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S.P.A.C.E. BOOK, PLAY & FILM REVIEWS

THEY'RE HERE! -- "THE ABDUCTION PROJECT' by COLLISION THEORY THEATER COMPANY

A Play Review by Harold Egeln, 3/1/2001

A pocket watch, a train, a family, rose pedals, dreams, science, a blackboard, the word "missing"... all elements of a deeply haunting new play about "extraterrestrials visitations and alien abductions" in which our senses are expanded and our minds are stretched beyond time and space into interior depths of being and knowing.

And where memory, time and the nature of relationships are choreographed in a surreal inner landscape on which everyday outer lives, reflected through the thin lens of a typical suburban family in the mid-1950's, are the surface foam of a deeply seething and wandering enigma in a depthless ocean of unexplored consciousness entered through a tunnel of profound mystery.

Collision Theory Theater Company's latest play, which opened in New York City on March 1, is a mind-bending romp, set to the tune of 1950's early rock music and tempo of its nuclear family boundaries with trance-like induced interference patterns raising questions about what is really real and what really matters in our lives.

It exposes what goes on behind the superficial scenes of lives lived in daily comfortable fictions and what happens when the hidden recesses of the close encounter experience reveal the unspoken, unfelt and unthought in days chained to the concealing entrapments of "normal" time.

THE WATCH: WHAT IS TIME?

As "Rock Around the Clock Tonight" plays, a strangely moving man in a trenchcoat and black sunglasses holding a pocketwatch enters a dance hall as a slower, more graceful dance of inner time blurs the faster dance of normal time, daring to cross into the unexpected and unacceptable.

And in that transition, reflecting the often incredibly subtle and complex nature of the close encounter phenomenon on witnesses, what thrives mostly at the corner of our eyes takes center stage, shaped in images more suited to what is usually ignored by our minds and which can be jarred into awareness by passing thoughts, hypnosis, profound insights and other means.

The expressway of life, with its straight focus. is criss-crossed by many side roads which appear as insubstanial routes at first and are dismissed because they appear as dreams. Dreams, however, may reveal a greater reality, more aware than daily lives in which people seem awake, a theme this play brings out.

THE INNER SPACES EXPLORED

In the play, now playing at the wonderful HERE Arts Center in Soho, we see no aliens nor see any UFOs (except one drawn on a blackboard and that mentioned by a newscaster)... But they're here, all throughout the performance, landing through suggestions like the clanging of trains along tracks and the eyes of an owl.

Beds that turn into train seats suggest hidden encounters that roam in night lands of the mind, and through haunting. enticing music like the Johnny Mathis song, "Chances Are."

And the man with the pocketwatch and other guises...Who is he? And who are we?

Anyone who expects to see a drama portraying what the official media and entertainment industry has shown will be treated, or feted, to a deeper exploration without answers nor identifying percisely who is behind the UFO mystery.

A physicist, with Einstein-like hairdo, fiddles on a blackboard speculating about other dimensions and superstring cosmology, bringing science into the equation of the visitation mystery.

But in the realm of cutting-edge quantum science the physicist discovers ever more questions about the nature of reality and time, and the dream-like rhythms that compose space and time...And the lives of those involved in the close encounter matrix are somehow emeshed in that enigmatic equation, engendering a quest.

LIVING LIVES WHICH ARE QUESTIONS

Questioning not only the parimeters of what is accepted in daily lives as reality and who we are as people, the acting ensemble probes into what it feels like to be emmeshed within the encounter experience, bringing to the surface the nuiances, the subtle and the shocking, that are rarely shown in popular TV series and in sensationalized accounts which miss out on the core experience.

Those incomplete or false attempts by "real world" media display the outer, often distorted, images that bear little resemblance to how this all plays out in the real lives UFO witnesses and encounter experiencers.

What the producers, writers, directors, stagers and actors of this astounding alive and very thoughful theatre ensemble have done is demonstrated by the rare gift of really listening to those who live through the encounter, abduction and visitation experience, and create a tableau to express that.

LISTENING DEEPLY, PAYING ATTENTION

Using a unique acting process of actually hearing first-hand accounts and thought from people who have encounters, the ensemble has successfully translated and transmitted the inner spaces onto the stage of life, in which we all act out in a time-driven, living on the surfaces world.

