part0022

I n previous chapters the topic of religion and UFOs has come up on a number of occasions, but I have skirted around it while discussing other matters. In this chapter I will try to confront this topic directly and arrive at a coherent picture of the relationship between religion and the revelations connected with UFOs. One way to begin is to observe that there is one prominent view of reality that seems to be conspicuously absent in UFO-related communications. This is the world view of modern science.

According to the modern scientific perspective, the physical universe is the total observable reality. It is composed of matter and energy that transform according to laws that can be expressed in mathematical equations. In the theories of modern physics, all phenomena in the universe reduce to shifting vibrational states of a universal quantum field. We can visualize this crudely by imagining waves colliding with one another on a choppy sea. In quantum field theory, all phenomena can be thought of as wave patterns endowed with a certain fuzzy, partially defined quality known as quantum uncertainty.

Some scientists have advocated the idea that the quantum field is conscious, and they have even tried to identify it with the universal, unified consciousness. For example, this has been done in the works of Fritjof Capra, John Hagelin, and David Bohm. However, these are all attempts to modify the scientific world view by superficially grafting onto it some ideas taken from the Vedic philosophical school of Advaita Vedānta. In practice, the calculations of the physicists make no reference at all to consciousness. These calculations deal strictly with material causation—with interactions between various kinds of waves.

Other scientists hold that God is the basis of reality, but they insist that God acts solely as the sustainer of physical causality. This is sometimes proposed in an attempt to add Judeo-Christian theological categories to the scientific world view, but here again the additions are simply cosmetic. All phenomena occur in accordance with the laws of physics, and therefore they can be understood solely on the basis of those laws with no real need to bring God into the picture. To mainstream scientists, all objectively observable phenomena can, in principle, be explained on the basis of blind physical causation.

In this view, life is understood to be a byproduct of physical processes that occur under very special circumstances, on planets of the right size and composition, situated at the right distance from suitable stars. On such a planet, a soup of organic chemicals accumulates in a primordial ocean. Molecules collide, form bonds, and somehow gradually develop into living cells.

Then a process of Darwinian evolution takes place. Over hundreds of millions of years, cells gradually evolve into multicellular organisms. Some of these develop senses and nervous systems, and only then does the first glimmer of consciousness arise. On some planets, evolution may eventually produce creatures, such as human beings, that are capable of conscious, introspective thought.

However, this consciousness is simply a byproduct of physical interactions of matter in the brain. As soon as the brain is destroyed, or begins to seriously malfunction, consciousness is snuffed out. Nothing survives the death of the body but the body itself, and this is simply a collection of molecules that are eventually broken down and perhaps incorporated into other bodies.

According to this philosophy, humankind is the only technically advanced life form to have evolved in this solar system. However, intelligent life may have arisen on other planets in the universe, and the program called SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) has been developed to listen for radio signals from extraterrestrial civilizations.

Many scientists doubt that other intelligent beings have been able to overcome the obstacles to interstellar flight. But if nonhuman beings really are operating flying machines in the earth’s atmosphere, then, according to conventional scientific ideas, these beings must have come from distant stars by means of advanced technology. There is no other possibility.

This philosophy of scientific materialism is certainly accepted by many people today. If it is true, the ufonauts must be cosmic superscientists, and we might expect them to do and say things that are incomprehensible. But we would not expect them to make understandable statements that clearly contradict fundamental scientific principles. Yet this is exactly what they are reported to be doing.

In many UFO encounters, the ufonauts are said to be uncommunicative. However, there are other encounters in which they are said to deliver elaborate philosophical discourses. This frequently happens in encounters involving friendly contact. It also occurs as a phase of some UFO abductions, including those that are otherwise frightening and traumatic. The philosophy presented by the entities tends to follow a consistent pattern, and it radically contradicts modern science. This philosophy can be summed up as follows:

There is life throughout the universe, and this includes vast numbers of beings that are very similar to ourselves in form and behavior. We can call these beings humanoids. They are conscious, and they have humanly recognizable emotions. They also generally have highly developed psychical abilities.

These beings, like ourselves, are souls inhabiting material bodies. As souls, they transmigrate from one physical body to another. There is a process of cosmic evolution of consciousness, whereby souls gradually progress in spiritual development by undergoing experiences in a succession of material bodies.

Spiritual advancement involves developing love and compassion for all beings, and it also involves the development of knowledge, intelligence, and psychical powers. Beings at high levels of spiritual advancement work together cooperatively in an organized system of universal government. In contrast, most humans of this earth are regarded as crude barbarians who are retarded in spiritual development.

In addition to the gross body made of familiar material elements, there is a subtle body made of finer energies unknown to modern science. There are also different planes of existence, which can be thought of as parallel or higher-dimensional realities. These planes are inhabited by humanoid beings, and some of these beings are able to travel from one plane to another. Some of these beings can also exert control over the gross and subtle bodies of human beings and cause them to move and transform in remarkable ways. (For example, they can move a human body through a solid wall.)

The life forms in the universe have all come into being through a process of creation. This process is not clearly explained, but the basic idea is that there is a universal Creator from whom living beings are naturally generated. This explains how humanlike forms can arise throughout the universe, even though this seems highly implausible from the viewpoint of Darwinian evolutionary theory.

