part0025

I n this appendix I will present four stories from modern-day India that are related to the themes discussed in this book. The first two of these stories are about the personal experiences of Kannan (pseudonym), a South Indian man in his forties. In these two stories the only witness was Kannan himself. The second two stories were also told by him, but they involve multiple witnesses, and the first one did not directly involve Kannan himself. My purpose in presenting these stories is to show that phenomena are being reported in India today that show parallels both to American and European UFO phenomena and to traditional Vedic themes.

Kannan had a traditional Hindu upbringing, but he rebelled against this as a young man by adopting popular ideas of atheism and rational skepticism. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, he worked for TVS and Sons, a major South Indian automobile company. During this period he resumed his earlier interest in spiritual questions, and he began exploring various popular Indian religious movements. He spent some time as an associate of Satya Sai Baba, and later on he became involved with the Kṛṣṇa Consciousness Movement (ISKCON). He spent several years as a teacher at a boy’s school ( gurukula ) run by ISKCON in the village of Māyāpura, West Bengal, the birthplace of the sixteenth-century religious teacher Caitanya Mahāprabhu.

The first story has to do with encounters Kannan had in his childhood with a mysterious woman who cured him and some of his friends of smallpox. People in South India have traditionally worshiped a goddess, sometimes called Mariamma, who is said to have control over this disease. The story suggests that Kannan had encounters with this goddess or with a similar being. Whoever she may have been, I will call her the smallpox lady.

This lady has a number of features reminiscent of commonly reported UFO entities. At the same time, Kannan’s description of her closely matches traditional Vedic accounts of female Devas (or goddesses). The following six points sum up the salient features of the smallpox lady:

2. She looked like a classical celestial woman, as portrayed in South Indian temple sculptures. She had a big forehead, a very thin waist, and very prominent breasts. She was dressed very elegantly in traditional Vedic fashion. She had an air of authority, like a very aristocratic person.

5. She communicated telepathically. On one occasion she seemed to be speaking normally, but the movement of her lips did not match the perceived sound. Kannan compared this to dubbing in a movie.

Items 4, 5, and 6 show up repeatedly in accounts of UFO entities, and I pointed out in Chapter 6 that these items are paralleled by Vedic siddhis, or mystic powers. One interpretation of these parallels is that UFO entities, the smallpox lady, and the humanlike beings described in Vedic literature may all have something in common. They may all be real beings of the same nature.

The physical appearance of most reported UFO entities is only roughly similar to that of classical Vedic humanoids, and UFO entities often exhibit weird clothing ranging from silvery jumpsuits to something one might find in a party costume shop. In contrast, the smallpox lady fits perfectly into classical Vedic iconography. This inevitably raises the question of cultural influence. Was the experience of Kannan influenced by his Indian cultural conditioning? It is interesting to note that Kannan himself knows practically nothing about Western UFO encounters. But when I told him about UFO abductions, he suggested that the beings people were reporting were a product of Western cultural conditioning.

I have discussed the evidence indicating that many UFO reports do involve real beings, and I would suggest that a detailed survey of current Indian encounter cases might indicate that many of these also involve real beings. This suggests that there must be many encounter cases where option 1 does not apply, although some people may indeed experience fantasies in which it does apply.

I suspect that many close encounter cases may involve a combination of options 2 and 3. Option 2 seems to apply in cases where beings adopt human clothing styles that are strictly limited to a particular moment in history. An example would be UFO encounters in which entities are reported to wear spacesuits or modern Western clothing.

Option 3 may apply to cases where beings appearing in traditional Indian society display ancient Vedic clothing styles. There may also be other traditional cultures in which particular groups of beings have influenced the culture by their own cultural norms over long periods of time. (Celtic and Native American cultures come to mind.) In such cases, the human society and the visiting groups of beings may form an extended cultural unit. Certainly the ancient society described in Vedic literature seems to be an example of this.