The lives the actors portray, such as Mary, Robert, Kate and Bobby (the suburan nuclear family) are like shallow living curtains, going through accepted motions-- a daydream world, passed-off as "reality," which hides the more alive world of dreams, as the inner spaces are called, when sleep and the mystery trains come.

And these professional actors, so suited to their craft, have revealed, with great sensitivity, the various stages on which this mesmorizing encounter mystery truly plays out.

It all left me with this thought: They-- the Collision Theory ensemble --are like those forces, themselves, which seemingly orchestrate the encounter phenomenon and integrate it with those who experience it with them.

Be prepared for what happens when actors who really listen perform the inner feel of the greatest and most controversial mystery of all time, and what very few have done justice to before.

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"The Abduction Project" by Collision Theory Theater Company was performed at the HERE Arts Center at 145 Sixth Avenue in Manhattan in New York City. The play opened, after four previews, on March 1 and ran for 15 performances through March 17, ending its scheduled limited run.

The special Sunday, March 4 performance was followed by a thought-provoking hour-long panel discussion with the audience, moderated by the ensemble's Stephane Gilman, featuring Oliver K., a representative of IF (Budd Hopkins' Intruders Foundation in New York City) and Harold Egeln, director of SPACE (Search Project for Aspects of Close Encounters in New York City).

Dr. John Mack, of PEER (the Program for Extraordinary Experiencer Research in Boston), was unable to make it due to bad weather.

People from these organizations were interviewed in preparation for the play. SPACE wishes to express its deepest appreciation for being part of the process that created this play.

The play was conceived by Stephanie Gilman and K Tanzer, and performed by: Randi Glass as Bobby, Woman; Tsuyoshi Kondo as Robert; Jeffrey Morehouse as A.F. Capt. John Chase, Charles Hart, Man; Gus Schar as Man with Pocket Watch, Man; Sarah Tancer as Mary, Woman, Physicist; and K Tanzer as Kate. It is directed by Stephanie Gilman with K Tanzer.

Interviewees were one Anonymous, Dave Brody (SPACE.com), Ed Martin, Meryl Johnson, Alan White, Harold Egeln, Will Buche, Karin Austin, Budd Hopkins, Randall Nickerson.

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UFOs AND ABDUCTIONS: CHALLENGING THE BORDERS OF KNOWLEDGE, From the University of Kansas Press, edited by David Jacobs

The Halls of Knowledge are coming through, thanks to Temple University History Professor David Jacobs, whose first book, "The UFO Controversy In America" in 1975 was the first academic press publication on the subject, based on his doctoral thesis. "UFOs And Abductions: Challenging the Borders of Knowledge" will be released this September, in hardcover with 384 pages, $34.95.
0-7006-1032-4 0-7006-1032-4.

IT IS NOW AVAILABLE THROUGH AMAZON.COM AND THE UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS PRESS.
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"ARTIC THAWING MAY JOLT SEA'S CLIMATE BELT"

That was the headline in the Science News section of the New York Times of December 7, 1999 by William Stevens about mounting scientific evidence of the thawing of the Artic and sub-Artic regions, with immense implications for the Northern Hemisphere and global weather patterns, which could change drastically in a short period of time.

A perfect companion piece to that article just happened to appear right before Christmas in bookstores nationwide dealing quite specifically and in more detail with frightening scenarios--and with hopeful visions and trends, called "The Coming Global Superstorm," a joint work by top-rated talk show host Art Bell and best selling author Whitley Strieber of "Communion" fame.

Do not look for words here about the UFO mystery and its challenges. It is about a challenge that humanity has created for itself: What we as a species have engineered in re-shaping the biosphere which makes us and life possible and sustainable.

The planet's climate depends a lot on a water "global conveyer belt" from the North Atlantic through the South Atlantic and the Indian Ocean and around the Pacific Ocean.It's what keeps the Northern Hemisphere (the United States, Canada, Europe, Russia) temperate and livable.

But, as the fresh water Artic Ice Shelf, set in the Artic Ocean, melts, as it has been doing for the last few decades. the surges of that thawed fresh water cool the tropic warm ocean current which composes the global conveyer belt, as explained in both the Times article and in the authors' book.

