History repeats itself- What goes around comes around- Those who forget their past are likely to repeat it. Wise words of wisdom which have gone unheeded. But it isn't necessarily our fault! We humans have one failing and that is that we like to project our personal beliefs onto strange happenings or mysteries that pervade the current social and cultural climate of the time. Last century for instance, crop circles were thought to be a manifestation of the devil, whereas nowadays they are seen as landing sites or cryptic messages from the inhabitants of flying saucers. In 1880 the miners who worked and lived around Silver Cliffs, Colorado, believed that the crystal blue balls of light seen hovering over a cemetery were the souls of the dead, unlike modern day ufologists who think of them as alien crafts. In 1921 Alfred Watkins noticed that ancient sites and places of historical importance tended to fall along straight lines which he termed Ley lines. In his book published in 1925, ‘The Old Straight Track', Watkins theorised that these lines were death roads for our ancient ancestors. In modern times ley lines have become guidance lines for ufo navigation.

Our popular mysteries adapt and evolve to fit the demands of the time. We love to weave fantasy, pseudo science and theoretical science into a sort of fabric onto which we can project our greatest fears and, ultimately, our sincerest hopes. We suffer from delusions of grandeur, kidding ourselves that we know it all. Time and time again we fall foul when we try to answer the important questions that have plagued and troubled mankind since the beginning of time. Where do we come from? Where do we go after our physical death? Are we alone in the universe? Three questions which every great scholar in history has pondered but had little success in answering. Just the process of attempting to answer these important questions tends to set in motion a chain of events which unfold in exactly the same way. This is never more true or obvious than when one studies and compares the rise and popularity of spiritualism with the modern day ufo and alien abduction experience.

In the 1830s something strange and rather odd happened. In the space of a few years, a virulent interest in the occult spread across America, the United Kingdom and Europe. In bars, shops and coffee houses, the topic of conversation involved séances, secret cults and societies, witchcraft, ghosts and black magic. By far the most commonly asked question of the Victorian period was, ‘Is there an afterlife?'

Victorian society was primed and in an expectant mood so it comes as no surprise that the Fox sisters claims of contacting the dead in the cellar of their home in Hydesville, New York State in 1848 was openly embraced and accepted without question. In the years that followed, spiritualism flourished and the heavy dread of our own mortality receded into the distant past.

A hundred years later society’s fears and anxieties would be directed in entirely another direction. Once again there had been a subtle indoctrination of the public concerning aliens and ufos which had primed society. As well as the plethora of science fiction movies that the public adored and the daily trips of Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers to the stars, a certain radio programme aired in 1938 revealed how much the American people were willing to accept the reality of aliens. H.G. Welles, ‘War Of The Worlds’ written in 1898 was given the Orson Welles’ treatment and consequently terrified an entire nation. The theatrical analytical annihilation of the human race was just too plausible in the minds of the American public. Before they had had time to truly vent their feelings at this cruel, if not entertaining, deception, war broke out in Europe and Welles’ little practical joke was temporarily forgotten about.

To most Americans the war ravaging across Europe was far enough away not to affect their ordinary everyday life. Yes, of course their husbands and sons were risking their lives but most families were optimistic about the fate of their loved ones. December 4th 1941 and Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbour soon changed all that! That attack still niggles the Americans as they feel they were caught, so to speak, with their trousers down. The attack dented the invulnerability of the American way of life and left a huge question mark hanging over whether the American forces’ intelligence divisions were adequately doing their job. They became determined that America would never again suffer such a surprise attack. The American people became suspicious and cautious to the point of paranoia. Near the end of the War the first jet engine planes began to fly across the skies at unheard of speeds and people wrongly deduced that the jet engine heralded the arrival of space travel and voyages to the stars. Who knew what they would find?  And then the paranoia returned...What if aliens from outer space were already here? After all, earthlings, ie Americans, were about to colonise space due to the amazing advancements in jet engine propulsion. If we could go there it stood to reason that they could be coming here.

There is an old saying that goes, ‘trouble comes in threes’. There were three Fox sisters, Leah, Margaret and Katherine who answered the most asked question of the Victorian era. Similarly, the catalyst for the alien visitation question was provoked by three incidents which occurred in quick succession shortly after the war.  The sighting of nine crescent shaped aircraft by Kenneth Arnold flying over the Cascade Mountains in Washington State on the 24th June 1947, the Roswell crash which occurred several weeks later and the tragic death of Captain Thomas Mantell who crashed his F-51 Mustang after climbing beyond 20,000ft while in pursuit of a huge ufo on January 7th 1948. All three episodes were seen as conclusive proof that the aliens were already here, but the facts behind the fantasy are open to debate. Arguing about what caused the debris on Matt Brazell’s ranch is a pointless exercise as it could have been an alien spacecraft or a conar reflector as theorised by ufo arch debunker Phillip Klass. Similarly, the Mantell sighting has been put down to the planet venus or a skyhook balloon. Kenneth Arnold’s sighting, however, of the nine unknown aircraft flying in a peculiar fashion above the Cascade Mountains stands alone in ufo history. It was the wildly inaccurate reporting of the media who placed flying saucers in the minds of the eager awaiting public not Arnold. He described how the objects he watched flew like a saucer would if skimmed off a body of water, yet soon afterwards flying saucers were seen all over the United States and consequently the whole of the civilised world. In this case the public determined what ufos were and then built the myth up to gigantic proportions just as the spiritualists had a century before. The one thing that went unnoticed was Kenneth Arnolds point of view. He didn't think what he had seen was anything more than terrestrial in origin and wrote a letter to the American government stating as such.

