Flim Flam, Fables, and the Phenomenon

 

The study and pursuit of something so nebulous as UFO phenomena, especially when you are open enough to include tangential phenomena as part of what is often now referred to simply as "The Phenomenon", can feel like a maddening and foolish endeavor. One can investigate UFOs in any number of ways, or some combination of various ways. UFOs have been looked as a sociological phenomenon, and from a psychological perspective. They have been studied in varying types of scientific methodologies, from the astronomical to the statistical. They can be fodder for B-movies and tabloid headlines, or they can be viewed through mystical and occult perspectives. All of these combine in a view of UFOs as modern folklore and myth-making, where the stories themselves are the important part and proof of their veracity or physical reality is secondary. After all, physical evidence is in short supply; it could be that the paradigms we have for determining "reality" of something so strange as UFOs is ill-equipped to contend with how malleable reality really is, that the physical realm isn't the only one, and that the truth tends to be found in unexpected places beyond the grasp of measurable data. 

Even when we consider the folkloric, mythic narratives of high strangeness, we are forced to contend with the old chestnut of reliability of the witness. I have tackled this subject before here on this blog, but for our purposes now I want to explore how witness testimony tends to be handled. A lot of the classic UFO stories were heralded by researchers because of the supposed reliability of the witness to the event; for instance, the Lonnie Zamora encounter- as a policeman he was thought to be trustworthy and a "trained observer". Many other incidents reported by law enforcement are held up as more reliable, and the same treatment gets applied to those serving in the armed forces or to those in academia. We gravitate towards authority when facing the unknown, even if the unknown by definition has no attendant authority figure. It seems that some amount of UFO enthusiasts have turned away from this mindset, and are more likely to consider cases like that of Joe Simonton and his flying saucer flapjacks. Of course, old Joe did have some physical evidence in the form of the pancake, which was tested and found to be composed of mundane, earthly elements- which would seem to discredit his story. It would seem that way, perhaps, but the story still persists, even though Simonton was not a "trained observer". 

Using too many specific examples may bog down the point being made here, but as a general rule most well-known UFO encounter stories, and personalities attached to them, become controversial in one way or another. Retellings of events, attempts at debunking (up to and including character assassination), profiteering, and sensationalism all play a part in weakening the credibility of a story. Sometimes the tales buckle under the weight of a little bit of scrutiny, only to be bolstered by further scrutiny of the sources scrutinizing them. Ultimately, they may fall down completely, or stand tall as a tale of mystery. If my way of writing about this seems absurdly repetitive, that's intentional- the idiosyncratic use of language here illustrates well the distortions caused by the feedback loop in looking closely at the highly strange. The caution here would be not to throw out the proverbial babies with the tubs of proverbial bath water. When scrutiny reveals inconsistencies, it may simply mean that the story is too weird to be related any other way.

UFOlogists have classically hated a hoaxer. Anyone caught in a lie (as a witness, at least) is subject to being written off entirely by some amount of what can loosely be called "the field" of UFOlogy. The major investigation groups abhorred "repeaters" back in the day; it was thought that the odds were against even a singular sighting, and that anyone with multiple such stories was likely to be a liar or mentally ill. If such a person also dabbled in magic, or lived in a haunted house, or once saw Bigfoot, the credibility meter would drop much further. Sometimes you would have what sounded like a "normal" UFO sighting, and the attendant other phenomena would be omitted from the report for fear that it would undermine the legitimacy of the primary story. In the service of presenting a palatable truth, only a half-truth was presented- and lies of omission are still lies, which then undermines the investigator... resulting in more proverbial babies being lost in the flood of discarded bath water.

We all know that lying is wrong, even though all of us do it all of the time in small ways. Even back in the days of Aesop tales were told about the dangers of lies, and the boy who cried "wolf" served as a cautionary tale. On the other hand, as noted by Aristotle, the liar can tell the truth without having to worry about being taken at his word. Maybe the UFOs, whatever they may actually be, understand this aspect of narrative and choose to visit liars simply because no one will believe them. We can extrapolate from this that they might be more likely to appear in front of someone who is under the influence of drugs, or to a comedian who no-one would take seriously. To mix fables here, perhaps the wolf is really a UFO in wolf's clothing, and no matter how much the shepherd boy cries it won't prove a thing about the reality of wolves or UFOs.

In the interest of reinforcing this unconventional idea, by way of truth-finding via unlikely source material in our own peculiar idiosyncratic fashion, let us look at the Phenomenon as Flim Flam and Fable through two obscure sources from the 1960s. 

A 1960 Mexican movie, La Nave de los Monstruos (Ship of Monsters) becomes an unlikely candidate for illustrating the nature of the Phenomenon. It stars a popular actor, comedian, and singer / songwriter of Mexico during that era named Eulalio González, often called "Piporro". He is a singing cowboy who tells all manner of fish tales to his friends, all of whom rightly dismiss his stories. It's only natural that when a pair of buxom space ladies from Venus land the titular ship of monsters in search of a male earth specimen, they find Piporro's character Lauriano.