And that is where the big trouble begins, threatening to upset the climatic balance over the next few decades or, more ominously, suddenly, at any time, once the warning signes kick in fast. What may happen to climate patterns and the devastating effects on humans and their civilization is described in detail in the book.

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MESSAGES FROM THE PAST TO THE FUTURE?

This book is as much about of past as it is our future, as we may have been given warnings by those lost in pre-history.

Haunting ancient monuments, such as the Sphinx, which may be older than the original Egyptian culture according to some controversial studies, along with other large stone structures throughout the planet, hint of a long-forgotten lost civilzation whose level of achevements may have matched or surpassed ours.

Consistent myths throughout the planet and the ages, forming a coherent pattern, suggest that there was a culture/civilzation which may have been destroyed overnight.

Could those possible missing advanced cultures have sent "messages" to their "future time," in which we now dwell in the 21st Century, warning of a pending environmental catastrophy?

Could they have left other markers such as the Zodiac calendar, to say something to us, the humans of their far future? That possibility is well examined in the book, published by PocketBooks, Inc., by Bell and Strieber.

Ironically, here in New York City in December 1999 a science seminar was held called "Future Time," about how our civilization could sent messages and warnings to our far future cousins.

In the environmental, scientific and UFO fields of studies, we need a wholistic, comprehensive and multi/inter-disciplinary approach. Badly!
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S.P.A.C.E. EXPLORER ARCHIVES

ARTICLES from Previous Orbit Edition Newsletters

*** SETV: A Scientific Search for Visitations from Extraterrestrial Probes-- A SETI Closer To Home

*** Life Beyond Earth: A Conversational Evening by the Mindshift Institute.

*** Encounter Witnesses: Up Close & Personal

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SETV---A SCIENTIFIC SEARCH for VISITATION from EXTRATERRESTRIAL PROBES

"A NEW SETI CLOSER TO HOME" By Harold Egeln

News reports in August 1960 told of a mystery satellite circling the Earth but traveling in a retro-orbit, east to west. No nation, then nor now, is capable of doing that, as it is contrary to known orbital dynamics which places satellites into westerly-to-easterly or polar orbits at speeds of 17,000 mph. This unknown satellite was moving at 25,000 mph. About a month later it was gone from orbit.

Hearing a news report of a scheduled sighting time after sunset, I, then a school child, watched this reddish satellite coming out of the high eastern sky, orbiting swiftly to the west, where it blinked out in the Earth's shadow.

When I was in grammar school I was intriqued when I read reports of pre-Sputnik satelltes thought to be in orbit and at the LaGrange Points, where the gravity of the Earth and Moon are neutralized.

I also, as a little lad, remember news accounts of a three-year old TV signal from KDKA, a Pittsburgh station, which apparently bounced, or was returned, by a natural object or an alien probe, speculation ran, 18 light-months from Earth.

I wondered for a long time...why do not astronomers look for possible alien probes in Earth's vacinity or within the solar system, rather than using solely radio or optical telescopes?

And hereee comes SETV............."A New Search Model in the Quest to find ETI."