This philosophy is pantheistic. The Creator is present everywhere, and acts everywhere through nature. The Creator is often regarded as impersonal and is said to be nearly incomprehensible and inaccessible.

At the highest level, the Creator is regarded as the One—as eternal, nondual being, full of consciousness, love, and light. It is said that the evolution of consciousness will eventually bring one to the point of experiencing the One or of entering into It.

This, in brief, is the philosophy that emerges fully or partially from many UFO-related communications, including those obtained by channeling and those received in direct encounters with UFO entities. This philosophy sharply contradicts scientific materialism in many important ways. It is also far from being alien. It is expounded in a vast human literature, and it is well known to many people.

In India this philosophy of merging into the impersonal Absolute is prominent in Buddhism and in the philosophical system of Advaita Vedānta. The latter has been identified with Hinduism by many people in the West, but in India both Advaita Vedānta and Buddhism stand in contrast to the philosophy of personal monotheism, called Vaiṣṇava Vedānta, that is presented in Vedic texts such as the Bhāgavata Purāṇa. This philosophy maintains that the Absolute Truth is personal in nature, and it regards the One of the Advaita Vedāntists as an incomplete conception of the Supreme Being. I will say more about Advaita Vedānta and Vaiṣṇava Vedānta later on in this chapter.

To me, at least, the idea that ostensibly nonhuman beings are promoting a philosophy similar to Advaita Vedānta was unexpected and astonishing. Nonetheless, there is a great deal of evidence suggesting that this is happening, and I have presented some of it in previous chapters. Here I will review some of this evidence and introduce some additional material. Then I will make a few remarks about what this all implies regarding philosophy, science, and religion.

I mentioned in Chapter 5 that the UFO abductee Betty Andreasson spoke of alien beings as living in other “planes” or dimensions. Thus, when asked if these beings could travel to other stars, she said they could travel to some near our earth and to others beyond. She clarified this by saying, “Beyond ours there are others, but they are in a different plane. They’re in a heavier space.” She also pointed out that they can see the future, and that “time to them is not like our time, but they know about our time.” 1

She reported being conducted through a UFO by a being of the “Gray” type who identified himself as Quazgaa. This being told her telepathically about the intentions of his group, saying, “Because of great love, they cannot let man continue in the footsteps that he is going . . . They have technology that man could use . . . It is through the spirit, but man will not search out that portion. . . . If man will just study nature itself, he will find many of the answers that he seeks . . . Man will find them through the spirit. Man is not made of just flesh and blood.” 2

Betty Andreasson is a fundamentalist Christian, and thus we might expect her to make remarks about “love” and “the spirit.” However, the idea of a “different plane,” or a “heavier space,” does not play any role in traditional Christian thinking. It turns out that there are also other indications of a non-Christian source for her alien communications.

For example, on one occasion it appears that Betty’s speech was taken over by her alien visitors during a hypnotic session. At this point she said, with mechanical intonation, “You try to seek in wrong directions. Simplicity ’round about you. Air you breath, water you drink, fire that warms, earth that heals. Simplicity, ashes, things that are necessary taken for granted. Powers within them overlooked. Why think you are able to live? Simplicity.” 3

This statement refers to the elements air, water, fire, and earth. These elements are an important part of the Sāṅkhya philosophy of India, of ancient Greek philosophy, and of the medieval Hermetic traditions. But today they are regarded as outmoded categories by scientists, and it seems doubtful that Betty Andreasson was ever taught otherwise in school or in her church. Betty’s experience of the burning of the Phoenix ( page 189 ) also involved a theme that is certainly not prominent in Christianity today but which was a part of old Egyptian tradition.

The idea that there are other planes or dimensions came up in a rather harrowing fashion in the experience of a commercial artist and his wife who reported being mentally lured into a UFO by a tall, hairless man in a bizarre blue cape ( page 320 ). The artist reported being subjected to a typical examination. In the course of this, his mind was forcefully invaded, and he received insights into higher dimensions of reality:

It’s like they’re picking my mind . . . like I don’t have any control. My brain, it’s like there’s a tunnel that goes through my mind to theirs. . . . Our minds are connected. It’s like a tube, maybe it’s light? It’s like a grey light, grey-brown light, brownish-grey. It’s like everything’s pulled out of my head. . . . There’s a terrible sound, but I can’t tell what it is— only it’s piercing, high pitched. . . . It’s coming from my head! My head is gone . . . it’s like I can see all my thoughts, like goo. Everything in my mind is stripped. I’ve got it, but they’ve got it, too. 4

There’s more to it than anybody knows. There’s more to life, more to the world. There’s more to everything than anybody knows. More dimensions, things co-existing. There are other dimensions . . . more than three dimensions. Everywhere, it all works together. Everything co-exists. There’s different dimensions we can’t go into. 5

The UFO researcher Don Elkins has compiled a great deal of channeled material that purportedly comes from entities from other worlds. 6 He observed that this testimony displays highly consistent patterns, even though it comes from many, widely separated individuals from all walks of life. References to the soul, reincarnation, and higher planes or dimensions are commonplace. For example, one channeled entity known as Sut-ko is said to have communicated the following information:

