Contactees: Talking to the Gods of the New Millennium

by Manuel Carballal

One of the most fascinating and controversial aspects of ufology and the paranormal emerged from the United States precisely at mid-century: the Contactee Phenomenon.

It was 1952 when George Adamski, proprietor of an eatery located at Mount Palomar, openly claimed to be in contact with the crewmen of the flying saucers which had commanded headlines all around the world for about five years at the time. Adamski hoped to certify his contact experiences through a series of spectacular photographs of the flying saucers he communicated with--vehicles which, in his telling, came from the planet Venus and made the journey to Earth inside colossal motherships shaped like giant Havana cigars.

Adamski further claimed to have had physical contact with a Venusian named Orthon, adding that he had even managed to visit the interior of his spaceship,. However, despite his position in the bibliography of the UFO phenomenon as the first contactee, George Adamski wasn't the first human being to have spoken with beings from other worlds...

Prehistory of a Phenomenon

George Adamski is, in fact, a logical by-product in the evolution of a phenomenon such as the one involving UFOs. When a possible extraterrestrial origin was first posited for UFOs in the 1950s, it was foreseeable that it wouldn't be long before characters claiming to be in contact with them would step forward. More so if extraterrestrials are portrayed as a breed of new gods, a technified version of the Divinity adapted to the Space Age.

The fact, however, is that the myth of gods hailing from the stars is far older than the UFO phenomenon and flying saucers. Texts as ancient as the Mahabarata make constant mention of gods and demigods traveling among different worlds and stars, and the operation of their vehicles--the vimanas--is described in a wealth of detail.

Other even older traditions, like those of the Dogon tribe of Mali, or in Ancient Egypt, speak insistently about the arrival of gods from the stars and their close contact with human beings. In short, George Adamski discovered nothing new: the theologies of the great religions encompass all manner of supernatural entities which at certain moments can enter into contact with human beings: the Islamic djinn, the Hindu asuras and devas, or Christianity's angels, archangels, seraphim, powers, numbers, principalities, etc.

Adamski did nothing more than update [these beliefs] into the Space Age, associating them to the recent UFO phenomenon--a belief that has been present at the deepest levels of Humankind's collective  unconscious since the dawn of history: the belief that it is possible to contact other forms of non-human sentient life.

Contact with Non-Humans

Immediately after Adamski claimed being in contact with the "space brothers" from the planet Venus, many other U.S. contactees, followed by European ones later, appeared on the international landscape. The names of Daniel Fry and Howard Menger quickly achieved popularity in the U.S., much in the same way that Italy's Eugenio Siragusa and Switzerland's Edouard "Billy" Meier would subsequently achieve notoriety. Even later on, Latin Americans like Charlie and Sixto Paz would spread contacteeism throughout South America, and the inevitable occurred: despite the fact that major contactees tried to break free from any sectarian or religious movements throughout the second half of the 20th century, the number of UFO contact groups having sectarian and pseudoreligious structures proliferates to this very day.

The dreadful mass suicide staged by members of the Heaven's Gate sect in San Diego as an effort to travel in spirit form to the alien vessel allegedly concealed in the wake of Comet Hale-Bopp shows the radical extremes of a disquieting social reality. The fact is that the number saucer cults listed in police ledgers all around the world, linked to high-risk religious cults, is exceedingly high.

Groups like Hermandad Rama, the Ashtar Command, the Raelians, Edelweiss or Nonsiamosoli, to name only a few, have been regularly and closely observed by the authorities due to being considered dangerous. All of them have a single thing in common: they claim to be in contact with non-human entities which they classify in a variety of ways--aliens, ultraterrestrials, intraterrestrials, etc.

Over the past 45 years, these contact groups, centered around a charismatic personality who claims having maintained personal communication or physical contact with the "guides" from space, have multiplied all over the globe. Many of them do not circumscribe their cosmology to the notion that we are being visited by space faring civilizations, rather, they add religious elements from their respective traditions to said cosmologies. For example, Giorgio Bongiovanni, raised in a country with strong Catholic and Marianist traditions such as Italy, mixes messages from the Blessed Virgin Mary, mystical stigmata and the Third Secret of Fatima with his extraterrestrial contact messages. Latin American contactee Máximo Camargo includes beings such as Viracocha or Quetzalcoatl -- drawn from pre-Colombian traditions -- to his UFO experiences. This allows us to see the growing synchretism within the contactee movement.

