The UFO “Borderline” –The Case of the Imjarvi Skiers

 

   At around 16:45 hours on the 7^th January, 1970, an incident is said to have taken place at Imjarvi (near Heinola), Finland. I have had a small obsession with this report because of a number of fascinating aspects. I would like to thank Anders Liljegren of the AFU (Archives For the Unexplained) who has been very helpful on this and other matters.

   On that day in 1970, forester Aarno Heinonen (36) and farmer Esko Viljo (38), both of whom were keen amateur athletes were out skiing and had halted in a small glade while descending a small hill to enjoy the few stars visible in the cold sunset.  After a short time they heard a buzzing noise and saw a bright light moving through the sky towards them.  What happened next took this from being a standard lights-in-the-sky (lits) report.

   As the bright light neared them it was just above tree top height and they saw a red-grey mist swirling around it and puffs of smoke emanating from it (shades of Sonny Desvergers).  Inside this cloud was a circular, saucer-shaped object that was metallic in appearance and some nine feet (2.74 m) wide.  This object had a dome above and, beneath it, were three spheres around the rim, reminiscent of the Adamski flying saucer photographs.  From the base of the object a tube suddenly shot out a sharp beam of light down towards the ground.  The object had now descended to around 10 feet (3m) from the ground and was almost within touching distance of the men.

   Heinonen stated that; “I was standing completely still.  Suddenly I felt as if somebody has seized my waist from behind and pulled me backwards.  I think I took a step backwards, and in the same second I caught sight of the creature.  It was standing in the middle of the light beam with a black box in its hands.  From around the opening in the box there came a yellow light, pulsating.  The creature was about 35 inches (90 cm) tall, with very thin arms and legs.  Its face was pale like wax.  I didn’t notice the eyes, but the nose was very strange.  It was a hook rather than a nose.  The ears were very small and narrow towards the head.  The creature wore some kind of overall in a light green material.  On its feet were boots of a darker green colour, which stretched above the knee.  There were also white gauntlets going up to the elbows, and the fingers were bent like claws around the black box.”

   This was definitely not going to be just another UFO sighting.

   Viljo described the entity as “luminous like phosphorus” and wearing a conical, metallic-like helmet and that it was less than three feet (91 cm) tall. As the two men stood and stared at the entity it turned a little toward Heinonen and pointed the box and pulsing, blinding light toward him.  While the entity stood in the light beam a thick red-grey mist descended from the object and big sparks came from the illuminated circle above the snow.  The sparks were estimated to be around 10 cms in length and were red, green and purple in colour. These sparks were slowly floating out in long curves and when they hit the men neither felt anything. The mist became so thick that the men could not see each other and eventually was so thick that they could not see the entity or object –up to this point they believe that 15-20 seconds had elapsed.

   Viljo stated that; “Suddenly the circle above the snow decreased, the light-beam floated upwards like a trembling flame and went into the tube on the object. Then it was as if the mist was ‘thrown apart’, and above us the air was empty.” It seems that the men stood without saying anything for a couple of minutes.

    Heinonen was paralyzed on his right side and Viljo had to almost carry his friend the two miles (3 km) back to their home. Heinonen had pain in his back and limbs and headache.  After a while he vomited and when he urinated it was “black like coffee” and this continued for a couple of months.  We know that at 20:00 hrs that evening he saw Dr Pauli Kajanoja at the Heinola clinic both men were examined and the doctor could only prescribe sleeping pills and sedatives as he believed that the symptoms of aching joints and headache would disappear within ten days (which seems a very specific time frame but he did believe that Heinonen’s very low blood pressure indicated shock) but for Heinonen they continued for a lot longer.  

   As a point of fact five months later he was still suffering from the same pains and although the paralysis of his right leg disappeared he could still not balance properly.  His memory was also severely affected and it got so bad that whenever he left home he had to tell his family where he was going so that they could search for him and collect him if he didn’t return. Viljo himself was not unaffected by the event; he had a red and swollen face and had become incoherent and absent-minded.

   This sounds unpleasant not just for the men but also their families considering their previous good health; and it was noted that Heinonen reported black or dark coloured urine for some time which is usually and indicator of blood being present..  Dr Pauli Kajanoja stated that “The symptoms he (Heinonen) described are like those after being exposed to radioactivity. Both men seem sincere; I don’t think they had made the thing up.  I am sure they were in a state of shock when they came to me; something must have frightened them.”

   Had there been one percipient then the natural answer to this encounter would be that the person involved had entered into an altered state. However, things are never that easy in these cases.

   There seems to be coincidental confirmation of something unusual having been going on at the time of the encounter when two other people reported UFOs in the sky at the same time and in the same area as the Imjärvi encounter.  

 

   We have a very brief, odd, CE3K but it had not been the last incident according to Heinonen as between the time of the encounter and August 1972 he reported some 23 other UFO contacts including occasionally meeting with an extremely beautiful space woman. Not just that but one entity very reminiscent of the Adamski ‘Venusian’ had progressed considerably beyond the use of mere telepathy (as per Adamski) and was able to speak fluent Finnish and that is no easy feat.

   It was these later claims tended to create an atmosphere of disbelief even amongst many hardened Ufologists. We can delve into the alternative dimensions theory or even that of UFOs and fairy-lore (since the entity did look somewhat like a character from that) but I think that the problem here is the failure of Ufologists to understand what could be going on.  One farmer, Matti Haapaniemi, a neighbour, stated; “Many people in this neighbourhood have laughed at this story.  But I don’t think it’s anything to joke about.  I have known both Aarno and Esko since they were little boys.  Both are quiet, rational fellows and moreover they are abstainers.  I am sure their story is true.”

   Rather than simply dismiss what percipients report took place after their encounters I threw out my own hard-nosed approach to these cases. By the early 1980s it was quite clear that physiological and psychological symptoms being quite clearly reported were being dismissed as “kooky” or “weird claims” because Ufologists ten to be very limited in their reading material –some who cite some conditions as possible catalysts for cases such as hypnagogic or hypnopompic do so and yet other cases they deal with are quite clearly such but are labelled as genuine events.