From time immemorial, teachers of Light came to planet Earth, incarnating from other planets, from other systems, even from other galaxies, and from the realms known to you as the nonphysical or supernal realms of existence; and great companies of Light came into incarnation, carrying with them the banner of Truth and Love and Light. 7

This statement is a typical reference to higher beings incarnating on earth to help suffering humanity. Elkins cited another contactee’s statement describing reincarnation as it applies to people on the earth:

As we progress on to higher planes of life, we shall incarnate in bodies far more ethereal than those now used by us, just as in the past we used bodies almost incredibly grosser and coarser than those we call our own today. 8

Many of the communications cited by Elkins contain wild and dubious statements, and it is not possible to prove that any of them really do originate from otherworldly beings. But the thematic consistency of these communications is striking, and I do not think this can easily be explained in ordinary terms. Elkins said, “Since I have observed over 100 people go through this [channeling] process and have read millions of words of contactee literature, both published and unpublished, I believe that I am now in a position to select highly correlative material from the masses of communications.” 9 It appears that either the typical American subconscious harbors ideas of reincarnation and ethereal worlds, or “someone” is trying to send paranormal messages about these topics.

Turning to a case of face-to-face contact, a Southern Baptist minister in Puerto Rico claimed to have had many meetings with humanoid beings from the planet Koshnak, in the direction of the constellation of Orion. These beings were very similar in appearance to the familiar “Gray” entities. They had melon-shaped, expressionless faces with thin lips, undeveloped noses and ears, and large wraparound eyes without pupils. The eyes were green with scintillating flashes, and they were said to be intense and arresting. 10

However, unlike the typical encounters with “Grays,” this was a classical contactee case. The beings treated the man in a very friendly way. One of them, who was named Ohneshto, took him on rides in one of their vehicles, showed him undersea bases on the earth, and telepathically presented him with long philosophical discourses about time, space, and the reasons for human existence. 11 This included references to higher dimensions:

He said they travel in the seventh and eighth dimensions, unknown to Earth humans, and that they are aware of 13 dimensions of being. Ohneshto pointed out references in our Bible pertaining to UFOs. He said that their normal span of life is about 800 to 1,000 of our years. . . . He explained that they could continue life forever with only one cell of the body. Ohneshto said that the axis of the Earth has changed four times as far as they have checked this out, that it tilts about every 20 to 25 centuries. 12

This case was similar in many ways to the case of Filiberto Cardenas discussed in Chapter 5 (pages 176–78 ). There, also, the contacting entities spoke of other dimensions. Cardenas testified that during a voluntary visit on one of their ships, they told him that “they are beings of other dimensions, of other worlds, but that they are not gods, and they do not want to be considered such.” 13

There are a number of reports of UFO-related communications that directly mention some idea about God. To my knowledge, these practically all present a pantheistic or an impersonal conception of the Supreme. Impersonal conceptions describe the Supreme as an ultimate force, energy, or state of being that is the source of all phenomena but is devoid of all personal attributes. They include the pantheistic conception of the Supreme, which identifies God with the universe. These impersonal ideas can be contrasted with the idea that God possesses absolute personal features, as well as various impersonal energies and aspects.

The mention of some conception of God in UFO communications is consistent with the stress many of these communications place on spirituality. Theological ideas naturally tie in with the idea that human beings have a spiritual dimension, and they are incompatible with strictly mechanistic views of life.

At the same time, strictly impersonal conceptions of God are incompatible with devotion to a personal Supreme Being. Quite a few UFO-related communications tend to denigrate the personal conception of the Supreme, and some do this by claiming that earth humans used to mistakenly worship visiting extraterrestrials as God or as gods. The implication—which is sometimes explicitly spelled out— is that anthropomorphic ideas of the Deity began with extraterrestrial contacts with humanlike beings. Of course, another possibility is that all humanlike beings within the universe have derived their form from an original, humanlike Creator, and thus the human form is actually “deomorphic.”

In some cases, humanoid entities are reported to make brief theological comments in the course of apparently accidental close encounters. For example, a 25-year-old man told of an encounter with strange beings in July 1968 at the Grodner Pass in the Italian Dolomites. He said that he met tall, thin beings with domed heads and beautiful Oriental eyes. The beings, who were accompanied by a small robot, telepathically told him, “We come from a planet in a far galaxy,” and, “Everything is God.” They also warned that a pole shift is coming, the earth’s crust will crack, and life will be in great danger. 14

Another theological revelation was given to Mrs. Cynthia Appleton, a 27-year-old mother of two children living at Aston in Birmingham, England. At 3 p.m. on November 18, 1957, she was about to check on her baby daughter. Suddenly she sensed an oppressiveness, like that preceding a thunderstorm, and saw a “man” materialize with a whistling noise near the fireplace. This apparition was initially blurry and then clear. He was tall and fair, with a tight-fitting plasticlike garment featuring an “Elizabethan” collar. He answered her questions telepathically, revealing that he had come from a world of peace and harmony in a saucer-type craft. He was able to convey a picture of this in a mysterious fashion.

