by Timothy Good
Barbara was instructed to remove her clothes, place them in a “sanitizer” compartment (in common with the Dworshak brothers and others), and then to stand before a six-foot-high black screen. “She was told to put her hands at shoulder height and her forehead against the screen. The voice said, ‘Keep your eyes shut, and press the activator button.’ She had the sensation of being illuminated, until a tone stopped. This process was repeated in the reverse position, with hands on hips.
“On instruction, she removed a suit from a locker. The material felt soft—like a liquid. She donned the suit, zipping it from wrist to elbow, ankle to knee, and from waist to shoulder. The suit had a wide belt, with metal bars, about three inches long, around the entire waist. Carrying a helmet, she walked into ‘central control,’ where she was met by four humanoids.
“Two of these beings, a man and a woman, were quite human-looking and appeared to be identical. They both had light brown-blond hair, with flecks of gold throughout, in a ‘geometric’ cut. Their eyes were the color of topaz and their pupils had serrated edges. They had honey-color complexions. Both wore the same type of garment with some type of insignia (whose appearance Barbara could not recall).
“The two other beings contrasted sharply—both with each other and the first pair. One was about four to four and a half feet tall, with well-defined pupils in slanting eyes. His head was disproportionately large for his body, his frame thin and gangling with long arms. His complexion was pale—almost translucent. He wore a white suit.
“The fourth creature was quite tall, with ebony skin, full mouth, blue, slanted eyes, larger than those of the first two, and a Roman profile. His suit was black.”
Their ages were indeterminate. Portraits of them, as shown in slides to the Yucca Valley UFO Club, depicted the “human” pair as well-endowed physically.
“Since they spoke in a language unknown to Barbara,” Shawn’s report continues, “the woman came forward to serve as a translator. At this point, Barbara was moved to tears, but after recovering her composure was given information about the ship and its occupants. She was also given an arrowhead-shaped device out of which the language of the occupants came out as English, having been translated by the main computer and relayed to the object held by Barbara.
“Like everything in the ship, the ‘translator’ had a crystalline appearance and was said to be ‘photochromic glass.’1 By means of this device, Barbara was told that the ship had an outer and inner shell, with seven ‘pressure’ panels on the outside. These panels were plated with gold 1.25 hundredths of an inch thick. Between two gold layers was a layer of silicon. It was possible to see out clearly, but not in [as reported by the Dworshak boys]. The computer was made of pure rock quartz, 47% silica and 53% oxygen.
“The ship had a central cylinder containing an all-crystal interior cylinder. Graphite fibers provided reinforcement at stress points. The fuel was carried in a lower portion in a sort of ‘cloud chamber’ and consisted of plasma and electromagnetism. The temperature of the central portion was 0.01° greater than absolute zero. The computer stated that plasma was the first state of matter in the universe. The vehicles produced their own external clouds. Their communications were by neutrinos that traveled faster than light. When the speed of the neutrino decreased to that of the speed of light, it ‘died’ and remained in a cloud until reactivated.
“In their charts, communications, and central section, glass fibers were used to bend light, and with lasers to make holographic images, so that the crew could see outside the entire ship.
“A disc about the size of a silver dollar, called a hologram disc, was put in a small panel with a viewer. This disc contained the contactee’s ‘life readout’ and voice-print. The voice-print was displayed on the oscilloscope screen on the small panel. On a large circular screen was displayed her form, with its ‘Kirlian’ aura.2 She was told to look closely, and could observe the ‘chakras’ associated with various glands. ‘Certain humans emit low-frequency radiation,’ she was told, and was informed that when the vibrations and the mind were in exact accord, the individual’s psychic abilities were heightened.”
Barbara was asked if she would agree to be a “coordinator, transmitter, and receiver.” Her mind, said the aliens, would be taught to receive signals in codes, color, pictures, emotions, music, and symbols. She replied that she could not and—like Leonard Mantle—asked why they did not make contact with someone more educated. They replied that it was “difficult to make contact because such people did not have time to meditate and attain the serenity to elevate their minds.” An undisclosed geographical factor was also said to be involved.
