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        The Cosmic Bridge

Introduction - The Other Side of the Sky

I love the sky, deep blue by day, dark and infinite by night.  To me it is a source of imagination and fascination.  Yet for some, the sky holds a deeper meaning, sometimes wondrous and other times sinister.  It is the realm of the close encounter phenomenon and the domain of the visitors.[1]

The UFO phenomenon is one of the longest lasting, deepest, and most perplexing mysteries in human history.  What are these strange things in the sky?  How and why are they interacting with us?  There is intelligence behind them, but who or what is it? 

For many in society, encounters with this strange influence pervade life.  For them, and thus for us, the phenomenon of UFO's and encounters with visitors from somewhere else is a reality.

A recent poll of unusual personal experiences estimates that nearly one person in a hundred has experienced the close encounter phenomenon in some way.  For some, such an experience might be an interesting mystery to explore.  For others it may be a deeply disturbing unknown.  It may exist as a long-standing thread of unexplainable events coloring one's relationships, altering one's views of the world and even affecting one's very health.  For still others, encounters may be wondrous, a source of contact with the amazing.  In one way or another, each experiencer becomes part of a process, a relationship with the extraordinary.

The UFO and Close Encounter phenomenon has been an underlying passion of my life for many years.  It has taken me through many mental and spiritual adventures.  As a UFO investigator with the Mutual UFO Network,[2] I have interviewed scores of UFO witnesses and close encounter experiencers.  People have described events that span the full range - from seeing lights in the sky to experiencing personal encounters with the unknown. 

As I began my work as a hypnotherapist and began to study the phenomenon more deeply, I noted how the encounters people described took on very personal aspect.  They were deeply real and complex.  What at first seemed to be a simple, scattered phenomenon I have come to see as one of tremendous depth, permeating our society.  In it, I see deep implications for the personal reality of all of us. 

What is this close encounter phenomenon?  Are the visitors physical beings from somewhere else, or is there another explanation for their origin?  Do they mean us good or ill?  There is a broad spectrum of views, some seeing them as good while others see them as evil.  Their intentions appear to be complex, indeed. 

In this book, I suggest a comprehensive model of the phenomenon and its interactions with humanity.  I propose that the visitors are here for a very distinct reason, the preservation of the cosmic community.  I propose that the ultimate objective of the visitors is to build a long-term bond with our human race - a race that is steadily advancing in numbers and technology, preparing to travel to the stars. 

Many writers on extraterrestrial contact have described humanity as a primitive people, yet also promising.  Artists, healers, priests, warriors and scientists; we are all these things and so much more.  I believe that we can be the bearers of a new creative light to the universe, or we can bring destruction.  I propose that it is the visitors' intent to ensure that we are the former. 

I suggest that the purpose for the visitors' presence is to nurture a human race more capable of becoming citizens of a universal community.  I further suggest that their ultimate goal may be to see human consciousness somehow converge with that of the cosmic community - the building of The Cosmic Bridge.

This book presents ideas of our relationship with the visitors.  What is it, what has it been, and what is it becoming?  It is a synthesis of what I believe experiencers and the UFO literature have told me.  It is my hypothesis about what is going on between the visitors and humanity. 

What is a hypothesis?  It is not a statement of belief, but rather, a model of what might be the truth.  A hypothesis must provide predictions.  What must we see for the model to be correct?  We can verify it by experiment, observation or other means of evaluating how our universe and its occupants actually behave.  In this way, we can confirm or refute our original premise. 

In first chapter, I discuss the basics of UFO studies and describe some important and spectacular UFO sightings.  We begin to see the UFO interaction as a relationship.  In the second chapter, I discuss UFO abduction and describe a number of the key abduction experiences in the lives of experiencers.  In the third chapter, I expand the exploration of close encounters, to illustrate the high strangeness that the phenomenon exhibits.  In Chapter 4, I then discuss the impact the phenomenon has on the lives of experiencers, and how the phenomenon is, in fact, a lifelong relationship. 

Chapter 5 describes the human-visitor relationship in more detail, focusing on the growth and learning that can occur, both because of the phenomenon and as a way of coping with the inescapable influence of the visitors.  Chapter 6 then focuses on the reproductive and genetic aspects of the phenomenon, laying the groundwork for our discussion of a possible alien agenda.

