Notes from the Contact Underground

Double Missing Time on Highway 62

SYNOPSIS: Two UFO field investigators experienced double missing time in the high desert. High strangeness phenomenon occurred during the ride home consisting of a bizarre interaction with an unseen intelligence apparently mediated by a spinning compass. This incident was one of 3 missing time episodes that were experienced by members of the CSETI contact network.

INTRODUCTION

On December 26 1993 following an all night field work session at Joshua Tree National Monument, Misha (a pseudonym) and I drove back to Los Angeles. We left the Arco station at Yucca at 6 AM. The trip ordinarily takes about 3 and a half hours. On the day following Christmas there was almost no traffic on the 10 Freeway. Misha took advantage of the nearly deserted highway to drive home at high speed. His powerful Nissan Maxima effortlessly cruised most of the way at speeds between 80 and 90 miles an hour. On arriving home, I was surprised to see the time was 10 AM . Fatigued from the night of sky watch activities I didn’t give it much thought. Later I realized at high speed the trip back from the desert should have been little more that 2 hours.

Back in 93 Misha and I were still working together at the Medical Center. Over breakfast several days later in the basement cafeteria I noticed that Misha looked ill at ease. He commented that it had taken too long for us to get home.” I think we had missing time in the desert. “ he said. “ The image of my electric clock flashing 10:00 AM echoed through my mind. It had taken us 4 hours to drive home. I confessed to Misha, “I think you may be right.” This is an account of the high strangeness events that occurred on our ride back from the desert, December 26, 1993.

It was Christmas week and all of our Los Angeles CE-5 Initiative field investigators were busy with family or were out of town. On Christmas day Misha and I went out into the field hoping to recapitulate our Memorial Day encounter. What happened was far stranger than anything I have experienced during my years as a UFO investigator.

The desert was dark, cold and still. The absence of wind was a blessing. The temperature dropped into the low 30s. We stationed ourselves 3 miles south of the circle road at a backboard located on Old Geology Road. I recall leading a half-hearted guided meditation. The site felt terribly empty. The anticipation of contact that is experienced as a kind of buzz, was sadly absent. I scanned the research site with my eyes, while my mind reached out for the “presence of consciousness.“

PRESENCE OF CONSIOUSNESS

The best way to explain this term “presence of consciousness “is by describing a game we all enjoyed during childhood. Recall how when playing hide and seek you would enter a room and just “know” someone was hiding there. Holding your breath and listening for a telltale giggle, you might not find a soul. Nevertheless you were certain that someone was truly there. In a similar way one can experience the “presence of consciousness” during field work. This awareness of not being alone is also described as simply, “mind.”

I snuggled in my sleeping bag. A ground tarp separated me from the cold desert sand. I must of dozed off around 2 AM. The next thing I heard was Misha moving around the campsite. He was packing up. I looked at my watch, it was only 4:30 AM, a good 2 hours before daybreak.

I was perplexed by Misha’s unannounced decision to break camp. If any contact were going to take place this night, now was our chance. What’s up Misha? I asked. “What’s the rush? He offered no explanation. Singularly focused on packing, he answered in monosyllables. “Let’s go!” was all he offered. This was the third time we had ventured out together at Joshua Tree. I had never seen him in such a rush to go. I figured he had his reasons.

One hundred miles to the west in their cozy apartment, I envisioned Misha’s beautiful fiancee Renata dreamily awaiting his return. I thought of my youth and first love. I met Yael, my future wife when I was just 17. “Oh to be young and in love!” I mused. Passionate thoughts of his Slavic beauty were likely fueling Misha’s desire to rush back to LA. Not ready to call it quits, I suggested that we do some light work before departing. “Maybe we can still have a sighting.” I suggested.

But Misha just continued packing in silence. With some reluctance I pitched in and loaded our equipment into the back of his Maxima. Well at least he would be doing the driving. I could finish my nap on the ride back to town. Partial overcast blocked out most of the stars. In near pitch darkness we drove down into the village of Joshua Tree. Little did I know what or who might be waiting for us on further down the road on highway 62.