“She was told that they were more or less innovators and hoped to make communications possible between our world and worlds older than ours which were more advanced, as well as with younger worlds. Some of the older worlds were becoming so mechanized technically that they desired interchange to gather as much as they could of nature.” A corollary here can be inferred in the case of Julio Fernández and his dog, who were abducted by tall humanoids in the province of Soria in Spain, in February 1978. They explained to Julio that they were seeking the “warm human qualities” which had atrophied in their race. “They didn’t have a Beethoven” was how Julio put it.3
Barbara was also informed by the aliens that they wanted a mixture of our people, such as astrophysicists and doctors, to visit their world. “She was then given ‘perception tests’ to determine her response to novel sights. One scene, in space, appeared as if the observer was moving through the stars. The stars forward were blue and green and formed oval bands of color. The stars to the side were yellow and went by like elongated streaks to disappear in back with a reddish color. She was then asked to count flashes of dots on a screen and to give the apparent degrees of the dots shown (in positions like the numerals of a clock). Other tests involved describing shapes.
“Additional technological information revealed that the photo-chromic glass and films were five times lighter, but seven times stronger, than steel. Under pressure, the outer hull of the ship would weld back together if scratched. The hull acted as a heat conductor so that they could enter the clouds of Jupiter and Venus.”
“You will be led,” Barbara was told. “You will know those to talk to and those not to. You will not find this a pleasant thing. Your mind can be trained, and will be.” Barbara replied that she would not do it. “We think you’ll change your mind,” came the reply.
“The boarding procedure was then repeated in reverse,” Shawn relates. “The ramp let Barbara down and then retracted. The craft began to spin and took off slowly. She found that her watch had stopped and recalled that she had been warned to take all metal from her body. She then retraced her steps back home, where she asked the lady in the adjacent apartment, Evelyn Whitfield, what time it was, and was told 2:30 a.m.
“Barbara reported that after the experience her teeth became sensitive, she needed new glasses, and that various electrical devices in her apartment appeared to have been affected. Her TV set needed degaussing; certain tapes no longer played properly—nothing would play soon after—and the refrigerator freezer stopped working….”4
Chapter Thirteen
Amicizia
Spanning at least forty years, this is the saga comprising a large group of people in countries such as Argentina, Austria, Chile, France, Germany, Italy, Siberia, and Switzerland who were involved in an extensive alien liaison program. In Italy, those most deeply involved named the group Amicizia (pronounced ami-cheet-siya)—“friendship.” In Germany, France, and the former Soviet Union, it was known respectively as “Freundschaft,” “Amitié,” and “Дpyжбa.” The most extraordinary case I have ever investigated, it is at times outrageous, farcical, and ludicrous—though always compelling. I would not be including it here were I not convinced of its relevance to our assessment of aliens and their motives regarding Earth.
Preliminary contacts seem to have be
en initiated in Italy in April 1956. One of those first contacted was the late Professor Bruno Sammaciccia, a Catholic scholar who authored 160 books on religious matters. Holding degrees in psychology and psychiatry as well as many academic and theological awards, he also contributed extensively to a history of Amicizia, compiled by Professor Stefano Breccia and another major participant, Hans (surname withheld), though sadly both Bruno and Hans passed away prior to publication.
Stefano, who died prematurely in March 2012, was also deeply involved with the group, from 1962/3 to 1997, and many of his experiences were shared with colleagues and friends—in particular Giancarlo De Carlo, an accountant. One of the most remarkable men I have met, Stefano generously allowed me to quote from his book Mass Contacts, from my numerous interviews with him at his home in Italy, and from our regular communications. As he wrote in a foreword:
“All of us were moved by the deep morality and sincere humanity on the part of the aliens. These were people who simply could not imagine doing any evil to anyone, people who liked eating well, drinking, even smoking, who enjoyed playing the violin [in one case] and tennis, and driving luxurious cars and executive airplanes (in the 1970s, when very few people in Italy could own a personal plane)…. They lived most of the time in their huge underground bases, but some of them lived among us, inside our society, playing every kind of role in it. One was a university researcher, another one the manager of a rather important textile company in the center of Italy, a third one was a senior manager in one of the largest German telecommunications (TLC) companies, and so on….
“It was an explicit decision by the Amicizia people to keep everything concealed under the strictest secrecy, and there were very good reasons for that. Actually, once in a while something would emerge publicly, but always in a vague and uncertain way. Many European scholars were aware that something was happening … but nobody, outside our group, has ever had even the slightest idea of how big and how important it all was.1
“We had direct, face-to-face meetings with the Friends (also called W56), who are extraterrestrials coming both from planets in our own galaxy [and] from other galaxies,” a participant who prefers to remain anonymous told researcher Nikola Duper in 2008. “Here on Earth they reached the maximum number of two hundred, living inside underground and undersea bases, some of them along the Adriatic coast, at a depth of about twelve miles. The first, ‘historical’ base was located under the area of Ascoli Piceno, a small town in central Italy [in the mountainous Marche region].
“‘Friendship’ gathers together various extraterrestrial populations that are different from each other, both as regards physical characteristics [and] provenance (there are Friends from other universes and dimensions). However, all share a fundamental choice toward ‘Good.’ … The population whom we personally interacted with is composed of individuals (men and women, like us) who are physically very beautiful, some about three meters [9.84 feet] tall, while others are tiny…. What is important is what they represent, beyond the various typologies and endless ‘folkloristic’ singularities…. The Friends are not the only extraterrestrials who have come to the Earth. Individuals from various other populations are among us, because the Earth is a very particular planet inside the economy of this part of the Universe.”2
There is, reportedly, an ongoing conflict between these species regarding the future of our planet.
The humans involved—hand-picked by the aliens—were not cranks. Professor Breccia, for example, was a retired expert in artificial intelligence and computer sciences, and has given lectures on didactical methodologies at the British Telecom training center, and on fractal analysis at the University of Novosibirsk and the Soviet Academy of Sciences. He was also a qualified pilot. Amicizia, he confirmed, included a psychiatrist, two cardiologists, the respected aerospace journalist Bruno Ghibaudi, the distinguished diplomat Alberto Perego (who authored several pioneering books on UFOs), an archaeologist, some twenty engineers, several accountants, an expert in military logistics, bank employees, two members of the United Nations Food & Agriculture Organization, five university professors, a Court of Assizes judge, the executive vice-president of one of the largest multi-national companies in the world, two future Nobel laureates, four generals, and a few politicians.3
Others included Gaspare De Lama, a well-known Italian painter, and Professor Paolo Di Girolamo, a distinguished cartoonist I had the pleasure of meeting in Rome, who gave me a copy of his book in which his experiences are recounted.4
The Early Italian Scene
According to Bruno Sammaciccia and his friends Giulio, an engineer, and Giancarlo, an accountant, a series of poltergeist-type phenomena, including “automatic writing” of elaborate instructions, preceded initial in-person meetings with the aliens, which happened in April 1956. The group had been directed via a map to the Rocca Pia castle (Fortezza Pia) overlooking Ascoli Piceno. Nothing happened on this occasion, although the group felt suffused with “euphoric sensations of well-being and health.” The following day, they drove to the top of the road leading to the castle. “All of a sudden we saw some spots of light moving in the [evening] air,” Bruno reports. “We heard a voice, coming from nowhere, a very calm and strong one: ‘Now, my friends, stay calm, because I am going to have one of us appear. Are you ready?’”
