What do you think?
Rate this book
Contactees: A History of Alien-Human Interaction
We are not alone…and Nick Redfern can prove it. Contactees contains the fascinating stories of the select group of people chosen by visitors to Earth to spread their message. Are aliens really among us? don't be too quick to dismiss their claims. Truman Bethurum was divorced by his wife because she believed he was having close encounters of a very personal kind with a beautiful extraterrestrial "space captain" named Aura Rhanes? Is he nuts? Prescient? An omen? A band of eerily human-looking, blond-haired aliens--later known as the Space-Brothers--informed other contactees that they were concerned by our warlike ways and wished us to live in peace with one another. Acting on the advice of the Space-Brothers, contactees such as George Van Tassel and George Adamski went out and spread the extraterrestrial word to anyone and everyone who would listen. And many did, including U.S. government agencies. More than half a century later, the contactees are still amongst us, still telling their tales of personal alien encounters, and still maintaining their cult-like status in the world of UFOlogy. Nick Redfern's Contactees relates their controversial, illuminating, bizarre, and thought-provoking stories in all their appropriately out-of-this-world glory.
256 pages, Paperback
First published December 1, 2009
5 people are currently reading
92 people want to read
About the author
Nick Redfern
135 books224 followersNick Redfern is a British best-selling author, Ufologist and Cryptozoologist who has been an active advocate of official disclosure, and has worked to uncover thousands of pages of previously-classified Royal Air Force, Air Ministry and Ministry of Defence files on UFOs dating from the Second World War from the Public Record Office.
He has has appeared on a variety of television programmes in the UK and works on the lecture circuit, both in the UK and overseas, and has appeared in internationally syndicated shows discussing the UFO phenomenon. He is also a regular on the History Channel programs Monster Quest and UFO Hunters as well as National Geographic Channels's Paranormal and the SyFY channel's Proof Positive.
Redfern now lives in Texas and is currently working as a full-time author and journalist specializing in a wide range of unsolved mysteries, including Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, UFO sightings, government conspiracies, alien abductions and paranormal phenomena, and also works as a feature writer and contributing editor for Phenomena magazine and writes regularly for other magazines and websites.
In 2007 Universal Studios bought the rights to Redfern's book: "Three Men Seeking Monsters: Six Weeks in Pursuit of Werewolves, Lake Monster, Giant Cats, Ghostly Devil Dogs and Ape-Men" in the hopes of making a movie from it.
He has has appeared on a variety of television programmes in the UK and works on the lecture circuit, both in the UK and overseas, and has appeared in internationally syndicated shows discussing the UFO phenomenon. He is also a regular on the History Channel programs Monster Quest and UFO Hunters as well as National Geographic Channels's Paranormal and the SyFY channel's Proof Positive.
Redfern now lives in Texas and is currently working as a full-time author and journalist specializing in a wide range of unsolved mysteries, including Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, UFO sightings, government conspiracies, alien abductions and paranormal phenomena, and also works as a feature writer and contributing editor for Phenomena magazine and writes regularly for other magazines and websites.
In 2007 Universal Studios bought the rights to Redfern's book: "Three Men Seeking Monsters: Six Weeks in Pursuit of Werewolves, Lake Monster, Giant Cats, Ghostly Devil Dogs and Ape-Men" in the hopes of making a movie from it.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
April 6, 2010
The history of the human race is full of anomalous phenomena but no one set of border experiences has captured the attention of paranormal investigators more than the alleged interactions between members our species and those of the extraterrestrial. Since the modern UFO era broke open in 1947 after Kenneth Arnold’s sighting of an unidentified flying object over Mt. Ranier in Washington St. authors have been delving into the relationships between our race and the alleged one from the other. British author Nick Redfern adds another chapter to this legacy with his latest book, Contactees. While most alien interaction books are obsessed with the modern stereotype of the X-Files style abduction, Redfern takes a novel approach to the topic by looking at the contactee movement of the 50’s and 60’s. A movement characterized by the Space-Brothers, blond haired and silver suited aliens that run counter to the big-eyed grays of modern alien folklore
Contactee history begins with a “Mr. Jones” of Los Angeles who reported to a local columnist in 1947 that he encountered a large silver object in an isolated location which contained life from another planet that had, “become curious as to the reaction caused by the atom bomb causing trouble in an expanding universe”. In this single incident we can see the trend of many following events in the history of the contactees, Jones lived in California and referenced concern over humans and their use of the atom bomb. Just a few years later in 1952, George Adamski became the poster child of contactees when he encountered a being claiming to be from Venus that emerged from a silver craft in the desert. This Venusian was named “Orthon” and warned of atomic weapons and wars before departing in his craft. The contents of this encounter were eerily similar to that and many of the events described in Adamski’s 1949 novel, Pioneers of Space. But this isn’t the only reason to cast doubt on Adamski’s experience. George Adamski continually expanded his story to even more outlandish proportions and later faked an infamous saucer photograph, the Adamski disk. However, this was all the beginning of a pattern that would spread world-wide.
