The Wendigo is without doubt  a highly dangerous creature, one which is a staple part of the folklore and legend of the Native American tribe known as the Algonquin. The monster is typically described as a tall, crazed and violent thing that roams the forests of the Pacific Northwest, the northernmost states of the U.S., and Canada. It is a large, humanoid beast that dines on human flesh. There is, however, another aspect to the lore surrounding the Wendigo. Namely, that if a person eats human flesh, he or she can shapeshift into a Wendigo. Adding to the legend, the Wendigo has the ability to take control of our minds – always for terrible and horrific reasons. In that sense, as well as a shapeshifting angle, there is what we might term a mind-shifting process, too.

Legends of America state: “The legend lends its name to the disputed modern medical term Wendigo psychosis, which is considered by some psychiatrists to be a syndrome that creates an intense craving for human flesh and a fear of becoming a cannibal. Ironically, this psychosis is said to occur within people living around the Great Lakes of Canada and the United States. Wendigo psychosis usually develops in the winter in individuals who are isolated by heavy snow for long periods. The initial symptoms are poor appetite, nausea, and vomiting. Subsequently, the individual develops a delusion of being transformed into a Wendigo monster. People who have Wendigo psychosis increasingly see others around them a being edible. At the same time, they have an exaggerated fear of becoming cannibals.”

Business Standard say: “Despite their gaunt physiques, Wendigo are described by some as giants, measuring at about 14.8 to 15 feet in height. Whilst there are slight variations as to the physical description of this creature amongst the different Algonquian peoples, it is generally agreed that Wendigo have glowing eyes, long yellowed fangs and long tongues. Most Wendigo are also said to have sallow and yellowish skin, though others say that they are matted with hair or have decaying skin. According to ethno-historian Nathan Carlson, it’s also been said that the wendigo has large, sharp claws and massive eyes like an owl. However, some other people simply describe the wendigo as a skeleton-like figure with ash-toned skin.”

One of the more intriguing theories for what may have provoked the legends of the Wendigo is that they were based upon early, centuries-old reports of Bigfoot encounters. Certainly, there are more than a few reports in which Bigfoot-type beasts have acted violently in the presence of people. There are even reports of people vanishing in the woods and forests of the United States – amid theories that the Bigfoot, when food is scarce, will feed on just about anything. And that includes us.  Of the various stories that surround the Wendigo, certainly the most horrific revolves around a Cree Native American named Swift Runner, who lived with his family in an area of forest close to Edmonton, Canada.

As 1878 rolled over into 1879, Swift Runner turned up in the city of St. Albert, Canada. He told a bleak and harrowing story of how all of his family – his wife, his six children, and his mother and brother – had fallen victim to the recent, hostile winter, in which food was beyond scarce and temperatures plunged. As plausible as the story told by Swift Runner to a group of Catholic priests sounded, there was a significant red flag. Swift Runner hardly looked emaciated. In fact, he looked very well fed. That’s because he was: Swift Runner spent the winter devouring his entire family, eating their flesh and gnawing on their bones – as the St. Albert police found to their horror when they traveled to the site of his home in the woods. Suspicions soon began to surface that Swift Runner was possessed by a Wendigo: he began to exhibit bizarre activity, such as howling, growling, and screaming in savage fashion. Tales circulated that, on one occasion, Swift Runner was seen to transform into a savage-looking humanoid, a definitive Wendigo – something caused by his taste for human flesh.

The Wow! signal owes its name to the exclamation written on a paper printout from Ohio State’s Big Ear Radio Telescope in1972 that was evidence of a strange 72-second signal that stunned astronomer Jerry Ehman, and its lasting fame to the fact that it’s never been explained and never been picked up again. A recent paper claimed to have traced the signal to the star 2MASS 19281982-2640123 in the Sagittarius constellation 1800 light-years from Earth, but it’s still a theory. Now, another astronomer has proposed to have identified Wow! as leakage from a power beam propelling an extraterrestrial spacecraft. Time to drop the mic and yell “Wow!”?

