place and drove on. A strange thing happened to me when we left. As we drove away in the car, I saw, psychically, a white figure in the opening of the hay barn. It didn't look at all like the woman from the house; this one had blond hair and was dressed in a long, white dress.

"When we drove away, all three of us were icy cold. Back on the road, and having driven for about a minute, we were suddenly amazed that traffic on the road was so intense. We couldn't understand it. How was that possible? Sitting inside the house we didn't hear any cars. Back on the road it was busy. Had this been real? We had to know. At first it was as if we were not allowed to turn around to have a look.

"Only a couple of kilometers further on we got the strength to turn the car around. A very strange thing happened. Suddenly a life-size cook, with cap, white shirt and arms outspread, stood at the side of the road.

"We drove back, but we were unable to find the place and the house. We knew for certain that we hadn't come from a side road. It was on the main road that we had drunk coffee in a paranormal house with non-existent beings, plants and a UFO. I can assure you that we drove back at least 20 kilometers, and then back again on the same road to find that particular place. There was nothing else than the road and the French Alps, without cactuses. Late in the evening we went to a hotel somewhere in Germany. We were hungry; as if we had used enormous amounts of energy. We ate almost as much food that evening as we had during our entire vacation."

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