Giulio expressed concern that strangers might observe what was going on. “Be sure that while our friends are with you, nobody else will be allowed to intrude,” the voice explained. “If they do, we will divert them.” A man then emerged from behind the castle wall, followed by another. One of the men was very tall, the other very short. “We were just in front of the main entrance, and they came toward us, speaking our language perfectly,” reports Bruno. “As they approached, we saw that one of them was more than 2.5 meters [8.2 feet] tall, and the other about one meter [3.3 feet] tall. The latter had a high-pitched voice, as dwarfs often do, but his body was perfect and his voice that of a man of authority.”
With very few exceptions, the aliens did not use names. For reference purposes, Bruno and his friends ascribed names to these and others. The tall one in this case became “Sinas,” the short one “Sajù.”
“They both shook hands with us, very gently, [perhaps because] they were very strong. We felt at that moment a strong sense of love….”
The men remained seated, talking with the aliens on nearby steps—the tall one some steps down, the smaller one a few steps above—for over an hour and a half. “How many things they told us! That theirs was an important mission, that they had been here for many years, that he [Sinas] had been here three times, and that three or four centuries ago he had been in Central America, because in that area were bases operated by other aliens [perhaps the group featured in the previous chapter, who said they lived for up to four hundred years?], that there was a war, unknown to us. He said they usually keep to desolate areas where nobody could see them, so that they would not bother anybody, and at the same time they would not be bothered by anyone…. They were perfectly aware of our history, our religions, and our philosophies.”
“This Earth was made for the good, but the men who inhabit it are transforming everything into bad,” asserted Sinas.
“We are not here to conquer, we have nothing to conquer: our interests arise from the fact that your Earth lies within our stars, and so we are concerned with it. I do not live on a planet, but everywhere I happen to travel.
“This is a critical point in your history, a turning point in your technologies, but because of your childish enthusiasms you are forgetting your moral values … everything arises from morality, and everything is done because of it. For this reason, we had, and we are still having, many problems with your people in the Middle East, and you too are going to be in trouble with them in the near future.”
The meeting ended at 03:00. Two days later, another meeting took place on Colle Orlando, a small hill to the south of Pescara. The men had tak
en a transistor radio with them, via which the aliens were able to communicate by superimposing their voices over whatever was being broadcast. They also had the ability to make use of various gadgets with phenomenal qualities. One of these entered the ground in front of the men and disappeared. “That particular place had been transformed into a kind of facility for us,” explained Bruno. A subterranean base was built there so that when the men came to within thirty kilometers of it, they would be able to communicate with the aliens by telepathy. Other means to do the same—such as small rectangular metallic plates (similar in function to the one given to Richard Högland, described in Chapter 11) and other devices—were also provided. Months of further communications and meetings ensued.5
One night at the Ascoli Piceno castle site, Bruno and his friends, forewarned via the communication implements of an imminent contact—to include three of the craft and some alien newcomers—suddenly noticed that the sky seemed to change. In the distance, three tiny pinpricks of light approached. “The ground under our feet started to tremble, so strongly that Giancarlo was thrown off balance and fell down,” Bruno reports. “It lasted some fifteen minutes, during which Giulio took shelter inside the car and Giancarlo sat on the ground…. They were almost hysterical.
“All of a sudden, two of the lights grew larger and disappeared. We realized that they were the spaceships we had been waiting for, and that two of them had already entered the underground base.” The third spot of light just switched itself off. A few moments later, “Gallarate,” Sinas, and another alien appeared, together with an extremely tall one, calling himself “Dimpietro,” who they had also met before. The latter was over nine feet tall. (Stefano Breccia told me he once encountered him negotiating a corridor in Bruno’s house in Montesilvano—bent double!) Some others were even taller.
“We were happy being with them,” continued Bruno, “but at the same time felt a bit uneasy, because one could never tell what was going to happen when Dimpietro—a notorious practical joker—was around…. All six of us sat on the ground. Dimpietro took a big cigar out of a box. He threw the empty box away, admonishing us to pick it up before leaving. Then he broke the cigar into four parts, keeping one for himself and giving us the other pieces. Then he lit the cigar with a flame coming out of his forefinger, laughing at us!”