“The most observable leakage radiation from an advanced civilization may well be from the use of power beaming to accelerate spacecraft and transfer energy. Power beams are now more credible because we’re building our own: The Starshot project plans launching probes to nearby stars in this century, making power beaming a credible source concept. And power beaming is being developed for military applications, where it is termed ‘directed energy’.”

James Benford, a plasma physicist and CEO of Microwave Sciences, summarizes in Centauri Dreams the paper he’s presented to the journal Astrobiology. He compares the Wow! signal to the powerful laser beams being proposed to power laser sails to nearby stars and to the ‘directed energy’ weapons being developed by militaries to attack and destroy without explosives. In his summary, Benford proposes that leakage – energy that doesn’t directly hit the propelled object – could be powerful enough to be seen by other nearby intelligent species, and shows how it would explain the four parameters of the Wow! signal — the power density received, the signal’s duration, its frequency and its revisit time. The last parameter is the interval until the signal is seen again and Benford explains that it’s the least discussed but possibly the strongest argument for power beam leakage.

“The Wow! observation has never recurred. I take this absence as a clue to its origin.”

Leakage of a highly directed high power beam from around the vehicle would still be powerful, explaining parameter 1. The Big Ear was fixed in orientation, rotating with the Earth, and the duration of the Wow! signal – 38 seconds – matched the duration of a model of a power beam from another star system – 36 seconds, explaining parameter 2. The Wow! Signal was at the 1.42 GHz frequency, a protected radio astronomy bandwidth, so it couldn’t be a transmission from Earth or its satellites – parameter 3. Finally, there’s the recurrence factor.

“The angle of the radiated beam with respect to the light path between the two stars is larger than the width of the beam. Thus, the beam is generally not observable from the target planetary system. If the Wow! was driving a probe to a star, that star was at that time far from the direction of the beam. Earth could accidentally receive the leakage from the beam, since stars move relative to each other. So leakage radiation from star probe launches using the Wow! beam will not be seen again from Earth. This fits the non-observations to date.”

laser sail depiction

Wow! Benford concludes that power beams are the most credible explanation for Wow! because we’re building our own, thus proving they can existence. He also builds a case for treating SETI as a search for these random power beams rather than communications signals – a case that will take a lot more convincing of the astronomy and SETI worlds focused on those types of signals.

It’s not time to drop the mic – but James Benford definitely builds a case for tossing it in the air or spinning it around on its cord (for fans of a certain age).

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At around 11:45 AM On September 15, 2007, the residents of the village of Carancas in the remote highlands of Peru, near the Bolivian border and Lake Titicaca, had their normally quiet, uneventful day intruded upon by the sight of a fiery ball shooting across the sky trailing smoke, bright enough to be seen for miles around despite it being the middle of the day. It was quite the spectacle for the rural, superstitious locals, and it became even more intense when the object smacked down into the earth nearby, generating a mushroom shaped cloud and leaving behind a crater measuring 20 feet deep and 45 feet wide, from which spewed boiling water and noxious fumes, the whole of it surrounded by smoking black fragments. The impact from the object was so strong that the shockwave shattered windows up to one kilometer away, damaged buildings, knocked a man off of his bicycle, and its vibrations were picked up on seismographic and infrasound monitoring equipment as far away as Bolivia. It would have seemed almost like a catastrophic event for the scared locals, and they even thought it might be an attack. Yet it would get stranger still, as this particular meteorite would prove to have some strange properties, and it would go on to spark a mysterious illness that remains unsolved.

When officials and scientists arrived at the scene, they quickly ascertained that this was a large meteorite that had hit, estimated as being about 10 feet across, weighing12 tons, and hitting the earth at roughly 10,000 miles per hour. It was found to have been a chondrite meteorite, likely pulled from an asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, and although it was one of the largest meteorite impacts in modern history, considering its composition it was a puzzle as to why the thing had not burned up in the atmosphere. Indeed, for a chondrite meteorite such an impact and crater were deemed to be practically impossible, with Peter Schultz, a professor of geological sciences saying of it, “This meteor crashed into the Earth at three kilometers per second, exploded, and buried itself into the ground. Carancas simply should not have happened.” Indeed, the impact at Carancas is still classified as the only known such impact by a chondrite meteorite. It was also considered strange that the meteorite had hit so hot and with such fumes, rare for meteorite strikes, which actually hit quite cool and have no odor typically. But wait, it gets even weirder.

