Contactee

Though the word contactee was not in common use until the 1950s, the authors of the anthologies noted in "sources" below use the term to describe persons whose claims occurred centuries before the modern UFO era began in the late 1940s, attempting to depict them as a part of the same tradition.

Though not linked to flying saucers or odd aerial lights, it is perhaps worth noting that there is a long history of claims of contact with non-earthly intelligences. The founding revelations of many of the world's religions involve contact between the founder and a supernatural source of wisdom, such as a deity in human form or an angel. In this context, one might expect that the 1950s contactees would form their own religions, with the contactee as sole spiritual leader, and that is precisely what many of them did.

As early as the 18th century, people like Emanuel Swedenborg were claiming to be in psychic contact with inhabitants of other planets. 1758 saw the publication of Concerning Earths in the Solar System, in which Swedenborg detailed his alleged journeys to the inhabited planets. J. Gordon Melton notes that Swedenborg's planetary tour stops at Saturn, the furthest planet discovered during Swedenborg's era—he did not visit then unknown Uranus, Neptune or Pluto.[4]

Later, Helena Blavatsky would make claims similar to Swedenborg's.

In 1891, Thomas Blott's book The Man From Mars was published. The author claimed to have met a Martian in Kentucky. Unusually for an early contactee, Blott reported that the Martian communicated not via telepathy, but in English.[5]

Another early contactee book, of sorts, was From India To The Planet Mars (1900) by Theodore Flournoy. Flournoy detailed the claims of Helene Smith, who, whilst in a trance, dictated information gleaned from her psychic visits to the planet Mars—including a Martian alphabet and language she could write and speak. Flournoy determined that Smith's claims were spurious, based on fantasy and imagination. Her "Martian" language was simply a garbled version of French.

Two of the earliest contactees in the modern sense were William Magoon and Guy Ballard (the latter a follower of Madame Blavatsky).

Magoon's book William Magoon: Psychic and Healer was published in 1930. He claimed that, in the early 20th century, he had been unexpectedly and instantaneously transported to Mars. The planet was essentially earth-like, with cities and wilderness. The inhabitants had radio and automobiles. Though they were invisible, Magoon sensed their presences.

Though Magoon was obscure, Ballard would have more impact via the I Am movement he established. In 1935, Ballard claimed that, several years earlier, he and over 100 others witnessed the appearance of 12 Venusians in a cavern beneath Mount Shasta. The Venusians played music for the audience, said Ballard, then showed the crowd a large mirror-like device that displayed images of life on Venus. The Venusians then allegedly reported that the earth would suffer through an era of tension and warfare, followed by worldwide peace and goodwill.

George Adamski, who later became probably the most prominent contactee of the UFO era, was one contactee with an earlier interest in the occult. Adamski founded the Royal Order of Tibet in the 1930s. Writes Michael Barkun, "His [later] messages from the Venusians sounded suspiciously like his own earlier occult teachings."[6]

Christopher Partridge notes, importantly, that the pre-1947 contactees "do not involve UFOs".[7] Rather, he suggests that an existing tradition of extraterrestrial contact via seances and psychic means promptly incorporated the flying-saucer mythos when it arrived.

The 1947 report of Kenneth Arnold sparked widespread interest in flying saucers, and before long, many people were claiming to have been in contact with flying saucer inhabitants.

There was a nearly-continuous series of contactees, beginning with George Adamski in 1952. Radio host "Long John" Nebel interviewed many contactees on his program during this era. The stereotypical contactee account in these days involved not just conversations with friendly, humanoid spacemen, but also tours inside their flying saucers, and rides to large "Mother Ships" in Earth orbit, and even jaunts to the Moon, Mars, Venus, Jupiter and Saturn.

In support of their claims, early 1950s contactees often produced photographs of the alleged flying saucers or their occupants. A number of photos of a "Venusian scout ship" by George Adamski and identified by him as a typical extraterrestrial flying saucer were noted to suspiciously bear a remarkable resemblance to a type of once commonly available chicken egg incubator, complete with three light bulbs which Adamski said were "landing gear".[8]

For over two decades, contactee George Van Tassel hosted the annual "Giant Rock Interplanetary Spacecraft Convention" in the Mojave Desert.[9] Another 1950s contactee, Buck Nelson, held a similar convention in the Ozarks of Missouri up until 1965.