ENCOUNTER FIRST HAND

Richard Sauder has put some deeply introspective thought into the possible motive and means of the beings who came into his mind one morning with their message of urgent concern to men and women of Earth.

Their message warns us about some of the most sophisticated -- and ostensibly important -- research human science has to offer. The infinitesimal coils of DNA which essentially inform every molecule of our being could hardly be a clearer blueprint, a delicate map to who we are, a precious container carrying the sacrosanct psycho-biological message of homosapiens. Would we care to play with that?

We would.

If what we're learning about aliens is true, they have.

It would seem to be the sort of game only God should play. As in so many other ways, aliens communicating with earthlings thrusts the human chess pieces across the universal game board to a goal which amounts to nothing less than.... metamorphosis.

"An experience I had in late 1984 suggests that scientists are mistaken in assuming that non-human intelligent beings might rely on radio or other electronic technologies for communication. It is far more likely that such beings employ a variety of mental means to communicate. After all, wouldn't it be more efficient to transfer thought directly from mind to mind, rather than to translate thought into speech or printed material, then to transmit it by radio or telephone, only to have to broadcast it through a radio or telephone receiver, or point out a message on a computer or teletype printer, and then to have to interpret the message via the printed page or spoken word?

"To make matters still more complex, what if the message arrives in a coherent form, but in a language completely unknown to the hearer or reader? Obviously, direct thought transfer from mind to mind gets rid of many steps in the communication process, each of which presents an occasion for problems of efficiency and intelligibility.

"But my experience was very direct. It began about 6 a.m. on the morning of December 28, 1984. I was living in the small coastal town of St. Marys, Georgia. I had awakened some minutes earlier, and was relaxing in bed prior to starting the day's activities. As I lounged in bed with my eyes closed, thinking of nothing in particular, I suddenly saw something unusual. Normally, when my eyes are closed, all I see is a featureless, dark voice. I don't use drugs, drink alcoholic beverages of any kind and am not ordinarily given to waking visions, so imagine my quiet surprise when two rather alien-looking beings suddenly appeared with vivid clarity on my inner visual screen. The image was very clear and distinct; the effect was very much as if my inner eyelids had been turned into a television or movie screen.

A thought entered my mind at the same time the two beings appeared. It was in the form of the following question: 'Do you want to talk?' No words were exchanged, yet the thought was very precise and unambiguous. My response, also mental, was equally unambiguous: 'Yes! What would you like to talk about?'

'These two beings had a message of concern and warning to deliver on the dangers of genetic engineering. More specifically, they advised me that there were (and presumably still are) genetic engineering experiments being conducted at Harvard University that could be very harmful for the human race. Their message to me was that the experiments tamper with the genetic structure of the organism and are extremely dangerous and should be halted completely. They were very emphatic about it, and pointedly singled out Harvard University.

"Now, I am not from New England. I am a native Virginian and life-long southerner, temporarily residing in New Mexico. I do not move in Ivy League circles; neither do I have any expertise in biological or medical science. In most ways, I am rather an ordinary person, and was living at the time in a small southern town, separated from the Northeast scientific and academic establishment by hundreds of miles and a substantial cultural gap.

"So why give me such a message?

"I can think of at least two reasons: 1) Assuming that the beings were in actuality emissaries of an alien race and that the message they conveyed to me was a true one, then it is very likely that the Harvard researchers causing the problem would probably be very closed-minded and unlikely to entertain any objections to their work, especially from alien beings whose reality they would probably scoff at with 'sophisticated' Ivy League skepticism. But I was willing to listen, and this is probably a key element.

"Effective communication has at least two essential components: a) transmission of a message and b) its reception. Therefore, in order to deliver their message, these two beings needed someone who would listen to them. No doubt the aliens would very much have liked to deliver their message to the scientists themselves. But if minds in the scientific community are closed, then there is little alternative but to approach minds outside of the scientific community. I may not have been their preferred target, but I may have been the closest they were able to get.

"2) The second reason I may have been contacted also has a symbolic spiritual connection with the date of December 28, and the activities I participated in later that morning. Throughout the Christian world, December 28 has for centuries been the day of commemoration of the slaughter of the Holy Innocents. Christian services on that day are dedicated to the memory of the many infant boys massacred on the order of King Herod, who wanted desperately to destroy the baby Jesus. Not knowing which child Jesus was his troops killed all the little boys in Bethlehem and the surrounding region, calculating the Jesus was sure to be among the victims. He was not, but many others were. And so the day lives in infamy, as a kind of metaphor for man's inhumanity to man.

"In the early 1980s, peace activists in Georgia and Florida adopted the day as the occasion for annual peace demonstrations at the gates of the Kings Bay naval base, in St. Marys, Georgia. The Kings Bay base is the home port for a squadron of Trident nuclear missile-firing submarines that have the capability to rain nuclear destruction on several hundred cities thousands of miles apart within a half-hour, even when moored at the dock in Georgia.