On a second occasion, two similar figures spoke to her in a strange style of English, informing her that they were projections and should not be touched. One point they made was that “the Deity itself dwells at the heart and core of the atom.” It is said that there were no books in Mrs. Appleton’s house, only newspapers. Those who interviewed her described her as a pleasant and sincere young woman. 15

Although this statement about the Deity may seem pantheistic, it can also be given a broader interpretation. In the Brahma-saṁhitā it is said that God dwells within each atom (in Sanskrit, paramāṇu, or “smallest particle”) and that innumerable universes simultaneously exist within God. 16 Here the idea is that God is a Supreme Person who is distinct from the universal manifestation and at the same time is fully present within every particle of matter.

The psychic Robert Monroe, who is known for his investigations of out-of-body travel, reported receiving a communication that strongly negated his existing conceptions of God. This involved a mysterious beam of radiation that seemed to emanate from a point in the sky:

I suddenly felt bathed in and transfixed by a very powerful beam that seemed to come from the North, about 30 degrees above the horizon. I was completely powerless, with no will of my own, and I felt as if I were in the presence of a very strong force, in personal contact with it.

It had intelligence of a form beyond my comprehension, and it came directly (down the beam?) into my head, and seemed to be searching every memory in my mind. I was truly frightened because I was powerless to do anything about this intrusion. 17

Jacques Vallee compared Monroe’s beam with the beams of light shown in religious art carrying revelations from God. It is interesting that during one of its appearances, the beam conveyed a very cold, impersonal concept of God to Monroe. This was so overpowering that it caused Monroe to weep bitterly. He said, “Then I knew without any qualification or future hope of change that the God of my childhood, of the churches, of religion throughout the world was not as we worshiped him to be.” 18

Monroe had apparently been thinking of God as a person who might show concern for an individual worshiper. But whoever was responsible for the beam went to the trouble of disabusing him of this concept.

There are many reports of mind-probing beams from the sky, and to show the possible relationship between these beams and UFOs, I will mention another example. This involved a woman living in Westchester County, New York. The woman reported to J. Allen Hynek’s team of investigators that in April of 1983 she was awakened by a beam of light that came through the window of her bedroom. The beam seemed to penetrate through her body, and she felt paralyzed. She said:

I lay there about ten minutes, and all the time I felt as if my insides were being probed, like a doctor was probing my insides. I was terrified, but there was nothing I could do.

Then, as I lay there, these images started to flash in my mind . . . images of lights flashing all different colors. Then it seemed as if someone was trying to speak to me. I saw this image of a being with claylike skin and a large head with large eyes. He had no hair and no mouth. He assured me that I would come to no harm and said that I was being tested. 19

This, of course, is similar to many descriptions of humanoid beings seen in UFO close encounters. Could it be that such beings transmitted impersonal theological doctrines to Monroe? There are other accounts that are consistent with this idea.

I noted in Chapter 10 that the U.S. Government has allegedly hosted an “Extraterrestrial Biological Entity,” or EBE, who stated that reincarnation is real and that “it’s the machinery of the universe.” On October 14, 1988, a television documentary entitled “UFO Cover-up? Live” was broadcast across the United States. 20 This show presented testimony by a supposed U.S. intelligence agent named Falcon, who made numerous statements about this EBE and his race of beings. When asked if these aliens believe in a Supreme Being, Falcon answered, “They have a religion, but it’s a universal religion. They believe in the universe as a Supreme Being.”

The EBE stories, of course, are tied in with a complex mass of allegations regarding UFO cover-ups, government conspiracies, and disinformation ( pages 110–15 ). They also include the story that the EBEs created Jesus Christ. 21 Since Christ is worshiped by Christians as a personal God, it would seem that whoever is behind the EBE stories has some interest in undermining personal theism and replacing it with pantheism.

We can get some further insight into the matter of UFOs and pantheism by considering another contact story that is somewhat different from the ones I have considered thus far. In all of these stories, the contacting entity has ostensibly been a nonhuman being. Now I will turn to a story in which this entity is said to be human.

In November of 1919, Alice Anne Bailey was sitting under a tree on a hillside in California, resting after sending her three children off to school. Suddenly she sat up, startled: “I heard what I thought was a clear note of music which sounded from the sky, through the hill and in me. Then I heard a voice which said, “There are some books which it is desired should be written for the public. You can write them. Will you do so?’” 22 At first she refused, but later on she allowed herself to be persuaded. In due course, she wrote a number of thick volumes on metaphysics and occultism that were dictated to her telepathically by a personage known as “the Tibetan.” These include A Treatise on Cosmic Fire, which runs to 1,282 pages. 23

Bailey’s experience on the hillside is reminiscent of many UFO encounters, in which a person receives a telepathic message that is preceded by a high-pitched sound. However, in her case, the telepathic message supposedly came from a living human being in Tibet. (She also reported receiving communications from a Tibetan adept through a beam of light that struck her room. 24 )

Tibetan mystics? Even a person accustomed to UFO humanoids might be tempted to reject this story and denounce Bailey as a fool or a charlatan. However, if telepathic communications from strange humanoids are possible, why should we rule out telepathic communications from human yogīs ?