We gassed up the vehicle and then checked the oil. We then took turns at what must have been the most malordorous rest room in the Yucca Valley. . It was 6 AM as we drove through the empty streets of Yucca Valley. Misha took great heed not drive over speed limit. Many a visitor has paid dearly to the local police who set up traps for unsuspecting motorists. On the outskirts of town, an ancient Toyota sports car slowly passed us. It was a two seater, the one that looks like an imitation of the British “Triumph.“

STRANGE LIGHTS FOLLOW US IN THE RAVINE

A few minutes later we passed through the Morongo Valley. There highway 62 turns sharply downward into a narrow ravine. During the winter storms, rock slides can break loose from the steep cliffs. For several miles there are no exits till just north of Desert Hot Springs.

Hurtling down through the gorge, Misha drew my attention to a pair of headlights following us. The winding course through the ravine allows visibility of only a few hundred yards in either direction. I looked back and initially saw nothing. I waited. Sure enough, a few moments later, rounding a turn, an ordinary pair of headlights appeared. “It’s just a car Misha. “I said.

“There’s something funny about it Joe.” he replied. He later confided in me that an amber light had suddenly appeared in between the headlights. We speed around another turn in the ravine. I looked back and again saw nothing. I assumed that the vehicle was simply obscured by another turn in the road. Misha later revealed to me that the object I thought was a car, appeared “to lift right off the road. “I don’t know whether to thank him or not for his omission. In retrospect I assume that nothing we said or did could alter what was about to occur.

That’s when even stranger things started happening. We reached the point where the ravine opens up. Before us suddenly appeared a panoramic vista of the desert at night. Directly facing us, some 15 miles away loomed an enormous wall of granite, San Jacinto Mountain. To the southeast the flat desert floor stretched out for some 30 miles. The lights from resort village of Desert Hot Springs twinkled on our left. It was a mere 5 miles distant. Further to the east, tucked up against the base of the mountains, we could see the lights of Palm Springs shimmering on the valley floor.

Heading south on 62 there is solitary hill on the west side of the pavement as one emerges from the ravine. Here the narrow road becomes a divided highway with a wooded island separating the traffic. The hillock on the right side of the road is less than one hundred and twenty feet high. Separated from the entrance to the gorge by only a few hundred feet, the hill stands like a lonely watch tower guarding the passage way to the ravine.

By December 1993 I must passed that desolate mound of rocks and dirt a dozen times. It is not particularly noteworthy. There were no houses or roads on its steep slopes. There are no aircraft warning beacon on its dirt covered crest. On this particular morning however, the hillock appeared rather different. First of all it seemed as if it had nearly doubled in size. Like a blacked out skyscraper it towered over the right side of the road. In addition there was a solitary non-blinking red light on its crest. As we speed down the road at about 60 miles per hour. I immediately drew Misha’s attention to the light. “Hey Misha, I don’t remember any light ever being up there. “I rolled my window down and got ready with the signal lantern.

Overhead in the darkened sky, there were a surprising number of moving lights. It seemed strange, the day after Christmas that there would be several private pilots out flying at 6 AM in the morning. Less than 2 miles away, I saw the typical flashing beacon of what I assumed must have been a small plane. It was slowly moving north into the air space over Joshua Tree National Park. The craft was heading towards the plateau from which Misha and I had just descended.

Further in the distance I picked out another strobe meandering over Desert Hot Springs. The strangest light of all was a large brilliant white one. It was in the sky over Palm Springs and was accelerating directly towards us at seemed a tremendous speed. Again I thought it strange, that a commercial jet would be scheduled to take off so early on a workday in the middle of the Christmas Holidays. “Maybe it’s some millionaire playing with his Lear jet.” I postulated.

THE HILLSIDE APPEARED TO DISSOLVE

Frustrated by a uneventful night of field work, I was ready to signal at practically anything. I rolled down the window and fired my 500,000 candle power signal lantern at the red light on top of the hill. The target did not strobe or change intensity. The lonely beacon was fixed to a point that was some 20 feet above the crest on the hill. I must admit I felt a little foolish signaling at the solitary light. At the time I was convinced that there had to be some reasonable explanation for its presence. I had trouble explaining tom myself however why I had never seen it before. True to what I imagined was the contact worker’s creed, I was not about to miss an opportunity to interact with something that might turn out to be truly anomalous.

With the window down, cold winter air poured into the cabin. Pointing towards the top of the hill, which now seemed to be over 300 feet tall, I let loose with a salvo from my “light bazooka.” There was no reply from the solitary red light.