In 1952, a construction worker named Truman Bethurum had repeated encounters with a silver saucer in the Nevada desert which had a hot female space captain from the planet Clarion, Aura Rhanes. Bethurum’s obsession with Rhanes was the final nail in the coffin of his marriage and his repeated encounters with the lady from Clarion continued as Rhanes repeatedly fulfilled her promises to return time and again until one night in 1953 when she didn’t. Bethurum was crushed and eventually re-married after writing about his encounters and then dying in 1969. As with other contactees, Bethurum’s encounters were filled with discussions of pseudo-scientific language and seemingly obfuscated details.
Redfern continues by detailing the encounters of Orfeo Angelucci, George Van Tassel (of Integratron fame, a giant machine he built in the desert for healing) and several others before drawing similarities between their interactions. Some of these contactees were likely planted by governments (or at least manipulated by them) while others could have come into contact with a phenomena that released endogenous di-methyl-tryptamines leading to modulated psychedelic experiences. Perhaps some even encountered a race that evolved alongside humans concerned about our agression and claiming to be from the sky so we didn’t find them here. The brown mountain lights of western North Carolina even enter the discussion, because widely reported interactions with similar orb’d entities that might be an undiscovered biological intelligence. Each of these possible explanations (as well as others) are given due diligence by Redfern completing his balanced reporting of the historical contactee phenomena. Contactees is a highly entertaining and fascinating survey of contactee history and is truly an outlier in a genre saturated with re-hashed abduction stories.
Contactee history begins with a “Mr. Jones” of Los Angeles who reported to a local columnist in 1947 that he encountered a large silver object in an isolated location which contained life from another planet that had, “become curious as to the reaction caused by the atom bomb causing trouble in an expanding universe”. In this single incident we can see the trend of many following events in the history of the contactees, Jones lived in California and referenced concern over humans and their use of the atom bomb. Just a few years later in 1952, George Adamski became the poster child of contactees when he encountered a being claiming to be from Venus that emerged from a silver craft in the desert. This Venusian was named “Orthon” and warned of atomic weapons and wars before departing in his craft. The contents of this encounter were eerily similar to that and many of the events described in Adamski’s 1949 novel, Pioneers of Space. But this isn’t the only reason to cast doubt on Adamski’s experience. George Adamski continually expanded his story to even more outlandish proportions and later faked an infamous saucer photograph, the Adamski disk. However, this was all the beginning of a pattern that would spread world-wide.
In 1952, a construction worker named Truman Bethurum had repeated encounters with a silver saucer in the Nevada desert which had a hot female space captain from the planet Clarion, Aura Rhanes. Bethurum’s obsession with Rhanes was the final nail in the coffin of his marriage and his repeated encounters with the lady from Clarion continued as Rhanes repeatedly fulfilled her promises to return time and again until one night in 1953 when she didn’t. Bethurum was crushed and eventually re-married after writing about his encounters and then dying in 1969. As with other contactees, Bethurum’s encounters were filled with discussions of pseudo-scientific language and seemingly obfuscated details.
Redfern continues by detailing the encounters of Orfeo Angelucci, George Van Tassel (of Integratron fame, a giant machine he built in the desert for healing) and several others before drawing similarities between their interactions. Some of these contactees were likely planted by governments (or at least manipulated by them) while others could have come into contact with a phenomena that released endogenous di-methyl-tryptamines leading to modulated psychedelic experiences. Perhaps some even encountered a race that evolved alongside humans concerned about our agression and claiming to be from the sky so we didn’t find them here. The brown mountain lights of western North Carolina even enter the discussion, because widely reported interactions with similar orb’d entities that might be an undiscovered biological intelligence. Each of these possible explanations (as well as others) are given due diligence by Redfern completing his balanced reporting of the historical contactee phenomena. Contactees is a highly entertaining and fascinating survey of contactee history and is truly an outlier in a genre saturated with re-hashed abduction stories.
May 6, 2022
Redfern's book is really two books that sit in uneasy proximity. The first part, more or less (pp. 13-161), reviews, in a wry and sometimes sarcastic tone, the claims of contactees starting with the first cases after World War II. Redfern expresses doubts about the veracity (or mental balance) of a number of these folks. His skepticism isn't always clearly articulated, but it obviously lingers below the surface.
