May 2006 was the date on which a remarkable revelation of the UFO type surfaced. It demonstrated that the U.K.’s Ministry of Defense has a remarkable (and a secret) interest in ball lightning and plasmas – and potentially using them as weapons, no less. It was a revelation that made UFO researchers all across the world sit up and listen and look. For a number of years, it was disclosed, the U.K.’s Ministry of Defense had been secretly working on a UFO program. I must make it clear, however, that it wasn’t the kind of project that had dead aliens and crashed UFOs – as per Roswell – at its heart. In fact, it had zero to do with such things. Nevertheless, the disclosure was stunning, all the same. Between 1996 – when the operation began – and February 2000, when the project was completed, the MoD had been carefully and quietly investigating the UFO puzzle. The program’s official title was Unidentified Aerial Phenomena in the UK Air Defense Region. Unofficially, it went by the far less lengthy name of Project Condign.

It was due to the U.K.’s Freedom of Information Act that the Report surfaced – and with thanks to the investigations of UFO researchers Dr. David Clarke and Gary Anthony. The pair worked hard to try and get the report released. That work eventually paid off. The 465-pages-long report was a fascinating one. Despite the fact that the MoD always maintained it had very little interest in UFOs, the sheer length and depth of the report showed that this was, at the very least, a misunderstanding. Or, at the other extreme, an outright lie. A great deal of focus was placed on the author of the report. His name remained hidden behind closed doors for quite a few years. But, nothing stays hidden forever. And that applies here. The elderly man was a Dr. Ron Haddow.

In 2006, Haddow wrote an adventure-driven novel titled No Weapon Forged. It was reviewed in that same year by John Nicholls, who was writing for Testimony Magazine. In part, Nicholls noted that Haddow “spent the early part of his life in the Royal Air Force, both in flying and in testing the first airborne digital equipment to enter RAF service. His work then changed to teaching radar, electronic warfare, air defense and guided weapons, with special reference to Middle East warfare.” Nicholls continued that Haddow, “continued in research and design of equipment, and later became a Senior Advisor to a NATO Industrial Advisory Group work on future defenses…”  Without a doubt, that’s quite a body of work.

For years, the U.K. UFO research community sought to find out who it was that wrote Project Condign. A good friend of mine, Irene Bott, almost got to the heart of that mystery in the late 1990s. From 1996 to 2000, Irene ran the U.K.-based Staffordshire UFO Group. On one particular day while I was hanging out at Irene’s then-home, she put a call in to the Ministry of Defense. The purpose was to inquire about a UFO incident that she was looking into at the time. For reasons that still remain fully unclear to this day, Irene was transferred by the MoD operator who answered her call not to the MoD’s “UFO desk” that Nick Pope previously ran, but to none other than Ron Haddow. Documentation now in the public domain shows that Haddow and his colleagues were deeply concerned by this spectacular error. That Haddow actually spoke with Irene hardly impressed the Ministry of Defense, as the now-declassified documents on the Haddow-Bott conversation show. By all accounts, the whole thing caused a fair degree of concern within the MoD. And for Haddow, too. Just another day in the weird, intrigue-filled world of UFOs and government.

All videos, selected by peter2011

On the surface of it all, it wouldn’t seem that the job of UFO researcher should be too dangerous. They read up on the lore and cases, perhaps go check things out, and they are investigating a phenomenon that many people don’t believe in to begin with. However, judging by some of the cases, it seems that there is a very big risk to be had indeed, as many researchers seem to have the habit of turning up dead. From conspiracies and strange “suicides,” to mysterious illnesses and more, UFO researchers seem to have more occupational hazards that one might initially suspect.

People who investigate UFOs have been turning up dead for decades. In 1959, we have the case of a very well-known astronomer, archeologist, and UFO researcher by the name of Morris K. Jessup. He was known in the UFO community mostly for his unorthodox theories, early postulation on the ancient astronaut theory and alternative history, and for his books The Case for the UFO (1955), UFOs and the Bible, The UFO Annual (both 1956), and The Expanding Case for the UFO. (1957). Jessup is known for having influenced the growing field of ancient astronauts, with his work forming the basis of other books that would follow in this vein, including the classic Chariots of the Gods, by Erich von Däniken, and others. He is also well-known for his involvement with the notorious Philadelphia Experiment, which purportedly sought to render a US Navy vessel invisible, and also for his mysterious death.