In Chapter 10 , I pointed out that Indian near-death experiences follow a different pattern than Western NDEs. Ian Stevenson suggested that these differences may not be simply cultural. There may be real differences between the experience of death in India and in the West, and these differences may depend on differences in the policy of higher-dimensional beings towards Indians and Westerners. I would suggest that cross-cultural differences in close-encounter experiences may depend on similar differences in policy. Thus, in traditional cultures, higher-dimensional beings may continue to relate to humans in accordance with ancient norms, but in modern high-tech societies they may adopt other modes of behavior in response to changing circumstances.

The first time was when I had smallpox, and there was no one at home. It was daytime, maybe noon, and I saw this lady, with long, long robes, long, long cloth. Abnormally long, so that if she tried to walk though our door she would stumble over it. She was at the height of that cabinet [a filing cabinet about five feet tall]. She had sharp features, long face, and curly hair.

I had a lot of those smallpox sores, so I was feeling very disturbed. My mother was not there, and so I was worried. It was becoming too much for me. I was thinking, “My mother is not here,” and feeling not cared for. That time I saw her at that height [five feet]. She was sitting, but there was nothing there, nothing to sit on. She was just sitting like this, with one leg over the other leg. She was looking down, and she was telling—it’s not like telling. She was telling, but there was no sound there. It was not like my language spoken or anything, but she was telling, or you could say she conveyed somehow, “Don’t worry, in two days you will be all right. Everything will be all right.”

Then she said that some children will be taken. Two blocks away from our house there is what we call the police line. Some policemen’s residences are there. They’re one-floor houses, in lines between the fencing. So she mentioned to me that “in the police line some children will be taken, but nothing will happen to you.”

At that time, I was worried about my sickness, and I didn’t feel any fear or ask who is this person, why is she in this space. These things never came to my mind. I was just looking for someone to tell me “You will be all right.” If I remember correctly, I would think this must have been the first time. I was quite small. How small was I? Four, five, like that. Maybe five. That was the first time.

I met this lady again, at least twice, maybe three times, but it was always when there was smallpox around in the city. Interestingly enough, in the police line two children died, and they were known to us too. And I recovered on the second day, even though so many smallpox sores were there on my body. During the evening of the second day I felt very thirsty, and I wanted to drink some water. They told me not to look in the mirror, because it looks horrible when you have this. But when I went to get some water, I looked at the mirror, and they had all become dry. This happened in two days, but they were expecting that I might have to be suffering for at least two more weeks, and they were bringing neem leaves and so on, to sooth the burning.

But I have seen that this person was always there at the time when there was smallpox—in midsummer then the smallpox breaks out. Now they say they have controlled it by vaccination. I doubt it, but they say that. Traditionally, people conduct a festival at that time because they say smallpox is an expansion of Durgā [the universal Mother Goddess]. She brings it, and if she is pleased then you won’t suffer. But certainly, one hundred percent, I am sure this lady was not Durgā. She was not somebody that high. At the same time, she was not somebody from this planet, that is quite sure. She had an air of authority.

Another time I saw her as she was coming down the staircase in a close friend’s house. There were four children there, and they all had smallpox. People used to ask my mother to come and read scriptures when there were such diseases, or when someone would die, or was on the death bed. There is a story about Durgā. My mother would go and read that as a religious ceremony, and she would make a feast. I would go with her. All four children had smallpox, and they were upstairs. Other children were told, “Do not go up because this is contagious. You can get it easily.” They were my friends, so I wanted to go up and see them. But everyone was told not to go—strict instructions.

I just found a time when everybody was busy with the ceremony, and I walked up the stairs. As I went up, I saw her moving down the stairs, but not walking, not stepping down. And significantly she had this long cloth which would not be necessary just for covering the body—a very long, long cloth. It’s like drapery, very beautiful, very good looking.

And because by this time I had grown up a little bit, I was studying her features. Back when I was suffering too, I didn’t give any notice to this. I just saw there was somebody who told me that I would be all right. But this time I looked very clearly. My description is from the second or third time of seeing her. She wore white, pure white—not just white but a special, creamy white type of thing. It was white cloth.