On the other hand, some skeptics have noted that the places of origin of the alleged alien visitors has become increasingly distant as the century progressed and space probes showed the absence of life in the heavenly bodies nearest to Earth. Adamski claimed that his aliens came from Venus, and Menger located his on Mars. Charlie and Sixto Paz placed them on one of the moons of Jupiter while Eugenio Siragusa located his own in the heart of our very own sun. Later contactees, like Billy Meier, relocated them out of our solar system, specifically on the alleged planet Erra in the Pleiades.

Recent contactee movements, perhaps to avoid the possibility that space probes will reach their guides' home worlds too soon and present it as a lifeless world, have sought a more ethereal origin for their guides. The development and dissemination of Quantum physics over the past years has provided contactees with ideas on where to locate the point of origin of their contactors. Thus, a growing number of contactees point to other dimensions, parallel universes, and even antimatter universes (!).

Therefore, it isn't reckless to predict that the future of the contactee phenomenon, at least as related to the supposed origin of the "guides", shall be closely linked with new discoveries in the fields of physics and astronomy. Otherwise, hang around long enough and you'll see.

The Technology of Alien Contact

Techniques for contacting non-humans have also evolved considerably along the course of the 20th century. Currently, some groups scattered around the world claim to have picked up radio signals from outer space through crude radio receivers built according to the instructions given to them by the aliens themselves. Yet this is merely one of the many ways in which modern technology has been applied to contacteeism.

Other contactee groups, such as the vanished Más Allá sect, not only claimed to have maintained physical and personal contact with alleged aliens and with humans "adopted" by the extraterrestrials -- they have shown videotapes which supposedly portray the faces of said non-human entities. The fact of the matter is that transcommunication techniques applied to alien contact have grown in popularity in recent years, particularly in Europe and Latin America.

Other contactees, such as Tefilo, have done the same by means of spirit recordings (psychophonies): they claim to have audio recordings in which voices or sounds made by extraterrestrials can be heard. A similar evolution has been evinced in the world of spiritism as regards communication techniques. It is for this reason that well-known contactee groups such as the Aztlán Group or Charlie Paz Wells make use of the Ouija board and automatic writing as a means for contacting extraterrestrials.

Obsolete means of communication through typtology or by means of automatic writing, Ouija or simiar means-- employed by both spiritist mediums and UFO contactees alike -- gave way to psychophonies, psychoimages and more recently, the use of computer programs which generate random letters which could theoretically be arranged by a non-human intelligence bent on sending the operator messages. What will the future hold?

While few, there are already some documented cases in which witnesses claim to have received messages from non-human intelligences by means of fax machines, answering machines and even e-mail. It would then seem obvious that the evolution of communication and human technology will always set aside a place for these other types of communications--the allegedly supernatural ones. Therefore, it is by no means foolish to suggest that in the near future we will learn about alleged contactees receiving holographic messages from aliens.

God Travels by Saucer

But the truest forecast, without a doubt, is that in the 21st century God will travel by UFO or not at all. The popularity of the extraterrestrial myth, as the 20th century progressed, has managed to surpass that of other modern myths and traditions. In many cases, statistics in favor of the belief of life in other planets have surpassed those pertaining to belief in God, the Virgin Mary or the hereafter.

In Spain alone, over 50% of surveyed citizens have indicated their belief in extraterrestrial UFOs. This belief has been promoted by the movies, television and literature. Furthermore, in recent years we have witnessed the behavior of publicists and marketing experts (in my opinion, the best means of gauging trends within a society, given that their job consists of using the best promotional devices to sell their products). The promotional campaigns and commercial products depicting images of flying saucers or aliens as devices is truly infinite. Why do P.R. specialists worldwide agree in employing the UFO image as the best and most attractive device for their campaigns? Evidently, because said image has proven to be among the most profitable for their campaigns: from children's toys to fashion and restaurant chains to the promotional efforts of the most powerful multinational corporations. Each passing day, the concepts of the UFO, the alien and the extraterrestrial are increasingly present in our culture. By next century, they will undoubtedly form an intrinsic and inseparable part of universal belief systems.