Ufo Testament: Anatomy of an Abductee

Contents

PREFACE

INTRODUCTION

PART I

THE UNSUSPECTING YEARS

1  BUSTER FOWLER

2  AIRMAN FOWLER

3  RAYMOND FOWLER

PART II

UFO INVESTIGATIONS

4  THE FLYING HAMBURGER

5  SPECIMENS OF THE UFO KIND

6  HAVE INVESTIGATORS—WILL TRAVEL

7  AN ACT OF CONGRESS

8  UFOS CAUSE THE NORTHEAST BLACKOUT?

9  SURFING THE UFO WAVES

10  I SERVE A USAF UFO PROJECT

11  OPPORTUNITIES AND INTRIGUE REIGN

12  CIA DESTROYS NICAP?

13  CREATURES, CRASHES AND A PENTEGON THREAT

PART III

THE UNVEILING

14  WAKE-UP CALLS

15  HAUNTED WITNESSES

16  THE ANDREASSON AFFAIR

17  FLASHBACKS AND RETROSPECTION

18  A GRACE-FULL RETREAT FROM UFOLOGY

19  BACK IN THE SADDLE AGAIN!

PART IV

DISRUPTIVE DECADE

20  BEDTIME BENCHMARKS

21  NASAL IMPLANT?

22  ABDUCTION AFTERMATH

EPILOGUE

NOTES

LIST OF PHOTOGRAPHS

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

UFO Testament

Anatomy of an Abductee

All Rights Reserved © 2002 by Raymond E. Fowler

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or by any information storage retrieval system, without the permission in writing from the publisher.

Writer’s Showcase an imprint of iUniverse, Inc.

For information address:

iUniverse, Inc.

5220 S. 16th St., Suite 200

Lincoln, NE 68512 www.iuniverse.com

ISBN: 0-595-24130-1

ISBN: 978-1-4697-9618-5 (ebook)

Printed in the United States of America

To others like the author who have experienced the inexplicable for reasons yet unknown.

PREFACE

This book entails the life of one who has not only become internationally recognized as a UFO investigator and author but now as a so-called UFO abductee. It is strikingly different from other works dealing with UFO abductions in that it will not home in on any one particular aspect of the UFO abduction phenomenon. Rather, it will provide an overview of the complete life of an abductee from early childhood to the sunset years of his life.

The exciting descriptions of UFO sightings, step by step investigations and their documentation by the author would be worthy of a book themselves. The Air Force’s Project Bluebook’s Chief Scientific Consultant on UFOs, Astronomer Dr. Hynek is on record as stating: Raymond Fowler…whose meticulous and detailed investigations of New England cases far exceed in completeness the investigations of Bluebook.

However, this book is about much more than the investigation of UFO sightings. Throughout the warp and woof of the author’s UFO and paranormal experiences is the slow but sure realization that he has been investigated by the very phenomenon he was investigating! Indeed, he realizes that his early insatiable interest in UFOs can be traced to the then unsuspected experiences in his unconscious that dated back to his childhood. His fanatical interest in UFOs since 1947 was just the tip of an iceberg of UFO and related paranormal experiences that would slowly but surely surface to his conscious mind.

This realization gradually came about when he reluctantly began to examine bizarre cases that hint of more than just a UFO sighting by witnesses. Such cases involved beams of light coming through windows and paralyzing witnesses followed by small fetus-looking entities appearing in the house. Witnesses seemingly dreamed of being floated up to UFOs and examined by these entities and returned. Other cases involved periods of missing time after UFO sightings and childhood bedtime visitations by similar entities who kidnapped, examined and returned children to their beds.

Such revelations then caused the author to set aside time to investigate himself. He enlisted the aid of a hypnotist to flush out more detail about the experiences that he could remember starting with childhood. In order to convince himself and others that he was mentally sound, he took a battery of psychological tests that revealed that he was a normal person with no psychological problems. When a round scoop mark cut from the flesh above his ankle concurred with a realistic lifelike dream of being operated on by strange entities, he had it examined by his personal physician and a dermatologist who confirmed that it was a recent wound and that it was identical to a punch biopsy. Since many of the UFO-like dreams and experiences that he was experiencing would quickly fade from memory, he decided to keep a detailed diary of every UFO or paranormal phenomenon that he could remember experiencing. Many of these experiences were accompanied by physical wounds that he wanted to compare with those of other abductees. So, at the end of the decade, he planned to compare these experiences with a list of what researchers have found to be the typical benchmarks of a UFO experience.

That study was completed and its results should be of great interest to several types of readers. UFO abduction researchers will find the detailed description of benchmarks that I have experienced helpful in comparing and analyzing other abduction cases. Known abductees will be encouraged to see that a well-known UFO researcher known for his objectivity has been willing to publicly share experiences similar to their own. Those readers who are being upset by experiencing such benchmarks but have no idea what is going on in their lives will nonetheless now have a paradigm with which compare their experiences with.