It would be easy to dismiss the movie as B-movie balderdash, even if, like your humble writer you are a fan of the genre. La nave de monstruos has in spades everything one could want from a B-movie; monsters, a cheesy robot, pin-up beauties, and even a vampire and some musical numbers. It also does not take itself too seriously, and its the very playfulness of the movie that makes it so profoundly appropriate in relation to the Phenomenon. When no one believes Lauriano about his experiences at the end of the movie, he is able to laugh about it and go on living his best singing cowboy life. And although the assemblage of elements in the story are absurd, they all have corollaries in the annals of UFO testimony. The creature on the poster, for instance, bears a passing resemblance to the humanoids reported in the Pascagoula abduction event, which occurred over a decade after the movie's release. The Venusian woman aren't very different from the alleged flying saucer occupants contactees like Truman Bethurum or Orfeo Angelucci wrote about. The movie also has a scene in which a cow is reduced to a skeleton in an instant, at a time well before cattle mutilation became associated with UFOs. 

The purpose for the Venusian mission is to find specimens to help repopulate Venus, hence the monsters which range from a cyclopean named Uk to a Martian prince, vaguely in the form of a grey alien, named Tagual. This fits in with the famous Antonio Villas-Boas case, in which he is forced to copulate with an alien, and also later narratives about genetic and reproductive motives behind abductions that became popular in the 1980s. It's worth mentioning as well that Villas-Boas was often characterized as a farmer, less reliable and respectable than one might prefer in a witness, but this is not true. He went on to lead a normal life, and became a successful lawyer. 

Ultimately, the movie is a fun romp and well worthy of a viewing. It may interest those who are interested in UFO lore, as it were, to look at it as an allegory for the Phenomenon more broadly.

Similarly, we see this kind of narrative play out in an episode of Twilight Zone called "Hocus Pocus and Frisby". It's certainly one of the sillier episodes of the Zone, and doesn't often rate on most lists of episodes that defined the series. However, the silliness of it mirrors the absurdity of UFO stories, replete with an unreliable narrator and an incredulous audience for his recounting of events. Rod Serling introduces Frisby in his inimitable way thusly:

He has all the drive of a broken camshaft and the aggressive vinegar of a corpse. As you've no doubt gathered, his big stock in trade is the tall tale. Now, what he doesn't know is that the visitors out front are a very special breed, destined to change his life beyond anything even his fertile imagination could manufacture.

Frisby is a shopkeeper, regaling his customers with whoppers so big Abe Simpson would blush at the telling. He is played by Andy Devine, known for his work in westerns and his whistling, wavering voice. The townsfolk balk at Frisby's grandiose lies of valor and genius, but he is unperturbed and keeps telling them. No one believes him, but, as we come to learn, they love hearing his stories even if they are visibly unconvinced.

As he is closing up for the day, a pair of well dressed men in a black car pull up outside looking for fuel. Frisby can't resist his impulses, and tells them all about his inventions in automotive history and his ingenious innovations in science. The two men are impressed, and say they will see him again very soon. The Men in Black phenomenon has a very obvious resonance here. The men act strangely, seem unfamiliar with very mundane things, and cryptically tell Frisby they will see him again soon. 

It turns out that these MiB are aliens, who have landed their craft somewhere nearby. They act unfamiliar with mundane things because they are visitors from another planet, and such mundane things are exotic to them. Also alien to their perspective is the concept of dishonesty. They take Frisby at his word, and decide he is an exemplary specimen to collect and bring back to their home planet. They selected him purely because of his lies, and when he tells the truth- that he is full of hot air and just enjoys spinning a yarn, it has no effect against their decision. He manages to escape by playing his harmonica badly. For some reason the sound of the musical instrument is incredibly painful to the aliens and messes up their technology. Naturally, the teller of insane tales finds himself in an insane situation, escaping because of an unbelievable weakness these extraterrestrial visitors have.

He arrives back at his shop to find his friends have set up a surprise 63rd birthday party for him, and they present him with a trophy for The World's Greatest Liar. Of course they don't believe their old pal, and never will- but they love the stories and celebrate him specifically for his tremendous yarns. Tell us another one, Frisby, we all want to hear it... Going from one group who wants him because they believe his lies to be true, back to the safety of those who feel a sense of truth to the certainty of his lies, we have an approximation of the way the lore in UFO history goes. 

Perhaps we also have an idea about the inherent mechanisms in the behaviors and motivations of these crafts and their reported occupants. At the very least, I am led to believe we have a rough guide on the best way to proceed- with a laugh, a song and dance, or a tall tale with good cheer and friendship. After all, that's really what it's all about.

A Very Contactee Christmas

 

Children the world over spend Christmas Eve dreaming of gifts delivered by air, of a man landing from on high spreading joy and mirth. Some even scan the skies, hoping to catch a glimpse of a flying sleigh or reindeer traversing the clouds. Gift giving involving aerial beings is not a foreign concept for the holiday season, but flying saucer occupants receiving gifts from earthlings is alien to our expectations.

