Journal of
Alternative Realities
Volume 11,
Issue 1, 2004
The Abduction
of Sabrina by
John Frodsham
Teleporting
Mrs Guppy by Simon Harvey-Wilson
Warning!
Warning! Security Breach! by Michael Jordan
Awakening
to Contact Experience by Mary Rodwell
Thought-Screen
Helmets by Wendy Wolfe
Scenes on
the Edges of Reality by Wendy Wolfe
UFO Sighting,
July 1969 by Don Phillips
The Evil
Eye by
Judy Bryning
Pursuing
Free Energy by Graham Hubbard
Zero Point
and the Paranormal by Simon Harvey-Wilson
Western
Australian Sightings by Brian Richards
Inedia: Surviving
Without Food or Drink by
Simon Harvey-Wilson
Journey of
Souls (book review) by Arthur Pope
The Abduction
of Sabrina
By John Frodsham
In my earlier
articles, I stated that Sabrina, then aged twenty-nine,
had been a close friend of my daughter-in-law’s since primary school, thus
allowing me to gain a close insight into her character from one who had known
her for twenty-three years. Psychological testing
(CAQ), carried out by a distinguished academic psychologist, Professor Douglas
Savage, established that Sabrina was psychologically normal in every respect. Furthermore, Sabrina not only had conscious recollection
of her abductions, but also had kept diaries, notes and drawings in which
she had noted as much of her experiences as she could remember. These lengthy hypnotic sessions, which ran from January
to June 1990, merely served to bring to light details which Sabrina had relegated
to her unconscious.
Transcript of Tape 9:
My questions
are in bold, Sabrina’s answers
are in normal script.
Go
back to the time when you and Z are in a car and you are driving along.2 You are actually
there. You are in the car now. You
are driving along and Z sees a light behind you. What
next? What happens then?
He is looking
at the light in the rear vision mirror.
Do
you see the light too?
Yes. It just looks like truck lights, lights of large objects. It seems to be coming down the hill with lights on the
horizon behind it.
Are
you worried at all?
No.
How
are you feeling?
Quite normal. A bit curious, I suppose. I feel very alert.
What’s
happening now?
Well, it’s slowly
getting closer.
What
colour are the lights? Can
you see?
They’re white.
Are
they very bright?
Yes, very bright.
What’s
Z doing?
He’s driving
and he’s starting to speed. He’s saying something.
What’s
he saying? Can you hear?
I think he’s
saying he doesn’t want them to catch up.
Right. And how do you feel?
I feel worried
about his speeding. I am sure it’s a truck light.
I
want you to go back right to that time now. You’re
not seeing it in the past. You’re there. You’re actually there. You’re watching
it. Where’s the light now?
It’s getting
very quiet.
How
do you feel about the lights?
I feel rather
strange. There were two, now there’s only one, a very
large one behind. And I’m sure it was just normal
headlights of a truck, and that there was another set of headlights behind
it, like that of a car. Now there’s just one big light.
What
is that light doing now?
It’s right behind us, very close, tailing us.
And
Z, is he still going fast?
Yes. He’s not saying anything, but he’s really going very fast.
Is
he a bit frightened do you think?
No. He’s a very quiet sort of person, doesn’t show his emotions
very much. He seems to be very much in control. To me he doesn’t seem frightened.
What’s
happening now?
I’m turning
to look at Z. He seems to be saying something again.
Can
you hear what Z is saying?
He’s saying
it’s going up, I think. I turn around and see it moving
up and I’m just seeing the bottom half of it, or third of it going up.
Where
is it going now? Now it’s gone up?
I don’t know. I think it’s gone. I’m not sure. I just got a flash of it going in front of us! Speeding in front of us! I never
remembered exactly before or ... (She becomes very tense and agitated.)
(Calms her, then continues). Now you’re in the car with Z. What’s happening
now?
Well, I’m now
looking and seeing it flash a bit to the right of the car, in front of us,
and disappear off to our right ... I can’t see it
now, because the top of the car is in the way.
And
what is Z doing now?
I don’t know. He’s sitting there.
Is
he driving the car?
No, it’s gone
very dark.
What’s
outside? When you look outside the car, what can you
see?
Darkness. Just
darkness. There are no shrubs, there’s no lights.
Any lights from the car?
No lights from
the car. Just dark all around.
Where
are you now?
I’m still in
the car.
Where’s
the car?
(Startled) It’s in the sky! There are no bushes around.
What
is around you?
Just blackness.
Just
keep on going. Go with the car. You’re
safe in the car. What’s happening now?
It’s getting
lighter, a mist is starting up and we’re passing through a large entrance. We’re going up to the entrance. It’s
like an opening on the bottom of something.
Right. And where are you now? You’ve passed the entrance. The
mist is there. Where are you now?
We’re on a platform,
or lowered platform.
Can
you describe the platform for me? What colour is it?
Gray, a very dull gray. It’s like dull metal. It’s very dull. But the area is
well lit and cloudy, very misty, and it’s hard to see through the gray mist
to what is actually around. The clouds are all around
the car. And Z is gone. He’s
not there.
Where
is Z?
He seemed to
slide out.
Slide
out? By himself?
I can’t see
anything through the mist.
Now
what are you doing?
I’m floating
up above the car.
Is
it a nice sensation?
Yes. I can see everything down below.
What
can you see when you look down below?
I can see the
car in the centre and the two raised platforms on either side of the car. I can see what looks like the end of the lower platform
we were on. It’s a very short distance between the
sides of the edge and the end of that platform that we’re on.
When
you wake up, I want you to draw this for me. You’re
a good artist. Will you? 3
Yes. (Agitated again).
(Calms her). What’s going
on now?
Floating up. It looks huge. It’s much bigger than I thought. But
when I was in the car it seemed a short distance to the wall and it went
curving back. But looking down it seems very large.
The
craft is very big?
Very big. Like a football field.4
Can
you see anything else around in the bay you’re in? Is
there anything there? Look around.
Take your time.
But where we
are, where the car is and the raised platform,
seems narrower than the distance between the two. Much narrower.
You’re
floating out. What happens now?
I don’t know. I never ever remembered looking behind the car but now
I’m sort of vaguely, I don’t know, vaguely, seeing ... I can’t see how they
could be there! It’s like a circular object behind
it.
There’s
a circular object behind the car?
Yes. Like we’re all parked one behind the
other.
Is
it small? The circular object
behind the car? Is it the size of the car?
No, it’s bigger
than the car.
Bigger than the car? Can you
describe the circular object behind the car?
It comes down
and it’s circular, very low. Then there’s a thin black
ridge, I don’t know, maybe they’re windows. Then there’s
another. And it comes down again, and then there’s
another black ridge.
What
does it look like?
Like metal. It’s all dull gray, very gray. (Tenses visibly again).
Now
you’re above this, you can see the car, and you can see this other object
behind the car.
(Deepens trance). Now where are you?
I’m in front
of the car.
You’re
in front of the car. But above the car, is that right?
No, down. Down level with it now.
You’ve
gone down?
Yes.
What’s
happening now?
I’m looking
along the platform, the raised platform. I always thought it extended the
whole length beside the car, but now this time it has a bend in it.
There’s
a bend in the platform?
Yes, a curve
in the wall, the wall that is about four foot,
five foot, in from the edge of the raised platform, bends with it all along
the curved side. It’s darker around the corner. What I’m seeing now I haven’t seen before.
Just
tell me what you see.
There’s a huge
doorway.
Are
you going through that doorway?
It’s opening
up. I’m standing on the bend.
Is
there anyone with you?
I can’t see
anyone. I sense there is but I can’t see anyone.
Now
what you’re telling us now must only be what actually happened. See if you can go up to the doorway.
I don’t know
if this has really happened before or not, because I’ve never seen it before.
It’s
been very deep inside you. Just let it come out.
There’s two people standing at the doorway.
What
are they like?
I can’t tell
how tall they are. They’re slim, they’re human looking.
Can
you see their clothes? Can you see how they’re dressed?
They’re wearing
overalls.
What
colour?
Pale blue, but
they’re dark on my side. Like
it’s brightly lit behind them. The doorway is huge.
It’s so high and it’s sort of like they’re not pushing it, they’re
just standing there and walking along with it. Watching us as the huge doorway recedes into the wall. (Her voice trails off).
Just
approach them. What’s happening now? Can you see anything?
One has his
back to me and is just pale blue.
Pale blue. Like the man in
Yes. He doesn’t have black stripes down his back. He has like a thick, black belt round his waist.
Can
you look at his shoes? Do you see his shoes?
Yes. They’re just black boots.
Go
closer to them and see what you can see. Go right
up to the doorway.
There are huge
objects. Through the gap in the doorway, looks like
the nose of a plane. Looks like the nose of a very
slim jet. It must be an airplane.
There’s
an airplane in there?
I can see the
nose of it as they’re opening the door. The nose of it at the ceiling, at the top.
Can
you describe the plane?
It’s very slim
and white. It has a black nose tip.
It has normal cockpit windows, except the windows seem to be higher
up and slimmer than normal windows.
Are
there any numbers on the plane, any letters or numbers? Are there any markings
on the plane, any insignia? Anything
to identify it?
Nothing clear.6
Where
are you going now?
I’m just inside
the doorway looking up at the side of the nose of the plane. It looks very slim and slender.
Where
are you going after that?
I don’t know. There’s a doorway just inside the large door.
Another doorway?
A normal sized
doorway.
Do
you want to go through that door?
No, I don’t
think so because I think I’ve seen enough.
You
can see a bit can you?
It’s shining. The white, circular light illuminates only the middle
area of their arms, on the other side of the table.
What’s
going on now?
Nothing. It’s just so black. Everything is so black. It’s fading.
Is
anybody coming to you? Is anybody with you?
I can’t tell. I know there’s someone inside. I
just don’t know. It’s so far away.
It’s floating. It’s something. I’m just not sure. I think their
arms are supporting me, but I’m not sure. I don’t
really know. I can’t even feel my arms. I can’t really see beside me. I
can see ahead of me, but not beside me.
Where
are you now?
I’m in the room
with Z. He’s on the couch with the torch light on him.
Is
he asleep? What are you doing?
I seem to be
standing at the head of the table, a bit away from it.
Who
else is there in the room with you?
There’s someone
on my right. I can see the shoulder and down.
Look
at his face. Try hard to see his face. What can you see?
I can’t see
anything.
Can
you see anybody else besides Z? Anyone at all?
It’s hard to
see.
Move
on from that room now. What happens after that?
I think they’re
saying it’s my turn and I don’t want to go on the table. I’m
refusing.
Then
what happens?
I’m just getting
very tired.
What
happens then?
I seem to be
drifting or floating. I can’t really see anyone putting
me on the table or placing me on the table.
You’re
suddenly tired and then you’re floating. Are you on
the table now?
Yes.
What
happens now?
I don’t really
know. I’m just lying there. All
I can see is my feet. Just lying
there.
Is
there a light?
A very dull light. It’s very dimly lit.
Is
there anybody round the table with you?
It looks like
they are there, but I can’t see them very clearly. There’s
one at the foot of the table, and he has a small table next to him.
Who
are they?
Blues. He’s wearing pale blue. They’re all wearing pale blue.
Are
you lying on the table itself, or floating above it?
I’m lying on
it.
Is
it cold or hot?
Neither. I can’t feel.
What
next?
There’s two to the right of me standing next to the table. There’s two there and one at the foot of the table.
Mostly
Blues?
All Blues.
Can
you see any insignia on their uniforms?
Yes, just the
normal black stripes.
Are
they saying anything to you?
No.
Can
you smell anything?
Just a slight ammonia smell. Very,
very slight.
Now
what’s happening?
I think one’s
putting his hand on my forehead. The one at the foot
of the table has turned to the small table beside him and he’s doing something
and placing an object at my feet. There’s space beyond
the table at my feet. He’s placing something there.
Do
you have your shoes on?
No.
Are
you dressed or undressed?
Dressed.
Except
for your shoes?
Yes.
What
can you see now?
Just the one at the foot of the table.
What’s
he doing?
He still seems
to be mucking around with something at the foot of the table. He’s turning sideways to his left side to me. He seems
very interested in what he is doing at the foot of the table.
What’s
he got in his hand?
It looks like
a panel that is lit by a torchlight.
It’s
quite dark is it?
Yes. It’s going dark again. Another table on the other side of him. Another raised like a machine. It’s like a mini computer or something on the other side
of the table.
Just
describe what you see. Take your time. Relax. Let yourself drift.
A box, shaped
with a curved top and underneath the curve there’s like a screen.
Anything else?
No. It’s bright. Something white, big and white. What
comes to my mind is like a cricket match, like
in a cricket match they’re all in white.
Big and white as on a screen?
Yes. It’s funny. (Laughs.)
Are
you watching the screen?
No. I’m looking at it but I don’t think I can really see what’s
on it.
What
now?
He’s tapping
something into the machine. Buttons - round, tiny
(unintelligible) flattish buttons.
And
now, what’s happening?
He’s looking
at me and now back at the screen. That’s all he seems
to be doing.
Go
ahead a little further in time, two or three minutes perhaps in time, move
forward a few minutes. What’s happening now?
My skirt is
being pulled down. Just around my navel, just down
slightly, and my top is being pulled up slightly, and the light is shining
on that. It’s funny because I feel as if I’m floating
up and looking down on the floor.
What
are they doing now?
There’s a couple of them on either side, with a needle
or something. (Agitated).
Just
relax, relax. You’re perfectly safe, you’re in control. What’s happening now?
It’s a funny
looking thing. It’s very thick. It’s
like a very thick needle. It just doesn’t seem to
be a needle. I can’t tell whether he is inserting
anything or if he’s just resting there. It’s very narrow
but then there’s a part attached to it, above it, that’s a lot thicker, on
top.
When
you wake up, I want you to draw this needle. Can you
do that for me? Is the needle in you now?
No, they’re
withdrawing it.
They’ve
put the needle in already?
Yes.
Where
did they put it in?
In my navel.
Right into the navel?
Yes. And at
an upwards angle, at that angle. (Gestures, indicating about
a 45 degree angle). They’re withdrawing
it now and there’s a fine needle at the end of it. It’s a bit like a gun,
I suppose, with a needle at the end of it.7
What’s
happening now?
Now it’s sort
of the end of it is curving up. It seems that the
end of it is curved.
The
needle is curved?
There’s the
needle, then there’s the thicker bit and another thicker bit and then it
curves out.
When
you wake up, I would like you to draw this for me. Can
you see it very clearly?
Sort of. I can’t see how they’re
holding it. It seems to be like a gun. (Tenses.)
(Calms her). Now move forward
a minute or so in time. What do you see now?
They’ve moved
away.
