Close Encounters, by the Numbers
An Op-ed by TG Fugate
Close Encounters of the First Kind are events in which a person or persons witness one or more Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs).
Specifically, if seen within 150 meters (492 feet), then it’s considered an encounter of the first kind.
Yep, there have been millions of such encounters throughout recorded history.
The first recorded sighting in America was documented way back in March of 1639, within the diary of John Winthrop, Massachusetts Bay Colony founder and governor. Therein (his diary) he recorded the trials and triumphs of his fellow Puritans. Winthrop described how “several sober men spotted an unusual object in the sky that shone as a great light. The object was large and moved across the night sky that suddenly took on the shape of a pig”. . . A more recent example of Close Encounters of the First Kind occurred in Huston, Texas in August of 2014, when, a multitude of UFO sightings were reported by a broad spectrum of citizens.
Close Encounters of the Second Kind are when the event(s) leave noticeable physical effects behind or at the scene. This can include a wide range of contact events such as interference in the functioning of a vehicle or an electronic device; unusual animal behavior; physiological effects such as paralysis or heat and discomfort experienced by the beholder(s); or physical trace evidence such as crop circles, imprints on the ground, scorched or otherwise damaged vegetation, and or trace evidence of one or more chemicals left behind.
Close Encounters of the Third Kind are UFO encounters in which an alien creature is a part of the event. Such creatures include humanoids, robots, or humans who often seem to be occupants of or pilots of a UFO.
Close Encounters of the Fourth Kind describe an unidentified UFO event in which an individual is abducted by the UFO’s occupants. Such encounters with “other-world” beings are not related to the supernatural or with divine beings; instead, such contact entails a real-life experience by an unwilling or reluctant human that’s native to Earth and is often complicated further because the event may seem hallucinatory or dreamlike to the participant. Close Encounters of the 4th Kind are rarest of all UFO encounters and hardest for the public to accept as factual experiences.
Although alien abductions have become commonplace events, most are “explained away” by naïve disbelievers of the existence of intelligent life beyond earth or simply debunked by government cover-ups.
However, as with most things of significance, there are a few flagship cases that simply can not be explained away:
The first alien abduction of the 4th kind to be widely publicized was the Betty and Barney Hill abduction of 1961 . . . It remains the alien abduction case to which all others are compared to and judged.
The Hills; Barney, a 39-year-old male U S Postal Service Worker, and Betty, a 41-year-old female, who was a supervisor for the child welfare department, began their journey back home to Portsmouth, NH after vacationing in Montreal, Canada on the evening of September 19th, 1961. At several minutes before 10:00 PM, Barney, who was driving south on New Hampshire’s Daniel Webster Highway, noticed a “star” in the distance ahead which appeared to be moving about irregularly. As they neared North Woodstock, NH he alerted Betty, and they both kept close watch on it as they forged south along their scheduled route home.
A few miles south of North Woodstock near the Indian Head Resort, Barney noticed that the star’s erratic behavior had intensified dramatically. When they arrived at the Indian Head Resort, he stopped the car alongside the road and they both exited the car to have a better view. Using binoculars, Barney zoomed in on the “star” for a better look-see.
With his visual aide (binoculars) he was able to see multiple colors of lights coming from a large oval shaped craft which had several rows of windows. As the object moved closer Barney could actually see “people” inside the craft as it proceeded toward a nearby field.
Within a few seconds, the Hills, quite frightened, swiftly got back into the car and proceeded down the highway toward home, peering into the night sky ahead in search of the object as they hurried south. As they drove on, they began to hear a beeping sound . . . once . . . then again.
The very next thing the Hills recalled was being terrified by the unusual flying craft, and the occupants they’d seen inside it. The craft was nowhere in sight and they wasted no time speeding ahead. Suddenly they realized, although they had been driving only a couple of minutes, they were 35 miles or so further down the road past where they had stopped near the Indian Head Resort’s parking lot. It was then too, they were shocked to see it was a few minutes past 12:00 AM— indicating a lapse or loss of at least two hours; for which neither of the two had a recollection of.
Upon returning home to Portsmouth, still unable to explain the two missing hours; both being totally exhausted and still plenty scared from their frightening experience, they immediately went to bed. Come morning, Betty and Barney upon further examination, noted physical changes to their belongs, a result of the previous night’s events: Betty’s torn and stained dress, Barney’s severely scraped shoe, and broken binocular strap — neither could recall these things having happened.