As often happens, it is easier to dismiss the story the less one knows about it. I have read Bailey’s autobiography, and it seems to portray her as a rational and honest person. 25 She seems as reliable as many of the witnesses mentioned in this book, and she may well have written her books in the way she described. I should emphasize, of course, that in saying this I am not granting these books any particular authority. It is one thing to receive a message by telepathy (or by any other means), and it is another thing for the message to be true.

Bailey’s books consist of ideas from Christianity, Buddhism, Vedic texts, and Western occult traditions that have been woven together by a sophisticated intellectual. In my opinion, they represent a clever synthesis of ideas, but they tend to strongly distort some of their source materials. They can be seen as an attempt to assimilate Christianity into Buddhism.

3. He said that humans of this earth have deplorably bad qualities: “The selfishness, the sordid motives, the prompt response to evil impulses for which the human race has been distinguished has brought about a condition of affairs unparalleled in the system.” 28

5. He said that the Masters are occult adepts who are part of the planetary control system and who live for fabulous lengths of time. Although they are highly advanced, they are still evolving. He deplored personality cults that grew up around the Masters. 30

6. He said that devotional religion is to be eliminated: “The Master Jesus is . . . working in collaboration with certain adepts of the scientific line, who—through the desired union of science and religion—seek to shatter the materialism of the west on the one hand and on the other the sentimental devotion of many devotees of all faiths.” 31

Statements along these lines are frequently made in reported UFO communications. Predictions of disasters are standard, and political predictions may also be made. UFO humanoids almost always point out the deplorable qualities of human beings, and in some cases they also stress the importance of universal love. They often say that they have been visiting the earth for thousands of years and that they have extremely long life spans. They point out that they have been worshiped in the past as gods but that they are not gods and are still evolving towards perfection. For example, the Tibetan’s points can be compared with the following six alien communications reported by Filiberto Cardenas:

It is significant that the avowed objective of Bailey’s communications is to “shatter the materialism of the west on the one hand and on the other the sentimental devotion of many devotees of all faiths.” In particular, the personal conception of God is to be replaced by the remote, abstract conception of the Supreme as “He About Whom Naught May Be Said.” 38

One can argue that one of the primary effects of the UFO phenomenon, for those who take it seriously, is to fracture their Western, scientific view of reality. In addition, reported UFO communications containing theological material often promote an impersonal or pantheistic conception of God, and some specifically attack the foundation of particular devotional faiths—notably Christianity.

One hypothesis to explain all this is that there exist beings endowed with mystic powers who are trying to indoctrinate human society with a spiritual philosophy based on cosmic evolution of consciousness and an impersonal conception of the absolute. Some of these beings are humanoids that visit people in UFOs, and others may be humans like ourselves who have acquired mystic powers through the practice of yoga. For the latter, their impersonal philosophy may have its roots in historical traditions such as Buddhism and the Indian philosophy of Advaita Vedānta. The purpose of the indoctrination program may be to save humanity and the earth from the perils caused by modern materialism.

According to the Vedic perspective, a joint indoctrination program carried out by human sages and UFO humanoids is definitely not out of the question. The Vedic literature describes a world in which ordinary people and powerful yogīs coexist with a variety of humanlike races. These races are endowed with mystic siddhis, and many are accustomed to traveling in vimānas . Spiritual philosophies based on impersonal conceptions of God are said to be quite prominent among both the yogīs and these mystically endowed beings.

If some of these persons are disturbed by the present state of affairs on the earth, it is natural that they would use their own philosophies and technologies in an effort to deal with this situation. This might involve loosely coordinated activities on the part of beings from a number of different groups, with personal qualities ranging from tamo-guṇa to sattva-guṇa ( pages 306–7 ).

In Chapter 10 (pages 343–44 ), I recounted a UFO abduction in which Betty Andreasson was brought to a huge door in an underground complex. At that point she went out of her body, passed through the door, and had an experience of meeting the One. This experience created great happiness, but she was unable to explain it:

It seems doubtful that this testimony was evoked by leading questions from the hypnotist, Fred Max. He seemed to think that Betty could not describe her experience because the aliens were controlling her mind— a standard idea among investigators of UFO abductions. However, it seems clear that she could not describe the experience because it was literally beyond words.

A standard method of trying to get around mental blocks inhibiting a person’s memory is to ask the person, while under hypnosis, to visualize the blocked experience as though seeing it on TV. When this was tried with her experience of seeing the One, Betty responded by saying:

Ohhhh! There’s a bright light coming out of the television! This is weird! There’s rays of light, bright white light, just [pause] like they’ve got a spotlight coming out of the television! It’s hurting my eyes! 40

In Vedic literature, Brahman is spoken of as an indescribable white light that is characterized by oneness, eternity, and unlimited happiness. The UFO investigators who were interviewing Betty Andreasson did not seem to know about this, and it seems probable that she also did not know about it. Realization of ultimate oneness is described by Catholic mystics such as Meister Eckhart, but it does not generally figure in fundamentalist Protestant traditions. It seems quite likely that her experience of the One actually took place.

