Glimpses of the Controllers
In an interview with me, a northern-California abductee — call him “Peter” — reported an experience which was conducted not by a small grey alien, but by a human being. The percipient called this man a “doctor.” He gave a description of this individual, and even provided a drawing.
Some time after I gathered this information, a southern-California abductee told me her story — which included a description of this very same “doctor.” The physical details were so strikingly similar as to erase coincidence. This woman is a leading member of a Los Angeles-based UFO group; three other women in this group report abduction encounters with the same individual.[177]
Perhaps those three women were fantasists, attaching themselves to another’s narrative. But my northern informant never met these people. Why did he describe the same “doctor”?
One of the abductees I have dealt with insisted, under hypnosis, that her abduction experience brought her to a certain house in the Los Angeles area. She was able to provide directions to the house, even though she had no conscious memory of ever being there. I later learned that this house is indeed occupied by a scientist who formerly (and perhaps currently) conducted clandestine research on mind control technology.
This same abductee described a clandestine brain operation of some sort she underwent in childhood. The neurosurgeon was a human being, not an alien. She even recalled the name. (Note: This is not the same individual referred to above.) When I heard the name, it meant nothing to me — but later I learned that there really was a scientist of that name who specialized in electrode implant research.
Licia Davidson is a thoughtful and articulate abductee, whose fascinating story closely parallels many found in the abductee literature — except for one unusual detail. In an interview with me, she described an unsettling recollection of a human being, dressed normally, holding a black box with a protruding antenna. This odd snippet of memory did not coincide with the general thrust of her abduction narrative. Could this remembrance represent an all-too-brief segment of accurately-perceived reality interrupting her hypnotically-induced “screen memory”? Peter clearly recalls seeing a similar box during his abduction.
Interestingly, Licia resides in the Los Angeles suburb of Tujunga Canyon, a prominent spot on the abduction map: Many of the abductees I have spoken to first had unusual experiences while living in this area. Near Tujunga Canyon, in Mt. Pacifico, is a hidden former Nike missile base; more than one abductee has described odd, seemingly inexplicable military activity around this location.[178] The reader will recall the connection of Nike missile bases to the disturbing story of Dr. L. Jolyon West, a veteran of MKULTRA.
Cults
Some abductees I have spoken to have been directed to join certain religious/philosophical sects. These cults often bear close examination.
The leaders of these groups tend to be “ex”-CIA operatives, or Special Forces veterans. They are often linked through personal relations, even though they espouse widely varying traditions. I have heard unsettling reports that the leaders of some of these groups have used hypnosis, drugs, or “mind machines” on their charges. Members of these cults have reported periods of missing time during ceremonies or “study periods.”
I strongly urge abduction researchers to examine closely any small “occult” groups an abductee might join. For example, one familiar leader of the UFO fringe — a man well-known for his espousal of the doctrine of “love and light” — is Virgil Armstrong, a close personal friend of General John Singlaub, the notorious Iran-Contra player, who recently headed the neo-fascist World Anti-Communist League. Armstrong, who also happens to be an ex-Green Beret and former CIA operative, figured into my inquiry in an interesting fashion: An abductee of my acquaintance was told — by her “entities,” naturally — to seek out this UFO spokesman and join his “sky-watch” activities, which, my source alleges, included a mass channelling session intended to send debilitating “negative” vibrations to Constantine Chernenko, then the leader of the Soviet Union. Of course, intracerebral voices may have a purely psychological origin, so Armstrong can hardly be held to task for the abductee’s original “directive.”[179] Still, his past associations with military intelligence inevitably bring disturbing possibilities to mind.
Even more ominous than possible ties between UFO cults and the intelligence community are the cults’ links with the shadowy I AM group, founded by Guy Ballard in the 1930s.[180] According to researcher David Stupple,
“If you look at the contactee groups today, you’ll see that most of the stable, larger ones are actually neo-I AM groups, with some sort of tie to Ballard’s organization.”[181]
This cult, therefore, bears investigation.