But the second part (pp. 163-225) swerves off into nutty conspiracy land. While the possibility that drug-induced hallucinations, hypnagogic states, or our own internally-synthesized DMT might account for some contactee experiences is not unreasonable (though our bodies produce only tiny amounts of DMT), Redfern treats as serious suggestions that aliens we've met might actually be humans living in a vast underground civilization or argon-generated plasmas that are alive and conscious or that contactees were actually government-sponsored false-flag agents. He makes the usual rhetorical move for supporters of these truly bizarre notions: he asks, what if this is true? and then goes on to draw out implications that take you to la-la land. He can claim he's only asking questions, but of course the end result is to lend some plausibility to ideas no rational person would accept.
The value in his book lies in some of the research he did on the earlier contactees, especially his use of the Freedom of Information Act to secure FBI files on George Adamski and George Van Tassel. Both were suspected of being Communist agents because their Space Brothers urged an end to nuclear testing and lived in apparently communist societies out there in the Final Frontier. Reading the lengthy passages from the files that Redfern quotes reminds us of the lunacy that gripped America in the 1950s.
If you're interested in the contactees, the chapters on them are worth a read (though Redfern's sarcasm can get to be a bit cloying). But the latter part of the book is valuable only as a guide to the nuttiness people can surrender to.
But the second part (pp. 163-225) swerves off into nutty conspiracy land. While the possibility that drug-induced hallucinations, hypnagogic states, or our own internally-synthesized DMT might account for some contactee experiences is not unreasonable (though our bodies produce only tiny amounts of DMT), Redfern treats as serious suggestions that aliens we've met might actually be humans living in a vast underground civilization or argon-generated plasmas that are alive and conscious or that contactees were actually government-sponsored false-flag agents. He makes the usual rhetorical move for supporters of these truly bizarre notions: he asks, what if this is true? and then goes on to draw out implications that take you to la-la land. He can claim he's only asking questions, but of course the end result is to lend some plausibility to ideas no rational person would accept.
The value in his book lies in some of the research he did on the earlier contactees, especially his use of the Freedom of Information Act to secure FBI files on George Adamski and George Van Tassel. Both were suspected of being Communist agents because their Space Brothers urged an end to nuclear testing and lived in apparently communist societies out there in the Final Frontier. Reading the lengthy passages from the files that Redfern quotes reminds us of the lunacy that gripped America in the 1950s.
If you're interested in the contactees, the chapters on them are worth a read (though Redfern's sarcasm can get to be a bit cloying). But the latter part of the book is valuable only as a guide to the nuttiness people can surrender to.
May 26, 2018
Unfortunately, I found this book too boring and had to give it up.
March 28, 2011
I knew going in that this book would be on the "trippy" end of the spectrum. What I didn't expect was that the author would have done his homework, and provided so much to back up his ideas. I'm of the opinion that the "contactee" phenomenon tells us very little about what's out there, but quite a bit about ourselves. This book nicely follows the global narrative of reports from contactees. Evidently, the "aliens" have updated their look as the times have changed. (Keepin' it fresh...) In the 1940's, the aliens were handsome and clean cut and had names like "Valiant Thor." Then in the '50's and '60's humans reported being abducted by beautiful female aliens wearing (I'm not kidding here) "a bra and panties." That's what it said--the captain of the alien spaceship was female, in her underwear, and ruined some poor farmer's marriage with her inappropriate overtures toward him. The '70's and '80's brought us less-human looking beings, little grey genderless persons with no noses and large eyes and elongated fingers. (Think "greys.") They all seem to be attending some inter-galactic medical school, and we are the unfortunate cadavers in their labs. The '90's brought crop circles and a grisly interest in our farm animals. And today's aliens seem to represent a broad pantheon of all sorts of critters. The Contactees are reporting everything from little balls of light, to gigantic praying mantises, to shamanic spirit guides communicating telepathically, to beautiful muscular blonde-haired "nordics."
I don't know what to make of all this contacteeism stuff. My strongest hunch is that, at the core of the phenomenon, lies a whole lot of deception. If there are, indeed, beings zooming around abducting humans only to return them later, these beings are varied in form, origin, and motive. If there are not beings abducting us, then there lies something in the human psyche that creates this phenomena--and that "something" apparently transcends culture. (The stories are the same all over the world.) Or perhaps it is one big being, who presents itself differently to different people at different times. Whatever it is--or whoever they are--deception is present, and a nasty penchant for scaring the tar out of humans and farm animals. I have to confess--I don't like them
I don't know what to make of all this contacteeism stuff. My strongest hunch is that, at the core of the phenomenon, lies a whole lot of deception. If there are, indeed, beings zooming around abducting humans only to return them later, these beings are varied in form, origin, and motive. If there are not beings abducting us, then there lies something in the human psyche that creates this phenomena--and that "something" apparently transcends culture. (The stories are the same all over the world.) Or perhaps it is one big being, who presents itself differently to different people at different times. Whatever it is--or whoever they are--deception is present, and a nasty penchant for scaring the tar out of humans and farm animals. I have to confess--I don't like them
June 27, 2011
Nick Redfern's survey of the Contactee phenomenon is certainly well-done, but I wonder if he should have avoided sacrificing depth for breadth. We're given some tantalizing glimpses at the most colorful bunch of saucer devotees ever and I wish that we would have gotten more depth on them, particularly Contactees who are women. Redfern devotes a chapter to this, but misses some important figures such as the Mitchell sisters.