In both phenomena, spiritualism and the alien visitation myth, the general public decided what it was they were dealing with and then systematically planned and laid down the next step in the mystery. Photographs of ghosts and ufos reached such proportions that it was increasingly difficult to determine what was real and unreal, something that suited saucerheads and spiritualists alike. The ordinary people believed, the public face of government backed by science didn't, and a rift began to open between the two which the conspiracy theorists soon occupied.

The evidence would have to be more convincing than mere photographs which, at the end of the day, were easily hoaxed. As if in response, spiritual mediums and psychics appeared in their droves, all of whom were happy to put the average man or woman in contact with their deceased loved ones for a price. Similarly, certain unscrupulous individuals within the ufo movement claimed to be able to talk to the aliens through psychic means. It was what the public demanded and it had worked well for the spiritualists a hundred years before. Up to modern day these channellers still claim to be able to talk to aliens or spirits. You take your pick...Watching the antics of trance mediums like Alan Webb singing in a clearly false cockney accent or George King passing on messages from his aliens from Venus, and Robert Short scream, ‘This is central control, standby for information to follow... in a rather Dalekesque tone would be comical if it weren't so sad. George King claimed to be a member of the Interplanetary Parliament speaking on behalf of earth while Robert Short struck up a relationship with Jon'al, an alien from Jupiter who he discovered after James Cagneys private secretary told his mother about her conversations with aliens out in the desert.

Ordinary everyday people lapped it up. It was morphine that deadened the pain of normality. Even so, science continued to pick away at the evidence and spoiled the fun for the masses so the phenomena evolved and took the next step. In the world of spiritualism mediums like Florence Cook and Daniel Douglas Home began to show that physical contact with the dead was possible while the ufo movement answered this question in a bizarre and dramatic way. Witnesses now began to come forward and describe their meetings with alien beings. George Adamski and Howard Menger spoke of their encounters with aliens with passion revealing for the first time the science behind the flying saucers and the reasons why the aliens were here. To listen to Menger describing how flying saucers achieve flight is awe-inspiring. Playing with miniature figures and a model of a flying saucer standing on tripod legs, Menger reveals that the saucers fly through elecro-dynamics, simplifying it for those uninitiated to the saucer myth by comparing it with a mini solar system, (What!) If Adamski's aliens were friendly, Mengers were definitely not. In one instance a human looking alien dressed in black visited his home on a 100-acre estate in Lebanon, New Jersey. He threatened Menger not with a ray gun or alien blaster but with a syringe, something unheard of in the pre-aids world of the 1950s. Howard wasn't to be outdone. He drew his revolver and the advanced alien being withdrew to the safety of his car before leaving in a hurry. Odd behaviour for an advanced alien creature don't you think? Maybe it wasn't an alien after all? Connie Menger, Howard’s wife, didn't think so, as she thought the human looking figure was an insurance salesman with a pen in his hand. Rather than argue with his loving wife Menger changed his story. The alien visitor now became, wait for it, a member of the mafia intent on stealing the plans for the electro-dynamics powered flying saucer. One wonders if the mob had got their hands on the plans whether Eric Von Daniken would have revised the title of his book to, ‘Chariots Of The Godfathers’.

Just as public interest began to fade in spiritualism and ufo related phenomena, their proponents raised their game. Unfortunately science had anticipated there actions and what followed was a stalemate where both sides of the argument battled for supremacy without there being an overall victor. That is until the believers began to add a new macabre twist to their tales which delighted the conspiracy theorists who resisted the urge to scream, ‘I told you so!’ Aliens were no longer our friends. On the 19th September 1961 Betty and Barnie Hill were to add a new dimension to the alien visitation myth which would spawn a whole new generation of believers eager to hear more about the malevolent aliens and their secret intentions for the human race. It wasn't good news!

The Hills were driving home to New Hampshire from Niagara Falls at night when they rounded a corner and came across a light in the sky which quickly descended to reveal itself as a huge flying saucer. Seconds later, to them at least, the saucer had gone and they where back in their car travelling down the road. On arriving home they found that they both had missing time which they couldn't account for and nights of restlessness and disturbing nightmares eventually forced them to seek help from their doctor who advised them to undergo hypnosis. This revealed in detail the alien abduction that is now popular to this very day.