And
where are you?
I’m still lying
on the table.
How
are you feeling?
I’m feeling
O.K. I’m not really feeling anything.
Move
forward a few minutes more. What’s happening now?
Someone’s saying
it’s all over. It’s someone I can’t see to my right
who’s saying it’s all over and I can get up now.
Do
you get up?
I sit up on
the table.
What
happens now?
My legs are
down and I’ve slid off the table.
And then?
There’s some instruments on that table next to mine, long
shining gray, similar to the needle that I remember, or instrument. The table is circular, very shiny, metallic, almost like
glass, it’s so shiny. On the end there’s a white cloth
underneath.
A white cloth?
Yes. That’s on the right hand side which is shiny, highly polished.
You
can see this very clearly.
There’s a little
rail around the edge of the table, about an inch high above the surface of
the table. It’s a solid table. There
seem to be drawers underneath it.
Is
it made of metal?
It seems to
be. It’s a bit whiter.
What
are you doing now?
I’m standing
up and walking away. They’re leading me away. There’s two on either side
of me.
(Surprised). Two on either side?
Two on either side. And as I’m walking away
I’m looking at the table. The
one (Blue) I saw at the foot of the table is there standing over the instrument. He seems to be looking down at them or something as I’m
walking away.
Are
they Blues all of them?
Yes.
And
where are they taking you to now.
They’re taking
me towards the door. To where
the car is on the other side.
And
do you go back into the car?
No. I’m walking towards the doorway towards the right.
What
can you see?
I can see the
car’s there. I can see the top of it, part of the
car. It’s very cool in the room. I
feel very cool now.
Not
cold, just cool?
No, just cool,
there’s a breeze, like a draft.
Just
keep on walking. Where are you going now?
The one next
to me on my left is saying something as I’m going towards the door.
Can
you hear what he’s saying?
No. He’s saying something.
Is
he speaking to you?
Yes. And the other perhaps.
Is
he moving his lips when he speaks or is he speaking in your head?
He seems to
be moving his lips.
Is
he speaking a language you know?
Yes, English. But I can’t quite hear what’s he
saying. All I can see is he’s moving his mouth like
he’s talking. He may be saying, ‘Remember what we
said.’
Can
you remember anything they said to you this whole time?
The first thing
they said, when I was up on the platform before we went in the large room,
was I would remember all this but it would be from a distance, from up high. And when I was in the room they were saying, well they
seem to be saying, I don’t know if they actually said it, but they were saying
‘to stay away’.
To stay away from what, from somebody or something,
or somewhere?
There’re dials
behind me. I don’t know if I’m standing too close.
Too
close to the dials?
I didn’t realise the dials were there when I went through the
doorway. A yellow and red dial.
Where
were they?
In the room. On
the bench against the wall to the right of the doorway into the room.
In
the room where the table was?
Yes.
Can
you see those dials now?
They’re big
fat dials with serrated edges, must be some sort of machine. Just dials on a machine in the bench.
They
told you to stay away from the dials before they put you on the table.
Yes.
Did
they say anything else to you?
They’re saying
they want me on the table, that it’s my turn to go on the table.
Do
they say anything to you while you’re on the table.
There’re two
tables. And I go on the other one.
Z
is on the other one is he?
Yes.
Is
he asleep or awake?
He’s asleep
I think. I can’t really see him. It’s
quite a distance away.
But
you’re awake, aren’t you?
Just. I’m awake but sleepy. Very sleepy. I don’t remember
them saying much. I just fell asleep as soon as I
got on the table. I remember not wanting to, not wanting
to get on the table or do anything.
Do
you remember the needle going in or just the needle coming out?
Just coming out.
Was
there any pain?
No.
No
pain?
I can’t recall
any at the moment. If there was, it was bearable.
Let’s
go back to where you’re walking towards the door. There’s two on either side. You
can see the car. Are you getting into the car yet?
I’m walking
towards it.
Now
here’s the car. Is Z in the car already? Or are you in the car first?
I don’t really
know. I can see a figure in the car.
Do
you think that’s Z?
I don’t know. It could be. I moved towards the
car.
Now
what happens?
I don’t recall
steps or anything. (Agitated)
Just
relax, relax. (Calms her)
Now I can see
plainly. He’s not there.8
Where
now?
I’m in the car.
By yourself?
Yes.
What
happens now?
He’s coming
in now.
Z
is coming in now. Is he awake or is he asleep?
He’s awake.
They’ve
put him in the driver’s seat?
He’s getting
in there, I think, on his own.
On his own? And what happens now? Describe your surroundings. What
do you see?
We’re just there. What I’m seeing now is like the car’s just floating on
air. I don’t remember anything like this.
The
car’s floating on air.
It’s like a
hatch that’s opened underneath the car and it’s just there above the opening. Everything’s dark. It’s like seeing
the sky again. I’m seeing the night sky.
How
do you feel?
I remember going
up. I was terrified. I was
so scared I felt so hot and so cold and prickly. I
felt that I’d never come back again.
But
now how’d you feel?
Tired. Very
tired.
Are
you frightened?
No.
Are
you floating down now? What happens next?
We’re on the
road.
Is
the car moving?
No. It’s stopped.
Do
you know where you are?
I think we’re
in the exact place that we were before.
And
what can you see around you?
Just the bushes, lighted by a light. I can’t tell whether it’s
from the beam of the car. No, it can’t be our beam. Everything is lit.
Everything
is lighted up around you?
Yes.
Dimly?
No. Not quite like daylight. But bright enough.
Quite
close?
There’s a huge
light on our right up above.
And
what happens now?
It’s there,
and then it goes. It’s slowly going. I can’t see it now because the roof of the car is in the
way.
What’s
happening now? Now the light is gone and you’re in
the car with Z. What happens now?
The car starts. I think Z must have started the car. The
lights are back on and we’re driving.
And
what do you say to Z? And what does Z say to you?
He’s saying
something but the car hasn’t started yet. I think
we’re slowly moving. Then the lights come on.
And
what happens now?
We’re just driving. I can’t recall any conversation. I
think we both feel really, really, relieved.
You
don’t want to talk about it.9
No.
Does
Z take you home?
Yes.
What
do you find when you get home? Anything at all unusual?
I can see my
skirt and there’s a bit of blood on it.
How
much blood on your skirt?
About that much. (Gestures, indicating
a patch of about four inches in diameter).
In the front?
Yes. Just at the top near the waistband.
Any other sign on your body? Any bleeding on your body?
No. I don’t think so. No.
Any other symptoms?
I remember my
stomach feeling sore for a while, like an aching muscle. The
next day I think. Every now and then, for a couple
of days I felt sore.
Did
you want to report what had happened to anybody?
No.
You
didn’t want to tell anybody?
No.
Why
was this?
I don’t know.
Why
did you keep your skirt without washing it?
Because I thought
if someone did come, it would be proof.
Did
you think anybody would come, as you hadn’t told anybody?
I thought Z
might.
Did
you talk to Z about it then?
No.
Did
you talk to Z about it later.
Ring him up or anything to discuss it?
Yes. I think he said he hadn’t told anyone. (Agitated).
Just
relax, relax completely. (Pause).
I don’t know
why we didn’t tell anyone. I just don’t know. I think I was too scared to tell anyone.
Did
anything else happen after that, that was unusual,
out of the ordinary? Did anybody come to the house?
No.
I
want you to tell me about the time when somebody did come to the house. When the three men dressed in black came to the house.
That was much
earlier.
You
were quite young then were you?
Yes.
Can
you describe the men in black? I want you to go back
in time. How old are you now?
I think I was
fourteen.
1974 or 1975?
1974 I think.
You’re
fourteen and these men come to the house?
It must have
been 1974.
How
many are there? I want you to see them, look at them.
They’re there now. How many of them are there?
They’re three
or four. Three at the door and
one behind. (Agitated).
(Calms her). What are they
wearing?
Very dark suits. All
in dark colours.
How
big are the men?
They’re very
big. Very tall.
Describe
them.
They have hats
like old men wear. But they’re not old.
What
are the suits like? Can you describe their suits? Are they black or navy blue?
Dark colours. Dark brown.10
Are
they talking to somebody at the door?
They’re talking
to Dad.
Do
you know what they’re saying? Where are you?
I’m a bit further
back from Dad, in the middle of the lounge room. I’m
walking up to stand beside him.
You’re
looking at the men now. Can you describe the men’s
faces?
I can see one. He has almost like a pumpkin
face. It’s very pale and pudgy. Very roundish sort of face. Very much like the one that came into the office at work.11 They’re all
like that, I think. Maybe there’s one that looks normal,
more normal like us. Older.
Do
they come into the house?
No. They’re just standing at the doorway.
Look
at their mouths. Do you see anything unusual about
their mouths? Just look at their mouths.
One’s gone quite
ugly. He’s starting to look like a pumpkin. Nothing too different. Just normal mouths. They’ve got very pale lips. Almost blue. That’s what I’m
seeing, anyway. I don’t remember really noticing much
about their mouths.
Is
there anything else you want to tell me about these men?
Are you frightened of them?
Yes.
I’m
going to put my hand on your forehead. And when I
put my hand on your forehead you’re going to hear something the men are saying
to your father. What are the men saying?
They’re talking
very earnestly. It’s a very serious conversation.
What
are they saying?
They’re saying
not to say a thing.
Not
to say a thing?
Yes. That they could make anything happen.
Is
your father frightened?
He’s frightened
but he’s standing his ground. That’s what he’s saying. He has every right. If he wants
to, he will. If he doesn’t, he won’t.
Do
you know what he’s referring to?
No. I’ve got no idea.
He’s
never told you?
No.
The
men are walking away now. How do they walk?
Like they push back with their legs. Like
they’re very strong legs.
A strange walk?
Not unusually
strange. No. Just very strong.
Does
your father comment on them at all? Does he say anything?
No. He’s not saying anything as they walk to the car.
What
sort of car? Describe the car? You
see it very clearly. You’re fourteen years old, you can see the car very clearly.
A very old car. It’s a black, shiny 50s
car, I think.12
It’s
an old-fashioned shape?
Yes. Very old-fashioned.
(End of session).
Endnotes
1 “ ‘You Know
I Can’t Eat’: The Alien Theatre of the Absurd.”
2 Z is a pseudonym,
like Sabrina. Z’s real name is preserved on the original
tapes.
3 Sabrina drew the
scene for me later.
4 Many of these alien craft appear to be far larger inside
than outside.
5 An allusion to a later episode when
Sabrina encountered a humanoid alien in a park in
6 Was this a missing plane of ours? One
thinks of Valentich’s Cessna, though of course
many others have vanished without trace.
7 As in the Betty Hill case. I suspect that other gynaecological procedures may have
taken place, though this hypnotic session failed to elicit them.
8 Notice her honesty in admitting her mistake.
9 Typical of such abductions.
10 Notice she does not take up my suggestion that they were
wearing black or navy blue. So
much for the argument that hypnotised subjects are always trying to please
the hypnotist.
11 As described in the article mentioned
in endnote 1 above.
12 These old-fashioned cars, in apparently new condition,
are a regular feature of Men In Black incidents. “Curiouser
and curiouser,” as
Teleporting
Mrs Guppy
By Simon
Harvey-WIlson
In the light
of suggestions that some UFOs might have teleported to Earth from their home
planets, and the numerous reports of abductees being carried by aliens through
walls, ceilings, windows and the hulls of UFOs, it does not seem unreasonable
to hypothesise that some alien civilizations may have already discovered
how teleportation works. If several such civilizations
already exist in the universe, one might suppose that mastering the physics
of teleportation is the key to joining some form of intergalactic community. Even conventional astrophysicists and astronomers acknowledge
that there is very little chance of humans exploring the universe using the
rocket technology that we currently possess, because that technology is so
expensive, cumbersome, and dangerous and can only carry a limited amount
of fuel, thus severely limiting its range.
If we look
at the history of exploration on planet Earth, we can note the remarkable
difference in speed and efficiency between ships and aeroplanes. One can now travel from
An article
entitled “Faster Than the Speed of Light” in the August 2002 edition of the
Australasian Science magazine explains how a team of physicists
at the Australian National University (ANU) in Canberra have “successfully
teleported a message-encoded laser beam by one metre using a process called
quantum entanglement” (Catchpole, p.20). As Dr Ben
Buchler, one of the team members, explains, “When
you teleport an atom, you get the information from one atom, and put it in
another atom, so that the second atom thinks it’s the first. But you are not actually moving something from place to
place: you are just moving information” (p.20). The
article claims that the “teleportation of solid objects is not yet possible
… [but] the teleportation of an atom may be possible by around 2006” (p.21). If, in a couple of years, this prediction turns out to
be correct, I wonder how long it will take the several teams of physicists
around the world that are researching this subject to teleport a solid object
from one place to another. The author of the article,
Heather Catchpole, claims that teleportation has important implications for
communications technology, encryption and quantum computers (p.21), but makes
no mention of the extraordinary possibilities that might result from discovering
how the teleportation of larger or living objects works.
As an aside,
I wonder whether the leading Western nations, who are well aware of the existence
and futuristic technology of UFOs, have secretly been working on teleportation
technology. If so, then they may have worked out how
to build a teleportation device or craft. Rumours
exist that the Americans may already have teleported astronauts to the moon
or even further, although there is little evidence to support such claims. One regrettable consequence of such secret research is
that it might mean that the physicists at the ANU and other universities
are wasting their time, creativity and research funding on effectively reinventing
the wheel when they could be doing something more useful.
On the other hand, if genuine teleportation technology does exist,
it is vital that it does not fall into the wrong hands, because, unfortunately,
it could also be used here on Earth for devastating military and terrorist
purposes.
Teleportation
Examples. One thing that the Australasian Science
magazine article did not mention is that paranormal reports of teleportation
have existed for centuries and that by studying them we might gain clues
as to how genuine teleportation works. In his fascinating
book called Supernatural Disappearances (1995), Rodney Davies
quotes an example in which a man was apparently teleported about five thousand
miles [about eight thousand kilometres] from the Portuguese settlement of
Goa, on the west coast of India, to the Portuguese capital of Lisbon in the
year 1655. In those days, in the absence of a more
convincing explanation, the authorities, who apparently believed that the
teleportation really did occur, considered that such an act could only happen
if the person concerned had made a pact with the devil, and so the poor man
“was burnt by the inquisition” (Davies, 1995, p.26). Davies
then gives the well-known 1593 example of a Spanish soldier who claimed to
have been teleported from
An interesting
example of wartime teleportation is to be found in the book True
Mystic Experiences (2001), compiled by Jennifer Spees
from the files of Fate magazine. In
the report, Dewey Schley from
Mrs Guppy. I will now
describe a dramatic example of paranormal teleportation that is reported
to have happened to an English spirit medium called Mrs Guppy on
Both theories
require a large number of assumptions: for example, that a person can be dematerialised
and reassembled without suffering any ill effects; that a higher-dimensional
or spirit realm does exist and that one can travel through it without getting
lost or stuck there. Other important questions are:
where does the energy needed to facilitate teleportation come from; and what,
if any, connection does teleportation have to altered states of consciousness? In my opinion, one way to begin solving the puzzle of
how teleportation might work is to study as many reliable, well-witnessed
cases as can be found, to see if they offer any helpful clues. So, to this end, here are the details of Mrs Guppy’s reported
teleportation.