The three children who received the revelations at Fatima also had what appears to be an experience of Brahman. After the initial conversation between the children and the effulgent lady, “she opened her hands and streams of intense light flowed from them which overwhelmed the children’s souls, causing them to feel ‘lost in God’ Whom they recognized in that light.” 41 This description makes sense from the Vedic standpoint, and it also illustrates the idea that a higher being can cause a more or less ordinary human to have a temporary experience of Brahman. Something similar seems to have happened in the Andreasson case.

The contactee Orfeo Angelucci also reported an experience of Brahman realization that occurred while he was on board a UFO. Angelucci’s UFO experiences were of a positive, spiritual nature, and they tend to be rejected as bogus by many ufologists. Generally, reports of enjoyable or self-fulfilling experiences are thought to be less credible than reports of unpleasant or embarrassing experiences. However, positive experiences are reported, and they should be included in any comprehensive account of the UFO phenomenon. As always, the strategy is to study the patterns that show up in large numbers of reports.

Angelucci said that on July 23, 1952, he felt ill and stayed home from his job as a mechanic at the Lockheed Aircraft Corporation in Burbank, California. In the evening he took a walk in a lonely place near the concrete embankments of the Los Angeles River, and he was troubled by strange prickling sensations and a dulling of consciousness. Suddenly he saw before him a luminous, misty, igloo-shaped object that gradually increased in solidity. There was a door leading into the brightly lit interior of the object. Upon entering, he found himself alone in a vaulted room about eighteen feet in diameter, with shimmering mother-of-pearl walls. He saw before him a reclining chair made of the same translucent substance, and he felt impelled to sit down in it. The door then shut, leaving no sign that there was a door at all, and the object apparently traveled into outer space.

A short while later, a window opened in the wall of the room, and he saw the earth from a distance of about a thousand miles. A voice began to speak to him, describing the unfortunate position of the materialistic people of the earth and enjoining him to tell them about their real spiritual nature. The voice said, “Each person upon Earth has a spiritual, or unknown, self which transcends the material world and consciousness and dwells eternally out of the Time dimension in spiritual perfection within the unity of the oversoul.” 42

A blinding white beam flashed from the dome of the craft. Momentarily I seemed to partially lose consciousness. Everything expanded into a great shimmering white light. I seemed to be projected beyond Time and Space and was conscious only of light, Light, LIGHT! Every event of my life upon Earth was crystal clear to me— and then the memory of all my previous lives upon Earth returned . . .

I am dying, I thought. I have been through this death before in other earthly lives. This is death! Only now I am in ETERNITY, WITHOUT BEGINNING AND WITHOUT END. Then slowly everything resolved into radiant light, peace and indescribable beauty. Free of all falsity of mortality I drifted in a timeless sea of bliss. 43

When Angelucci awoke to normal consciousness, he realized that the object was returning to the earth. On returning to his home, he remembered a burning sensation that he had felt beneath his heart while on board the craft. He found that he had been marked by a stigmata consisting of a reddish dot surrounded by a reddish circle about the size of a quarter. This was the only tangible evidence which remained to show that his experience had actually occurred.

A more subdued, philosophical account of the One was presented by the “Ra” entity in channeled communications received by Carla Rueckert ( page 187 ). Ra claimed to be a telepathically linked complex of beings that had once lived on a higher-dimensional level on Venus and that had communicated monotheistic ideas to the Pharaoh Ikhnaton in ancient Egypt. 44 Now, however, the concern of Ra is to merge with the One and teach others about this possibility. Thus Ra said, “We cannot say what is beyond this dissolution of the unified self with all that there is, for we still seek to become all that there is, and still are we Ra. Thus our paths go onward.” 45

These statements bring to mind the famous Indian philosophy of Advaita Vedānta, which teaches that the ultimate goal is to merge the individual ego into the one Brahman. This school follows the Vedic teachings, and thus it maintains that there is a celestial hierarchy of inhabited realms and that souls transmigrate through gross and subtle forms in these realms. But it also holds that at the ultimate level of understanding, all of these realms are illusory and nothing exists but the One Consciousness, or Brahman. Thus ultimate understanding means to become identical with Brahman, which is all that is.

However, there is more to Indian philosophy than just the school of Advaita Vedānta. According to Vaiṣṇava philosophy, Brahman is the effulgence of the transcendental body of the Supreme Lord, and it forms the atmosphere of the spiritual world. Brahman realization is simply the starting point of higher spiritual experience, and the idea that it is the ultimate goal is an impediment to spiritual progress.

The Bhāgavata Purāṇa is one of the principal Vedic texts presenting the Vaiṣṇava philosophy of personal monotheism. Here is a description from this text of a journey by Arjuna and Kṛṣṇa into Brahman and beyond:

Following the Sudarśana disc, the chariot went beyond the darkness and reached the endless spiritual light of the all-pervasive brahma-jyoti . As Arjuna beheld this glaring effulgence, his eyes hurt, and so he shut them.

