Tales of High Strangeness.

Saturday Night Fever : LA, Los Vegas and at the Salton Sea

August of 1995 and the working group had picked up a couple of new researchers. I was the only member from the original 1992 working group that was still active. The one new investigator with the most promise was Natalia. She liked to go by the name Natasha. Tall , dark and athletic, she looked more like a fashion model than the cosmetologist that she was. Natasha played a key role in field work operations during that entire year. She revealed herself to be, in my opinion, the most determined female CE-5 Investigator that I was ever privileged to work with on the West Coast. Although central to continuing the field investigations, she was only to play a minor role in this yet another tale of high strangeness.

Richard is a successful businessman in Orange County. I made his acquaintance on the telephone in the summer of 1995. We chatted for about an hour, sharing our interest in things UFO-logical. He expressed his support of the contact movement by sending a generous contribution to CSETI. To convey my personal thanks, I sent him a package of UFO videos describing the work of Steven Greer’s Center for the Study of Extraterrestrial Intelligence. He continued to call me that summer to describe his plan to bring forward important information about the Roswell Incident.

Richard described himself as a former Air Force brat. He told me that he grew up, like countless other children of officers, on a series of US military installations. Friendships between childhood buddies were often interrupted because of frequent transfers to far flung bases around the globe. It was hard to keep in touch, but Richard remembered the name of one particular pal called James. They had spent a year or two together, when both their fathers, career Air Force officers, were reportedly stationed in Europe during the 1950s.

In the early 1990s, Jim’s father, now retired from the service, was identified by the press as a high level government witness in the alleged crash of a UFO outside of Roswell New Mexico. Jim’s dad was reportedly working at the base in 1947 when the incident occurred. According to some investigators’ accounts, James” father handled the wreckage and played a key role in the cover-up. Richard got the idea to get in touch with his childhood buddy when he learned these details.

Jim in fact was working in the same profession as Richard. According to Richard however, his childhood pal was not very successful in business. Richard came up with the following plan to help his friend financially, while at the same time getting the truth out about the alleged cover-up.

Richard thought that perhaps Jim’s Dad might be convinced to reveal to his son, what his secret role had been during the Roswell affair. A manuscript describing what actually happened, could then be prepared. It would only be published with Jim’s father’s OK. As he was getting on in years, the book might conceivably be printed only after his death. As a old friend, and son of a fellow Air Force officer, Richard could play the role of a trusted intermediary. Rich wanted to assist Jim in the writing, editing and publishing of an insider’s account of what had happened so long ago outside of Roswell.

I thought the plan was intriguing and gave Rich some encouragement during our phone conversations in June and July of 1995. I refereed Rich to CSETI central and tried not to get too involved. The whole operation was truly over my head. It seemed like a high risk endeavor with little chance of success. After all, what was the likelihood that an old soldier who had kept his silence for almost 50 years, would be willing to break whatever secrecy oaths he made, and tell all. As far as I was concerned this was Project Starlight material. I just didn’t have the time or resources to work on it. Let Greer and his staff handle these new leads. I was still working in the Emergency Room and had two teenagers at home. My hands were more than full trying to continue the contact work on a totally voluntary basis by conducting field investigations.

Richard mentioned to me on the phone that he was planning to visit with his childhood friend in Las Vegas. They could discuss his proposal while doing some sight seeing. There was a lot to catch up on. Rich and Jim were scheduled to meet on Saturday July 29 , 1995. I wished him luck on his project and said good bye.

On the very same night, that James and Richard were to meet, Sasha and I were on the phone chit-chatting. It was about 10 PM. We were just talking about family stuff when Sash said, “Joe I see lights on my ceiling.”

While still on the line, he described the following. He saw a multitude of tiny solitary lights on the ceiling in his living room. They formed a series of concentric circles, “like a galaxy,” he said.

They were flicking on and off . The pattern initially appeared random. The image covered several square feet of the ceiling. The lights then coalesced to form an image of an et. Sasha as you might imagine was enthralled. I listened patiently.

Sash said that the strange image had a holographic appearance to it. The being according to Sasha was your typical so called “Zeta Reticula” entity. You know little guy, big head, large eyes far apart. Sasha started to laugh in delight, he said, “Joe, he’s smiling at me.”

I couldn’t help but thinking, “Boy is this weird!”

I immediately hypothesized that this might be yet another staged sighting for both Sasha’s and my edification. I felt a little uneasy in what I was about to ask Sasha to do. I wanted to extract some psycho-physiological information about their interactive technology by using Sasha’s encounter. The thought occurred to me that it might be selfish of me to try to use this highly personal, even whimsical experience, to advance my knowledge outside of the confines of regular field work.

Nevertheless I proceeded with a quickly construed plan. I remembered UFO investigator Stanton Friedman’s dictum that,” the Ets did not just fall off the cabbage wagon.” John Salter, a contactee who was a civil rights organizer leader in 1960s has repeatedly stated that the Ets are extraordinarily well prepared for their interactions with us. So I reasoned, or perhaps rationalized, “If they choose to interact with Sasha when he is on the phone with me, then I guess I’m supposed to be in on it too.” I proceeded with my plan.

Sasha reported that his right eye started tearing profusely. No he wasn’t crying, but the energy presumably producing the image was apparently having a definite physiological effect on his right eye. I then asked him to try and get out his camera to snap a picture or get a video of the image. His immediately response was, “No Joe, no pictures allowed! They don’t want that!” I then proceeded to ask him to do the following.

“Sasha”, I said, “please close your right eye and tell me what you see.” He complied with my request and he immediately reported,” I still see him Joe.” I then asked him to alternately close one eye and then the other and then both. The holographic image of the et was still there in his visual field. Bingo! The image was probably being created by some energy source and then directed into the occipital cortex via the optic nerve. I was truly amazed.

The image then changed. Sasha described viewing a satellite type picture of Southern California from about 500 miles out in space. He told me that he could see the off shore islands to the west and across the desert eastwards nearly to the Arizona border. A bright line reportedly formed on the image. It swept across the map from west to east. Starting out in the Pacific it pointed inland to a desert location. At the level of knowledge Sasha acquired the information that our team was supposed to go there for field work. This same site had been described repeatedly to him by non-human intelligence in the past. Adhering to CSETI terminology, we designated this psi mediated information as “subjectively acquired material.” According to Sasha it told him that we should go to the spot marked on the hologram, way out in the desert near the Salton Sea.

The entire experience lasted about 10 minutes. Sasha reported some discomfort in the right eye during his strange encounter, but apparently there were no lasting ill effects. This account although unique, is similar to other experience that have been described in the literature with hologram like type projections presumably caused by non-human intelligence during close encounters.

Now comes the catch. The night that this strangeness occurred was Saturday, July 29^th. Richard and James were in a hotel in Las Vegas. Rich reported that he had rented a suite for them on the 19^th floor of the Luxor Hotel. The room was on the 19^th floor. This was high enough to prevent ambient light from the outside to penetrate the window, especially with the shades closed. Now here comes Richard’s weirdness account.

Several days later I recieved a call from him . Please remember that we had just been acquainted with each other from several telephone conversations. We had never actually met in person. There was no reasonable way in the world that he could have known about my conversation with Sasha.

Richard started off by saying, “I know you probably won’t believe this Dr. Burkes, but several nights ago I had the strangest experience.” He went on to describe how on the previous Sunday morning, between 1 and 2 AM on July 30, while he was on the 19^th floor of the Luxor Hotel, he suddenly awoke. (Now recall this reportedly took place just 3 hours after my conversation with Sasha!)

Richard found himself looking up at the ceiling and immediately noticed something strange. The fire alarm, with its characteristic red light, was no longer flashing. Instead, surrounding it was a constellation of flickering lights, perhaps 20 or 30 in number. The tiny lights were reportedly flashing on and off around the smoke detector. Robert became alarmed when he realized there was no reasonable way that these lights should appear on the ceiling. There was no street light coming in through the window, nor was there any other source within the room that could account for what he was seeing on the ceiling.

As he watched the weird display, his apprehension grew. The thought occurred to him that this might be some kind of alien contact experience. He told me that he said to himself, “Oh, I don’t think I can handle this.” Immediately after having this thought, the flickering lights disappeared and the normal red flashing light of the smoke detector went back on. Richard reported quickly fell asleep. He actually used the phrase, “ I passed out.” He assured me however, that he was quite certain that his experience was not a dream.

Now remember he had just finished spending a day with the son of a high level witness in the Roswell affair. A childhood chum who was reportedly sleeping in the twin bed next to Richard. His purported goal was to try and blow the lid off the secrecy campaign around the Roswell crash. The next thing that happened was an anomalous display of lights appeared on the ceiling. His description of the lights matched Sasha’s live report on the phone. What do these two accounts mean?

When asked, neither Sasha nor Rich admitted knowing one another. They lived miles apart and moved in entirely different social circles. One was an avowed life-long contactee and hospital worker. The other was a successful middle class businessman who was just getting in touch with the contact movement.

What was the common link? I guess yours truly is the first answer that comes to mind. Dr. Joe Burkes was someone they both knew and were in touch with. Did Sasha and Richard secretly conspire to hoax their contact experiences just to fool me? That notion is totally ridiculous. Could it have been mere coincidence? I suppose anything is possible.

The following week Sasha, Natalia and I drove out to the desert. We were headed for the location reportedly pointed out to Sasha during his phone conversation with me. We had a late start, yet the heat, even after 9 PM, was over 100 degrees. Our arrival was delayed by a blow out on the 10 Freeway. Sasha at the wheel, skillfully pulled my Isuzu Trooper off on to the left shoulder to safety. With the tire changed we finally did get to the desired location on the western coast of the Salton Sea. The site felt “dead”, meaning that there was no “presence of consciousness.” We had no sightings and arrived back home exhausted at 6 in the morning.

So what then was the point of Sasha’s and Richard’s high strangeness experiences? It certainly was not to help set up a successful Close Encounter of the Fifth Kind out in the desert for my team. The most likely explanation from my vantage point was that non-human intelligence, this “otherness that we call et,” were communicating to me via proxies. They were staging psi mediated interactive encounters, to give me yet another example of their virtuoso mental capabilities.

I suppose this explanation, albeit a self centered one, is as good as any other. Why should non-human intelligence stage repeated high strangeness experiences for members of the contact underground? That is the million dollar question many of us would like to have answered. Could it have something to do with my participation in a movement promoting cosmic peace and a celebrating all conscious life in universe? Perhaps not. Yet isn’t it pretty to think so?

One universe, one people!

Joseph Burkes, MD

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