The account of their examination was almost exactly like that written by John Campbell, real name, Don. A. Stuart, which appeared in Amazing Stories magazine in the early 1930s, and only weeks before their experience aliens like those described by the Hills featured on television except in one crucial and perhaps important point. Betty hadn't taken much notice of how the aliens were dressed, but her husband certainly had. In fact, it was something that disturbed him almost as much as the torturous physical examination that he was forced to endure. Under hypnosis Barnie described how the aliens were dressed in uniform not unlike that worn by the German Nazis during the Second World War. Could this have been down to the fact that they were a mixed race couple who were coping with the bigotted and racist atmosphere of the time. A racist atmosphere which also existed in Nazi Germany prompting some to theorise that Barnie had made a subconscious connection between the two while in an altered state of conscious and weaved them into his experience.

The viewpoint of science towards aliens and spirits was, and indeed still is, hostile and negative because of the lack of solid evidence. Proponents of both subjects began to look around for new and unheard of ways of proving their theories and improving their credibility and came up with an intriguing solution. They began to adopt other mysteries!  Spiritualism adopted poltergeist disturbances, past lives and out of the body experiences as proof of an afterlife, while alien believers adopted earthlights, corn circles, ley lines, animal mutillations and ancient archeology. It would have been unnatural if ordinary inquisitive people hadn't turned their attention towards the subjects when they became so diverse and able to adapt to the individual’s own needs. In fact, their numbers grew to such proportions that both became religions. As religions, the Spiritualist church, Aetherius Society and Heaven’s Gate could fend off the unwanted attentions of the debunking world of science by playing their ace card. Not even science would dare question someone’s religious beliefs! In the case of the Heaven’s Gate sect and their subsequent mass suicide, it might have been better if someone had questioned it.

As religions, the two increasingly became difficult to tell apart. Past life experiencers who had for so long drawn solace and comfort from the sympathetic spiritualists now claimed to be alien beings in their past lives. Some even claimed to be aliens who had helped build the pyramids in their past lives, so increasing their popularity amongst the uncritical believers. Those who had gone through the near death experience now began to describe how they arrived in flying saucers instead of Heaven after their deaths and described alien greys in place of angelic beings. The reverse was also true. Some described being taken from their beds up a bright shaft of light towards a hovering ufo only to find themselves standing at the pearly gates surrounded by angels. The scoop marks so evident on those claiming to have been abducted were now adopted by those who believed they had lived before. The scoop marks became scars, stab wounds and bullet holes, marks which they had brought with them to their present existence. Those who had claimed to use electronic voice phenomena techniques to record the voices of the dead now used the same method to speak to the inhabitants of the flying saucers. Quala, the radiant one, we are told, contacted a ufo group in America during the late 1950s and early 60s by using shortwave radio, modulated light beam reception apparatus, whatever that may be, and believe it or not, long distance telephone calls. At the end of each message Quala's departing words were, Farewell Good Brothers’.

The aliens, or a hundred years earlier, the spirits, had pretty much the same message to tell us. Mankind was immoral and would bring about its own downfall if it didn't mend its ways. As time went by these two completely different subjects appeared to be absorbing each other to the point that they are now virtually indistinguishable. There is no greater example of this than those Loch Ness monster hunters now claiming that Nessie is the ghost of an animal that swam the loch during the time of the dinosaurs or those that believe that what nearly collided with Flight 5061 on route to Manchester from Milan was the apparition of a Lancaster or Flying Fortress bomber heading for Burtonwood during the war; or that Spring Heeled Jack was an alien marooned on planet earth.  They all follow the same path because they rely on the truly negative aspects of human nature. Our willingness to believe in anything as long as it's popular and trendy. Believing in aliens and spirits is fun and inoffensive and takes one’s mind off the relentless boredom of the real world that can, at times, be downright ugly. Belief in fairies, aliens, spirits, even Loch Ness monsters doesn't do any harm, but when certain immoral individuals come forward and attach themselves to these people, making a tidy profit exploiting their passion, I tend to become a tad annoyed. If you want to believe in aliens or spirits you go ahead and enjoy yourself, but think hard and fast before you place your hand in your pocket and part with your hard earned cash when those professing to hold secret information offer to share it with you.

Whether or not aliens or spirits exist is immaterial. The plain fact is that we humans need them. They have taken on parental responsibilities and consequently became our guardians, and we all remember just how easy life was when we sheltered from the real world beneath the wings of our parents. To remove them from our lives and consciousness could be devastating. To be forced to face the world as true masters of our own destiny, to be held responsible for our own actions and to have absolutely no one to keep us on the straight and narrow; to have to rely on our own judgement and learn to trust one another, - that could be a disaster of epic proportions.