Almost all
the following information about the Mrs Guppy case is to be found in Nandor Fodor’s fascinating
Encyclopedia of Psychic
Science (1933/1966) which contains a wealth of information about European
Spiritualism over the last two centuries. Fodor (1895-1964) was originally a Hungarian journalist
who worked as a psychical researcher in the
Mrs Guppy’s
teleportation — or ‘transportation’ as Fodor
(p.392) calls it — occurred at a séance held during the morning of 3 June,
1871 in the house of the spirit medium Charles Williams, at 61 Lamb’s Conduit
Street in London. There were ten people at the séance,
two of them being the mediums Charles Williams and Frank Herne who often worked together. Mrs
Guppy was not in attendance. Although it was light
outside, the séance was held in darkness as a result of the doors and thick
curtains being closed. After the séance had been going
for a while, one of the sitters asked one of the spirit controls, called
Katie King, to apport them something. A control is
the normally invisible spirit operator or guide who is supposedly in charge
of the séance proceedings and may at times speak through or temporarily possess
the spirit medium. As Fodor
writes (p.393), in response to this request, one of the sitters jokingly
said “I wish you would bring Mrs Guppy.” One of the
other sitters then exclaimed “Good gracious, I hope not, she is one of the
biggest women in
Mrs Guppy
was rather upset at having arrived in such a state of undress, but once she
had recovered, the séance continued with her as an extra sitter, while servants
were sent to her house to get “her boots, hat and clothes.” When the séance had finished, “Mr Harrison, editor of
The Spiritualist, with three of the sitters offered to escort
Mrs Guppy to her home” (Fodor, p.393) which was
“a distance of over three miles” [nearly five kilometres] away in Highbury,
North London. There they discovered that, before her
teleportation, Mrs Guppy had been sitting in a room at home with a companion
called Miss Neyland. Her
husband also reported that shortly before her disappearance she had come
up into the billiard room where he was playing with a friend, who supported
this evidence. Miss Neyland
reported that “she had been sitting with Mrs Guppy near the fire making up
accounts when suddenly looking up she found that her companion had disappeared,
leaving a slight haze near the ceiling.”
As Fodor comments, “the case was the occasion of much
drollery in the daily press” (p.393). It was also pointed
out that it would not have been possible for Mrs Guppy to have hoaxed her
appearance for several reasons. She could not have
sneaked unnoticed into the darkened séance room without letting in some light
from the curtains or door, and furthermore, a woman of her size would have
been unable to climb onto the séance table in the dark without assistance
or touching one or more of the sitters around it.
Survival or
super-psi? So, what are we to make of this case?
If the report is true, it appears to reveal that it is possible for
a living person to be teleported unharmed from one location to another, through
solid walls in a short period of time. However, at
this stage paranormal incidents such as this raise more questions than they
answer. For example, does Mrs Guppy’s teleportation
prove that a spirit or higher-dimensional realm actually exists ¾ as
Spiritualists assert ¾ and that some of its inhabitants
are able to teleport living people who have not yet ‘moved over’ into that
realm? (Spiritualists do not like to refer to people
as ‘dead’ because, as they point out, if life-after-death in a spirit realm
does exist, then such people are actually in some sense still alive.) However, the American philosopher Professor Stephen Braude points out that contact with so-called spirits
at séances does not conclusively prove that life-after-death exists. Braude claims that until further
research is conducted, strictly speaking, séances only prove the existence
of either what he calls survival (life-after-death) or super-psi abilities. In other words, accurate information gained from supposedly
dead people at séances only proves that the spirit medium has gained access
to this information by some paranormal means. It does
not prove the existence of spirits or life-after-death, although it might
appear that it does.
Spiritualists
would dispute this, but Braude does have a point. So-called spirits encountered at séances might only be
what one could call paranormally generated artefacts of human consciousness,
and the personal information received from these spirits might actually be
little more than clairvoyant, clairsentient or clairaudient information packaged
in a human-like form that reflects many people’s yearning that life-after-death
does exist. In other words, at a séance the spirit
that acts as the mouthpiece for that paranormally obtained information may
not actually be an independent entity at all. As Braude points out, at this stage of investigation
we do not know the full extent of what paranormal powers exist.
The paranormal
¾ or
psi as some researchers call it ¾ may easily be able to generate a
seemingly independent spirit that has all the qualities of someone’s dead
relative. Of course one could ask what exactly the
difference is between a paranormally generated spirit that has many of the
qualities and relevant information about a dead person, and the real spirit
of that person? The answer
to that question might one day prove to be very interesting. I do not intend to take sides in this controversy, but
for more information about this ongoing debate I recommend the website of
the International Survivalist Society at: www.survivalafterdeath.org and
two recently published books that discuss research into the possibility of
life-after-death. The first is The Afterlife
Experiments (2002) by Professor Gary Schwartz, and the second is Immortal Remains: The Evidence for Life After
Death (2003) by Professor Stephen Braude.
Transcending
time and space. Returning to the question of whether spirits can teleport
living people, we could ask what it is about dying or existing in a spirit
realm that might provide spirits with such an ability. It is commonly believed that the spirit realm (assuming
for the moment that one does exist) in some way transcends time and space. But what exactly does that mean? It
seems strange that, given the enormous number of séances that have been held
over the last few hundred years, that we have
not yet been provided with a more scientific explanation for the extraordinary
abilities that spirits seem to possess, such as precognition, healing and
teleportation. I wonder whether a research séance,
with some broad-minded physicists and parapsychologists as sitters, might
be able to ask their medium or spirit-guide to request that a dead physicist
provide them with some technical information or helpful research guidelines
about paranormal events and the realm that he or she now inhabits. However, things do not necessarily work that way: in this
world a person who uses a mobile phone, microwave oven or computer does not
necessarily know how it works. Would spirits need
to research how their realm works just as living scientists need to in order
to discover how things work in this world? Might it
be that only spiritually advanced or technically proficient spirits are able
to teleport living people but are unable to explain how it works from a scientific
perspective? Someone once rather facetiously pointed
out that dying does not necessarily increase one’s intelligence.
Astral travel. Another way
of researching how teleportation might work without being dependent on the
assistance of mediums and their spirit guides is to consider what we can
discover using what is called astral travel. Out-of-body
experiences, astral travel, remote viewing and some aspects of near-death
experiences have a lot in common. Some people might
claim that these are four quite different phenomena, but reports from people
who have had these experiences suggest that, once one has left one’s body,
it is possible either to survey from above the landscape around one’s body,
or simply by an act of willpower, one can find oneself in a distant city
without actually having had the experience of flying invisibly all the way
there.
One could
dispute whether the realm one gains access to while out of one’s body is
the same as what others call the spirit realm but, for the moment I am assuming
that they do have something in common, or are at least connected to one another. So how is it possible to move so swiftly from one place
to another while out of one’s body? Such short cuts
could be seen as the out-of-body or astral equivalent of teleportation or,
to put it another way, we could say that teleportation is just a matter of
astral travelling to a distant location while carrying your physical body
with you. One could also claim that if it really is
possible to have an out-of-body experience, then surely that demonstrates
that humans do have some sort of spirit body. However,
some of those who are capable of doing remote viewing are inclined to say
that, rather than visiting a remote location in an astral state, they are
instead bringing information about that distant location to where their physical
body is located. Another perspective is to realise
that because the out-of-body or teleportation realm transcends our normal
notions of time and space, it is misleading to ask what it is that is doing
the moving during such events. Once one has entered
this higher-dimensional realm, either with one’s physical body or just one’s
consciousness, it may be possible to use it to access any part of the normal
world without ‘travelling’ at all. A simple expression
of this idea would be to claim that, from an otherworld or multi-dimensional
perspective, all of Earth’s physical locations are in the same place.
Sometimes
technical inventions that seem unrelated to the paranormal may start to provide
insights into such matters. For example, when using
the Internet to view live pictures of a distant location, are we visiting
that location or bringing information about that location to where we are? As information technology becomes increasingly sophisticated,
it may provide us with better concepts or analogies with which to understand
the baffling nature of some paranormal events.
We could
also ask whether it is possible to deliberately teleport oneself without
the assistance of a spirit helper. Some spiritually
developed people are supposedly able to do this, but what exactly is meant
by ‘spiritually developed’? One possibility is that
it means that one has done enough meditation or consciousness training of
some sort that one can now deliberately and lucidly access the spirit realm
with some part of one’s consciousness. In other words,
one can temporarily be one’s own spirit guide, and, by having part of one’s
awareness already in the spirit realm, one can teleport one’s body without
needing to recruit a permanent inhabitant of that realm to do it for you. However, such a theory still does not explain how teleportation
or consciousness actually works.
Bilocation. A closely
related paranormal phenomenon that might help us understand the dynamics
of teleportation is bilocation, which refers to
a person being seen in two places at once. Sometimes
the bilocated person may be seen as just a ghostly
entity, while in other cases the double appears to be completely real, even
when touched. An excellent example of bilocation can be found in Yogananda’s
Autobiography of a Yogi (1946/1983, p.26).
Yogananda was visiting Swami Pranabananda in
To get the
friend to visit, the swami had clairvoyantly located him by the
If it is
possible for this to happen, what does it say about the solidity and uniqueness
of the human body? Is it possible to create a duplicate
body and still claim that it is you? And if this does
happen, are one’s memories and personality also duplicated or, as in the
swami’s example, is it only possible to create a solid, coherent and active
double while one’s original body is in a silent, motionless trance? If it is possible to duplicate even part of one’s personality
during bilocation, does this suggest that some
so-called spirits-of-the-dead that speak through various spirit mediums are
just informational part-duplicates of people that once lived, rather than
the real thing? Are bilocation
and teleportation different versions of the same thing or are they completely
different phenomena? Having thought about this for
a while, I am not sure whether the idea of bilocation
does not make trying to understand teleportation more complicated rather
than easier!
Teleporting
cows. While it might be thought that the teleportation of living
people is a rare and dramatic event that can only be facilitated by a powerful
spirit medium or perhaps aliens, there do exist a few reports of whole herds
of animals that were supposedly teleported without a séance in sight. Rodney Davies (1995, p.79) reports that in November 1977
at Ripperstone Farm near the village of St Brides,
in Dyfed, Wales, a farmer called Billy Coombs discovered that his entire
herd of one hundred cattle, which he had just checked were safely locked into
their two sheds, had mysteriously been teleported to his neighbour’s farm. What is even more bizarre about the incident is that the
neighbour claimed to have been trying to phone Billy for an hour to report
that the cows were wandering about on his property, while Billy Coombs insisted
that he had actually been in the sheds checking on the cows during that time. If this story is true, not only does there seem to have
been some form of “dislocation of time” (p.80) involved in the teleportation
of the cows, but Davies claims that there had been some previous UFO activity
around the farm, and in the subsequent days the herd underwent five more
baffling teleportation incidents.
In summary,
it appears that the phenomenon of teleportation is more common that one might
suspect and seems to have links to several other seemingly unconnected fields
of scientific research, such as the future of space travel, UFO sightings
and alien abductions, the nature of consciousness, the possibility of life-after-death,
and of course psychokinesis or mind-over-matter. Perhaps
we will only understand these topics when we have completely revised our
understanding of the fundamental nature of reality.
References
Braude, Stephen E. (1986) The Limits of Influence:
Psychokinesis and the Philosophy of Science.
Braude, Stephen E. (2003) Immortal Remains: The Evidence for Life After Death.
Catchpole,
Heather. (2002, Aug.) Faster Than the Speed of Light. Australasian Science, 23 (7), 20-21.
Davies, Rodney. (1995) Supernatural Disappearances.
Fodor, Nandor. (1933/1966) Encyclopaedia of Psychic
Science.
Harvey-Wilson, Simon. (1997) ‘Beam me up Scottie’. Journal of Alternative Realities, 5 (1), 11-17.
Inglis, B. (1986)
The Paranormal: An Encyclopaedia
of Psychic Phenomena.
International
Survivalist Society website: http://www.survivalafterdeath.org
Schwartz, Gary E. (2002) The Afterlife Experiments.
Spees, Jennifer (Ed.). (2001) True Mystic Experiences.
Yogananda, Paramahansa. (1946/1983) Autobiography of a Yogi.
Warning! Warning!
Security Breach!
UFO Intrusions
into Base Weapons Areas
By Michael
Jordan
Nothing
could be more potentially dangerous than a major security breach occurring
in an area where missiles and other weapons are housed. When
some of these missiles are fitted with a plutonium warhead packing enough
yield (three megatons) to magnify the explosion at
In 1999,
a ninety page report titled UFOs and Defence: What We Should
Prepare For, based on a three year study of the UFO phenomenon by high-level
officials including retired generals from the French Institute for Higher
Studies for National Defence, concluded that, “numerous manifestations observed
by reliable witnesses could be the work of craft of extraterrestrial origin”.
The report went on to warn that although the “extraterrestrial hypothesis”
was not categorically proved, “strong presumption exists in its favour and,
if it is correct, it is loaded with significant consequences”. Further, the French report stated that, “there have been
visits above secret installations and missile bases” and “military aircraft
shadowed” in the
Many years
prior to this, the
On occasions
false alarms were linked to the appearance of UFOs on radar. In the mid-seventies, there were more than two thousand
missile sites spanning the
At Malmstrom Air Force Base in
Following
attention to all the SAT team from doctors and psychologists at the base hospital,
an amazing discovery became apparent. Computer and
targeting specialists discovered that target codes, on tapes in the computerised
warhead that directs the missiles, had mysteriously undergone changes to
their original target numbers. Military records documented
other UFO visits to the same missile sites during the next twelve hours. Despite extensive investigations by military and other
agencies, no anomalies were ever found in the area and no positive cause
for the missile shutdown was ever identified.
These visits
were certainly not the first to be recorded at Malmstrom. In May 2001, some twenty people claiming UFO encounters
while performing military or government duties went public to demand open
congressional hearings on this strongly classified phenomenon. Air force veteran Robert Salas told how UFOs buzzing missile
silos at Malmstrom Air Force Base succeeded in
disabling more than twelve Minuteman nuclear missiles in March 1967.