1958 was a rough year for Jessup. His books hadn’t been selling well, his wife left him, and he was involved in a car accident in Florida that left him seriously injured. On April 19, 1959, Jessup made arrangements to meet with a researcher named Manson Valentine, allegedly because he wanted to give some classified information on the Philadelphia Experiment. He never got the chance, because on April 20 he was found dead in his car in Dade County, Florida, a hose running from the exhaust pipe to the window. Although it was ruled a suicide, there has long been talk of conspiracies and things that don’t add up.

Morris K. Jessup

One is that a police detective who investigated the case would claim that it seemed a bit too professional. There is also the fact that it would turn out that Jessup had been plagued with strange calls in the days leading up to his death, and that he had just met with the mysterious Carlos Allende, who had written the letter that was instrumental to bringing the Philadelphia Experiment to public knowledge. More ominous still was that no autopsy was ever performed on the body, which is not only strange, but also apparently against Florida law. The idea here is that this was no mere suicide at all, but rather an orchestrated hit designed to keep him quiet about the secrets he knew about the Philadelphia Experiment. It must be added that no one is sure that the Philadelphia Experiment was ever even real or not, as well as the fact that friends and family have said that his troubles in the year leading up to his death had caused him to sometimes mention suicide. What happened here? Was this just a simple suicide or a nefarious assassination? Who knows?

Similarly, we have the case of the American writer, broadcaster, and radio pioneer Frank Allyn Edwards, who also happens to have become very well-known for his various books, articles, and research on UFOs and other unexplained phenomena, which he also frequently discussed on his popular syndicated radio program, Stranger Than Science. On June 24, 1967, Frank Edwards succumbed to a sudden heart attack, which has been orbited by strange mysteries ever since. One unusual coincidence, or not depending on your angle, was that his death fell exactly on the 20th anniversary of once of the most famous UFO sightings ever, the Kenneth Arnold sighting, in which pilot Kenneth Arnold claimed to have seen a string of nine, shiny unidentified flying objects flying past Washington’s Mount Rainier at high speeds, in one of the first of the modern era of UFO sightings. Making things even more ominous is that the death coincided with the “World UFO Conference,” which was being held in New York City and chaired by UFO researcher and author Gray Barker. Eerily, Barker would claim that he had received threats by phone and mail that had promised that Edwards would not see the end of the conference alive. They were right. Again, what are we dealing with here? Insidious plots or just a plain heart attack?

Kenneth Arnold

Moving into the 70s we have a few high-profile deaths of UFO researchers. In 1971, a physicist at the University of Arizona and advocate of more serious studies into UFOs by the name of Dr. James McDonald was in the process of trying to convince U.S. Congress that UFOs were a phenomenon that deserved a closer look and more investigation. He was never successful, because he came down with a bad case of a gunshot to the head in an apparent suicide. Two years later, in 1973, beloved cryptozoologist and UFO afficionado Ivan T. Sanderson was taken out by an unusually fast-spreading cancer. This is curious, because strangely aggressive cancers and tumors are a common theme in the deaths of these doomed researchers, which we can see from a string of mysterious deaths in the 80s.

The astronomer Dr. Allen J. Hynek is a famous fixture of UFO history, having once been a major consultant and investigator for Project Blue Book, the U.S. Air Force’s official investigation into the UFO phenomenon. In 1986, Hynek was admitted to the hospital for prostrate surgery, but would never leave, as he was soon found to have an incredibly vicious brain tumor that ended him. According to those who knew him, in the days leading up to his death he had allegedly spoken of and seemed unsettled by some newly acquired information he had received on UFOs. Could this have had something to do with his death? Two years later, in 1988 notable investigative radio host Mae Brussell died of a fast-acting cancer in California. She was known as a major conspiracy theorist and for her no holds barred radio program on these topics called Dialogue: Conspiracy, later renamed World Watchers International.