"I shared the concerns of other peace activists about the genocidal weapons at Kings Bay and was preparing to join them at the gates later in the morning when the aliens contacted me. It may be that the aliens were aware of my willingness to speak out publicly on the dangers of nuclear technology and wanted to use the symbolism of the day to make the following point: just as the complex, computerized technology that resulted from the deciphering of the atom's secrets has brought the human race to the brink of self-annihilation, placing billions of 'innocents' and the entire planet in mortal jeopardy, so too does the new genetic technology that is rapidly deciphering the secrets of human DNA threaten to open another Pandora's Box that in its turn also places billions of 'innocents' (us) in mortal jeopardy.

"Human DNA is incredibly complex. Can anyone seriously predict what will happen when science begins altering it? And if the results are not favorable, will it be possible to undo the damage? Will we then have controlled breeding programs for the masses, governed by the new genetic technicians? The scientific establishment has not prevented the world-wide proliferation of nuclear weapons -- on the contrary, it has actively participated in the spread of weapons around the world. Does anyone sincerely believe that the scientific community will act any differently with respect to the new genetic engineering techniques now being developed?

"These are serious questions that I am asking. And that is probably why I was contacted. I am not afraid to ask them. It is a shame that the scientists hard at work on the new genetic technologies now aborning are not similarly troubled by the implication of their research. The stakes are certainly very high -- would it not be better to err on the side of caution?

"That seems to be the message behind the warning the aliens delivered to me. Their part is done; the social, political and moral aspects of the problem are up to us to resolve. It is our planet and our race that we need to protect against these insidious bio-engineers with dollar signs in their eyes. I, for one, do not want any Harvard PhD. tampering with my DNA! Do you want them to alter your chromosomes? Or those of your children?

"These were the thoughts that began to arise in my mind as the aliens mentally transmitted thoughts to me. As the thoughts took form in my head, I could not help but notice the aliens' physical appearance. Although they had a basic humanoid shape, in size they were somewhat smaller than most terrestrial humans, with a slight body build. They were a glossy dark color and seemed to be insectoid. Their heads were proportionately about the size of a human head, but shaped differently, with pronounced dark eyes without a white.

"As I gazed at them, I thought to myself, 'They sure are chitinous looking.' Chitin is the hard, glossy carbohydrate that comprises the exoskeleton of insects such as ants, roaches and beetles. In appearance, their complexion made much the same impression as the plastic of a shiny, brand new black telephone that has been nicely polished. But the thought was scarcely formed in my mind when their reply appeared: We may appear chitinous to you, but you seem very mammalian to us!'

"Touche! Evidently, the aliens have a sense of humor, too. What lent the last comments particular force was its direct route from them to me. It was only then when I realized that their opening question and subsequent messages about the dangers of genetic engineering being done at Harvard had been transmitted to my mind with the conscious help of another human mind that had acted as mental intermediary or transponder.

"Who this person was, or where, I could not tell. I was able to detect that they were either a terrestrial human or had a strong connection with the earth. But beyond the fact that it was an adult, living somewhere on or near the earth, I knew nothing. I cannot speculate as to name, race, gender, nationality, age or anything else. All of that was very carefully screened from my mind. Obviously, the human desired to function in complete anonymity.

"By inference, then, there is at least one human being (and likely others) who are working behind the scenes, in total obscurity as far as the general public is concerned, acting as mental go-between for aliens and other human beings such as myself and many others. My experience may be a bit unusual, but it is hardly unique. Just go to your local bookstore and read the books by Whitley Strieber and others.

"In any event, within a matter of seconds of their closing wisecrack, the aliens were gone. They abruptly vanished form my inner screen; the subtle presence of the unidentified human slipped away with them, and I was left alone with my thoughts and their message.

"Perhaps I could be faulted for waiting so long to relay their warning to others. On the other hand, it is usually wise not to act too hastily, and especially with messages from inner sources, even when they are exceptionally vivid and clear, as this one was, it is a good policy to wait awhile and reflect on the best way to respond. And so it is my hope that getting these words into print will help further the greater good of us all and the planet.

"As to the origin of the aliens -- I have no idea. Maybe they are from another planet, or maybe they are interdimensional beings, or maybe they are conscious denizens of the depths of the human psyche which surfaced momentarily to sound the alarm that it is not wise to tamper with ancient genetic structures that stretch back untold thousand's and millions of years into the past.

"In the final analysis, the reader will judge for him or herself. All I can do is relate my experience as faithfully as possible.
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This article appeared in UFO, Vol 6, No. 4, 1991.

P. Urial