As the broad bolt of light from the lantern flashed upwards, I muttered under my breath “What the hell!” There was no reflection from the rock face. The beam simply plowed into multitude of boulders on the hillside. Instead of getting a sharp image from the rock face, the section of the hill directly in the center of the beam appeared to dissolve into a kind of hazy white cloud. In amazement, probably with my mouth wide open, I pulled the trigger of the lantern tight and steady. I saw a portion of the hill some twenty feet across simply turn into mist. “This is too weird,” I muttered. “I must be really tired.” I was surely going to get some good sleep when I got home.

While I was fussing with the light, Misha was still preoccupied with the lights that had been following us in the ravine. He urgently told me to look behind. Having problems of my own, I did not particularly care for the tone in his voice.

“Look Misha “ I said, “it’s just a car! What are you worried about? There are no exits off this stretch of road. Let’s stop the car,” I proposed. “Whatever it is that’s behind us will simply pass us by. We’ll get a good look at it and that’ll be the end of it.” What Misha had neglected to tell me, was that he had just seen the “car” with three headlights, two white lights and a yellow one in between, gently lift off the road into the air.

Misha slowed down and pulled off onto the gravel shoulder. I still had my cold weather gear on and the open widow was a welcome relief from the cars heater. Misha was wearing his polypropylene undershirt, but no jacket. He let the engine idle and we sat there. It seemed like a mere 15 or twenty seconds passed when Misha started shouting at me to close the window. “I’m freezing!” he cried.

In retrospect I thought it strange that Misha would complain about being cold. Born in a small town in White Russia. he seemed to find the Southern California winters mild to a fault. During field work, on more than one occasion, when others complained bitterly about the cold, Misha merrily moved around the campsite with his jacket open. The window had only been open for several minutes at most, nevertheless he made it known in no uncertain tones that he was freezing. I now believe that we had just experienced missing time, the first of two apparent episodes that we were to endure that cold dark morning. I imagine the window must have been down for a much longer than twenty seconds. If Misha’s latter account is credible, he was taken on board spacecraft.

I EXPERIENCED A STRANGE SENSE OF MISGIVING

I recall feeling dazed. I am certain that I did not fall asleep while waiting for the vehicle to pass. It seemed like we had sat there for only a few moments. As I rolled the window up at Misha’s demand, I experienced a strange sense of misgiving. There was something wrong going on here, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.

No car had passed, Misha later confirmed this observation. Without exchanging a word to one another, he accelerated back on to the highway. Given all the activity on the ground, on the hill and in the air, we certainly should have been tracking the lights and making notes of our observations. Such excitement should have keep us busy for some time. Instead like two zombies we drove on in silence down the dark highway. We did not even address the issue of the “car” that never passed us while we waited on shoulder. There were other things that were out of place. I recall no longer seeing the moving lights in the sky that I had assumed were small planes. In what seemed like less than a minute they were gone. There was no sign of the brilliant white light that I assumed belonged to a Lear jet. The last memory I have of this object was its rapid acceleration towards our position at the entrance to the ravine. The darkness enveloped us, broken only by the faint flickering of stars.

I AM CERTAIN THAT I DID NOT FALL ASLEEP

As we drove towards US 10, the sound of the engine was hypnotic. I looked to the east and watched as the sun’s distant light softly illuminating the black eastern horizon. It glowed dark red, like the dying embers of a campfire. It was beautiful. Daybreak was still some time off. I listened to the purr of the motor, although tired I am certain that I did not fall asleep.

In what seemed like a flash, it was suddenly broad daylight. The sound of the engine was the same. Just as before Misha was there at the wheel, but suddenly the sun was quite high in the sky. Something had happened. But what? That particular stretch of highway 62 between the ravine and US 10 is only about 7 miles long. At 65 miles an hour it takes less than 7 minutes to cover the distance. From the height of the sun in the sky, considerably more time must have elapsed. In my dazed state I had trouble focusing on these details. Reassured by the sound of the motor and the warmth of the car’s heater, I experienced no fear. With San Jacinto Mountain towering above us we turned on to the ten lane superhighway. Straight as an arrow it carried across the desert towards a megalopolis known as Los Angeles.

There was almost no traffic on the road. After making sure that Misha was quite awake and not likely to fall asleep at the wheel, I decided it was safe to take a nap. I told Sash that if he found himself getting sleepy he absolutely must wake me up. Then I would take over. Later he confessed that he took advantage of empty highway to see what his beloved Maxima was really made of. While I dozed as snug as a bug in a rug, Misha zooming down the road at 90 miles per hour. I awoke suddenly from a dreamless sleep. Misha announced that he had to stop for some coffee.

