Communion

The concrete world has slipped

through the meshes of the scientific net.

- ALFRED NORTH WHITEHEAD ,

Modes of Thought

PRELUDE

The Truth Behind the Curtain

This is the story of one man's attempt to deal with a shattering assault from the unknown.

It is a true story, as true as I know how to describe it.

To all appearances I have had an elaborate personal encounter with intelligent nonhuman beings. But who could they be, and where have they come from? Are unidentified flying objects real? Are there goblins or demons . . . or visitors?

At first, I thought I was losing my mind. But I was interviewed by three psychologists and three psychiatrists, given a battery of psychological tests and- a neurological examination, and found to fall within the normal range in all respects. I was also given a polygraph by an operator with thirty years' experience and I passed without qualification. I had been indifferent to the whole issue of unidentified flying objects and extraterrestrials; I had viewed them as a false unknown, easily explainable as misperceptions or hallucinations. Now what was I to think?

The visitors marched right into the middle of the . life of an indifferent skeptic without a moment's hesitation.

Later I found a large number of people who have had experiences similar to mine. Most of them were mentally stable. They did not cluster in any particular population group, but formed a cross section of American society. I have met, among many others, a scientist, a policeman, and a federal officer who have had encounters.

In my case there were witnesses, and physical aftereffects that are hard to ignore. Either what is happening is that visitors are actually here, or the u man mind is creating something that, incredibly, is close to a physical reality. Whatever it is, it is not presently understood by science.

I know how it feels and looks to be with these visitors. I know how they sound when they talk and what it looks and smells like in their places. I know how they act and how they appear. I may even know something about why they are here and what they want from us.

Seeming encounters with nonhuman beings are not new; they have a history dating back thousands of years. What is new, in this latter part of the twentieth century, is that the encounters have taken on an intensity never before experienced by humankind.

What happened to me was terrifying. It seemed completely real. It was in clear, normal memory. Most of it was already present in my mind before I was hypnotized to aid recall.

There has been a lot of scoffing directed at people who have been taken by the visitors. It has been falsely claimed that their memories are a side effect of hypnosis. This is not true.

Most of them started with memories and undertook hypnosis to attempt greater recall.

Scoffing at them is as ugly as laughing at rape victims. We do not know what is happening to these people, but whatever it is, it causes them to react as if they have suffered a great personal trauma. And society turns away, led by vociferous professional debunkers whose secret fears apparently close their minds. Other, more responsible scientists are very legitimately concerned that serious pursuit of an answer to the enigma of unidentified aerial objects and possible visitors may lead science into study of a false unknown.

At least from a behavioral point of view, however. this can no longer be considered a false unknown. Something is happening, and intellectually well-grounded people need not shun it. Instead, the unknown can be faced with clear and open curiosity. When this is done something strange happens: The unknown changes. The enigmatic presence of the human mind works back from the dark, and a little progress toward real understanding is made.

I suffered with this experience. Others suffered, and are still suffering. It is essential that effective support be developed to aid those who have it. The scoffing has to stop. I am ashamed to say that I have done it myself, in the past, at least vicariously. As far as "UFOs" went, I was with the skeptics.

I look up toward the night sky, visible through two high arches above my office windows.

Almost all the way to the top of the arches the clouds glow with Manhattan's light. At the pinnacle there is darkness, and it draws me. I'm not only scared and upset, frankly I'm also curious. I want to know what's going on out there. As I watch, the night sky grows a little darker.

People who face the visitors report fierce little figures with eyes that seem to stare into the deepest core of being. And those eyes are asking for something, perhaps even demanding it.

Whatever it is, it is more than simple information. The goal does not seem to be the sort of clear and open exchange that we might expect. Whatever may be surfacing, it wants far more than that. It seems to me that it seeks the very depth of the soul; it seeks communion.