A UFO Story So Impossible to Believe It Must Be True?

AsI read through the first 100 pages, or so, of Earth’s Secret Visitors, my exasperated “inner book critic” was chirping statements like this:

“Oh, come on! This is totally ridiculous!”

And:

“Jeepers! This is so ludicrous!”

And:

“This author can’t expect us to believe this in nonfiction! Even if it’s fiction, only a 5th grader who reads superhero comics might appreciate it.”

And:

“Why am I still reading this?”

BUT THEN …

After I turned the last of the 300+ pages of Earth’s Secret Visitors, my “inner book critic” had changed its tune. It was now saying:

“This is the most fascinating UFO book I have read in at least 10 years.”

And:

“This is an innovative, intelligent and important contribution to UFO literature.”

And:

“This isn’t just a UFO book. It’s a complex and compelling true-life story — it’s a slice of vivid Americana featuring an engaging heroine who triumphs over adversity by demonstrating relentless and gritty survival instincts underpinned by a natural, heightened sense of humanity!”

One of the reasons I did not bail on Lisa M. Nelson’s narrative through the first 100 outrageous pages was the nagging fact that I knew this book was praised by none other than one of the most deeply respected, no-nonsense people in all of ufology — Robert Hastings.

Hastings is the author of the groundbreaking UFOs and Nukes: Extraordinary Encounters at Nuclear Weapons Sites, arguably one of the Top 3 most influential UFO books ever written. Hastings not only endorsed Nelson’s book — he also provided editing and assisted with fact-checking and research. Knowing this, I thought:

“How is it possible that Robert Hastings found value in this story, which, again, seems just ridiculously nutty for about the first 1/3 of the narrative?”

Well, I am now convinced that readers who push through to the end will come to the same conclusion that both Robert Hastings and I did — this book is an “out-of-left-field” masterpiece within the UFO genre.

WHAT THIS BOOK IS ABOUT

It’s the story of a woman born and raised in a small Midwestern city who found herself launched into incredibly strange circumstances — and somehow kept her sanity — while constantly striving to cobble together a life that was otherwise normal.

It was the mid-1970s, and Nelson was a high school student living in a peaceful, clean, friendly neighborhood that was a model of suburban stability. She had great parents, siblings and lots of friends. Call it classic white-picket fence America.

Nelson began dating a handsome fellow high-schooler, Robert Barclay. Outwardly, he had all the characteristics of the archetypal “most popular guy in class.” He was tall, blond, blue-eyed, muscular, a straight-A student, a terrific athlete, gallant and charming.

However, Lisa soon discovered that her new beau displayed some peculiar (to say the least) behaviors that left her baffled — often to a point where she questioned his sanity — and maybe even her own.

That’s because Rob Barclay manifested what seemed like some manner of multiple personality disorder. He claimed that he was “not of this world,” but rather an ancient warrior born five million years ago who had now been reborn (or reincarnated? reconstituted?) as a normal teenage boy transplanted on Earth to serve as “a cover” for his true purpose.

That purpose, he claimed, was to serve as an elite, intergalactic and interdimensional soldier for a powerful extraterrestrial race of beings known as “The Guardians.”

He said The Guardians were charged with protecting the people of Earth from an array of evil extraterrestrial races who had nefarious designs on our planet. These evil entities sought to enslave or perhaps destroy us before we could advance our sciences to a higher degree, putting us on par with other developed spacefaring civilizations.

Rob told Lisa — his youthful, impressionable girlfriend — that he was required to periodically “go off planet” to handle dangerous missions that thwarted the designs of the evil extraterrestrials.

In his absence, The Guardians replaced Rob by projecting an identical “holographically projected double” to keep his place on Earth. This was to allay any suspicion among Earth authorities that an elite, intergalactic warrior was living among us — and so forth.

Furthermore, Rob informed Lisa that, whenever he snapped his fingers, it would indicate that “the real Rob” was now “off-planet” to handle a dangerous mission. The robot double that filled in for the real Rob was simply referred to as “Two,” the first in a series of “robot replacements” that would serve as Lisa’s boyfriend while her real beau was away in outer space.

Although Lisa Nelson was inclined to believe her boyfriend’s sensational story, she was also in a perpetual state of doubt and skepticism. After all, she was no dummy. Lisa was a straight-A student who would score in the 96th percentile on her SATs in her senior year.

She was also disposed to give leeway to Rob’s sensational, delusional claims because, early on, like millions of others in the early 1970s, Lisa Nelson had been deeply influenced by reading Erich von Däniken’s 1968 book, Chariots of the Gods, which led her to an interest in other aspects of UFO information.

