Barbara: The Story of a UFO Investigator

by Fielding, Peggy; Bartholic, Barbara

  The first panel they’d discovered was comprised of seven huge spirit figures which float six feet off the ground. To their right an even longer panel shows other spectral figures floating above smaller images of men and animals, almost like gods lording over their subjects.

  In addition, right here in Tulsa, they’d seen a cigar shaped craft hovering above their own home. For some reason their story struck a chord in me. Suddenly, I too became terribly interested in extraterrestrials. I burned to know more. I was struck by an inner command that I “heard,” but only mentally. “Reveal everything you can about the contact of Alien life with earth people.” I didn’t know where that command was coming from.

  I didn’t know that that segment with the Wiesendangers discussing art and UFOs was my to be my last show until afterward. When they’d gone my Producer called me in and told me the station was dropping the show and “releasing” me because of my insistence on allowing my guests to speak freely on whatever subject they wished and the producer was disturbed by my interest in UFO or other occult subjects. I was history at the TV station as of that moment. I had been so up, so happy with the program I’d just finished that it was hard to take in his words. He was firing me?

  I picked up what few things I had in the studio, touched the cameras on my set one last time, then limped my way home that day. I was overcome with sadness but my family still had to eat so I stopped by the grocery store in Turley. I found a whole group of TV Today Magazines lined up on the newsstand and I saw myself looking back from it. I was that month’s cover girl. The feature story praised me and my show, a show which no longer existed. I was impressed with the irony of the situation but I could never bring myself to return to that particular TV studio, not even for a visit.

  After I fed my family that night I didn’t want to put a damper on the kids playtime with their daddy so I went out to the backyard and perched myself on the log fence. I could see the pasture spreading out before me under the quarter moon surrounded by a sky full of stars. Filled with depression and a sense of failure. I looked up into that sky and I don’t know what came over me as words to my higher power poured out of me.

  “Well, if you want me to give extraterrestrials publicity then you’re going to have to show me a way to do it.” I spoke aloud. “The TV show is done.”

  Even though my TV show was lost I continued with the gallery... for a time.

  Three rather blue days after my release from the television station, an acquaintance dropped into the gallery and told me he’d heard of my dismissal. He insisted that I take a block long walk with him to meet his friend who was into movies and TV. His friend was just then planning to open a studio for independent television production. We walked to the studio and for the first time I met Bill Blair. I felt it only fair to tell him what had happened to me at the TV station. He didn’t seem to mind.

  “They didn’t know a good thing when they had it.” He smiled and went on, “I’m interested in the extraterrestrial phenomena. I’ve had some experiences myself. You want to come to work for me?”

  My heart rose and I accepted on the spot with the proviso that I would have time to close the gallery and get all the works back to their owners.

  Many of Oklahoma’s best artists had found homes for their works in my gallery. Sometimes a temporarily homeless artist would find The Barking Dog to be a refuge for his body as well. One such refugee let the water run... and run and run, through the floors and down the wall. All the carpeting ruined, the pictures ruined, everything ruined.

  That’s when I really lost heart for displaying artist’s work so without too much pain I decided to go ahead and close the gallery. I’d been keeping the gallery open and working for Blair as well. I decided I would go on with the job with Bill Blair. I truly wasn’t sorry I had opened the Barking Dog. If I hadn’t started the gallery I might never have had the experiences which I received later on.

  Not long before my business place was ruined by a careless artist’s bath water, only a short time before I had to close it, I was standing in the main room at the gallery going through some art show invitations I was readying to hand out. Two people stepped into the room. For a moment light seemed to blaze around the figures of the man and woman and I lifted the invitations to shield my eves against the glare.

  “May I help you?”

  The man held a printed sheet toward me. Across the top of the page was printed “UFO II.”

  “What is this?” I put the invitations down and took their brochure into my hand.

  “There’s going to be a lecture at the library. Two people from outer space are going to be talking.”

  I looked at the brochure again. I remembered my reaction to the Weisendanger’s suppositions about the cave paintings and carvings. Longings to know about UFOs flooded through me. I couldn’t believe that it seemed so important to me.

  “Give your notice to me, please. I want to go to the lecture myself and I’ll put the notice right up here on the gallery bulletin board so everyone can see it.” I looked carefully at them again. “Could I make a tape of you two? Film an interview?”

  When they agreed I walked them the block to Bill Blair’s studio and he alerted his crew for the interview. After the taping, the two strangers chatted for me for a time and then turned to leave. They had explained during the interview that they were disciples of two people, extraterrestrials, a man and a woman called Bo and Peep.

  “Oh, yes. I’ve heard of them. Will Bo and Peep be coming? Could we tape them too?”

  “Who knows? Have your camera ready when you come to the library and we’ll see.”

  I watched the two disciples leave, then back at the gallery I carefully read the brochure through again. Disciples of Bo and Peep? Coming to Tulsa? They were to give their message from outer space at the library on Sunday? No question. I would be there. Excitement drove out all lasting visages of my depression. There were a thousand things I wanted to ask those particular people.