Guy Ballard’s “Mighty I AM Religious Activity,” grew, in large part, out of William Dudley Pelly’s Silver Shirts, an American Nazi organization.[182] Although Ballard himself never openly proclaimed Nazi affiliation, his movement was tinged with an extremely right-wing political philosophy, and in secret meetings he “decreed” the death of President Franklin Roosevelt.[183] The I AM philosophy derived from Theosophy, and, in this author’s estimation, bears a more-than-cursory resemblance to the Theosophically-based teachings that informed the proto-Nazi German occult lodges.[184]
After the war, Pelley (who had been imprisoned for sedition during the hostilities) headed an occult-oriented organization called Soulcraft, based in Noblesville, Indiana. Another Soulcraft employee was the controversial contactee George Hunt Williamson (real name: Michel d’Obrenovic), who co-authored UFOs Confidential with John McCoy, a proponent of the theory that a Jewish banking conspiracy was preventing disclosure of the solution to the UFO mystery.[185] Later, Williamson founded the I AM-oriented Brotherhood of the Seven Rays in Peru.[186] Another famed contactee, George Van Tassel, was associated with Pelley and with the notoriously anti-Semitic Reverend Wesley Swift (founder of the group which metamorphosed into the Aryan nations).[187]
The most visible modern offspring of I AM is Elizabeth Clare Prophet’s Church Universal and Triumphant, a group best-known for its massive arms caches in underground bunkers. CUT was recently exposed in Covert Action Information Bulletin as a conduit of CIA funds,[188] and according to researcher John Judge, has ties to organizations allied to the World Anti-Communist League.[189] Prophet is becoming involved in abduction research and has sponsored presentations by Budd Hopkins and other prominent investigators. In his book The Armstrong Report: ET’s and UFO’s: They Need Us, We Don’t Need Them [sic.][190], Virgil Armstrong directs troubled abductees toward Prophet’s group. (Perhaps not insignificantly, he also suggests that abductees plagued by implants alleviate their problem by turning to “the I AM force” within.[191])
Another UFO channeller, Frederick Von Mierers, has promulgated both a cult with a strong I AM orientation[192] and an apparent con-game involving over-appraised gemstones. Mierers is an anti-Semite who contends that the Holocaust never happened and that the Jews control the world’s wealth.
UFORUM is a flying saucer organization popular with Los Angeles-area abductees; its founder is Penny Harper, a member of a radical Scientology breakaway group which connects the teachings of L. Ron Hubbard with pronouncements against “The Illuminati” (a mythical secret society) and other betes noir familiar from right-wing conspiracy literature. Harper directs members of her group to read The Spotlight, an extremist tabloid (published by Willis Carto’s Liberty Lobby) which denies the reality of the Holocaust and posits a “Zionist” scheme to control the world.[193]
More than one unwary abductee has fallen in with groups such as those listed above. It isn’t difficult to imagine how some of these questionable groups might mold an abductee’s recollection of his experience — and perhaps help direct his future actions.
Some modern abductees, with otherwise-strong claims, claim encounters with blond, “Nordic” aliens reminiscent of the early contactee era. Surely, the “Nordic” appearance of these aliens sprang from the dubious spiritual tradition of Van Tassell, Ballard, Pelley, McCoy, etc. Why, then, are some modern abductees seeing these very same other-worldly Uebermenschen?
One abductee of my acquaintance claims to have had beneficial experiences with these “blond” aliens — who, he believes, came originally from the Pleiades. Interestingly, in the late 1960s, the psychopathically anti-Semitic Rev. Wesley Swift predicted this odd twist in the abduction tale. In a broadcast “sermon,” he spoke at length about UFOs, claiming that there were “good” aliens and “bad” aliens. The good ones, he insisted, were tall, blond Aryans — who hailed from the Pleiades. He made this pronouncement long before the current trends in abduction lore.
Could some of the abductions be conducted by an extreme right-wing element within the national security establishment? Disagreeable as the possibility seems, we should note that the “lunatic right” is represented in all other walks of life; certainly hard-rightists have taken positions within the military-intelligence complex as well.