Her hair was normal but maybe curly. It was not as black as a South Indian lady’s hair, but it wasn’t blond like here [in America]. One thing I noticed was that her waist was very, very thin. Later I studied in scriptures about four categories of women’s bodies, as well as Apsarās and Gandharvas. She looked like a celestial, and her waist was very thin. It will be difficult to relate a thin waist like that with the size of her breasts. With such a big bosom and such a thin waist, somebody here would look like she was going to crash. A very thin waist, long, long thighs, and this cloth was worn with a kacha like a brahmacārī dhoti from the waist downwards. And this big cloth was at the top with a piece of cloth tight in the back, like you see in the sculptures. But her overcloth, the cloth that she was wearing, was really long.

Her face had very sharp features. She was very beautiful looking, and she didn’t shock. When you see her you don’t feel shocked; you feel like respecting some reverential person. You don’t feel like you do when you see a goblin [Bhūta] or a ghost and there is shock. There is no shock. I have had some visions of some forms of Durgā, but that makes you feel like you are in front of a military officer. Durgā makes you feel like that, but she [the smallpox lady] doesn’t make you feel like that. It was as if a student met the vice principal of the college walking on the sidewalk of the university—unofficial, but you know it is a very highly placed person.

When she was coming down the stairs she said, “Your friends are all right. Because you are so concerned about them, I went to see them, and they are all right.” Then I developed a desire to have some contact with this person. The staircase is like this, and I am here. So I am standing there purposefully in her way. I think I was planning to say, “Why don’t you come visit our house?” or “When can I see you?” or something like that. But one thing that happens in many of these incidents is that they look at you and make you “nonthinkable”—you won’t be able to think too many things. You’re so attracted to looking at them and appreciating the situation that before you can think of anything, they are gone. So they very comfortably do that.

And she was moving like this—floating. But her motion had nothing to do with the bending of the stair. It was on a different track. The stair made no difference to her, you could see that. But here is an interesting point. These things don’t make any difference, but they use the stairs for going up. Why is that? I have an answer for that, but it doesn’t come in here. They use the door. They don’t have to go through the door, but they use the door. They use the stairs. They don’t climb, but they use the stairs.

So she was coming like this, and then she just went through me in the sense that she was there and then she was not there. I looked behind me, and she was there with a very big smile on her face, like saying, “See, you’re trying to stop me and ask me something, and I am already gone.” A big smile on her face.

And she had a very big forehead. We have these four classes of human women’s bodies. They’re discussed in the scripture—our human female forms. But this being doesn’t belong to any of those four. So she is not from here. But, of course, I did not understand all these things at that time. It is hard for me to go back and say exactly what I felt then, because these later understandings are coming up and confusing me now.

I didn’t think this experience was very important at that time. Later, after having so many other experiences, this thing has become very important to me. She is a kuladevata. I found it much later. A particular family lineage is protected by that person. Because I belong to that particular family lineage, she took special interest in me. So because I was concerned about those boys, she visited there, even though they are not in our family line.

Maybe one more time I have seen her, but this time I have grown up. I have not reached that point in my life where I have taken to some nonbelieving. I haven’t taken to that yet. That much I remember.

It was in a festival. There is a very ancient temple of Durgā in that city—she protects the city. They have a summer festival where they make a fountain in front of the temple hall. They put a lemon there, and the lemon goes up and down in the water. I would go there every day to see that, and I would stand there looking at it for a long time. “How did they get it to do this?”

They started at 4:00 p.m., and nobody was in the temple. Around 5:00 p.m., everyone would come. So I would go around the temple and come back. Because going around the temple will bestow some benediction or something, you know. So if you feel tired you try to catch two things together—trying to get a walk and get something good done. So I was going around, and there in the back of the temple there is the worship of kanyās, virgins.

So I was going around there, and I suddenly remembered this lady—just like that. When I remembered, immediately, there she was under a banyan tree next to a big platform of cement. She was standing just in front of this. And she was in a very good, beautiful pose, blessing like this—like a dancing pose. And I was walking so fast toward that place that it was like being pulled. I came this close, almost, so that if she was breathing, in our terminology, it would be on my face.