Such was the case, however, one Christmas Day in 1955. At the home of contactee Buck Nelson, a special guest was among the celebrants- Buck’s flying saucer friend Bucky the Spaceman. Bucky had taken Buck on a round-trip space journey a few months prior, to Mars, the Moon, and Venus, the story of which can be found in Buck’s appropriately titled book “My Trip to Mars, the Moon and Venus”. Buck was even allowed to drive the saucer at one point. He learned much about our brothers from space, and their pets- notably, a 385 lb dog called Bo had accompanied Bucky and the landing party. It was also revealed that Bucky was actually an expatriate earthling, who was in fact related to Buck- and this Christmas, he came to visit his terrestrial cousin and then his parents before heading back to Venus.

A friend of Buck's, Fanny Lowery, had anticipated Bucky’s return. In the hope that he'd visit for the holidays, Fannie had mailed a special gift to Buck's ranch, to be delivered to Bucky.  At 1:30 a.m., we're told, on Christmas Day of 1955, Bucky arrived and was presented with an envelope which contained Mrs. Lowery’s gift: an advertisement for Prestone antifreeze.

“Bucky laughed like an eight-year-old kid when he saw the picture on his card.” Reports Buck Nelson, “...it had a picture of 8 or 9 monkeys doing all sorts of wrong things to a car… beneath the picture, it said, “Don't Let Anyone Monkey Around Your Car.” Written between the lines of advertising was the question “Does anyone monkey around Saucers like this?””

According to Bucky, this funny little card was “The first gift which had ever been knowingly sent by mail to a person from another planet from a person on earth.” Quite the distinction!

Bucky then proceeded to record a Christmas Message to the World on tape. He began by thanking Fanny for the gift, and answering her question. “Yes, it has happened to our ships, torn apart for souvenirs.”

His Christmas Message continued with a wish for peace on earth, as only a Space Brother could deliver it- he implored humanity to give up atomic weapons, and forecast certain doom for civilization if the warning went unheeded. He then hung around and mingled with Buck's other guests throughout the day, one of whom tried to sell him insurance. Later he pontificated aloud about canned pork and beans, before finally departing to visit his folks.

This charming vignette is an example of the wonderful ephemera to be found in the history of UFOlogy; these silly little moments in the stories of contactees, these slices of life are almost too mundane, too human, while are the same time too fantastic and absurd for their context to be forgotten about. So this Christmas season, know that somewhere in a museum on Venus there is probably a glass case where sits that historic “first gift” which Bucky treasured so much. As you put out cookies and milk for Santa, think about clipping an ad for a Spaceman; and for goodness sake, give up those nukes!

*** This article was originally published in 2022 on a website that no longer exists

Full of Hot Air- Ruminations on UFOs and those Numinous Balloons

 At the time I sat down to write this, news and social media had been all abuzz about a Chinese spy balloon seen floating across the country. It was, eventually, shot down. I was surprised to see just how many people on social media had become national security experts overnight, as it seemed everyone had ideas about what should be done. I'll admit that I don't know anything about spy balloons, or why on earth such low-tech espionage would be necessary in today's technological age- but the particular interest among the Disclosure set, and those on hashtag UFO Twitter, got me thinking about the symbolic nature of balloons and, more specifically, this symbolism in relation to the topic of UFOs. 

I was unable to finish writing this post the first time, and now, a week later, as I sit to complete it more objects have been shot down from both the U.S. and Canada...

My good friend, the right honorable Most Reverend StarDoG pointed out on Facebook:

You have to chortle at so many of those who are forever telling people that "People are losing their shit over a weather balloon and there's nothing strange here, please move on", currently, totally losing their shit over an actual weather balloon..

-Steve Mills, author of the blog post You're Just Like a Little Child Chasing a Balloon into the Sunset

The irony related to balloons runs deep in UFOlogy. "Weather balloon" is one of the classic hand-waving dismissals of UFO reports since the 1940s, alongside the planet Venus, misidentification of birds or known crafts, and Swamp Gas. Weather balloons and UFOs are inextricably linked, and as I intend to persuade you through my ramblings here, the symbol of all balloons hints at something existentially unsettling and as hard to capture through words as clouds are in one's hand. 

Back in 2020, a "leaked government photo" of a UFO, taken from inside a jet, was revealed to be remarkably similar in size and shape to that of a party balloon featuring DC Comics' Dark Knight, Batman. At the time, I found this profoundly amusing, and perhaps an indicator of the Cosmic Trickster at play. I had often felt that the extreme camps of those who engage with the Phenomenon, as it were, were exemplified by the Disclosure Set/TTSA mob, and fans of the documentary series Hellier. This dichotomy is often expressed as the "nuts and bolts" camp vs those open to a panoply of interpretations, bordering on the mystical and visionary. In cryptozoology, it might be the "flesh and blood" camp vs those open to supernatural answers for why we see Bigfoot and other beasties. In the interest of disclosure, although it's probably entirely obvious, I fall into the latter camp. The caveat is, I don't think either extreme at the exclusion of all evidence to contradict it is healthy. While I think chasing capital "D" Disclosure is a fool's errand, I also think there is a very real danger of missing the forest for the synchronici-trees.