The impact site

In the days after the mysterious meteorite strike, many of the locals who had come to investigate right after it hit, numbering in the hundreds, began to come down with a mysterious illness. The unexplained sickness brought with it various symptoms including dermal injuries, rashes, nosebleeds, dizziness, nausea, headaches, diarrhea and vomiting, and soon the local hospital was packed with people suffering from the mysterious ailments, for which no cause could be discerned. So many people were being admitted, in fact, that auxiliary medical tents were set up to deal with the influx, and no one had any idea what was causing it. There were also reports that livestock were falling sick as well, with many of them bleeding from their noses and even dying. The government even considered declaring a state of emergency, but then a few days later everyone recovered as if nothing had happened.

Although the exact cause of the mysterious symptoms could not be determined even with blood tests, it was widely agreed that it had had something to do with the meteorite, as most people had begun to get sick just hours after approaching it. One theory was that the ground water had been contaminated somehow, but if that were the case, then why did the sickness only affect people and animals that had been near the meteorite impact? Another idea was that arsenic already present in the groundwater had been released as an aerosol by the steaming meteor, but the arsenic in the water was found to have been the same level as that of the drinking water in the rest of the areas where people did not get sick. It was also speculated that it had had something to do with the strong smell of sulfur reported near the crater, likely caused by the vaporization of a compound called troilite within the meteorite. Radiation was also considered, but soon ruled out when the readings from the crater were found to be no higher than normal. It could also have been a gas explosion or some unidentified hydrothermal activity, and Don Yeomans, head of the Near Earth Object Program at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, has said of the mystery illness:

Statistically, it’s far more likely to have come from below than from above. The noxious fumes that have supposedly sickened curious locals who went to examine the crater would seem to indicate hydrothermal activity, such as a local gas explosion, because meteorites don’t give off odors.

The Carancas crater

Still another idea was that it was all psychosomatic, caused merely by the superstitious beliefs of the populous, who believed that it had come from the gods, was cursed, or was some supernatural portent of doom. The mayor of the village even had a shaman come to the impact site in order to perform a ritual to appease fears, going as far as to sacrifice a baby llama in the process. Fragments of the meteorite have been kept and studied, but they are completely normal, and there is no indication for why this particular event should have created such a sickness. To this day the mystery of the Carancas meteorite has never really been completely solved, and we are left to wonder just what was going on here.

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Sometimes, when I’m being interviewed on the matter of the Men in Black, I find that show-hosts want me to avoid talking about the paranormal aspects of the MIB mystery. Yes, really. Why? What I can say for sure is that at least some hosts seem embarrassed by the weirder side of the phenomenon. Too bad for them. I can only tell them as it is. The fact is, though, the “Secret Agent” angle of it all is about as far from the reality of the mystery than you, me, or anyone else could ever get. Indeed, the guy who began the whole MIB mystery – Albert Bender – was absolutely steeped in the worlds of the paranormal, the occult, and the supernatural. John Keel, too – of The Mothman Prophecies – quickly realized the Men in Black were not in the employ of the CIA, FBI, Military Intelligence, etc. They were way too strange and obviously non-human. They still are (yes, I still get a lot of MIB accounts to this day).

I find it fascinating that some people outright want to almost rewrite the history of the real Men in Black. That’s why I feel it’s important to let them know they’re talking out of their collective asses. For a lot of people in Ufology, bringing in the domain of the occult is similar to those Cryptozoologists who get mad when someone (like me, LOL) says Bigfoot is a shape-shifting Tulpa that can become invisible! I could go on and on when it comes to the weirder side of the MIB controversy. There’s a better way of getting the message over, though. It’s by sharing with you a classic, perfect example of why the MIB are far removed from the worlds of the Pentagon or Area 51.

