by Orfeo Angelucci (1955)
Foreword
Many persons have asked me why the space visitors should have chosen me for contact rather than some other individual they considered eminently qualified for such a contact than myself. Why, have they infer, should the space visitors have picked so insignificant a non-entity as I for their revelations?
In all humility, I tell you that I too have asked both the space visitors and myself that very question many times. And it is only within recent months that I have begun to understand fully just why I was chosen. After you have finished the book, however, you will have the answer. It is up to you then to decide weather or not you agree with the saucer beings with their choice of contact.
Thus I shall begin by telling you something of my early life and the space visitors first contact with me back in the year 1946, when I was totally unaware that I first came under observation.
My childhood was the usual happy, carefree childhood of most American boys. I joined in the less strenuous games, attended school and was fairly good in my studies, although I was always frail and in poor health. Fortunately, my family was in fairly comfortable circumstances and they and my two indulgent uncles saw to it that I always had the best medical attention available.
My youthful trouble was diagnosed as “constitutional inadequacy” and its symptoms were great physical weakness, lassitude, lack of appetite and malnutrition. Hence I tired very easily and the slightest physical effort often left me weak and exhausted. I suffered from severe migraine headaches and as I grew older it seemed at times that every nerve and muscle in my body ached with excruciating pain.
When I was in the ninth grade the doctors advised that I discontinue school and continue my studies at home. This arrangement was highly satisfactory with me, for I have always been intensely interested in all branches of science. At home, I was able to devote my entire time to the study of these subjects.
With plenty of rest and on a weight-building diet I gained strength and within a year the doctors believed I was well enough to return to school. But as my family suffered the financial reverses in the meantime, it was decided that it would be best if I went to work for a while. I heartily approved. My first job was with my uncle’s flooring and stucco company. He hired me as an estimator salesman as I was not equal to any heavy work. I liked the work and enjoyed getting and meeting people. All in all, I got along pretty well even though I was considered just a kid. In my spare time, I continued to study all of the books I could get ahold of on scientific subjects.
In 1936 I met Mabel Borgianini, an attractive Italian girl who is a direct descendant of the famous Borgias. From the first, both of us knew we were meant for each other. Her happy, cheerful disposition helped me to keep from brooding over my health and physical inability to accomplish all of the things that I longed to do. It was the happiest day of my life when we were married. About a year later our first son, Raymond, was born. and our cup of happiness was full.
A little later I suffered a complete physical breakdown and was forced to give up my job. My weight fell alarmingly from 150 to 103 pounds and I was so weak that I could scarcely sit up. After a number of medical examinations and complicated tests, the doctors decided I was suffering from a neurovascular disturbance. They prescribed complete rest and continuous medical attention.
Thus I entered a new world, a white world of doctors, nurses, and hospital beds. For eighteen long months, I was confined to bed. For my body was racked with excruciating pains and I was so utterly exhausted that I could not even read. Medical science was doing everything possible for me, but I knew that my doctors didn’t believe that I would ever pull through.
Frankly, I didn’t much care whether I lived or died. Life was no longer desirable. To lie day after day on a white hospital cot with a body flayed with pain and too exhausted even to think is indeed a living hell. Death, I felt could mean release from pain. Especially was the confinement difficult to bear as I had always loved the outdoors, the sparkle of the sunshine, the whisper of the leaves in the woods, and the music of the woodland streams. Sometimes I prayed that I might die and escape the pain and awful weariness that ached in my muscles.
But weeks lengthened into months and gradually I began to improve. Finally, I was able to sit up again and then to walk. It was like being reborn. I even began to take an interest in my science books once more. At last, the joyous day when I was able to leave the hospital and return home. All through those long months of confinement the faith and encouragement of my wife and family never failed. Mabel was with me through it all and if it hadn’t been for her love and understanding I doubt if I would have made it.
My body was still wracked with pain, but I had to bear that. The good thing was the terrible exhaustion and trembling weakness was gone so that I was able to be up and about. Although my family tried to dissuade me, I insisted upon going back to work on my old job almost immediately. I had been inactive so long that I wanted more than anything just to be busy again.
After I returned to work, I took up courses in night school. The old insatiable hunger for knowledge was gnawing at my very soul. I realized that science had discovered much, but there were still so many things to be learned; so many of nature’s secrets yet to be revealed. I was obsessed with learning the true nature of the atom; discovering the cure for virus diseases and especially for polio, that most ghastly of all crippling diseases. I felt that a satisfactory explanation for the creation and operation of the entire universe was yet to be worked out. What was the great mystery of the creation of matter, or the actual origin of the atom? These and other similar enigmas echoed in my brain night day.
The field of electricity and electro-magnetic phenomena interested me in particular. Probably because from earliest childhood I had an acute fear or phobia about lightning. During an electrical storm, I suffered not only actual bodily pain but mental perturbation and distress. Thus I became well versed in atmospheric static electricity.