For skeptics who dismiss the abduction phenomenon outright with alternate but inadequate theories? Hopefully, by looking at a so-called UFO abductee’s life in totality, they might be swayed to take what is literally happening to thousands of people more seriously.

And, last, but not least, writing this book has been for me. My experiences [and those of others] are of such a bizarre nature that they cannot be readily shared with most other persons. An abductee, like those returning from a near death experience, feel as if they are suddenly thrust into living in two worlds.

One world has been tamed from belief in the reality of such experiences by rigid religious, philosophical and scientific belief systems. The other world smacks of the rest of the story. A story dealing with realities far in excess of what our five senses experience. Because of this, the daily thought life of one who has experienced such realities is in constant conflict with what they have been trained to believe since childhood.

Thus, for their very health’s sake, abductees and those who have experienced truly paranormal experiences cannot afford to keep their content bottled up inside. Both need to be able to find cathartic relief in sharing them with others of like ilk. There are few ways, other than sharing in abductee support groups, that one is able to do this without the fear of rejection and ridicule. I have found my catharsis in the writing of this book and trust that it will of help to others.

INTRODUCTION

How does one start a story about one’s own life? I guess one should start at the very beginning. Why do it? What is the motivation? This is the proverbial 64-dollar question facing me as I sit down to document in some detail the life of one who has not only become internationally recognized as a UFO investigator but now as a so-called UFO abductee.

I wonder if some will believe that this is some kind of an ego trip. I recently mentioned this possibility to a highly respected UFO researcher during a discussion on the Internet. She agreed with me that some might think that. But she insisted that she and others would be extremely interested in reading what you might call my memoirs. From a personal vantage point, I hope that my story will be of some help to both UFO Investigators and abductees. Hopefully the former will gain some insight into what the life of a UFO investigator entails—especially one who discovers along the way that he has and is experiencing many of the typical benchmarks of the UFO abduction experience.

On the other hand, I trust that the latter will find some comfort learning that they are not alone in what they have and are experiencing. I often have been helped by books and letters that contain certain similar things that I have experienced. However, this book is different in that it will not home in on any one particular aspect of the UFO abduction phenomenon. It rather will provide an overview of the complete life of an abductee from early childhood to the sunset years of his life. Also, along the way I am sure that a number of anecdotes from my life will prove quite amusing to the reader

As in many other cases, learning that one is an abductee often does not occur until one is fairly well along in one’s journey through life. Until relatively recently, one had no paradigm with that to place such an experience. The closest things to modeling an abductee’s experiences were nightmares, hallucinations, ghosts, and psychological problems along with absent-mindedness when it came to strange missing time incidents.

In the early days of UFOlogy, UFO abductions were unknown to most researchers. When early reported UFO abductions of Brazilian farmer Villa Boas and an American couple named Betty and Barney Hill became known, most UFOlogists did not take them seriously. The general public was either unaware of such cases or considered them ludicrous and not worthy of serious attention.

In retrospect, some exposed adult abductees consciously remembered experiencing a sighting of a UFO. However, never in their wildest imagination did they at that time make any connection between their UFO sighting and a terrifying realistic dream of strange creatures entering their bedrooms at night. Neither did they connect their UFO sighting with unexplained periods of missing time. Some abductees do not make such a connection until later on in life because they were mentally programmed to do so by their alien captors. The typical parting words of their abductors—You will forget what has happened until the appointed time are literally carried out in their lives. The abduction experience remains buried in their unconscious until wakened later in life. Children, however, tend to interpret nighttime terrors as very real indeed whether they are imagined monsters in the closet or real strange creatures taking them from their bed at night.

Typically, their parents insist that their experiences are nightmares or imaginary no matter how hard children try to convince them of their reality. Children abductees are often given a post hypnotic-like instruction by their captors not to tell their parents what has happened to them. If they have suffered bodily marks during a physical examination they are somehow induced to tell their parents a cover story for the puncture or cut. Young Buster Fowler found himself taking part in these very same scenarios as a child living at 4 Dodge Court in the little town of Danvers, Massachusetts.

PART I

THE UNSUSPECTING YEARS

ººººººººººººººººººººººººººº

They do, of course, recall abduction events during childhood,

because the abduction phenomenon begins in childhood. ¹

—David M. Jacobs, Ph.D.

1

BUSTER FOWLER

Taken at Night

I stood at the top of the stairs crying. I did not want to go to bed. I was scared and apprehensive of what might be coming into my room at night. I recognized the weird up-tight feeling that portended their coming for me. My mother would shout, Buster, you get back into bed and go to sleep! There’s nobody up there. You’ve just been dreaming.