  On Sunday afternoon I readied myself and my camera crew, drove to the City-County Library at Fourth and Denver, and waited. Again I looked upward and breathed a prayer, “Let them come. If you want me to tell about you, let them come.”

  Halfway through the program with the same two people who had appeared at The Barking Dog doing the talking and answering my questions, a disturbance from the back of the auditorium turned everyone in that direction. A woman stepped inside the door, followed by a man. I recognized them and goose bumps raised on my arms.

  It was Bo and Peep.

  # # #

  Bo and Peep and all their disciples were extremely intelligent, trained professionals from one field or another. Lawyers, doctors, engineers, computer programmers, teachers. All had left everything behind to follow Bo and Peep. Most of them had their hair neatly trimmed, cut short and combed and they were dressed as inconspicuously as possible. During our interviews we learned that Peep (the woman) was considered the one with far more ancient knowledge. She was elevated to the highest position in the organization. She was the one with all the wisdom, the one considered to be the being with the most knowledge on the level above human knowledge.

  The disciples had been told to wash their hair with cold water each morning to disperse negative influences or spirits. The people who were Bo and Peep’s followers, like all mind control groups, were quite wary of outsiders. A thread that remains consistent with all cults, past and present, is the insistence that they alone know the truth. Only through their “truth” can anyone be able to reach heaven. Bo and Peep told people that the only way to reach the level above human, where Jesus resided, was to be a part of their group. They didn’t demand money, only allegiance, from people who were struck with their message. Members had to walk away from everything in their lives to follow Bo and Peep through a nomadic existence. They did this in order to become acceptable in the realm above human.

  They posed this question: “If you are going to take guests on a UFO, people that you will be livi
ng with for the rest of your life, what sort of people would you want to be with?” Makes a sort of sense, of course. No sex in this cult. They went through ordeals to prove their perfection and worthiness for the move to the level above...to heaven, as some people call it. When the group was to be taken to this level (on the UFO) and when they reached real perfection they would have proven themselves.

  I was certainly impressed with the group. They practiced perfection and I observed that they were impeccable in their manners and their knowledge of their various kinds of work. They even communicated with each other mentally. Bo gave them what instruction and information they needed. Peep rarely spoke.

  When I was interviewing these people I would go home at night and Bob, who had heard some of their lectures, and I would talk and question each other. Were these disciples real? Were they telling us the truth? Should we choose to go with them? They made everything credible to us. The whole thing began to be a reality to us. Bo and Peep claimed to be the two witnesses mentioned in the Bible, the two who would be murdered and who would rise again in three days.

  One night a group of friends visited my house. I told my visitors about the group’s belief. I said, just being flippant, “It almost makes you want to shoot them to see if they’ll rise again.” I didn’t mean that, of course. When I said that, a large ceramic plant holder about four feet in circumference and three feet in height, holding a large fig tree, exploded as if dynamited. The whole thing flew into a million pieces. It also made a huge sound. The eight people there didn’t see the plant explosion because it was behind the group but we all sat back and took notice of the strange occurrence, afterward.

  # # #

  There had been a golf pro in Oklahoma City who had left his wife and family to join the disciples. His wife was regretful but understanding so, before he moved into his new life, the man’s wife prepared a dinner for Bo and Peep and the followers in her home. At dinner, when she brought food to the table she froze. The reason for her paralysis was the huge purple aura that extended three and a half feet out from Bo’s body like a deep violet halo of light from his waist up to the air above his head. She was struck dumb by the display.

  The people in the group had telepathic abilities and people who were associated with them, such as the families left behind, were given signals that would enable them to get in touch with someone in the group should it become necessary. One woman, whose husband had decided to follow Bo and Peep, had been told by Bo and Peep that if she would say the Lord’s Prayer with a special sentence at the end, she could contact them. Soon after her husband was gone, the woman realized that her husband had accidentally taken a credit card which she needed. She remembered the instructions and even though she was a nonbeliever she tried the prayer and the special sentence. Moments after she had said the last word of that special sentence the telephone rang and a highly placed man in the organization asked, “What is it that you want?”

  I was impressed, I must say, with these stories and with the people themselves and with everything I saw and heard them do.

  # # #

  In his film archives, Bill Blair still has almost the only existing evidence of the existence of Bo and Peep, hours and hours of taped interviews of the two people who later became so notorious as leaders of the “Heaven’s Gate” group. After Peep’s death, Bo later led their group into mass suicides. They had taken the names “Do” and “Ti” several years after our taping of their plans. Our tapes showed them telling how they and their followers were to be taken up into UFOs where they would establish their new homes. At that time they were expecting to be taken up from somewhere near an Oklahoma Lake.

  I haven’t heard from Bill Blair for a long time but after the Heaven’s Gates’ suicides my co-author learned that he was contacted by national news organizations. The out-of-towners were asking about using our Bo and Peep interviews on national programs, according to stories that appeared in our local news media. I haven’t yet heard as to whether a deal was struck or not.

  Chapter 8

  PAST AND PRESENT COME TOGETHER

  At the close of the six-hour video documentary which I did with the self designated space travelers, I heaved a sigh of relief that the whole affair was over at last. To get six good hours, of course, we’d had to tape many hours with the two leaders of the cult. Anxiety had ridden on my shoulder throughout the taping even though we’d spent a number of days, almost two weeks, interviewing Bo and Peep several hours each day. We were informal and relaxed with the two but I was always wary. Anxiety was my constant companion during the taping. At home that last day I spoke to Bob about the interviews because of my inner worry.

  “Their energy was indescribable. But I was so scared, Bob.” I dished out another piece of fried chicken for him and potatoes as well, then I did the same for each of the girls. “They told me after we finished the tape that we couldn’t show it to anybody. Not until I have their okay on showing it.” I thought he looked at me a bit strangely then he asked why they didn’t want to show the tape and so did the kids.

  “Well, I don’t know. That’s just what they told me and believe me, I don’t care. I’m not going against their wishes.” I stepped away from the table and rushed toward the bathroom to pull a brush through my hair. Just talking about showing the tape made my scalp tingle and I’d found brushing would sooth me. I came back to put food out for myself. “This whole thing is just too weird.”

  Several weeks later a friend asked me if he could see the file on Bo and Peep. I said “no” so he went over my head and asked my boss. Bill decided to go right ahead and show the tape without getting the UFO people’s permission. I made myself join the two of them in the studio and once again I explained about the warning I’d been given by Bo and Peep about showing the tape without their permission. Neither of the men paid the slightest bit of attention to my words. As the film started I again felt the hair on the back of my neck rise in fear and at that very second the hugely expensive studio television camera/set blew up and caught fire. Luckily, we had copies of the tape so that much was rescued from the disaster. It took a long time for Bill to get over that loss.

  I continued happily working with Bill Blair in his new production studio. I still wanted to slip in a few interesting UFO people now and again and he seemed interested. However, my next objective shocked my producer. When he heard that I wanted to interview author Harold Sherman, he called me into his office. Inwardly I was quaking. I remembered, vividly, the last time I’d been required to confer in a producer’s office. Something like being sent to the Principal’s office, I thought.

  “Barbara, I don’t want you to fool around any more with this hopeless thing. Can’t we find someone else to tape?”

  “But Harold Sherman is one of the most famous psychic investigators in the world! And he’s going to be in Little Rock, Arkansas.” I lifted my hands in a gesture that meant I was begging for this opportunity. “That’s practically next door. We may never have another chance like this. We have to do at least a short piece on him, don’t you think?”

  My boss laid his head on his arms on his desk in a moment of silence then finally raised his head to look at me. He stared at me for a long beat. I had to feel sorry for him but I couldn’t give up this dream.

  “Barbara, you’re going to be the death of me yet but I guess you’re right.” He shook his head in doubt. “Harold Sherman is big. Why he would let an unknown little studio like ours conduct an interview with him is more than I can fathom.”

  “Maybe he’ll let us do a documentary on him, as well.” I tried to cheer the man up. “Wouldn’t you like our new studio to land a promise to allow a documentary on such a famous person?”

  “Yeah. I would. But first make him promise that our cameras won’t burst into flames.”

  # # #

  I had no way of knowing it then but Harold Sherman and I would become good friends and colleagues later on. (Editor’s note: In his book How To Picture What You Want, Sherman repeated
two anecdotes Barbara shared with him. See Appendix A.)

  Several days after our talk, Bill and I had made that appointment to see Harold Sherman. Bill went along with me to the Little Rock hotel where Sherman was staying. Although he was my friend and producer, Bill had given me the distinct impression that he didn’t trust me to do the job right with such a famous person, not without his supervision anyway.

  “Honestly, Barbara,” The producer held the door and then followed me into the building. “You know he’s not going to do it. I mean, well, why should he? We’re small potatoes to him.”

  “Uh huh,” I said to him, not really listening. I led the way down the corridor. Something seemed to be driving me toward the meeting with Sherman, no matter what my fears were. “That’s what you said before I called for the interview.” I looked back at him. “Remember? ‘He’ll never see us,’ you said. And here we are.” I glanced down at the paper in my hand. “One sixty... okay. It’s this way.” I turned and followed the hallway to the left. “Well,” I think I was talking to reassure myself as much as him. “Turned out he’s going to see us and who knows? He just might agree to us doing a documentary as well.” I looked at the paper again. I noticed my hand tremble but I paid no attention. We were going to do this no matter what. “All right. Here it is. Room 169. Now smile, and quit being so negative.”

  Even as I gave him instructions on behavior I couldn’t help thinking he might be right. I tapped lightly on the door and put my own smile on. After all, Harold Sherman was world famous.

  A few moments later, introductions over, I was sitting with my employer and Mr. Harold Sherman, internationally known psychic, author, and para-psychologist. He turned out to be a pleasant, low key, older man with a cherubic face. My producer was looking a little overwhelmed but he was at least making a valiant effort to carry on a conversation.