by Joe Nickell
References
BBC program, “County File,” 1988. Oct.
Blitzer, Morris J. 1990. Interview by Joe Nickell, Aug. 28.
Chorost, Michael. 1991. Circles of note: a continuing bibliography. MUFON UFO Journal, 276: 14–17, April.
Daugherty, Charles T. 1990. Interview by Joe Nickell, Aug. 28.
Delgado, Pat, and Colin Andrews. 1989. Circular Evidence. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Phanes.
Donnelly, Sally B. 1989. Going forever around on circles. Time, Sept. 11, 12.
England perplexed by crop–field rings. 1989. Denver Post, Oct. 29. Field of dreams. 1990. Omni. Dec., 62–67.
Fuller, Paul. 1988. Mystery circles: Myth in the making. International UFO Reporter. May/June, 4–8.
Grossman, Wendy. 1990. Crop circles create rounds of confusion. Skeptical Inquirer 14: 117–18.
Johnson, Jerold R. 1991. Pretty pictures. MUFON UFO Journal 275:18, March.
Johnson, Larry F. 1991. Crop circles. Georgia Skeptic, 4(3), n.p.
Kinder, Gary. 1987. Light Years. New York: Atlantic Monthly.
Levengood, W.C. 1994. Anatomical anomalies in crop formation plants. Physiologia Plantarum 92: 356–63.
McGuire, Donna, and Eric Adler. 1990. More puzzling circles found in fields. Kansas City (Missouri) Star, Sept. 21.
Meaden, George Terence. 1989. The Circles Effect and Its Mystery. Bradford–on– Avon, Wiltshire: Artetech
———.1989–1990. A note on observed frequencies of occurrence of circles inBritish cornfields. Fortean Times, 53: 52–53, winter.
Michell, John. 1989–1990. Quarrels & calamities of the cereologists. Fortean Times, 53: 42–48, winter.
Mystery circles in British cornfields throw a curve to puzzled scientist. 1990. Newark Star–Ledger, Jan. 10.
Nickell, Joe. 1996. Levengood’s crop–circle plant research. Skeptical Briefs 6.2 (June): 1–2.
Noyes, Ralph. 1989. Circular arguments. MUFON UFO Journal 258:16–18, Oct.
———, ed. 1990. The Crop Circle Enigma. Bath, England: Gateway.
Pearce, Dennis. 1991. Report to Joe Nickell. July 21.
Pickering, Keith. 1990. Unpublished monograph, Dec. 3.
Randles, Jenny. 1991a. Nature’s crop circles nature’s UFOs. International UFO Reporter, May/June, 14–16,24.
———. 1991b. Measuring the circles. Strange Magazine, 7: 24–27, April.
Randles, Jenny, and Paul Fuller. 1990. Crop Circles: A Mystery Solved. London: Robert Hale.
Sann, Paul. 1967. Fads, Follies and Delusions of the American People. New York: Bonanza.
Schmidt, William E. 1991. Two “jovial con men” take credit (?) for crop circles. New York Times, Sept. 10.
Shoemaker, Michael T. 1990. Measuring the circles. Strange Magazine, 6:32–35, 56–57.
Story, Ronald D. 1980. The Encyclopedia of UFOs. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday.
A witness from Whitness. 1989–1990. Fortean Times 53: 37, winter.
Chapter 11
Cult of the
“UFO Missionaries”
Marshall Herff Applewhite (1931-1997) and Bonnie Lu Trousdale Nettles (ca. 1927-1985) were styled “UFO missionaries extraordinary” in a 1976 book by that name compiled by ufologist Hayden Hewes and paranormal pulp writer Brad Steiger (Hewes and Steiger 1976). The story of Applewhite and Nettles is a bizarre tale of fantasy that led eventually to psychosis and to the annihilation of an entire cult.