   Hypnagogic hallucinations are imagined sensations that seem very real and they occur as a person is falling asleep and are also referred to as sleep hallucinations. The term hypnopompic describes the period when a person wakes up –waking dreams. And this is why more psychologists need to be involved in these cases because this is a very complicated situation as a paper in the Schizophrenia Bulletin (September, 2016: 42(5): 1098–1109) titled “What Is the Link Between Hallucinations, Dreams, and Hypnagogic–Hypnopompic Experiences?” By Flavie Waters, Jan Dirk Blom, Thien Thanh Dang-Vu, Allan J. Cheyne, Ben Alderson-Day, Peter Woodruff and Daniel Collerton states:

 

      “By definition, hallucinations occur only in the full waking state. Yet

      similarities to sleep-related experiences such as hypnagogic and hypnopompic

      hallucinations, dreams and parasomnias, have been noted since antiquity. These

      observations have prompted researchers to suggest a common aetiology for these

      phenomena based on the neurobiology of rapid eye movement (REM) sleep.

      With our recent understanding of hallucinations in different population groups

      and at the neurobiological, cognitive and interpersonal levels, it is now possible

      to draw comparisons between the 2 sets of experiences as never before.”

 

   Two people are not going to suffer the same hallucination so that explanation does not work although I noted a conversation once in which two Ufologists suggested that the Imjarvii encounter was a “shared hallucination”. I think that they were referring to Folie à deux -'madness for two'- which is also known as shared psychosis or shared delusional disorder (SDD). This is a psychiatric syndrome in which symptoms of a delusional belief, and sometimes hallucinations, are transmitted from one individual to another.  Heinonen and Vilja do not seem to fall into this category of case, however.

   We also have to deal with the memory loss and absent mindedness note along with other possible psychological aspects.  There is transient global amnesia is a sudden, temporary episode of memory loss that can't be attributed to a more common neurological condition (epilepsy or stroke). During an episode of transient global amnesia the person’s recall of recent events simply vanishes and they cannot remember where they are or how they got there.

   Having read some of what Heinonen later reported and the situations around those claimed meetings I believe this was “all in the mind”.  But here we come back to what is obviously the actual cause of the sudden change in Heinonen and Viljo: the UFO encounter itself. I noted similarities to the Desvergers case (see last chapter) but the “smoke”/ “mist” and all the other aspects can be found in a number of other reports on record.  And I think that more concentration needs to be put into the encounter itself rather than the later claims.

   The entity is described in a certain way and we have the percipient approved sketch –it is signed by both men as are some of the other illustrations made at the time. There are similarities with other cases but the problem is that each artist will interpret details in their own way so there can never be an exact match but entities carrying boxes, spheres and even rods are on record. The outfit described matches others and it could be that the “hat” also matches but witnesses remember it shorter or saw it from another angle.  Thing here is sending up a red flag.

 Above (percipient approved) sketch showing how the Imjarvi object was first observed and its course change and then the cloud/mist appearing as it got closer.

 

   Then there is the confirmation of UFO activity that day independent of the men. At the same time as the skiers observed their UFO Elna Siitari, a farmer’s wife was heading for the cowshed in Paistjarvii a village located some 15 km from Imjarvi. Siitari looked up to see a strange bright light moving toward Imjarvi.  At the same time in the village of Paaso which is 10 kms north of Imjarvi a man observed a light phenomenon at 16:45 hrs. This seems to indicate that the men probably did see the  same object but up close.

   Interesting is the fact that a year before Matti Kontulainen (16) and from Imjarvi observed an object approximately 100 m from the glade where the skiers had their encounter:

      “It was about 11:00 p.m. in the evening. It was in February, and no stars were visible.  I came skiing through the forest after having been to a friend’s. I was on my way home. It was dark, but suddenly the forest was lit up by a very bright light going above the tree-tops. It was like a gigantic welding-flame. It disappeared very fast…” there is the possibility that Kontulainen saw a meteorite but there is not much to go on.

   We have entity and object details from the main encounter and even a step-by-step illustrated guide to the sighting. That the object was seen to make a dramatic turn and head directly toward the two men cannot be seen as coincidence.  No “Oh, we always pop down here for a quick fuel check –we never expected people to be here!” It seemed quite deliberate and what happened when the object got closer also seems to have been deliberate but we have to consider this an “opportunistic” event since the entity/entities could not have known that the men would stop at that spot. The farmer’s wife at Paistjarvii was in a village so an object descending there might be seen and the same applies to the witness at Paaso.

   The entity appeared and points the box device at Heinonen who feels himself “pulled back” but then the cloud/mist gets dense and the entity and Viljo cannot be seen –Viljo experiences the same.  Suddenly the cloud/mist and object are gone. We know that the incident began at “around 16:45 hrs –we have the farmer’s wife’s report- and that the visit to the doctor was at 20:00 hrs and the men viewed the entity 15-20 seconds then stood motionless for around 3 minutes or so not talking but feeling calm and it then took an (estimated) hour for Viljo to help Heinonen home.  The problem is that there are only two known times in this chronology –start of the encounter and trip to the clinic. No time-checking on watches (if they had any).

   Mist engulfing the duo then -“suddenly”- it was going back up into the object then the object was gone.  There is a great deal here to suggest that there was missing time because there are indicators that this was more than just an illogical CE3K incident. What happened during the incident we will never know and GICOFF and its team did the best they could but the idea of missing time back in 1970 was almost science fiction to Ufologists – I tried repeatedly to introduce “Time Lapse” back in the late 1970s and early 1980s and no one was interested. Unless the witnesses reported a UFO, an entity or entities and recalled something that indicated a “Hills scenario” as some called it then it was just a landing case. It must have struck those involved that there was something wrong.  However, the two men with their memory and other problems would not have been good candidates for regression hypnosis, though it might have helped them in some way.

Above: Heinonen (left) and Viljo return to the encounter site

 

   I asked Liljegren if anything new had been going on with the report since the AFU newsletter updates in 1980. He told me: “I believe I asked Lasse Ahonen when he was here about the current status but I got the impression no follow-up had been done in more recent years (after what we wrote up in our newsletters). I would doubt that any of the two (Aarno and Esko) are still alive. There is also the problem of the language barrier to Finland. We do have a big file (a standard file folder) crammed with materials on the case but some of it is inaccessible to us "normal" Swedes. We inherited the file from GICOFF (the Gothenburg group) that investigated (which also my Finnish colleague Jorma Heinonen - not a relative of Aarno) tried to do through letter-writing.”