The latter half of the book discusses the overall human-visitor dynamic, moving from the individual level to the societal level.  In Chapter 7, we review some conventional ideas regarding contact and examine the potential dangers of direct contact with ET visitors.  In chapter 8, we delve into the heart of the topic, discussing possible goals of the visitors and their potential strategies for accomplishing them. 

Chapter 9 expands our discussion of possible directions of the phenomenon, and the promises and consequences of our relationship with the visitors.  We conclude with a summary of what I believe may be the evolving human-visitor relationship.  As our civilization matures, I envision a deepening link between humanity and our celestial neighbors.

 This book makes some significant assumptions that the reader must decide whether to accept.  The first is that the UFO phenomenon is real and that accounts related by close encounter experiencers are valid.  The second assumption is that parapsychological effects (telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition, etc.) and events such as out of body experiences (OBE's) and spontaneous human invisibility are bona-fide phenomena.  Many of these phenomena far transcend the UFO/close encounter phenomenon and are, themselves, significant mysteries.

In many events referred to in this book, I have obscured case details to preserve the anonymity of the witnesses and/or experiencers.  In several instances, I have aggregated more than one case, event or person together into a representative account.  However, the events themselves are accurate and fully illustrate the points within The Cosmic Bridge, portraying the building of the human-visitor relationship.

The visitors can be our teachers and guides or they can be our nemesis.  To some degree, the future of our relationship with them is up to us.  Whatever that future, I suggest that they may be the bridge to the destiny of humanity: the Cosmic Bridge to other side of the sky.

Chapter 1 – The UFO Phenomenon in Perspective

Imagine that you are alone in your car, on the highway in the dark of night.  A mile or so ahead, you can see a light.  It is not familiar looking.  Maybe it's just an airplane.  Yet as you drive further, you see that the light has descended toward the road.  As it gets closer, you see it more clearly.  You realize that it is not an airplane and not a car.  Indeed, it is nothing you have ever seen before...

How many people have had such an experience?  Estimates suggest that five to ten percent of the population have witnessed something unexplained in the sky, and nearly one percent of us may actually experience close encounters.[i]  Thus, for many, the UFO phenomenon is undeniably real.  It is therefore vital that we more clearly understand our Visitors from the sky. 

What are the Visitors doing?  Why are they here?  What is our relationship with them?  These are perhaps the defining questions of what may be the greatest mystery of our time.  This book is about that relationship - the bridge between humans and Visitors.  In these pages, we consider this, first for the individual experiencer, then for humanity as a whole.  For this relationship forms the cornerstone of the Cosmic Bridge between their realm and ours.

Distant Encounters: A Classic Sighting in St.  Paul

Distant encounters are perhaps the most common type of UFO sighting.  We indicated earlier that up to one person in ten has sighted some form of distant, unexplained object.  However, one example from my own case files best illustrates some of the interesting aspects of such cases. 

In this sighting, the witness was having a late lunch at a restaurant in St.  Paul, Minnesota.  This particular witness indicated that he frequently looks up at the sky, and at this moment, found himself briefly looking out of the window near his table at the puffy clouds of a beautiful fall day.  As he looked up, an object caught his attention.  He initially thought it was an airplane.  Yet it appeared to be motionless for what seemed to be a long time. 

The object further attracted his curiosity and as he watched, it slowly began to descend at a 45-degree angle to the right.  When it had descended nearly to the city skyline, it suddenly and abruptly shot upward.  The witness followed the object with his eyes until it reached (and apparently passed behind) a small cloud.  He estimated the vertical motion as well more than twice as fast as the descent and, as far as he could tell, the shift in direction was instantaneous.  It was a maneuver impossible for a human-made craft.

While the description of the object and its behavior suggests that it is a genuine unknown, in this event the level of strangeness is relatively low.  The witness did not interact with the object.  It is a classic distant encounter with little overall impact on the witness's life-path. 

This event was but one of several UFO encounters he had had.  Yet even though this event had relatively low overall significance, it has continued to intrigue him.  It illustrates how the phenomenon can attract and hold our attention and yet remain unexplained.  This and so many similar cases add to the abundance of evidence that extraordinary things are common in our skies.

Close Encounters of the First Kind: The Medicine Lake Triangle

In a close encounter of the first kind (CE1), the level of meaningfulness increases, although the witness still has only limited interaction with the phenomenon.  While the witness remains separate from the UFO, he/she now observes the object at close range. 