Fantasy Proneness
In their pioneering study of the fantasy-prone personality, Sheryl C. Wilson and Theodore X. Barber (1983) stated that, as suggested by their research data, “individuals manifesting the fantasy-prone syndrome may have been overrepresented among famous mediums, psychics, and religious visionaries of the past” (371). Wilson and Barber found that they could use biographies of mystics—like Helena P. Blavatsky (1831-1891), the founder of Theosophy—to determine whether or not such a person had the requisite fantasy characteristics. Discovering in the affirmative in the case of Madame Blavatsky, Wilson and Barber reported: “When we look further back in history, we find that famous psychics and mediums of the past also had the characteristics we have found in fantasy-prone subjects” (371). Sixteenth-century occultist Jerome Cardan, visionaries Joan of Arc and St. Bernadette of Lourdes, and others, like Christian Science founder Mary Baker Eddy (who talked with spirits), exhibited the traits of fantasy proneness. Also, “almost all [of their research subjects] who had many realistic out-of-the-body experiences and all who had the prototypic ‘near-death experience,’” were fantasy prone (371-72).
I found numerous fantasy-prone characteristics among a group of persons who believed they had been abducted by aliens (Nickell 1996). Subsequently, I have been applying Wilson and Barber’s suggestion about famous mystics to a number of contemporary and historical individuals, ranging from psychic sleuth Dorothy Allison and the prophetess Jeane Dixon, to faith healer Kathrynn Kuhlman, hierophant Aleister Crowley, and “sleeping prophet” Edgar Cayce. In each case, after I determine from biographies or autobiographies that the person was fantasy prone, I then write a short life history of him or her, being sure to include in the sketch sufficient evidence of the fantasy traits. I have considered fourteen po-tential characteristics from Wilson and Barber for these “fantasy-assess-ment biographies” (as I call them):
(a) being an excellent hypnotic subject,
(b) having imaginary playmates as a child,
(c) fantasizing frequently as a child,
(d) adopting a fantasy identity,
(e) experiencing imagined sensations as real,
(f) having vivid sensory perceptions,
(g) reliving past experiences,
(h) claiming psychic powers,
(i) having out-of-body or floating experiences,
(j) receiving poems, messages, etc., from spirits, higher intelligences, and the like,
(k) being involved in “healing,”
(l) encountering apparitions,
(m) experiencing hypnagogic hallucinations (waking dreams), and
(n) seeing classical hypnagogic imagery (such as spirits or monsters from outer space).
I have considered the possession of six or more of these characteristics to indicate fantasy proneness.
The following is an example of a fantasy-assessment biography. Actually it is a combined biography of the two “UFO missionaries” who founded Heaven s Gate, the cult whose adherents shocked the world with their mass suicide in Rancho Santa Fe, California, in 1997.
Marshall Applewhite was the son of a domineering Presbyterian minister of the same name. Little is known of his childhood, but he was born in Spur, Texas, in 1931. He was, his sister said, “very outgoing and caring” as a child (Winant 1997). In 1948, he graduated from Corpus Christi High School, then attended Austin College and, briefly, Union Theological Seminary in Richmond, Virginia, where he studied sacred music. In addition, he served in the U.S. Army Signal Corps. He received a master s degree in music from the University of Colorado and was choir director at a Presbyterian school in Kingsville, Texas. Subsequently, he held the same post at several other churches (Hewes and Steiger 1976, 24-27). At some point, Applewhite married and became the father of two children.
From 1966 to 1970 he taught at the University of St. Thomas, a Ro-man Catholic school in Houston, and frequently sang with the Houston Grand Opera. In 1970, however, he was granted a “terminal leave of absence.” According to a St. Thomas spokesperson, “He was an extremely talented musician who had health problems of an emotional nature” (Hewes and Steiger 1976, 24). The following year he reportedly checked into a Houston hospital, asking to be “cured” of homosexual desires. By this time he was divorced and had been living with a male companion. He was also “suddenly hearing voices,” and he had a vision in which he was given knowledge about the world (Fisher and Pressley 1997; Hewitt et al. 1997). According to Newsweek, “He told his sister he had suffered a ‘near-death experience’ after a heart attack, but he may actually
have suffered from a drug overdose, according to Ray Hill, a radio-show host in Texas who knew Applewhite at the time. ‘He was kind of a Timothy Leary type,’ said Hill” (Thomas et al. 1997, 31).