   The encounter was fifty years ago so if the men were in their 30s back then and still alive today they would be in their late 80s. Considering their health and other problems it seems unlikely both are still alive and even if they were I doubt that they could add or make sense to what we know about the 1970 event.

   It is somewhat sad that we have no idea about the two men after 1980 –it may all be in those GICOFF files. UFOs encounters can be classed as “bizarre” or “borderline reality” but so often it is forgotten that the people in these cases are human beings and need any support they can get and, sadly, Ufology cannot offer that.

Above: the caption says it all.

Above: The illustration of the encounter by Hogman of GICOFF used for the cover of FSR 16/5, 1970

 Full case details in Beyond UFOs

References

 

1. Sven-Olof Frederikson, “Strange Events In The Snow”, Flying Saucer Review (FSR) v. 16 no. 3, 1970

2. Sven-Olof Frederikson, “Finnish Encounter In The Snow”, FSR v.16 no. 4, 1970

3. ditto : “A Humanoid Was Seen At Imjarvi”, FSR v.16 no. 5, 1970

4. Anders Liljegren “The Continuing Story of the Imjarvi Skiers –part 1”, FSR v. 26 no. 3, 1980

5. Anders Liljegren “The Continuing Story of the Imjarvi Skiers –part 2”, FSR v. 26  no. 5, 1980

6. Anders Liljegren “The Continuing Story of the Imjarvi Skiers –part 1”, AFU Newsletter no. 18, Jan-Mar, 1980

7. Anders Liljegren “The Continuing Story of the Imjarvi Skiers –part 2”, AFU Newsletter no. 19,  Apr/Sept, 1980

8. Personal correspondence Terry Hooper-Scharf and Anders Liljegren

A Few Thoughts

Barney and Betty Hill were an American couple who claimed they were abducted by extra-terrestrials in a rural portion of the state of New Hampshire from 19th to 20th September, 1961.

That was 61 years ago.

Travis Walton was the percipient alleged alien abduction UFO on 5th November, 1975.

That was 47 years ago.

This is, as far as most Ufologist and especially the UFO celebrity bunko men are concerned is it. Some may  pass over the Antonio Villas Boas case quickly; they tend mainly to concentrate on the United States as that sells well to American viewers and media. Also these two cases have so much information that it is easy for them to work out a power point presentation of the bare facts.

The Pascagoula Incident in which Charles Hickson and Calvin Parker claimed they were abducted by aliens while fishing near Pascagoula, Mississippi, took place on the 11th October, 1973.

That was 49 years ago.

Hickson and Parker, the Hills and Walton are mentioned ad nauseum though the Pascagoula case tends to be less mentioned.

Why does the Liberty, Kentucky abduction of three women that, as in the Hills case, have independent corroboration of sorts (no one saw the actual abduction) never get mentioned? There are other cases of course but the same old same old UFO "celebrities" you see on TV do not carry out research; their main aim is to earn money and get recognised.

Looking at Bigfoot research there is similar.  In 1967 Roger Patterson and Bob Gimlin allegedly filmed a Bigfoot -nicknamed "Patty". Since that time people have lied about the incident and added details to the account and even faked evidence and created false analyses to prove it genuine. Also people have lied about the incident and added details to the account and even faked evidence and created false analyses to prove it fake. Over 50 years back and forth on the same story and piece of footage and...nothing. It has distracted from other reports.

If after four or five or even six decades the debunkers have not sent the "Classic" UFO cases down in flames they never will. We saw how Ted Bloecher and his companions gathered CE3K/AE reports and how the Lorenzens pushed the use of hypnosis and scopolamine (the "truth drug") to get passed the blocked memories of UFO percipients. At this point there were danger signs and who, having had a suspected abduction experience or who witnessed a UFO landing was going to rush forward to be pumped full of truth drug and be put under hypnosis? Even in 2022 there is a fear of hypnosis and many aspects of it based on TV shows, films and other entertainment -a fear that those involved might probe into more private memories.

Looking at the United States there were many landing incidents that were ignored by Ufologists. Reports in which the descriptions of entities match those in other cases from around the world. There were no investigations and the only records we have of these events are press clippings -twisted and added to for decades by people with something to sell. Kathy Reeves and the Reeves Farm events were never investigated and all sorts of excuses offered as to why they were not looked into.

Long time readers here (or anyone who purchased a copy of the publication) know the case that I am going to mention here; Euporia, Mississippi, 1973. Multiple witnesses plus witness(es) in a second vehicle, observed two UFOs. One hovered in the air while the other landed on the interstate and an entity briefly exited then re-entered the object and both UFOs flew off. Think about how important this case sounds. Multiple witnesses and all known by name. No investigation and no appeals put out through a very cooperative radio station.

The main witnesses were all black. 

Ted Bloecher asked the local investigators to follow the report up quickly and they promised to but never did. In fact all they did was try to jump in on cases involving white percipients. There is one simple reason why the cases (there were incidents involving black people at the same time and in the same area/state) were not looked into. Racism. Barney Hill is the most famous percipient and had he been by himself the fact that he was black would have meant it would have been an obscure and hardly mentioned case today.  Rev. Harrison Bailey is rarely mentioned though he pops up occasionally in Ufology and I dedicated a chapter to his case in Beyond UFO Contact.  

Then, of course, we had Budd Hopkins jump in and, honestly, I supported his work as was regularly updated on it. Then things fell apart and when John Mack joined in it seemed that the work might get some respectability and correct use of hypnosis where needed. Sadly, Mack died and the two men in Ufology who controlled the narrative and who were the trendy stars of the time with everyone including MUFON pimping them as much as possible were Hopkins and Jacobs and Carpenter who never achieved the Golden Boy stardom. Hopkins and Mack destroyed the serious investigation and research into CE3K/AE reports because they claimed that there was no such thing; all incidents were abductions that only they could handle and get to the bottom of. Science fantasy took over. If someone had gone through a standard CE3K or possible abduction it did not remain so for long. As Jacobs yells like an evangelical priest now "You never just saw a UFO -YOU WERE ABDUCTED!"