Sightings
of unknown flying objects, including a reported landing in the vicinity of
the Manzano Weapons Storage Area, at Kirtland
Air Force base in 1980, are confirmed officially in several declassified
Air Force documents. This was not the first time UFOs
had visited Kirtland. In November 1973, air policemen
reported a large, glowing object above plant No 3 in the Manzano area. The object, shaped
like an oblate spheroid, 250 feet [76 m] in diameter, golden in colour and
completely noiseless, hovered low over the area only to move out of sight
when four F-101 aircraft from the base were scrambled to intercept the intruder.
In March
1967, NORAD radar tracked a disc-shaped UFO over the Minuteman missiles at
Minot Air Force base in Dakota. Strike teams were scrambled
in order to try to capture the object undamaged if it landed. At the site they reported a metallic UFO with bright flashing
lights which stopped suddenly and hovered at five hundred feet altitude above
the launch control facility before climbing and disappearing.
This well-documented
series of incidents at military bases includes incursions by nocturnal lights,
unidentified helicopters and other ‘craft’, beginning in 1948 at the Los
Alamos base through the fifties (Hanford, Savannah River), sixties (Warren,
Cheyenne), seventies (Malmstrom, Wurthsmith, Minot), and eighties (Bentwaters RAFB, Suffolk, England), to the October
1991 (Chernobyl plant and Arkhangel Missile base
in Russia) incidents.
A really
interesting incident is taken from the KGB files and involves a multiple-witnessed
encounter at an army missile base in the district of Kapustin Yar, Astrakhan Region. It all
began at
At this
time Ensign Voloshin and Private Tishchayev climbed to the first level of an antenna
tower, reporting that they could “clearly see a powerful blinking signal
which resembled a camera flash in the night sky”. The
hull of the UFO shone with a dim green light which looked like a phosphorous
glow. While hovering over the depot, a bright beam
suddenly appeared from the base of the disc, moving in a circular direction,
lighting up parts of the building, before retracting and returning to the
flashing signal. The guard shift and its commander
reported fantastic manoeuvres performed by the craft, stopping dead in the
air, wobbling, floating, and blinking off, then on, in changing coloured lights
and signal patterns. At one stage it appeared to increase
in size before suddenly dividing itself into three points of light then re-shaping
as a triangular craft.
The files
on the Kapustin Yar base incident are important
because not only do they include testament from seven military witnesses
of an incident that lasted for two whole hours, but they provide a great
deal of detailed information on the seemingly limitless manoeuvrability of
UFOs. Let us not forget though, that this was a Soviet
military base which the craft entered and that it examined the weapons area,
as did the craft at Malmstrom in 1975 and at the
Bentwaters,
Donald A
Johnson in an article titled Do Nuclear Facilities Attract UFOs?
explains that a statistical comparison he
conducted produced three thousand and fifty-one more UFO sightings and five
hundred and sixty-eight more close encounter reports in US counties that
contain nuclear facilities than ones that do not. This
suggests that, for whatever reason, these facilities do attract the attention
of UFOs. Richard Dolan in his groundbreaking book
UFOs and the National Security State reports that the Oak
Ridge Nuclear Facility in
“This object was extremely black in colour, having
an appearance of a deep black metal exterior with a fine gloss. It did not leave a vapour trail nor were there any lights
or shine noticed. No sound was heard. The object flew east at a tremendous speed for what appeared
to be approximately three miles [4.8 km] where it stopped.
The object was then joined by two more of these same objects. A formation similar to a spread ‘V’ was formed and the
objects, at a tremendous speed, flew in an eastward direction.”
Technicians
reported that during the
What can
the reasons be for the intense interest that UFOs have in nuclear weapons’
storage areas and nuclear sites in general? Are they
interested in humanity’s progress in the usage of nuclear energy or just in
the developmental stage of the weapons themselves? When
they direct an energy beam from their craft into one of the storage bunkers
altering the telemetry of the weapons and rendering them inoperative, is
it through concern for their safety, which they might feel is compromised
by the proliferation of a nuclear arsenal, or purely for our safety? Then again, maybe it’s a long range concern for the planetary
environment and the fate of humanity in general.
References
Dolan, Richard
M. (2000) UFOs and the
Fawcett, Larry &
Good, Timothy. (1998) Alien Base.
Hall, Richard
H. (2001) The UFO Evidence Volume
II: A Thirty Year Report. Scarecrow
Press.
Johnson,
Donald A. Do Nuclear Facilities Attract
UFOs? Available at: http://ufoevidence.org/documents/doc
1135.htm
Keen, Leslie.
Awakening to
Contact Experiences
Who will listen?
By Mary
Rodwell
The 21st
Leeds UFO Conference in 2002 was a great opportunity for a researcher-counsellor
specialising in abduction-contact experiences to explore what kind of support
was on offer in the
Any UFO
conference is a vital part of the ufology scene, as it is one of the main
avenues where information is presented to the public, and for many it may
be just the beginning of their journey of discovery. At
UFO exhibitions or conferences there are a certain percentage of visitors
who come out of more than just curiosity. Some are
seeking specific information and answers, embarking on a personal journey
to gain some insight into life experiences that they cannot explain in rational
terms. Not everyone may have seen a UFO, but some
may still believe they have had some form of interaction with extraterrestrial
beings. Some are just puzzled why this particular subject
fascinates them so much, and they come looking for answers.
A UFO conference
provides a non-threatening venue to access information, but also provides
opportunities for those with contact experiences to find help. Organisers of big conferences, such as Laughlin in the
Specialist
events in my opinion do have a responsibility not only to explore every aspect
of the phenomenon scientifically but also to provide for the needs of those
personally experiencing the effects of this phenomenon. Although
research and exploration of the scientific evidence to validate this reality
are important, the individuals who attend such a conference may not just
be seeking that sort of information. As a result of
their own personal experiences they may be asking themselves how they can
find someone who will listen and support them.
This did
not altogether surprise me as there is a dearth of therapeutic support worldwide,
as well as in
Awakening was written because I was aware that there are
few books specifically written to assist the experiencer
with their process of waking up to their contact. Because
I live in
The book
began with the question: Are my unusual experiences a form of contact? What are the indicators, and how do I know that I am not
just crazy? The book takes the reader through the
process of discovery, from the questioning of their sanity, and with information
on how to cope with the fear. I’ve included guidelines
on how to set up a support network for yourself
and how to find that special therapist or counsellor. It
also explores some of the more challenging aspects of these experiences,
such as implants, missing pregnancies, and the star children phenomenon. And, interestingly, I wanted to outline the paranormal
abilities which manifest after contact, and other transformative outcomes
of the experience, such as healing. Although no book
can be fully comprehensive, it covers the main topics that most individuals
are looking for from the beginning of their journey, to what this experience
means to them on a much deeper level. It provides
some validation of their reality so that they can actively take part in the
integration of the experiences, thus allowing healing to commence.
A resource
book is only part of the solution to support those isolated with this experience. We need to look seriously at the lack of psychological
resources in whatever country we reside, and actively seek open-minded professionals
prepared to research and work with this field. Priority
is often given to scientific data in ufology, but we should not neglect the
people this phenomenon affects. Often they can be
in intense isolation and fear, and those having contact can often be experiencing
real human suffering. Apart from the fact that this
aspect of the phenomenon may ultimately offer us some of the answers we seek,
I believe we limit our understanding by ignoring the very people that this
phenomenon affects the most.
I am a researcher
more by default than anything else. It was through
my work as counsellor and hypnotherapist, and
listening to personal accounts of fear and trauma of isolation that motivated
me to provide support in a more active way. I was
concerned and disturbed by what I heard at the conference when it became
clear that despite the enormous number of UFO groups and organisations there
are very few that still offer real tangible resources to support those experiencing
contact. Many UFO groups are more focused on the scientific
data than the emotional and psychological support, as this is a vastly different
prospect for them to contend with, but just as vital nevertheless. I take the point that many UFO groups have neither the
time nor expertise to handle this part of the phenomenon; most are amateur
groups made up of people with full-time jobs. However,
there is still a responsibility not to neglect the individuals who require
tangible support. One way to do this is to provide
an active program to recruit those with professional expertise because it
is certain that this need for therapeutic expertise will grow as the public
gets more exposure to the UFO reality, and more and more individuals wake
up to this experience. We have to ask how we can best
meet this obvious need and provide the professional quality of emotional support
required.
Advertising
proved successful and twelve individuals attended the first meeting. This number grew through word of mouth and it soon became
clear that I was tapping into a need that far exceeded my original expectations. The number was staggering and went into the hundreds,
even though
I found
that the Leeds Conference was a great experience and I made some wonderful
new friends. But the information that I gained about
supporting those with contact was vital, particularly when I saw for myself
the obvious need, which meant that there is much more that can be done to
help those personally affected by this intriguing and confronting phenomenon. I have been inspired to liaise with some UFO groups in
the UK who are as committed as I am to create a more supportive environment
with appropriate resources both in the UK as well as in Australia, and to
meet the growing needs of individuals who are waking up to their contact. Dr Roger Leir, author The Aliens and the Scalpel (1999), recently told me that those
that contacted him rose by 20% after the television mini-series Taken was shown in
Postscript. This article was first
published in the English UFO Magazine in April 2003. I had been asked to speak at the next Leeds UFO conference
in late September 2003, but sadly, only days before this event, Graham Birdsall suffered a brain haemorrhage and, despite
a successful operation, later suffered a fatal heart attack. It was devastating news, and one that I remember with
great sadness. I had come to know Graham as a dear
friend as well as a colleague. Personally, I found
him to be a warm, kind person with a great sense of humour. Professionally he was totally dedicated to the UFO subject
and was prepared to bring the evidence to the public arena, come what may. His wonderful contribution to ufology was inestimable
and I feel that his demise will prove a huge loss to English ufology as well
as worldwide. Since then, despite the blow to launching
CONCERN
Mary Rodwell, RN, counsellor, hypnotherapist,
and producer of the award winning video Expressions of ET Contact:
A Visual Blueprint? is principal of ACERN
(Australian Close Encounter Resource Network).
Telephone/Fax
International: (618) 9454 3702.
Web sites:
http://www.maryrodwell.com and http://www.acern.com.au.
References
Australian
UFO Research Network (AUFORN) website: http://www.hypermax.net.au/~auforn
Australasian Ufologist magazine website: http://wwwhomepage.powerup.com.au/~ufologist
Leir, Roger. (1999) The Aliens and the Scalpel.
Martin, Christopher. (2000) Intruders in the Night.
Nagaitis, Carl & Mantle,
Philip. (1994) Without Consent.
Rodwell, Mary. (2002) Awakening: How Extraterrestrial Contact Can
Transform Your Life.
Thought-Screen
Helmets
By Wendy
Wolfe
Michael
Menkin had heard about reports of humans suffering
alien abductions and their consequent trauma. From
his reading and discussions with many abductees he concluded that humans
are being invaded by an alien force from another world in what he refers to
as a ‘telepathic war’, and also that telepathy is used by aliens to communicate
and immobilize abductees. Menkin
then invented a protective helmet whose protective lining can be used inside
an ordinary hat or sports cap. He wrote:
“Until now, the creatures attacking us could do
so at will; they could ‘switch off’ people or render them powerless, manipulate
people’s thoughts and cause them to move against their will, project mental
images to us, masquerade as a friendly or sexually attractive human and scan
our entire minds.”
In a report
to MUFON (Mutual UFO Network) in the
The thought-screen
helmet has been designed to prevent aliens from performing any kind of mental
control over humans. The manner in which the helmets
are meant to do this is by blocking out alien thought so humans can no longer
be manipulated or controlled. Regarding the origin
of the thought-screen helmets, Menkin explains
that the idea came to him from characters in the science fiction novels written
by Edward Elmer Smith, PhD, on the ‘Gray Lensman’. This how the story goes: A sadistic race of monsters known
as the Overlords of Delgon were preying on people
by sheer power of mind. One of the warriors who went
in to attack them was Helmuth, who had been given
a thought-screen by a being from a higher-echelon planet named Ploor. This warrior was equipped
with a “thought-screened, armoured head behind the billowing gun and flaring
projectors”.
The first thought-screen helmets, considered to
be ‘telepathic armour’ were made in 1998 using aluminium foil. Following this, metallized plastic used in static shielding
bags was tried. These helmets were reported to be partly
successful, but two users were still overcome by telepathic commands from
aliens. By late 1999 the shielding in thought-screen
helmets had been changed to 3M Velostat, and
those made using eight sheets of .006″ (6 mils thick) Velostat (part number 1706) are said by Menkin to be completely successful in preventing abductions. Information about Menkin’s
research into this subject can be found on the Internet at http//www.stopabductions.com.
Scenes on
the Edges of Reality
By Wendy
Wolfe
From thousands
of alien encounter and abduction reports investigated, many have shown similar
features and from these cases what is known as a typical abduction scenario
has emerged. The fundamental
elements of the abduction phenomenon have been set out by Professor John
Mack (1999). Many other examples vary from the familiar
pattern. Whether the event is typical or not, a frequent
occurrence is that it is intrusive, intimidating and traumatic. Trauma is occurring frequently for UFO and abduction experiencers in
Noting similarities
is an obvious way to compare events, but even within the typical scenario
there are countless variations to be considered. They
include differences in the presentation of the aliens’ physical appearance
and garb, their manner of manifesting to the encountee,
and the nature of their actions. All these factors,
together with a paucity of physical evidence to pin down, might make us wonder
how we can even begin to understand alien intentions, planning or expectations
in an encounter or abduction.
As for the
human encountees, their responses range from
emotional shock and distress to disbelief. Encountees’ responses and possibly even the manner
in which the aliens reveal themselves might also be affected by the experiencer’s cultural background.
Not everyone is of the opinion that the aliens’ abilities are paranormal
or more than advanced technology, and a quite different mode of support is
being offered for sufferers of alien mind invasions by inventor Michael Menkin in anti-telepathy or thought-screen helmets. If we try viewing the alien visitors as actors, we see
that they employ all sorts of surprising ways in which to present events
and thus influence the encountee’s response to
and interpretation of an event. Some factors that
might affect the experiencer’s response are:
The producer
of an on-stage theatrical event knows the importance of detail and how even
a small action can be influential in drawing response and affecting the outcome. A small but significant detail that frequently leads to
trauma for the abductee is the visual impact of aliens’ eyes. The following event is comparatively simple in terms of
the number of ‘players’ involved, the variety
of scenes, and the action. Only one item — the eyes
— was sufficient to produce an outcome of fear.