Mae Brussel

The 1990s continued these shady deaths, with 1993 seeing astronaut Deke Slayton die of cancer conveniently right before he was expected to come forward with his inside knowledge and experiences of UFOs. In 1994, an investigator for the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON), Ann Livingston, died of an extremely aggressive form of ovarian cancer. Rather spookily, this happened just 2 years after she claimed to have been harassed by ghoulish faceless, pale, and sinister Men in Black. Also in 1994 was the death of another MUFON investigator, Ron Johnson, who was actually the deputy director of investigations for the organization. He would die under very strange circumstances when after a slide presentation at a conference in Austin Texas, the lights came on and he was found unresponsive in his seat, with blood coming out of his nose and a weird purple coloration to his face. 1996 saw the death of UFO author Karla Turner, who died of breast cancer. Turner was known for constantly attributing her cancer to actions taken by aliens due to some of the things she had written in her books Masquerade of Angels, Taken, and Into the Fringe. In 1999, author of numerous UFO and conspiracy books, Jim Keith, also died when a blood clot stopped his heart as he was receiving routine surgery for a broken leg.

Moving into the 2000s we have several more strange cases. In April of 2001, prolific author of unexplained phenomena, Ron Bonds, mysteriously died of a common food poisoning bacterium that rarely leads to death, but for some reason turned deadly for him. More sinister still was the death of prominent UFO researcher Paul Vigay in 2009. In February of that year, the 44-year-old was found bobbing about in the churning sea off the coast of Portsmouth, Hants, leaving a series of strange cryptic passwords behind on his phone that no one could figure out. Although authorities were quick to label it as a suicide, Vigay’s friends and family are adamant that he was not suicidal, and the coroner was also not able to verify whether it was suicide or not, saying “I cannot say beyond reasonable doubt that yes Paul has taken his own life. The only person who could tell us what was going on in his mind and what happened that night is sadly not here to tell us.”

Perhaps one of the weirdest cases of all is also the most recent. Conspiracy theorist and UFO expert Max Spiers was well-known for delving into government cover-ups, and in July of 2016 he was in Warsaw, Poland, visiting a friend and also planning on attending a conference on conspiracy theories and UFOs. On July 16, Spiers’ friend found him on the sofa, unresponsive and apparently having vomited up a viscous “black liquid.” It would turn out that there were some pretty suspicious details surrounding the death, one being a text message he had written to his mother just before his death, which reads, “Your boy’s in trouble. If anything happens to me, investigate.” Also odd is that there was never any actual official autopsy done on the body, and adding to this was that Spiers was a healthy young man with no history of physical issues, making it odd that he should just drop dead on that sofa. There would be very little word on the state of the investigation until 2019, when authorities would rule the death as being caused by drug use and pneumonia. Max’s mother would say of it all:

Max was a very fit man who was in good health and yet he apparently just died suddenly on a sofa. All I have is a death certificate from the Polish authorities that it was from natural causes, but no post-mortem was done so how can they tell that? They are also refusing to release any paperwork about it to me because, absurdly, I don’t have his written permission. Apparently, he had not suffered any obvious physical injuries but he could have been slowly poisoned, which is why the results of toxicology tests from his post-mortem are so important.

Again, we are left to wonder, if this really was an accident, or did some nefarious agency deem him to be a threat and have him erased? The main conspiracy idea behind all of these deaths is that these people were removed from the equation by nefarious parties, with government agencies and even the Men in Black coming into play. Skeptics would point out that people die, it is a fact of life, and that of course UFO researchers are going to fall victim to this as well. Yet, with the strange circumstances and details surrounding some of these cases it really makes one wonder what is really going on. Is this all just coincidence and reading things into it all, or is there something more sinister going on? The question remains, and if you are one of those who delves into UFOs it might be best to keep a set of eyes on the back of your head. You just never know.