Mom would become very frustrated and quite upset after reassuring me over and over again that the things that I was experiencing were just nightmares. I, on the other hand, would continue to stand at the top of the stairs and cry out that the clowns would come to take me away or the China man will come into my room but to no avail. I would finally, upon threat of a spanking retreat to my bed and cry until I went to sleep. Even today, I can go back in my mind’s eye to one of these terrifying events.

I awoke with a start. A now familiar uptight tingling feeling had begun coursing through my body. I knew what it meant and I knew that I couldn’t do anything about it. I turned my head to the wall and waited. I did not want to look but the suspense was too great. I slowly turned my head and almost involuntarily sat up in bed filled with fear. There it was again.

A silhouette of a small man dressed in black stood in the little hall in front of the doorway to my bedroom. I tried to scream to my parents but I could not make any sound come out of my mouth. The figure moved into the room. It was the China man again His pale face reminded me of a clown.

The next thing I knew I was walking through the little hall. I seemed to have awakened from sleep but I was now on my feet. I glanced around and saw the china man behind me. He was wearing a robe and his head was covered with a hood. I remember the startled look on his face as our eyes met. I think that I came too from something akin to walking in my sleep. He stared at me with his eyes and I must have returned to that strange state of being. That was my last memory that greeted me when I awoke on the next morning.

As usual I told my mother and father about the clowns that took me away somewhere in the night. But, over and over again I was told that I had been having nightmares no matter how hard I tried to convince them otherwise. I felt betrayed and unprotected by my own parents. It was a horrible feeling as there was no one else that I could turn to for comfort and help. However, as the morning rolled on with its activities such incidents would slowly melt from my mind like a fading dream. I really would not think about the again until some night in the future when I would again awake to it coming for me again. After awhile I knew what to expect and I knew that I could do nothing about it.

But I am getting ahead of myself. I was six years old when I experienced these particular terrors in the night. They turned out to be a preamble for what was waiting for me in my future. But, before proceeding there, I believe that it is very important for the reader to know a bit about my background.. So, let’s back up a bit in time and start at the very beginning—my beginning!

I was born on November 11, 1933. During the day, my overly pregnant and overdue mother insisted against Dad’s wishes that he drive her to Cambridge just outside Boston to visit her sisters. A snowstorm was predicted but Dad knew better to argue with Mom so off they went. The birth pangs of both snowstorm and myself started simultaneously. Panicky, nerves frayed and totally exasperated for being put in this situation, Dad began the dangerous slippery 25-mile trip back to the hospital. But, no sooner had he begun to head out of Cambridge when a drunk driver smashed into the car. A policeman responding to the accident was alarmed to find Mom in labor. She refused to be taken to a nearby hospital and insisted that she be brought to her local hospital. The police inspected the car. The damage was minimal. A fender was dented and a headlight smashed so the police decided to escort Mom and Dad the rest of the way.

I arrived at the hospital intact in the womb accompanied by siren and flashing lights. We got there just in time for me to be born on what was then called Armistice Day. The hospital was located in Salem, Massachusetts—the famous City of the Witches.

I was named Raymond after my Dad and my middle initial, E, for Eveleth after my mother’s maiden name. However, because I was so chubby, I was nicknamed Buster. Later, Mom even entered my photo into a baby contest sponsored by Sears and Roebuck. I must have really impressed the judges because I won first price and received an engraved cup and a silver spoon. I was stuck with the name Buster until I left home to join the Air Force 18 years later even though I was now far from being a Buster. I was thin as a rail weighing in at 142 pounds!

I was the first of four boys who followed me into the family every few years—Fredrick [Ricky], John [Johnny] and Richard [Dick]. My sister Dorothy [Dot] had preceded me by almost ten years. Times had been tough for my parents. They had real rough sledding to make financial ends meet during the depression years that preceded my birth. During the Depression, Dad worked at the United Shoe Machinery Company. It was a family-owned company that kept everybody working half time during those lean years rather than laying them off. Raising and selling chickens and eggs plus a vegetable garden supplemented Dad’s meager wages. Strange as it may seem, it was the sale of a dozen eggs that earned them their first house.

One of Dad’s egg customers was a member of a car pool with him. Money was tight so he offered to give Dad a sweepstake ticket for a dozen eggs. Dad felt sorry for him and accepted the ticket. You’ve probably guessed what happened next. Dad’s hen had laid the proverbial golden egg. It was a winning ticket and became a financial turning point for my parents. They were able to purchase a roomy frame house at 4 Dodge Court, Danvers, Massachusetts. Later, it would become the home where many childhood adventures and bizarre happenings would take place.

I don’t remember very much about the earliest years of my life. Dot and my mother’s youngest sister [Aunt Pricilla] were very much a part of my activities. Sledding in the winter at Day’s Hill located beside our house. beach in the summer, visits to Bar Harbor, Maine to visit my grandmother, the family gatherings at Thanksgiving and the excitement at Christmas times are fondly remembered. The things that I remember vividly are those of a traumatic nature: the death of my grandmother, traveling to Boston to play in piano recitals, etc. Looking back in retrospect, a number of them, like the bedroom visitations were part of the then unrecognized benchmarks of UFO abduction experiences.

