Friday, April 24, 2020

Space People - Physical Versus Etheric

”An outstanding point in flying saucer research which requires to be cleared up is the question of whether U.F.O. 's are material or non-material. Adamski says emphatically that the saucers and mother ships which he has seen are solid, material craft, and that the people in them are human beings like ourselves, who live on other planets much as we live here on Earth… On the other hand, Angelucci's experience was definitely of a psychic or spiritual nature. He states clearly that the beings he contacted were spiritual beings who were able to appear in human forms, and ascribes all saucer appearances to a form of manifestation.”
(Australian Saucer Record, vol. 1, no 4, Last Quarter 1955, p. 1)


This quote from the editorial by P. D. Thomas is a good summary of one the most long-standing controversies and debates in the UFO movement. It is still not resolved, although today a large number of ufologists are adherents of the multiverse, 4-D or etheric theory. To get a historic perspective of what the first generation contactees stated on this issue I have compiled some relevant quotes from the early UFO literature.

The first statement that UFOs were actually not physical craft in the ordinary sense was presented in 1946 by Meade Layne, director of Borderland Sciences Research Association (BSRA). The information was given by the ”Inner Circle”, speaking through the unique deep trance medium Mark Probert.

”Anonymous communicator came as formerly – repeated that ”Kareeta” really came from…  planet not in our vibration rate , and that K. could pass from one rate to another and materialize here, just as everything else on this planet is rooted in the invisible planes as source.”
(Seance Memoranda, 8-A, no 1, Nov. 3, 1946, p. 14.)

Mark Probert

”Ramon Natalli: The phenomena of the flying discs will continue and probably increase. And no doubt there will be some of your bold and devoted pilots who will pursue these phantoms of the skies – very foolishly, of course. … No, we do not change the interpretation of the discs as we first gave it to you. They do come from the Etheric world.
(Seance Memoranda, Transcript 5, Janury 24, 1948, p. 26-27. BSRA No 8-C).

”We have repeatedly described the aeroforms as emergents – meaning thereby that they emerge out of one space-time frame of reference into another, by means of converting their energy rates, or frequencis. When they enter the frequencis of color, sound and tangibility to which our senses react, we are able to perceive them. This word emergent was recommended by the Mark Probert Controls as being the most suitable at our command.”
(Meade Layne, Clips, Quotes & Comments, C3, Aug 1, 1954, p. 1.)

The first public contactee, Eugene Drake, published his experiences in a small booklet, Visitors From Space, 1949 or 1950. In line with the multiverse explanation given by BSRA Eugene Drake present this view of flying saucers:

”They come into our atmospheric belts from their planets not in solid form but in a etheric form. Upon entering our atmosphere they, through their superior knowledge, change the atomic elements in the contruction of these ships and materilize them into the density which they are now using. The beings on these various craft are also passed from the etheric to a dense form of matter and appear to materialize.”
(Eugene Drake, Visitors From Space, p. 2)

Eugene Drake

 In his letter to Karl and Amy Veit, September 19, 1961, published in Besucher aus dem Weltraum, Drake makes these interesting comments (my translation): "There are very few people who have had real physical contact with space ships or space people, like ourselves. I have on various occasions experienced how space people appear in condensed form and I could shake their hands. After the contact they disappeared into a higher frequency." What made me especially fascinated by Eugene Drake was the fact that he, several years before George Adamski, claimed physical contact with space people and was actually the first to print illustrations of the classic Adamski type scout ship and cigar shaped space craft. A fact that has not been noticed, or at least mentioned, by American ufologists.

Page from Visitors From Space. Notice the Adamski scoutcraft

Based upon the published writings of BSRA och Eugene Drake it is evident that the multiverse explanation of flying saucers and space people was clearly established as an idea in the California metaphysical community before George Adamski. He was the contactee that, from the beginning, always insisted that flying saucers were physical, technological craft and the space people just like us with organic physical bodies. People on Venus and Mars were no different from Earth people except in spiritual and technical advancement. This was clearly stated in the booklets he sent out:

”Q35. Do space people materialize and dematerialize?
No, they do not! If they were capable of materializing and dematerializing, why have they bothered to build metal ships… We know from tracking their ships on radar, and from examining them after they have crashed, that they are indeed very ”material”. They are normal human beings of flesh and blood the same as we on Earth.”
(Cosmic Science, Series no 1, part no 2, 1957).

”Q – Do space people materialize and dematerialize?
A – They do not but they can place their mind in a high frequency state that causes their body to become invisible to our limited range of vision. There are some Earth people that can use this law. But the body reamains as solid as the blades of an electric fan revolving at a high rate of speed that causes them to become invisible to our sight.”
George Adamski, Answers to Questions Mot Frequently Asked About Our Space Visitors And Other Planets, revised 1965).