Back in 2016, I wrote an article here at Mysterious Universe titled “UFOs: Don’t Let Them Rule Your Life.” To a significant degree, the article was focused on the controversial “11:11 phenomenon” and a guy who was immersed in it to such a degree that he was practically controlled by it. You can find the article at this link. That same article provoked a fair amount of comments, something that didn’t surprise me at all. Today, I thought I would expand on this issue of how people really do become affected by the UFO subject – and not in a positive way. I don’t know why, but on more than a few occasions I have seen people enter Ufology sane, rational and normal, only to eventually plunge into states of paranoia, fear, isolation and eccentricity. So, in that sense, today’s article is very much a warning to one and all. I should stress that this radical change of character doesn’t happen to a huge degree (as far as I can tell). On more than a few occasions, however, I have seen something close to madness set in – and sometimes set in quickly. With that all said, let us now take a look at the first of three examples of how the UFO subject – at times – doesn’t just alter lives, but can come close to destroying lives, too.

Albert Bender

Part 1 of this 3-part feature is focused on the the guy who began the Men in Black phenomenon almost on his own: Albert Bender. Indeed, had Bender not had the bad luck to get into the field of  Ufology, the chances are we would not have known of the MIB. Or, at the very least, the creepy phenomenon would not have reached the levels of interest that it did in the 1960s and 1970s. But, it’s not the MIB that we need to focus on in this article. Rather, it’s what the UFO subject did to Bender. It plunged him into a dangerous situation that he was lucky to get out of. Like a lot of people, Bender developed an interest in UFOs in the immediate wake of the Kenneth Arnold affair of June 24, 1947. At the time, Bender was in his mid-twenties. As the 1950s came around, Bender created the International Flying Saucer Bureau. He also published his own newsletter, Space Review. Neither were destined to last for very long. What began as an exciting hobby for Bender turned into an absolute nightmare. After being visited by a trio of strange characters with shining eyes,  and with the ability to read minds and walk through walls (yes, the MIB), Bender’s life changed quickly. He didn’t have that many friends to begin with, but after his MIB encounters, Bender spent just about all of his free time in the attic of his stepfather’s home, digging ever deeper into the UFO phenomenon. And into the world of the occult, too. When Bender did go out (his day job aside), it was usually to go to the local cinema in Bridgeport, Connecticut. On his own.

For reasons that were never really explained, but also in the wake of his MIB encounters, Bender developed a weird fear that he had developed cancer. He wrote about it on several occasions – making it very clear that that he was in a deep state of hypochondria. History has shown that Bender, thankfully, did not have cancer. In fact, when he passed away in 2016, Bender was just six years short of 100! Moving on: a careful reading of Bender’s 1962 book, Flying Saucers and the Three Men, reveals that he clearly had a dose of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. Everything in his attic had to be in its place. If it wasn’t, he would get frustrated – even angry, at times.  And if it looked like something had been moved, Bender suspected that it was due to the MIB, government agents or…well…you get the picture. Spending your time in an attic room, with a fear of a deadly disease, with a significant dose of OCD, and while you’re worrying that someone is creeping around that same attic when you’re out of the house, surely cannot be healthy. For Bender it definitely wasn’t.

Here’s the part when the story becomes uplifting. Yes, the story does end in a happy fashion. It was something that, in the early 1950s, changed Bender’s life for the better and that led him to finally quit Ufology. An English woman named Betty – a flight attendant at the time – became a friend to Bender. Betty very soon became far more than that: Albert and Betty got married and they moved to California. Their first home was in Bakersfield. They later settled, in what turned out to be permanently, in Los Angeles. And, guess what? Bender’s fears of having cancer went away. As did the Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. As did the deep fear that people were skulking around his home. Apart from a very few and brief forays into Ufology in the 1960s, Bender was done with it all. And that was a very good thing.

I’m not saying that Ufology is always a dangerous field to get into. I am saying, however, that sometimes – whether due to a person’s character, to the intrusion of certain aspects of the UFO phenomenon itself, or most probably to a bit of both – lives begin to change. “Mutate” might be a good term to use. On occasions, those changes are subtle. But, very often, they are not destined to stay like that. Albert Bender did the right thing: at first he balanced his interest in UFOs with his life with Betty. That is, until the time came when Bender knew he had to quit Ufology – as in completely. I should stress that not everyone, of course, needs to totally quit the Saucer scene to remain sane. For some, however, like Bender, it’s just not a good place to hang out. I’ve seen the signs in more than a few people in Ufology and it’s not a positive situation. For the most part, balance is the key to all of this. Enjoy your UFO research. But, enjoy having fun in the world outside of Ufology, too.  And don’t spend most of your time alone in an attic.

In Part 2 I’ll share with you an even weirder – and equally disturbing – saga from New Zealand.

Part 1 of this article was focused on the life and involvement in Ufology of Albert Bender. He was one of the key figures in the development of the Men in Black phenomenon. Part 2 takes us to New Zealand and to an equally hazard-filled story. The saga starts with one of New Zealand’s earliest Flying Saucer seekers: Harold Fulton. He started his UFO research in the early 1950s and passed away halfway through the 1980s. Fulton served in the Royal New Zealand Air Force. That was not all: he created the Civilian Saucer Investigation (CSI). Just like Albert Bender’s International Flying Saucer Bureau, the plan for the Civilian Saucer Investigation body was for its members to research and investigate cases – and to write-up reports on their findings. In other words, it was a well-planned operation designed to try and understand the nature of the UFO phenomenon in New Zealand. Interestingly, it wasn’t long before Albert Bender and Harold Fulton began to correspond with each other. Also mirroring Bender’s work, his group, and his newsletter, the CSI took off to a significant height. It wasn’t long after the creation of the CSI that Fulton and his colleagues had more than five hundred subscribers to the Flying Saucers journal. What began as friendly correspondence between the two soon changed. It became decidedly mysterious.

As I noted in my 2017 book, The Slenderman Mysteries: “It wasn’t long after the revelations concerning Albert Bender’s torturous encounters with the Men in Black surfaced that Fulton contacted Bender. A lengthy period of correspondence between the two duly followed. Indeed, Fulton had established a connection with numerous UFO researchers in the United States, including Gray Barker, who, in 1962, published Albert Bender’s MIB-themed book, Flying Saucers and the Three Men. The letters between Fulton and Bender (in my possession) make it very clear that Fulton was concerned that whatever it was that had got its grips into Bender was, by the summer of 1953, now doing exactly the same with him. Fulton told Bender (and MIB investigator/author Gray Barker, too) that on several occasions he experienced in his home the very same overpowering odor of sulfur-meets-rotten-eggs that Bender had talked about. Equally disturbing, Fulton began to see vague, shadowy, human-like figures out of his peripheral vision – and usually late at night, and always when he was engaged in his UFO research. They were wizened, goblin-like things that crept around Fulton’s home, in what amounted to almost a taunting fashion: they wanted to be seen, but not too closely. A bad sign that the Shadow People were on the move, perhaps?”

Intriguingly, some of the Shadow People that Fulton encountered way back then sound very much like today’s Hat Man, as the creature has become known. It is a dark, shadowy figure usually seen wearing an old-style fedora hat – hence the clear and obvious MIB parallels. During the summer of 1953, Fulton wrote to Bender and told the latter that he and his wife had been woken up on several occasions by an overwhelming smell of brimstone. It started in the bedroom and, eventually, overwhelmed the whole family home. Violent thumping on the walls of the house in the dead of night became regular.. It all sounded very much like poltergeist activity. On top of that, small balls of light flickered around the entrance to the bedroom. For Fulton and his wife, things were becoming nightmarish. It wasn’t long at all, however, before additional New Zealand-based UFO researchers told of their similar, nerve-jangling experiences. As an example, Fulton wrote to Bender about the incidents involving a man named John Stuart – a fellow citizen of New Zealand.

John Stuart lived in Hamilton, New Zealand and, like Harold Fulton, he was fascinated by the Flying Saucer phenomenon. Stuart’s experiences began in 1952. Stuart went on to write a book on the subject, UFO Warning. Not unlike Albert Bender’s 1962 book, Flying Saucers and the Three Men, Stuart’s publication was UFO-based, but it was somewhat tinged with matters of a demonic kind. Interestingly, Stuart began to experience something that John Keel wrote extensively about. Namely, weird, late-night phone-calls from strange characters with near-robotic voices. The first call for Stuart came in the early hours of the morning. Of course, on being jolted out of his sleep in the early hours of the morning, Stuart’s immediate thought was: bad news. As most of us probably would in such a situation. Well, yes, it was bad news. But, not of the kind Stuart was expecting. Rather, it was one of Keel’s creepy characters doing their best to terrify a UFO researcher. In simple terms, Stuart was told to quit Ufology. Or else. A shaky Stuart got himself a shot or two of whiskey. Now, the story gets even more complicated.