Strong hot coffee in the belly and cold water on the face, sufficiently revived us to continue. In less than 20 minutes we were back on the road. There was increasingly more traffic as we approached LA. We were soon to be treated to another experience that can only be described as very high strangeness.

STRANGE INTERACTION WITH A SPINNING COMPASS

His plan was as follows, to facilitate communication with the unseen force, he proposed that we ask a question out loud. Sash requested that the intelligence responsible for the spinning compass (presumable ET) should supply “answers” in the following manner. The spinning of the compass would mean a “yes” reply to the question stated. If it stopped spinning, that would signify a “no” reply.

To my amazement and to Misha’s delight, for the next half an hour, the compass appeared to spin out intelligible answers to the series of questions we (to use a new age expression) sent out to the “universe.” Granted, we did not videotape the spinning needle. Nor did we measure with a stopwatch the time elapsed between our questions and “answers” as given by the compass. Despite these and countless other flaws in our investigator’s method, we had the distinct impression that the spinning or lack of spinning appeared to be in response to the questions asked.

I understand debunkers of this kind of high strangeness will probable have a field day with the following account. In rebuttal I offer the observation of author Whitely Strieber who has wisely pointed our that the only thing consistent about this contact phenomenon is that “it is consistently strange.” I suppose it is very possible that the compass was spinning randomly and it was just wishful thinking and imagination that made the experience appear interactive. If this be so, one still should ask what caused the spinning? It would appear that the needle(and other objects in the vehicle) were exposed to a rapidly changing magnetic field. It was an energy that manifested along a broad stretch of highway in a congested metropolitan area.

The following “interview”, is an edited version of a report that I sent out to CE-5 I working group coordinators several months later. The “yes” and “no” responses, with few surprises, seemed appropriate and predictable answers to the questions we asked. Inexplicably the tiny magnet stopped moving after each reply. To give a sense of the playful exchange, here is a portion of the “dialogue”. As demonstrated by the transcript, family concerns were foremost in out minds.

Q. Do you want Misha to go on board(an ET spacecraft.)

A. Immediate and strong spin, “yes!”

Q. Did you create a flying saucer sighting over Misha’s mother’s house so that his family would support Misha in CSETI research?

A. Immediate and strong spin,” yes”

Q. Did you further help him by assisting a change in Renata’s frame of mind to have a more positive attitude about ETI and CSETI’s contact work?

A. “Y”

(Both Misha and I both were running into some pretty heavy flack from our mates concerning the contact work. We were obviously hoping for any help we could find.)

Q. Will you do the same for Joe Burkes?

A. “Y”

This reply was a relief for me. Misha and I were not the only contact workers who were experiencing family stress from our unusual avocation. This was a common concern for working groups all over the country. Other questions focused on the “entity” that we thought we were communicating with.

Q. Are you a group mind?

A. No spinning, “No!” (This was a bit of a surprise to us.)

Q. Are you an individual mind?

A. Slow spin, “Y”

Q. Do we(WG members and the ETs), share the same consciousness?

A. Strong and immediate spin “Yes!”

Other questions deemed important focused on the possible nature of the ET

group that our teams were interacting with. The “answers” were somewhat

surprising. They did not match our expectations

Q. Do you know Steven Greer?

A. “No” (We had expected a resounding “yes!” After all we had anticipated that everybody who is anybody in the universe should know the renowned UFO leader.)

Q. Do you know Steven’s friends?(his ET contacts)

A. Slow spin “Yes”.

Despite our sleep deprived state, both Misha and I had the widom to repeat several of these questions at different times during the “interview.” Always we received the same “answers” in the form of spin, or no spin of the compass. Whatever was going on in the car as we sped along, at least there was apparent reproducibility of the phenomena. It bolstered our hope that we were not complete victims of chance and wishful thinking.

CREDIT CARDS WERE DEMAGNETIZED

As we drove through the downtown area the spinning got weaker and finally stopped. We too were exhausted. The magnetic flux which apparently created the phenomenon initially appeared quite powerful and highly focused. Misha later reported that credit cards in his wallet all became demagnetized. His wallet was sitting less that 12 inches from the spinning compass. The cards in my wallet, placed securely in the trunk, were not affected.