A major part of Hellier, for those who haven't seen it, involves a blue star balloon that served as a synchronicity during the course of the investigation more than once. The balloon in question has become as emblematic of the Hellier goblin-hunt as the goblins themselves. In this sense, it seems amazingly on-brand for Trickster phenomena that the other extreme, who likely would not respond well to the language of high strangeness, to be taken in by a blue Batman balloon. 

In Tim Burton's 1989 movie Batman, balloons appear in the form of a dastardly plot perpetrated by the Joker. As he is throwing money out the people of Gotham, the floats above him are loaded with toxic gas that he hopes to unleash on the unsuspecting public. Of course he is foiled by the Caped Crusader, who flies in in his Batwing, towing the balloons to a safe distance from the city. This heroic act is mirrored later in the 2012 movie The Dark Knight Rises, in which Batman has to (we're led to believe) sacrifice himself in bringing a bomb out into the sea to save the city. 

The clown imagery and invitation to collect money in the scene, along with the hidden horror of the plot to poison Gotham, within a balloon, get at this odd symbolic quality of the unassuming and seemingly friendly object. A balloon might not be what it seems; is it a message from the cosmos, a whimsical decoration, a UFO, or a parade float filled with poison? Already, we can see that pinning down a straightforward meaning here is as evasive as the string of a free-floating balloon that has just left your grasp...Another relevant sinister clown / balloon connection is worth mentioning here- a single red balloon has also been a symbol of the character Pennywise in Stephen King's It.

The shape-shifting entity, most often portraying itself as a clown, is revealed to be (spoiler alert) a giant spider from either space or another dimension. The balloon sometimes acts as a harbinger of his appearances, or as a way to lure victims to their doom.

During World War II, balloons coming from Asia were a major concern for the United States, particularly along the Pacific Coast. Japan had released balloons loaded with incendiary devices, as a means of attacking the U.S. mainland. Balloons were also used during the war to distribute pamphlets of propaganda across enemy lines, or as a means of communication. All the while, phenomena such as "foo fighters" and ghost rockets were reported by airmen. After the war, the flying saucer age began with the publicity around the Kenneth Arnold sighting- but before the war, there were reports of mystery airships. Dirigibles, essentially piloted balloons, were reported throughout the country. 

These mysterious airships seemed to be just ahead of where commonly accepted technology would take us, but as zeppelins came into use they seemed less mystifying. They might have enjoyed greater use as a means of travel, had it not been for the widely publicized Hindenburg disaster in 1937. The words of the reporter covering the disaster - "Oh, the humanity!" have become ingrained and meme-ifed into public consciousness to this day. Public trust in airships dropped quickly following the crash.

The Hindenburg crash was featured as the cover art for Led Zeppelin's self-titled debut album, related to a joke spurred by the suggestion of a line-up of musicians in a band- that it would go over like "a lead balloon", or a "lead zeppelin". 

Years later, Pink Floyd would cause UFO reports of a sort with a botched album cover photo shoot. For their 1977 album Animals, the plan was to get a shot of a balloon shaped like an enormous pig floating above the Battersea Power Station. The pig balloon was custom made by a German company called Ballon Fabrik, who had previously constructed zeppelins. For the first attempt at getting a good photo, they had hired a marksman to shoot down the balloon if it became untethered. The second day, they failed to bring one, and it floated away...

The balloon eventually landed in a farmer's field, and he was reportedly furious that it had frightened his cows. Here we can see not only the UFO and balloon symbols merged together in one event, but also cows, which in popular media are often portrayed as victims of abduction. Beyond that, the likelihood of ever getting a straight answer with UFOs is so slight, it would seem that "when pigs fly" would be a reasonable expectation on when we'll have it figured out. On another, weirder level, Pink Floyd got their start playing at the UFO Club in London- which was managed by the co-founder of IT magazine Joe Boyd, who helped finance the recording of the band's first singles... right around the same time a newspaper article made the rounds in the U.S. about a police officer named Dale Spaur, who had taken to using the code name "Floyd" for a flying saucer he saw multiple times.

The imagery of a pig was part of the thematic lyrical structure of the Animals album- Roger Waters was drawing from Orwell's Animal Farm, a critique of Communism, but turning it on its head as a critique of capitalist, commercial society. He would later expand on the Orwellian themes in the later album The Wall, which was more inspired by the book 1984. 

In 1984, Nena's song 99 Luftballons was released in an English-language version to capitalize on the success of the original song in Europe. American audiences preferred the original German version over the translated 99 Red Balloons. Nena would express disapproval at the the translated version, as it seems the meaning gets lost in translation. The basic premise is that 99 balloons, tied together, are let go and float into a neighboring airspace and mistaken for UFOs. This leads to jets being scrambled, and using firepower, which builds up to a cataclysmic war that destroys the world. The anti-war song concludes with the discovery of a single balloon in the rubble, and the line "I think of you and let it go". 

