Contactee

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Contactees are persons who claim to be in regular contact with extraterrestrials. Contactees typically reported that they were related messages or wisdom by Aliens, and that they were compelled to share these messages.

As a cultural phenomenon, Contactees perhaps had their greatest notoriety from the late 1940's to the late 1950's, but individuals make similar claims to the present. Some shared their messages with small groups of followers, and many issued newsletters or spoke at UFO conventions.

The stories of contactees contained much material that has not stood the test of time, such as claims that there were unknown planets within our solar system. Certainly at least some of the claims were fraudulent (Spencer 1991:82).

Randles and Hough write that "The contactee movement is a rich treat for anthroplogists, sticky with sincere and sincerely deluded individuals. Were the contactees in touch with anything other than their own internal fantasies?" (Randles and Hough, 108)

Contactee accounts are generally different from those who allege alien abduction: While contactees usually describe beneficial, human-like aliens, abductees rarely describe their experiences positively.

Contents

Overview

Astronomer J. Allen Hynek described Contactees as asserting "the visitation to the earth of generally benign beings whose ostensible purpose is to communicate (generally to a relatively few selected and favored persons — almost invariably without witnesses) messages of 'cosmic importance'. These chosen recipients generally have repeated contact experiences, involving additional messages. The transmission of such messages to willing and uncritical true believers frequently, in turn, leads to the formation of a flying saucer cult, with the 'communicator' or 'contactee' the willing and obvious cult leader. Although relatively few in number, such flying saucer advocates have by their irrational acts strongly influenced public opinion." (Hynek, 5)

Contactees usually portrayed the "space brothers" as more or less identical in appearance and mannerisms to humans. The claimed "space brothers" never landed in front of the United Nations building, the White House or the Kremlin to spread their message. Instead, they invariably selected obscure people often having a long history of involvement with mystical sects.

Peebles (1991:146) summarizes the common features of many contactee claims:

  • Certain humans have had personal and/or mental contact with space brothers.
  • The contactees have also flown aboard flying saucers, and traveled into space and other planets.
  • The space brothers come from Utopian societies which are free of war, death, disease, or any other human problem.
  • The space brothers want to help mankind solve its problems, to stop nuclear testing and prevent the destruction of the human race.
  • This will be accomplished by the brotherhood spreading a message of love and brotherhood across the world.
  • Other sinister beings, the Men in Black, use threats and force to continue the cover-up of UFOs.

By the late 1950’s, many contactees were no longer claiming to have been physically visited by aliens; rather, they were more often in psychic contact with the aliens, who passed their messages on to people in trances. This had some crossover with into the later "psychic channeling" movement, which found a degree of popularity beginning in the late 1960’s.

For over two decades, contactee George Van Tassel hosted the annual "Giant Rock Interplanetary Spacecraft Convention" in the Mojave Desert.[1]

In support of their claims, contactees often produced photographs of the alleged flying saucers or their occupants. One such photo proffered by George Adamski and identified by him as a saucer was later demonstrated to be all but identical to a type of commonly available chicken egg incubator.

Response to Contactee claims

Though contactees earned a degree of mainstream attention, most mainstream observers seem to have concluded that the claimants were either hoaxers or mentally ill.

Even in ufology — itself subject to at best very limited and sporadic mainstream scientific or academic interest — contactees were generally seen as the lunatic fringe, and subsequently avoided the subject, for fear it would harm their attempts at "serious" study of the UFO phenomenon (Sheaffer 1986:17; 1998:34-35). Jacques Vallee notes that "No serious investigator has ever been very worried by the claims of 'contactees.'" (Vallee, 90)

Some time after the phenomenon had waned, historian David Michael Jacobs noted a few interesting facts: the accounts of the prominent contactees grew ever more elaborate, and as new claimants gained notoriety, they typically backdated their first encounter, claiming it occurred earlier than any one else's. Jacobs speculates that this was an attempt to gain a degree of "authenticity" to trump other contactees.

Were Contactees an attempt to discredit UFO studies?

There has been speculation that some Contactees were Central Intelligence Agency operatives following the Robertson Panel's directives to reduce public interest in UFOs and to surveil UFO groups.

Randles and Hough write, "Some historical analysts think that the sudden arrival of countless Americans claiming contact with 'space brothers', and the quirky behaviour of some of them, may not be coincidence. Were some of the more extreme cases planted by the CIA as a way to speed up the Robertson panel's requirements? They definitely tarnished UFO credibility." (Randles and Hough, 104)

List of contactees

Sources

Copyright

"Original data received from Wikipedia on April 21, 2006. Credit given to original authors can be seen Here."

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