To Misha’s dismay, his micro-cassette tape recorder was affected as well. During our “dialogue” with the unseen force his recorder was on Misha in his jacket pocket. We both had used tape recorders to document our field observations the night before. Later Misha played that cassette on which he reportedly recorded his notes. The tape was silent. Apparently it had been totally erased.

When I arrived home it was already 10 AM. I was a little surprised to see how late it was. What should have been a two and a half hour trip, had taken us 4 hours. We had left Desert Site II at approximately 4:45 AM and had arrived at the gas station at 5:30. I remember checking the time with the attendant. Giving ourselves at most 30 minutes at the Arco station, we should have arrived at the stopping place outside the gorge no later than 6:15. From that point even with our stop for coffee I estimate that we “lost” a minimum of 45 minutes and perhaps as much as much as an hour.

I returned to work the following week with strange misgivings about what had transpired in the desert. Sure the spinning compass had been a delight, Still I could not explain why we had not waited for the car to pass us at the exit of the ravine. I couldn’t explain the strange events surrounding the hillside and the red light that was never seen before, nor has it ever appeared since on subsequent outings.

I also wondered what had happened to the rapidly accelerating light. I naturally assumed that it was a jet aircraft heading our way. And what about the break in continuity of consciousness while driving on highway 62?. One moment it was nearly totally dark, then “Bingo!” the night vanished and the sun was high in the sky. At the time it happened I remember thinking that it seemed like Misha and I had been on that stupid road forever.

During a previous working group outing, while driving back from Joshua Tree, Misha and another researcher (who I shall call Jonathan) observed something bizarre. Both of my fellow researchers confirmed that while cruising along in the Maxima, the inexpensive compass in a plastic tray between the front seats began to spin wildly. At that prior research mission, the spinning was observed for about ten minutes. It occurred while they were driving through downtown Los Angeles. This unexplained event was reportedly associated with the dashboard’s electronic clock turning off. Jonathan and Misha described this incident to the working group at the next business meeting.

On the morning of December 26 some twenty five miles outside of downtown LA the compass once again began to spin wildly. Misha drew my attention to the device. It was moving in a counter-clock-wise fashion. The bizarre event continued for the next 30 minutes. The spinning occurred even though we maneuvered at 60 miles per hour in heavy traffic .

As so often was the case with Misha, the junior member of the working group took the initiative. He boldly suggested that we should attempt to use the spinning compass as a way to communicate with unseen force controlling the compass, presumably the Extraterrestrials. I had heard about wiggie boards before .Back then in 1993 at the beginning of my career as a contact worker, I did not have much respect for what I viewed as “parlor room tricks.” I was fairly prejudiced against people who boasted of dialoguing with unseen metaphysical forces via such “gimmicks.” Passing harsh judgment I viewed wiggie board enthusiasts as terminally goofy. After all, I had been indoctrinated in materialist philosophy by mainstream medical training. This scientific orientation made me more than a wee bit uncomfortable with the idea of playing 21 questions with a spinning compass.

Despite these misgivings I acquiesced to Misha’s proposal. The previous month by following his lead, I had experienced an incredible interactive encounter with 2 anomalous objects. One as seen through my binoculars was without a doubt shaped like a disc. With this successful track record, who was I to hold the lad back. I thought to myself, “When in Rome, do as ....”

" I THINK WE HAD MISSING TIME IN THE DESERT"

I met Misha for a coffee break in the hospital cafeteria several days after the events of December 26. “I got to tell you something Joe,” he started. “I think we had missing time in the desert. “

I stared at his face long and hard. I sighed and said, “I think you re right Misha.” The inexplicable events of that early morning began to make sense within the context of a missing time/possible ET contact experience. Misha paused before he delivered the next bombshell. “ I remember being on board.”

Mixed emotions surged through me, a combination of excitement and dismay. “Oh no!” I thought, “this is not what I had bargained for.” I had joined the CSETI program hoping to have an encounter as Steven Greer had advertised “in full psychomotor control” of my body. We had trained for possible landings as part of a citizens’ diplomatic mission. All the lurid stereotypes of the UFO subculture flashed through my mind. Was I now going to join other raging “abductees” on paranormal talk shows to tell my “contact experience? “Ugh!” I thought.