Ufology likes its trends and if they make money and bring in new members then the trend will be pushed until the subject is exhausted and no more money is pouring in. In the early days of digital cameras "Rods" were a big thing though they all turned out to be insects or other regular things. "Orbs" were another product of early digital cameras and even in 2022 buts of dust and insects captured recorded are hauled as "spirit energy" or "mini UFO probes" by people who know full well what they have recorded. The whole "Grey" story and the generational abductions schtick was a buck earner.  Now American Ufology is controlled by (once again) the U.S. intelligence community and "UAP" are the new thing.

I need to make it clear that I do not claim all "Grey" UFO abductions are psychological or altered state events. The Hills are, today, described as having been abducted by "Greys" -they were not. That is current Ufology rebooting its own history to try and create a false and sellable narrative. Looking at human history it can be proven that Jacobs claims (and he is an historian) are complete bunk. I have seen online UFO pages stating Walton was "abducted by Grey type aliens similar to those in the Betty and Barney Hill case" -the percipient names are factual and everything else is pure fantasy.

People who saw a UFO land and kept an eye on the duration of the sighting by the dashboard clock are told they have missing time when they don't and the abduction 'investigators' twist and turn the narrative until the witness actually believes that they are abductees. Now if you have an intelligent person who observes a UFO landing and entities emerge and then re-enter and the object takes off and then he/she checks the subject out and... not many sane people are going to subject themselves to the abuse of Jacobs and you may well ask why far more female claimed abductees are pushed than male ones? Because they can be used to follow the narrative created by Hopkins and perverted by Jacobs of women being kidnapped and then technologically raped, made pregnant and then have their babies stolen -by aliens. 

Male abductees basically get free masturbation sessions. Not as "human interest" as the female abductee.  Also, the conduct of these claimed researchers is unethical in the extreme and focussed on women.

I have had to ask myself many times just how many (alleged) genuine CE3K cases have been reported then perverted into something else via hypnosis? And how many such cases have gone unreported? I was once told by an American Ufologist that MUFON wanted any witness to a UFO landing checked to see if they would be "amenable" to believing they had been abducted and willing to undergo hypnotic regression. I asked what happened if the witness stood by their story and were unwilling to travel and undergo hypnosis? "They are filed away as "unreliable" and their unwillingness to undergo hypnosis proved it. Case closed."

The other factor here is that the main abduction 'researchers' have been shown for what they are and what they do including, in Carpenters case, selling what percipients thought were confidential files with all of their information to Robert Bigelow! The ladies at Liberty were told by Ufologists: "Talk to us or we go to the press" and...the Ufologists still went to the press for "financial reasons".  Look at how Ground Saucer watch and others tried to play Walton; offer him medical assistance for what he had just gone through and when he turns up make demands but there is no medical help.

Alleged (I know writing that keeps annoying people) percipients do not get rich (unless they come up with a series of sensationalist books, movie and get well paid for turning up for TV etc) but everyone makes money from the "latest show freak".

Ufology is not and never has been a science. "I can't explain that due to my limited knowledge therefore it has to be from another dimension!"  Ufology spends more time following a false narrative created by contactees, U.S. intelligence or other Ufologists with books to sell than actual research and that is why those in it follow the words of the Messenger of Deception Vallee -the "teflon Ufologist". Looking at Vallee's catalogue of UFO landings we see it contains reports known as hoaxes and misidentifications back in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s on but that catalogue has never been updated (rather like Flying Saucer Review refused to correct the record). There are many faults in Vallee's work and how he reports on cases in his books (yes, I have them) and yet no one in Ufology will question or point this out because he is Jacques Vallee the Godfather or elder statesman of Ufology ("and a scientist").

Someone who might think "Okay. That was not something from this Earth!" is about to be confronted by things they are not prepared for or, if they have researched what they saw, know about and are not going to fall into that trap.

Here is something that must be considered the absolute unbendable rule in cases of this type whether just an observed landing or possible "abduction"; the witness/percipient is the most important thing. Not a cash cow to slap under hypnosis and get what you can out of them for the next blog post or potential book or even TV interview. It is a double edged sword in many ways since, if it was not for outing people, we would not have known about the Hills or the Liberty threesome. If it was not for the fuss kicked up regarding Walton we might just be reading "a man claimed he went on board a UFO" and that is it. Gathering the information is important but not to the point that the human(s) involved are simply used because they have (allegedly) gone through an experience that totally shattered their world view and way of life and they have to come to terms with that and not be told "Well, you know Betty and Barney Hill...." followed by case details. They need to be reassured that they are not insane. They are probably not the first but there has to be a lot of listening and careful guidance so that, if they really need hypnotherapy due to physiological or psychological problems caused by the event they do not have their minds full of crap.

There is a Ufologist in the UK who at the hint of someone not remembering every second of a sighting/encounter rushes out with a tame hypnotherapist. When I was in communication with him he claimed to have "discovered" over 100 plus UFO abductions each month and "Some times more."

So what does he do with all of these abduction reports? He selects the best and then "re-write the accounts in my words so as to protect the person making the report" -I could sit here and churn out 'genuine' report after report. Quoting, on the internet, the actual persons account as they gave it is NOT going to identify them by name. But this is Ufology and any amount of faking can go on and be accepted as genuine -no peer review just, in my opinion, fakery. "Many thousands of accounts" stored on a computer (allegedly).

Can we really allow many genuine reports just vanish to go uninvestigated? Euporia, the Reeves case and many others will eventually be lost forever when the percipients and observers die. "If only" has no place in research. In 2022 people can be traced and they can be asked about what they saw. Even now MUFON will not even think about looking at the Euporia report which leaves a lot of questions to be asked of an organisation in which a lot of its directors are accused of many things and some even claim "possible" UFO abduction.

In France, Italy, Spain, Australia, Canada -in most countries these once "unacceptable" reports can be looked into before it is too late. Just one or two investigators in areas opening cold cases can achieve a great deal and provide a real data base of cases that can be studied or thrown out.

A bit of a ramble and I know no one bothers commenting so I just put this out there. As each day goes by I can see one report after another being lost.

Alleged Abductee Shows Physical 'Proof' - NEVER Accept Someone At Face Value

UFO author Stanley Romanek sentenced to 2 years to halfway house for child pornography possession

---

SAJA HINDI   | The Coloradoan

Witnesses and defense attorneys painted two starkly different pictures of the same man at Thursday's sentencing hearing for Stanley Tiger Romanek.

