Creatures from the Twilight Zone

Swedish ufologists Anders Skoglund and Christoffer Mossberg recently came across a very fascinating story told by a woman living in the south of Sweden. I was briefed of this encounter in an email from my UFO research colleagues on June 18. The observation occurred in Tunisia in the 1980s where the family for many years spent their summers. This is only a preliminary report and I hope Anders and Christoffer will continue investigating and documenting this extraordinary case.

Anders Skoglund

Christoffer Mossberg

”It was during Ramadan and me, my husband and two children had visited mother-in-law in the evening. It is around midnight when I drive our car to the house we are building, about 7 kilometers from the city. Our house is situated between two villages. About 150 meters from the house is a railway and from what I remember there were seldom any trains coming. When we approach the railway crossing the red lights begin flashing. We stop just a few meters in front of the railway tracks, waiting for the train.

There is no sound from any train and instead four or five bright creatures appear in front of us, walking in the middle of the tracks. They walk behind each other with arms stretched to the next in line. Their heads are large and round and narrowed at the chin. The beings look straight ahead, never turning towards us. They are extremely thin, almost like skeletons. We can see the bones in their chest. Feet are very small and they almost jump ahead. Their height maybe  two thirds of ours. Actually they looked like very skinny old men.

Drawing by witness

Our children are asleep. Me and my husband remain silent and just stare at these beings. When they had passed the red lights are turned off and we can continue driving. We are still silent, wondering what we have witnessed? I just want to go come home as fast as possible. When finally at home and our children asleep we sit down at the kitchen table and we both asked ourselves – what was it we encountered?

Each of us take a paper and draw a picture of what we observed. I thought this was the best we could do so as not to influence each other. We made similar figures and our memories of the observation were the same. We speculated about UFOs and also another theory. According to local tradition there was once an old well not far from the railway crossing. And beside this well people had encountered jinns on several occasions. Some had even been chased by these jinns. These jinn had the feet of animals with small hoofs.”

This observation is especially intriguing as the beings obviously affected electricity in the railway lights. This is often mentioned in UFO reports but I have no knowledge of this physical effect in creature encounters with no UFO. The comment on jinns is also interesting as there is a rich folklore on these beings in Arabic countries. Jinns are also an important part of Islamic theology and often mentioned in the Quran. There are several classes of jinn, both good and evil. In several respects they can be compared to demons or nature spirits in the Western world. Flying Saucer Review editor GordonCreighton, who became convinced that UFO entities were evil demonic entities sometimes in his articles compared them to jinns.

This encounter in Tunisia has some similarities with an observation made in Estonia 1938 or 1939. In two letters to Swedish ufologist Sven Schalin, 1959, the witness Karl Laiande narrates what he observed together with a friend in the village Juminda, Estonia. The event occurred on the farm owned by the grandparents of Karl Laiande. He first noticed someone trying to crawl through a crevice between a small shed and a fence. Something looking like a human hand appeared and Karl´s first thought was that his younger brother was trying to sneak up on them. But he soon realized this was something entirely different. The being that appeared was no human. Karl made a sketch of the creature attached in the letter.

Sven Schalin 1992

”In height it was about 1,10 m, probably 1,05 m. Very long legs. The chest extremely high, almost like hump and the hemispherical head placed directly on this hump. Across the hemispherical head was a slit. The eyes appeared as two slits. The body seemed to be covered with some green-brown pegamoid (leather) material. When my friend started to run towards the creature it first made no hurry. Not until he was very close did it start running at an incredible speed. He simply rushed pass my friend as close as 1 meter. I was never closer than 30 meters. Suddenly the creature simply disappeared into thin air in front of my friend.”

In his letter Karl Laiande explain that he has tried to find a scientific explanation for this encounter: ”I consider this experience as an undisputable evidence that our planet is visited from space”. His two sisters and uncle to whom he related the observation are convinced he has seen a ”kratt”, a magical creature in Estonian folklore, made by flour and blood from the person who made it.

Drawing by Karl Laiande

The comment made by Karl´s relatives is very interesting as they probably are closer to a correct interpretation than Karl himself, who tries his best to find a reasonable scientific explanation. From an esoteric viewpoint the creature encounters in Tunisia and Estonia open up two possibilities. Either nature spirits using the above forms in materialization or elementals created consciously or unconsciously and temporary appearing in visible form. I would vote for the latter interpretation.

To understand these phenomena we must consult one of the best sources presenting a detailed taxonomy of non-human entities, Theosophist Charles Leadbeater´s classic The Astral Plane, published already in 1895. A magnificent contribution to esotericism as a science of the multiverse. The writings and investigations of Charles Leadbeater are very controversial among Theosophists. One of the reasons being his sometimes rather excentric behavior and controversial sexual activities, documented by Dr. Gregory Tillett in his biography The Elder Brother (1982). But in spite of his faults and mistakes Leadbeater was a pioneer in his research and writing. Commenting on some of his mistakes The Tibetan D.K. still has this to say: "... of his sincerity and of his point of attainment there is no question." (Alice Bailey, Esoteric Psychology II, p. 303).

Inhabitants of the astral plane are classified in four groups in Leadbeater´s study: Human (living), dead, non-human, artificial. It is in the last category we find elementals, consciously or unconsciously formed. Leadbeater explain what happens on the astral plane when the human mind for a long time concentrates and formulates a definite and purposeful thought or wish: ” The effect produced is of the most striking nature. The thought seizes upon the plastic essence, and moulds it instantly into a living being of appropriate form – a being which when once thus created is in no way under the control of its creator, but lives out a life of its own, the length of which is proportionate to the intensity of the thought or wish which called it into existence. (p. 125-126)

In this way anyone with enough concentration and will power can create an artificial entity of any form. This experiment was successfully tried out by a group of parapsychologists in Canada who together created the elemental ”Philip”. They documented the experience in the book Conjuring up Philip. An Adventure in Psychokinesis by Iris M. Owen and Margaret Sparrow (1976). Creating a tulpa, golem or elemental is not recommended. A lesson that was learnt the hard way by Alexandra David-Neal who created a tulpa in the form of a monk. It took her six months of hard struggle to dissolve the phantom. (Alexandra David-Neal, Magic and Mystery in Tibet, pp. 314-315).

In the future the knowledge of how to materialize thought-forms will be known to humanity, according to the Tibetan adept D.K. : ”People will come into incarnation who will have the ability temporarily to create and vitalize these though-forms, and so enable the general public to see them. The time, however, is not yet. There is too much fear, and not enough experience of truth in the world. ” (Alice Bailey, A Treatise of White Magic, pp. 182-183).

Encountering the little people, leprechauns or fairies is usually a nice and fascinating experience. Coming face to face with an elemental can be quite the opposite, depending upon how and for what purpose it was created. Maybe you then should pronounce the words of Rav Zeira said when meeting a golem: "You were created by the sages; return to your dust".