From that region they entered a body of water resplendent with huge waves being churned by a mighty wind. Within that ocean Arjuna saw an amazing palace more radiant than anything he had ever seen before. Its beauty was enhanced by thousands of ornamental pillars bedecked with brilliant gems.

In that palace was the huge, awe-inspiring serpent Ananta Śeṣa. He shone brilliantly with the radiance emanating from the gems on His thousands of hoods and reflecting from twice as many fearsome eyes. He resembled white Mount Kailāsa, and His necks and tongues were dark blue.

Arjuna then saw the omnipresent and omnipotent Supreme Personality of Godhead, Mahā-Viṣṇu, sitting at ease on the serpent bed. His bluish complexion was the color of a dense rain-cloud, He wore a beautiful yellow garment, His face looked charming, His broad eyes were most attractive, and He had eight long, handsome arms. His profuse locks of hair were bathed on all sides in the brilliance reflected from clusters of precious jewels decorating his crown and earrings. He wore the Kaustubha gem, the mark of Śrīvatsa and a garland of forest flowers.

Serving that topmost of all Lords were His personal attendants headed by Sunanda and Nanda; His cakra and other weapons in their personified forms; His consort potencies Puṣṭi, Śrī, Kīrti, and Ajā; and all His various mystic powers. 49

Here the word brahma-jyoti means Brahman effulgence. The potency called Ajā is the energy of material creation. The understanding is that this scene lies completely beyond the material realm.

If the brahma-jyoti is simply the atmosphere of a higher spiritual region, then, to paraphrase Ra, there is something beyond the dissolution of the unified self with all that is. According to the Vaiṣṇava philosophy, once the bondage of material ego is dissolved, the soul becomes free to act on a purely spiritual platform.

Since the soul emanates from the Supreme Being, there is a natural relationship of love between the soul and the Supreme. This natural love is obscured when the soul is in a state of material consciousness. When the soul attains to Brahman, it reaches a neutral state, and its natural loving tendency is manifest without an object. But going beyond this neutral state, this love becomes expressed in the form of service to the transcendental Supreme Lord. It is also expressed in the form of compassion towards souls in material bondage, who are all parts and parcels of the Lord but are lost in forgetfulness. 50

This idea of love in relation to the Supreme Person can be compared with the “universal love” mentioned in many UFO communications. These communications often define the ultimate One as an impersonal energy or force. Yet love is something having to do with persons. If the One is impersonal in nature, then how can love have a truly universal role? Note that this problem does not come up in modern scientific theories. According to modern science, love is simply a recent outgrowth of hominid evolution in Africa, and it has nothing to do with ultimate causes. But if the personal quality of love is a fundamental feature of nature, then it is natural to ask how this could be. If there is a Transcendental Person behind the universe, then the answer is that the universe was crafted according to the loving intentions of that person.

Many actions and communications connected with UFOs are consistent with the ancient Vedic world view. Some UFO entities present philosophies representing particular subsets of Vedic thought. There are discussions of the soul and its evolution in consciousness. There are practical demonstrations of different kinds of travel of the gross and subtle bodies, and of spiritual states of consciousness up to Brahman realization. There are also theoretical descriptions of these states, especially in channeled communications. I am not aware, however, of any discussions of direct, personal love of God.

This material conveys a positive overall message. But at the same time, many UFO encounters have a less auspicious aspect. It is not uncommon for reported communications from UFO entities to contain doubtful or absurd information, such as the technical gibberish reported by William Herrmann, or the statement that the aliens come from “a small galaxy near Neptune.” In addition, there are the disturbing UFO abductions and the indications of overtly harmful UFO activity that I discussed in Chapter 9 .

How are we to understand all of this? One intriguing idea that appears in some communications is that there is a cosmic law of confusion that regulates the dissemination of information to human beings. This law may help explain why UFO communications seem to contain a bewildering mixture of nonsense and possibly valid information.

The Ra entities mentioned this law in connection with their story of how they built the Great Pyramid of Egypt. When they said that they built it out of thought-forms, they were asked why it was created in separate blocks, as though it had been assembled from quarried stones. Ra replied:

There is a law which we believe to be one of the more significant primal distortions of the Law of One. That is the Law of Confusion. You have called this the Law of Free Will. . . . We did not desire to allow the mystery [of the Great Pyramid] to be penetrated by the peoples in such a way that we became worshiped as builders of a miraculous pyramid. Thus it appears to be made, not thought. 51

Regardless of how the Great Pyramid was really built, this Law of Confusion is worth thinking about. The basic idea is that in order to preserve the free will of human beings, it is necessary to withhold information from them and even bewilder them with false information.

This concept may help explain not only the bewildering character of UFO communications but also the elusive nature of UFO evidence in general. Often this evidence is strong enough to be impressive, but it is never so overwhelming that a skeptic would be denied his own free will in deciding whether or not to accept it. One can conceive of scenarios, such as a mass landing of UFOs in Washington, D.C., that would be so convincing as to rule out this exercise of free will. Could it be that the Law of Confusion is being applied to the UFO phenomenon so as to preserve people’s freedom to reject or disregard it, while at the same time providing useful information for people who are prepared to accept it?