Love Light

My earliest memory of an extraordinary happening to me was when I must have been very young. On a number of occasions I can remember waking up and seeing a bright light beam shining on my bed. It was so bright that I could see dust particles moving around in it. Each time that I saw it, I would crawl out of my bedcovers and allow it to shine on me. When I entered the light, I would feel a loving warmth that would be hard to describe in mere words. I called it the love light. I wish that I could remember more about what happened after entering the light but that’s where my memory of such events terminates. The next strange experience also involved a light.

Junket

As youngsters, my younger brothers and I suffered many of the childhood sicknesses. I remember one incident when my fever was so high that I began to hallucinate. I can still see the scenes today in my mind’s eye. The ceiling above the bed became a movie screen. My concerned parents gathered around me as I described ships being loaded with troops and war scenes that appeared in realistic three-dimensional scenes. It was frightening and one of those traumatic memories that has remained vivid even to this day.

Each time that I became sick, ginger ale and chicken soup were usually on the menu. However, when I was on the mend my mother used to make me a milk-based dessert called Junket. The very name of this dessert conjures up a terrifying sight that will forever be etched in my mind. I was no longer in the bedroom facing the little hall. I had been moved to an adjoining room that I shared with my younger brother Ricky. I believe that I was seven years old at the time.

It was early in the evening. I was in bed recovering from a flu-like sickness. Mom had brought me up a bowl of Junket. It was easy to digest and it was hoped that I would keep it down. I felt much better and wanted to be downstairs eating supper with the family. I could hear the sounds of voices at the kitchen table. Dad had come home and I was looking forward to him coming up to see me.

I was sitting at the end of the bed relishing the taste of Vanilla Junket when suddenly a bright sharply defined fiery ball of light somehow appeared out of nowhere. It seemed as bright as the Sun but I could look at it without hurting my eyes.

It was about the size of a marble and hovered within a foot of my face. For what seemed like a long moment I just stared transfixed at the bewildering sight before me. I then screamed for my parents. This did not affect the glaring ball of light. It just sat there in mid-air staring me in the face. Strangely enough, I do not remember moving. I do remember that I kept on hollering to my parents about it. But Mom was annoyed and said she would not be up until after supper. However, I guess my screaming worked as after what seemed forever she slowly trudged up the stairs to see what I was talking about. Simultaneously with the sound of her feet on the stairs, the object suddenly darted towards a partially opened closet door and disappeared.

So, when Mom arrived it was gone. She scolded me and told me that I was imagining things but I did persuade her to check the closet. She found nothing. I was upset because she did not believe that I had seen it. I was scared and wanted to come downstairs with her but I was made to stay in bed. I felt very much alone and looked around fearfully thinking that it would appear again. But whatever it was had gone away. I can still visualize how bright it was despite the fact that it was still light outside and my room was still light enough not to need a lamp on. About a year later I would experience another light but this light would contain a lady!

The Lady in the Light

Once again Ricky and I had a change of bedrooms. Dot took our old bedroom and Ricky moved in another room with Johnny. This adjustment was made to provide a separate bedroom for the recent arrival of my brother Dick into the family.

I was temporarily put on a couch in what we called the Big Hall. It was located along the top of the stairs. A window faced the unpaved court to the left of my headrest. Steps leading to the attic stairs lay just on the other side of the window. A bureau was placed at the foot of the couch where I kept a borrowed copy of my sister’s Book of Knowledge. One of my favorite pastimes was to read its section on Astronomy.

My interest in Astronomy started when my sister brought me to an amateur telescope show. One of this book’s pages depicted the solar system with dotted lines leading from airplanes flying to each planet. Each airplane was annotated with the time it would take for it to reach the planets at a speed of 200 miles per hour. I found this drawing very discouraging. It showed that it would take 27 years to reach Mars at this speed and airplanes could not fly in space.

My stay in the Big Hall was short. But, it is well remembered because of two traumatic events that took place during my stay. The first entailed my being awakened at night by the telephone downstairs and my father yelling up the stairs to my Mother that her mother had died. Death frightened me. I remember being very upset when one of my schoolmate’s mother died. I just lay quietly listening to all the commotion and pretending to be asleep. I also pretended that I did not know about it when my sister Dorothy gave me the news in the morning. I tried to show no emotion, as I did not want to feel sad. I can remember Dot being very upset with me because I did not show remorse. I kept my feelings inside. Even at this young age I feared death and wanted to deny it.

This traumatic event was natural. The second one seemed supernatural. The strange thing was that I remember that it elicited excitement and curiosity on my part rather than fear and denial. I must have been eight years old at the time because Nanny died on August 1, 1942. .