She is very tall compared to our ladies in South India and even to Rajput ladies. Standing close to her, I didn’t feel like I do when I stand close to normal people, like my sister. It was as if you stood next to a deity or a rose flower. But in the meantime I could see exactly the shape of the hand, and the breast, and the thighs, and everything. But they are still not like mine. So that was the first time I had a good understanding of an experience like that. They exist, these people. They have a form like us, but still it is not like our form.

Her skin had a nicer color than my hand. The skin is there, but I didn’t feel like I would if I was standing next to a girl. It was not like that. It was almost as if I stood in front of a beautiful painting of Sarasvatī, or the deity form of Durgā. Because you know the deity is a person, and you don’t see it so much like stone. You don’t think this is a statue; you know this is Sarasvatī or Durgā.

But anyway, because I was that close, I saw she was breathing. And I had no wrong idea when I was looking at her. I was very respectful. She spread that type of atmosphere when she was there. You feel like going down and begging for some benediction or something like that.

Then she said they make a hole in the lemon, and when they put the fountain on they put it like this, and then it goes like that. So I laughed. I looked back to see if anybody was there, and there was nobody. So then she said that even if somebody was there they would not notice. She spoke this in my language, and there was sound. I could hear sound. This breathing was there. Her breathing was comparatively very slow—like a sick person would breath. But she had very exquisite features, very beautiful. And I also noted that she had a dot on the forehead, because I was very close.

I noted her lips. They moved, but they didn’t synchronize with the words. So she was speaking something else. I have analyzed that she must have been speaking something else, and it gets to me so I am hearing in my language. So I thought that this sounds like dubbing in a movie.

And then she said, “You will be able to see all of us. You will see many of us.” She reminded me that even as a very small child, whenever they took me to temples, when I would see Gaṇeśa [one of the principal Devas], I would loudly call him older brother. Everybody would call out “ Jaya Gaṇeśa” or something, but I would say “ anna. ” Anna means “Oh, older brother.” So she was mentioning that just like you called Gaṇeśa anna, so she said, “You have contact with us. And you’re protected.” And she said, “If you were not, you would have looked at me the same way that you would look at anybody else [i.e., lustfully].” And she said, “No, you’re protected. We can protect you from that.”

Then she said, “Actually as long as you have a desire . . .” I am using these words now, but it was not like that. Her words were more simple and not so philosophical. If you have a desire to enjoy, then we won’t give you that protection. So she said, and this was very distinct, “Learn to see every woman as an expansion of Durgā.” And she put her hand on my head. And I felt, “Oh my God, what is this?” It was not like what you feel if somebody touches you. Suddenly I felt cool. It was cool, but it was a very wonderful experience. It was like an experience rather than a touch.

She caressed me like this from the back, on the head, like you do to a young boy. And it really felt comfortable, like an affectionate mother. And somehow I had great respect for that person. You felt like it was a very respectable person in a higher position who comes to deal with somebody poor—like the queen came and shook hands with somebody. Then I asked, “Will I see you again, will I meet you again?” So she said, “Not unless it is necessary, if I am needed.” I haven’t seen her after that. That was the last time.

The next story gives a further indication of Kannan’s background. This story is quite distinct from typical reports of UFO close encounters, but it will not seem at all unusual to persons acquainted with accounts of Indian saints and mystics. The experience that Kannan reports could be classified as a “religious vision.” Like the story of the smallpox lady and many UFO reports, it features intelligently directed phenomena that seem to emerge from another dimension.

In this case, however, the phenomena are explicitly connected with the traditional Vedic deity named Kārttikeya. In the Vedic literature, Kārttikeya is the chief military general of the Devas. He is the son of Lord Śiva, and he was raised by virgins dwelling in the constellation Kṛttikā (the Pleiades). It is noteworthy that people in India are still reporting explicit experiences related to such Vedic deities.