The story was told to me by Marj, who was travelling alone and had stopped at
a remote South Australian camping ground for the night. “During
the night a being entered my caravan, walking through the wall at a place
where there was no door. Now he stood close in front
of me. He was tall and his head was covered by a cloth
worn like a mantle and drawn back to reveal a very high forehead. The skin colour was silver changing to a more human-like
tone at the side of the face and chin. His nose, perhaps
camouflaged by the silver, was long and straight — too even and straight
for a human nose. I was looking up into his eyes and
could see they were not human. What I saw terrified
me.”
“Immediately
after the event I found it difficult to fully visualise the eyes because
the corneal area had became blurred in my mind. Yet
I did remember that they were big eyes, wide across, not like slits but only
narrowly open. I could see white.
In some way they were reptilian. I was shocked
and cannot forget that moment. His robe was parted
in front to reveal a collar or chain made up of white interlocking pieces,
and under this he wore another dark garment. I thought
he seemed to be a superior type of being. Next we
were walking along a dark passage or tunnel. I was
trying to hide my panic and appear calm but when we came out at the end,
to my shame, I began to scream. I feel ashamed to
have been so frightened just because his eyes were different from ours.”
A close-up
encounter with a saurian-faced being has to be unbelievable. Who would ever expect to see a humanoid with the face
of a reptile? Such visitations bring about a disruption
to our normal expectations and world view. We find
great difficulty in coping with a visual reality that does not fit into our
normal scene or idea of what is real. Collapse of
a world view can cause us to feel adrift and alienated from family and community. Abductees become profoundly disturbed at happenings that
do not fit any recognizable pattern and Professor John Mack describes this
trauma as “ontological shock” (1995, p.407).
As encountees’ lives are severely affected, so also are
those of researchers and investigators working in the area of the abduction
and contact phenomena because they are daring to challenge the prevailing
borders of reality. As Mack (2000, p.247) has put
it: “to depart from the ontological consensus brings to mind images of ostracism
and the catastrophe of excommunication”. A single
event can perhaps be shut away in memory but the encountee
whose life is repeatedly invaded is likely to lead a life of emotional isolation,
often unable to seek help or discuss their sufferings for fear of being thought
to be unstable or mentally ill. This ongoing trauma
has led many to seek some way to end the visitations and they have discovered
the thought-screen helmet.
Menkin reports that a child of eight who had been diagnosed
as autistic, and had recurring nightmares about monsters and had told his
mother that the aliens told him to obey them, began to wear a thought-screen
helmet. While wearing the helmet he has not been invaded
by aliens and his doctors report that his autism has improved markedly.
Two events,
one from America and one from Australia, are very similar but show how a
tiny difference in timing of about one second has a major effect on the actions
within the event itself. (The man woke in time to
hit the alien. The woman woke just too late to put
up any defence before the anaesthetic took effect.) Another
difference is in the alien faces — one a typical grey and the other a non-frightening
humanlike face. The first story comes from the files
of Michael Menkin:
A man reported
that he was awakened in the middle of the night by what he thought was an
insect on his arm. He went to swat at it and hit a
face. He felt soft skin and saw that it was an alien
face, a grey with a large round head and large round black eyes. There was a second alien on the other side and they were
bent over putting a needle into his arm. He went to
strike the other face but was rendered unconscious. When
he awoke in the morning he found a long scratch on his arm indicating that
the instrument was jarred when he struck the alien. Following
this the visitations continued and the experiencer
began to use a thought-screen helmet to try to prevent them. At the time of receiving this report the encounters were
said to have ceased.
The second
story is another account from Marj. This event occurred in the same general area of
In these
two events there is a factor that might indicate forward planning of the
event by the aliens in having the same sex administering the anaesthetic. For the male, the aliens presented as figures who could be identified as male greys. He had time to see them and take action by hitting out. In the case of the woman the injection was being given
by a female, easily seen to be a woman and of non-threatening appearance. However, the encountee was
woken just too late for her to take any action such as physical struggle. There was pain involved later in the episode but it was
not overall a highly traumatising event and perhaps this is to do with the
manner in which it had been planned. In other words,
perhaps the invaders did not intend the event to be frightening.
Encounters
sometimes leave physical effects, either injurious or beneficial, which seem
to make them a physical reality. Examples are detailed
in the writings of Mack, Thompson, Good and others. However,
it is known that states of mind can produce remarkable effects on the body
and Thompson uses well-known examples of stigmata to illustrate this. Good (2000, p.246) gives an example of healing by aliens
in the following story. I have retold it briefly. Note that a helmet was used to aid communication.
Ivan, a
police officer from
An example
that illustrates this is of a man in southern
In another
account from a man of Aboriginal descent, culture again appears to play a
role not only in his response to the event and but also to the action of
the event itself. Spirits of the bush and sky beings
are very much part of traditional Aboriginal life and these entities were
accepted and not necessarily feared. The action here,
which might otherwise seem to verge on the ridiculous, reflects a cultural
attitude of being at ease with and amicable to a visiting entity. The event occurred nearly thirty years ago and was first
recorded soon afterwards. The encountee re-told the story in 1995, this time to
me, shortly before his death. Narri was employed by Main Roads and stayed in a caravan
at a base camp near Mundrabilla. He tells the story:
“I woke
up this morning hearing somebody talking to me. It
was an ET, sitting on my bed. He said, ‘I’ve got to
go now.’ I walked out of the caravan with him. I asked him to stay longer to talk, but he said: ‘No,
I am leaving.’ Then I do not know how or why, he started
to rise up off the ground and I grabbed him by the leg. There
was a big grey cloud just above him. He said, ‘You
have to let me go’ and I said, ‘Where are you going? Take
me with you’. He said, ‘You have to let me go’ and
I did. Next thing I find that I am about 100 yards
[91 m] from the caravan in my underpants with no shoes on.
There was heavy dew and not a cloud in sight. The memory of that never, never left me.”
Humans are
gazing at paranormal events that appear on and beyond the edges of our reality. We may catalogue and speculate about the many different
approaches made to us by non-human entities and the varying human responses
to and interpretations of these visitations, but without full understanding. To begin to comprehend the phenomenon it is likely that
we must learn to expand our minds, increasing our perception beyond the limitations
of our present ontology.
References
Good, Timothy.
(1998) Alien Base: The Evidence for Extraterrestrial
Colonization of Earth.
Jacobs,
David M. (1998) The Threat: Revealing the Secret Alien Agenda.
Mack, John
E. (1994) Abduction: Human Encounters with Aliens.
Mack, John
E. (1999) Passport to the Cosmos: Human Transformation and Alien Encounters.
Mack, John
E. (2000) How the Alien
Abduction Phenomenon Challenges the Boundaries of Our Reality. In D.M. Jacobs (Ed.), UFOs
and Abductions: Challenging the Borders of Knowledge, (pp.241-261).
Menkin, Michael. (2004) Personal contact. Information
on thought-screen helmets is available at http://www.stopabductions.com.
Thompson,
Richard L. (1993) Alien Identities: Ancient Insights into Modern UFO Phenomena.
UFO Sighting,
July 1969
By Don Phillips
This sighting
goes back to, as I recall, 1969 in
It was a July
morning, completely overcast with that even low sort of cloud that threatens
drizzle. The atmosphere was clear and relatively warm
for July, and as I recall, about 6:30am because I had just stepped out onto
our front porch to collect the milk (in those days the milk was delivered
to our front doorstep even though we had a high, long, steep driveway). Because of our high position we had a clear view across
to the coast, we could see Alcoa’s smokestacks, but not the ocean. I noticed a light way out towards the coast and thought
it must have been a plane, and it held my attention because of the low cloud
and its apparent low altitude. As I watched, it seemed
to be travelling towards me because the light was getting larger, and as
it got closer over a time of about a minute or two (this time is very hard
to define) its brightness started to pulsate on a cycle of dull and bright
of about one second. At this point in the episode
I realised this was something not ordinary so I called my wife to come and
see. Unfortunately she thought I had found a new flower
out in the garden and did not come out, preferring to remain in bed on that
winter morning. I didn’t dare take my eyes off it
in case it disappeared, so I didn’t go inside to get her.
It was about
this time that this object started to take on a hazy outline of the classical
UFO shape. I am colour-blind and see only three colours
and to my perception it was a yellowy gold colour, rather an unreal sort
of colour to me. Now, it was getting quite close to
me, maybe less than l km, its outline was becoming more firm, less hazy,
and it began to turn in an arc to the north. It had
been travelling from the west due east and the whole time its altitude hadn’t
changed, about 100m to 300m, a bit hard to be certain, but still well under
that low cloud cover.
After turning
it seemed to travel straight north, that is, parallel to the coast probably
directly above the Armadale to
As if they
had done what they had to do, they did a left turn, that is, they turned
into the east towards the coast and sped off at some phenomenal speed that
is beyond belief, like a bullet, at maybe thousands of kilometres per hour. It did not alter altitude and it disappeared to a pinprick
of light still under the cloud cover in about two or three seconds until
there was no light to see, just like the Starship
Enterprise at the beginning of that old TV show. I
estimate the distance from my house to where the UFO appeared and disappeared
to be I guess about 15-20km. Not a sound during the
whole episode, and I estimate the round disc shaped craft to be the size
of a small house. It pulsated the whole time and although
it was completely this yellowish colour, it did not seem to be enveloped
in a glowing halo.
There was something
strange happened on this particular morning. There
is a rail crossing on what was then
Many years
ago when I lived in Collie as a boy we used to travel to
Now my wife
could not see these beings, so it could have been a very lucid couple of dreams,
both identical or maybe the sight of these things is a personal thing and
if you are tuned to it you see it, and if not you don’t.
With the UFO I would have imagined that half of Armadale would have
seen it. To my knowledge there were no reports of
anything and in those days if you talked about anything like that you were
considered a crackpot, and no, I did not report it. Despite
all the denials and spin from politicians and sceptics I know that these
things are real, they are not using Earth-based technology and I don’t think
they are a threat to us. Since these events I have
tried to keep it at arms length and hope that more evidence might prove to
the rest of the world that they are real. Nevertheless,
let me say to those people, sceptics included, who have not been in the right
place at the right time to experience something like I have described, believe
me, they are real.
The Evil Eye
by Judy Bryning
The ‘Evil
Eye’ has been a widespread belief in many parts of the world for a couple
of thousand years, so it’s of interest to discuss and analyse reports that
persist even up to the present day. It has always
been a popular belief that some people had power in their look or gaze which could bring misfortune to the person looked at. This could take the form of drying up cows’ milk, or making
crops fail, which would have been a disaster for the old agrarian communities. It could supposedly cause not only illness but death. Those responsible for all or some of these effects were
said to be motivated by envy, called coveting in the ten commandments of
the Bible. In seventeenth century
This described
only the intentional variety of evil eye projection (mal’occhio in
In the domain
of animal behaviour, author Desmond Morris (1992) contributes information
on the blatant use of eye power in the mode of predatory attack and dominance. Some insights from the post-modernist psychoanalyst Jacques
Lacan could contribute to a theory of the processes
involved, despite his notoriously opaque style of discourse. Among all the questions which could be asked are: Does
such an ability actually exist and, if so, how
does it work? Could the ability be inherited? Can any individual be trained to acquire this ability? As with other psychic abilities, it is recognised that
shamanic abilities can be inherited. Those who might
inherit the evil eye power could benefit themselves (not others!) by training.
In its Greek
context, a curative ritual — such as making the sign of the cross and saying
a prayer — against the evil eye is taught by fathers to daughters, and by
mothers to sons. Girls seem interested in learning
the ritual in order to become better mothers, and Greek boys trust the mother
to cure them when they fall ill. Prevention was all
important, because it was believed that the first glance of the evil eye
was the most fatal (Elworthy, 1895/1989, p.142). Protection from the evil eye in the first instance could
be achieved with objects such as amulets, hand gestures and even plants (for
example, cyclamen, according to the Roman historian Pliny).
Once sickness
had struck, various domestic rituals could be performed.
In the most usual cases, concerning children, a Mexican ritual consists
of passing an unbroken egg over the patient’s face and body. Afterwards the egg is broken in a saucer and placed under
the bed. The following morning, the appearance of
the egg determines whether the ritual has been successful.
A more complicated variant of this is to then locate the person who
inflicted the evil eye and force them to transfer three mouthfuls of water
from their mouth to that of the patient. Somewhat problematic
to organise and also of dubious hygiene!
An ancient
Chaldean remedy still used by the Greeks in the 1980s involved a drop of
oil spreading on water (Tanagras, 1967). Obviously preventative measures against the evil eye were
an obsession throughout history, accounting for the presence of so many old
amulets in museums, notably in
Plutarch,
the Roman scholar, claimed that envious looks pierced like poisoned arrows,
and he also mentioned voice, odour and breath as emanations which may easily
injure, but above all this was true of the eyes. He
recommended that charms and antidotes be used to turn aside evil glances
(in Elworthy, 1895/1989, p.13). Roman shield designs evolved from simple amulets, being
combined, compounded and systematised into what Elworthy
(p.179) considered to be “a quasi-science which we now call Heraldry”. Today these circular geometric patterns suggest hubcap
designs to modern eyes.
Another interesting
etymological connection leads us back from the modern word ‘fascination’ to
the means by which the evil eye would be deflected, like arrows against the
Roman shields. The word fascina
is derived from the older Greek word ‘vaska’
which means mask or amulet. Since then, the word for
the power of fascination was described as ‘invidere’
(Latin) meaning to look too closely at, or envy. It
was explained as such by
The concept
of off-putting imagery recalls the famous myth of Medusa the Gorgon, whose
gaze turned whoever looked upon it to stone (perhaps paralysed would be a
modern psychological interpretation). In the traditional
dance drama of
The only
exploration of the evil eye prophylactic process (that I know of) in terms
of modern psychoanalysis is in the rather obscure writing of Jacques Lacan. In cases of combat or
confrontation, Lacan makes a distinction between
a being and its semblance. He gives as an example
the combat display of an animal: “the being gives of himself, or receives
from the other, something that is like a mask, a double, an envelope, a thrown-off
skin, thrown off in order to cover the frame of a shield”(Lacan, 1979, p.117). He continues
to theorise that in this manner “a being comes into play in his effects of
life and death”. This appears to form a screen which
protects the intended recipient of any harmful effect (p.117).
Amulets
which protected against the power of the evil eye or ‘fascination’ were emblems
of power. The greatest number
of these to be found today in museums display phallic depictions or phallic
symbols. According to Elworthy,
the term for these amulets among old writers was ‘fascinum’ (p.149). Being a respected and respectable nineteenth century scholar,
he refused to translate a lengthy Latin footnote on these amulets by Horace,
claiming it unfit to be reproduced! Nineteenth century
notions of propriety did not include any reference to erotic content.