I conducted some simple experiments on my own. I noticed that all fowl and especially chickens are nervous and apprehensive during an impending thunderstorm. It was obvious from my own reactions that they too experienced definite physical symptoms because of atmospheric conditions. Also, I discovered chickens are subject to a “range paralysis” which in every respect parallels infantile paralysis in human beings. From my studies and experiments in this field, I believed I had discovered certain facts that might be highly significant in the treatments of polio. In my enthusiasm, I wrote a long detailed letter on the subject to President Franklin Roosevelt, who was then in the White House.
Returning to my studies and home experiments, I became interested in fungi and the atmospheric conditions affecting them. I studied the wild mushrooms and the particular atmospheric conditions which resulted in their sudden, erratic growth. From the mushrooms, I turned to molds. It was my belief that molds are a negative form of life which leech on living matter by an elusive, subtle process of mutation.
At that time we were well into World War II. Penicillin had been discovered, but it was yet only a magic word and a deep mystery to the public. No books or reports were available on the subject. But by then I was familiar with the characteristics of fungi. In my experiments, I discovered that one of the most common molds could be made to produce chemicals indefinitely if kept in proper nutrition and temperature. It was then I decided to see what structural changes would occur in the mold aspergillus clavatus in the upper atmosphere.
On August 4, 1946, I took cultures of the mold in three stages of growth: embryonic, half mature and mature. I placed the molds in baskets and attached the baskets to eighteen Navy-type balloons and prepared to send them aloft. But through an unfortunate accident, the balloons broke away prematurely, carrying the baskets with the molds aloft with no means of retrieving them. My long months of strenuous effort and careful planning were hopelessly lost.
Heartsick, I sighed heavily as I watched the balloons and my precious molds ascending higher and higher into the clear blue sky. I was a perfect day, just the kind of weather I had longed for to make my test, but now everything was irreparably lost.
My family and a number of friends and neighbors were with me watching the experiment. Also, on hand were a reporter and a photographer from the Trentonian, the Trenton daily newspaper. Everyone was silent staring into the heavens watching the balloons growing smaller as they gained altitude. Everyone there and especially Mabel and my father-in-law knew how keenly disappointed I was. Mabel put her arm comfortingly about my shoulders and murmured: “It’s all right, Orfeo. You can try again.”
It was then that my father-in-law, Alfred Borgianini, noticed a craft in the sky and called out: “Look! There’s an airplane, Orfeo. Maybe it will follow your balloons.”
Everyone there saw the object and it was the consensus that it had been attracted to the spot by the group of ascending balloons. But as it hovered and circled overhead, we were all soon aware that it was no ordinary airplane. In the first place it maneuvered in an amazingly graceful and effortless manner. Then as we gained a clearer view of it, we were startled to see that it did not have the familiar outline of any known type of aircraft. It was definitely circular in appearance and glistened in the sunshine. We looked at each other in surprise and bewilderment and the photographer tried to get some shots of the thing. Mabel exclaimed: “Why I never saw such an airplane before! It’s round and it doesn’t have any wings!”
Everyone agreed and we continued to stare as it gained altitude and appeared to follow after the balloons until it too vanished from our sight. For several days afterward we discussed the strange object, but as in the case of most mysteries, we forgot all about it within a week or two. Today, however, anyone of those persons who were with me that day will vouch for the authenticity of that strange craft.
Since then I have learned that the occasion of the launching of the balloons was the first time I came under direct observation of the extra-terrestrials. Although I never then dreamed of the significance of the event, that was their first contact with me. From that moment on for the next five years and nine months, I remained under constant observation by beings from another world, although I was wholly unaware of it.
The state police force was appealed to and requested to be on the lookout for the eighteen lost balloons and their strange cargo. Also, local radio stations and newspapers publicized the loss of the balloons and requested anyone finding or sighting them to report to authorities. But nothing was ever heard about them and to all intents, the eighteen balloons and the mold cultures vanished.
Several days after the loss of the balloons I stopped in at the Palmer Physics Laboratory at Princeton University to visit Dr. Dan Davis, head of the Cosmic Ray Department. Dr. Davis had always been most friendly toward me and was never too busy to take time out to help me with some of the technical problems that were always troubling me.
I told Dr. Davis and one of his aides about the experimental molds and their loss in the accident with the balloons. Dr. Davis regretted that I had not told him about my experiments beforehand, for he said that the laboratory would have been glad to supply the hydrogen gas for the experiment and otherwise help to reduce expenses. Also, he said he would have arranged to have the balloons traced by the chain of radar stations in the eastern section.
Princeton and its environs were literally heaven-on-earth to me, for it was one of the important homes of my beloved science. In the vicinity were such great institutions a Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, the R.C.A. Laboratories, the American Telephone and Telegraph Co.; the Institute for Advanced Study; the Heyden Chemical Corporation, producers of penicillin. And nearby were Rutgers University, E. R. Squibb and Co., Merck and Son and many others.
Yes, I loved every inch of New Jersey with its marvelous institutions of learning and scientific research. But my love for the state was offset by my uncontrollable apprehensions of and physical anguish during the rather violent thunderstorms there. Thus when Mabel began to talk of moving to the West Coast where I’d heard there were few, if any, thunderstorms, I was easily persuaded to go along with her plans.