One feature of this story is that Kannan seemed to have unusual knowledge about Kārttikeya—knowledge that he presumably acquired in a previous life. This ties in with the smallpox lady’s statement that Kannan would have regular contact with higher beings and that he was somehow connected with them. As I have pointed out in previous chapters, many UFO contactees also claim to have a special relationship with higher beings, and some also claim that this dates back to a previous life.

Once I ran away from home and went to the Saṅgameśvara temple. It is a Śiva temple, and Kārttikeya is there. They have the Kārttikeya deity, and they have a peacock and a spear next to the peacock. Usually that’s how it’s done in Śaivite temple worship. They would have the deity’s vehicle at the front [i.e., the peacock], and then the weapon of that particular deity.

I went to the temple and did all the things you’re supposed to do. I used to learn what things should be done in a Śiva temple without asking anybody. I always knew where to turn, where to sit, and where to stand. There is a whole ceremony for visiting Śiva’s temple. Śiva’s temple is a replica of Kailāsa, and Viṣṇu’s temple is replica of Vaikuṇṭha. So the etiquette you follow as you enter into Vaikuṇṭha you do in the Viṣṇu temple. And if it is a Śaivite temple, you do everything exactly according to the custom in Kailāsa.

So I used to do that very naturally. I used to tell my elders, “You’re supposed to do this here and do that there. Why didn’t you do this here?” In the beginning there were some objections, but later they used to take me if they wanted to go to some Śiva temple. “Take Kannan, and he will explain everything to you.” They thought it is some special blessing on me.

So I did the whole ceremony. It takes about 45 minutes to do all that. Then I came to Kārttikeya’s place and sat down. I used to sit in a yoga pose, even when I was very small, and I sat there and kept looking at Kārttikeya. This deity has six heads, is sitting on a peacock, and has a spear. The temple worship was over, and the priest was going out. He went around me, but he didn’t see me, and he went off. The temple was locked outside. And there was nobody there except the gods and myself. So I just sat there. I did not sleep or anything.

The whole night was over. The next day the priest came and asked if I just sat there. There were ladies who came every day, morning and evening. They noticed, and they were kind of curious. What is this boy sitting here in this one spot? And I looked at them, but then I was looking at the spear again. So they started saying “ Sadhu, ” and soon there was a little crowd.

People left some offerings in front of me, some fruit. So the priest came and saw this, and he asked, “Where is your mother? What are you doing here? Why are you sitting like this?” He was trying to make the situation normal, but he was feeling nervous that I was sitting like that. So that evening, after sandhya ārati, he came to me and said, “You’re going to sit here like this? Well if another saint is going to come, what can we do? When you feel hungry you take this.” Then he said, “You must know, there is no place for passing [urinating, etc.] in this temple. I am locking, and I am going. I’ll come and see you tomorrow morning.” I made no response. I was just looking at the spear, so he went off.

When everything became silent outside, a spear came from inside that room. There is a stone spear here, but this spear was like light. It came from there, and then it stood right in the place where the stone spear was—just hovering there, going this way and that. It looked like light, but it was like gold—metallic. It is metal, but there is so much power in it that you just see the light. I felt that was what I was waiting for. I looked at it, and I was very happy. I folded my hands. During all this time a kind of locking was in my body. But that was completely opened up, and I felt completely normal.

There is a prayer to the spear in the Tamil language. It’s actually a mantra. It has seed power in it. That sound came out. The sound was there—a very powerful voice of a hundred or two hundred people chanting. The prayer says that the spear in the hand of Skanda [Kārttikeya] gives protection. If one sees that as a fact it will become truth. By looking at the spear all the ghosts will go away, and this spear is the destroyer of all enemies of the Devas. Among the eight Lakṣmīs, it gives a feast to the Lakṣmī of courage. It killed Surapadma. Surapadma was a demon who got a benediction that only a five-year-old child can kill him. The prayer goes on like this about the glories of the spear. So I heard this like the sound of the ocean. It was like two hundred people chanting.