Sometime during the night I awoke to find the Big Hall lit up by light shining through the window beside my bed. I sat up on the couch and was confronted by what I believed to be a lady encased in brilliant light. I say a lady because the entity had long hair but I do not remember anything else about her appearance except I think she may have been wearing a robe. As I gazed at her I felt no fear but was filled with an overwhelming sense of love and well being that literally vibrated through my body.

The rest of my memory is sketchy. For some reason I wanted to show her my children’s Bible Storybook and Dot’s Book of Knowledge. She asked me to get them off the bureau. I can’t remember what we looked at in the Bible Storybook. However, I can still visualize myself sitting on the couch with her looking at the Astronomy section of the Dot’s book including my favorite picture, a black and white photograph of Saturn, and the sketch of airplanes flying to the planets. My memory goes blank after that.

The next thing I remember is being engulfed in light and floating through the window. I felt weightless and was terrified looking down at the flower garden below and kicking my legs against nothing. The light that we were in stretched upward to lights up in the sky. My memory is fuzzy but at this point, because of my fear, I think that the lady made me close my eyes. I do not know what happened next. I can visualize coming back down in the light and opening my eyes.

What I saw when my eyes opened is still etched in my mind. I saw the small crescent-shaped attic window very close to us as we descended in light beside the front of the house. In fact, the whole front side of the house was bathed with light. The next thing I remember is standing in the middle of the Big Hall facing the Lady in the Light. She told me that I was going to do something important for mankind.

When I awoke in the morning, I remembered everything. I was terribly excited and ran downstairs to tell my mother. She was already up and dressed. She was standing in slippers dry mopping the linoleum carpet in the living room. I could hardly get the words out to describe what had happened because of my excitement. Much to my surprise, she would not even listen to me. She told me that I had been dreaming and ordered me to go back upstairs to dress.

I was frantic and protested but when she got angry, I started back up the stairs. I can still remember the utter frustration as I started up the stairs as if it were yesterday. As I plodded up the stairs, I could feel the memory of what had happened slipping away. As it did, I started crying and ran back downstairs and insisted that Mom listen to me. I guess my persistence and tearful face finally made her take notice.

Mom’s face broke into a kind smile. She leaned against the mop patiently listened to what I could remember. She told me gently and repeated that it was just a dream and again told me to get upstairs and get dressed. I reluctantly when up to the Big Hall. But before I dressed I began looking for the Lady. Even today I can see myself looking under the eaves of the attic stairs and even climbing the attic stairs to see if she were hiding in the attic. I can remember unsuccessfully trying to lift up the trap door into the attic. Meanwhile most of what had happened was still slipping away in my mind.

Curiously, memories of this experience would be forgotten for long periods of time only to return as a temporary flashback triggered by a variety of pertinent associations.

Shortly after the experience, when gazing at the black and white picture of Saturn in Dot’s book, I felt that I had seen Saturn in color and that it did not look like it was depicted in the book. However, the experience with the lady in the light temporarily had disappeared from my mind until prompted by certain catalysts. After a period of regressive hypnosis as an adult, I am now able to recall when and why these memory flashbacks occurred.

The first flashback took place when I observed a scene from the Wizard of Oz depicting a lady in a ball of light. This brought back the incident full force but again it faded from memory. The next remembered incident is interesting because it evoked a strong sense of guilt. This occurred when I was with Paul who had just moved into the house next door. While playing in the court in front of my house, I happened to glance up at the attic window and the window in the Big Hall. The sight of these windows provoked memories of both the Little and Big Hall experiences to flood my mind.

I looked at Paul and pointed to the windows. I told him about floating out with the lady and about my earlier experiences of being taken somewhere by someone that looked like a China man. But, no sooner had I begun to relate these things to him than I felt overcome with guilt. I felt that I was betraying a trust—that I was not supposed to be telling others about what had happened. In any event when Paul just gave me a funny look, I changed the subject and we continued playing.

Other flashbacks occurred when a wingless aircraft called an autogyro swooped over Dodge Court in preparation for landing at nearby Beverly Airport. I became terrified each time that I saw it. I would run and sit on the attic stairs and look out the window shouting that they’re coming for me! My mother got very upset at me when I did this and shouted Don’t be silly Buster!

The next remembered flashbacks occurred in my adulthood. They occurred when I saw the first close up color photos of Saturn released by NASA and during my investigation of an abductee named Betty Andreasson who had similar childhood UFO experiences. The latter would eventually lead me into undergoing regressive hypnosis. But there was a lot of water to flow over the dam before I reached that point in life.

I do not remember experiencing any other visitations, balls of light, etc. during my pre-teens. However, there are two memories of events from that phase of my childhood that are permanently branded upon my mind, The first involved a preponderance of flying dreams. They were so realistic that upon waking I momentarily believed that they were not dreams.