By mid-morning Betty had shared their distressing experience with her sister, Janet. Following Janet’s urging, she called the Pease Air Force Base (Location: Portsmouth, New Hampshire; Total Acreage: 4,255 Acres; Closed: March 1991), and reported their experience of the previous night. Following Betty’s account, Major Paul W. Henderson’s reply was short but firm: “The UFO was confirmed by our radar.”
Being somewhat satisfied with learning, at least, they were not seeing things, the Hills proceeded with trying to put the incident behind them. But within a short while Betty began to have freighting nightmares. In her fretful dreams, she saw her and Barney being forced into some sort of craft, amid several other terrifying events.
Because of her bad dreams and the missing time element; the desire to know what, if anything had happened during the “missing” time; Betty, and a reluctant Barney, decided to contact a psychiatrist. They eventually selected Boston psychiatrist and neurologist, Dr. Benjamin Simon, who was well-known in the field.
After nearly six months of treatment, a long list of hidden memories were gathered by way of regressive hypnosis from the Hills; regressive hypnosis, you may recall is a treatment often successful in unlocking psychologically blocked memories. In any event, it was Dr. Simon’s concluding opinion that the two had been abducted and taken aboard an unknown craft.
Several remarkable events were brought to light:
Their automobile had stalled on the road shortly after their stop near the resort.
The UFO had landed in front of their car in the middle of the road, blocking passage.
Alien beings departed the craft and approached their car, then carried both Betty and Barney back inside the UFO.
They were subjected to several medical tests.
Their captors were described as “. . . bald-headed alien beings, about five foot tall, with grayish skin, pear shaped heads and slanting cat-like eyes.”
Both physical and mental experiments were conducted.
Bodily samples were taken; including skin, hair, and nails.
Betty received gynecological testing.
Barney revealed that sperm samples were taken from him.
Before being released, they were both hypnotized and ordered by the aliens to keep their detainment undisclosed.
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The Travis Walton abduction:
Travis Walton’s abduction began on November 5, 1975, in the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest near Snowflake, Arizona. Walton was one of seven men contracted by the government to clear-cut trees within the National Forest. At the work day’s end, the crew jumped into site foreman Mike Roger’s pick-up truck and headed home.
As they slowly trudged along, they were taken aback to see near the side of the rugged road just ahead, a “luminous object, shaped like a flattened disc” above the confines of a clearing near the edge of the bumpy roadway.
Travis, a bit young, unafraid, and often too curious for his own good, was immediately fascinated by the presence of the object and swiftly abandoned the truck to get a closer look, against the rather vocal protests of his co-workers. As he looked up at the wonder of the unusual object or craft, a blue light beam was emitted from the UFO striking him to the ground. Panic and terror immediately engulfed the six other men; likely by pure reflex they roared away in the truck for a short distance before realizing they had left Travis behind; at which point they all agreed he most likely needed help. They hurriedly turned the truck and headed back to find to their dismay that he had seemingly vanished.
Following a lengthy search the men departed the scene and returned to the small town of Snowflake, where they filed a report to the local police department. They relayed their story first, to Deputy Ellison, and then, to Sheriff Marlin Gillespie, who later reported that the men seemed genuinely troubled and sincere. The police officers and the crew members returned to the scene that evening with flashlights and searched again for Travis; still, without favorable results.
They returned the next morning and searched for a third time with the aid of daylight. No trace of Travis Walton could be found.
Quickly, the story broke into the national media. The small Arizona town was literally overrun by newspaper writers, researchers, UFO buffs, and many members of the general population.
Several days of fruitless searching by men on foot, men in four-wheel drive vehicles, scent dogs, and even helicopters followed, but no sign of Walton was found. Temperatures often plunge in north central Arizona at night in November, which prompted fear that Walton, injured by the “beam” and lying somewhere unattended and disoriented, could not possibly survive.
Absent success, Law enforcement officials began to develop another line of investigation － a possible motive for murder! Speculating that there could be “bad blood” between Travis and one or more of the remaining crew members, they began to weigh the credibility of the six men involved in the clear cutting contract. Yielding to demands to take polygraph tests, all of the men passed, save one, whose results were inconclusive. Following background checks and repeated interviews with the six men, Police personnel concluded that there was no reason to believe that they were covering up a fight or homicide. By ruling out foul-play that left one possibility; the crazy story the men were telling was true!
