By Charles Lear
I’m a fan of 1970’s UFO documentaries. They have cool, period, analog synthesizers in the scores, descriptions of classic cases and the best of them maintain a decent sense of journalistic integrity. My favorite is, “UFOs: It Has Begun” which is a 1979 re-release of a 1974 documentary, “UFOs: Past, Present, and Future” based on a book of the same title by Robert Emenegger.
The movie is hosted by Rod Serling and has Burgess Meredith and Jose Ferrer as well. Once you get past Serling’s delightful cheesy introduction, and Meredith’s somber narration of the story of Ezekiel as a UFO sighting along with other “historical” encounters, there are some excellent cases dramatized and discussed. Notable figures presenting testimony include researcher Jaques Vallée with a stunning hair helmet, J. Allen Hynek and Robert Friend, science advisor and director respectively of Project Blue Book, Al Chop, an Air Force press operator present in the Washington National Airport radar room during the famous 1952 event, and Lonnie Zamora discussing his 1964 Socorro sighting. The movie was made with the cooperation of the Air Force, and with this in mind, a very strange case is brought to light by Robert Friend that involves a contactee, Naval Intelligence and the C.I.A.
In the movie, Friend speaks of intelligence officers conducting an interview with someone claiming to be in contact with an alien entity. For proof the officers put forth technical questions beyond the contactee’s capability and they received accurate answers. One of the officers, told that he could establish contact directly, went into a trance, was questioned by the other officer, and both were convinced that contact had indeed occured. The officers went back to Washington and a demonstration was done where the same officer again went into a trance and series of questions was put to him, or rather, to the entity he was channeling. After receiving their answers, the questioners asked if they could be shown a flying saucer, and the reply was to look out a window. Friend was told during a subsequent briefing on the incident, that a flying saucer did, indeed appear, and fly off. Did this really happen? My armchair internet research has revealed that the story has some bizarre truth to it.
The tale begins with Wilbert Smith, director of Project Magnet, which was a Canadian, UFO study program started by the Transport Canada in 1950 to explore the possibility of exploiting flying saucer technology for use in transportation. Smith believed he was in telepathic contact with aliens and developed a correspondence with other contactees to compare notes. One of these was a Mrs. Frances Swan who lived in Eliot, Maine and she was a neighbor of retired Navy Admiral, Herbert B. Knowles. A letter from Mrs. Swan to Smith survives in the archives of the University of Ottawa. Mrs. Smith claimed to be in contact with a group of aliens, including one named AFFA, who were circling the earth in a satellite monitoring, among other activities, atomic testing. She communicated via automatic writing and an example of this is seen in the letter.
Mrs. Swan, concerned for the fate of humanity, convinced former Admiral Knowles to get the D.O.D. involved and, at Knowles urging, two Naval Intelligence Officers were sent to Maine to investigate. They watched as she went into a trance and established contact. They asked her questions and the scribbled replies seemed to come from Space Commander AFFA. Questions asked, according to the officers, included, “What is the length of Uranus’ day?” and, “What is the distance between Jupiter and the sun at apogee?” They would report to Friend that she answered correctly in spite of her lack of education. As further proof, one of the officers was invited to establish contact himself and he returned to Washington convinced that he had and continued his contacts in Washington.
In the movie, Friend is shown in a building and begins his story by saying he was invited to a briefing in the “security portion” there. That “portion” turns out to be the National Photographic Interpretation Center in Washington, D.C. where U2 and SR-71 spy plane and satellite photos were analyzed. It was here that the officer, now contactee, did a demonstration in front of two witnesses on July 6, 1959. According to an article the in May 1972 issue of the magazine, “Second Look” the two witnesses were Arthur Lundahl, NPIC’s founder and Robert Nisham, a Navy photo analyst. This information came from Lundahl, himself.
Friend was contacted and brought to the office on July 9, 1959 for a briefing on the July 6 demonstration and was given a demonstration himself. Friend describes the officer’s trance and automatic writing in the movie. In later interviews he states that he believed there was “something there” in reference to the contacts of Swan and the officer and that it warranted looking into. Friend prepared a memo for his commanding general and the matter was left there.
Lundahl, in “Second Look” states that there was no flying saucer and that he was asked to witness the “contact” because he was a friend of the officer/contactee. He further states that he agreed because he felt sorry for his friend and worried about his friend’s career if his superiors were to find out what was happening with him. If what Lundahl said is true, why was Friend told the flying saucer story? Why was Friend contacted in the first place? Was Lundahl back-pedaling?
Supposedly there is a C.I.A. memo out there but as far as I can find it has never been produced. Lundahl was indeed a real person and his documented involvement with UFOs was with the Condon Committee when he was asked if the NPIC would analyze UFO photos taken in Zanesville, Ohio. Lundahl agreed under the condition that the C.I.A. not be mentioned in any reports. The photos were debunked but Lundahl, himself, was a believer in extra-terrestrial intelligence and reportedly had a huge collection of books on the subject.
Very strange stuff and it prompted me to look further into the contactee aspect of the phenomenon. A paper titled, “The UFO Contact Movement From the 1950’s to the Present” written by Christoper (not a typo) Bader, published in Studies in Popular Culture Vol.17 issue 2 1995, sums up the history quite nicely as a social phenomenon. Important for researchers, it shows the transition, not so much in reported contacts, but in the UFO community’s research into contacts. It seems that as researchers attempted to shoehorn the phenomenon into the paradigm of accepted physical science, greys, mantises and reptilians became credible aliens and characters such as AFFA were given the brush.
So, were the contactees a bunch of nuts or was there something to it? Keel states in “The Mothman Prophesies” that he had probably interviewed more contactees than anyone else and that the same alien names, such as Ashtar, Orthon, and Apol, turned up repeatedly. Don Elkins and Carla Rueckert in their 1977 book, “Secrets of the UFO” also mention that the names of aliens were repeated by contactees. That would be some good evidence but Keel doesn’t give specific instances and Elkins and Rueckert only use Francis Swan and George Hunt Williamson as examples for the name AFFA and Williamson had written of his contact with AFFA in his 1952 book, “The Flying Saucers Speak” so Swan could have gotten the name from there. It would be nice to see Keel’s actual interviews.
If you look into George Hunt Williamson’s background you’ll find that he was a member of George Adamski’s group (cult) and that casts a huge shadow of doubt on the validity of the string of supposed contact experiences that led to the case Friend found himself involved in. Does this mean one should totally disregard all claims of telepathic contact with non-earthly intelligences? What remains is the fact that a Naval Intelligence Officer became so convinced that he was able to establish contact that he put his career in jeopardy. Something powerful moved a lot of people to risk ridicule and worse and as Friend said, there’s “something there” that’s worth looking into. If nothing else, you’ll gain a larger understanding of the history of ufology.