I HIT THE “OH COME ON” WALL…

Like I said, when I was reading the first section of Earth’s Secret Visitors, I was appalled by the childish ridiculousness of her story. For example, on one occasion, Rob told her he would be away on a mission to destroy a powerful alien computer named “Lucifer,” and only he could get the job done because only he commanded a special quality that “blended technical science with magic.”

Yes, even his powerful intergalactic masters, The Guardians, could not match teenage Rob’s unique blend of mathematical brilliance and magical ability!

Like I said, it sounds juvenile, much like those 70s & 80s Saturday morning TV cartoons, such as He-Man, Space Ghost or Space Sentinels.

Indeed, many other aspects of the story gave me ample reason to balk. I almost felt insulted that any author might expect me to believe this was a true account, even if Ms. Nelson genuinely thought her boyfriend was telling the truth about his heroic, pan-galactic exploits.

Now, let me offer some relevant background information, and you’ll soon see why I lay out the following facts.

As it turns out, the author, Lisa Nelson, and I have a few things in common:

a. Lisa, her boyfriend Rob, and I are the same age. They graduated from high school in 1977, the same year as I did.

b. Like Lisa and Rob, I grew up in a peaceful small town in the Midwest.

c. Like Lisa, I had also read Chariot of the Gods in the early 1970s, and my young, impressionable mind found it compelling and fascinating (although flawed).

d. Like Lisa, I also developed a deep interest in UFOs, starting when I was 8 years old.

e. Like Lisa’s boyfriend, Rob, I was an avid reader of comic books. My favorites were Spider-Man, Ironman and the Fantastic Four. But I also occasionally read “The Green Lantern,” “Thor,” The X-Men,” “The Metal Men” and other comics.

Because I had read Green Lantern comics, I knew that one of the main characters in the Green Lantern universe was Tomar Re. Furthermore, because I had read a lot of Iron Man comics, I knew that Iron Man’s alter ego — Tony Stark — had joined an intergalactic group called The Guardians of the Galaxy, or just “The Guardians.”

And so, here was Lisa Nelson telling us in her book that her boyfriend Rob had informed her that his real name was “Tomar Ra” — very similar to Tomar Re. Again, Rob claimed to be working for an intergalactic race called “The Guardians.” Rob’s descriptions of his “missions” were similar — in the extreme — to both the exploits of Iron Man, the Green Lantern and other superheroes.

So, a kind assessment of Rob’s claims might be that he was mentally ill, delusional, and that he was leveraging the plots of popular comic books to bolster his hallucinatory exploits. It’s telling that his narratives included a strong undercurrent of what psychologists call “delusions of grandeur.”

But an unkind assessment might be that he was simply a flat-out liar. He was naively plagiarizing comic book plots to spin self-aggrandizing stories merely to impress his pretty young girlfriend.

As for Lisa Nelson, perhaps the biggest reason she went along with it was for that age-old reason — she was simply ga-ga in love with this guy.

As both Plato and Shakespeare said — “Love is blind.”

BUT NOW, THE REST OF THE STORY …

If you have read this far, you are probably wondering how I can possibly recommend this book as a work of integrity and an important contribution to ufology.

Well, much of the reason is the rest of the vivid, compelling, gritty and down-to-earth story that describes Lisa Nelson’s post-high-school and college life.

Lisa graduates from college with a degree in electronic composition. Incidentally, she also happens to meet Robert Hastings during college. He was a fellow student at her university.

Anyway, Lisa and Rob get married, and they move to New York City.

In the Big Apple, Lisa planned to — somehow, someway — break into the music business, leveraging her hard-won competence as a high. accomplished classical violinist, but more so, by applying her unique skills in electronic music. She also qualified as a studio engineer who could master the latest synthesizers, such as MIDIs, MOOGs and all the rest.

As for her new husband, Rob, he was a college dropout with no specific skill set. Worse, he displayed a dysfunctional & lazy attitude toward certain basic realities —you know — like getting a job, making money, paying rent, buying food and assuming the role of a supportive life partner.

Even worse, total slacker and deadbeat Rob’s dysfunctional personality began to trend toward that of abusive husband. At first, he was verbally abusive, and this later devolved to physical violence, including beating his wife with his fists, threatening her with a knife, and so forth.

A SMART, STRONG, UNSTOPPABLE WOMAN

Lisa Nelson’s account of how she worked her way up from “a complete unknown” (to borrow a line from Bob Dylan) in the brutal, dog-eat-dog milieu of the New York City music industry to build a successful career is an absorbing and compelling narrative.

The story of how she “made it” inch by inch, step by step, with a ton of grit and an unstoppable and unlimited willingness to succeed is wonderfully inspirational. This part of her story alone is worth the price of admission, so to speak.

As I read about Lisa Nelson’s life journey, I found myself gaining tremendous admiration for this intelligent, brave and determined woman. I found myself cheering her on when she achieved a hard-won success, and I fretted with dismay when dire circumstances had her pinned to a wall — or slammed down on the floor (sometimes literally).

Lisa Nelson could have easily given up on her ambitions, abandoned her marriage, admitted New York was too much for her, and slinked back to the familiar and comfortable environs of her small Midwestern community to lick her wounds and fade into mediocrity.

But time and again, she refused to take the easy way out. Instead, she conquered New York City. She “did it her way” (to paraphrase a famous song) — and she triumphed.

BUT THERE’S MORE … UFO TANGENTS & PARANORMAL ELEMENTS

Asit happens, Lisa Nelson nurtured more than just a “blind love” that caused her to be swayed by the outrageous claims and fantastic stories of her boyfriend and future husband.

The thing is that — at times — Rob appeared to perform inexplicable but authentic feats of paranormal phenomena. Nelson provides numerous examples. For the sake of brevity, I’ll mention just one.

Back in the 1970s, when Lisa and Rob were high school sweethearts, Rob informed Lisa one day that he would bring one of The Guardian’s gigantic spaceships low into Earth’s atmosphere and it would appear in the skies over Rob’s home.

A day or two later, Rob seems to have delivered on his fantastic promise. Lisa described the event this way:

“To the east, low and behind Rob’s house was a spectacular exhibit of clouds, some dark plum or deep purple in color … in the forefront was a bright, massive, and strangely geometric formation with sharp edges, shaped like a tall rectangular box or a massive column. To me, it looked like a skyscraper with no doors and no windows. It was hovering in front of — and possibly causing-electrically bright clouds nesting the floating ‘building.’ The deep purple clouds tightly surrounded the perimeter of the central apparition, which appeared to be the source of the lightning-like intensity surrounding it. It was in line with Rob’s house, set toward Main Street.”

This object was witnessed not only by Lisa, but also by several friends who lived in her neighborhood. One of the boys with her that day stated:

“That thing hasn’t moved in half an hour. It just stays in the same place. But the clouds are moving, and the satellites and stars are moving. That thing is gigantic!”

After observing the uncanny object for a time, it began to “melt into invisibility,” Lisa said. Her friends debated about whether they should call the police or report it to the local newspaper, but they ultimately decided it was pointless to do so, mostly because they were sure they would not be believed.

It’s an intriguing story, especially because there is ample precedent in UFO literature describing similar cases in similar circumstances. I’ll mention just one, and this story comes by way of the famous parapsychologist, Dr. Jeffrey Mishlove, the former host of the PBS program, Thinking Allowed. He now hosts the extremely influential and respected New Thinking Allowed YouTube broadcast.

Mishlove describes this incident in his book, The PK Man, which is an account of the paranormal claims and abilities of the noted psychic and UFO Contactee, Ted Owens. Dr. Mishlove studied him for more than 10 years, documenting his uncanny psychokinetic abilities.

Similar to Rob, Ted Owens claimed to be in contact with a powerful interstellar race of aliens who inhabited a gigantic mothership parked somewhere in outer space, but in the vicinity of Earth. On one occasion, Owens told Dr. Mishlove that he “would cause a UFO to appear” in a specific location somewhere in the San Francisco Bay area.

On the appointed day, Owens made good on his promise. A gigantic UFO was observed by hundreds, if not thousands, of witnesses. A local newspaper also published a story about the event, including a photo of a UFO in the skies over the Bay area.

As I said, I have described just one of the many paranormal incidents that can be attributed to Lisa’s boyfriend/husband. She documents numerous paranormal events and strange happenings — from minor incidents to major happenings. She believes these events argue against a mental illness scenario for everything she experienced with Rob.

Furthermore, Lisa herself experienced a classic alien contactee/abduction scenario — which included an onboard UFO experience — albeit this event was not necessarily connected to her relationship with Rob.

IT WILL LEAVE YOUR HEAD SPINNING

For those of you who have read my other stories here on Medium and elsewhere, you’ll recall a phrase I have invoked frequently to “maintain my sanity” over my decades of exploration in the UFO community and my own wide-ranging paranormal experimentation. It’s this:

“I will learn to live gracefully with uncertainty!”

Another final note: Keep in mind that, especially in the realm of UFOs and the paranormal, more than one thing can be true at once. For example, it’s possible Rob was afflicted with an array of mental illness challenges — but many of his paranormal claims may have been authentic at the same time.

Whatever the case, Lisa Nelson’s Earth’s Secret Visitors will leave your head spinning, both with frustration, but more so, a sense of wonderment.

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MY THANKS TO ALLY BANK

NOTE: For more in-depth analysis of UFO books and other paranormal stories, please see: KEN-ON-MEDIUM