How Psychic Helen Greaves First Learned about Mediumship

1975 edition cover

The Dissolving Veil (1967) is the earliest of five metaphysical books written by Helen Greaves, an author about whom there is sparse information available online.  I learned about her from a considerate reader (thank you, Amadeu) who described her as "a great English mental medium."  This is the concise Introduction of the book:

These are my experiences.  These are the evidences which have led me to believe in communication between the two worlds.  This is the way I feel that God has led me.

I put them out for you to read.  Perhaps they may strike an answering chord in your own life.

Helen Greaves

Kent, 1966

For some reason "All names in this book excepting that of 'Moya' are fictitious."  'Moya' is the name of a person who is one of those to have received transcendental communication via Helen.  The name representing the author is 'Lena.'  There are two parts of the book: "Autobiography" (chapters I through XVI) and "The Psychic Sense" (XVII through XXII).  The first chapter begins with the identifying of a life-changing moment in Helen's life "when a woman I had never seen before came to my Canadian home, fell into a trance, and spoke to me in the voice of my 'dead' grandmother."  Prior to this, there was a successful "first experiment" involving 'table-rapping.'

Lena was in her late teens and living in England when a young friend who was in the Royal Navy visited her family.  ". . . Reg explained that you sat around a table with fingers touching its surface . . . 'That table really moves!  Tilts right up on two legs.  And it knocks.  At least, something knocks!  By counting the raps on the alphabet, you get names and messages!'"  Two names were spelled out in succession, apparently signifying Lena's grandparents: Jim had made the transition to the other side of the veil while Sarah-Ann was among the four family members presently assembled in the room.

Many years passed and Lena was unhappily married when she first witnessed mediumship.

We had swept into married life on a high wave of infatuation.


Roger was a sailor, a man for whom the romance of sea life held more attraction than domesticity.


Michael was born in the furnished rooms I occupied, and I was so ill that my mother took me home with her; Roger sailed four days before the confinement.  I did not see him again until Michael was six years old.


I began to long for the security I had given up when I left my home.

So that, when, during the lean days of 1930, Roger told me that he had been offered a posting in Canada, and that, although he would still be going to sea, we could make a settled home in the port where his ship would always dock, I urged him to accept the opportunity.


. . . After we had been in the Dominion about seven years, I precipitated the most ridiculous piece of folly that could have happened.

Out of pride, perhaps, or out of my growing sense of insecurity, or because I was driven by frustration, I persuaded Roger to buy a house!  We had no money, but, mistakenly, I reckoned that if I saddled my husband with a big debt he might make efforts to save something out of his salary towards paying it.


If Roger was driven by an obsession which I could not understand, then I, too, was in the grip of a monomania; a pre-occupation with material security, which nevertheless was eluding me.


By the spring of 1939 we had reached an impasse.


My only confidant was our doctor.  At last, worn out by worry and fear, I went to him and told him everything, gave him proof of the terror that had attacked poor Roger, even showed him incriminating letters.  He was shocked.

"You must go away from him as soon as you can," he said.  "That might bring him to his senses."

It was at this point in her life that Helen/Lena remembered a friend, Jean Webster: "She used to attend Spiritualistic meetings in obscure front parlours . . ."  Jean advised her to learn about the future by consulting the "psychic" and "half-Indian" 'Madam K.'  The following excerpts chronicle what happened during the visit to Madame K, who lived at the other end of town.

I remember it took me nearly three-quarters of an hour to reach the district of mean little homes.


Madam K's was at the very end, a wooden cabin with a learn-to of laths and tar paper like a horrible excrescence in the bushland beauty.


I braked to a stop.  A woman stood at the door.

"Come to see me, huh?"  She had a grey cat in her arms.  She hobbled out to the car, put one hand on the door and said, "'They' tol' me you come, Missy!  Go inside."

I was so astonished I did as she said, and found myself in a crowded room that smelt of cats and stale food.  The window was dirty and the sill cluttered with plants, so that little light came in.  I stumbled over a cat.  It let out a shriek, arched its back, and spat at me.  I would have fled, but Madam's bony frame blocked the doorway.  I was frightened.  The woman's great hooked nose, swarthy skin, and the black eyes that squinted at me were terrifying.

The woman made a gesture towards a broken raffia chair.  I sat.  Madam deposited the cat in a basket, and then I noticed that there were at least four other cats.


Then suddenly I was aware that Madam K was shuffling up and down between the cat boxes, crooning to herself in a queer guttural language.  She jerked her arms, nodded her head as if she was talking to someone.  I waited, astounded.  And then a name caught my attention; a well-remembered name; but a name that had been out of my thoughts for years.

"Sarah-Ann!  The little grandmother!"  The woman came to a halt before me, standing with folded arms, like an old-time chieftain of her race.  "The little grandmother of the Englishwoman!  Sarah-Ann!"

My mouth went dry.

Sarah-Ann?  Grannie?

She repeated the name lingeringly.

"Sarah-Ann!"  Now the harshness was gone from her voice.  She sing-songed with a rhythmic lilt, and swayed a little to and fro.  "The little grandmother!  Pretty!  Pink and white like a flower.  But old.  Very old.  Blue eyes, white hair, pointed chin.  And little!  Hands and feet, they little.  Body little too!  But spirit . . . , beeg spirit inside!  She says the head of house; grandchild not like that!  You!"  She wagged a bony finger close to my face.  "The 'old one' . . . , she say you like your own way.  You never listen, eh?  So now you get yourself into beeg trouble, huh?"

I said nothing.  My heart thumped like a tom-tom.  The room was so quiet I could hear the breathing of the cats.

"The little grandmother . . . she say you all tangled in worry.  No happiness with husband man.  He not bad man.  Only weak.  And now he in bad mess!  And Missy must go away.  Yes, over water, to place of her first breathing.  Sarah-Ann say that is for Missy to do.  Much to learn in land of islands.  Missy go soon.  Missy ask how?"  She seemed to listen to some silent voice.  "No can go, huh?  Sell beeg house, then!"

I trembled.

"Sell . . . ?" I stammered.  "But I can't!"

The Indian drew herself up.  She appeared much taller, far more imposing than when I had seen her first.

"You not sell house!" scornfully she burst out at me.  "Spirit sell house!  Sarah-Ann . . . she help foolish granddaughter.  She open your eyes.  So blind!  You, so wilful.  She say . . . ," listening.  "In ten days two people come.  They like house, like see mountains and sea.  They buy house.  Not give full price.  No matter.  Missy sell all!  Pronto!"  Again the bony hand swept close to my face.  "Missy not look back.  No regrets.  The 'old one' say, let it all go.  Before new moon, Missy cross water.  New life!  Better for both of you."

The woman's head jerked; her eyes opened.

"You know grandmother?" she asked.

I nodded.

"Good.  She help.  She help always now."  Her voice had again become guttural; the nobility was gone from her.  "But she say you not listen.  Or believe.  She come again . . . tell you same thing!  Maybe you believe then . . . huh?"

A moment later Madam scooped up the black cat.  "You go now."

I scrambled up, pressed a dollar bill into her hand and escaped.

I was very glad of the sweet river air outside.  But I was trembling so much that I could hardly press the brake pedal as I drove home.  I wanted to cry.  This wasn't help.  This was only more confusion.

How could an old lady who had been away from this world for over fifteen years know anything of this world?  How could a half-crazy Indian know anything about my fastidious, dominating grandmother?

The following chapter, IV, of The Dissolving Veil presents a second mediumship account.  Lena—as with many confronted by evidence that life is spiritually more complex than previously understood—was dubious about taking seriously the information offered to her through Madame K.  As sometimes to be expected with descriptions of transcendental communication, the reader should not accept the transcript as verbatim and also be aware that the beliefs of a witness may influence the wording of what has been recalled and articulated.  Nonetheless, consistent blog readers will recognize correlations with other case studies of transcendental communication, such as the communicating intelligences using the pronoun 'We'.

"Sarah-Ann," said the voice of my dead grandmother through the lips of a woman I had never before seen in my life.  "Yes, I'm Sarah-Ann.  I'm your Grannie, Lena.  I'm not dead, child.  A dead thing couldn't speak to you . . . , or hear your cry for help.  Lena, the dead can speak!  And they do not talk nonsense!"

The words were the words of Millie Watkins, a Canadian medium, but the voice, the accent, and the tone were those of my grandmother.  It was Grannie's voice, and the way she would have spoken; even the thin clipped accents were hers.

I was astounded.  This woman, Millie Watkins, happened to be out West on a visit from Toronto.  Jean Webster had suggested that I should have a 'reading' with her.  Jean insisted that Millie Watkins was one of the best psychics in  Canada.  She was sure that through her gift I would be helped in the right way.  I would perhaps get a 'message.'

Reluctantly, I agreed to see the woman, and asked her out to my house.  I telephoned the hotel in town where she was staying.

"I'm really on vacation," the woman said.  "But you're in trouble, honey, aren't you?"

"You have been told about me?" I countered, suspicious at once.

She laughed.  "I have never heard your name in my life.  But I can 'sense' trouble.  I'll come out to you."

She came, a homely little woman with an unlined face, greying hair, and large tortoiseshell glasses that gave her an owl-like look of wisdom.  Her violet dress was  too fussy for her size, and she wore a huge cross of garnets on her bosom; it swung like a tolling bell as she moved.  She brought her husband; he was certainly comfortingly earthly, I thought, wondering whether she was going to take off and float about the room.  But she sat herself quite comfortably in an armchair, and began by admiring the house and view.


The line of the distant Vancouver Island hills faded to a blue haze.  

When Lena "heard Grandmother's voice" speaking through the medium, there were some new comments about her predicament.

"I came to you through another channel!  But you scorned the channel, Lena."


"You have made a muddle of your life, my child.  You are disillusioned and unhappy.  We know all about it.  We know, too, about your husband.  He must be saved from his follies.  There is only one way now.  A clean cut.  The surgeon's knife must be applied to his disease . . . He must be shocked into seeing his folly . . . and overcoming it.  You must go away from him. . . ."

Eventually "the medium's voice died to a whisper" and the woman's husband said: "The power has gone.  Leave her alone for a bit.  She'll be all right."

"You can turn up the lights," Millie Watkins' Canadian drawl broke in on my confusion.  She was quite normal and placid.

"Did you have somebody you knew, honey?" she asked as she sipped water.

"My grandmother," I said.  Then I blurted out, "exactly as she used to be!"

After the couple left, Lena reflected that the room was different.

It seemed alive!  A power vibrated in it; a presence was there, a presence beyond that of my little grandmother.  It was a spirit of love and beauty such as I had never before known.  I felt that loving arms enfolded me.

When Roger's ship came into port, his tempestuous relationship with Lena resumed: "He flew into rages.  He spent money madly.  He would listen to none of my urge to restraint . . . Somebody was guiding us out of the morass we had made of our lives."  Then:

Suddenly he burst out, with uncanny insight.

"You're leaving me, aren't you?"


Even before the ship sailed, I had put the house in the hands of an agent.

The agent brought to the house an elderly man and a fair-haired woman: "The two people who, Madam K had predicted, would come to me!"  A cash offer was made.  "It was smaller than I had anticipated.  But, thinking quickly, I realized that it would cover the mortgages, and leave a few hundred dollars over."  The agent cabled Roger.  A few days later, the agent telephoned and informed Lena that her husband had cabled his agreement.

Meanwhile, unhappily, I made my arrangements to leave.  A dealer bought the furniture.  Our car was already gone.  Passages to England were booked.  I wrote to Roger and told him that what he had expected had come to pass.  Our doctor also confirmed that it was imperative that I get right away; he said he would not answer for my sanity if I remained.

It was as simple as most tragedies.

Before a new moon appeared, as Madame K had predicted, Michael and I were on a trans-continental train, speeding to Montreal and the ship that was to take us to a new life in England.

A Flying Saucer Contactee's Poetic Phase

A recent blog article mentioned some of the paranormal case studies where an individual experienced unprecedented creativity or 'automatic writing' involving poetry or proverbs, including Pearl Lenore Curran, whose psychic experiences began with Ouija Board communication; Chico Xavier, a famous author of books via automatic writing; Lynn Russell, who was a regular participant in Direct Voice Communication seances; Elizabeth Fuller, who was the colleague (and later became the wife) of author John G. Fuller (The Interrupted Journey, Arigo); and Truman Bethurum (1898-1969).  The latter is known to be one of the first documented 1950s flying saucer 'contactees.'  A blog article about 'automatic writing' mediumship is "The 'Automatic Mirror Writing' of Mrs. Georgia".  Recent blog articles have also considered links between 'contactee' and psychic/medium case studies involving paranormal encounters with tiny people and transcendental requests.

A unique facet of the Truman Bethurum case (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6) is the two letters (shown below with English translations) given to him aboard a flying saucer, thus presenting physical proof of his paranormal experiences.  The letters were in response to a family question posed in a letter written in French from a young lady who was a friend of Truman.  He had asked the captain of the flying saucer, Aura, that the answer be written in the same language with also a comparable answer in Chinese or Yiddish.

An English translation of Aura's French letter reads:

Dear Maria:

On this Planet, exactly as on the earth, human beings are of the same nature and have to confront the same problems as you and I.  It seems however, that civilization, such as we find it on Earth, has brought many misfortunes to men.  We are Christians here and on this point we have not retrogressed as I see from here the dreadful paganism which is gnawing at modern countries.  You come from a country where customs and manners are stricter and, on the other hand, there are, in America more liberties and greater licentiousness to which one must adapt oneself.  If, on the contrary, either your husband or you do not place yourself on guard against the lures and mirages of attitudes based on negligence and selfishness in your marital relations, it is often difficult to keep the love of a husband who has strayed from the straight path without any apparent cause on your part.  Try then to convince him by your unlimited fidelity and your complete devotion, refusing to permit your heart to revolt or to reproach past weaknesses.  But, above all, learn to place your faith in God, and, by Christian effort which will be an example to him, try to lead him back to a sincere faith or to increase in him the practice of religion.  Here, God has saved us from inclemencies and has spared us many social misfortunes.  We are not acquainted with divorce, adultery and infidelity to the dangerous degree that it exists on the Planet Earth.  Learn from us about the power such as we have already displayed it; some day Earth will no longer be what it is if men do not change; they are destroying themselves by inches.

From your Friend without equal to those on Earth.

Madame Aura

These events are chronicled in Aboard a Flying Saucer (1954) by Truman Bethurum.  A follow-up book is The Voice of the Planet Clarion (circa 1957) that describes his own experiences in poetic verses.

 

Truman explained in the Foreword of The Voice of the Planet Clarion:

At the close of the first visit, the lady Space Captain Aura Rhanes told Truman to make the visit "known to the people of your world."  As Truman was a construction engineer, welder, machine operator and mechanic, and not a writer or poet, he was at a loss as how to best place his wonderful experiences before the general public.

Captain Aura told him to write down the visits and what was said, in the manner in which she spoke.  Upon his return home, after the second visit, he took his pen and started to concentrate.  To his surprise, the words flowed from the pen, as if Aura, herself, had hold of it.  The following pages are the result.

The book Aboard a Flying Saucer was written from notes taken at the actual time of the visits and more fully detailed each time, soon after the Scow had departed.

Considering these comments and the stanzas written by Truman, 'automatic writing' doesn't appear to be the appropriate description for this text.  In addition to remarks about his 11 visits aboard a flying saucer in 1952 and the visit of Captain Aura three years later when Truman was in Prescott, Arizona, the book includes 32 poems "given under the inspiration of Aura Rhanes" and five articles.  Among the many curious aspects of the case is that Captain Aura told Truman to prepare himself for a visit to her planet of Clarion.  It may be significant that such an experience is not among those described although there was some planning between Aura and Truman.  He commented in Aboard a Flying Saucer about his first encounter with Captain Aura: ". . . this woman was talking to me in a swinging, rhythmic tone of voice, much like you read Mother Goose verses to your children, and for a moment I wondered about it.  But I put it out of my mind for the time being . . ."

During the second visit to the flying saucer, Truman mentioned Aura's "sing-song high pitched voice."  During one of the later visits, one of the quoted statements of Aura after speaking about "teleportation" is: "There is more to this than meets the eye . . . Remember, I am speaking to you in a tongue quite foreign to me about matters entirely foreign to your comprehension."

The following is an anecdote from the Clarionites' eleventh visit.

Then I asked her again about things on Clarion, and questioned her about her hobbies.

She said, "I love to read and ride and swim and fish in lakes and rivers.  I like to dress up nice and dance.  But housework gives me shivers."

Truman wrote that he reacted by "wondering about her liking to fish."  As Aura had previously said that people from Clarion never kill anything, he "concluded that when she made that remark [about liking to fish] she must have been referring only to people."

Truman commented about his social predicament following his 11 visits to the flying saucer.

. . . my adventures had become common talk around Kingman, and people were taking a distant and disapproving attitude in their contacts with me.  So I decided finally that no one in the whole wide world believed my story or gave a continental whether it was true or not.  They wanted to continue living in the status quo, immersed in their dull little lives, not even curious about the greatest adventure ever made known to mankind.

A posthumous book featuring "information recorded by Truman Bethurum" was published in 1970: The People of the Planet Clarion edited and compiled by Timothy Green Buckley (republished as Messages from the People of the Planet Clarion (1995).  Autobiographical chapters include commentary about Truman's poetic phase in reference to "my first notes of our [initial] meeting on July 27, 1952" —

I was told by the Captain that I should write down the highlights of our discussion and make it known to the people of our world.  My answer to her was:

"I am not a writer and I can hardly read my own writing!"

She promised, "You will have no trouble writing about our visits with you."

During the second visit aboard the flying saucer, Truman was asked about the writing request and he "responded in the negative."  He was then told: "When you are off work, write down in your own way what was discussed on our first visit with you, and then write down all that we are discussing now."  What happened following the visit is reported —

When I was back at the Desert Inn in Overton, I took papers and pencil and sat down to write as they had instructed me to do.  The results were surprising to me!  It seemed as though someone was holding the pencil and actually forming the words!

Here are some of the stanzas about Truman's experienced visits from The Voice of the Planet Clarion.

You will certainly marvel at her [Aura's] answers,
        But you'll know they're from a Master's mind.
She said, "The things that trouble and worry you,
        In OUR homes, you'll never find!"


She escorted me to the edge of the Saucer,
        It was as big as all get out!
Now, contrary to general opinion,
        I am sure it never did whirl!
It just disappeared in the sunlight,
        Just like a vaporized pearl!


I said, "Have you ever seen our Navy,
        Army and Marine Corps, too?"
She said, "Every time they assembled,
        It was just like for me to review!"


I spoke of politics and taxes,
        And asked if they had these, too.
She said, "No!" and added directly:
        "That's what cleft your old world through!"


[Aura:] "You asked of our great problem.
        It was to control magnetical force.
You know that we have solved it,
        Both pro and anti, of course!"


Her flesh was real and plenty firm.
        Her shape was like an expensive urn,
She was just over four feet tall,
        And certainly entrancing, all in all!


[Aura:] "Your deserts and plains could be transformed overnight,
        To a place, that from heaven, would look plenty bright!
The money you spend every year for a War,
        Would bring water in, if need be, from afar."

My mind was a blank, I guess,
        I must have been thinking of home.
I picked up my tools and got in my car,
        And just then was startled by a slight little jar!

Then her sweet voice rang out,
        "You know, here we are!"
I recognized it as from Aura Rhanes,
        My friend from another planet or star.


"Now, as to where we live, man may visit there soon!
        It's a beautiful place, the other side of the moon!
The government is directed by others and me,

        And we never have troubles, as some day you'll see!"

"Now, education with us, is tops, you see,

        And every language we learn.

Science, culture and history, too,

        As around every planet we turn."

"I am sure some people would like to know,

        How we chose any certain man.

We looked around this great big Earth

        For a place to safely land.

"You happened to be close when we came down,

        Thanks to Wells Cargo Clan.

The interest you showed was enough for us to see

        You were a straightforward man."

I told Aura I had a question for her.

        Marilyn Mills had written in French.

I don't know a word it said,

        But Aura typed the answer, too.

In a language I've never read!

And just in fun, I snickered a bit,

        With a very little wheeze.

I said, "The joke would be on her,

        If you answered in Chinese!"

She called for some paper and wrote it down.

        It looked like scribbling to me!

She said, "When this gets around, it will be the

                talk of the town,

        And I do it without a fee!"

I was getting so tired I could hardly see.

        She said, "You better get home!"

She also said, "With the notes I give,

        You should write this down like a poem!"

[Aura:] "If we opened our Scows to all that would come,

         Soon Clarion would be of small worth!

'For Sale' signs would mar all our beauty,

        And Foreclosures, the same as on Earth!"

"We have a machine we know is not on Earth,

        But we have had it for time untold!

And any time we want any events reviewed,

        It is there on a screen to behold!"

[Aura:] "Now, I know my description of this lovely affair

         Really sounds like a poem,

But it's really true in detail, too,

        Then we belatedly left for home."

Five Paranormal Encounters with Tiny People

In this article, examples are offered of encounters with Lilliputian people from the annals of 'paranormal phenomena,' encompassing two separate accounts about occurrences witnessed during materialization seances; details of the newspaper report about the publication of unusual photographs of tiny flying 'faeries' in 2014; and testimonials of two flying saucer 'contactees' from 1959 and 1968, respectively.

Previous articles at this blog report about the materialization mediumship of 'Eva C.' (1, 2, 3) chronicled in the case study books Phenomena of Materialization (1920) by Baron Albert Von and Clairvoyance and Materialisation (1927) by Dr. V. Gustave Geley.  Nandor Fodor wrote in Encyclopaedia of Psychic Science (1934) about the phase of Eva's career when she was "under the care of her adoptive mother, Mme. Juliette Alexandre-Bisson, between 1909-13" during the Bissons' experiments in association with Von Notzing. 

 Left: Eva C. (photograph detail) from Phenomena of Materialisation; Juliette Alexandre-Bisson.

Although Mme. Bisson’s 1917 book has not been translated into English, Fodor’s article on “Materialisation” mentions what may be the single most startling incident observed by Bisson.

On May 25, 1921, Mme. Bisson observed the materialisation on Eva’s hand of a naked female eight inches high, with a beautiful body, long fair hair, brilliantly white skin.  It vanished and returned several times and either her hair was differently arranged or her height grew less.  The little figure performed various gymnastic exercises and finally stood on Mme. Bisson’s extended hand.

Charles Richet noted in Thirty Years of Psychical Research (1923)

At the Copenhagen Congress (vide Revue Métapsychique, p. 364) Mme. Bisson read a report of some astounding facts that must be admitted in despite of their wild improbability, because of the known exactitude of Mme. Bisson's experimental methods.  The events narrated took place on May 25, 1921, before six persons in full daylight.  The ectoplasm, called "the substance" by Mme. Bisson, was transformed into a tiny nude woman, beautifully formed, apparently alive and who moved her limbs.  Her size changed rapidly.  Eva took her and placed her on the hands of Mme. Bisson where she remained about ten seconds, long enough for those present to verify that she seemed alive.  

Below are ten of the unexpected materializations photographs documented in the case.  Readers seeing these photos for the first time need to understand that the photographs were taken under controlled conditions by scientifically-minded researchers.  One of the things they learned is that artistic rendering can also be accomplished from the 'Other Side.'  The standing 'phantom' was a recurring ectoplasmic "apparition" (figures 156, 157, 159, 198).  Click on each photo for an enlargement.

 "Fig. 1.  Photograph by Mons. André Bisson on 25 November, 1909."

"Fig. 47.  Flashlight photography by the author, 1 November, 1911."

"Fig. 48.  Magnified portion of Fig. 47."

"The same object taken from within the cabinet.  Lateral view, magnified."

 "Fig. 60.  Flashlight photography by the author, 30 December, 1911."

"Fig. 76.  Mme. Bisson's flashlight photograph of 15 April, 1912."

"Fig. 156.  Author's flashlight photograph of 19 May, 1913."

 

 "Fig. 157.  Simultaneous photograph by Mme. Bisson, 19 May, 1913."

 

"Fig. 159.  Mme. Bisson's flashlight photograph of 8 June, 1913."

"Fig. 198.  Mme. Bisson's photograph of 7 January, 1914."

Nandor Fodor's chapter on 'Materialisation' also mentioned an incident from Gladys Osborne Leonard's autobiography My Life in Two Worlds (1931).  Gladys was a psychic/trance medium who described the seance room materialization of "a tiny man and woman."  She has been the topic of two previous blog articles (1, 2).  Gladys began her career as a professional medium in 1915.  The following incident occurred during the years of World War II when she and her husband participated in a seance with a well-known materializing medium.  The materialization sittings were an occasionally recurring experience for her.

Gladys Osborne Leonard

Occasionally we had materialization of a different kind altogether, little spontaneous happenings that were very interesting indeed.  For instance, the whole circle were concentrating on watching a form endeavouring to show himself by the light of the illuminated slate, which was not very strong that night as the medium had neglected to re-cover it with phosphorescent paint, for which he got a good scolding from his Guides during the sitting.  My husband was sitting with his feet and knees rather wide apart.  His gaze was suddenly diverted from the materialized spirit to a kind of glow near his feet.  Looking down he saw a tiny man and woman, between 12 and 18 inches high, standing between his knees.  They were holding hands and looking up into my husband's face, as if they were thinking, "What on earth is that?"  They seemed to be as interested, if not more so, in him, and the details of his appearance, as he was in theirs.  He was too astonished to call to call anybody else's attention to the tiny people, who were dressed in bright green, like the pictures of elves and fairies, and who wore little pointed caps.  A slight glow surrounded them, or emanated from them, he wasn't sure which, but it was strong enough for him to see their little faces and forms clearly.  After a moment or two they disappeared, apparently melting into the floor.

Gladys mentioned the variety of physical manifestations, some resembling "masks" while at other times were seen the "entire forms" of what she termed "operators" with "every detail of their clothing" noticeable.  Sometimes "the results were very poor, the materialization consisting of indistinct, blurred features that might have belonged to anybody."  The following excerpt shows her keen awareness of the limited understanding of people without personal experience of seance room manifestations.

As the spirit of one man, who was killed in the war, said to his mother at a later sitting, referring to his attempts to show her his face, "Mum, I felt as if I looked more like a badly boiled suet pudding than anything else."

If a sceptic had been present at one of these unsatisfactory sittings, he might have been forgiven for thinking that the whole thing was either a clumsy fraud, or worthless for the purpose of proving human survival.

Based on the circumstances chronicled in these incidents reported by Juliette Alexandre-Bisson and Gladys Osborne Leonard—along with all the reports of 'simulacrum' (1, 2, 3) seance manifestations—one can consider how Arthur Conan Doyle approached the infamous Cottingley Fairies photographs with an open mind.  In 2014, newspapers reported about John Hyatt's 'faeries' photographs, such as the ones below that were published in the Manchester Evening News.

"Fairies in Rossendale Valley photographed by Professor John Hyatt"

 
John Hyatt was reported to have insisted his photos are genuine and have not been altered in any way.  The newspaper article reported: "John Hyatt, Director of Manchester Institute for Research and Innovation in Art and Design (MIRIAD) at Manchester Metropolitan University snapped images of what he claims are the tiny winged creatures whilst out photographing the Lancashire landscape over the last two years."  He is quoted:

“It was a bit of a shock when I blew them up, I did a double take.

“I went out afterwards and took pictures of flies and gnats and they just don’t look the same.

“People can decide for themselves what they are.

“The message to people is to approach them with an open mind."

A follow-up newspaper article is entitled: "Pictured: Photographers around the world swamp professor with new images of fairies" while a variety of 'fairy' sighting videos are available on You Tube.

Another incident involving a minuscule person may be heard in an interview with Orfeo Angelucci by Long John Nebel.  The audio clip is featured in Nebel’s 1966 phonograph record “The Flying Saucer Story” (available on You Tube although only half of the featured contactees are credible).  Further details are provided in Angelucci’s book The Son of the Sun (1959).

Angelucci spoke calmly:

I entered the door and at the table nearest the door was a very, very handsome man.  And as I approached, he says, “Greetings, Orfeo.  Sit down.”  And I say, “You have a third glass here.  Is someone with you?”  He looked at the glass and he was surprised.  He said, “I don’t know how that happened.  I only ordered two glasses.”  He asked me to order.  Then he asked me if I wanted a bottle of beer.  I said, “No.  Not tonight.”  So he says, “Good.”  He lifted the pitcher of water from the table and poured it into my glass.  Then he went into his pocket and he said, “Then how about some of the best champagne in the world?”  He took out a little pellet and dropped it in my glass.  And it started to fizzle like his own.  So he’s told me to call him nothing but Adam.  He — two months ago, he discovered he had nine months to live.  He had cancer.  And it’s incurable.  Anyhow, he says, “Eat up.  Let’s dine and just get acquainted for the time being.”  I noticed that his glass was filling itself with water.  But no one had poured it in there.  So we went on for a while and as the dessert approached I heard music coming from the glass.  It was subdued music.  He said, “Wait a minute.  On this pitcher here the water was up to this black spot.  Now it’s down here.”  He said, “But the pellet —”  He went in his pocket and he says, “Wait, I’m supposed to have four.”  He took out the pellets.  There were only three.  He said, “What they were doing was sublimating the water or evaporating it from the pitcher into the glass by remote control and sublimated the pellet in his pocket over into the glass so that no one ever actually saw the process.”  Of course, I know now that he had — had either experience with space visitors or that he himself was one.  And then I looked up at him and noticed that he was looking now intently into the glass.  He had a little smile on his face yet tears were streaming down his eyes, landing right on the table before me.  And I thought, “What is it — what is it that he — is going on.  I looked at the glass and now there was the — well, the figure of a girl dancing in it with blonde hair.  A little miniature woman just dancing to the music and the music itself became more spirited as she danced.  I never saw such dancing before.  I immediately — I thought, “Well Adam is either recalling someone or he’s had an experience out of this world — literally out of this world” when she disappeared.  She never looked at me.  She always looked toward him but in the finale when the music ended with the crash she suddenly whirled and went on her knee and looked toward me.  But she had a very grim aspect on her face as though to say, ‘You don’t know now but you soon will — why and what Adam is experiencing now.’  And with that gesture — that is when she got down on her knee, bowed like in a curtsey and that grim look toward me as much as to tell me, ‘You too will know what Adam is now experiencing someday’ — she completely disappeared.  That was the end of the dance and the music ceased. 

There are seven previous blog articles about the Orfeo Angelucci case.  (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7)

A flying saucer contactee of the 1960s is UK reporter Arthur Shuttlewood, the subject of 14 previous blog articles.  The following anecdote was mentioned in one of these articles yet here I am presenting the passage in its entirely except for the omission of a few sentences about an occurrence at his place of employment that evidently is of little significance.

 Arthur Shuttlewood

Study the following dramatic story carefully, before condemning the two people concerned as outrageous liars.  Both are absolute realists with nothing to grain from verbal weaving of untruth.  They do not hanker for notoriety or dubious fame.  Their character and standing in Warminster are high.

Here, in brief, is the astounding series of personal involvements in the aggregate that presents us with evidence that UFOs and their crews make a special appeal, when it suits their purpose, to the most practical and down-to-earth persons in bizarre ways.

It was on the night of Monday, January 15th of 1968 that they drove up Portway (where the author lives) and headed towards Elm Hill, about a mile short of Cradle Hill.  Both of placid temperament, they were completely at ease until the short burst of aerial activity broke their phlegmatic calm.

They had reached the traffic roundabout at the junction of the foot of the hill and Westbury Road when a fiery UFO swept across their vision, from right to left, from Cop Heap towards the silent downs.  The car engine began to seize, choke and sputter.

It did not affect the woman, who was in the passenger seat next to the driver.  She shielded her eyes from the bright glare of the spaceship in close proximity as it swooped down to the front of the car and swiftly upward.  She was then intent on looking left to see where it went after blistering their sight.

The man, however, felt two terrific stabbing pains, high up on either side of his chest. He collapsed at the wheel, slumping over while managing to break the vehicle to a halt.  He remembers little else . . .

After going to work the next day, he "received a strange phone call, urging him to be at Heaven's Gate, on the Longleat Estate of Lord Bath, at 9 p.m. three days later.  He and the woman went on the Thursday, not knowing what to expect, staying in the car park opposite."

At three minutes past the appointed hour, the female espied a UFO.  It tilted from side to side, overhead, then flew straight to Heaven's Gate and dropped with the suddenness of a stricken bird.  The two companions keeping a weird assignment with the unknown clambered over chainlink fencing and tore across the grass.

They sped along the avenue, between trees and bushes, and on the downward slope just beyond the 'gate' proper (one has a glorious view of stately Longleat House from here) was the saucer.  Shocks were in store for the middle-aged couple.

It ceased to spin, the glow lessened in intensity, as it virtually lay on the sloping ground.  They found it difficult, almost impossible, to grasp an amazing fact which staggered them in that tense moment . . . The craft was literally no larger than a soup plate!  The two rendezvous keepers gasped.

Then a golden ladder, fine in texture as gossamer, appeared from the base of the miniature spaceship, down which climbed tiny elfin figures no more than four inches in height.  There were more than two dozen of them altogether.  Stepping away from the landed craft, now blacked out, each in turn zoomed up to the height of the man and woman standing there, dumbstruck, aghast and refusing to credit the testimony of their eyes.

They shook hands with the two Warminster people politely.  They were perfectly normal and friendly, as though knowing them well.  After a few minutes of small talk, inconsequential yet enlivened by broad smiles from the 'visitors,' they invited the male to take a journey with them in their machine to see some of the hidden wonders of his own world.

Staggered still, yet no longer fearful in face of their warming presence, he agreed.  The woman was left behind, holding the car keys and personal effects.  To her further amazement, all were again dwarfed in size—including her companion, this time.  They ascended the golden ladder, cobweb fine.

A whistling noise accompanied the lift-off, the craft rising with a spinning and slightly agitated motion until in free flight.  It became larger as it soared up, stopping momentarily well above the treetops before continuing its flight.  It soon faded from sight.

The woman, alone in the darkness, waited there for eight hours until past 5 a.m., when her friend returned, dismounted in pygmy stature from the reminiaturized craft and assumed normal height of almost six feet on nearing her.

I will quote what she told me, descriptive of her mixed emotions as he went into the shining spacecraft with the occupants at about 9.10 p.m.  "Arthur, you may think me mad—that is up to you and makes no difference to me.  But I swear it is true.

"I could have stooped down, plucked the saucer from the ground and held it in one hand, everyone aboard, it was so small.  When I saw B— reduced in size, the same as the others, before he went up the ladder into the machine, my heart almost broke in two.  I could have cried over him!"

Frankly, in spite of the quiet and sombre way in which she gave me the bizarre story, I laughed at loud at this remarkable revelation, until the man—who had not spoken at all, leaving it to his friend—released one specific piece of information which I had already gained from a contact.

To the best of my knowledge, very few others knew of it at that time.  It concerned the state of the inner core or central ball of Earth.  The man knew of this, now; that was all he was 'permitted' to tell me to substantiate the fact of his journey.  It was enough to convince me that the couple had indeed undergone a chimerical and unnerving experience that was more than a vague imprint on their minds or a traumatic experience.

Further details he gave me, later, in an indirect way as though it germinated from his own reasoning and not that of others, with regard to buried cities, communities and mountain chains lying deep under large oceans, caused me to guess intuitively where his trip had carried him on the glowing spaceship.

Shuttlewood deduced from this incident: "These 'people' have the ability to change form, size and dimension.  This, with applied thought, explains much that has puzzled us in the past during our investigations."  Upon reading about this incident in Shuttlewood's Warning from Flying Friends (1968), I was reminded of the 1995 interviews with the family experiencing what had been called 'talking poltergeist' phenomena in Centrahoma, Oklahoma.  Family members had told me about hearing something with a motor land on top of their car on one occasion and I told them in response, "Well, that's a UFO."  The incident was mentioned in one of the numerous articles at this blog about the Centrahoma case: "Excerpts from Centrahoma Interview Transcripts".  Some of the photographic evidence of the Centrahoma case may be seen in the article "Five Centrahoma Photographs".

This Centrahoma photo detail shows what is the apparent outline of a transparent face.