In November of 1947 my family, consisting of Mabel and I and my two boys, Raymond and Richard, started by automobile for Los Angeles. On the trip, we stopped at Rochester, Minnesota where I had an appointment at the famous Mayo Clinic with Dr. Walter C. Alvarez, the modern Hippocrates of diagnostic medicine. I sincerely appreciated my tremendous good fortune at being granted time by this authority in the field of medicine, for many more deserving than I have been unable to see this busy man.
Despite his fame and his importance in the medical world, I found him extremely modest and kindly. After a thorough examination, he concluded that my condition was caused by an inherent constitutional inadequacy in an extreme degree. It was his opinion that the condition had been induced by a childhood attack of trichinosis from eating contaminated, under-cooked pork. He said I was fortunate to have survived the acute attack. He advised me to get as much rest as possible and never to engage in work that was not of my choice and liking in order to minimize the burden on my weakened constitution and nervous system.
At last, we arrived in the Golden State on the West Coast. Southern California was a delightful new experience for both my family and myself. I decided it was paradise indeed when I discovered that it actually was practically free from electrical storms. And my boys and Mabel were thrilled with stretches of golden sand at the seashores, the mountains and the continuous semi-spring that prevails there at all seasons of the year.
We spent five months in California sight-seeing and enjoying the sunshine and the wonders of its scenery. At the end of that time, we had to return to Trenton, as I had some unfinished business to attend to there. But I had purchased a lot in Los Angeles and we planned to return and make our permanent home there as soon as possible.
For some years I had been working on a thesis titled, “The Nature of Infinite Entities” which included chapters on such subjects as Atomic Evolution, Suspension, and Involution; Origin of the Cosmic Rays; Velocity of the Universe, etc. While I was in Trenton I had the thesis published entirely at my own expense and mailed copies to various universities and individual scientists working on fundamental research. Of course, I realized at the time it was presumptuous of me, but I was completely carried away with my tremendous enthusiasm for ideas which I believed I understood but could not properly formulate because of lack of technical training.
It was my deep and abiding hope that someone of the scientists might understand what I was driving at and work out the technical and mathematical angles. Some of the men were interested, but none as far as I know ever exerted the effort on the theories that I had hoped they might. But at least I was satisfied that I had done my best considering the limited circumstances of my education. I was content to let the matter rest. It was obvious science had no need of me, a rank and presumptuous amateur. I must remain mute, an orphan of science!
We were all happy to return to Los Angeles and settle down in our new home. There I went into business with my father. But from the first we encountered vicissitudes on every side. For three long, difficult years we struggled along trying to make a go of it, but monopolies and stiff competition made the going so rough that we were finally forced to close down the business.
The temptation was great to return to the security of Trenton where material comfort and a small fortune awaited us if we would make our home there. But Mabel and the boys loved Southern California. As far as I am concerned, security has never been of great importance in my world of the atom, the electron and the photon. Also, there were still those electric storms to reckon with. To an electrophobe like myself, this aspect is always of primary consideration. So we decided to forget security and gamble on keeping our home and making a go of it in Los Angeles where we were all content.
This was in the year 1948and the flying saucers were then making headlines from time to time. But I was completely disinterested in the phenomenon. Like many other persons, I thought the saucers were some new type of aircraft being secretly developed here in the United States. I figured the information would come out in good time.
For several months I worked as manager of the Los Feliz Club House. In my spare time, I endeavored to write a motion picture script. I was more of a hobby than anything else. I didn’t really expect the script to be accepted as I’d had no writing experience. As the idea of space travel was quite popular in the films then, I concentrated on a story about an imaginary trip to the moon. Several studios were interested in the finished manuscript, but it was never made into a motion picture.
When the clubhouse where I was employed was finally leased to a large organization, I made application for work at the Lockheed Aircraft Corporation plant at Burbank, California. The application was approved and I went to work for Lockheed on April 2, 1952, in the metal fabrication department.
After about six weeks in Metal Fabrication, I was transferred to the Plastics Unit at Lockheed. Since plastics had always interested me, I was pleased with the change. I was one of a three-man crew working on radomes, or plastic and glass housings for the radar units of the F-94C and F-94B Starfire jet aircraft. I liked my fellow workers, Dave Donnegan and Richard Butterfield. Both were honest sincere, hardworking typical young Americans. They had their feet firmly on the ground and although interested on new ideas and scientific developments, they were strictly on the material plane and not interested in abstractions.
I was fortunate indeed to have two such men to cushion the shock of the fantastic chain of events in which I was so soon and unexpectedly to be involved. As I look back now it appears that an occult power of some sort had neatly arranged every smallest detail in advance including the particular type of job I was in as well as the two men who were to be closest to me through all of my incredible experiences. urs was the swing shift. The unusual hours appealed to me as well as the excitement of the new work and the motley assortment of people at the plant. But I did not know then what infinitely strange destiny gate held in store for me.