George Adamski 1959

 Immediately after George Adamski´s first meeting with Orthon on November 20, 1952 Meade Layne asked the Inner Circle about Adamski´s experience and received a somewhat different interpretation:
"The story is in the main true. The Disc did land and Mr. Adamski did carry on a conversation with the operator of said ship. But brother Adamski was so excited he does not remember clearly all that was said. This particular ship was from the planet Venus. We would like to remind you however, that the intense heat on that body, due to its proximity to the sun and an atmosphere heavy with carbon dioxide, make it highly unlikely or impossible that beings with the same organic structure as earth-man could abide on its surface. The Venus beings live in the ether of this planet."
(Journal of Borderland Research, Jan-Feb. 1972, p. 20. Trance session December 1, 1952).

To get an overview of what the other leading public contactees of the 1950s stated regarding physical versus etheric craft and space people these quotes are of interest:

"Many of the space people live in frequencies of life beyond the human limits. By using methods developed by them, they can bring their body vibrations inside our visiual limits as easily as we can condense unseen moisture out of the air into water, and then freeze it into ice... Many spiritualist mediums can materialize people from beyond the door of death. do not let yourself be confused, howeer, with these ectoplasmic figures; or the words spoken through them. All figure of people generated through the ectoplasm of another person, are from the transition or earthboud level, or are created by the mind of the medium… Many of the space people coming here are from levels of life that would require them to lower the vibratory rate of their bodies in order to be seen. Others are from levels of life that come within our range of physical vision."
(George Van Tassel, Materialization and de-materialization, Proceedings, vol. 3, no. 9, June 1955, pp. 9-11).


George Van Tassel

”… we function in dimensions unknown to man and hence interpret all things differently”:
(Orfeo Angelucci, The Secret of the Saucers, 1955, p.12).

”You have just fully realized that we are not like earthmen in that we function in dimensions unknown to your world.”
(Orfeo Angelucci, The Secret of the Saucers, 1955, p.43).

Orfeo Angelucci

”The last time you saw me, Orfeo, I was in a less objectified projection in your three-dimensional world… but tonight you see me fully objectified… tonight I am no half-phantom, but can move among men as an Earthman… You now know that we can appear and function as human beings.”
(Orfeo Angelucci, The Secret of the Saucers, 1955, p.56).

”Question:  ”From your statement that you are etheric, am I to presume that you have evolved beyond the stage of a physical and astral body”?
Ashtar: ”Correct. I do not possess a physical casing of the dense type such as yours. I am definitely etheric, as are all people on other planets in this solar system.”
(Trevor James Constable, They Live in the Sky, 1958, p. 39-40).

Question: ”When you become visible to our eyes does the person who sees you know that you are a ”converted etheric?”
Ashtar: ”Not as a rule. The conversion can be made so completely that a physical person encountering us thinks that we, too, are physical.”
(Trevor James Constable, They Live in the sky, 1958, p. 41)

Trevor James Constable 1961

 Question: When you speak of making etheric matter visible at will, is this the way that George Adamski was permitted to take his now famous photographs?
Ashtar: ”Yes, Ether ships as they have been called on your surface, have been made visible to and for certain individuals, selected, upon your surface of whom Adamski is one. Normally the ships are part of the invisible world.”
(Trevor James Constable, They Live in the Sky, 1958, p.46-47).

Howard Menger was one of the classic contactees, who later in life, found it difficult to accept the Venus origin of the space people. When Timothy Good interviewed Menger in 1978 he speculated or wondered whether the visitors he met really came from Venus?

Howard Menger: ”Well, I asked them where they came from, and they told the truth, but I believe it´s a possibility that I might have distorted that answer. You see, when they say they have just come from a planet we call Venus, that doesn´t mean they are Venusians, but I interpreted it as that…. But I think that I might have been wrong. According to what they told me, they led me to believe that there´s no life on any of the planets in this solar system – I mean such as we people.”
(Timothy Good interview Howard Menger 1978).

Here it looks like Howard doesn´t recollect what he was told of life in our solar system and explained in his book From Outer Space to You, that organic life exists only on our planet but the space people in our solar system live in another part of the multiverse, normally not visible to us:  
"For instance, on Venus and Saturn the rate of vibration is much higher, and renders corporeal structures more tenous; and if an Earth man in physical body could go there he probably would not see some to the life forms which vibrates more rapidly than his own - no more than he can see the spiritual life forms in and around his own planet." (p. 126-127).