Alison Spence, who I interviewed in 2013, had a very strange encounter with a Man in Black back in the latter part of 1973, when she was living in Pasadena, California. It’s notable, and probably relevant, for me to reveal that a major UFO wave was going on at that time, and all across the United States. While hiking in the California hills one Sunday morning, Alison encountered a classic, silver-colored flying saucer-style UFO which, at first, at least, was high in the sky. Suddenly, it dropped to around fifty or sixty above her, hanging there in an odd, wobbling fashion. Amazed, Alison could only stare as the silent craft bobbed around – like a boat on churning waters – and then shot away at high speed. Alison raced home and excitedly told her family of what had just taken place. They, apparently, weren’t the only ones who knew what had occurred on the fateful morning in 1973. Three days later, and after sunset, Alison had a visitor. Not a welcome one, I should stress. It was a Man in Black, a skinny – almost emaciated – old man, dressed in a shabby black suit, looking pale and ill, and wearing an old, 1950s-style fedora hat.

Alison said that she felt her mind was briefly enslaved, as the MIB near-hypnotically asked her to invite him into her home. In a slight daze, and to her eternal cost, she did exactly that. She retreated to the couch, stumbling slightly and feeling ice-cold. The old man followed her, and stood in the living-room, looming over her, as he warned her – in no uncertain terms – never to discuss her close encounter again. Ever. The MIB then turned around and headed to the door. At that exact same moment, Alison felt her mental faculties return to normal and she raced after him, just as he exited the door and closed it behind him. Alison threw the door open wide, only to find the old Man in Black gone. In his place, however, was something else: it was a large, black dog with bright red eyes. It snapped and snarled in Alison’s direction and in what was clearly a deeply malevolent, dangerous fashion.

Alison stared in horror as the glowing-eyed monster prowled around the yard, clearly intent on adding to the malevolent atmosphere that was already firmly in place. Suddenly, and as if out of nowhere, a large, black Cadillac – that looked decades-old in design – appeared and screeched to a halt outside of Alison’s home. It should be noted, here, that the MIB almost always drive such cars of that particular type, age and color. Alison watched, shocked and scared, as the back door on the driver’s-side opened and the fiendish black hound bounded across the front yard and leapt into the back of the Cadillac, which shot away at high speed!

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Is it possible that some UFO encounters might not be what they initially appear to be – namely face to face confrontations with extraterrestrials from faraway worlds? Might they actually be carefully stage-managed, manipulated events? Perhaps our presumed aliens are, in reality, shapeshifters from our world; entities that toy with our minds and assume the roles and even the appearances of ETs. Today, when people ponder on the matter of extraterrestrial encounters, they typically think of so-called alien abductions and the Grays, those diminutive, large-headed entities with eerie, black eyes that are near-hypnotic in nature. Back in the latter part of the 1940s and the early 1950s, however, things were very different. Infinitely different, even. Back then, the Grays were in the sights of precisely no-one at all. That’s not to say people weren’t encountering aliens, however. They most assuredly were. Back then, however, they were known as the Space Brothers.

They were very human-looking aliens – sometimes slightly shorter in stature than us, and occasionally reaching heights of around seven feet. They wore long robes, or silver-outfits similar to the clothing worn by fighter-pilots. And their message was always the same: they were deeply concerned by our growing nuclear arsenals and wished us to lay down our weapons and live in peace and harmony with one another – some chance of that happening any time soon. Among the more well-known of all the Contactees were George Adamski (whose 1952 book, Flying Saucers Have Landed, became a huge hit with not just UFO devotees but with the public, too), George Van Tassel (who attracted significant FBI attention as a result of his UFO claims), and Frank Stranges, who maintained that human-like ETs had infiltrated the Pentagon. And then there were the lesser known Contactees, one of whom is central to the story that this particular article is focused on. His name was Orfeo Angelucci.