Examples of close encounters of the first kind commonly include cases in which the witness observes a UFO flying or hovering nearby, perhaps only a block or two away, or in some cases even closer.  One classic example of a close UFO sighting comes from the case files^[ii] of the Minnesota chapter of the Mutual UFO Network, or Minnesota MUFON.  In this event, a witness was driving along a lakeshore road in a rural/suburban region near Minneapolis.  Looking up, she was surprised to observe a pair of bright lights ahead in the sky to her left, over the lake.  They seemed to be out of place. 

As she watched, it became apparent to her that the lights were not too far above treetop level.  She continued to drive up the road for approximately one-half block, observing the lights through the trees the best she could.  She then realized that the lights were considerably closer than she had thought. 

After driving a few hundred feet further, she reached a point where a gap in the trees allowed her an unobstructed view.  However, at this point the lights were no longer visible.  In their place was a large dark triangular object.^[1]

As she watched, the object moved slowly, just above the treetops.  It was nearly the size of a house and was black to charcoal-gray colored with lights at the vertices.  The object passed overhead, remaining at the same level, just above the treetops.  As it did, she felt an intense mixture of awe and fear.  It seemed to her as if the object (and/or those controlling it) were aware of her presence. 

She pulled her car ahead and turned into a driveway leading toward the waterfront.  She finally got out and observed the object from shore as it slowly moved out over the lake.  She watched it move away, eventually losing sight of it in the treeline along the distant lakeshore.

Just beyond the trees, only a few blocks away, a major highway passes near the lake.  At this time of the evening, the highway was quite busy.  The object, moving slowly at such a low level and approaching the highway, should have been clearly visible.  However, as far as is known to investigators, this witness was the only person to see it - a selective viewability that seems to add yet another layer of mystery to the event.

In this case - a Close Encounter of the first kind - the witness observes much more detail than in a distant encounter.  The level of strangeness becomes correspondingly greater.  There is still little overt interaction between the UFO and the witness.  Yet the witness's fear and simultaneous fascination with the object, plus her impression that the object was aware of her, suggest that here too, there may have been a subtle two-way interchange. 

In addition, the object was visible to this witness but apparently not to others.  Thus, more than a simple sighting relationship appears to have been present.  It suggests that the nature of the event was more involved and our understanding of it was less than we thought.

Other Selective Viewability Cases

The case files of many UFO investigators are full of similar accounts of selective viewability.  In such cases, the witness is able to see an object, which is located in such a way that many others present should also see it, but do not.

Such case reports fill my files as well as those of other researchers.  They lead me to ask whether in each case the witnesses possessed some unique ability to see the object, an ability not present among other bystanders.  With the potential of this perception ability, the relationship of a simple sighting begins to turn into the increasingly meaningful relationship known as a close encounter.

Close Encounters of the Third Kind: The 1969 Race Track CE3

During a close encounter of the third kind (CE3), in addition to the UFO itself, the witness also observes entities associated with the object.  Although the witness remains separate from the UFO, we continue to note the increasing level of interaction between them.  One example of such an encounter from my own case files seems both very simple and very typical.  In this case, the witness (whom I will call "Janice") briefly observed several entities within a UFO. 

As a child, during the late 1960s, Janice and her father had attended an auto race.  She was sitting on the top row of the bleachers, looking down onto the racetrack.  At that moment, she got the sensation of someone or something watching her.  Looking to her right, she observed an object hovering above the treetops less than 1000 feet away.  She turned to point the object out to a person next to her, but when she looked back, it was gone. 

Janice remembered the object as having a diameter of about 30 feet.  Within it, she could see three or four entities in the window.  In her fleeting glimpse, she was unable to note many details.  However, she clearly felt the impression that they were observing her. 

Close encounters of the third kind seem to strike a delicate balance in which the witness observes entities but does not directly interact with them.  Yet we note Janice's sense of being watched, suggesting that the phenomenon was aware of her.  Thus, the relationship appears to have been two-way, with object and witness observing each other 

Again, we note the witness' increasing relationship with the phenomenon.  Our simple UFO sighting is becoming an encounter experience. 

Close Encounters of the Fourth Kind, From Sighting to Experience

So far, in this chapter we have examined increasingly meaningful UFO sightings.  With each, the witness has become closer to the UFO and the level of strangeness has increased.  We have increasingly seen it as a relationship between the witness and the phenomenon.  In a sighting or encounter of the first through third kinds, this interaction is distant and usually subtle.  However, in a close encounter of the fourth kind (CE4), a UFO abduction, the relationship becomes up close and personal.  The witness has now become an experiencer.