There was nobody in the temple, and I was not feeling any awkwardness, shock, or fear, or anything. I was feeling completely normal. So much sound was coming, and I was chanting with that. So I chanted this verse, and the spear came like this, maybe this close. So I got up and paid my full obeisances. And then I got up and stood like this, and it was right there, for about two or three minutes. And then, just like that, it disappeared. Then I sat down again, and I took some fruit.

In the morning the priest came, and he looked at me and said, “Ho, so effulgent.” Then the crowd started coming. It was a special day for the Saṅgameśvara temple, Tuesday, Śiva’s day. So a bigger crowd was sitting there in front of me, and I was normal now. So one lady was asking me if her sick grandson will be all right. I took a fruit and gave it to her, and she went off. I was distributing all the fruits. Whatever anybody would ask, I would give a fruit.

One person asked me a question about a saint by the name Kumāra-gurupara. It is the name of a saint, and it is also the name of Kārttikeya. So he was asking me if Kumāra-gurupara was Kārttikeya, and I said no. That created a little stir among the people. Is this small boy answering questions like this? Then it was more questions on Kārttikeya. What are the different holy places of Kārttikeya? And then I would say this place is special for this, this place is special for that. And I start telling about Saṅgameśvara’s glories, and then I spoke of the seven Śiva temples of the city. I mentioned many things that most people don’t know.

While this was going on, one lady came to the temple who knows our family, and she informed them that I was there. She said, “Your son has become a big swamijī there. Everybody is listening to him.” So then they had been looking for me for a few days already. That day my brother took a bicycle and came there. He just came straight into the temple to where I was and gave me a slap. “You’re a rascal. Mother is crying.” They were all coming to him and saying, “This sadhu has so much knowledge, so don’t do like this.” But my brother was not at all impressed, and he put me on the bicycle and took me back.

In Indian tradition, a Jaladevata is a being who gives protection to people whose lives are endangered in a particular natural body of water, such as a lake or a stretch of a river. Here is a story of an encounter with a Jaladevata that took place recently in Māyāpura, near the town of Navadvīpa in West Bengal (about three hours’ drive north of Calcutta). This happened near the end of June 1992. Māyāpura is an area of small villages and temples surrounded by miles of rice paddies. It is situated on a point of land bounded by a branch of the Ganges on one side and by the Jalangi River on the other.

Some boys from the gurukula school went swimming in the Ganges, and a five-year-old boy named Bhāgavat went with them. He doesn’t know how to swim, but because all the boys went there, he also went with them. One boy took him on a bicycle, and the parents were just behind. So everyone jumped into the Ganges, and this boy also jumped, thinking, “That’s what I’m supposed to do.”

The parents reached the riverbank about five or six minutes after the boys, because the boys were taking bicycles. They asked, “Where is Bhāgavat?” And all the boys were looking at each other, saying, “Oh, where is he?” Nobody knew. Then Dvaipāyana, one of the boys, showed the mother, “There is Bhāgavat there.” And you could see only his finger sticking up above the surface of the water. The current there is very powerful, but they saw him. His hand was up, you could only see the finger, but he was staying in the same spot.

He was not moving. The current is very fast, but he was not moving. So then, because the mother got all upset, Dvaipāyana jumped in, and he knows swimming. Near this side of the river there is a big current, but at a little distance there is a sand bank where the children who can swim will play. But the boy was on this side, the strong current side. So Dvaipāyana jumped in and went there and brought him. And the boy was not suffocating. He was just normal.

When the mother asked what happened, the boy said that the currents were pulling him, and he was going to drown. Just then he saw a lady who lifted him up within the water. She was holding him within the water. She had a crown; she had earrings; she was dressed very nicely and looked very beautiful, and she was holding him. So for some time he felt the current was pulling him, but after that he was held in her hands within the water. That is what he said. He kept telling his mother, “That lady was very beautiful.” And he was asking if that was Mother Ganges.