George Van Tassel’s legendary Integratron (Nick Redfern)

Although a fairly minor cog in the Contactee wheel, Angelucci wrote a number of well-received books, even though they failed to sell in large quantities. They included The Secret of the Saucers and Son of the Sun. The nature of Angelucci’s experiences will soon become very familiar to you. According to the man himself – who was born in 1912 and who worked for a New Jersey-based flooring company – it was in 1946 that his experiences of the other world variety began, something which Angelucci reveals in Son of the Sun. Angelucci had a big interest in science and aviation and, in August 1946, launched a large balloon array into the skies of Trenton, New Jersey. They were balloons filled with different kinds of mold – the reason being to determine if mold was affected by exposure to different altitudes, temperatures, and air pressure. Angelucci further maintained that it was this experience which caught the attention of the Space Brothers, and who specifically chose him to further their agenda on our planet.

Although Angelucci claimed numerous encounters with the cosmic brothers (and sisters, too), it was not so much the encounters, themselves, that were overly significant, but the means by which the entities from the stars manifested before him. It’s important to note that although Angelucci stressed it was in the summer of 1946 that aliens first took note of his work with high-altitude balloons, it was not until 1952 that the cosmic ones met with him, face to face. By this time, Angelucci had moved to California; specifically to Los Angeles. May 23, 1952 was the day – or, rather, the night – on which everything changed for Angelucci. It started out as a strange day – even before the ETs arrived on the scene. From the moment he woke up, Angelucci felt agitated, worried, and had a strange sense that the day was going to turn out very weird. He was right on target.

At the time, Angelucci was employed by the Lockheed Corporation – which, interestingly enough, George Van Tassel had also been employed at, albeit in the 1940s – and was working a night-shift. It was shortly after midnight on the evening in question that Angelucci got in his car and drove home. He didn’t know it then, but he was about to have a detour, and an experience, of a very weird kind. It was as Angelucci crossed a bridge over the Los Angeles River – a bridge that was eerily empty of any other vehicles, at the time – that he caught sight of a large, blue-colored ball of light that was clearly shadowing him. The beach-ball sized circle of light took a sudden turn, appearing directly in front of Angelucci’s car. Shocked to the core, Angelucci slowed his car to practically walking pace, and watched, amazed, as two small, green balls of light emerged from the larger one and floated towards him.

Via telepathy a booming voice informed Angelucci that he had indeed been watched ever since the day of that fateful balloon launch back in 1946. Angelucci was about to ask a question when the two balls closed in on each other, and eventually merging into one, larger, green light. In mere seconds, the ball changed into the disembodied images of a man and a woman – or, as Angelucci came to learn – the floating heads of a pair of aliens who could pass for you or I. Like so many of the Contactees, Angelucci was asked – in a noticeable and slightly bullying and patronizing fashion – to spread the word of the supposedly utterly benevolent ETs. “We’ll be back,” they said, when all was over, and in slightly Arnold Schwarzenegger-fashion. The ball of light raced into the sky and Angelucci, a nervous character at the best of times, raced home.

The aliens were good to their word and arranged a following meeting – again late at night – under Los Angeles’ Hyperion Avenue Freeway Bridge. As Angelucci patiently waited, he finally noticed a pair of small balls of green light approaching through the darkness. They were coming. The lights transformed into one single light, described by the man of the hour as something resembling a huge “soap bubble” that gave off a “pale glow.” A chummy chat about the Universe, destiny, life, death, and even the afterlife followed – although the chat was a strange one, given that Angelucci found himself speaking to a ball of light that spoke back to him. Then, suddenly, the light was gone and Angelucci was left to do nothing stranger than head back home.

Three weeks later, and undercover of overwhelming darkness, Angelucci was back at the bridge – as were the two green lights. On this time, however, they shapeshifted into the forms of a man and a woman, whose appearance, said Angelucci, put them both at around the age of thirty-five. The male, entity – named Neptune – warned Angelucci that our solar-system had been the home to numerous, earlier civilizations that had destroyed themselves, and that unless we changed our dangerous ways, we would surely be next on the long and sorry list of casualties. It was for that very reason, Neptune said, that Angelucci should write books on his experiences and get the word out to the public – which he duly and faithfully did, right up until his death in 1993, at the age of eighty-one.