Connie and Howard Menger, National UFO Conference, Miami Beach 1990

It is obvious that the majority of public contactees of the 1950s were given a multiverse explanation by the alien visitors. Possible exceptions are Truman Bethurum and Daniel Fry who, to my knowledge, made no clear statements on this issue. But Daniel Fry mentioned in an interview during his trip to Sweden in 1970 regarding his contact Alan: ”Alan is a middle-aged gentleman with an appearance that does not disclose his origin. But if a doctor examined him he would probably make some shocking discoveries.”
(Helsingborgs Dagblad, Sept. 9, 1970).

I am quite used to funny coincidences or synchronicities á la Carl Gustav Jung. While writing this blog I did my daily check of the Anomalist website. In my view the best daily review of news about UFOs, Forteana etc. There I found a reference to an article by Paul Seaburn: Former French Government Official Says UFOs Come From Parallel Worlds. I can hear Meade Layne whisper from his multiverse heaven – I told you so!

Friday, April 10, 2020

Consolation For Isolated Ufologists

The Corona pandemic has certainly restricted the life and activities for everyone on this planet. The UFO-Sweden 50 years anniversary has been postponed until Autumn and all meetings and social gatherings have been cancelled. We are all more or less quarantined in our homes. No big problem for an introverted, retired librarian like me, but a melancholy blues for most people. To cheer up and give some consolation to, especially Swedish, ufologists in these troubled times, join me in a memorable journey in time to the UFO-Sweden annual meeting 2010.


This year we celebrated the UFO-Sweden 40 years anniversary and my book on the history of UFO-Sweden was published. The annual meetings are arranged in different cities and 2010 we had chosen the charming, old city Kalmar, situated in the southern east coast of Sweden.


The date for the annual meeting 2010 was Saturday, May 22, but already on Friday everything had to be packed and transported to Kalmar. Mats Nilsson and Håkan Estrand had a tough job cramming old and heavy computers, models and exhibition screens into a cart. Clas Svahn picked me up by car at Norrköping and we joined the UFO-Sweden board and members at the Jenny Nyström School in Kalmar, to build the exhibition and check all facilities. After a couple of hours heavy work the UFO-Sweden gang checked in at First Hotel Witt for some rest and later dinner.

The UFO-Sweden gang at the Jenny Nyström School, Kalmar

Gunnar Karlsson building the exhibition



Joining UFO-Sweden can be quite an experience in several ways. New active  members Anders Berglund and Amanda Fredriksson soon became a couple in the organization and today they are married and have three children.

Amanda Fredriksson and Anders Berglund


By ten o´clock on Saturday 19 members from 9 local units gathered for the annual meeting, where Clas Svahn was re-elected as UFO-Sweden chairman. Saturday started with wonderful sunshine and 25 degrees Celsius, making us all wonder whether there would be any visitors at the public lectures and exhibition. We feared the worst when no one had showed up just before Expo opening at one o´clock. But soon people started coming and some 80+ tickets were sold during the day.

Tage Bång and Amanda Fredriksson selling tickets

Clas Svahn and I lectured during the expo. My talk was called Aliens on Earth, presenting results from many years of study of the contactee enigma. Clas lectured on Secret Swedish UFO reports, giving insights into his extensive research of the formerly classified Swedish reports in military archives. Both lectures were well attended with many questions and signing of books. It is always fascinating to mingle with Expo visitors to hear comments and often also receiving new data on UFO observations. The ”close encounter” at the annual expo is an excellent way to get new cases for investigation.

Lecturing on the contactee enigma

Clas Svahn lecturing on declassified UFO reports

Clas Svahn and Tobias Lindgren

Carl-Anton Mattsson selling books



Around six o´clock it was time to dismantle the exhibition and loading everything in the transport cart. After some rest at the hotel it was time for the traditional UFO-Sweden dinner. This time at the Italian Ernesto Ristorante. As usual the dinner was excellent and the UFO-Sweden gang left happy and pleased for a stroll to the hotel in the warm Spring evening.

Håkan Ekstrand, Amanda Fredriksson and Tora Greve at the restaurant

The UFO-Sweden gang strolling to the hotel after dinner

At the hotel we gathered in one of the rooms for chatting and socializing. By a funny coincidence Mats Nilsson and Gunnar Karlsson had been placed in a very large hotel room, actually the wedding suite. This proved to be a perfect place for our late socializing and small talk. Clas Svahn played famous songs and music on his lap top and everybody had a real good time.

Håkan Ekstrand and Clas Svahn at the hotel room

Clas Svahn and Amanda Fredriksson

Mats Nilsson sometimes has a tendency to fall asleep during these late night sessions. Same proceedure this year. When he woke up the room was empty and Gunnar Karlsson was sleeping peacefully. It was time for Mats to go to bed - for real this time.