The last story from Kannan is a typical report of a UFO sighting in the nocturnal light category. This could have been a bolide, but that is perhaps ruled out by the fact that it was said to change speed from fast, to slow, and back to fast again. I include the story to show that typical UFO sightings are reported in India.

The story also shows how a person of native Indian culture naturally identifies such a phenomenon as a vimāna. A curious point is that Kannan used an example from the Rāmāyaṇa to argue that the UFO was able to expand and contract in size. He brought in this idea to explain how someone could be flying in something that looked so small.

A change in size was not directly observed in this sighting, but such changes are occasionally mentioned in UFO reports. For example, Betty Andreasson reported that she saw a UFO being shrunk by a factor of two or more, even though it was occupied by two human abductees and a number of UFO beings. 1 A possibly related observation was made by Steven Kilburn, an abductee interviewed by Budd Hopkins. Kilburn testified that he was brought into a UFO that looked much bigger on the inside than on the outside. 2

I know this happened during the Desert Storm battle, because I had a class in the evening hearing the BBC news of the battle with the Bhakti Śāstri boys. We were following Saddam Hussein very meticulously—all his movements. So I would put the boys all in front of my house in the evening. We would lay out a mat, put out the lights, and then play the radio under the stars. But one time the battle news was not ready, and they were talking about some irrelevant topic like how Charlie Chaplin was taking a dance class, and the boys were making fun of it. They were all making a joke, in a very nonofficial mood, and it was about 8:00 p.m.

We had these two huts facing each other, so we are sitting by this hut facing this side, and this is our living room hut. I was sitting there, and I just looked up and saw this very bright blue light over the other hut. It started from the Dhruva star, the Polestar, that can be seen behind our long building. It started from there, and from there it was moving very fast. Then when it came over our temple area, it went really slow. It had a tail in the back that started small and became bigger. And very clearly there was a gross object in front of it. It was not like a star, and it was not very high.

I was already seeing it, and one boy said, “What is that, Prabhu?” And then this other boy said, “What is that? What is that?” We all got up, and we were looking at it. There were six of us, five boys and me. My wife was in the kitchen cooking something, and she came out too because we were shouting, “Ho, what is that!” So it was at maybe one and a half palm tree’s height from the roof of the hut, which is not very high. It was less than the height of the conch building [five stories]. It was very clear. Most of them were concentrating on the light. I looked in the front, and I saw that it was a clear object. It was not a star, and it was not very far in the sky. It was right there. And it was also like, moving around itself, but it was very slow as it came over our ISKCON area. Then it went up toward the Jalangi River, to the gośāla [cow barn] or maybe a little more. And then it took speed. It was like somebody who slows down to look at something.

It was very interesting, and the boys kept asking about it. I said, “Yeah, you know, people respect Māyāpura, so there must be somebody traveling in there.” But if the whole thing looked so small at that height, then it must have been very small. So what could it be? Boys ask all kinds of questions. But anyway, to my understanding it was actually a vimāna. But for some reason some vimānas can become bigger or they can become smaller. As they go through certain areas they become small or big, according to the area. This is very clearly shown by Hanumān checking out the Puṣpaka-vimāna in Śrī Laṅkā. First it was a two-seater. Then it was becoming so big. And finally, when Rāma flew on that, it was bigger than a city. He took the whole army of Vānaras to Ayodhyā for His coronation. So it was bigger than a city.

It is only in our eyes that it looks that small. But actually I am sure that it was bigger than all of our four huts together. But they just made it smaller at that time, probably just for passing through this respectable area . . .

I distinctly remember that it was lower than the height of our conch building. It was so close, and you can’t do anything about it. In Māyāpura, hawks fly much higher than that. It was an abnormal thing, but we were completely helpless just looking at it. When I described it to a Muslim gentleman, an old farmer, he said that in the sky over Māyāpura there are so many things like this. Things come, things go. People come, people go—so many things happen because this is Mahāprabhu’s place. His land is just next to ours behind the gośāla. The language he used was, “It is not wonderful that such things are seen in the sky over Māyāpura. ”