*****

"SETV is a scientifically based endeavor to collect meaningful and unambigious data on objects in Earth's atmosphere or our solar system which may provide evidence of visitations from intelligent probes of extraterrestrial origin," reads the introduction to SETV's huge and academically rich website. While opitcal and microwave (radio/TV) SETI looks at stars within our stellar neighborhood and beyond, SETV wants to look for artifacts and probes in our immediate solar neighborhood, in our cosmic backyard. It is NOT, it makes clear, affilated with ufology--the study of UFO reports, abductions and crop circles and associated phenomenon, although it values ufology's history. But, it is very interested in a handful of "quality visitation organizations" and their research, such as Dr. John Mack's PEER, the Center of UFO Studies and the Fund for UFO Research. What is beginning to intrigue SETV is the social aspect of ET visitations, how that would happen, and the possibility of remote ET interaction with humans, without physical contact, probably by some approximate telepathic means, whether by natural means or through quantum technology, a subject some scientists have mused about. SETV's parent organization is OSR, the Organization for SETV Research, which created the search model of SETV. SETV has been around for a few years but only recently has it become public. It was co-founded by OSR Director Walter Williams, a contractor, and Scot Stride, a telecommunications/RF engineer at JPL, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. It was Stride who organized much of the material for SETV concept, with help from Williams and others. SETV/OSR sees four possible motivations for ETI (Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence) probe missions: scientific exploration, military reconnaissance, commerical and colonization motives, and tourism, all of this at least viewed through human preceptions. Stealth strategies, some scientists think, may be employed by ETI for a variety of reasons, which seems to be the actual case from UFO and close encounter reports. OSR's website, which can be found on our Links Page, is massive and worth an in-depth exploration. Parts include motivation, historic searches for ETI, SETV experiments and devices, ETI contact experiments, SETV efforts that have been done, relevant book references, technical abstracts, documents written by OSR members, sets of principles in case of contact, Internet links, and FAQ. Among the books mentioned is NASA Langley Field propulsion physicist Paul Hill's book, "Unconventional Flying Objects," published after his death, and demonstrating that not all UFOs reported defy known aerodynamics but utilize them. "I'M FROM MISSOURI..." One book in the SETV site stood out like a gem as related to the work of SPACE. "PROJECT IDENTIFICATION: The First Scientific Field Study of UFO Phenomena" by Harley Rutledge, Ph.D., a physics professor from the University of Missouri, which funded his many years study. The book, published in 1981 by Prentice-Hall and now out of print, (I bought my copy in 1985) is a superb detailed chronicle of Rutledge's field studies in the mid-1970's, using instrumentation and devices, with multiple observers spread out at other sites for triangulation purposes. The team's studies mirror SPACE's experiences over and over again, from all the skywatch team field work we did in the early and mid-1990's, but without benefit of instruments, using our own recorded observation methods with the benefit of the personal intimate connections we have with the phenomenon from our own mysterious visitation experiences....making us the instrumentation. Like SPACE, Rutledge was told by some in the UFO community that he saw "too many UFOs." He also experienced Orbs, balls of lights that seemed to monitor him, much as some of us have experienced and even photographed. Professor Rutledge, in a chapter called "A Very Subtle Phenomenon" discusses the suggested synchronicties and staged aspects of his sightings, with apparent interaction with the remote aerial objects, showing their awareness of him or reacting to him, to the point that it spooked his wife. "Possibly a great deal of UFO activity is subliminal---which, if true, could have serious ramifications," Rutledge says of these subtle effects. Of the many thoughtful discussions on SETV's site is one by Allen Tough, Professor Emeritus of the University of Toronto, examining the possible nature and ramifications of ETI first contact. His own website, accessible through SETV in its Links section boldly suggests a contact situation created through the Internet. Which is what appears to have happened in mid-June with precision timing here around SPACE. DREAMING OF SOMBRERO A week before SPACE was alerted about SETV on June 12, I had a vivid dream in which I consciously recognized the beautiful saucer shaped Sombrero galaxy, which seemed to be probing. I do not recall ever dreaming about galaxies before. When I visited SETV's website on June 12, I noticed its logo image, the Earth connected by a cone to what I first thought was a saucer, then quickly recoginzed that it was the Sombrero Galaxy!--confirmed when I checked the site's page about the logo, which was created by Stride of JPL. So, was the dream a week before a "communication" or mere coincidence? If a communication, then the implications are astounding. This all came on the exact same day an insight here led to a major breakthrough (see our Breakthrough Special Report Page 8), which quickly became an apparent Contact Situation with a Communication that, over the following weeks, seemed to develop into what may be called a Conversation and a Dialogue. Even a strongly suggested awareness by a hyperconscious intelligence of OSR Director Williams, was given to us through a physical event involving a SPACE member meeting a "Father Williams" on July 2, which she connected to a character, Father William, in Lewis Carroll's "Through the Looking Glass," not OSR's Williams (see page 8). SETV's approach is an invaluable new aspect to the SETI search for intelligence elsewhere. It relates to the visitation experience with the need for ufology to incorporate SETV's techniques and instrumentation, expanding the scope of ufology. SETV, which, we repeat, is not involved in ufology but in the scientific field of SETI research, is on the right track with its SETI near-Earth probe detection concept. At the dawn of 2001 we were informed that engineer Stride has a paper published in the Jan.-Feb. 2001 of the Journal of the British Planetar Society (pages 2-13) titled "An Instrument-based Method to Search for Extra-terrestrial Interstellar Robotics." He is also submitting a paper with the same concept at the upcoming SPIE Opitcal-SETI Third International Conference, seeking SETV as another aspect of SETI. ************ In the close encounter experience and research, a multi-disciplinary approach is needed, employing science, psychology, anthropology, mythology, cosmology and other fields. SPACE is glad that other methods of detecting Intelligent Life Elsewhere are being proposed, such as SETV. The more the merrier! ******************************************************