The song was inspired in part by balloons let go during a concert in 1982, causing Nena's guitarist to wonder what would happen if they floated over the Berlin Wall. Also cited as inspiration for the lyrics was an apparent prank using balloons to hoax a UFO in Las Vegas, by students in 1973. It seems that there were several such hoaxes that year:

Balloons and hoaxing seem to go together well. In 2009, a flying saucer shaped balloon made the news when it was reported that there was a child trapped inside. The "Balloon Boy" hoax was characterized as a ploy for publicity and attention from the couple who launched the balloon, Richard and Mayumi Heene. To this day, they and their son who they originally claimed was in the balloon maintain that it was not a hoax, but a mistake. Another example of a balloon based saucer hoax occurred in 1989, when rich guy with too much time on his hands Richard Branson spooked motorists in the U.K.:

Sometimes, though, balloons are just a means of adventure, whimsy, and fantasy. Take for an example the sky journey of Kent Couch in 2008. The 48-year-old owner of a gas station rigged up a bunch of balloons to a lawn chair and spent 9 hours aloft, covering a distance of 235 miles from his starting point in Oregon. Using a BB gun to take out balloons and lower himself when necessary, he landed safely in Idaho. "I think most guys look up in the sky and wish they could ride on a cloud.", Couch said in an interview.

As I type this all out, it does seem eerily likely that tensions are mounting around balloons from across the Pacific. I certainly hope nothing like the 99 Luftballons scenario plays out, and I would hope that we can all move toward a more adventurous and whimsical view of balloons like that shown by Kent Couch, or as utilized in the Pixar movie Up. We do seem to be living in an increasingly crazy world, a place where alien craft making an undeniable appearance seems more likely; but on a scarier note, with a recent pandemic, climate and weather changes, and political tensions high all around, it's easy to feel like we're on the precipice of a great change. What that change is, and whether good or bad, is as hard to determine as the motives of a balloon drifting across the pacific ocean. This brings me to one final balloon image culled from pop culture- the balloon to take us home. And if you've made it this far through my ramblings, I really can't thank you enough.

At the end of The Wizard of Oz, the all-powerful Wizard has a solution for Dorothy. The plan to bring her and Toto back to Kansas involves getting into a hot-air balloon, but at the last moment, as the balloon is taking off, Toto jumps out. Dorothy has to go running after him, as her only hope for getting home appears to drift off above the Emerald City. It's then that she learns the power to bring her back was with her the whole time; and maybe that's the lesson with balloons. Maybe, perhaps, as Nena sang, we should think of each other and let it go. Maybe chasing balloons equates with madness, and certainly there's danger in it. Maybe I'm crazy for ruminating so long on the topic, and bringing up such far-flung images to illustrate the nebulousness that is UFOlogy. I'm sure it could be argued that I am, indeed, full of hot air, high on my own supply... but like many other guys, I just want to know what it's like to ride a cloud.

The Curious Case of the Fish Doctor and the Man From Ashtar Galactic Command, Part III

"...one call came through claiming to be from Outer Space; the rather-stunned telephonist on the exchange put the call through to the only phone that 'happened' to be available - that of the Assistant Producer."

-Rex Dutta, Flying Saucer Message

The conversation on the night of January 8th, 1971 between a skeptical Assistant Producer of a London radio program and a mysterious man from Outer Space is recounted in depth in Rex's book Flying Saucer Message, which was released in 1972. He notes that the Assistant Producer had the presence of mind during the call to "a) to switch it through on internal studio loud speaker so that all the twenty or so of us in the area heard each word and b) to tape-record it. A copy of that tape exists."

Upon Steve's first visit to Rex's house, in late 1975 or early 1976 - well after Rex's last book about Flying Saucers - he and Rex were able to listen to the tape, courtesy of a radio station employee who snuck it out to them. The engineer who gave them the tape also provided some great technical insight - the call from Outer Space seemed to use every channel of the analog switchboard, blocking all other incoming calls.The show's Producer tried and failed to cut off the call. The voice seemed as though it had been "treated" in some way, suggesting that the voice was an automated message cutting directly into the phone line. Robert Short, in his book Out of the Stars: A Message From Extraterrestrial Intelligence notes, quoting Viewpoint Aquarius - "...the engineers were flabbergasted because there was no echo or feedback, i.e., nothing was registering on the dials in their transmitting stations, although the 'space voice' was clearly being heard by all in the studio. Normally, the needles on the dials rise and fall as a human voice is loud or soft, and electrical pulses register on the instruments. In this case, the needles were inert at zero. The 'voice' was clear. No earthling instrument was used. But unknown power was..."

Sadly, the whereabouts of the tape these days is unknown. We have only written accounts and recollections of the event to go by. This gets into Rex's derisive attitude toward the "Official Line..."