The Laundry Room CE4

One classic encounter report from my own case files is that of an experiencer I will refer to as "Evelyn."  I first met Evelyn in 1997, when she reported to MUFON accounts of her many strange events.  Shortly thereafter, we began our extensive interviews with her and her family, and her long history of encounters emerged.  One of the first she recounted was an experience that had left her with a deep unsettling sense of mystery.

In the dark of a late November night, there are few lights and little illumination in the rural northern Wisconsin landscape.  It was well after midnight and everyone was, or should have been, sound asleep.  In one farmhouse, only a few hundred yards from the main highway, the lights were off.  Only a distant yard light shone on a farmyard ready for the first winter snow. 

Evelyn awoke at about 3:30 AM.  An eerie sense filled her as she sat up in bed.  Nothing seemed to be amiss, yet something suggested that she needed to get up.  She decided to go to the bathroom, stood up and stepped into the hall. 

The bathroom was located near the north side of the house adjacent to their laundry room.  From that point, a window looked out to the back of the house, affording a view over the back yard and the fields to the north.  The field was dark, but beyond a grove of trees on the far side of the field, Evelyn could see a distant light.  Though she had lived in this house for many years, the light was not something she had ever seen.  It seemed to silhouette the trees with increasing brilliance.  As she watched, she felt ever more uneasy about what she was observing. 

The light seemed to be rising from behind the trees.  She then realized that there were multiple lights, part of a large object emerging above the tree line.  It was fully visible, a formation the size of a house and in the shape of a flying saucer.  As she watched, it began to move toward her home. 

As the object approached, she became increasingly frightened.  She started to lock the doors and windows of the house, beginning with the laundry room, then the back door and then the windows in adjoining rooms.  Finally, she ran to the front to lock the kitchen door, but it was too late.  "They" were already there...

As she reached the kitchen door, she realized it was starting to open, which meant to her that the entities were beginning to enter the house.  She braced herself against the door to hold it shut, but felt a force pushing it open.  A moment later, she found herself standing behind the fully open door. 

With the door open, she observed lights in the front of the house, presumably associated with the UFO.  Looking out the door, she observed a hand reaching in from outside, long and skinny.  It appeared to be very low, the entity about the height of a small child.  At this point, she also remembers a nonverbal scolding, "you know better than to try to resist," telepathic thoughts rather than words.  At that point, she remembers nothing more of the encounter. 

Her next memory was of standing in the kitchen in her nightgown, looking through the east facing window.  Although she could not remember it, she felt as if, in some way, she had just come in through that window.  Outside, she observed a bright light ascending above and slightly to the east of the house.  It shone through the window, projecting a pool of light onto the kitchen floor.  Then her memory again discontinued.  The next thing she knew, it was morning.

In many ways, Evelyn's account is typical of the consciously remembered part of many close encounters.  Characteristic of such events is the high degree of strangeness.  There is deepening interaction with the phenomenon, including a close UFO sighting and communication with the object or entities.  Most importantly, events of the fourth kind often include missing or incomplete recall; the sense that far more happened than one remembers. 

There is an accompanying sense of mystery, which can often include reality paradoxes and inexplicable thoughts and emotions.  We will discuss these strange aspects of the close encounter in the next chapter, as we examine the UFO abduction in detail.

UFOs and Close Encounters in Perspective

Nearly ten percent of humanity has had sightings of the unexplained.  To perhaps as many as one person in a hundred, the phenomenon has become real and deeply personal.  Given the number of witnesses and experiencers, my sense is that those whom UFO researchers have interviewed are only the tip of the iceberg.  The examples in this chapter are just a few of the many sightings and encounters in our case files.  For every UFO encounter known, many more probably remain unreported. 

Such sightings and encounters suggest the depth of the relationship between witnesses and the UFO phenomenon.  They hint at deepening meaningfulness as the strangeness of the encounter increases.

What occurs during the CE4 event, itself?  What can we learn when we begin to study contact with the UFO phenomenon as an overall process rather than simply as individual events?  In the next chapter, we examine in more detail the close encounter of the fourth kind.  In subsequent chapters, we will examine what may be behind the encounters and what the intention of the Visitors might be.  As we further examine this strange influence in our world, we will begin to see an emerging process of contact that may be far more coherent than we thought.

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