Some of the other memory is almost as clear in mind as if it happened several days ago. At that time, my parents attended the local Episcopal Church. I attended Sunday School and sang in the children’s choir as a soprano prior to my voice changing. I felt very close to God and used to have one-way conversations with Him as I walked home from Sunday School.

One Sunday I was very impressed with a sermon given by the minister. It was based upon a Bible verse about entertaining angels unaware. The minister stressed that we should be kind to all those in need and that sometimes we might be helping angels in disguise as human beings. For some reason, I kept thinking about that sermon.

On the following day, I was playing near some rarely used railroad tracks. I can still see the scene in my mind’s eye. It was a very hot summer day. The sun was beating down on the oil-saturated railroad ties causing a shimmering mirage-like effect. As I glanced down the track, I saw a lone figure appearing in the distance. His image was distorted by this shimmering effect. I stopped and watched as his form took shape. I waited by the track until a very clean-cut young man stopped opposite from where I was standing.

He looked as if he were in his late teens. His blonde hair was crew cut and he was wearing blue jeans, that we called dungarees in those days. We exchanged names and in the process of this initial brief conversation, he told me that he was hungry. Immediately, Sunday’s sermon came to mind. I thought in my innocent childish mind,—perhaps this man is an angel in disguise and I should offer to feed him. Since it was time to go home for lunch, I invited him to come home with me. I told him that I was sure that my mother would give him something to eat. My mother smiled when I told her my angel theory about the young man waiting outside. She looked him over from the living room window and agreed to feed him.

I brought him out a plate of macaroni and some milk and we ate out in the backyard together. After we had finished eating, I asked him if he would stay for awhile. I wanted to show him one of my favorite play spots on the other side of the river that bordered our property. He agreed. I cannot remember all of the things we did together. But, I do remember that he made me a crude but workable bow and arrow. He told me that his father had made the tree from which we cut the wood. I can remember being puzzled about this and asked him who his father was. He simply smiled and told me that someday that I would know.

Strangely enough, I cannot remember his name. I do remember that I was very sad when he told me that he had to leave. I asked him if he would be coming back this way again. He said that perhaps he would visit me again someday. The strange thing is that later on in life I had a very odd encounter with a helpful stranger while driving to give a UFO lecture. His looks and dress brought my mind back to my childhood angel. He seemed to look similar to the same person that I had seen decades ago. His sudden intervention may have saved me from being crushed by my car. This event will be discussed later when I cover that particular time period in my life.

I don’t remember anything strange occurring during my later preteen life. My interest in astronomy received a boost when my parents bought me a telescope. The telescope tube and tripod were made of wood. The objective lens was less than 2 inches in diameter and was not color-corrected. Still, I was able to show neighbors the Moon, Jupiter and its 4 largest moons and Saturn and its rings.

I had more interests than I could possibly handle but had fun trying. I organized neighborhood carnivals, magic shows and even a small newspaper. Mom insisted on me taking piano lessons [actually 12 year’s worth] and soon she was taking me into Boston with other students to play and be judged by the National Piano Playing Auditions. On the other hand, Dad, a former Navy radio operator got me interested in radio. He taught me the Morse code and tutored me in basic electronics. Soon afterward I was building crystal and tube radio receivers and even opened a neighborhood radio repair service.

One room in the cellar was devoted to microscope and chemistry sets. The latter sparked an interest in building bombs, rockets and other types of fireworks. When the State of Massachusetts banned fireworks, I illegally manufactured and sold rockets and firecrackers from the cellar.

Looking back at my antics, I was a terror! Tin can and pipe bombs ignited in a cellar under our garage shook its foundations. Sometimes when staying home from school because of sickness [unknown to my mother] I manufactured rockets in my bedroom. My boredom was broken by firing them out the window over the fields toward the Dan-vers River. A miniature bowling alley served as my launch pad. I stuck it out the window, angled it upwards and fired the rockets along the grooves used for tiny bowling balls. I also amused myself by firing mini-rockets out of a bazooka-like pipe at kids in the neighborhood.

Unfortunately, one morning, one of my longer-range rockets sailed from my front yard and over the Danvers River where it set the grass afire around a Turkey Farm. Fortunately, my Dad and the Danvers police were on very good terms. He was a popular Town Meeting Member who always voted favorably upon requests by the police. The police knew what I was doing but thankfully did not interfere. However, soon after, an incident caused my rocket-making laboratory to suffer a setback from which it never fully recovered.

My memory of this incident recalls a three-tiered scenario. On the one hand, I was reclining on the cellar floor wetting and rolling out a huge pile of gunpowder. Wetting and rolling the material was required to thoroughly mix sulfur with the saltpeter and powdered charcoal that completed the formula for gunpowder. On the other hand and unknown to me, a fellow rocketeer was in another room at the end of the cellar preparing to shoot off a small experimental rocket along a corridor in the cellar and out an open door. Upstairs, just above me my mother was playing cards with her bridge club.