After some several exciting sightings during CSETI field work, I had become an ardent exponent of Steven Greer’s Close Encounters of the Fifth Kind Initiative. The large silent triangular craft I witnessed in Mexico had transformed my consciousness. I knew that we were not alone in the universe. I wanted to make my contribution to what I saw was an important campaign for peace and solidarity. After one year, my working group was making what I judged was steady progress. From the outset of joining the contact movement, I had never really accepted the likelihood of Greer’s wildly optimistic projections. “Landings and boarding of CSETI teams in three to five years,” always seemed quite far out to say the least. Nevertheless I had hoped for a gradual raproachmont.

The alien abduction theorists and debunkers alike had smeared CSETI’s efforts as the foolishness of a “contactee cult.” The abductionists had labeled our contact effort as an attempt to get ourselves “abducted.” How were we to answer such nasty accusations if team members were experiencing missing time in the course of field work?

The so called “missing time” phenomenon after all was an integral part of the entire “alien abduction” paradigm that portrayed contact as a criminal act. Greer in his speeches and writings had characterized such notions as being part and parcel of a “subculture of fear.” Already a growing mythology of “alien genetics experiments” and “babies floating in space” were an integral part of mainstream ufology. Nevertheless there was no solid evidence proving any of these wild tales. They were just stories, what people remembered spontaneously or recalled under hypnosis. I shuddered thinking now my story could be distorted and added to the sordid list of alleged ET “crimes.”

I had been attracted to CSETI because its message was so positive, proactive and hopeful. I was afraid that by publicly describing our missing time experience, I would be aiding those who were promoting conflict. In no way did I want to contribute to what I viewed as a “cult of victimhood.” I looked at Misha across my now cold cup of coffee , a Jewish oath of woe passed my lips. “Oi Veh!” I sighed.

But Misha was indomitable. “There’s more Joe. “

He briefly outlined what he believed had transpired some 72 hours before on that cold dark highway. He told me that fragmented memories were starting to come back to him as flashbacks. These recollections presumably filled in the “lost time” during our ride back from Joshua Tree.

Misha was a veteran of numerous close encounters. If his memory of past events in Russia were accurate, he had a long-standing positive relationship with specific group of ETs. This was consistent with his status as a contactee. As far as what happened to him during the lost time on highway 62, he recalled being on board an ET spacecraft, but he could not remember how he was actually taken out of the car. Misha not unexpectedly had an extremely favorable reaction to his most recent “on board experience.”

With no small interest I listened to his description of the stereotypical physical exam provided him by his non-human hosts. The ETs were reportedly the short ones with the big heads, known within the UFO subculture as “THE GRAYS.” Unlike the abductees who often describe this race as marauding space demons, Misha talked about these strange visitors as if they were family for him.

SPONTANEOUS RECALL OF AN ON BOARD EXPERIENCE

Over the next few weeks he “downloaded from memory” (series of spontaneous recall experiences) more details of the alleged encounter. He has chosen not to include the particulars of what he remembers in this report. The fact that I was nowhere to be seen on the craft was proof for Misha that I had not been taken. He pointed at me and wickedly snickered, “I went on board, and they left poor Joe in the car.” I was in no position to disagree. I could not remember a god-damn thing during the hour of what seemed like missing time.

One detail of Misha’s accounts perked me up. “You know we stopped twice on that stretch of 62 just before US 10.” This was certainly news to me. I recalled only stopping once when the sky was full of what I thought were the lights of planes. I wondered if that second stop might explain the break in continuity of consciousness I experienced just before sunrise. I recalled viewing the faint glow on the eastern horizon. Then suddenly it was broad daylight.

Misha was quite certain about the second stop, although he shared few additional details. Well if indeed we had stopped twice, I suppose it was conceivable that I went on board too. At least Sash had given me some ammunition against his barb about “poor Joe left alone in the car.” Not wanting to be undone by my contactee buddy I replied to his good-natured taunting, “It’s simple Misha. They took you on the first stop, and then I was taken on board during our second stop. I too left ‘poor’ Misha alone in the car. So there!”

This childish banter aside, the missing time experience did present some real problems for me back at the home front. I tried to tell my wife about incident. The response as expected was less than sympathetic. My lovely Yael announced her verdict. It read, “Joe dear, you’re nuts!”

Oh great!” I thought, “where was the help I was promised by the spinning compass.” I wanted her to have a unambiguous sighting of an anomalous structured craft. Misha’s Renata had been granted such an experience. If Yael were destined to become more accepting of my contact work I would have to wait a little longer. Her sighting when if finally did occur was some 5 years later January 2, 1999. Thanks guys!

OTHER MISSING TIME EXPERIENCES WITHIN OUR NETWORK

In the months that followed our double missing time on highway 62, I quietly alerted other working groups about what I believed had taken place. To my amazement Wayne Peterson, WG Coordinator for CSETI Phoenix, described having a similar experience just a few days after ours. According to his brief report, seven CE-5 team members had double missing time while doing field work in the frigid Arizona desert.

Wayne wrote me , “It was Saturday Night, about the 27 of Dec, 1993. At least 7 of us were out at the Cave Creek sight. Including Grace, Kathleen and Howard. We were watching the fire intently as it was a chilly night. We decided about 11:45 to leave, we put out the fire and at the cars we checked the time. It was about 1 AM. “

Wayne told me that the brief walk to the cars could not have taken the hour plus time that had elapsed. This was the first episode they reportedly experience that night. While standing around their cars, Wayne and his wife Grace saw a bright white meteor flash by in the sky. Wayne reported commenting to Grace about the apparent missing time. The team loitered around watching the sky for what seemed like perhaps 20 minutes. When they checked the time again it was about 2:30 AM. Wayne did not seem terribly upset by the apparent double missing time. He lightheartedly commented at the end of his brief report, “Missing time again, at least we didn’t freeze.”

Ron Russell, a prominent space artist and CSETI member also confided to me that he too had a lost time experience. His had taken place just a few weeks before mine. Ron was a founding member of the first CSETI CE-5 working group . It was established in Denver in 1991 by Shari Adamiak. Shari was the driving force behind CE-5 Initiative operations that were initiated in many cities during the early years. Ron has investigated the crop circle phenomenon in England for over a decade and has made major contributions to the contact movement.

Ron told me that he was home alone one night in late November or early December 1993. He was checking out a book that he had received in the mail from a publisher who wanted him to promote it. He told me that he was sitting around quietly turning the pages. He reported being engaged in this activity for no more than a few minutes, but when he looked at the clock he had lost about an hour of time.

I thought it significant that the first CSETI CE-5 team had formed in Denver with Ron. The second group was organized in Los Angeles in August 1992 with myself serving as facilitator. Phoenix soon followed in December 1992 with Wayne Peterson as coordinator. It seemed as if a simple pattern had emerged. CE-5 teams were established first in Denver, then LA followed by Phoenix. The lost time experiences of prominent CSETI investigators followed the same pattern, Denver, LA and then Phoenix. Just in case we didn’t get the “message” that this was something to pay attention to, the numbers of those involved increased during each episode, one with Ron, then two, Misha with me, and finally a CE-5 team with seven reportedly undergoing “lost time.”

I believe my report on missing time did have some impact on the CSETI working group training program. Steven Greer began emphasizing to trainees the importance of tracking time during field investigations. Vigilance was stressed to detect other such anomalous events.

I deem this series of missing time experiences important, nevertheless this information was not widely disseminated outside of the CSETI network. Given the sensitivity of the topic, I believe I can understand why Dr. Greer and other CSETI leaders never made reference to these occurrences in public.

From my point of view the reports were quite significant in that our missing time experiences followed the general pattern being described by countless other researchers. That Misha, Ron, Wayne and his team all reported suffering no ill effects from having experienced “missing time”, tends to confirm the non-harmful nature of human-ET encounters. At least such encounters appears harmless for those groups who chose to go out and try to directly engage the intelligence presumably responsible for the UFO phenomenon.

DEVELOPING A MUTUALLY BENEFICAL RELATIONSHIP

For those who believe people are being victimized by non-human intelligence of a presumed ET origin, I imagine that the practice of deliberately seeking contact would be viewed as fool hearty. I have served as coordinator for CE-5 work for 7 years at the time of this writing. I must point out that there have been no deaths, and no injuries of major consequence as the result of our efforts. The driving rationale behind our actions has been to promote peaceful interactions in the hope of developing a mutually beneficial relationship. It has been said that the highest ideal on Earth is to promote peace through brotherhood. The contact movement, from my perspective, endeavors to carry this practice out into the cosmos.

LONG LIVE THE UNITY OF ALL CONSCIOUS INTELLIGENT LIFE IN THE UNIVERSE

ONE COSMOS, ONE PEOPLE!!!!!!

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