Considering
that much contemporary evidence of the evil eye has come from Greece, it
seems fitting that a great deal of research in the mid-twentieth century
was done by a Greek navy admiral, Dr Tanagras. Tanagras’ theory of ‘psychoboly’ was first outlined in 1929 and was described
by him as a “new power influencing human life” which he claimed had hitherto
been ignored by science. (Considering the many Greek
origins in our language, no-one has more right to create neologisms than
Tanagras. His specialised
terms are not in current use, so you will not find ‘psychoboly’
in a dictionary.) This power referred to above can
hardly be called new. It seems to be an umbrella term
for psychic forces such as telepathy and telekinesis acting on inorganic
matter, such as car accidents, derailments, shipwrecks, etc. Another form of this force acts directly on the tissues
or functions of a living organism, such as the evil eye.
What is new about this idea is that Tanagras,
Maeterlinck (poet and writer) and other researchers of the 1930s have considered
all of the above phenomena to be caused by a single force.
Freud, despite his rejection of occultism, considered that any deep
impression which is driven back into our unconscious and which strives for
expression can produce such phenomena as those described above (in Tanagras, 1967, p.7). Tanagras states that the influence of the evil eye
should not be considered so inexplicable when unseen emanations from x-rays
are known to cause damage to the human body if the users of them do not wear
protective lead shields. An earlier attempt to define
this ‘emanation’ came from Aristotle who rejected the notion of superstition. Instead he believed in a ‘chemical power’ of the organ
of vision (in Tanagras, 1967, p.58). An interesting choice of words, considering that today,
optical processes giving sight are considered to be photochemical.
Tanagras considered that this force was in the form of
electrons, “psychodynamic energy,” and “the entelechy which Aristotle foreshadowed
so accurately and which he called Entos-Echein
(to contain internally, in itself)”. Tanagras posited that this force emanates from the
sympathetic nervous system. It appears that persons
with that system dominant are likely agents for psychobolic
emission. The bulk of Tanagras’
monograph contains one hundred and six case histories about the evil eye,
many signed and witnessed by dignitaries or doctors in the local communities
of the occurrence. They cover a span of approximately
seventy years, from the beginning of the twentieth century. The class of people represented range from illiterate
peasants to priests or educated office bearers in public life and the army.
During the
1930s, serious interest was shown by scientists towards analysing psychic
phenomena, but since then such interest has not prevailed widely, at least
not with accredited academics. Struggles for grants
and employment, plus fear of peer disapproval have inhibited modern research. In contrast, it’s interesting that so many of the great
minds which have shaped our civilization have devoted serious thought to
evidences of the unseen force of the evil eye. Luckily
for posterity, Aristotle, Plutarch, Pliny,
In the animal
world, status battles involve staring to assert dominance.
The human version of this is ‘eyeballing’. Among
the higher mammals, Desmond Morris (1992, p.51) provides insights into the
behaviour of tigers, quoting the great cat authority, Leyhausen. This zoologist found
that if his face was hidden by a camera, the tiger would leap to attack. When he took the camera away from his face, and stared
directly at the animal, it had the effect of repelling the attack. This occurred repeatedly. Desmond
Morris has observed similar behaviour with cats stalking smaller prey. When the gaze was turned away from the predator, it would
pounce. This illustrates a commonsense tactic which
would also be employed by humans. More baffling is
the hypnotic effect described by Elworthy (1895/1989,
p.40), “Snakes especially seem to have the power of exciting fear and aversion
in nearly all other creatures while with some, especially birds, they have
at the same time a power of attraction, which can only be described as fascination”. Elworthy expands on this further,
quoting a nineteenth century report from
There is
another intriguing possible correlation here with what is arguably the best
known and commonest form of spirit manifestation, the poltergeist. These noisy and turbulent disturbances concerning physical
objects can be of a destructive and malicious character.
According to Nandor Fodor’s Encyclopaedia of Psychic Science,
“the movement of the objects is usually taking place at a moment when nobody
looks. They are often seen in flight but not in stirring. It has been suggested that the gaze
of the human eye has a checking effect” (Fodor,
1933/1966, p.291). This corresponds identically
with the checking effect of the human gaze on the tiger as described above
by Leyhausen.
The power
of thought and emotion are filtered, diffused and defused through speech. The raw impact of poltergeist and animal power is so violently
manifested because it is undiminished by spoken communication. Animal and/or spirit (or, as some suggest, a split-off
aspect of human consciousness) operate in a similar mode.
Valiente (1984, p.114) reaffirms the point
I made earlier in her comment, “The silent curse or the Evil Eye, which came from the soul within, was more dreaded than openly
spoken maledictions. Its very silence gave it the
pent-up concentration of something formulated with one’s whole being”.
Neolithic
people would have had an easier, natural access to this faculty than we have
nowadays and therefore a closer affinity with the animals they hunted. This faculty has become increasingly rare (except perhaps
in horse whisperers!) in the century of Freud and the discovery of the unconscious
mind. Before Freud’s discovery of the subconscious,
no division in mind functioning was acknowledged or even known. During the Renaissance, man had become the measure of
all things, and with urbanisation, became increasingly distanced from the
environment over the next five hundred years. The
Age of Reason title given to this continuing trend in the seventeenth century
showed the value given to scientific method. So it
can be seen that the incorporation of earlier beliefs and reliance upon instinct
became marginalised, and then detached from mainstream thinking. The separation and distancing needed for analytical thought
seem to have deflected or diffused the power of the unconscious from its
expression. So this split-off aspect could have been
expressed in a detached way — as some people suggest happens in poltergeist
activity. As the increasing refinement of spoken language
became pre-eminent, the telepathic and eye power faculties correspondingly
declined; an evolutionary trade-off.
A very important
feature of Moslem life, the seclusion of women at home, or behind veils in
public, derives from a fear of the evil eye (in Elworthy,
1895/1989, p.429). This is a core belief of not only
Islamic but also Judaic communities, and has enormous implications for the
economies of contemporary Middle Eastern and also third world countries. Another researcher, Clarence Maloney, has collated the
papers presented at the 1972 symposium of the American Anthropological Association
on the evil eye. Here it is interesting to note a
typical approach of the social scientist, linking beliefs and practices which
have a bearing on the economy. Joel Teitelbaum, a field worker in
The uneasy
syncretism existing between Islam and indigenous animistic beliefs in Moslem
communities of south-east
Personally
I do not believe that the power of eye contact and the accompanying evil
eye practices which occur with humans and animals are absent in Aboriginal
Australia. Europeans tend to be suspicious and mistrustful
if someone doesn’t look them in the eye. Consequently,
the gaze aversion (the anthropologist’s term) of Aboriginals, so disconcerting
to those of European descent, has been mistakenly interpreted as evasiveness,
indicating a range of negative behaviours from non-compliance to dishonesty. The Aboriginals’ explanation of gaze aversion is that
they consider it to be not polite to look someone in the eye. This explanation could easily co-exist with an implicit
awareness of the evil eye danger, but reluctance to share this with outsiders
to their culture because the outsider in any community is suspect. In countries where the main ethnic group had brown or
dark eyes, the blue-eyed foreigner was therefore suspect.
For example, the classic evil eye amulet is a blue eye.
Within a
Jewish community, the evil eye fear was just as strong as in the wider community
of
Language
usage shows a striking example of the way social attitudes are formed and
perpetuated. The German word for evil eye is Judenblick, the glance of a Jew (Maloney, 1974, p.8). This often alternates with Böseblick
(angry eye). These alternatives could be seen to reflect
the distinction between the two types of evil eye; Malocchio
and Jettatura — the intentional and the involuntary. Supported by language, anger and evil intent, imputed
to Jewish people as a whole, had the ongoing insidious effect of imagining
these emotions to be directed back at the wider population. The nineteenth century writer Elworthy
records the veiled Moslem women’s reluctance to show their faces as due to
this fear, as well as attributing it to male jealousy. Old
customs die hard, and the women’s situation today in
The personal
experience of mine to which I referred earlier belongs, I believe, in the
category of the evil eye. Many of the common features
were present in my unpleasant encounter. The person
in question was the owner of a bookshop specialising in New Age/occult books,
and whom I later heard had advanced training in Wicca. Natural
inherited ability also could have been present. While
I was making a routine enquiry in the shop I noticed that the youngish man
had very striking eyes, so outstandingly crystal clear that I became focussed
on one eye. Suddenly I felt that I was being propelled
forward into his eye ¾ seemingly a long physical distance. I was just marvelling at the quality of crystal clarity
in his eyes. Just as suddenly there was a nasty sense
of shock which made me flinch and screw up my face, as you do if you have
a sudden close shave in a traffic accident situation. With
a feeling of horror, I found that not only could I not find words, but neither
could I frame thoughts in terms of words. The only
similar sensation I could remember was after sun stroke when I had spent
all day at the beach during a heat wave. All of this
took place in a very long frozen moment. My expression
reflected what was happening and the man laughed unpleasantly. Then I found that I could think and speak again. It had been too unnerving to query what had happened,
and I just wanted to get out of the shop. We were
both aware of what had happened, but socially this could not be referred
to. The man would have denied it of course, and suggested
that I had imagined it.
At this
point it is relevant to expand on Jacques Lacan’s
commentary on the evil eye. He examines minutely the
time span of the process and he makes a distinction between the initial moment
of seeing and the terminal arrest of the gesture, although these do overlap. So it would be of the utmost urgency that any object for
deflecting its influence should withstand the first brunt of the impact (hence
amulets). The “terminal arrest of the gaze” claims
Lacan, “not only terminates the movement, it
freezes it”. He goes on to say that the “the evil
eye is the fascinum, it is that which has the effect of arresting
movement and, literally, of killing life” (Lacan,
1979, pp.117 & 118). These terms seem very like
a description of the nasty sensations I experienced on that unfortunately
memorable occasion.
By a strange
coincidence, eighteen months later I met this man again in the company of
a new boyfriend who knew him. Later, I recounted the
experience to my boyfriend and he defended the man, saying that he had never
done anything funny to him. Naturally I was very careful
to look anywhere but in the man’s eyes, and he appeared not to remember anything
about the previous meeting. I can only conclude that
he sometimes practised his skill on people who involuntarily trespassed or
invaded his ‘eye space’. I heard later that he was
highly skilled in hypnosis. Many GPs go through the
“You are getting sleepy” routine to suggest that their patients give up smoking. I’m sure they would appreciate having hypnotic power of
this calibre. However, anyone with this ability would
be pretty rare and not likely to advertise it. Some
time later I met a lady who termed herself a white witch.
She explained — still unsatisfactorily — that the man had ‘thrown
in a catch’. But as to how this worked, I was still
in the dark. A personal communication from a friend
who had travelled in
So what
part does superstition play in the evil eye belief? Elsworthy subtitles his book
“An account of this ancient and widespread superstition”.
The latter term is defined by a blind belief, regardless of reason
or knowledge held about something of ominous significance.
Work by Professor Jahn at Princeton Engineering
Anomalies Research (PEAR) suggests that a small percentage of the population
may have unconscious psychokinetic power such as the ability to affect machinery,
or be a ‘jinx’ or a ‘jonah’.
The term psychokinesis could be seen as an update of Admiral Tanagras’ term psychoboly. However, considering that such a tiny percentage of the
population has this ability, it would not account for the persistence and
prevalence of the evil eye belief. Hearsay and fear
would probably have been responsible for this. This
suggests that the large number of anecdotal reports of
the evil eye are more likely to have been the result of exaggeration,
bad luck, or coincidence.
To conclude
this necessarily selective survey, we could ask where does further investigation
lie? I would suggest research into hypnosis, parapsychology
and biophysical energy such as chi would be a good start.
Various non-phallic amulets were seen by a friend of mine in 2003
in
References
Blenkinsop, M. (2002, July). De ole maloik. Fortean Times, (160), 37.
Dong, Paul & Raffil,
Thomas. (1996) Empty Force.
Dundes, Alan (Ed.) (1981) The Evil Eye: A Folklore
Case Book.
Elworthy, Frederick T. (1895/1989). The Evil
Eye.
Fodor, N. (1933/1966). Encyclopedia of Psychic Science.
Koyen, Jeff. (2002, July) The evil eye. Fortean Times, (160), 34-39.
Lacan, Jacques. (1978) The Four Fundamental Concepts
of Psychoanalysis (A. Sheridan, Trans.). J. Miller (Ed.).
Maloney,
Clarence (Ed.). (1976) The Evil Eye.
Morris, Desmond. (1992) Cat Watching and Cat Lore.
Tanagras, Angelos. (1967) Psychophysical Elements in Parapsychological Traditions.
Valiente, Doreen. (1984) An ABC of Witchcraft Past
and Present.
Pursuing Free
Energy
A Quest for
the Ultimate Free Lunch
© Graham Hubbard, 2004
Machines that run indefinitely without an apparent
energy source have been claimed for centuries. What has modern science got
to say about the prospect? Free Energy in this context refers to the concept
that a device can be constructed that produces energy indefinitely without
‘running down’ and without any apparent external energy input. A few decades
ago it was popularly known as perpetual motion, a term evoking images of
nutty professors or naïve amateurs in the back shed, chasing the rainbow
while endlessly motivated by their ignorance of the laws of thermodynamics.
Today, however, there is a changing attitude. A
certain tolerance, if not widespread acceptance, is apparent in mainstream
science regarding the expenditure of time and resources on the search for
that fugitive free lunch of over-unity, a name applied to the capability
of a device to produce more energy than it consumes. Other names with the
appropriate connotations have become associated with the concept, such as
zero point energy (ZPE) or vacuum energy, so named because of its proposed
source in ‘the vacuum’, a term describing the mysterious something that permeates
all space in the universe.
Thermodynamics
and Free Energy. One of the earliest and
most illustrious names associated with the pursuit of perpetual motion is
that of Leonardo da Vinci, who produced many
designs for such devices and also made some efforts to get them to operate.
After a number of fruitless attempts, he began to see the light and eventually
wrote, “O speculators about perpetual motion, how many vain chimeras have
you created in the quest? Go and take your places with the seekers after
gold”. Despite this early warning, prior to the end of the 1700s the hunt
for perpetual motion continued to be regarded as a perfectly worthy pursuit.
However, with the advent of more sophisticated science during the next few
decades, especially the formulation of the laws of thermodynamics in the
mid-eighteen hundreds, mainstream science finally accepted the point of view
that such devices were impossible and so turned their attention to other
things.
The First Law of Thermodynamics tells us essentially
that energy can neither be created nor destroyed, but can only be changed
from one form into another, a basic concept taught from high school physics
upwards and one for which most people have an intuitive feel. For example, the chemical energy in petroleum can be converted
into heat energy and then mechanical energy in an engine which can then be
converted into electrical energy in an attached generator, and this in turn
can be converted into radiant energy such as light or radio waves.