The "unknown power" referred to in the above quote was what Rex would have considered an Occult Power, which is natural for higher beings. In fact, the whole affair must have been very amusing (or frustrating, depending on your perspective), to Rex - through his Theosophical view, it was clear to him that the voice from space (and most visitors, Space Brothers, and extraterrestrial contacts) was an intelligence existing on a higher vibrational realm, a different dimension entirely. He's keen to explain these concepts in exhaustive detail in his books, and it's way too involved for me to explain here in this blog (supposing I even understand it properly); suffice to say, what you see in the transcript with Rex's notes is something akin to a language barrier. It's even worse than just language, though; Venusians in Rex's view possessed Whole Manas, and have evolved beyond the need for names, physical bodies, etc, thus lacking context for simple questions like "Who are you?" Their enlightened and Ascended status likewise came about as a result of altruism, so selfish reasoning and our Earthling anxieties and unwillingness to help ourselves - always looking for a savior - are anathema to the Venusians. 

The resultant confusion in the conversation between the Assistant Producer and "Voice" in Flyer Saucer Message lends itself to humor very well. It occurred to me reading it the first time that it could well have been a bit between Abbott and Costello, although I eventually decided it was surreal enough and, bearing in mind the language difficulties explained in the preceding paragraph, more like a bit between Groucho and Chico Marx. Some of my favorite moments:

AP: Why are you calling us?

VOICE: I have not phoned you. I am speaking by Thought-Transference Computer.

AP: What does that mean?

VOICE: It means how do you do.

AP: Very well. How do you do, Sir?

VOICE: Yes. Evidence of life in outer space is not visible to Earth eyes except the chosen few have celestial ability to appertain and to appreciate higher intelligences.

And, later, after asking the Voice's whereabouts:

AP: What are you doing there?

VOICE: I am speaking at the moment to you by Thought-Transference System.

AP: Why don't you speak to me face to face?

VOICE: I have no face. I am very sorry.

This leads to questions about whether space people look like us, to which the Voice explains that it is possible to take a human form for a short period of time. When asked why they would take a human form, the Voice simply says "Amusement". Finally, toward the end of the call:

AP: How could I contact you again?

VOICE: Call Outer Space sometime.

AP: How do I call you?

VOICE: Call me Sir.

AP: How do I call you, Sir?

VOICE: You call me Sir anyway you like. I don't mind. Any way, I must return to Outer Space.

The humorous element presented here, the absurdity and silliness, is among the most remarkable aspects about the Call From Outer Space. On the one hand, it bears all the hallmarks of a put-on. The confusion and inevitable failure to satisfactorily answer many of the questions seems like something a prankster would do, were it just a simple crank call. On the other hand, and bearing in mind the technical difficulties inherent in pulling off such a prank, these comical bits of dialog may actually also represent a genuine lack of understanding that goes both ways, between two intelligence entities very alien to each other. 

Most of the sentiment contained in the call that fascinated Rex was typical of contact messages of the era, in the sense that it warned us as a race to abandon war and nuclear technology. This main message, the titular Flying Saucer message, are interrupted constantly by the Assistant Producer's more mundane questions - typifying in Rex's mind the self-obsessed nature of the average man. One of them was the classic "Take me to your leader" type of question, where the man asks "Have you spoken to Mr. Heath?" referring to then Prime Minister Edward Heath. The Voice seems taken aback by Rex's estimation - "we rate men high, men of power;" he writes, "Saucers rate high men of 'pure aura' and such earthlings seldom reach Power / Authority, etc." Another concept, lost in translation. We ask why the spacemen don't just land on the White House lawn, when the answer it seems is that the occupants of the White House are just as remarkable (or less so) than any other human on the planet - other than the ones with 'pure aura'. To its credit, the Voice says he knows of Mr. Heath, but Heath is sleeping in another country... this, it turns out, was true - PM Heath was abroad on official duty and it would have been early morning hours in that time zone.

The Voice goes on to reveal that there are men among us who can help us, but we ignore them. When asked how the Voice intends to help, it responds:

"The only way you can be helped is not by doing for you that which you must do for yourself. But possibly by guiding the way, but indirectly not directly. It is not possible to say to man, 'You must do this,' because it is in the nature of man not to do this, but to do something different because there is in the nature of man perhaps a perversity which we observe. But never mind, it is possible perhaps if man uses only one thing - that is intelligence. The greatest danger in man is pity. Man has a strong feeling of pity for his fellow men, for suffering. It is good but it is not the highest good. In the universe, the highest good is balance, is justice, not pity. A very interesting thing but justice is the most important element in the universe. And if man will find justice, there is hope for man."