LIFE BEYOND EARTH: A CONVERSATIONAL EVENING Presented By THE MINDSHIFT INSTITUTE at the NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES

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THE EXPLORATION OF THE OUTER WORLD HAS LED TO THE DISCOVERY OF NEW PLANETS, NEW SOLAR SYSTEMS, AND SUGGESTIONS OF PRIMITIVE LIFE ON OTHER CELESTIAL BODIES.

THE EXPLORATION OF THE INNER WORLD HAS ALSO YIELDED TANTALIZING INFORMATION ABOUT THE EXISTENCE OF INTELLIGENT LIFE BEYOND EARTH.

ALL OF THIS INVESTIGATION SIGNALS A SIGNIFICANT SHIFT IN OUR VIEW OF THE UNIVERSE AND OUR PLACE IN IT.

On JUNE 5, AT THE NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCE AN EXPANSVE EVENING OF EXPLORATION INTO THESE FASCINATING SUBJECTS TOOK PLACE.

S.P.A.C.E. was there. Here is our report of this important discussion, following the description given for the evening by its two charming organizers.

For more information on The Mindshift Institute, contact: mindshift123@aol.com

INTRODUCTION by MICHAEL MANNION & TRISH CORBETT of the MINDSHIFT INSTITUTE For the past 10 to 15 years people have become increasingly aware of major changes that are occuring in almost all aspects of human life. In science in particular, the shifts in thinking have been especially profound. Our understanding of who we are and our place in the univese has been changed radically in just the past decade. The belief that dominated scientific thinking for centuries---that Life is an accident--that we are alone--that the universe is empty, save for dead matter and energy---has already changed as the result of new knowledge. In the last decade we have discovered more planets, 40 now including three in one system, outside of our solar system than exist within it--have identified the first solar system other than our own--and have uncovered tantalizing suggestions of life on other heavenly bodies, such as Europa and Mars. Based on these and other discoveries, the majority of the scientific community now believes that life is ubiquitous in the universe. The question of the existence of intelligent extraterrestrial life in he universe must be addressed. Will thinking on this subject--now held in contempt by many respected thinkers, such as Stephen J. Gould and Ken Wibler--undergo a major transformation in this new decade? The information being gathered indicates that this may indeed happen quite soon. During the evening, the audience was introduced to the evidence that has brought about this change and learned about the thinkers and investigators who have helped to create a mindshift. ***************************************** OPEN MINDS, OPEN QUESTIONS By Harold Egeln What an intelligent treat and a feast for thought, thanks to the hosts and the participants. To think about Life Beyond Earth, we must learn to Think Beyond Limits...and structures, belief systems, norms we have had since childhood and be willing to consider endless possibilities and the unthinkable. Scientists have apparently broken the light barrier, it was noted, in a recent experiment that demonstrated a photon arriving before it was sent, exceeding the speed of light by 300 times, it seems. (That's 186,000 miles per second times 300!) Another separate experiment shows a photon exceeding light speed by 25%. (These results will be published in NATURE). Such impossibilities, as humans frame them, show that we can be wrong about what we accept as barriers and limitations. Our whole type of education system structures our lives, limiting them, Corbett noted, a discussion in itself. "How we think limits what we accept and do not accept," a participant said. Mannion, a health writer, told of his articles on the connections of cancer and emotions being edited in the late 1970's and early 1980's because it was so outside the framework of official cancer research. In 1985 medical finally acknowleged the role of emotions in cancer, but forgot of the debate that proceeded this new mindshift. That could be applied to life beyond Earth. "That UFO that crashed at Roswell," he said as an example, "might be the accepted norm in the future but without reference to the controversey that preceeded it." A psychologist told a story of how a schzoidphrenic was identified because of the person not being able to talk, therefore, not able to communicate his thoughts. "But I looked at his drawing of a galaxy. It was beautiful. It told alot about