Warren P. Aston 1997
Excerpted From UFO Magazine March/April 1998 - ISSN 0966-1107

An amazing alien encounter 7 years before either Roswell or Kenneth Arnold's sighting may offer our best chance yet to understand where some UFO's come from and why they are visiting our planet. For more than two decades, Udo Wartena, a Dutch immigrant living in the Western U.S., kept what had happened to him one spring morning in May 1940 a secret, not even telling his wife. Before dying in 1989 he finally confided in two friends and then wrote the details of his experience down so it would not be lost. Udo's incredible story remained completely unknown in UFO circles however until the details were finally released by Australian researcher Warren Aston at the Prestigious M.U.F.O.N. (MUTIAL UFO NETWORK) annual symposium in Michigan in July 1997. Warren takes up the story.

The detailed and straightforward report of Udo Wartena is the most revealing, informative and totally credible of any claimed alien encounter that I have studied in some twenty years of research. There is not the slightest hint of any deception, evasion or fraud in his story and the witness enjoyed the highest imaginable endorsement for his integrity and honesty - often given unsolicited - by those who knew him best over his lifetime. If, as the evidence overwhelmingly suggests, this experience actually occurred, then at least part of the question about UFO origins is decisively answered. I am not claiming that this case reveals the full picture of alien activity on Earth; the spectrum of alien contact is much broader and more complex than any single case can reveal. I also do not claim that all genuine extraterrestrials have the same appearance that the aliens did in this case; however such aliens are more frequently reported than even many researchers are aware of, but seem to lack the news or book-selling value of the omnipresent 'greys'. My own research suggests that perhaps twenty or more different alien groups may be involved in visiting our planet and operating here at the present time, so obviously a number of motives and agendas are probable...

Copyright © 1998 - 2006 by G. Richardson

Despite having died over four decades ago George Adamski still remains one of the most discussed personalities ever to have been involved in Ufology. Always a controversial figure, Adamski came to be regarded by some as a “prophet” whilst others described him as a total fraud. Adamski first saw the light of day on April 17th, 1891 in Poland. His parents decided that the U.S.A. offered far more opportunity and the whole family immigrated to Dunkirk, New York State when George was two years of age. Adamski was not particularly well educated as a child but overcame this with self-education.

In 1912 he joined the U.S. Army and served on the Mexican Border with the U.S. Cavalry until 1916 when he returned to civilian life working at Yellowstone National Park. He is also known to have been employed as a flour mill worker and a concrete contractor in Los Angeles.Adamski displayed his capable and lively intellect when, in the 1930s, he founded an organization called “The Royal Order of Tibet” which provided a platform for him to expound his own philosophies of “Universal Law”. Quickly, Adamski became known as “the professor” despite the fact that he had received very little in the form of a formal education. He then established a monastery at Laguna Beach, California, obtain a license from the authorities to make wine for sacramental and religious purposes (Prohibition was still the law of the land, at this time).  Adamski was later quoted as saying: “I made enough wine for all of Southern California!”. Adamski was quite successful lecturing his own brand of philosophy but all good things must come to an end, which is what happened when prohibition was repealed and his wine was not in demand. Always resourceful Adamski and his wife Mary opened a café at Palomar Gardens on the slopes of Mount Palomar in north San Diego County, California, on which the famous Mount Palomar Observatory had been established.

It is certainly easy to see why signs in the heavens should be of such peculiar concern to the Roman Catholic Church, or indeed, any religious institution. For the link between divine presences and the skies above is deeply ingrained in human consciousness and language. The very word “heaven,” denoting God’s Kingdom with the vertical connotations of up = good, down = bad, not to mention the importance “signs from above” throughout recorded history argue that this connection is not accidental. It seems to be an intimate archetypal association that is reflected in whatever geocentric cosmologies we humans construct. When Christ prayed, “Our Father, Who art in Heaven,” it is important to remember that in the Ptolemaic world-view of the time, “Heaven” was not the abstract, ethereal dimension of fluffy clouds and white light we think of now. Rather, God’s realm was a physical place above the outermost shell of stars surrounding the Earth. Just as nowadays, there is a growing temptation to wonder just what planet Jesus was referring to! Much of this is due to the wholesale recasting of mythological themes by mass sci-fi, most notably by the Star Trek and Star Wars franchises. Such literalization itself reflects the mysterious connection between divinity and the dome of heaven that makes the questions posed by UFOs profoundly religious ones.

Close encounters of the Biblical kind: The Bible, both Old and New Testaments, is filled with accounts of encounters with divine beings that read uncomfortably to us moderns like tales of extraterrestrial contact out of a bad space opera. Barry H. Downing’s The Bible and Flying Saucers (1968) [1], for instance, contains a long litany of them. He bravely put forth the necessary questions Christianity must now ask when faced with signs from the heavens.A few of his examples: Abraham and the “smoking firepot and a flaming torch” that appeared in the sky as a sign of acceptance of his sacrifice (Genesis 15:17), the “pillar of cloud” by day and the “pillar of fire” by night that led Moses and the Israelites (Exodus 13:22), God landing on Mount Sinai in smoke...