As is the case in today’s UFO arena, back then everyone knew everyone else – or, at least, they knew of them. So, when the rumor got out that Stuart was having close and clandestine encounters of a very different kind with a woman named Doreen Wilkinson – who was also active in the UFO field – it didn’t take long before most of the UFO sleuths in New Zealand knew of the claimed affair between the two. Of course, if both Stuart and Doreen were single, no-one would have been spreading gossip. Stuart, however, was married. The pair brushed the whispers away as nonsense. As for why they spent so much time together, Stuart and Doreen claimed it was solely because of the combined UFO research they were doing. Okay. We’ll never know and it’s all in the past now. Whatever the truth, the fact is that Doreen and Stuart spent a lot of time together. It was this togetherness that led to one of the strangest and most sinister of all the New Zealand-based encounters in the early 1950s.

It was during the early hours of the morning when Doreen and Stuart did most of their, ahem, “work.” There was something very strange, however. On occasion, Doreen’s personality would suddenly change. And change radically, too. She became what we might call a supernatural seductress. No, this was not a bit of fun and fantasy and playing role-games. It was as if Doreen had been possessed by a manipulative, sexually-charged, “demon,” as Stuart put it. Interestingly, Stuart vehemently disagreed with his colleagues in Ufology, who believed that Doreen was possessed by the spirit of an alien. Stuart was sure the entity that had Doreen in its grips was a literal demon from a literal Hell. Matters came to their peak when – also in the dead of night –  something suddenly manifested in Stuart’s home. It was described as humanoid-like in figure, but clearly not human. The pair was naturally terrified. Stuart would later say that the thing made a move towards Doreen and forced her to have sex. On a second time, when Stuart wasn’t at home, Doreen was attacked and assaulted again – on this occasion, though, by an invisible creature. Enough was enough.

Just like Albert Bender – whose hazardous experiences caused him to quit Ufology – Doreen and Stuart also left the UFO scene behind them, disturbed by the possibility that the UFO phenomenon had a demonic aspect to it.

Today’s article is the third and final installment on what I call “The Hazards of Ufology.” We’ve seen how Albert Bender’s life suffered to a seriously dangerous degree because of his UFO obsessions. That is, until he walked away from it all. As for part 2, it was focused on a series of strange events that occurred in New Zealand and that resulted in the key players in the story buried in a world of stress, chaos and fear. The third part of the story is significantly different, as you will see. In this example, lives and minds are not torn apart at all. Paranoia and isolation are nowhere in sight. So, you may very well wonder what today’s ufological hazard is. I’ll tell you: it’s the astonishing speed that causes some people to buy into just about everything of a UFO nature – no matter how ridiculous or bogus it might be. In other words, today’s hazard is losing one’s common sense. I could come up with more than a few examples, but I’ll present one for you that will demonstrate exactly what I mean.

Our story revolves around a married couple, Bryant and Helen Reeve. In 1957, they wrote a book titled Flying Saucer Pilgrimage, which was published by Ray Palmer. It’s not a particularly well-known book, but it is readable. In essence, the book tells the story of the pair’s road-trip around the United States, and of their meetings with just about as many people on the UFO scene as they could. It was a trek around the country, in the 1950s, that took three years and that covered approximately 23,000 miles. I should stress this is not a wild and crazy groundbreaking road-trip of the likes that Jack Kerouac and Neal Cassady famously embarked on. Or, one of Ernest Hemingway’s adventures. Nope. Bryant and Helen were a retired couple verging on old age and who decided to see if they could figure out what was at the heart of the UFO phenomenon. Not a bad thing to do when you no longer need to work. I have to say that the pair spent a lot of time and effort trying to get the answers to the mystery. And, unlike so many, they were not researchers of the armchair kind. They really did hit the road for three years. There was, however, a problem: they weren’t just a nice, trusting old couple. They were too nice. As you’ll now see.