During this period, Applewhite met a nurse named Bonnie Lu Trousdale Nettles. They shared an interest in astrology and believed they had been acquainted in earlier lives. Nettles, who was four years his senior and married with four children, shared an asexual relationship with Applewhite, who at some point underwent castration. Early in their association they claimed to be channeling an apparition, the spirit of a nineteenth-century monk named Brother Francis, whom Nettles had been communicating with even prior to meeting Applewhite. They would later claim that anyone who followed them would have a spirit or guardian angel to direct them in perfecting their meditation (Sachs 1980, 153; Hewes and Steiger 1976, 37). According to one biographical source, “Herff experienced unnerving astral voyages at night, and he and Bonnie werein daily contact with unseen forces and entities… Both Herff and Bonnietold of vivid dreams in which beings from UFOs urged them to abandon their earthly lives” (Balch 1982, 37).
The Two
The couple set out on a tour of the United States, during which time they formulated their flying saucer religion. They saw their mission revealed in chapter eleven of the Book of Revelation, which told how two messengers from the heavens would prophesy “a thousand two-hundred-and- three-score days, clothed in sack cloth.” The two would then be killed, but they would return to life in three and a half days, ascending into heaven in a cloud that Applewhite and Nettles believed was actually a UFO. Calling themselves “The Two,” they began to recruit followers at special meetings. Converts were expected to renounce family ties and give away all their worldly possessions in anticipation of the UFO voyage. This was predicted to occur in six months; when it did not, many disillusioned followers deserted the cult, while Applewhite and Nettles responded by extending the deadline for the expected events.
When The Two were briefly arrested on auto theft charges in 1974, Applewhite, who was sentenced to four months in jail, reportedly told the prosecutor that “a force from beyond the earth” made him keep the car (Hewitt et al. 1997,40). Interviewed in 1974 by Hewes, both “Herff” and “Bonnie” claimed to be aliens from “another level” (Hewes and Steiger 1976,68). “The Two” also referred to themselves as “Bo and Peep,” due to their role as extraterrestrial shepherds. At times during the interview, Applewhite “would go into a trance-like state” (70). This was apparently explained in a later interview with Brad Steiger when they claimed that their “Fathers in the next kingdom” communicated with them “men-tally” (84). As special messengers of God, they taught that the body could actually be “healed” from death and taken to “the next level” (89).
Their imaginings were apparently quite real to them. One interviewer came away convinced that “what they’re talking about and what they’re preaching about they believe in one-hundred percent” (quoted in Hewes and Steiger 1976, 77). Step by step, of course, they were creating their own reality. After Nettles died in 1985, Applewhite continued to lead the cult. Then came Comet Hale-Bopp and an amateur astronomer’s photo of a “UFO” apparently trailing behind. Although this was actually a distant star, Applewhite and his followers apparently saw it as their long-awaited ride into the heavens. Dressed in their identical, asexual manner with short haircuts, the eighteen men and twenty-one women packed small bags of their belongings and committed suicide in shifts, eating drug-laced applesauce or pudding and lying on their bunk beds to await the prophesied encounter.
There is, I think, sufficient evidence to warrant the conclusion that both Applewhite and Nettles were fantasy-prone individuals, each exhibiting several characteristics from the above list (he: a, d, e, h, i, j, 1, and m; and she: d, e, h, j, k, 1, and m). Eventually, however, Applewhite completely lost contact with reality and became psychotic. A psychiatry professor who studied videotapes of his final statements concluded he was delusional, paranoid, and sexually repressed (Fisher and Pressley 1997). Thus did fantasies of the paranormal lead to gruesome reality.
References
Balch, Robert W. 1982. Bo and Peep: A case study of origins of messianic leadership. In Millennialism and Charisma, edited by Roy Wallis. Belfast, North-ern Ireland: The Queens University, 13-72.
Bearak, Barry. 1997. Odyssey to suicide. New York Times, April 28, cover story.
Fisher, Marc, and Sue Ann Pressley. 1997. Cult leader evolved from being married, gay to antisex prophet. Washington Post, reprinted in Buffalo News, March 29.
Hewes, Hayden, and Brad Steiger, comps. and eds. 1976. UFO Missionaries Ex-traordinary. New York: Pocket.
Hewitt, Bill, et al. 1997. Who they were. People, April 14,40-56.
Internet, radio may have inspired belief that UFO trailed comet. 1997. Associated Press, Buffalo News, March 28.
Nickell, Joe. 1996. A study of fantasy proneness in the thirteen cases of alleged encounters in John Mack’s Abduction. Skeptical Inquirer 20(3): 18-20, 54.
Sachs, Margaret. 1980. The UFO Encyclopedia. New York: Perigree, 152-53.
Thomas, Evan, et al. 1997. The next level. Newsweek, April 7, 28-35.
Wilson, Sheryl C., and Theodore X. Barber. The fantasyprone personality. In Imagery: Current Theory Research and Application, edited by Anees A. Sheikh. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1983.
Winant, Louise. 1997. Interview on ABC’s Good Morning America, March 28.
Chapter 12
The Electronic Poltergeist
In the late 1990s, a strange entity calling himself Sommy harassed an Emeryville, Ontario, family for months, supposedly using “high-tech” means to stalk Debbie and Dwayne Tamai and make their lives miserable. As reported on Dateline NBC, the harassment began with the telephone—at first clicks, like someone was on the other extension; then the Tamais’ calls would be disconnected whenever they attempted to phone out. Things got worse when the couple went on a vacation, leaving their fifteen-year-old son Billy in the care of a house sitter and friend, Cheryl McCaulis. Now the power went off and on intermittently, although the power company could find nothing amiss. Then the password (pin number) on the voice mail was changed, although Bell Canada officials declared that impossible.
As the disturbances increased, Cheryl began keeping a log, even recording some of the noises made by Sommy. He made obscene and threatening calls, claiming he was watching the house. On other occasions he would just cut in on the line and make burping or grunting noises. By weeks end he had cut the telephone lines. When the Tamais returned from vacation, they had trouble believing their friend. Soon, however, Debbie had herself talked to Sommy. “It was freaky,” she said. “The first time I heard him, I’ll never forget him. My hair stood on ends, my arms—I was goose bumps, it was just the—the meanest voice.” Asked why he was doing this, Sommy replied, “I just want a friend.”
He reportedly learned to control the TV set, and he used the Tamais’ telephone number to call others and harass them. He changed the ringing device on the Tamais’ phone so that it sounded strange. Worse, he even devised a way to eavesdrop on the family, telling them things, they insisted, that he could only learn by monitoring their every word—from information on Debbie’s birthday to the Tamais’ bank card pin number.
According to Dateline, “So far no one, not the police, not the utility companies, not private surveillance teams, or even a former member of the Canadian Mounties, has been able to find this not-so-friendly ghost. Though not for the lack of trying. The Tamais believe Sommy got into their house while it was under construction… and planted devices they’ve ripped out walls trying to find. Or they think he could have tapped into a line down the street with so many wires above ground in this still un-finished subdivision. In fact, experts tell us with all the digital and com-puter technology these days, it is theoretically possible.” Dateline teamed up with the Discovery Channel to hire a private security firm, to take—as reporter Chris Hansen put it—“our own
shot at ghostbusting.” But after more than six hours, the team was forced to announce they had discovered nothing.
Unfortunately, Dateline failed to enlist the real ghostbusters. Some of us at CSICOP headquarters, and no doubt elsewhere, formed a hy-pothesis as soon as we saw the program. We realized that many of the phenomena described, such as the eavesdropping, could have been accomplished more easily by someone in the house, negating such an elaborate hypothesis as that involving highly sophisticated electronic wizardry. We also knew that such mischief is typically due to a disturbed youngster in the household. For example, the mystery behind several fires that plagued an Alabama house was solved by the confession of the family’s nine-year-old son. He had had a simple motive: he wanted his family to return to the city from which they had recently moved. In another case—in a Louisville, Kentucky, home—boxes, bottle caps, and other objects were hurled about. Eventually an eleven-year-old girl admitted she was responsible for the trouble. Her mother was away, in a hospital, and the girl had felt neglected and needed attention. But she said, “I didn’t throw all those things. People just imagined some of them” (Nickell 1995, 82- 92). To catch a culprit, investigators have used a variety of techniques, ranging from use of dye powder (which stains the hands of a person touching a treated object) to hidden cameras. (One revealing film sequence, featured on Arthur C. Clarke’s Mysterious World series, portrayed a little girl, caught flagrante delicto, smashing an object.)