Mats Nilsson sleeping. Tobias Lindgren trying a practical joke. To the right Amanda Fredriksson

After a good breakfast Sunday morning we said goodbye to the gang who now travelled home to different cities. Clas Svahn and I made stop at Oskarhamn where oldtime UFO-Sweden member Roger Ersson donated five large boxes of UFO documents to be transported to AFU. All in all a very sucessful and enjoyable annual meeting and expo to be filed as happy UFO-Sweden memories.

Carl-Anton Mattson and Roger Ersson with donated UFO documents

Wednesday, April 1, 2020

UFO-Sweden Memories - The UFO Cottage

Like all of society UFO-Sweden has been forced to redirect activities because of the Covid-19 pandemic. The 50 years anniverary planned on April 17-19 in Norrköping has been postponed and can hopefully be arranged during the Autumn of 2020. Now when we are all adviced to minimize social gatherings is the perfect time for some UFO-Sweden nostalgia. This time recollections from earlier decades when much of UFO-Sweden´s social activity was concentrated in a building not far from the city of Enköping, a site referred to by UFO-Sweden members as the UFO Cottage.

The UFO Cottage

The middle 1970s was a time of intensive activity in UFO-Sweden. Many new local groups were formed and there was a high demand for public lectures and much media interest in UFOs and the UFO movement. The local UFO-Sweden unit Enköpings UFO-förening (Enköping UFO Society) was founded in 1976 and soon developed into one of the most active local groups. In 1980 Mr. Arnold Idebring (1921-2011) was elected chairman and the group succeeded in hiring a cottage at Ulunda, outside Enköping. A large inauguration was arranged on August 10, 1980 with some 30 participants, including the then UFO-Sweden chairman Christer Nordin.



Enköpings-Posten August 12, 1980

For 30+ years the UFO Cottage was a center for UFO-Sweden activities: board meetings, lectures, seminars and a variety of social gatherings and parties. Beginning in 1976 the local group kept an open house at the cottage every Wednesday evening, where members and others interested in UFOs could get together for a chat and a cup of coffee.

Seminar at the cottage, coding of UFO reports. From left Sten Lindgren, Bertil Kuhlemann

March 21, 1987 UFO-Sweden planning conference at the UFO cottage

December 12, 1987, Christmas party at the cottage

Arnold Idebring was a talented artist and he loved to create badges and UFO models for the many local units. Some of these were used as decorations on the walls of the UFO cottage. These beautiful decorations can now be found on the walls at the AFU headquarters.

Arnold Idebring´s badges at the cottage

September 18, 1988, Autumn festivity at the cottage

Beginning in 1980 Arnold Idebring was one of the principal editors of UFO Allehanda, the newsletter published by Enköpings UFO-förening. Arnold never wrote any UFO books but published a wide variety of amusing and historical articles in the local newsletter, often using the headline In the Head of an Old Man. Between 1985-1990 he also edited the UFO-Sweden newsletter Lokal Information. Arnold Idebring left us on New Years Ewe 2011. He will always be remembered as a idealist and one of the hardworking pillars of UFO-Sweden.



Arnold Idebring

Interview with Arnold Idebring, Enköpings-Posten February 2, 1981

Another important member of Enköpings UFO-förening was Jörgen Granlie (1929-2013), for many years one of the leading lights of Swedish ufology. He started his ufological career in 1976 as board member of Enköpings UFO-förening. Between 1978-2011 Jörgen served as board member of UFO-Sweden in several capacities: vice chairman, secretary and treasurer. He was also an active field investigator, always meticulous in research and documentation. The older generation of Swedish ufologists also remember him as a skilled instructor at the annual UFO-Sweden Field Investigator training seminars in the 1970ies and 80ies. Jörgen Granlie worked as an engineer all his life. He was a practical man, a doer and idealist always ready to lend a hand with hard work. At the UFO Cottage  Jörgen was often seen moving the lawn, fixing the plumbing or doing general maintenance work.

Former UFO-Sweden chariman Christer Nordin and Jörgen Granlie 1981

Jörgen Granlie at UFO-Sweden board meetings October 12, 1996

In 2011 UFO-Sweden was ordered to move out of the UFO Cottage as the municipality, who owned the house, had decided it was to be demolished. It was with a sense of sadness and nostalgia that UFO-Sweden arranged the last board meeting at the UFO Cottage on March 19, 2011. With mixed feelings the house was emptied of all UFO documents and parafernalia and then the members of the board said goodby to this historical place and building. When Clas Svahn, a few months later, passed by the site, the house was gone. Many of the UFO-Sweden members will always cherish the memory and the happy times at the UFO Cottage.

Former UFO-Sweden chariman Clas Svahn. Board meeting at the UFO Cottage April 10, 2010


The UFO-Sweden board at the last board meeting at the UFO Cottage March 19, 2011

UFO-Sweden board member Gunnar Karlsson at the site of now demolished UFO Cottage, March 17, 2012