What’s particularly interesting about Helen and Bryant – and their immersion into the world of Ufology – is that they began as complete skeptics, but, in amazingly fast time, became not just believers, but uncritical believers. They bought into just about every story and  every character that came their way. That was their big hazard: they practically lost their ability to see the difference between credible people and horseshit. In the process, their lives were altered by hanging out with characters who ranged from the sane to the crazy, and from con-men to fantasists. I should say, though, that some of those who Helen and Bryant met may well have had genuinely intriguing alien encounters. It all began for the Reeve’s in November 1953, in Detroit, where the two lived. The pair was in debate with a friend of theirs – Henry – about the growing Flying Saucer craze, and particularly the claims and controversial photos of George Adamski. Some of the words that were used in that debate were “insane,” “gullible,” “fake,” and “disgusted.” You get my drift. On top of that, Bryant was an engineer who had little time for aliens and UFOs. But, he agreed to at least take a look at it all.

Admittedly, you have to give it to Bryant and Helen: they certainly wasted no time in trying to solve the mystery. They quickly got in touch with Adamski and invited him to come and speak for the people of Detroit! Not surprisingly, the presence of a man who claimed to have met aliens caught the attention of the local media. As the Freedom of Information Act has shown, FBI special-agents were in attendance, too. And, there are some amusing parts, such as when the matter of Adamski’s expenses surface. So successful were the lectures and radio coverage,  the two decided that a road-trip was the only way to find the answers. Not only that, just about all thoughts of Adamski being a hoaxer went right out of the window. They were becoming true-believers, even if they didn’t realize it. Their first interviewee (who actually decided to visit them at their home) was none other than Truman Bethurum. He was a Contactee made famous for his “encounters” with a hot space babe from a faraway world named Clarion. As for the captain of the craft, her name was Aura Rhanes. Bethurum may or may not have got it on with Aura, who Bethurum described as being “tops in shapeliness and beauty.” Throughout his books, lectures, and interviews Bethurum skillfully skirted around that thorny angle. When Helen and Bryant met Bethurum, and heard his story of extraterrestrial love (maybe…), they were caught. Indeed, from then on they called Bethurum a “pioneer saucerer.”

Next on the list was George Hunt Williamson. He was a man who had a complicated and controversial connection to George Adamski and who claimed to contact aliens via ouija-boards from his Prescott, Arizona home. The pair attended one of Williamson’s presentations. They wrote: “His lecture amazed us in its scope and breadth of view.” Adamski’s co-author on his book Flying Saucers Have Landed – Desmond Leslie – was also someone Helen and Bryant met on their road trip. They said of Leslie: “We enjoyed the Saucerer Royal very much and feel that he is among those chosen to bring the New Age messages to doubting humanity.” Then, on April 22, 1955, the pair went from being interviewers of those who had seen UFOs to witnesses themselves. They had now become a part of the phenomenon. The location was a few miles from Joshua Tree, California. Helen shouted: “It is a mother-ship, a cigar-shaped mother-ship!” Silver-white in color, the craft was soon gone. George Van Tassel was interviewed during the Reeve’s journey through California, as was Contactee Daniel Fry, and Meade Layne. Much of the rest of the book is focused on, for example, “clairaudience,” “projections of Consciousness,” “Samhadic meditation,” “spectrums of sense,” and “vibratory frequency explanation of outer-space.” All of which was quite a change in the lives of the Reeve’s.

So, in conclusion, what we have here is this: the story of two people – Helen and Bryant Reeve – who in November 1953 had no time at all for UFOs. Their lives and thoughts on Flying Saucers and alien life, however, were radically altered in an amazingly quick time. To the point that they came to believe the words of just about all of the well-known Contactees of that era. Then, they had their encounter – which changed them profoundly. And, as the above-paragraph makes clear, they soon turned their attentions to matters more of a mind-body-spirit nature. Of course, there is nothing wrong with that at all. The hazard, though, as I see it, is this: for reasons that are not really clear, the UFO subject has the curious and sinister – and sometimes tragic – ability to radically alter the mindsets of those who immerse themselves in the controversy. A kind of control? Maybe.