If we so wished, we could run this process in the
reverse direction; a solar photovoltaic cell converts light energy into electrical
energy, which could run a motor to produce mechanical energy and so on. However,
although the total energy after each transformation is the
same as the amount of energy at the beginning, more or less of it escapes
into the environment as wasted heat, so unless we only want heat as a product,
all forms of energy conversion are wasteful and inefficient. This problem
is encompassed by the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which can be interpreted
loosely to say that every time we convert energy from one form into another,
we will lose at least some of it in the form of low grade heat which ultimately
warms up the universe a little and can never be recovered in total.
Present adherents of the free energy philosophy
do not usually disagree with the First Law of Thermodynamics but simply claim
that the energy that they are expounding is coming from outside of the closed
system of the device, from a source and via a path that is presently not
generally recognised. Varying schools of thought propose different sources,
but most seem to centre on some form of energy which it is proposed permeates
all space, either as a previously unidentified phenomenon within our present
physical frame of reference or possibly even existing in some extra dimensional
location but none-the-less accessible to mere mortals by correct manipulation
of the conditions.
A more recent proposal is that the energy may be
associated with neutrinos, those ghostly particles that stream from space
at near the speed of light and zip through us and the entire Earth like a
torch beam through a pane of glass. Recent astrophysical research indicates
that we can detect maybe only five percent of the theoretical mass of the
universe, the remainder being composed of something dubbed ‘dark matter’.
It is suggested that this may be associated with neutrinos, so there should
certainly be no shortage of them if they prove useful for fuel.
String Theory
and the Quantum Foam. A promising new avenue
in explaining what the universe is ultimately composed of involves what is
known as String Theory, which considers activity at the incredibly small
size scale of 10-32 millimetres, called the Planck length. To
get an idea of this size scale, consider the smallest commonly encountered
sub-atomic particle, the electron, at around 100,000 times smaller than a
typical atom. If we could somehow magnify a bit of space until an electron
was the size of the Earth, the Planck length would still be ten billion times
smaller than an unmagnified electron.
String Theory proposes that the ultimate fundamental
element of everything in the universe, including matter, energy and even gravity,
exists at the Planck length and is a tiny two-dimensional ‘string’ of vibrating
energy. The frequency and harmonics of the vibration determine the characteristics
of the string and therefore the nature of the matter or energy that they
can ultimately form when combined together. This concept is reminiscent of
the descriptions of various spiritual states explained in the metaphysical
literature where it is submitted that the only difference between our physical
world and the various states of the spiritual realm is the rate of vibration
of the component material. The concept that spiritual entities are composed
of common strings just like us certainly leads to an easier acceptance of
their existence by left-brained ‘rational’ individuals.
String Theory allows us to appreciate better an
approach to the origin of free energy that has gained serious attention since
the 1960s; that it could be possible to derive energy from what has been
called the ‘quantum foam’, a description of what may be taking place in all
of time-space in the universe at the Planck length. In a branch of physics
called Quantum Electrodynamics it is proposed that at this size scale, all
space in the universe consists of a seething mass of energy and activity,
which makes it a little more interesting than the relatively boring old ‘aether’ of yesteryear that the hypothesis has replaced.
One way of grasping some sort of concept of this
activity is to consider that in elementary mathematics we can easily and legitimately
create something out of nothing; for example if we start with zero we can
split this ‘nothing’ into, say, minus one and plus one, which is definitely
‘something’. In the quantum foam it is proposed that something vaguely similar
goes on in which ‘nothing’ suddenly splits into, for example, an electron
(matter) and a positron (anti-matter), reminiscent of our +1 and -1 coming
from zero. The big difference is that the process also needs a massive slug
of energy to occur.
The positron and electron instantly recombine and
revert back to the ‘nothing’ but in addition we get the big slug of energy
back again and, interestingly, it appears that if the splitting and recombining
take place fast enough, it is as though the universe does not have time to
miss the slug of energy that went into the split before it is again returned
to ‘balance the books’, so to speak. It’s a little like having a zero balance
bank account but writing a cheque one evening and enjoying the proceeds overnight
before depositing an equal cheque early next morning before the bank has
missed the funds (or at least it was like that a few decades ago before high
speed Information Technology deprived us of this little luxury!).
If this description is indeed a true picture of
the state of things in small scale space, a cubic centimetre of apparently
empty space would contain untold zillions of tiny elementary particles popping
in and out of existence every microsecond, with just as many energy loans
and repayments being transacted at the same time. The bottom line is that
we may be able to embezzle some of this energy from the universe by grabbing
it and simply not paying it back. There is some evidence to suggest that
in such a case, our universe would pull an equivalent amount of energy from
a parallel universe in a different dimension. An intriguing concept indeed, and certainly grossly oversimplified in this
description, but you get the picture: limitless energy!
The Magic
Magnet. Magnets feature prominently in many of the claims of
successful free energy devices, and there is a lot of scholarly theory published
suggesting that somehow the electron spins of the individual atomic dipoles
(which provide the magnetic field of ferro-magnetic
materials) can yield up their energy to a suitable physical device and then
replenish that energy by extracting it from the Quantum Foam. This is a very
attractive concept because even from before the time that Vikings first hung
a lodestone on a thread and found that it always pointed north, there has
been something mystical about magnetism. Even today, many physicists will
grudgingly admit that despite knowing all about what a magnetic field does, current science cannot really explain satisfactorily
exactly what it is.
Nicola Tesla. One of the
more famous proponents of the free-energy-from-the-vacuum idea was Nicola
Tesla whose famous work spread across the latter part of the eighteen hundreds
and into the early twentieth century. He was regarded as a genius, having
conceived and developed many startling inventions including the currently
used three phase alternating current power distribution system which quickly
replaced
Howard Johnson’s
US Patent. A more recent demonstration of free energy, though certainly
not as dramatic as Tesla’s, was reported in a 1980 edition of Science & Mechanics magazine. American Howard Johnson had
recently created a precedent by convincing the United States Patents Office
to issue US Patent Number 4,151,431 on his design for a free energy machine,
a permanent magnet motor that was claimed to run without apparent power input.
This was a breakthrough because, although an English patent is reported to
have been granted as early as 1635, the US Patents Office had previously
refused to accept patents for perpetual motion machines, which they understandably
refused to believe were possible.
After news of this circumvention of the bureaucracy
spread, a scientific reporter from the magazine visited Johnson and reported
his amazement after seeing the working motor. The prototype consisted of
a ring of magnets attached to a turntable made from a sheet of Perspex and
a central bearing from an old roller-skate. When the reporter held a specially
shaped magnet near the ring of magnets, it is reported that the “magnet assembly
immediately began to turn and accelerated to a very respectable rotating
speed which it maintained for as long as the focusing magnet was held in
the magnetic field. When the focusing magnet was reversed, the large assembly
turned in the opposite direction”. Photographs in the magazine appear to
substantiate that the assembly was so simple that it would have been difficult
to disguise any trickery, such as a hidden power source, especially as the
reporter was quoted as being “a former research scientist” and presumably
no dummy. This particular claim is further substantiated by the fact that
Johnson was reported to have convinced the US Patent Office by demonstrating
a working model which they played with for half an hour, and we assume that
the examiners were not totally naïve either. Although Johnson registered
several other patents on related inventions up until 1995, the device was
mysteriously never commercialised and news about the Johnson device simply
dried up.
The inventors and promoters of purported free energy
devices are generally recognised as falling into one of three main categories.
The first category is the largest: the straight-out charlatans and con-men,
out to make a profit by accepting investment funds from a gullible public.
The second group encompasses the amateur (and sometimes not-so-amateur) scientists
who are truly deluded and despite professional investigations and measurements
that show nothing unusual is happening, continue to truly believe that they
actually do have an over-unity device. Often, of course, members of this
group will commit large sums of money and years of work to these projects
and, although they may eventually accept that the devices will never work,
after so much effort and disappointment they slip into making consciously
exaggerated claims and eventually become members of the former group.
And then there is the third group, very tiny by
comparison with the first two. These are the people who have constructed
and tested a device that yields reproducible results that are consistent
with over-unity operation, and have furthermore allowed the device to be
tested by reputable, independent third parties who in turn have not been
able to demonstrate that the results are in error. Notice that we have not
said that the device has been proved to be genuine over-unity, but simply
that third party testing has not been able to demonstrate that it is not. This is an important distinction.
An Australian
Example. An interesting indigenous example of one of these categories
first came to this writer’s attention in 2001 during a visit to the remote
Daintree Rainforest area of
Newspaper articles extolling the technology with
pictures of the inventors and their relatively large, expensive-looking prototype
appeared regularly in local newspapers and potential investors reportedly
swamped the pair with offers of money to start production. An article in
the Cairns Post of
The inventors had calculated the input power to
their machine by simply measuring the static resistance of each of the machine’s
three magnetic coils at 1 ohm and the current flowing through each from a
battery bank supply during operation at 0.6 amps. For a simple, continuous
direct current, a derivation of Ohm’s Law (V=IxR,
which can be expressed as watts=I2xR) correctly indicates that
power of 0.36 watts was being drawn by each of the three coils for a total
draw of 1.08 watts. The problem was that the current through the coils was
not a simple, continuous direct current but was continuously
undergoing make-and-break conditions in this apparatus similar to that in
a commutator-type DC motor, and this condition generates an inductive ‘back-EMF’
which requires MUCH more power to overcome. Bryce showed that the power consumption
should have been calculated by simply multiplying the 48 volts from the batteries
by the 0.6 amps of current, giving a power draw of 28.8 watts per coil or
a total of 86.4 watts for the three. As the output power from the device
was measured at 28.3 watts, we now have the much more believable performance
of 33% efficiency, which is not even as high as a typical electric motor!
Because of the enthusiasm with which information
was provided by the inventors, Bryce states that he feels they probably genuinely
believed that their device was over-unity up to this point, although it seems
that as one of the inventors was a professional electrician, the elementary
electrical calculation mistake is hard to rationalise. Whatever the reason
for the original mistaken claims, when the mistake was pointed out, this
is where the story of the device should have ended — but it didn’t. The inventors
simply refused to accept the explanation and have since continued to promote
the prototype as a successful device. This is the point at which disillusionment
can turn many honest but misguided experimenters into frauds. We cannot say
that this is what happened in this particular case, but the fact that over
three years after it was shown not to work, the inventors’ website (http://www.lutec.com.au/updates.htm)
is still defending the design and promoting the technology does not inspire
one to be charitable in this instance. What appear to be legitimate claims
that they simply plagiarised the design from the published literature of
a
Claims from
Evidently Respectable Sources. One of the largest, most
credible and well structured organisations that have emerged in recent years
that addresses the free energy question was founded
by a former medical practitioner, Dr Stephen Greer. It has the meaningful
title of the Disclosure Project and was set up originally to promote the
organised disclosure of suppressed information regarding mainly the
“This thing, if you can imagine as I’ve described
it operating, put out energy at 60 hertz, 110 volts, correct amperage, ran
whatever we wanted to plug into it and did so for as long as we left it to
do so. Now this is something which, in all my experience going all over the
world studying this, I have never witnessed anything like this. … But the
astonishing thing is the relative simplicity of it. I know that this device
had to have weighed less than twenty pounds [9 kg], that it was small, no
more than a foot to a foot and a half in diameter [30-46 cm]. We could see
straight through it, see all the components of it, no hidden battery or energy
sources and it operated as I described it. … We hope to have that [ie. readied for public demonstration] done in the
next few months and known by the public certainly this year and hopefully
mid-year.”
Dr Greer further stated that the test run had been
conducted after carrying the device “out onto the sidewalk” to eliminate
the possibility of a fraudulent external energy supply and that several hundred
watts of power were produced for as long as they wished to test it. Coming
from an evidently professional person with an investigation team including
several reputable PhDs, these are compelling claims. Many followers of these
events would have been counting the days until the latter half of 2003 when
the public unveiling of this device was assured to us, but it was not to
be. A year later in December of 2003, Dr Greer was again interviewed on the
same radio network, this time by Art Bell. When asked for an update on the
events reported earlier, Dr Greer said: “[on] the first of March we had a
private jet loaded to go and pick up this gentleman and the device and bring
it back to a secure facility here, near our place here outside Washington.
… A corporate lawyer and a business person that had been associated with
this inventor stopped the whole transfer dead in its tracks. … The claim
was that there was someone who was not being taken care of by the inventor
who was supposed to be taken care of in the agreement that he had. In reality,
we’re not sure what was behind it.” In the intervening few months it is disappointing
that there does not appear to have been any further announcements on continuing
progress with this situation. We are just left wondering.
Is There a
Conspiracy of Suppression? There is certainly no
shortage of claims and reports of successful free energy machines, many of
these from apparently reliable sources, but ultimately we have to ask the
burning question: do real, practical, thoroughly authenticated examples of
free energy devices actually exist and, if so, where can we examine one;
or even better, BUY one? After so many years of pursuing the concept by so
many people and with so many apparently credible reports of success, it seems
quite extraordinary that such devices are not freely available on the market.
When we analyse a large number of cases, a frustrating pattern seems to emerge.
If the inventors are not shown to be frauds or simply deluded, published
reports of a particularly promising device just seem to dry up and the inventors
drop from the spotlight and apparently go into oblivion.
If they can be contacted, they often refuse to comment or at best
appear evasive on the issue. What is happening here?
Apart from the possibility that free energy devices
simply do not exist, the reason for this may be that the proponents of the
conspiracy theories are in fact on the right track. This group suggests that
the mighty energy cartels comprised of oil, coal and electricity producers,
both private and national, have a lot to lose from the introduction of free
energy devices and have conspired to prevent them from being commercialised
by whatever means necessary. As Lord Macaulay put it over a century ago,
“If a big enough commercial interest were threatened, even
Many experimenters in the field are claimed to
have mysteriously disappeared or died from drug or alcohol overdoses or unforeshadowed heart attacks which, if true, would
certainly seem to suggest that something sinister might be occurring. A very
recent example involves Dr Eugene Mallove, one
of the most active crusaders in trying to convince the US Department of Energy
(DoE) to officially recognise the existence of the cold fusion phenomenon,
which is closely related to free energy. After finally succeeding in getting
the DoE to agree in March 2004 to re-examine the mass of virtually incontrovertible
data supporting cold fusion with a view to funding research in the area,
Dr Mallove was murdered in a ‘botched robbery’
on 14 May 2004. A clear message to the head of the DoE to be careful in what
it intends to say about the technology, perhaps.
If these sorts of deeds are in fact occurring,
it is hard to believe that it could be happening without the knowledge of
government agencies, which implies their complicity. But what incentive could
the government of a large westernised country possibly have for such activities?