In Rex's view, the Venusians (or Saucers, you may have noticed that Rex makes no distinction between the Saucers and their occupants) are not so different from us here on Earth - they just seem alien because they serve a different purpose. When you understand what Rex means by "Oneness Is", you realize that he's talking about the whole of creation being so intricately connected that each individual thing or consciousness is but a part of a larger organism. The metaphor is made that Earthlings are the thumb, and Venusians the foot... both parts of the same cosmic body but distinct in their purpose and design. Underlying all of what appears to be disparate real and physical bodies exists the Lipika Webs, a network that "sub-stands all substance". It matters not that the 'thumb' might reject the concept of sharing cells and a body with the 'right foot', it's simply the truth... and a balance needs be secured that affects not just the people of Earth who ignore warnings from Saucers, but it naturally affects the Saucers, too. In Rex's view, it was down to the People of the Web to help restore this balance, and move us well into the Age of Aquarius. 

While Rex Dutta had been invited on the program as a representative of the Lunatic Fringe of Flying Saucer Fanatics, the irony is he may well have had a better idea of what was going on than anyone else present. The concept of contact with extraterrestrials via radio was far from a new idea - the aforementioned book by Robert Short (which I might add gives the fullest account of the 1977 broadcast interruption I've come across) talks about his early experiences as a Channel for his "source", Jon-Al, and his early days at Giant Rock with George Van Tassel. While Short primarily used Automatic Writing to channel messages from the stars, others at Giant Rock would employ ham radios. Van Tassel would go on to build the Integratron - a place that "concentrates and amplifies the Earth's magnetic field". Of course Rex would have been familiar with these concepts as well. Short describes the method of message delivery in his book as Translators or Tensors, which utilizes the Subspace Radio Network and UFOs to monitoring devices. From here the message can be picked up by Instruments or Translators... in his words: "These Instruments or Translators include human channelers, television devices, radio communication, vast distance communication, called radar telephonic, and lastly, through the mind's ability to send images over distances, called telepathy."

Van Tassel and Short are both also intimately connected with the origins of Ashtar Galactic Command's messages to Earth. While Van Tassel was the first to claim contact with Ashtar in 1952, Short founded a group called Ashtar Command shortly thereafter. Van Tassel eventually stopped using the name Ashtar in his writings. Incidentally, in 1977, the same year of the broadcast interruption, a woman calling herself Tuella took up the mantle of main channel for Ashtar taking it in a new direction entirely... but more on that next post!

In a way, the 1971 conversation with a Voice from Outer Space is a greater mystery than the ITV interruption of 1977. At least the internet has preserved the TV interruption, and it can be found easily enough on YouTube. The tape of the 1971 show seems to be lost to time, though I hold out hope that an mp3 file of it is archived online somewhere. The aftermath of the UFO show that January night was one of silence, of pretending it never happened or brushing it off as a prank. Steve's first visit to Rex's house makes him likely one of the few around these days who have heard the full recording. It's all part of this crazy story I'm slowly getting around to telling, and the following few years would bring (among other things) the broadcast interruption that started me down this rabbit hole. Sit tight, folks, we're in the home stretch...


Sources:

Flying Saucer Message, by Rex Dutta
Out of the Stars: A Message From Extraterrestrial Intelligence, by Robert Short
"The Reverend Robert Short's Ascent to the Stars" (Chasing UFOs Blog) by Adam Gorightly
Ashtar Command (World Religions and Spirituality Project Entry) by Christopher Helland

The Curious Case of the Fish Doctor and the Man From Ashtar Galactic Command, Part I

"For many years you have seen us as lights in the skies. We speak to you now in peace and wisdom as we have done to your brothers and sisters all over this, your planet Earth."

Unbeknownst to presenter Ivor Mills, a message from Ashtar Galactic Command was broadcast to viewers of the London Weekly News on November 26, 1977...

These two sentences served to introduce viewers of the National News on the evening of November 26, 1977, to Vrillon (or Grahama) of Ashtar Galactic Command. The odd, metallic voice had interrupted the news at 5:12 p.m. and continued for five minutes, overriding the transmitters for everywhere south of the Thames in England. At the very least, this would involve overpowering the signal for five transmitters - no small feat for hijacking pranksters. 

"It covered Kent Surrey Hampshire and parts of Berkshire as far North as Reading, South west to Portsmouth and East right over to Dover" - Firemoon on ATS, October 28 2010

The engineers at the broadcast stations were totally unaware that the signal had been hijacked. Their monitors showed the news broadcast as it should have been. The only reason those at ITV learned that a Flying Saucer Occupant had stolen the show was because of angry and confused viewers calling the stations. Engineers were unable to correct it, and when the representative from Ashtar Galactic Command had said his piece, the regularly scheduled programming returned. Amusingly enough, in at least one video of the event on YouTube, the message ends just in time for the beginning of the Bugs Bunny cartoon "Falling Hare" - the World War II era cartoon in which a gremlin gets the best of Bugs. 

At first glance, it seems like a great prank and a bit of a cultural curiosity. It's reminiscent of the "Max Headroom Incident", a broadcast interruption in 1987 perpetrated by a few industrious early hackers who managed to override the signal from the Sears Tower in Chicago during an episode of Dr. Who. Or so we're told... those responsible for that hijacking were never caught. Such is also the case with the ITV message from the Space Brothers. The other similarity, for whatever it's worth, is both events occurred in late November - the Headroom incident being on the 24th anniversary of the JFK assassination. Everything is significant - even the things that aren't!

