Invisibility and Materialization

On March 11, 1973 Thorvald (Bevan) Berthelsen, together with three witnesses from his workplace in Köping, Sweden, observed a cylinder-shaped object silently passing over the city. No explanation was found to this observation, which was reported in local media. Thorvald Berthelsen and his wife lived in a country house with good views in all directions. On the same day his UFO observation was mentioned in the local newspaper a man knocks on their door. Thorvald is met by a man in his thirties, dressed in a brown suit and white shirt. He has dark hair, appears suntanned and his eyes are slanted but still not Asian looking. The man ask Thorvald how he is feeling and continue asking about directions. He says thank you and leave. "I thought, who the hell was that? I ran out and looked for him. The road was straight in both directions. If he had come walking I would have seen him. His eyes were slanted. That caught my attention. Afterwards I felt this experience was weird".  Thorvald later became the chairman of UFO-Sweden (1976-1978).
(Interview with Thorvald (Bevan) Berthelsen, October 10, 1992)

Interviewing Thorvald (Bevan) Berthelsen at AFU, October 10, 1992

Experienced investigators of UFO and paranormal phenomena immediately recognize the situation.  Our visitors from wherever they come from have the uncanny ability to disappear right in front of witnesses. In my investigations of contactees and close encounter reports I have stumbled on this phenomenon several times. Connoisseurs of UFO literature know there are hundreds of similar cases documented.

My old friend, ufologist Gösta Johansson, often discussed the various abilities of the aliens with contactee Richard Höglund, an enigmatic case which I have documented in several blog entries:
Håkan: How did the aliens look?
Gösta: They were brown, like suntanned, thin, dark eyes, long fingers. Only once did he notice something defective in their bodies. It was a man with a scar on his head. There were no women among them and they didn´t sleep or eat but drank, even liquor, and smoked. They could disappear into thin air. He told me that once he had been sitting chatting with two aliens on a bench in the Bahamas when some people approached them. He felt so ashamed because he was suddenly talking into thin air.The aliens were simply gone. But otherwise they seemed totally material.
Interview with Gösta Johansson, February 13, 1980).

Gösta Johansson, September 15, 1986

There appears to be at least two different ways this disappearance is achieved, as described by witnesses and contactees – advanced technology and classic materialization. "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic", is a classic quote from science fiction author Arthur C Clarke. But in individual cases it can be quite difficult to determine what is to be regarded as the most likely explanation.

In a recent interview Glenn Steckling, director of the George Adamski Foundation told of meetings with a group of highly advanced, benevolent visitors and their use of technology to accomplish disappearance:
”They carry a little device which is also on their ships as well. And this device that they carry on their person, about the size of a cigarette lighter, is bending light rays around the object. So in other words they activate the device and the light rays bend around it and since you only see what is reflected back into your eyes and into your brain because in reality the brain sees not the eyes. Then the light rays continue around the object and so you can no longer see it. Physically there is no such thing as dimensional shifting and time warp or all this other science fiction nonsense. What it is, physically it is still there. You can touch them, you can hear them. And they can walk right past you. And so my father said I´d love to see that in action. And so a few weeks later we´re walking along the streets of Washington D.C. and this gentleman, the same guy´s coming towards us and in his arms he has his hans full of laundry and as he gets close within a couple of meters all of sudden he lifts his hand and wavs and disapperars. Gone he is. And you can hear him walking right past us, the sound of his shoes. And we all three of us turn around and look and a couple of meters behind us he suddenly reappears and turn around and waves again and smiles and keeps walking.”
(Talking Weird. Episode 14: Glenn Steckling, interview June 24, 2020).

Glenn Steckling lecturing in Sweden, October 20, 2018

George Adamski gave a somewhat different answer to this question. I don´t know if Adamski ever told of a technical device to accomplish disappearance.

”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 Most Frequently Asked About Our Space Visitors And Other Planets, revised 1965, p. 16).

American contactee George Van Tassel also mention a technical device used by one of the alien visitors named Mr. Wheeler or Venuto, when visiting Giant Rock: "The man didn´t dematerialize. He was still there, because the third time he disappeared I had my hand on his shoulder, and he was solid; still there under my hand."
(Proceedings, April, May, June 1977, p. 14)

Ufologist William F. Hamilton, who was a good friend of Van Tassel interviewed some of the witnesses to this event: "About thirty people were present for this session. Venudo took out a crystal device, identical in appearance to the one worn by Solgonda, and proceeded to demonstrate it by tapping it and disappearing from view. Dan (Boone – HB) asked Venudo to repeat this performance and reached out to touch his shoulder when he disappeared again. Dan found Venudo invisible but tangible. I interviewed Dan and another female witness about three years after the event and when Saturday night sessions were a thing of the past." Unfortunately these interviews have never been published to my knowledge.
(William F. Hamilton, Alien Magic, 1989, p. 9)

Compare this description with the experience of contactee Howard Menger:
”When the alien is approx. 20 ft. From me, I (Howard) can see that it is a female. She had on a suit or uniform which appeared to be a strange, stiff material and it seemed difficult for her to get from the craft to where she was. She touched the light on her belt, the light expanded and enveloped her whole body and she disappeared from view. I (Howard) yelled to the two men standing at the craft, ´where did she go´? And they yelled back that she had returned to the craft.”
(Howard and Connie Menger, The High Bridge Incident, comment on one of many pictures between pages 103-105).

Space woman just before she disappeared, photo by Howard Menger 1956

If some alien visitors can make themselves disappear how to explain the disappearance of their cars? John Keel encountered alien visitors, often the so-called Men in Black, several times during his investigations in the 1960s. “On a number of occasions I actually saw the phantom Cadillacs as advertised, complete with sinister-looking passengers in black suits. On Long Island, following the directions given me in an anonymous phone call, I pursued one of these cars down a dead-end road where it seemingly vanished into thin air (there were no side roads or turn-offs).” (John Keel, The Eighth Tower, p. 141)

A interesting case of a disappearing car has been investigated by British ufologist Jenny Randles:
It all began in late August 1971 in a town in East Midlands, England.  Jim Wilson had observed a white light moving slowly across the sky. Just an ordinary mundane sighting of no special interest but ufologist Derek James, a close colleague of Jenny Randles, made a standard follow up. He was rather surprised to find that two men in smart business suits and driving a black car har interviewed Jim Wilson. The men claimed to be from the Ministry of Defense (MoD) and instructed the witness to forget the sighting as it had been identified as the Russian satellite Cosmos 408.

Why would the MoD send two men to interrogate a witness to such an ordinary sighting? Derek James checked the satellite information centre at Farnborough. At the time of the observation Cosmos 408 had been over Canada and had not passed over England at all. Now the witness contacted Derek once more and was rather alarmed because several nights in succession two unknown men in a black Jaguar car had parked outside his house and he was sure they were watching him. Derek James had a relative who was a high ranking police officer and a plan was hatched to check the car as they were perhaps planning a robbery.

A police car was asked to keep a look out and on October 19 and 20 the policemen watched the car outside Jim Wilson´s house. The car waited for about thirty minutes and then drove off. A check of the car registration found out that the vehicle did not exist and now the police became really interested. On October 21 a police patrol was ordered to bring in the occupants of the Jaguar for questioning. Following standard procedure the two policemen walked towards the car, one on either side. They noticed two smartly dressed men inside. They were just about to knock on the window when the car simply disappeared into nothingness in front of the astonished policemen. The area was examined but gave no clue to the disappearance. Neither car nor occupants were ever seen again. For rather obvious reasons a cover story was presented in the final police report.

This unusual Men In Black case was published by Derek James and Jenny Randles in Flying Saucer Review, vol. 23, no. 3, October 1977. A somewhat updated version was later published by Jenny Randles in her book Investigating the Truth Behind MIB the Men In Black Phenomenon,1997.

If disappearance is accomplished by technology how about cases where visitors walk through doors or walls? There are indications that the visitors encountered by Richard Höglund could also pass through walls, as told to me and witnessed by my friends Sture and Turid Johansson. But that takes more than just bending light rays. Passing through walls requires materialization.

Some contactees also mention what must be regarded as a form of materialization. In his letter to Karl and Amy Veit, September 19, 1961, published in Besucher aus dem Weltraum, American contactee Eugene 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."

Eugene Drake 1951

Dorris Van Tassel, wife of George Van Tassel, claimed several encounter with alien visitors and that her home functioned as a sort of safe house for both contactees and space people. One of her close friends told me how he reacted the first time he became aware of this: ”I remember the first time there was about 5 space people in Ms.Van Tassel's house talking with her as I quietly watched, and then suddenly one of the men turned , looked directly at me, smiled gently, and then very slowly turned to the kitchen room wall and walked right through the wall! I watched this very closely as he then came back in. Let me tell you , those kind of incidents have a very deep and troubling affect on our minds because we cannot comprehend it.” I asked my correspondent whether Dorris was aware of that these five men were space people: ”O yes, she knew them well. It was perfectly normal for her.” 

(Email, February 26, 2012).

There is still much research needed to understand this phenomenon. A thorough study of all cases documented in UFO literature would be of great help. A worthy project for my many colleagues around the world.

Finally I cannot resist a humourous comment on the issue of disappearance by my favourite Fortean iconoclast John Keel, from his autobiography Jadoo: "One lama told me the way to vanish into thin air is to make the mind a complete blank. (If this is true, then I know several people who should have disappeared long ago.)"

Visitors From the Multiverse

Readers familiar with the classic literary masterpiece Faust by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe may remember the scene where Faust one night walk to a crossroads and encounter a fire-breathing dragon. A ball of fire descends towards Faust and the ball is transformed into a monk. We find similar stories in folklore, religion, mythology and today in the cases documented by ufologists and  investigators of paranormal phenomena. Astonished witnesses describing balls of light suddenly transforming into some type of entity.

In UFO literature we can find hundreds of these type of encounters. American ufologist Albert Rosales kindly made a search in his extensive database on humanoid encounters, also published in several volumes. Here are three examples:

Location. Alma, Quebec, Canada
Date: June 1973                     
Time: 02:20 a.m.
Georges Gaudet and his wife were sleeping soundly when a bright beam of green light entered the bedroom through the open window, awakening the wife. The green light seemed to transform itself into a 4 ft tall humanoid wearing a silvery combination suit, and a helmet with a dark visor, the figure was totally encased in a green glow. Gaudet’s wife stared at the figure and attempted to wake her husband to no avail. The figure then vanished in a flash of light. She suffered from headaches and insomnia for a week after the incident.
(Source: Christian Lemay UFO Quebec, Vol. 5 # 20).

Location. Near San Juan Puerto Rico
Date: Spring 1975                      
Time: evening
A woman who lived in a house surrounded by a sturdy iron fence that made it impossible to enter without knocking (or ringing) apart from which she had several rather fierce dogs that had the run of the garden and the small orchard (or kitchen garden) around it, preventing any stranger from coming in, reported that one evening she was alerted by the vehement barking of the dogs, she looked out the door of the garden and saw with astonishment that the dogs were barking at a type of simian---and not a small one, at that---that was sitting on top of a palm tree in the middle of the garden. The palm tree was rather tall, so the dogs had no way of reaching the strange animal. The woman was dumfounded, thinking first about how that animal could have managed to climb up there, despite the fence and the dogs, but above all about the threatening appearance it had. For a while, from the top of the palm tree, it was staring at her with eyes that seemed to shoot out fire. After a few moments, the animal began to shrink little by little, taking a spherical shape, while at the same time slowly becoming incandescent. The moment came when it had completely turned into a luminous ball the size of a basketball. While the woman, with her heart in her throat, was looking at the ball, it began to slowly rise up until it became lost in the sky. Naturally, the woman, who was already a little impressionable as it was, received a tremendous shock in the face of such a sight, which apparently made her collapse.
(Source: Salvador Freixedo, La Religion entre la Parapsicologia y Los Ovnis).

Location. Rodia, Messina, Sicily, Italy

Date: August 12 1989                              
Time: 04:13 a.m.
On a warm summer night, the witness was sleeping in his house by the sea when he felt someone touch his leg. He turned around and saw a small figure about 3 ft in height, with a big head and round large eyes. He could not see it well because it was surrounded by a bright light. He tucked his legs under the covers and shut his eyes thinking that he was dreaming but when he opened his eyes the figure was still there. The figure stared at the witness with a penetrating gaze that seemed to read his mind and attract him toward the figure. The creature moved in slow jerky movements. He closed his eyes again and when he opened them again the figure was leaning over his 3-year old brother who slept in a cot. At this point the witness screamed and the creature turned around, looked at him and then transformed itself into a luminous sphere not bigger than a tennis ball and it then flew out the window at high speed. After a while he called his parents.
(Source: David Ferrara cunsicilia@gmail.com)                

During a period of more than thirty-five years Dr. Ardy Sixkiller Clarke has collected and documented five thousand plus stories of encounters with various types of Star People by American Indians. So far she has written four very fascinating books presenting her findings. Several stories of balls of light transforming into entities are recorded in her books, especially in Sky People. Untold Stories of Alien Encounters in Mesoamerica (2015). Here a few short quotes from the cases documented, describing the transformation:

”… I sat there watching as those seven balls of light kept getting closer and closer. Then, all of a sudden, one light veered off from the rest and came toward the hose. It stopped short of the house maybe 30 feet away. It just hovered there a few feet from the ground.. . At this point, I was only focusing on the one that was so close to me and wondered if I could make it to my pickup… As I edged toward the pickup, the ball of light transformed again and a human form materialized in fron of me. He was dressed in a light suit. He told me not to be afraid. I felt faint; I am not sure if it was from fear or the odor I smelled… Like rotten eggs. It was overpowering…
After you talked about horses, what happened?
It was like he dropped to the ground and turned into a ball of light again and flew off to join the others. Later I saw them above the hill, The morphed into a huge craft and were gone.”
(Ardy Sixkiller Clarke, Encounters With Star People, pp. 139-140).

”In theri true state they are balls of light. It is only whenthey assume human form that you see them. Otherwise you are blinded by them. Many people never know they have met them. They see balls of light, not realizing that they are actually living forms.”

(Ardy Sixkiller Clarke, Sky People. Untold Stories of Alien Encounters in Mesoamerica, p. 148).

”Late in the evening, Before dark, but all the tourists were gone. I found myself over a mile from the entrance when the sky became dark and a lightning storm came up. Taking cover in one of the structures, I deceide to wait out the storm… As the rain ceased, I decided to head home. That´s when a circular craft came out of the clouds and settled in the plaza. Three men, covered in light, came out of the craft. They stopped in front of the Temple of Inscriptions and turned themselves into balls of light. I watched as they floated upward to the top of the entrance and then they disappeared.
(Ardy Sixkiller Clarke, Sky People. Untold Stories of Alien Encounters in Mesoamerica, p. 235).

”I could make out a circular shadow. It cast a blue light upon the ground. There were three balls of light that came out of it. They materialized into human-like figures. That is what I remember. Gabriella remembers the blue light and the balls of light, but nothing else.”
(Ardy Sixkiller Clarke, Sky People. Untold Stories of Alien Encounters in Mesoamerica, 266).

After a lifetime of travel, field investigation and study of UFO, Fortean and paranormal phenomena John Keel reached the conclusion shared today by many researchers into these areas: we live in a multiverse inhabited by a variety of diverse intelligences. He usually referred to these intelligences as ultraterrestrials or elementals and their emergence into our reality as transmogrifications, another word for materializations. He was mostly pessimistic and often referred to the phenomena as demonic and destructive to mankind. A somewhat more hopeful tone was given in his last book The Eighth Tower (1975): "Today many scientific disciplines are moving in the same direction, not realizing they are mapping a very old country. In a few years, perhaps even in our own lifetime, all sciences will suddenly converge at a single point, and the mysteries of the superspectrum will unravel in our hands." (p. 216).

To me it is obvious that the ufologists, Forteans and cryptozoologists of our generation really are ”mapping a very old country”. A country studied and investigated for ages by custodians of The Esoteric Tradition – The Science of the Multiverse.

UFO-Sweden Memories - Ängelholm 1996

It is the 18th of May 1946, the clock is 10 pm. The sky is dark blue and clear, a light breeze is blowing from the east. I´m sitting and listening to the beautiful birdsong … It starts to get darker, and I realise it is time to head back home. I turn on my orientation lamp which I always carry with me on my evening strolls. Just as I am about to turn I spot something that has forever stuck in my memory.

In the furthest part of the glade, just a couple of meters from a lonely pine, there is a illuminated craft, one of which I have never seen before or after. My first thought was that it was a carrousel someone had drove there. But I soon realized that would be impossible, as there are no roads leading to the glade.

The craft, or object, had the shape of a discus, and it is resting on a sturdy fin in the direction of the lonely pine, and two telescope legs, all three evenly spaced under the circular disc. In front of the fin on the crafts belly, there is a hatch open, with a ladder and leaders, like those ladders you see on boats. The hatch is about one and a half meter above the ground and I can see how light is coming out from the opening. I try to look inside the craft but the angle is to narrow. All I can see is the bright light.

On the top of the craft there is a streamlined cabin that I estimate to be around 8 meters in diameter. With roughly 1 meter spacing there is oval windows, maybe 50 cm wide and 30 cm high. While I am watching the craft I can´t keep from thinking that someone is pulling a prank on me. One thought that goes through my head is that this may be German pilots that has escaped from some camp. But deep inside, I know I´m wrong.

The "body" and the cabin seems to be one piece. You can´t spot screws, studs or joints anywhere. Around the belly’s rim on the craft there is a couple of holes, not unlike those found on turbines, pointing down and are covered with what look like a damper. A few meters in front and outside the light´s circle, a man with a white dress is standing. He is dressed like our astronauts of today. No matter how hard I look, I can’t see any buttons, zippers or other "clothing attachments". On his feet he has blue or black boots that wrap around his legs, around his waist he has a large blue or black belt, on his head something that looks like a rain hoodie or "windcheater hoodie" with the difference that it also covers the front of his face and are made of some transparent material. On his hand he got finger gloves. On his chest hangs something that looks like a folding camera, but other than that, there is no equipment. The man appears to be a guard. Where I am standing now I´m about 10 meters from the craft, and about 7-8 meter from this man.

The witness Gösta Carlsson at his home in Ängelholm, July 13, 1993

On top of the craft by one of the windows there was an additional three men, evidently occupied by some kind of work. Right next to them, but below, I see two more men who are assisting and inside the light circle, turned towards me, there are three women. All dressed the same way, in the same white dress, boots and belt. All the beings that are inside the light have the transparent face mask removed to the back of their heads. Suddenly something happened.

The man who was standing outside the light - which whom I now understand was serving as a guard - did a perfect stop sign with his hand raised. It is a sign that cannot be misinterpreted and I stopped. I still have my lamp on my head, but turned off. The guard points his "folding camera" looking thing towards me, and I get the impression that he is about to take a picture of me. I think I hear a crack from my lamp on my head, that I have turned off, but don´t bother with that… Suddenly, a woman with dark curly hair steps down the ladder of the craft. In her hand she holds what looks like a bag and hands out cups to the men and girls. Everyone stop working and start to drink from the cups. By the time I am standing there and watching, I can see the crew go in and out the craft, up the ladder next to the fin. When they do that, I observe how the two telescope legs moves up and down. They are spring loaded like the front wheel of an airplane.

Just as I am about to take a step forward again, the girl with the dark curly hair steps outside the cabin again. In her hand she hold a bright shiny object which draws the attention from all the other in the crew. She takes a few steps towards the outskirt of the light dome and throws the object out with a quick motion. It falls right next to a little slope. At the same time I hear a happy woman’s laughter, and I realize this is the first time I hear a noise from them this whole time. But I have heard the crackling of twigs by the guards feet on the grass which is spread all over the ground. The whole thing starts to be very surreal to me, and although I am one of those person who has never tasted alcohol in any form, and can therefore not blame this on some kind of hallucination or some other kind of imagination, I decide to hike back to the Skäldervik beach and then come back to see if it is still here.

It takes about 20 minutes to get there. I take of my shoes and socks and wade out in the water to wet my feet just to make sure I´m not dreaming. It is freezing so I am awake alright. Then, suddenly, I see a red light. At first I thought it was the moon rising, but after closer inspection, I realize that isn´t the case. Slowly, and majestically, the craft, which I now see clearly, is rising. It´s almost like a balloon rising.

This is a short summary of the 1946 close encounter told by Gösta Carlsson (1918-2003). The incident occurred outside the city Ängelholm, in the south of Sweden. It has become one of the most famous and controversial Swedish landing and contact cases. During the weekend May 18-19, 1996 UFO-Sweden arranged the annual conference and expo at Ängelholm. A memorable event for many UFO-Sweden members, who would get an opportunity to listen to Gösta Carlsson relating his story at the site where the landing occurred.

As Gösta Carlsson had become something of a celebrity in Ängelholm the media interest for the conference was all time high. When the expo opened at 10 a.m. on Saturday the 18th hundreds of visitors entered Ängelholms gymnasieskola (senior high school). UFO-Sweden representatives had a busy time guiding and informing about the various activities and UFO investigation in Sweden.

Of special interest was the exhibition show-case displaying the ring and rod that Gösta Carlsson had found at the place where the craft landed. The show-case was made of armored glass and guarded by a man from Securitas, which of course raised a few eyebrows. This was the first and only time the ring and rod were publicly displayed.

Nordvästra Skånes Tidningar, May 19, 1996

Anders Liljegren, right, at the expo

The ring och rod at the exhibition

At 6.00 p.m. hundreds of UFO-Sweden members gathered at the glade outside Ängelholm, where Gösta Carlsson told the listeners about his contact experience 1946. He also showed the UFO monument made of concrete and placed in the center where the landing took place. The monument is a scaled-down replica of the craft observed by Gösta Carlsson and is now an offical part of the Ängelholm cultural heritage. After the guided tour members gathered at the pub Källaren. Thomas Niby, chairman of the local UFO-Sweden group worked hard as bartender and offered a special UFO drink, enjoyed during the as usual lively discussions and mingling.

Gösta Carlsson in the middle recounting his experience

The monument

Sunday the 19th continued with several public lectures. Clas Svahn presented his very extensive investigation of the Gösta Carlsson case, documented in the 1995 book Mötet i gläntan (Meeting in the Glade), written together with Gösta Carlsson. Special guest speaker was Dr. Anton Geels, professor of Psychology of Religion at the University of Lund. He presented a psychological perspective of encounters with unknown entities. The program ended with a lively panel discussion. This was one of the most successful conferences arranged by UFO-Sweden with close to one thousand visitors during the two days.

What is today the assessment of the Gösta Carlsson story? Clas Svahn, who spent many years investigating the case, is rather critical, having found several inconsistences in the tale. At the death of Gösta, Clas had been promised to receive the ring and rod, to be able to make a chemical analysis of the material. Gösta broke the promise and this piece of important evidence is now probably gone forever.

Gösta Carlsson and Clas Svahn during interview July 13, 1996

In the Summer of 1993 Clas Svahn and I visited and interviewed Gösta Carlsson at his home in Ängelholm. For me this was a very special experience. Usually, during relaxed interviews like this, you get an emotional and mental connection with the UFO witness. But talking to Gösta Carlsson was like speaking to someone inside a impenetrable psychic sphere or bubble. We will probable never get the definite answer to what happened to Gösta Carlsson in 1946 unless the ring and rod somehow reappear. Whatever the truth, his story is certainly fascinating and part of Swedish UFO history.