Vedic ideas can throw a great deal of light on the nature of the Law of Confusion. According to the Vedas, the material world is fashioned out of an energy called māyā. Māyā means illusion, magic, and the power that creates illusion. The basic Vedic idea is that the universe is created as a playground for souls who seek to enjoy life separately from the Supreme Being. If these souls were in full knowledge of reality, then they would know the position of the Supreme, and they would know that such separate enjoyment is impossible. The universe is therefore created as a place of illusion, or māyā, in which these souls can pursue their separate interests.

Another aspect of the Vedic world view is that the Supreme Being wants the materially illusioned souls within the universe to return to Him. But for this to be meaningful, it must be voluntary. The real essence of the soul is to act freely out of love. Thus if the soul is forced to act by superior power, then this essence cannot be realized. For this reason, the Supreme Being tries to give the soul the knowledge of how to return to the Supreme in a delicate way that does not overpower the soul’s free will.

I offer my obeisances to Vāsudeva, the Supreme, All-pervading Personality of Godhead. I meditate upon Him, the transcendent reality, who is the primeval cause of all causes, from whom all manifested universes arise, in whom they dwell, and by whom they are destroyed. He is directly and indirectly conscious of all manifestations, and He is independent because there is no other cause beyond Him.

It is He only who first imparted Vedic knowledge into the heart of Brahmā, the original living being. By Him even the great sages and demigods are placed into illusion, as one is bewildered by the illusory representations of water seen in fire, or land seen on water. Only because of Him do the material universes, temporarily manifested by the reactions of the three modes of nature, appear factual, although they are unreal. 52

In Chapter 7 (pages 256–57 ), I compared the universe to a virtual reality manifested within a computer by a master programmer. The inhabitants in a virtual reality actually exist outside of the false, computer-generated world, but they experience the illusion that they are within that world. If they were to forget their actual existence, then the illusion would become complete, and they would identify themselves fully with their computer-generated virtual bodies. According to the Vedas, this is the position of conditioned souls within the material universe.

Within the overall illusion of māyā, there are many subillusions. The overall illusion causes one to forget the omnipotence of the Supreme, and the subillusions cause one to forget the cosmic managerial hierarchy set up by the Supreme within the material universe. All of these illusions allow the individual soul to act by free will, even though he is actually under higher control.

At the same time, the illusions are not so strong that an individual who wants to seek out the truth is unable to do so. If māyā were so strong as to stop any effort to find the truth, then this too would block people’s free will. According to the Vedic system, the Supreme Being arranges for teachers to descend into the material world to give transcendental knowledge to the conditioned souls. By the arrangement of māyā, people will always have plentiful excuses for rejecting these teachers if they so desire. But if they desire higher knowledge, they will also be provided with adequate evidence to distinguish that knowledge from illusion.

Within the last few centuries on this earth, the view has been developed that life is simply a physiochemical process that evolved gradually over millions of years. According to this view, we are the topmost products of evolution on this planet. If there is life elsewhere in the universe, it also had to slowly evolve on planets with suitable conditions. Therefore, intelligent life forms that might be superior to us are likely to be safely far away, and we don’t have to worry about them.

This view is highly conducive to a program of free enjoyment and exploitation for people of this earth. But unfortunately, such a program causes damage to the earth’s biosphere, and it blocks the path of advancement for those who might want to learn about their spiritual nature. This means that even though the modern materialistic world view expedites the free will of some persons, it blocks the free will of others.

Perhaps the UFO phenomenon is one way in which the modern materialistic outlook is being gently revised by higher arrangement. Scientists are given their comeuppance by being confronted with impossible flying machines that break the laws of physics. Beings with magical powers appear to show us that we are not the topmost living species. Yet at the same time, the UFO phenomena are elusive, the communications are contradictory, and there is always room for doubt.

If this is what is happening, I suspect that it involves complex arrangements involving many different forms of life. Some UFO phenomena may be directly caused by mode-of-darkness beings that frighten people but at the same time expand their understanding of life and its powers. Some of these phenomena may involve a genuine protest by beings that live in our own world and are disturbed by our technological misadventures.

Other phenomena may involve preaching programs carried out by beings who have a message to convey. After all, religious proselytizing does not have to be limited to ordinary humans. These messages may vary in quality and in depth, and ultimately individuals will have to use their own discrimination to decide what to accept and what to reject. I suggested above that some beings who produce lights, high-pitched sounds, and telepathic communications may even be human yogīs with highly developed mystic powers. The events at Fatima ( pages 293–301 ) suggest that persons from higher planets may also be appearing on the earth, moved by compassion for human suffering.

All of these possibilities are consistent with the Vedic tradition. According to ancient Vedic texts, there was a time when people of this earth were in regular contact with many different kinds of beings, from negative entities in the mode of darkness to great sages in advanced states of spiritual consciousness. The modern phenomena tend to confirm the Vedic picture, and this may also be part of the plan behind these phenomena. The teachings of the ancient sages are still available, but they have become eclipsed by the modern developments of materially oriented science and technology. Perhaps the time is coming when they will again be taken seriously.