Rumors flourished and wild theories prevailed, then, five days after his disappearance, Travis Walton returned. He stumbled into a small filling station; dirty, hungry, thirsty, and very weak.
Travis later told investigators that the very last thing he could recall, prior to his misadventure, was the feeling of being flung backward in the woods. After that, nothing – until he awoke freezing, in serious pain, very thirsty and experiencing blurred vision. That’s when he realized he was being “showered” by some sort of light, as he was lying on a table, somewhat like an examining table in a hospital. Walton, still moderately dazed, said he first thought he had been found by the crew and had then been taken to the hospital.
The supposition was far from true!
Conscious of the fact that he was lying on a table, at first was a bit comforting, but upon realizing it was a table in a strange room or chamber and certainly not in a hospital — it was not so reassuring! Finally when his vision cleared, he was utterly shocked to see three short, bald creatures in the room that were obviously in the middle of performing various medical procedures / tests on his outstretched body. When they left, someone entered the chamber wearing some sort of helmet and led Walton to another room where one of three additional individuals put a clear plastic mask over his face just before he blacked out.
Walton remembers nothing else until he found himself lying along the side of a highway, with the UFO departing from sight just above him.
The Travis Walton case was the first to be given serious attention by mainstream science; causing many non-believers to reconsideration their position on the notion of alien abductions. Many theories have been placed forward to explain the Walton abduction as something other than what it was; however, none of the alleged scenarios are consistent with the facts of the case.
Close Encounters of the Fifth Kind involves direct communication between aliens and humans. Therefore, as Earth’s scientists edge closer to discovering life elsewhere in the cosmos, language specialists are trying to determine the best way to communicate with them. For obvious reasons, this is un-charted territory. After all, a dialectal that originates from another planet that’s far, far away will likely be unfathomable to humans, so experts have turned to what could be a universal language: Math.
Close Encounters of the Sixth kind involves the death of animals or humans associated with a UFO encounter. The 1st documented Animal Mutilation occurred September 7, 1967 when “Lady”, a three-year-old Appaloosa mare, failed to return to her pasture for her morning drink on the Harry King ranch near Alamosa, Colorado.
Her carcass was found in a far pasture, two days later. Parts of the animal had been neatly cut with surgical expertise: her heart and brain were missing and a strange formaldehyde-like odor drifted from the carcass, yet no incriminating tracks were found anywhere near the body that might help explain how Lady met her unfortunate end.
This mysterious event is still unsolved and started the animal mutilation sensation that has occurred repeatedly throughout the United States.
Finally there are Close Encounters of the Seventh Kind; such interaction involves contact with an actual alien, an android, a human-alien hybrid, or the off-spring of a “hybrid”.
The most frequently encountered beings of the “7th Kind” are the mysterious “Men in Black” (MIB); the oddly behaved individuals often show up on the scene shortly after a UFO sighting. Men in Black are not believed to be quite human, but witnesses may not recognize this fact until midway through an encounter. They’re typically wearing black suits complimented with dark sunglasses and often arrive in shiny new black cars. These guys often claim to be government agents who harass or threaten those who have recently seen a UFO and in no uncertain terms, direct the UFO witness (or witnesses) to keep their mouth shut in regard to their recent, unusual encounter!
Unless you ‘long’ for a visit from the Men in Black, it’s probably best not to share the fact that from time to time, encounters of the 7th Kind are attributed to human-alien hybrid athletes who enjoy superior physical abilities in their chosen field of spectator sports; often times coupled with what is perceived to be unusual and or bizarre day to day behavior －above and beyond their superior professional skills. Examples include Dennis Rodman, whose many body piercings, tattoos, and baffling behavior throughout and after his professional basketball career are considered, well, outside the realm of normalcy. Rodman’s assertion that he is the oldest of a total of 27 children only reinforces this contention; even though he was born in Trenton, New Jersey, his biological father, some allege, is an alien.