Then it happened. My buddy fired the rocket along the corridor toward the back door but on its way it hit a support post. The fiery missile ricocheted off the post and in a split second struck my precious pile of gunpowder. I jumped back as an incredible bright flash and silent explosion filled the room with foul-smelling smoke. I struggled gagging and half-blinded to and out the cellar door. But the worst was yet to come.

Upstairs, somehow the smelly black smoke suddenly poured upwards into the room where Mom and her friends were playing cards. Mom was well known for taking quick decisive action in emergencies. When the smoke cleared she arrived swinging a broom in all directions and systematically destroyed my laboratory with a strict injunction to clean things up and swear off rocket making!

I might note that years later my evil past came to fore. However, it was one of my brothers that suffered the consequences. He was participating in a Union strike at his workplace when someone set off a bomb. The incident was investigated and he was approached and arrested by the Danvers Police as a suspect. They told him that they knew all about his bomb-making past. My brother finally convinced them that it was me not him that their bomb-making records referred to. Thankfully, I was never contacted because I had nothing to do with the strike.

By the time I entered my later teen years, I had acquired further interests. Sandlot football, softball and baseball were just a part of my outdoor activities. Fishing and hunting now took first precedence. I joined the Danvers Junior Fish and Game Club where some wonderful men mentored me. They taught me how to fish and to tie fishing flies. I was made a member of the Junior NRA and was taught how to use firearms safely. Later I was elected president of the club and won a trip to the Massachusetts State Conservation Camp. I learned much about forestry, conservation and ecology during my two weeks. The camp had eight two-week sessions and one camper was chosen as the State Camper of the Year. I was chosen and won a thoroughbred pointer puppy.

However, all of these interests would someday pale in comparison to what would fast become a lifetime obsession. It started with Kenneth Arnold’s report of sighting flying discs over Mount Rainier in Washington state on June 24, 1947. His report was followed by dozens of others. Flying disc or flying saucer sightings were constantly being reported by the news media. Looking back, these reports seem to have flicked a long dormant mental switch placed deep within my unconscious that activated an overwhelming interest in these unknown flying craft. I immediately began a scrapbook containing every news or magazine item that I could find on them. Then, less than a month after the Arnold sighting, my newfound zeal received an unexpected boost. I saw a flying disc while working on a farm!

One of my parent-expected responsibilities as a teen was to work part of the summer school vacation to earn pocket money and help out in buying school clothes. The going pay on the farm at that time was 20 cents an hour and a dollar bonus if I worked on Saturday. I was not very happy boarding the flat board farm truck on that fateful morning.

It was Independence Day and July 4th had fallen on Friday [on that day] in 1947. It was a holiday and a beautiful sunny day that beckoned me to fish for pickerel at the millpond rather work under the hot summer sun.

In any event, it was around mid-morning when it happened. I was on my hands and knees thinning parsnip and way ahead of the other kids. My mind was on the jug of water that the farmer strategically placed at the end of the rows. For some reason I happened to glance up in the sky. Perhaps it was a reflection from the white object that was approaching from my right. I sat up and took a good look.

At first I thought it was a parachute but as it got closer I did not see any shroud lines or person. I turned and yelled at the guys way behind me but they were all parallel to each other and chattering to each other about something. None of them paid any attention to me. As I looked back the object was now descending with a strange rocking motion and disappeared behind distant trees. The closest thing that I have ever seen to it is the white disc descending with a falling leaf motion depicted at the beginning of the TV program X-Files.

For the next few days the significance of what I had seen really did not dawn upon me. I still wondered if it had been a parachute. It wasn’t until the Salem News arrived on Monday that it suddenly dawned upon me. The newspaper’s banner headlines read that Flying Discs had been seen that day in that very area. Apparently I had seen one of the discs that had been reported by others!

Later on that same summer, my sister was visiting. She, my mother, three brothers and I were all out in the backyard enjoying a beautiful sunny day. For some reason, one of us glanced up and pointed out a solitary sharply defined cylindrical shaped object in the sky that seemed to be swathed in a white cloud-like vapor. At first we thought it must be a weird cloud. My sister, who married an airline pilot, joked that it might be caused by a sewage dump from an aircraft. But, after periodically glancing at it for over a half-hour, it did not change its appearance or location. It just hovered in one place. Now very curious, we continued to watch off and on for a few hours before going in the house around noon for lunch. When we came out to look for it later, it was gone. A few months later, one of my brothers sighted a formation of similar white cigarette-shaped objects in the sky.

However, I never made any connection with these UFO sightings and the weird nighttime visitations that I had experienced as a child. Those scary childhood incidents had temporarily faded from my memory. Even if they had not, I doubt if I would have equated them with the aerial object that I had witnessed on the farm.