But this was the second time British broadcast had been shanghaied by shifty alien beings - and the second time a certain fish doctor had been involved.

On the 8th of January, 1971, Greater London Radio featured a call-in show on the topic of Flying Saucers. Rex Dutta was a guest on the program, having recently published his book Flying Saucer Viewpoint. It is due to Rex that any transcript of this interruption exists - he managed to obtain the tape after the broadcast and a full transcript - along with his commentary - appears in his second book on otherworldly contact, Flying Saucer Message. The tape is long missing, but copies of his book still exist out in the world. And the transcript of the interruption of 71 has an added twist - in this case, the metallic alien voice called in as many listeners had over the course of the program. As opposed to the 1977 television interruption, an active conversation developed between a man only identified as "Assistant Producer" and a Space Brother who failed to give a name, confusingly settling on simply "Sir". (Rex Dutta explains in the book that due to laws regarding libel in the UK at the time, he had been advised against using actual names of the other people involved. It seems a sticking point for him that associating someone with the subject of Venusians, anomalous aircraft, etc, would be considered libel.) 

Rex would later investigate the 1977 Ashtar Galactic Command incident, in the meantime publishing a third book on the subject of UFOs Reality of Occult/Yoga/Meditation/Flying Saucers as well as editing and distributing a magazine called "Viewpoint Aquarius". He ran his magazine from his "bread and butter", as he called it - Fish Tanks LTD, located on Blandford St in London. 

Rex Dutta was a world renowned fish expert, having written 20 books on fish and fish care. In the above video, he is shown as a "self-trained" fish doctor with exotic equipment for nursing fish back to health. On the web page for this video in the Pathe archives, the description of it ends with

"Note: Rex Dutta and his wife Olive (?) Dutta appear in a few Pathe films - 

Who were they? -JH"

Who indeed, JH. Who indeed.

I was fortunate enough to follow this line of inquiry based on the accounts given by someone who knew Rex, and considered him a mentor. Known by some as Firemoon, by others as Rev, he's been known to respond to "oi, you!" and also SteveDoG. For my purposes here, I'll just call him Steve. Steve's invaluable firsthand account of his relationship with Rex Dutta and their joint investigation into the Ashtar Galactic Command broadcast heist led me down a road of curiosity to find out more about the enigmatic fish doctor, UFOlogist, and as it turns out, occultist, Rex Dutta. The interesting thing about the video above, is that it shows him at the precipice of a life-changing event - in 1954, his mother would give him a copy of Flying Saucers Have Landed by George Adamski and Desmond Leslie, and he would shortly thereafter join the Theosophical Society to which his wife and mother both were already involved members. Flying Saucers only make sense, he would contend, through the lens of Theosophy, and his three books on the subject expound this Blavatskyan interpretation of the phenomena in near exhaustive depth. His quirky writing style and enthusiasm make for a fun read, and his recognition of events such as the two broadcast interruptions as "cosmic jokes" allowed him a unique vantage point from which to share the message that "Oneness is". His books are dedicated to the "People of the Web" - designed to be read and understood by those "with eyes to see and ears to hear". 

Steve's investigation along with Rex into the 1977 event is recounted on various threads on ATS and I've spent the better part of the past year looking into the details of Rex's life, and this event in particular. You can read about the time Vrillon spoke to all of South England on various sites, but as Steve would say Rex had connections that allowed him access to people and information that most investigators of UFOs wouldn't get. Suffice to say, the idea that a few pranksters somehow overrode the signal for five separate transmitters covering an area of 1500 square miles would have required a great deal of power and equipment that the average person simply wouldn't have. In one engineer's estimation, according to Steve, "6 flat bed trucks worth of batteries" would have been needed without a commercial power supply. The official story at the time was that perpetrators from Hampshire were "caught and dealt with", but no record exists of such an arrest and their identities remain unknown. Engineers at the stations were told to say "no comment" if asked about the event, under threat of termination from their jobs. Broadcasting personnel that gave information to Steve and Rex did so under conditions of anonymity. 

So what exactly did happen on the night of November 26, 1977, at 5:12 p.m.? Why all the secrecy in both the 1971 and 1977 events? Was Max Headroom also part of Ashtar Galactic Command? I'll attempt to further parse these things out, and also get more into the life and work of Rex Dutta in a series of entries following this one. Our story continues in "The Curious Case of the Fish Doctor and the Man From Ashtar Galactic Command, Part II"...

Sources:

"Fish Heart Beats" - 1953, Pathe films

"Flying Saucer Theosophist" - Pelletier, Rogelle, FOHAT Vol XI, No. 4, Winter 2007

"Hidden Mysteries - Alleged TV and Radio Broadcasts from Space" - Jon Hurst

"Rex Dutta - a Tribute to an Original Theosophist" FOHAT vol XI, No.1 Spring 2007

Flying Saucer Message - Rex Dutta, 1972

abovetopsecret.com