Four months after his conviction for possession of child pornography, Romanek was sentenced to two years in Larimer County community corrections, a halfway house program for criminal offenders.

Friends and family of the 55-year-old Loveland UFO author who says he is an alien abductee spoke of a man who was selfless and caring and would not hurt anyone. Prosecutors described the lengths of deception and denial he took to avoid a guilty verdict and blame anyone but himself.

A 12-member jury found Romanek guilty in August for felony possession of child pornography but not distribution, ending a more than three-year-long court case.

In addition to the two years in community corrections, Judge Susan Blanco sentenced Romanek to 10 years probation as a registered sex offender, no contact with any victims and individual sessions for mental health treatment.

Romanek was taken into custody immediately following the sentencing. His attorney, Ted McClintock, said Romanek plans to appeal the conviction.

McClintock told the judge Romanek had spent time in the hospital in the previous day and was feeling unwell because of seizures, but Blanco ruled that Romanek was fit to go through with the sentencing hearing.

Defense attorneys called on nine people who spoke to the judge, including Romanek's wife, Lisa, and his sister Ann.

Deputy District Attorney Joshua Ritter said there's no way to sugarcoat the case and the degree of deception used by Romanek and the defense team to to try to place blame on others. He cited their allegations of hacking by a paranormal organization or by the government and explanation that someone else, such as his stepson, placed the pornography on the computer. Ritter alleged much of the evidence presented was doctored.

McClintock argued the no contact order shouldn't apply because Romanek didn't even know the children in the videos found on his computer and has had no prior contact with them, and some of them are probably in their 40s.

The treatments in community corrections that Romanek would be subjected to, McClintock contended, would require him to admit to more things than he is convicted of.

But Blanco was not convinced, saying regardless of whether the victim's names are known or their current ages, every time those images and videos were watched, they were re-victimized.

"Those images are incredibly disturbing, and those are real people," Blanco said.

When Ann Romanek addressed the court, holding back tears, she said her brother had saved her life and her vision and is an "amazing, courageous, astonishing, caring good man."

She said Stanley Romanek had never shown sexually deviant behavior as a child or an adult, which was echoed by all who spoke in his support.

Lisa Romanek said they had been married for 15 years, and he helped raise her three children. Fighting back tears, she spoke about the difficulty of Romanek not being able to meet his grandchildren because of the terms of his bond, and the effects on their marriage.

"Imagine living as a prisoner in your own home ... with your wife as your prison warden," she said.

Others relayed stories about the Romaneks taking them in when they needed a place to stay and how they never worried about their children being around Stanley Romanek.

Romanek also spoke and pleaded for leniency, telling the judge he's a "good person."

"All I want to do is help people,"' he said. He added that he couldn't imagine being away from his wife for a moment.

Blanco acknowledged Romanek's and his supporters' statements and said she had no doubt that he had some good in him. But still, considering the materials found on his computer over a period of time, along with the continued denial and deception, "there's a good argument for you to go to prison."

She reminded Romanek that there was no longer a presumption of his innocence. But she said there may be some hope for rehabilitation, and therefore, he would be sentenced to Community Corrections based on recommendations from multiple professionals.

ALIEN CHRONICLES (S1E11) - TRAVIS WALTON - ALIEN AND UFO ENCOUNTERS: Comments

In UFO Contact? One of the cases that I wanted to shoot down was that of Travis Walton.

Why?

Well, the UFO bunko TV celebrities keep pushing the Walton story as well as that of the Hills. You would think there had only ever been two such cases and both in the United states. I did not set out with a conclusion already in my head as that is not research but debunking. My intention was to look at the case from "outside Ufology" and look at the anecdotal evidence since there was no actual physical evidence.

The debunkers attack Walton and the others from every angle and Phillip Klass even attempted to bribe a false confession to prove it all a hoax. Unfortunately, at every turn the only thing I found was that the debunkers were made to look worse than any "UFO hoaxer" and their credibility and angles fell apart.

That was slightly annoying since I had assumed that after 40+ years someone would have seriously dented the case.

I am not talking about that 'film maker' who guested on three of Erica Lukes' podcasts and gas-lighted everyone and was not even hiding it. Hey, the area, 4 5 years on, looks different than it did in 1975 so that proves it was all a hoax seemed to be the argument and one of Walton's companions that night...age and recall was poor but he was pushed and twisted to prove it was a hoax.

I tried a couple avenues others had not looked into and...

I was frustrated to be honest. The more I looked into the case the more convincing it seemed. In fact I even started re-writing the book a couple times thinking I must have missed something.

Then there are the interviews with Walton and although he has become more adept at hiding the body language when re-telling the account the eyes cannot be hidden and they say a lot. Critics argue that Walton does not get worked up when he is criticised or his account attacked. He has come to accept it happened and moved on but those questions are still in his head. Questions that cannot be answered.

The important thing is that we have all of the original interviews and material from the 1970s. What has come out in more recent times is Walton trying to work out what happened? Why did it happen? That leads to speculation and it is to be expected.

Even Mona Stafford (Liberty, Kentucky abduction) a few years back was visibly still shaken by what happened to her and her companions and had so many questions.

Is Travis Walton a fraud? He has not become rich from what happened and he wants to make money from the experience? Why not because so many in Ufology, TV and movies have made a lot of money out of his account. He's not getting any younger and no one is paying him a big fee.

If Walton is a fraud then he should have been a professional actor and though actors can feign "the look" the genuine thing cannot be "put on". I cannot prove that he was abducted by aliens and I have tried (and failed) to prove that he was not. In such a case you can only go by the gut feeling you get. I think Walton underwent an experience that affected him for decades after. Aliens? Only Walton and his companions saw the UFO and only Walton was "abducted".

ONLY they know 100%

Three Years and £30,000. Anyone Got Some Spare Cash?

 The other day I posted this to the CE3K/AE Face Book page:

"Trying to make my files easier to get at and not bulky -the US needs at least two large folders and France and Spain require one each.

32 CE3K/AE files and starting next January I want to clean up some of the reports by getting more details. However, about 75% of cases from W Europe and the USA were never investigated and, sadly, we have lost those (though re-opening some as cold case files might save some)."

