After the physical examinations, the abductees were made to dress and enter another room, which had a round portal in one of its walls. They were lined up and made to walk into the portal. Strange sensations surged through their bodies as they found themselves floating down the hollow beam of light into their canoe, which was now floating in shallow water at their campsite. The tube-like beam of light seemed to hold the canoe steady as each person was placed in it, in the same seating position that they were in prior to their abduction.
Artist’s impression of Jim and Jack Weiner on a bench, in the UFO, with one of the aliens
As the hypnosis sessions continued, much detail was recovered about their onboard experience. Also, it was discovered that the twins had undergone bedtime visitations by alien creatures and had abduction experiences since early childhood—in addition to being abducted a number of times during their adult life. These experiences were relived in vivid detail while under hypnosis.
Their UFO experiences left physical evidence behind in the form of burns on the bottom Jack’s feet. Jack also received a biopsy-like scoop mark above his ankle during one of his adult abductions. The scoop mark was located just above a scar left behind during an operation for an anomalous lump that had appeared overnight on Jack’s leg. Jack’s local doctor thought it was a cyst, but was unable to drain it, so referred Jack to a surgeon who removed it.
Jack was told that local pathologists did not know what it was and that it had been sent to the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta, Georgia, for further analysis. However, when Jack’s medical records were checked, it was discovered that the removed object was sent to military pathologists in Washington, D.C., where it was analyzed by a United States Air Force Colonel. Attempts for further information about the anomalous lump were thwarted, as the surgeon would not cooperate with the inquiry.
In addition to character checks of the four abductees, a number of other checks were made to ascertain witness credibility. Medical records, camping diaries and photographs were examined. Friends and relatives that first heard about the experience were interviewed. The head forest ranger who supervised matters on the Allagash Waterway was located. He remembered the incident and had reported it to the then active Dow Air Force Base located in Bangor, Maine.
Psychological profile tests were administered to each abductee. Each was also subjected to polygraph tests. All of these checks indicated that the four percipients were honest and telling the truth about their experience.
The many-faceted and intriguing elements of the Allagash abductions also provided a catalyst for a detailed correlation of the witnesses’ experiences with benchmarks exhibited in other abduction reports being investigated and studied. Such reports were derived from an exhaustive survey of 270 reported UFO abductions in the United States and abroad by Dr. Thomas E. Bullard of the University of Indiana. It was found that the four abducteas had experienced many of the typical benchmarks of the UFO abduction phenomenon.
A number of alternate theories for the abduction phenomenon were also examined in light of the Allagash abductions. These included hoaxes, fantasy-prone personalities, psychoses, birth-trauma memories and archetypical images form the so-called “collective unconscious.” Each of these was critiqued and eliminated in the light of the evidence collected dueing the investigation.
The final 10-volume investigative report was made available to other researchers for peer review. Public information about the case was accomplished through Ray Fowler’s 1993 book, The Allagash Abductions, a Time-Life book on the UFOabduction phenomenon, and several TV documentaries.
Charlie Foltz lying on the examination table; Jim and Jack sitting on a bench
Fowler’s report concluded that the moral character of the witnesses, the graphic reliving of their experiences under hypnosis, and the extraordinary correlations between their experiences and those of others provided overwhelming evidence that their experiences were objective in nature. Such evidence combined with the positive results of polygraph and psychological tests, together with the typical physical effects found on the witness’s bodies, prompted Ray Fowler to place the Allagash abductions in MUFON’s great significance category.
—RAYMONDE. FOWLER
Allende letters The mystery of the so-called “Allende letters” arose in 1956, when an annotated copy of Morris K. Jessup’s book, The Case for the UFO (1955), arrived at the Office of Naval Research (ONR). It looked as if three men (named “Mr. A.,” “Mr. B.,” and “Jemi”) had passed the book among themselves, adding handwritten notes to Jessup’s text. Jessup also reported that he had received a series of letters from Carlos Allende (a.k.a. Carl M. Allen). The letters and annotations seemed to indicate that the writers had some special knowledge of UFOs and alien cultures beyond that of any government on Earth.
The story, as it is usually told, begins when the book arrives at the ONR. Some researchers have claimed that Navy officers, after carefully studying the text, became extremely interested and contacted Jessup. By that time, Jessup had already received the letters.
The Navy, according to the story, requested and received permission to reproduce the book in a limited edition. The original text was printed in black and the notations in red. All the letters sent by Allende were included as an appendix.
During the next several years the Navy allegedly spent taxpayer money, time, and a great deal of effort researching the incident. Navy investigators reportedly looked for Allende but failed to find him. Post marks suggested Seminole, Texas, Gainesville, Texas, and DuBois, Pennsylvania, as locations for Allende.
The letters concerned the alleged teleportation of a Navy ship from its dock in Philadelphia to the a dock in Virginia and back again during the Second World War. The experiment, allegedly witnessed by Allende, who claimed to be a member of the crew, was mentioned only in a single brief article that appeared in a single Philadelphia newspaper. Allende supplied neither the date nor the name of the newspaper so that this aspect could not be corroborated.
Allende claimed that the experiment was a success but the people were failures. Over half the crew was lost during the experiment, and the rest suffered from a variety of strange side effects. Some, according to Allende, were “mad as hatters,” while others would “go blank,” or “get stuck.” Allende said they would seem to disappear or “freeze” on the spot.
The notes added to Jessup’s book were no less confusing. Terms like “mother ship,” “great war,” “force cutters,” “magnetic and gravity fields,” and “sheets of diamonds” were used. The notations explained what happened to the men, women, ships, and planes that have disappeared in various locations around the world. Allende and his friends seemed to explain many things that no one else had been able to solve.
Sidney Sherby, an officer at ONR in 1956, told researchers in the 1970s that the reprinted annotated book was not part of a Navy project as tradition demanded, but a private investigation by men who happened to be in the Navy. No one officially at ONR thought much about the case. They were not going to waste time on an obvious hoax. It meant that members of the Navy, acting on their own as private citizens, had been interested. The Navy had no objection with the reproduction as long as it involved no Navy personnel, time, or finances. The fact that they were employed by the Navy shadowed them, giving rise to the rumor of official Naval interest.
Jessup, who had a financial stake in the Allende Letters, and who saw them as a way of revitalizing his sagging career, never learned the truth. His search came to an end on April 29, 1959, when he was found dead in a Dade County, Florida, park. His death was ruled a suicide.
The whole story should have ended in the 1970s when Jim Lorenzen announced that the whole thing was a hoax. According to a letter written by Lorenzen: “He [Allende] was on his way to Denver… and after talking to us for hours, admitted he had made up the whole thing. We even obtained a signed statement by him saying that it was a hoax.”
William Moore and Charles Berlitz rejuvenated the
tale with the publication of The Philadelphia Experiment (1979). In it, they even reprinted the famed newspaper article but in a break from journalistic tradition, not a single name appeared in the article. Once again the newspaper itself and the date were missing so that no corroboration could be found.
In the years that followed, several men have come forward claiming they were involved in the experiment. However, not one has ever provided documentation that they were on the ship. In one case, a man claimed the Navy had altered his life so that it would seem he was not involved.
In the end, Allende’s confession that he had invented the tale, Sherby’s explanation of what happened at the ONR, and the lack of any evidence that the experiment had taken place should have killed the story. The case has smacked of a hoax from the beginning, and no evidence has ever been offered to suggest otherwise.
—KEVIN D. RANDLE
References
“Allende Letters a Hoax,” The A.P.R.O. Bulletin (July/August 1969).
Jessup, Morris K. The Case for the UFO (The Citadel Press/Bantam Books, 1955).
Moore, William L., and Berlitz, Charles. The Philadelphia Experiment (Grosset & Dunlap, 1979).
Randle, Kevin D. “Allende Letters” in Story, Ronald D., ed. The Encyclopedia of UFOs (Doubleday/New English Library, 1980).
Steiger, Brad, and Whritenour. New UFO Breakthrough (Award Books, 1968).
America West Airline sighting On the night of May 25, 1995, veteran Captain Eugene Tollefson and First Officer John J. Waller, in charge of America West Flight #564 on a routine trip from Tampa, Florida, to Las Vegas, Nevada, encountered a UFO. At 10:25 MDT, two-thirds of the way through its planned four and one-half hour flight, the Boeing 757 was cruising smoothly at 39,000 feet, and passing near Bovina, Texas. A stratus overcast stretched some 8000 feet below the aircraft while to the northeast an active thunderstorm cell loomed, topping off some 1000 feet above it.
Suddenly the attention of the lead flight attendant, sitting in the cabin behind the pilot, was drawn to a line of flashing lights in the sky to the north of and below the airliner. Both the flight attendant and first officer then observed a horizontal row of eight strobe-like lights, flashing on and off in a sequence from left to right.
Appearing “bright white with a tint of blue” and having the brilliance of landing lights, the row seemed to be at an altitude of 30,000 to 35,000 feet. Although Capt. Tollefson had to leave his seat to observe the lights, he too noted their sequencing from left to right. Ultimately, the westward progression of the airliner caused the UFO to be situated in front of the thunderhead, whose lightning discharges silhouetted the strange object. Seen from this aspect, the UFO appeared to the first officer as a dark wingless cigar 300 to 400 feet long, with lights disposed along its length, and perhaps 22 miles distant. Tollefson felt the object might have been closer, with a 400-to 500-foot length. The object was in view for approximately five minutes.
UFO observed by America West pilots (Drawing by Susan Swiatek)
Although the air crew immediately contacted the Albuquerque Air Route Traffic Control Center to report the sighting, a flight controller stated that no unknown object was being picked up on radar; several airplanes in the vicinity of Flight #564 likewise were not able to spot the strange strobing lights. NORAD’s western headquarters, alerted by Albuquerque ARTCC to the presence of the unknown aircraft, initially indicated they were tracking a nontransponding radar target in the vicinity of Flight #564. However, NORAD subsequently received a transponder code identifying this target as a specific aircraft.
Longtime researcher Walter N. Webb, working with a grant from the UFO Research Coalition, conducted an extensive investigation of the Flight #564 incident, ultimately acquiring the voice tape communications between the 757 and Albuquerque ARTCC, but was unable to resolve the UFO as any known meteorological phenomenon or manmade aircraft. It remains unexplained.
The case was profiled in 1995 on the TV show Sightings and is detailed in a report by Webb published by the UFO Research Coalition.
—ROBERT SWIATEK
Anatomy of a Phenomenon (Henry Regnery, 1965). Jacques Vallée begins his distinguished career as a UFO investigator and theorist with this book, analyzing historical reports of UFOs to discern common themes in the effects on machines and people. Among his many astute observations: the period 1914 to 1946 featured few UFO reports, yet it was “one of the richest periods in science fiction stories of all kinds.” This leads him to believe there is little substance to the notion that UFO rumors are spread by public intoxication with science fiction ideas.
—RANDALL FITZGERALD
Ancient Astronaut and SETI Society (AAS) Originally known as the Ancient Astronaut Society (founded in 1973 by Dr. Gene Phillips), the AAS is the principal organization that supports the ancient astronaut theory of Erich von Däniken, et al. The AAS organizes conferences, seminars, and field trips, some of which are guided by von Däniken himself.
Their main areas of interest are quoted as follows:
• The origins of life on Earth
• The origins of intelligence on Earth
• The origins of religions
• The original core of global mythologies
• The description of gods in ancient texts
• The depiction of :judgments of the gods” in prehistoric times
• The legendary ancient kings and ancestors in old Sumerian texts and sacred scriptures
• The vanishing of religious and mythological beings “into the heavens”
• The issue of God and the Devil, the ancient symbols of good and evil
• The promises of a “return” in all religions and the fear mankind has of this event
• The time-shift mentioned in a number of ancient texts
• The construction and motivation of structures from prehistoric times for which there is as yet no explanation
• The earliest offerings for the appeasement of the gods
• The origins of ancient religious symbols and cults
• The origins of related rock carvings around the globe
• The origins of similar figurines of gods
• The origins of worldwide giant ground drawings and hill figures which are designed in such a way that they can only be seen from the air
Membership is the AAS is open to all.
Address:
P.O. Box 818
Ithaca, N.Y. 14851
U.S.A.
Address:
CH-3803 Beatenberg
Switzerland
Web site:
www.aas-fg.org
ancient astronaut theory The ancient astronaut or space-god theory proposes that intelligent, humanoid beings from outer space came to Earth in the distant past, created man in their image, and then went on to develop human civilization. Reports (i.e., legends and references by early historians) of ancient UFOs and alleged biblical UFO sightings are generally assumed by space-god proponents to be connected with ancient astronauts, thereby making it a theory of ancient contactees.
Author Erich von Däniken, the most popular spokesman for the movement, states the theory as follows: “In prehistoric and early historic times the Earth was visited by unknown beings from the Cosmos. These unknown beings created human intelligence by a deliberate genetic mutation. The extraterrestrials ennobled hominids ‘in their own image.’ That is why we resemble them—not they us. These visits to Earth by alien beings from the Cosmos were recorded and handed down in religions, mythologies and popular legends. In some places the extraterrestrials also deposited physical signs of their presence on Earth.” (Von Däniken’s Proof, 1978)
Hints of the theory can be found in the writings of Charles Fort, who once said “we are property,” in the context that extraterrestrial beings might be watching over us earthlings as a farmer would cattle or sheep. Another early proponent of ancient astronauts was astronomer Morris K. Jessup, who began to develop the idea in his book The Case for the UFO (1955).
To von Däniken, this rock painting from Tin-Tazarift in the Tassili mountains most likely represents an ancient astronaut “wearing a close-fitting spacesuit with steering gear on his shoulders and antennae on his protective helmet.”
Could this 14th century fresco from the Desani Monastery in Jugoslavia represent an ancient space traveler?
Although there is nothing absurd or impossible about the idea that ancient astronauts could have visited the Earth, the theory suffers from a lack of evidence that unambiguously links anything with extrater-restrrials. Discrepancies found in the books of von Däniken and others who have supported the ancient astronaut thesis can be categorized, for the most part, as follows: (1) speculations built on grossly inaccurate or misleading premises; (2) playing the game “it looks like”; and (3) omissions of pertinent information that if known would indicate a very different conclusion.
For example: a Mexican sarcophagus lid that supposedly depicts a man piloting a rocket is actually a deceased Mayan ruler by the name of Lord Shield Pacal who, in the stone carving, is shown against the background of a corn plant (which has been verified by comparisons with other examples of Mayan art); the giant statues on Easter Island, which proponents of ancient astronauts claim could only have been constructed with the aid of extraterrestrials, are known to have been carved by the natives themselves (verified by experiments conducted by Thor Heyerdahl on his famous Easter Island expedition in 1955-56); and a series of events (related by von Däniken in Chariots of the Gods?) interpreted as an “eyewitness account of a space trip” supposedly contained in the Epic of Gilgamesh that, upon reading the entire Gilgamesh epic, one does not find!
The Mammoth Encyclopedia of Extraterrestrial Encounters Page 12