At the time flying saucers continued to be in the news. Previously, I had been collecting everything that I could on rockets and experimental aircraft for a scrapbook. So, I thought that flying saucers were probably a secret military aircraft being tested. I was also extremely interested in the prospects of space travel. However, at the time, I did not equate the objects with spacecraft. But, Dad did from the very outset and strangely enough I laughed at him for suggesting such a thing! However, I slowly came to the same opinion myself when the Army Air Force launched Project Saucer [Project Sign] to investigate the flying objects. This coupled with classic events such as the Mantel case and Donald Keyhoe’s article, Flying Saucers are Real in True Magazine reinforced my belief.

I clearly remember lying on my bed listening to news commentator Frank Edwards on the 6:00 evening news when the news flash about the Mantell incident came on. Mantell’s plane crashed when pursuing a huge UFO over Kentucky. The Air Force’s explanation that Mantell mistook Venus for an unknown craft was just the first of hundreds of suspicious official explanations for the objects as time went on.

The reason that I had laughed at Dad’s spaceship explanation for the flying discs was easily understandable. As far back as I could remember he had related some equally bizarre and unbelievable claims to both family and friends. These claims related to a large number of paranormal events and phenomena that he had claimed to experience since being struck by lightning while serving as a Navy radio operator.

Dad should have been dead. Lightning hit the station just as he was grounding the antenna and obeying an order to abandon the cliff-top station. Briefly, a ball of fire about eight inches in diameter leaped from the transmitting key and hit Dad. He could see his body become translucent and surrounded by a glowing mist. He could see the glowing ball pulsating within his body. He thought he was dead and was amazed to see a beam of light coming through the roof of the station. Dad said that it was like an X-ray. He could look up through the roof and see it stretching to a light in the stormy sky. Where it hit the floor, it seemed to extend through the floor to the bedrock that the station was built upon.

Suddenly, the light beam expanded and simultaneously, three smiling robed beings of light appeared within it. They stood looking down at him. One pointed his finger at the ball of light within Dad’s misty-like body. Instantly, it leapt into his open hand. The entity then threw it into a copper wire mesh that surrounded some radio equipment where it extinguished with a brilliant flash. The robed entities smiled, bowed and disappeared within the beam with three brilliant flashes of light.

When medical and other personnel rushed to the station, they were amazed to find Dad still alive and perfectly well. The lightning strike had severely damaged the still smoldering radio equipment. Today, what happened to Dad would be called a Near Death Experience [NDE].

When the 1947 wave of flying saucer sightings erupted, I was about seven months into my teens. Because of my outdoor interests I spent much of my after school hours in a large tract of forest called the Burley Woods. I would rush home from school, change my clothes and head for the woods to hike, fish or hunt. It was during one of these woodland forays that whatever had visited me in my childhood days decided to renew their acquaintance with me.

The Burley Woods Incident

Of all the places that I cherished most as a child were the trees, fields, ponds and brooks of what was known as the Burley Woods in Danvers.

Each season brought its own adventures. The smell of burning leaves and brilliant foliage heralded the beginning of hunting season. The Winter’s fresh falls of snow highlighted the footprints of a variety of woodland animals to track. Spring ended the long wait for fishing season to open and brought, the melting of snow, rushing brooks and ponds free of ice. Summer brought school vacation with so much time for woodland hikes and picnics. Today most of the Burley Woods is a housing development. But, I still find much delight in pouring over an old topographical map depicting how it was or taking walks within the few pockets of woods that still exist. It was within these beloved woods that the next remembered traumatic event took place.

I remember my after school ritual as if it were yesterday: out of high school at two o’clock—home, changing clothes and off to the woods around 2:45—walking down Day’s hill—crossing the footbridge over the Danvers River—following the river until it met Frost Fish Brook that egresses from the Burley Woods into the River—crossing the brook over stepping stones—crossing back over by swinging over an over hanging tree branch—following the brook to a dirt road that encircled a pond sometimes called the Ice House although this building was long gone—walking down the dirt road and strolling through the meadows and woods for whatever adventures awaited me. On one of these typical days I encountered an adventure that I shall never forget.

It was a cool fall day. I had just climbed up a grassy ridge onto the dirt road beside the pond. The sun was shining brightly. I felt invigorated by the cool fresh air and elated about being out of school. Suddenly I found myself standing beside the pond looking at the sun setting behind the trees. I was shocked and wondered how this could possibly be. I cannot really adequately describe the raw emotions that welled up inside me in that instant. I was filled with confusion, panic and sheer raw terror. I had no idea what had happened. I next found myself running wildly homeward back through the woods stumbling and flailing at bushes and tree limbs in my way. It was getting very dark as I ran all the way home. I burst into the house and into the kitchen puffing and panting out of breath.

Mom was clearing the supper table and shouted angrily but in great relief—Where have you been. We were just about to call the police! I did not know what to say. All