I continued the tidying up and adding sources/reports to the files and had to split up the United States files making three new file folders so now 35 in total covering the reports from around the world.

Neither the Hynek Center for UFO Studies (CUFOS) noir the Archive For the Unexplained (AFU in Sweden) has as complete an archive of these reports and, of course, I get asked (often in a roundabout way as no one likes to ask outright) what happens to coming up to 50 years of records and work?

Well, my four books cover aspects of the work but most of it has never been published and I did have an idea for a fifth book on the subject but no one appears interested in the subject. I do not intend to go anywhere just yet but the UK needs a UFO archive even if it's doubtful anyone is really going to be visiting one unless its to swipe information for books -research is a dirty word in the UK. I had thought CUFOS at first but they are low on staff and funds to ship a cupboard full of files do not exist. The AFU travel to the UK to collect archives but I do have concerns.

The Great British UFO Archive opens up in early 2023 so it is an option so long as its continuation and future is guaranteed.

The original idea was to ensure that CUFOS and AFU got records and somewhere in the UK got all the paperwork! The Bristol Central Library and Records Office were initially interested but as a lot gets dumped when "budget is low" by Bristol City Council I had to re-think.

Someone I am acquainted with has seen the files and is aware of the contents. He is also an accountant and studied maths at university. I told him of my plans and he told me to do nothing yet but hold on and he would look into things. He did -and quickly, too!

He is aware that the files contain "thousands" of pages and that I am continuing the updating every month (I spend more than a couple hundred £/$ a year on ink cartridges and document wallets!). Each one of those pages would need, after updating to be scanned and placed on to a mass storage device -USB sticks with very high gig counts. The scanning would take, with only one man doing the work, an estimated three years at 8+/- hours per day and that time, etc needs paying for. His estimate is that the work would need funding to the tune of £30k/$30k.

That does not shock me as the wildlife work I have done since 1976 runs into the many thousands and the same can be said for the CE3K/AE work to date. The likelihood of getting such funding is zero (underlined about ten times). I know what you are thinking "Start scanning now" and I would but I don't even have a scanner that works but I do have a very -very- old PC that is cranky. New PC and new scanner costs money and I barely survive day to day so getting new ones is a fantasy.

The idea of CUFOS, the AFU and the Great British UFO Archive each having a full set of CE3K/AE storage devices sounds good but at the moment it is very unlikely. Until either the books start to sell or some rich UFO enthusiast decides to invest £30k.... I plod on.

17th March, 1980 Rainhill –St Helens, Merseyside

  

(1)    Investigation of Two Possible UFOs And Three Figures, Fishwick, Brian,

        MIGAP, March 1980

(2)     Personal Files

(3)     UFO News Bulletin (BFSB)  vol. 2  no. 4, 1980

(4)     UFO Contact? Terry Hooper-Scharf (full details)

 I return, again, to Brian Fishwick and MIGAP for this one.  When I initially read the report I was somewhat dumbfounded.

   At around 23:00 hrs on Monday, 17^th March, 1980, Mrs K and her daughter, Miss KS,  decided to drive a  friend (her daughter’s), Miss R,  home.  It was a clear, star-lit night.  Mrs KS lived in a semi-detached house on the edge of  a private housing estate in Rainhill a small village five miles (8 km) from St Helen’s, Merseyside. Miss KS was driving the car and headed  along Amanda Road and then took a left along Longton Lane. It was half-way along this lane that Mrs KS looked out of her window to the left which had houses along it with a field to the rear.  A bright ‘star’ fairly high up was descending.

   Mrs KS turned to her daughter about the light and got her to stop the car so that she might get a better look at it. The light was getting lower and both could now see a shape to it and the object was heading over the fields at the back of the houses towards them.  Frightened, Miss KS started up the car and drove off as her mother and Miss R kept watch on the object which got lower and was lost to sight behind the houses.  They assumed  that the object had landed in the field but admitted to being too scared to go and look.

   As the car reached Warrington Road, Miss KS took a right turn which would take them to Prescot and then on to Liverpool.  After two miles they turned into Knowlsley Lane and headed northward. To the right was Lord Derby’s estate which consisted  of the Old Hall and New Hall, acres of farmland, plantations, a large peat moss and lake.  To the left were  a number of houses.  They turned right and dropped Miss R off at her home.

   It was around 23:35 hrs as the pair turned round and headed back home and it was as they headed along Knowlsley Lane that Mrs KS noticed a red light that was above Lord Derby’s Ash Plantation and descending.  She pointed this out to her daughter who also observed it.  Both “said that the red was an unusual red colour, they really couldn’t describe it.”   The light ascended until it was just above trees and travelling parallel to them, Miss KS continuing to take quick looks at it as she drove. Both were frightened by the light keeping pace with them that Miss KS put her foot down on the accelerator moving away from the object.  However, the light began to accelerate, too, and paced the car.

   As they drove on the light became obscured by some trees though Mrs KS reported that she could still see it through gaps in the trees.  Approaching Elm Cottage they came to a clearing and could now see that the light was diamond shaped.  If they were nervous before then the fact that the object then  changed colour to a yellow and started moving toward them did not help the situation.  Miss KS put her foot down and sped off while her mother kept an eye on the object until losing sight of it  behind another clump of trees.  They continued on their journey and arrived home at 00:10 hrs.

   Although the copies I have are unsigned, there are three accounts –Mrs KS, Miss KS and one from her friend, whose account corroborates events up to the point where she was dropped off at home.  Their illustrations of the object sighted match but have the usual slight witness discrepancies one expects.

   Liverpool Air Traffic Control stated that there was no air traffic recorded at the time of the incident.  

   It was after the interviews were over and Brian Fishwick was preparing to leave that Mrs KS asked her daughter: “Shall we tell him?”  It now that this becomes anything but “just another UFO report”.

   It appears that on the outward journey, just past the Croxteth Lane turning on Knowlsley Lane, they had seen a figure walking in the road.  He was described as having long grey hair, a long thin, pale face and wearing what looked like a white Mackintosh and looked “scruffy” and as they got closer to him they thought he would  move on to the footpath.  He did not.  Miss KS had to swerve to avoid hitting him.  

   Now, to me, that must have been a tramp or even a drunk.  No importance to a UFO sighting.  On the return journey, just after they passed Elm Cottage, they saw a similar figure but were unsure whether this was the same one.  Again, he was walking in the road and Miss KS had to once more swerve to avoid hitting him.  Big deal.  Same person, behaving the same.  However, as they reached the roundabout at the junction of Knowlsley Lane and Liverpool Road, they saw a third figure who was described as looking exactly the same.

   I was always told “once is nothing.  Twice is a coincidence.  Three times is beyond coincidence.”   A “road phantom”?  I don’t believe in dead people haunting a location and I certainly do not believe in scruffy men teleporting around. Yet, both women –Miss KS’s friend on the outward journey- saw the figure.  Were the women just confused or making it up?  Well, they were both alert after the earlier sighting of the object and both stated they had no idea whether the figure(s) had anything to do with that. They mentioned him/them because the sightings were “odd” and obviously made an impression on them.

   I wonder in these cases whether there is any “Ruth Syndrome” involved ?  We know that on several occasions Ruth’s “apparitions” were seen by others but, in this case, it seems there was no enquiring into any previous seen phenomena –ghosts, poltergeists, etc.. As you’ll see with the rough map Brian supplied, it is a hell of a distance from the Elm Cottage sighting to the roundabout.

   There are a lot of questions here and I am afraid we will never know the answers: even assuming an inmate from Rainhill Mental Hospital, which was not too far away, was wandering about or even two patients which is pushing it, that final sighting doesn’t get explained.  At this time up until the late 1980s a lot of mental health care homes purchased clothing in bulk. In Bristol you would see patients out and about and they were easily recognized: grey cloth cap, baggy grey trousers, brown raincoat and black ex-Army boots.  However, they did not look all alike facially or all have the same hair.

   I tried to think of every angle and Brian assured me that the women seemed sincere in their puzzlement at seeing the three figures.  And, no, no one suggested regression hypnosis as there is no evidence of any missing time.  Just another UFO sighting and three(?) odd men.

 

 

 Above: map of the outward journey

June 1980 Torver, Cumbria

John Hanson  Haunted Skies vol. 8  p. 103

 

Mary Sinton, owner of a B&B Farm, told Hanson about an encounter while on a camping holiday:

“I was with my boyfriend, Paul, at the time, and returning back to the campsite in our Hillman Imp car, along the A593, Ambleside to Coniston Road (Grid ref: Long 323, Lat 999/8, No. 7 English Lakes, SE area)  As we turned a bend in the road, close to the campsite, I was astonished to see  nine tall ‘figures’. Stood in a group of trees near the side of the road, caught in the glare of the spotlights fitted to the Hillman Imp I was travelling in.

 

“I estimated they were at least 7ft tall and identically dressed, wearing silver-white coloured helmets and body armour, carrying what looked like a rod, carried vertically in front of each of them –reminding me of a regiment of soldiers, stood to attention on the parade ground.

“As we drove past, I left it for a few seconds and then shouted out, in great excitement, ‘Did you see them, Paul?’  One look at his face confirmed he had, although, oddly, he had only seen one ‘figure’.  When we arrived at the campsite, we felt very nervous and had trouble sleeping, wondering if anything else was going to happen.

 

Sketch of  the figure made by the witness

“The next morning, we discussed what had happened and wondered whether we should let the police know but, on reflection, thought they would never believe us”.

Hanson spoke to Paul who confirmed the events given by Sinton. He told Hanson:

“It was the most unusual thing I have ever seen in my life.  It defies explanation”.

13 March 1980 to May 1973 Judy Doraty

  This case should be studied along with that of Myrna Hanson 5^th May near Houston, Texas (USA)

Judy Doraty had been driving home in a suburb from a bingo game with her daughter Cyndy Tindle, mother, sister, and brother-in-law. Suddenly, everyone in the car noticed a bright light in the sky that was pacing them. Eventually, they stopped the car by the side of the road in farmland and Judy got out of the car. When they reached another relative’s home, the time was 1-hour later than expected and the light moved in closer and the passengers and a group who came running out of the Doraty house saw a huge disc with rows of windows float silently over the house and an adjacent field. It soon shot off straight up into the sky, going from “very, very big to very, very little in a matter of seconds.”

 Above: Doraty under hypnotic regression

Afterwards, Doraty had been having vivid nightmares and unrelenting stress since the experience, something that no one else in her family seemed to be suffering. Finally, she sought medical help in 1978. That led to hypnosis with a medical doctor. In the first session, she described how a little animal was coming up in a yellow shining beam. Judy and the doctor contacted several ufo investigators and shared the hypnosis tape with APRO. They shared it with Linda M. Howe because of the cattle involved and she called Judy. At the time, she did not recall anything else besides a strange face. It took two months to convince her for the four hour hypnosis session with Dr. Spirnkle in 1980, before a TV camera.

Under hypnosis with Sprinkle, she recalled:

(There’s) like a spotlight shining down on the back of my car. And it’s like it had substance to it. I can see an animal being taken up in this. I can see it’s squirming and trying to get free. And it’s like it’s being sucked up. I can’t tell what the animal is. It’s a small animal.

Doraty remembered that she was not taken on the craft she observed, but said that when she was outside, she experienced some sort of bilocation and was present on the craft and standing by the car at the same time. The “small animal” turned out to be a very young brown and white calf, which was dissected aboard the craft by two “little men” with quick precision in a central room (of three) with a line of basins, scooped out areas for each kind of tissue. They excised tissue from the calf’s eyeball, tongue and testicles and then lowered the carcass back down in a beam of light onto the pasture, dead and mutilated.

At first, she only described strange procedures with tubes extracting tissues but mentioned no beings. Finally, she described two entities with long, claw nails and large heads. Their eyes were very large and piercing, without eyelids. No nose or mouth. They were just 90 cm tall, with very thin, pasty skin and dressed in grey, seamless overalls. 

Dr R Leo Sprinkle

They usually ignored her mental questions but also told her that they were “stationed here” and had been testing our soil, water, vegetation and animal life for quite some time. They also mentioned our nuclear testing in space and underwater. They take samples of the reproductive system from many animals to track the effects of our poisonous contamination. They even mention religion: “He is the same to them as He is to us.”