A second example is former Major League Baseball (MLB) pitcher Nolan Ryan (aka The Ryan Express). During his record 27-year baseball career, he was nothing short of a pitching machine! Ryan’s robotic-like accuracy and power were beyond this world, as he regularly threw strikes exceeding 100 miles per hour. His career strikeouts of 5,714 remain a record no “full-stock” human may ever contest as is indicated by runner-up, Randy Johnson, who trails Ryan by 839 strikeouts. During his “sunset” years, Ryan continued proving he is more than a mere earthling by his many demanding exploits by serving as an executive adviser to the owner of the Houston Astros until 2019. Of late (2024), Ryan lives in Georgetown, Texas and spends a lot of time on his ranch in South Texas. He focuses on his cattle ranching company, Nolan Ryan Beef, which he founded in 2000.
Then, there’s Bill Lee; Lee is a former Montreal Expo and Boston Red Sox pitcher, he too is among the list of those likely to be of alien descent that has lived large in the midst of the sporting community. Yeah, it’s true that left-handed pitchers have a tendency to walk on the weird side of life, but Lee’s outspoken manner and constant quest to redefine logic coupled with his unparalleled tomfoolery throughout his career and beyond, are more easily explained as being “other-worldly”. Even his nickname, “Spaceman” points to the supposition that this guy’s bloodline really came from a planet, far, far away; not Burbank, California, as he has suggested. At age 69 in 2016, Lee entered the sport of politics, when he ran for governor of Vermont; he didn’t take campaign contributions and his campaign slogan, “So far left, we’re right” was not sufficient to place him in the Governor’s Mansion, but he did received 8,912 votes.
For years, as a professional basketball player, Michael Jordan was suspected of being of alien descent, primarily because his far superior basketball playing style and ability so eclipsed his worthy opponents. Jordan, as a professional basketball player, was beyond compare; little wonder, even after his less than remarkable attempt at professional baseball, there are still good folks who believe his baseball days were nothing more than a “smoke screen” he tactfully placed before his fans and the media so as to conceal his true origin — an alien hybrid whose mother, Deloris, some say, is from the same star system as Rodman’s dad.
🙂 🙂 🙂
Close Encounters are not a new phenomenon:
In 593 B.C. Ezekiel reported a “whirlwind to the north which appeared as a fiery sphere”.
In 1254 at Saint Albans Abbey was reportedly, “when the moon was eight days old, there appeared in the sky a ship elegantly shaped, well equipped and of marvelous color”.
Christopher Columbus, while on the deck of the Santa Maria on October 11, 1492, at 10:00 P.M., observed “a light glimmering at a great distance.” “It disappeared and reappeared several times during the night, moving up and down, in sudden and passing gleams.”
In 1520 France there was sighted “a round-shaped object with rotating lights and two fiery suns”.
In 1874 Texas a farmer reported seeing “a dark flying object in the shape of a disc cruising in the sky at a wonderful speed”.
These are but a few of many such events recorded by historians that are related to Close Encounters with UFO’s.
Such events have been reported throughout documented history and in countless parts of the world; giving raise to questions about life on other planets and whether extraterrestrials have visited Earth of recent date and or in the distant past. From the modern prospective, Close Encounters have become a key subject of interest—and the inspiration for movies, TV shows, and books – particularly following the advancement of rocketry beyond World War II.
Yes, it’s true that the unaided eye can, and often does, play tricks on the mind regarding UFO sightings or Close Encounters. Then too, in certain respects radar sightings can be more reliable, although, they can occasionally fail to discriminate between meteor trails, ionized gas such as a flame, or even rain in the atmosphere; thus creating more doubts in such situations. Yet, to acknowledge such deficiencies most certainly does not disprove all reported Close Encounters with Unidentified Flying Objects.
Just ask anybody that knows: We are not alone!
Sources:
http://www.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/news-bfi/features/why-i-love-close encounters-third-kind
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_abduction
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/extraterrestrial-abduction-day-four-unexplained-7510031
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Close_encounter#Close_Encounters_of_the_First_kind
https://www.thoughtco.com/the-travis-walton-abduction-3293372
http://www.history.com/news/americas-first-ufo-sighting
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/08/28/houston-ufos-explanation_n_5710533.html
https://www.pdxmonthly.com/articles/2012/4/20/oregon-ufo-guide-may-2012
http://www.gograph.com/vector-clip-art/close-encounters-of-the-third-kind.html
https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/kent-csi/vol10no4/html/v10i4a07p_0001.htm /www.express.co.uk/news/science/814709/FIRST-CONTACT-aliens-communicate
http://listverse.com/2016/06/17/top-10-close-encounters-of-the-sixth-kind/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Jordan
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Lee_(left-handed_pitcher)
Can You Imagine That?