Consider the following scenario for a clue. You’re walking along the beach
one day and stumble on an interesting old bottle. You pull out the cork and
WHOOSH, a genie emerges and says: “We’ll have to skip the traditional three
wishes — I can only do one thing. At your command, I have the power to make
available to everybody on Earth a little magic box for a few thousand dollars
that will produce all the electricity, heat or vehicle power that they could
ever use. No provisos, no downside. All you have to do is say the word and
it’s done!” What would you do? Your first reaction
might be “Yes, do it!” But think again. You would initiate massive world-wide
social disruption by throwing tens of millions of people out of work for
starters. With a magic energy box in every home, car and aeroplane, all the
oil, gas and coal companies of the world and every fossil fuel, nuclear or
even hydroelectric power station and manufacturer of internal combustion
engines would begin sacking people and scrapping their massive infrastructures.
There would be unprecedented international political destabilisation as countries
dependent on fossil fuels for revenue were ruined overnight.
Of course, a couple of decades down the track,
all the displaced workers would have been redeployed in wonderful, clean
new industries created by the availability of safe, incredibly cheap energy
and wars fought over energy resources would cease, but those first years
after your ill-conceived ‘Yes’ response to the genie would be truly devastating.
No government leader would want to preside over such a chaotic situation
and in a democracy they would prefer to leave the decision to the next leader.
In whatever light the available evidence for free energy appears, it behoves us to keep an open mind on the subject.
When we consider some of the spooky conclusions that modern quantum mechanics
theory and experiments lead to (for example, that the simple application
of our consciousness somehow affects the physical state of certain sub-atomic
particles and consequently the outcomes of real events in the macro physical
world), then by comparison the idea of an omnipresent and inexhaustible energy
source just waiting for technology to harness is not all that difficult to
entertain.
An earlier version of this article first appeared
in the TODAY lift-out of The West Australian,
Zero Point
and the Paranormal
By Simon
Harvey-Wilson
A decade
or two ago zero point energy was not associated with the paranormal or consciousness
research. For example, Dr Richard Broughton’s Parapsychology: The Controversial Science
(1991) or Dr Harvey Irwin’s An Introduction to Parapsychology
(1994), one of the few parapsychology textbooks in existence, do not even
mention zero point energy. For years parapsychologists
have known that ESP, such as telepathy, clairvoyance or remote viewing, and
psychokinesis (PK) can transcend time and space, but they had no physics
theories to explain them. Then it was suggested that
because consciousness might have something to do with the quantum realm,
an explanation for psi (a collective term for ESP and PK) might be found
there. But few physicists want to be associated with
psi research, and few parapsychologists are experts in quantum physics. This means that for years it has been difficult to find
informative books which discuss research that links consciousness, the paranormal
and modern physics. This brief article will recommend
a few books that I have come across that do discuss these matters. The first is Michael Talbot’s The Holographic
Universe (1991). Talbot links psi, consciousness,
UFOs and physics in an informative, not-too-technical manner. His main theme is the concept of ‘non-locality’ which
is best illustrated by the hologram. Unlike a normal
photograph or transparency, if you cut a hologram into several pieces, each
bit still contains an image of the whole picture. Some
people may find this hard to believe, but even a mainstream physicist will
tell you that it is true. To put it simply, data about
the hologram’s complete image is stored in each part of it, thus illustrating
the meaning of ‘non-locality’. The suggestion is that
at some level the whole universe may work in a non-local fashion because
physicists have shown that ‘entangled’ sub-atomic particles can communicate
with each other faster than the speed of light over any distance. If some aspect of consciousness involves the quantum realm
then that might help explain the non-local nature of ESP and some forms of
PK. It is as if the mind can access a universal super-Internet
that transcends time and space. Talbot acknowledges
that the idea that at some level the universe is non-local is not new. For thousands of years mystics,
yogis and shamans have claimed that it is possible to access a spiritual
state of consciousness that transcends normal reality, and it is interesting
that such people often develop paranormal abilities. Without
actually using the term zero point energy, Talbot (p.51) explains that every
cubic centimetre of empty space is thought to contain astronomical amounts
of energy.
The next
recommended book is Ervin Laszlo’s The Whispering Pond (1996). Laszlo is a scientist who writes clearly and poetically. He uses the term ‘holofield’
to describe the zero point field that underlies
the whole of reality and is brave enough to claim that “In the emerging vision
living organisms are linked with one another, interrelated by the holographically information-conserving and -transmitting
field that pervades the universe. They all communicate together, dance the cosmic dance with
each other” (p.206). Laszlo does not discuss
PK, but he does suggest that “Matter as well as mind have evolved
— out of an entirely remarkable common womb: the zero-point energy field
of the cosmic quantum vacuum” (p.207).
Without using the term zero point, the parapsychologist
Dr Dean Radin, who used to be Director of the
Consciousness Research Laboratory at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas,
discusses the connections between consciousness and the paranormal, including
non-locality (p.158), and the traditional suggestion that “The ultimate stuff
of the universe is consciousness” (p.255), in his excellent book The Conscious Universe, (1997).
Lynne McTaggart’s book The Field (2001)
is a comprehensive journalistic exploration of zero point field research
from a biological, healing and psychokinetic perspective.
As the cover claims, the book “is a highly readable scientific detective
story which reveals how the Field is responsible for many of the most profound
human mysteries, from alternative medicine and spiritual healing to extra-sensory
perception and the collective unconscious”.
Nick Cook’s
book The Hunt for Zero Point (2002) will be of interest to
ufologists. Cook is an aerospace consultant for Jane’s Defence Weekly and, as his subtitle says, the book is
about “One man’s journey to discover the biggest secret since the invention
of the atom bomb”. Cook claims that highly classified
German research into subjects such as anti-gravity was secretly passed on
to the Americans at the end of WWII and has remained secret ever since. Cook’s investigative journalism is thorough although,
while reading the book, I kept wondering why he had been permitted to publish
this information, or whether some of it was disinformation. At first I could not understand why the title referred
to zero point if Cook was writing about anti-gravity research. Later he explains that “Since the zero-point energy field
is composed of billions of tiny fluctuations of energy that pop in and out
of existence every split second … anything that can mesh with these fluctuations
… can tap into them and extract energy from the field” (p.336). This means that by ‘perturbing’ the zero point field appropriately
one may tap into something that can counteract gravity, distort spacetime, create an explosion, or just produce ‘free’
energy. One interesting question is whether paranormal
events are the result of consciousness perturbing this field. The possibilities of zero point research seem extraordinary
and even frightening, and may revolutionise modern science, which might explain
why aspects of the subject still seem to be classified.
References
Broughton,
Richard. (1991) Parapsychology: The Controversial Science.
Cook, Nick. (2002) The Hunt for Zero Point.
Irwin,
Laszlo, Ervin. (1996) The Whispering Pond.
McTaggart, Lynne. (2001) The Field.
Radin, Dean. (1997) The Conscious Universe.
Talbot, Michael. (1991) The Holographic Universe.
Western Australian
Sightings
Compiled
by Brian Richards
With the
recent loss of the European Space Agency’s Mars explorer, Beagle 2, one must
be forgiven for thinking that someone ‘out there’ wishes to be left alone. Of course such a suggestion is the stuff of conspiracy
theory and should never be taken too seriously unless irrefutable proof dictates
otherwise. But one can’t help recalling the mysterious
losses of the Russian Phobos 1 and Phobos 2 in 1988. Phobos 1 was lost en route to Mars but Phobos 2 had already undertaken some experiments and
was about to land a package of instruments on the moon Phobos, when, according to retired Russian test pilot,
Marina Popovich, a mysterious object, casting a shadow on Mars, approached Phobos 2. All transmissions
from the satellite ceased, never to be heard of again. In
fact, Popovich has openly displayed the satellite’s
final images and sure enough a long cylindrical shape is clearly shown. NASA’s Mars Observer was launched on
Sightings
in WA are certainly less than a few years ago, but worldwide there seems
to be as much activity as ever. Flying triangles are
reported from
THE REPORTS
Monday, 3 March,
A man we shall call ‘Barry’ called to relate an incident which
happened in 1967. He is now 44 and was eight at the
time, living with his family between Mukinbudin and Bullfinch, WA. It was a warm night and the family were sitting out by
a wheat field. There was a full harvest moon which
appeared huge. Suddenly the ‘moon’ dropped down to
ground level about 50 metres away. It seemed to change
into the shape of a large sea container. A door at
the visible end dropped down and formed a ramp. At
first the family were extremely frightened and huddled in a group, but only
very briefly. Their fear changed to almost willing
acceptance. A brilliant white light emerged from this
rectangular box and a humanoid figure appeared coming
down the ramp towards them. Barry’s last conscious
memory was going up the ramp with his family (mother, father and brother)
and the stranger. He next remembers finding himself
back with his family in the wheat field. They got up
and went into their farmstead. The incident has never
been discussed to this day. I suggested to Barry that
hypnotic regression might unlock some hidden events from that time, but he
is not keen to delve deeper. Barry does recall the
real moon was in the sky that night but not in the same place as the impostor.
Inedia: Surviving Without
Food or Drink
By Simon
Harvey-Wilson
A brief
article in The Australian newspaper (Mon, 1 Dec 2003) describes
how a team of doctors at Sterling Hospital in Ahmedabad,
in the Indian state of Gujarat, spent ten days monitoring a 76 year-old hermit
called Prahlad Jani,
who normally lives in a cave and claims not to have eaten or drunk anything
for 68 years since, at the age of eight, he received a blessing from the
goddess Ambaji. More details
about Prahlad Jani
are available at the BBC News (world edition) website at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/3236118.stm According to the hospital’s deputy superintendent, Dr
Dinesh Desai, while Jani
was under observation, he consumed nothing and “neither did he pass urine
or stool”. Surviving without eating or drinking is
called inedia, and has been attributed to numerous
yogis and Christian mystics throughout history, such as the stigmatic Theresa
Neumann (1894-1962), who is mentioned in Yogananada’s
Autobiography of a Yogi (1974, p.418) and Patricia Treece’s book The Sanctified Body
(1993, p.180). The question is how does inedia work? How does paranormal
or spiritual power provide energy to all the body’s organs and muscles, and
where does it come from? Will all humans one day learn
to live without food, as some aliens appear to?
Journey of
Souls: Case Studies
of Life Between Lives.
By Michael Newton. (1994)
Destiny of
Souls: New Case
Studies of Life Between Lives.
By Michael Newton. (2000)
Book reviews
by Arthur Pope.
From the
beginning of time, humankind has asked the big question: Is there life after
death? For millennia the answers were strictly controlled
by the various major religions. Any deviation from
their dogmas could result in excommunication as a heretic or even burning
at the stake as a witch. It was only with the arrival
of the so-called Age of Enlightenment that investigations became possible,
although it was not until the middle of the nineteenth century that serious
research began with the founding of the Theosophical Society. Well-known public figures such as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle,
creator of Sherlock Holmes, were involved in these investigations with mediums
or channellers as they are called today. This research continued into the twentieth century with
the founding of the Society for Psychical Research and the Marylebone Spiritualist
Association in
During the
second half of the twentieth century there was a change of emphasis to research
into near-death experiences (NDEs), alien and
abduction phenomena and out-of-body experiences (OBEs). All
these came together and were compared in Professor Kenneth Ring’s remarkable
book, The Omega Project (1992), named after Pierre Teilhard de Chardin’s
concept of the Omega Point in his book The Phenomenon of Man
(1965). With the dawn of the twenty-first century,
things seem to have changed again, and the ‘other side’ seems keener to open
up and give us more information. Channellers such as John Edward now have prime-time
television programmes, and his books Crossing Over (2002)
and After Life (2003) are now best-sellers, as is Life on the Other Side (2000) by another channeller called Sylvia Browne, who also does personal
counselling.
The problem
with channelling is that, by its nature, believers will always believe, and
sceptics will always throw up questions like: Is this all imagination, or
mind-reading from the sub-conscious? Professor John
Frodsham, in a recent talk to the Australasian
Society for Psychical Research, also raised the question: Can we be sure
the spirits contacted are who they say they are? This
matter was summed up rather well by the twentieth century mystic, Gurdjieff, who described channelling as ‘fishing in
muddy waters’.
A new book
recently published seems to change all this and provide another perspective
on research. Dr Michael Newton, the author of Journey of Souls (1994) is a hypnotherapist
in private practice who has developed his own
technique of hypnosis to reach his subjects’ hidden memories of the hereafter. After ten years of research using this technique, and
with several thousands of taped sessions to draw on, Dr Newton paints a remarkable
picture of our situation in the other world and how it relates to this one.
What appeals
to me is the extraordinarily open-ended picture which emerges of creation
and life in all its forms. This is done almost entirely
with case studies and a linking commentary of real insight.
Essentially the case studies illustrate, in different
chapters of Journey of Souls, death and departure, orientation
on arrival in the spirit world, levels of souls, preparation for a new incarnation,
and rebirth. Most of the time life on the other side
is concerned with examining one’s own immediate past life in all its aspects,
and deciding on a new life which will give the possibilities of correcting
the deficiencies shown in the assessment of one’s immediate past life. Although we choose a particular new life, this does not
imply an absence of free will in that life because there are choices to be
made when we have already committed ourselves to the new life.
In Newton’s second book, Destiny of
Souls (2000), he goes into more detail of certain aspects of the other
world such as dealing with the grief of those left behind, the true nature
of ghosts and demons, soul group systems, how judgement really works, study
and recreation on the other side, and training for special roles in the spirit
world. Not all souls reincarnate and not all souls
reincarnate on this planet but, in some cases, on others.
These books will open your mind to the extraordinary
scope of this universe and the many others there may be.
Yet, although the ideas are truly mind-blowing in what they reveal,
in some ways they seem strangely familiar — and have had a ready acceptance
by some dedicated Christians, Muslims and Buddhists to whom I have lent these
books. Also, older people facing death have found
great comfort in these books when they have been unable to accept traditional
religious teachings about the Afterlife. So, although
the sceptics will always find reasons to dismiss such claims, I think these
books of Dr Newton’s mark a real breakthrough in the study of alternative
realities.
References
Browne, Sylvia. (2000) Life on the
Other Side: A Psychic’s Tour of the Afterlife.
Dowding, Hugh. (1943) Many Mansions.
Edwards,
John. (2002) Crossing
Over: The Stories Behind the Stories. Princess Books.
Edwards,
John. (2003) After
Life: Answers From the Other Side. Hay House.
Mack, John.E. (1995) Abduction: Human
Encounters With Aliens.
Ring, Kenneth. (1992) The Omega Project.
Teilhard de Chardin,
End of Journal