Finally, when Judy was describing under hypnosis the car trip back home, she mentioned that her daughter Cindy was not there in the car with them! Meticulous probing concluded that she also saw her aboard the ufo on a table surrounded by more strange alien beings who were putting instruments into her mouth. Judy was so upset at the sight that she came completely out of her trance to yell: “No, I don’t want to!” Under hypnosis again, she recalled that the aliens told her everything’s going to be all right but she did not believe them and somehow they mentally blocked Judy from seeing her daughter subjected to more probing (at least, that was Sprinkle’s interpretation her impossibility to describe more). Cindy apparently was NOT in the car when they arrived to their relatives’ home but appeared later.

 

An edited and abridged 10 minutes of this session appeared in Linda Howe’s documentary A Strange Harvest which won a 1980 Emmy Award.

Howe asked Judy to contact Cindy, then 23 and married, for an hypnosis session. Both mother and daughter resisted the suggestion… for a time.

Ten years later, Judy called Howe and said that her daughter, now 32 and divorced with three children, had moved back to Missouri with Judy was living and finally wanted to learn more. Judy claimed she had never shared her experience with Cindy. On 6 August 1990, John Carpenter regressed Cindy Tindle (once again under a TV camera for Howe’s documentary Earth Mysteries: Aliens Life Forms).and got a quite different story:

 

Cindy was taken out of the car by an alien that she confused with her mother. Cindy described him as 160 cm tall and “buggy” with a short, brown hair, wig and “snake eyes” She did witness the scene of the calf lifted in the beam and the two “little men” that she describes more robot-like, but then she found herself surrounded by blackness and the next scenes was inside the ufo. She was sitting on a table and two very skinny beings were around her. One pushed her down and strapped her unemotionally. He held her face still, apparently amazed at her teeth because she had braces. Something metallic was put on her forehead and she felt relaxed. They began poking her belly button, abdomen and arms and put something down her throat. They never communicate with her, but exchanged cliking sounds among them. During a second session a few days later, Cindy described a laboratory-like room filled with bottles and animal parts, including birds and one three-digit alien scrapping and slicing them.

 

Judy Doraty dated sketch shows alien with wide-set eyes having a vertical pupil and iris.  (UFO 4:3, p. 21)

 

                            

 

 

Source: Wolf, “The Abduction of Doraty – The Perfect Case”. Archives Luis R. González.

 

Leo Sprinkle, case #47, “UFO Contactees: Captive collaborators or cosmic citizens”, APRO Bulletin 29:5.

 

FSR 47:2 p. 13 (with witness’s photo)

 

Linda M. Howe, An Alien Harvest (1989), pp. 300-339.

 

Linda M. Howe, Glimpses of Other Realities 1 (1994), pp. 199-226 & 257-8 & 308-319.

 

Greg Bishop, Project Beta (2005), pp. 19-20

Abducted: Confrontations With Beings From Outer Space - Astonishing Accounts of Humans Captured By UFOs

This book is available on Amazon and I wrote a quick product review:
 

I grew up reading the Lorenzens work on CE3K and abductions as they were, after Ted Bloecher, the only serious researchers studying this aspect of the subject. Their books are always highly readable but this reprint is...not up to the original. I recall the original printing had photographs in it and some illustrations. This copy does not. Production wise these are scanned pages fitted onto a page and so the quality varies from sharply defined text to faded and when I heard a crack I realised that the book had no proper guttering allowing the reader to open it up fully to read each page. In this day and age a good guttering should be simple enough and you should be able to read each page without damaging the book spine.

As for the subject matter it is presented well and that is to be expected since Coral Lorenzen was in total control of not just APRO but, I understand, the books themselves. In the past I have been critical of the methods the couple used -particularly of the "truth drug" (really). But as someone else has noted, the Lorenzens and APRO were independent researchers (unlike the CIA infiltrated NICAP which would not look at these reports) and for that reason the book is one that is invaluable because it is not tainted with the fakery and "stacking the decks" nor the scandal surrounding Hopkins, Jacobs and Carpenter. This is old school CE3K research and as it is hard to find an original copy it is invaluable for researchers despite the production. It will sit alongside Flying Saucer Occupants on my research shelf!

                                                          ______________________________

Unfortunately the UK is not the place to be if you are attempting to buy UFO books now and sellers on Ebay and Amazon UK know this and ask for ridiculously inflated prices. This book, however, in the original printing, cannot be found so despite the problems noted with the scanned reprint version is the book worth it?

Yes.

The Lorenzens note the (at the time) new discoveries of memory loss as with the Hills and this is looked at in some details. The Patty Price case is very interesting and I have to say that, despite it being written about in the late 1970s, it is quite obscure but the details are fascinating.

The Higdon case is dealt with in detail alongside those of Charles Moody, Travis Walton, he Liberty, Kty case (here under the title "The Casey County Abduction")Sandra Larson (The North Dakota Abduction) and that of David Stephenson and his friend (The Maine Abduction) and other cases are mentioned in passing as the Lorenzens search for comparisons. I have to say that the entities reported by Stephenson do not bear and resemblance to the ones in the Walton and Moody cases (which do match).

The Lorenzens also note the very common "floating not walking" factor in these abductions which is possible but I still have very grave doubts about moving through solid objects such as walls.

There is a transcript of the pre-polygraph interview with Walton and Dr R. Leo Sprinkle looks at hypnotic time regression procedures use in such cases.

Here is where I disagree with the Lorenzens; in their conclusion they state that they believe hypnosis will be invaluable in such cases and has exciting possibilities for the future. Sadly, those who continued on after the Lorenzens (we know who they are so let's not name them again) abused hypnosis techniques and created a false narrative that derailed mainstream research on the subject for 30 years. Ignoring the abuse of hypnosis I believe there are other problems.

Hypnosis should not be used to start digging into a percipients memory and despite what some outside the UK may think, the British UFO Research Association (BUFORA) became a spent force more than a decade ago.; There is the idea that "BUFORA says no use of hypnosis" and every claimed Ufologist in the country has stopped using it. They have not and there are some I have grave doubts about.

The use of hypnosis should be use when the supressed memory or time lapse is causing serious psychological or physiological problems for the percipient. Even then the technique should be used to first -above all else- alleviate the mental or physical problems. That in itself may well help the percipient recall things.  

If you are unfamiliar with the cases dealt with or gain most of your knowledge on, say, the Walton case via You Tube then get this book. It may well surprise you.