Of course, I'm biased, since I'm a huge Contactee fan to begin with. One thing that Refern does do very well is incorporate reams of FBI documentation which places the Contactees within the context of Cold War fears--similar to what I did in my thesis, back in grad school. This, more than anything, cements the book's value.
Also of note is the chapter devoted to the ideas of the late Mac Tonnies, whose theories of "Cryptoterrestrials" mesh well with the stories told by Contactees. Redfern also delves into the issue of DMT use, along with other psychic theories of contact.
As well as Tonnies, Redfern uses interviews with luminaries such as Greg Bishop and James Moseley. Bishop is a noted expert on the subject while Moseley was there, in the 1950s, interviewing and investigating these experiencers. Redfern talks to the right people for this book.
Overall, this is a great read and the only thing really keeping it from being a five-star book is that it's too short and easily could have gone into more depth on this fascinating and too-oft-overlooked topic.
Of course, I'm biased, since I'm a huge Contactee fan to begin with. One thing that Refern does do very well is incorporate reams of FBI documentation which places the Contactees within the context of Cold War fears--similar to what I did in my thesis, back in grad school. This, more than anything, cements the book's value.
Also of note is the chapter devoted to the ideas of the late Mac Tonnies, whose theories of "Cryptoterrestrials" mesh well with the stories told by Contactees. Redfern also delves into the issue of DMT use, along with other psychic theories of contact.
As well as Tonnies, Redfern uses interviews with luminaries such as Greg Bishop and James Moseley. Bishop is a noted expert on the subject while Moseley was there, in the 1950s, interviewing and investigating these experiencers. Redfern talks to the right people for this book.
Overall, this is a great read and the only thing really keeping it from being a five-star book is that it's too short and easily could have gone into more depth on this fascinating and too-oft-overlooked topic.
May 14, 2015
Unlike most books on UFOs, this book was neither written from the true believer stance ("Everything's real, I believe it all!") or the ultimate skeptic stance ("I don't care how much evidence there is, I refuse to believe any of this!"). Instead, it was written from the stance of a skeptic with an open mind. It's increasingly hard to find UFO books written that way, but in my opinion, that's how they all should be done. The author was witty, interesting, and I would love to read more books written by him. In the beginning, it was hard to tell if he believed every word or not, but then you started to get a feel of his stance, and I couldn't help but agree with him. Most of these stories are way to crazy to be 100% fact. In the last few chapters, he gives numerous different explanations for what could have actually happened, and they all seemed fairly plausible. This was, quite possibly, the best book on UFOs that I have ever read, and I've been reading them for over two decades by now. Keep up the incredible work, Nick Redfern.
November 23, 2015
Although I really enjoy Nick's work; this is one book I didn't really want to read because I, generally, find the whole Contactee thing a bit off-putting and don't tend to believe the people telling the stories.
I did, finally, break down and read Nick's account of contactees from over the years and was very surprised to find I enjoyed it tremendously. It's all about Nick's ability to tell a story without passing judgment as he does so. The people he talks about may or may not be nuts (I think most of them are) but Redfern tells their stories as they were related and leaves it to the reader to decide for themselves.
Honestly, this is one of the better UFO books I've read in a lifetime of such study. It was fun, accessible and actually made me think a few times. Really, what more can one ask of a book?
I did, finally, break down and read Nick's account of contactees from over the years and was very surprised to find I enjoyed it tremendously. It's all about Nick's ability to tell a story without passing judgment as he does so. The people he talks about may or may not be nuts (I think most of them are) but Redfern tells their stories as they were related and leaves it to the reader to decide for themselves.
Honestly, this is one of the better UFO books I've read in a lifetime of such study. It was fun, accessible and actually made me think a few times. Really, what more can one ask of a book?
April 10, 2013
Stories about contact with so called "nordic aliens" beautiful blond humanoid aliens that claim to be from places such as Venus to the Andromeda system.
It was an interesting read because the author offered alternative explanations for the visitations but some of the encounters were still pretty unbelievable.
It was an interesting read because the author offered alternative explanations for the visitations but some of the encounters were still pretty unbelievable.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews