UFOs That Vanish and Dissolve

One of my long-lasting projects is organizing and reviewing the 13,000+ letters in the very extensive Wendelle Stevens archive, now housed at AFU. More than fifty percent of the correspondence file consists of book orders, but now and then I find letters and documents of special interest. One such document is a letter to Wendelle Stevens, written on June 13, 1987, by an anonymous engineer involved in secret retrieval projects of crashed ”air craft” . The seven-page letter give detailed data on several retrieval operations in the U.S. of ”craft” crashing on land and water and then simply disappearing, exactly like the Swedish Ghost Rockets of 1946 and later.

British ufologist and artist David Sankey´s drawing of a Swedish Ghost Rocket made specially for AFU

The American engineer was involved in retrieval operations from 1975 to 1980, code-namned Project Pluto. The first assignement in 1975 took him to a remote place in upstate Pennsylvania. ”We were some of the first one´s on the scene other than lots of security people. The wreck had already been covered by very large canvas blankets… I did manage to get a very good look at the wreck on several occasions… It was later suggested to us that it was a new type of air craft, and it was super hush-hush project. The air craft was nothing like I have ever seen as probably ever will again… I don´t really like to use the term cigar, but since I could not see the front part, it certainly appeared to have once been shaped like a large cigar… The piece of physical evidence that I held in my hand, was a material that I really can´t identify… It weighed no where near enough to be any metal we had ever seen. It even weighed less than any plastic that I had seen of a similar size.

I tried to scratch it with a pocket knife, and even cut away a small piece of the edge, but the knife did nothing to it. The surface was clear as glass, and stronger than any thing we hade ever seen… After the site was secure, the first groups that included myself were taken away. There was a very thorough strip search prior to us being given jumpsuits, and put into a truck for the transportation to a waiting plane. We were taken to another area and debriefed before we were allowed to return to our normal way of life…

First page of letter from unknown engineer

In 1978, I was again sent to a crash site. We arrived the day after the security people. This time the air craft landed in a lake in upstate Pennsylvania… Lots of Navy equipment was flown in, and there were divers everywhere… It seems that the divers had located the exact spot that the air craft had rested on the bottom, but it was gone. There was lots of evidence on the beach that something very large had crashed into the lake causing the water of the lake to splash ashore, over thirty feet… There were some thoughts at first that the craft may have been buried under the bottom of the lake, but by this time, we knew enough about the craft to know if that were the case. It was not – it just vanished.”

In this document the American engineer mention several retrieval operations where the crafts have crashed or landed in water and simply disappeared. His conclusion: ”I don´t really believe that the air craft belongs to our Government or any other government on this earth… In addition, I have no way of knowing if I had been on every crash site that occurred. There may have been many more during that period and many more since. I really don´t know if any one had ever been removed from the two wrecks, that I had personally seen… Perhaps the medical people were only there – just in case. And/or to test the wreck for any form of unknown bacteria prior to removing it. Their being present is not really evidence that a life form was found. It could go either way.”

Since 1946 there have been hundreds of well documented Ghost Rocket reports in Sweden. Always with the same scenario, apparently physical objects crashing into lakes and the military finding nothing in spite of intense search. Swedish ufologist Clas Svahn have investigated the Ghost Rocket phenomenon for many years and regard these reports as one of the most intriguing type of UFO observations in our country.

Lieutenant Karl Gösta Bartoll searching for a ghost rocket in the Swedish lake Kölmjärv, July 19, 1946

These types of incidents continue in Sweden. Late afternoon on July 27, 1999 several witnesses observed a missile or rocket shaped object crash into lake Backsjön, north of the town Arvika in the province of Värmland, Sweden. The object was about three meters in length with small wings at the sides. It hit the lake with a splash resulting in a large water cascade. One of the witnesses called the local rescue service and eventually a unit from the Swedish military began an intensive search for the missile. During the first days of investigation the military gave various cover stories to the press of what had happened. They interviewed seven witnesses who were all regarded as very credible. After some preliminary dives in August a ten days search was initiated in September with a small submarine equipped with ultrasound and cameras. In spite of a very detailed search in the lake, nothing was found and this was very confusing to the military. ”We considered this report as credible. The search resulted in nothing and we really don´t know what we are looking for”, commented colonel Yngve Johansson. 

Although most of the reports of vanishing crafts involve water there are a few cases where a crash or landing have been on the ground. In the beginning of the 1950s American contactee George Van Tassel was sometimes visited by military men from the Air Force who had a personal interest in or had become involved in UFO incidents themselves. He related several such incidents and talks in his magazine Proceedings. In 1953 an Air Force Major, stationed at George Air Force Base, at Adelanto, California, spent many weekends with the Van Tassel family at Giant Rock Airport. The major was officially in charge of UFO investigations in Southern California. An interesting case he had been involved in told of jet pilot who radioed George Air Force Base tower that a round unidentified object had crashed into the ground near San Jacinto Mountain. The Tower phoned the Major and hurriedly he and other Air Force personal climbed into a helicopter and headed for Mt. San Jacinto. They spotted the jet circling the area and landed the helicopter in a clearing about 200 feet from the unknown object.

”The Major said they walked slowly toward it and when they were about 25 feet from it they stopped in awe because the couldn´t figure out what was happening. The Major said the object was apparently remote controlled, and was in the process of some automatically activated ”self destruct” proceedure. He said the object had a pulsing bright light in the middle of an ovoid mass, of what looked like black tar about two feet thick and about 12 feet in diameter. The entire black mass was quivering like jelly, shaking and getting smaller by the minute.” (Proceedings, vol. 10, no. 6, Oct-Dec 1974, pp. 11-12).

In a short time the black blob dimished until there was nothing left and the pulsing light just vanished. The group took samples of the ground where the object had been and also samples of the earth a hundred feet away. George Van Tassel never heard what the results were as the Major then stopped visiting Giant Rock when security and secrecy regarding UFOs increased in 1954. Perhaps the 1958 American science fiction-horror film The Blob was inspired by rumours of these type of cases? The story by a strange co-incidence also transpires in rural Pennsylvania. Several writers claim that The Blob was inspired by a story published in Philadelphia Inquirer, September 27, 1950:

It was around 10 pm on September 26, 1950, in the city of Philadelphia in Pennsylvania, USA... Patrolmen John Collins and Joseph Keenan were driving on Vare Boulevard near 26th Street when they saw something resembling a parachute at tree-top level drifting down into a field near 26th. They estimated the 'parachute' looked to be about six feet across. The officers called in backup -- Sgt. Joseph Cook and his driver, Patrolman James Casper -- and once they arrived, all four men went to investigate the parachute. It wasn't a parachute. The odd object was draped across the weeds, and so light that it wasn't bending the plants. The officers' flashlights made the strange mass give off a sort of misty, purplish glow that made it look as if the object contained crystals. Collins tried to pick the thing up but the part of the object he touched just dissolved, leaving a slightly sticky and odorless residue on his hand. As the four officers watched over the next twenty-five minutes or so, the whole object just slowly evaporated away.

There is a very fascinating description of this process in George Adamski´s Inside the Space Ships. During one of his contacts Adamski was told by one of the space people:
”Whenever possible these complex and highly sensitive little machines are returned to their parent craft, but sometimes, for one reason or another, the connection is broken and they go out of control or crash to the ground. In such cases emergency procedure is immediately brought into action. On each side of the mother ship, just below the disk-launching ports, is a magnetic ray projector. When a disk goes out of control, a ray is projected to disintegrate it. This accounts for some of the mysterious explosions that take place in your skies which cannot be accounted for by artillery, jet planes or electrical storms.

On the other hand, if a disk goes out of control near the surface of the planet where an explosion might cause damage, it is allowed to descend to the ground where a milder charge is sent into it. Instead of an explosion, this causes the metal to disintegrate in slow stages. First it softens, then turns into a kind of jelly, then a liquid, and finally it enters a free state as gases, leaving not a wrack behind. This latter process is without danger to anyone or anything should the disk be touched while in process of disintegration. The only harm could come if, by chance, someone should see it fall and touch it at the moment the ray is applied.” (George Adamski, Inside the Space Ships, 1955 ed. p. 155).

I don´t know if any ufologist has made a thorough study of UFOs vanishing and dissolving as in these reports. If some of my readers are aware of such a study I hope to hear from you.

When Santa Claus Came to AFU

December 13, 2010 began as a nice and leisurely winter day at AFU. We were celebrating our annual festivity on Saint Lucy´s Day, enjoying coffee, mulled wine and gingerbread. It was pretty cold outside and lots of snow so it was good to be in one of our varm and confortable archive premises. The festivity was suddenly interrupted by a phone call. A truckdriver from Schenker announced he had just arrived and wanted us to come out and unload eleven pallets. Not overly enthusiastic the AFU staff put on their winter clothes and walked up to the lorry and were met with a sight the like we have never encountered before. In the snow stood eleven pallets with 235 large and heavy boxes. The entire library from the Hilary and Mary Evans estate i London, donated to AFU.

Hilary Evans visiting AFU October 7, 1996

Luckily we were ten AFU people who helped carrying these boxes. But it was a tough job in the snow and icy stairs down to one of our basement premises. When all the boxes were safely stored we now had a double reason for keeping on celebrating. The 235 boxes contained the largest donation of material ever received in AFU history. More than 9.000 books and thousands of rare and unique magazines from all over the world. Many of the books and magazines in excellent mint condition, often clothbound. We were honoured och proud that AFU was chosen as the custodian of this immensely valuable collection covering subjects like UFO, forteana, folklore, parapsychology, paranormal phenomena, ancient mysteries, mysticism, esoterica and a host of other subjects. In AFU history December 13, 2010 will forever be remembered as the day we were visited by Santa Claus.

Part of the AFU gang celebrating Saint Lucy´s Day, October 13, 2010

The Hilary and Mary Evans donation has arrived

Håkan Landin with heavy boxes

Sven-Olov Svensson trying not to fall on the slippery floor

The AFU gang after one hour of heavy work

At AFU a decision was made to house this collection in a special facility, which we named The Evans Library, in honour of Hilary and Mary Evans. As librarian I still find it a feast both for the eyes and mind to peruse the shelves in the Evans library. Thousands of rare and unusual books I have never seen or even heard of before, many early tomes from the 18th and 19th century. A treasure trove for scholars of various disciplines and anyone researching the unsolved mysteries of our world. I notice for instance a complete set of Proceedings for the Society of Psychical Research from 1882 in clothbound volumes and the beautifully illustrated magazine The Medium 1872-1882.

SPR Proceedings in the Evans Library

Hilary Evans (1929-2011)  visited AFU in October 1996 and we discussed his research and theories. He didn´t want to be labelled ufologist as his foremost interest was paranormal phenomena. Hilary Evans was an advocate of the skeptical psycho-social theory regarding UFOs, but he represented skepticism at its best: erudite, open minded, humble. He was no debunker but stressed several times during our talk the importance of looking at new data and possibilities. When asked for an advice to Swedish ufologists and field investigators he said, never become a rigid dogmatist, be open minded - totally open minded. It was Hilary Evans that inspired the AFU board to change our acronym AFU from Archives for UFO Research to Archives for the Unexplained. A very suitable name as our collections had during many years come to include all types of borderland and paranormal phenomena, not only UFOs.

Part of the Evans Library

Since 2010 AFU has been visited by Santa Claus several times with donations like the archives from Borderland Sciences Research Foundation (BSRF), Flying Saucer Review and many many more. Study the impressive list of international donors who all have chosen AFU as the best repository for their archives and collections. AFU is a Cultural World Heritage, open to all types of serious researchers; ufologists, investigators of paranormal phenomena, academic scholars, journalists – skeptics as well as believers. We only wish you are endowed with that human quality -  a persistent and uncompromising search for Truth, whatever that might be, and wherever it may lead. The policy of AFU is world wide open access to as many documents in our collections as possible. Take a look at the thousands of old and hard to find UFO and Fortean magazines that can be read at our AFU website. We deplore when rare archives are destroyed or sold to private collectors at eBay and other sites and consequently lost to the international research community. We wish to share as much data freely as is legally possible.

Although many collections have been lost or destroyed there is a steady stream of donations coming in to AFU. Yesterday board members Clas Svahn and Carl-Anton Mattsson fetched the latest donation to AFU from the late Swedish psychiatrist and parapsychologist Dr. Nils-Olof Jacobson (1938-2017). Well known for his book Liv efter döden (1971), English edition Life Without Death, published in 1974.

Anders Liljegren at AFU with the new Nils-Olof Jacobson archive

Nils-Olof Jacobson

Jacobson was deeply fascinated by the UFO phenomenon and we corresponded on and off beginning in 1985. In an email November 17, 2010 he told of his meeting with Jacques Vallee and UFO sighting:

I have said it so many times before but I will repeat it once again: Without libraries and archives we have no history, only anecdotes, myths and hazy memories. Without archives and libraries serious and scientific research becomes very difficult and in some areas almost impossible. If we don´t learn from history we will continue making the same mistakes or once again trying to reinvent the wheel. AFU is our legacy to the future.

Robots, Androids and the Real Visitors

A classic in UFO literature is The Edge of Reality by Allen Hynek and Jacques Vallee, published in 1975. In chapter nine, Brainstorming, they discuss various UFO scenarios and hypotheses. Here (p. 252) Vallee mention one of the really intriguing riddles regarding close encounters and different types of entities: ”Vallee: "How can they breath our air? How come there are men, ordinary men with them? There are cases in France where witnesses have seen two dwarves coming our of a landed object, and one man with them."

The usual and popular media image of a alien visitor is a small, spindly creature with large black eyes, often referred to as the Greys. But are these entities the real visitors? Have both the public and many ufologists been mislead in assuming the Greys to be actual and intelligent visitors? Today there appears to be a re-evaluation of the human-looking aliens as the real visitors. A theory or idea shared by both critical UFO investigators and contactees. ”The Strange ”Greys” of Ufology: Are They Manufactured?” is the title of Nick Redfern´s recent article in Mysterious Universe, May 22, 2020. If Redfern checked some of the old contactee stories he would find that robots were described already in the 1950s: 

"Also in this room was a robot instrument which I was cautioned not to describe. I had noticed a miniature version of this robot in the Scout."
(George Adamski, Inside the Space Ships, 1955, p. 60).
"Each pilot room has a robot. these, working singly or together, can fully govern the course of the ship, as well as warn us of any approaching danger." (Ibid. p. 77).
"True, they have robots to do much of the heavy work that once was done by manual labour." (George Adamski, Flying Saucers Farewell, 1961, p. 85).

In 2008 I investigated a very fascinating close encounter and contact case in Sweden which probably involved a robot. The percipient Jorge Z. was born in Honduras, 47 years old with a wife and four kids. On January 20, 2008 Jorge Z. is travelling in his car a few miles east of Norrtälje, north of Stockholm. Suddenly a bright light appears over the road and the wooded area. The light is a combination of yellow, white and blue and is moving quickly. Jorge assumes it could be a chopper. Suddenly there is a voice in his head ordering him to keep on driving. The voice is very clear: "move to the left", "continue". After a couple of miles Jorge enter a place called Norrtäljeviken and he parks the car. Standing beside the car he can hear a sound like a generator. Looking up he observeras a saucer shaped, silver coloured object with a light in the middle. Jorge becomes very frightened and says to himself: "A flying saucer. that´s not possible. God help me".

Illustration by witness

A light appears at the bottom om the object, shining down on the ground. In this beam an entity is floating down and start approaching the car. The entity makes a halt about 8-10 meters from Jorge and the beam is retracted into the object. Jorge tries to run but he is paralysed. The entity approaches and Jorge notice its large dark, oblique eyes. It is not more than 140-150 centimeter with a large head and long, skinny arms with four fingers. No nose, only two small holes and no ears. The entity is completely naked, hairless and lacking genitals. Jorge compared the feet to that of a duck.

"Don´t be afraid, I will not hurt you", says the entity and put his "hand" on Jorge´s shoulder. The hand feels exceptionally hard.” A short conversation ensues:

Miguel: My God, who are you? A god or an angel?
Entity: "We are neither Gods nor angels. My name is Horos and I come from Reticulum 4, a planet very far from earth. A long time ago you were chosen for this contact. Some of your ancestors were in contact with us and now is the time to bring a message to humanity. You can´t reach all the world but many people. There are already people who have been prepared to help you and with their help you will deliver the message."

Illustration by witness

Jorge ask if he can touch the entity? Horos says yes and Jorge touches his arm which is warm and feels like hard flesh without a skeleton. After about twenty minutes Jorge is ordered to come back the next day at three p.m. The object appears again and the entity is lifted up in the beam. The object disappears very quick, like turning of a light. When Jorge arrives at home he is very upset and find it difficult to sleep. On January 21 he return to the same spot. This time an object comes up out of the water in Norrtäljeviken. Three entities leave the object to meet Jorge. Besides Horos there is now Ziros and Andrak. They want to help earth humanity and claim there soon will be an open contact. Jorge is requested to contact church leaders to explain that they are here. After a rather long conversation the three entities board the object again and it disappears in the water.

An interesting case where bio-androids are mentioned is the abduction experience of Amauri Rivera of Puerto Rico. He was abducted from his car by dwarfish entities in May 1988. When he regained consciousness Amauri found himself in an unknown room together with 15 people, all Hispano-Americans. Magdalena Del Amo-Freixedo documented what happened next in an article published in Flying Saucer Review, vol. 39, no. 1, Spring 1994: "Facing them was a tall, dark man of human appearance. His hair was long, down to the shoulders, and his complexion dusky. He would, says the witness, have passed anywhere unnoticed. This man said that he was human, just like them, who had come here from another planet in our galaxy. On either side of him there was a dwarf, similar to those we have already described. Almost all of those present in the chamber gazed with horror at the two creatures... He (the man) seized hold of its (dwarf) face with one hand and turned it to right and left, at the same time saying that they should have no fear of these entities, as they were biological robots created by them for certain kinds of work, and that they were quite inoffensive." (p. 10)

When Glenn Steckling visited Sweden in 2018 I asked him of his view of this aspect of the UFO enigma:
Håkan Blomqvist: What do you think about greys, abductions. What is behind all this. 

Glenn Steckling: In 1961 this field became divergent or went in separate directions. In 1961 after we had a flood of landings on this planet and the forces that control this world became very anxious. This was a psychological manipulation by the forces that use the politics of this world to keep people in a fearful state. The purpose of this type of rumor mongering is to keep the people fearful. All these craft carry a robot. The newer ships have no robots but androids. The androids only have four fingers and they can only do what they are programmed to do. Some of these sightings could be robots or androids.

Discussing contactee cases with Glenn Steckling (left), October 20, 2018

Former George Adamski co-worker Carol Honey also mentioned robots in one of his later articles:

”The non-human looking, referred to as ”greys”, etc., are actually androids, purposely made to look different so as to eliminate the concern and confusion caused by human looking creations in the past. The nostrils, ears, or  mouth, shaped as in a human, are not necessary, as they would be in humans such as us. These androids perform the ”dirty work” and the labor involved in operating the spacecraft on their various missions throughout the solar systems.”
(Carol Honey, How It All Started,, no. 243, December 2001).

Carol Honey mention confusion caused by human looking androids, and of course this is certainly a subject full of confusing encounters. If benevolent and culturally advanced visitors use robots and adroids so could evil or dangerous visitors and our own Messengers of Deception, black project operatives from various highly secret intelligence groups. The Danish Adamski co-worker Hans C Petersen claimed to have discussed the robot issue several times with Adamski. In an article, The Sinister Forces From Space, he presents a somewhat more complicated view of the problem: "... the americans have constructed their own flying saucers, and that they fly just as if they were real space vehicles. Also, that they use the same propulsion system as do the visitors, and that these man-made vehicles are manned with robots - small grey men - all alike and produced alike in American research centers, as copies of the creatures found in the "crashed" saucers from outer space."
(UFO Contact Newsletter, no. 1, 1993, p. 9).

Carol Honey

Maybe some of the enigmatic Men In Black reported are actually androids used by some not very nice group of visitors? John Keel, who investigated this aspect of the UFO enigma and had several encounters of his own presented different theories, during his lifetime, about the MIB. In 1967 he regarded them as definitely a menace, as revealed in a letter, July 18, 1967, to Jim and Coral Lorenzen of APRO: ”The MIB represent a very large terrestrial group who are allied with a very hostile UFO group. They are not connected with any goverment in any way… The people I am concerned with are Androids… manifactured entities controlled by a distant and unknown master… they are quite stupid in many respects.”

There is also a reference to androids in psychic Ingo Swann´s autobiography Penetration: The Question of Extraterrestrial and Human Telepathy, published in 1998. After a very strange experience in a Hollywood supermarket where Ingo and a friend observed and received unusual psychic "vibrations" from a woman with black hair and eyes covered by purple sunglasses, Ingo and his friend decided to mention this encounter during a dinner with psychiatrist Dr. Shafica Karagulla and her friend Viola Petitt Neal.. During a dinner they discuss ET civilizations infiltrating Earth:
"Viola Petitt Neal: There are a lot of THEM, you know, and many are bio-androids."
Shafica Karagulla: "They´re dangerous, you know, and they realize that Earth psychics are their only enemies. Be careful Ingo, be careful."
(Ingo Swann, Penetration, p. 29).

I wouldn´t recommend delving too deeply into these aspects of the UFO enigma if you don´t have both feet firmly on the ground. It is hardly for the faint hearted or naive believer. Paranoia can easily become your next door neighbor. How about stamp collecting instead? Still, the original Vallee question is certainly valid: "How come there are men, ordinary men with them?"