him and he was communicating. But my collegues did not consider that sane communication." Later I thought of the amazing crop formations in the English countryside. Later his observation reminded me of a marvelous movie from Argentine in 1987, "Man Facing Southeast," about a man claiming to be a space being, with an outsider's view of life, which gets him confined to a mental health hospital. Can llfe survive and thrive in space, in great organic molecular clouds (first discovered back in 1964), on planets unattached to solar systems and starlight, living in internally heated environements, like the life discovered here on Earth in undersea volcanic vents? How about lifeforms that breathe sulfur? Life can survive in near absolute cold and above the boiling point. Even bacteria survived the near-vacuum and extreme cold and heat on the Moon,on a probe sent and brought back to Earh, Mannion noted. How about if consciousness is the basis of all reality, rather than hard reality being the basis of consciousness, asked Tricia Pfeiffer. That creates a revolution in how we think and know in a major way that upsets a whole market place of apple carts. "What is our true human potential? Are we living the life we can be living?" asked Trish Pfeiffer, on the board of Dr. John Mack's PEER. Those questions came up regarding what the UFO experience may be opening us up too, our own greater human possibilities, as PEER Executive Director Bobbie Colasanti was quoted by a participant. "We get up in the morning, have our our coffee, go to work, do our laundry, pay our bills, talk about the daily stuff of life that all talk about in variations, but are we missing out on who we really are?" The question of life beyond Earth being manifested on Earth in unexpected ways is what the UFO enigma presents. A woman related her sighting 40 years agai of a cigar-shaped "mothership" in the area of the Pan Am (now Met Life) building near Grand Central Station, aghast at the ship flying fast but boldly over Manhattan. Rather than being mostly in the domaine of psychologists, the UFO question needs a multi-disciplinary approach, it was discussed, with a reference to an April 1999 multi-disciplinary discussion at Harvard, through PEER, that involved scientsts, anthropoligists and other fields, opening up interest in those other fields of studies about close encounters. The image of a spiral, Mannion noted, is important. In a brief excerpt shown at the gathering from the recent PBS Special by Timothy Ferris, also called "Life Beyond Earth," Ferris drew a spiral in the sand. That's a universal symbol in many cultures, Mannion said. In fact, it comes up in UFO-related interactions, and I can cite some of own experiences. When I was in Brewster, New York, in May 1991, at my late night encounter with cloaked, hooded beings (see Close Encounters of the Contact Kind page), as they faded into an outcroping of rock, a spiral form appeared in the air in front of the outcropping, veryfaint but there in dark purple for about 10-15 seconds. It was like a spiral galaxy or spiral hurricane in form. "Why not have Dr. John Mack and Dr. Michio Kaku come here about talk about UFOs?" someone suggested, as others in SPACE have asked. Dr. Kaku, a theorical nuclear physicist at CUNY, has written of a ten dimensional universe in his book "HyperSpace," which came after an earlier book, "Beyond Einstein." So, how do we get scientists to look at human experience, from whch UFO sightings and close encounters are reported, as a learning place for science? Corbett then quoted from her recent award winning essay, sponsored by the Aerial Phenomenon Research Program with FIONS, entitled "UFOs-A Challenge To Mainstream Science" in answer to the contest question, "What evidence is needed to convince mainstream scientists that the UFO phenomenon is real and worthy of scientific study?" She proceeded to read a list of famous world leaders, top scientists, astronauts, cultural researchers, military leaders and others who have commented positively on the need for further study. It was similar to a list SPACE published in its newsletter a few years ago. "To me, the answer to the UFO question will radically change our view of who we are, what our place is in the universe, our concepts of reality and the nature of consciousness," she wrote. *********************** NOTE: Corbett's full essay can be found on the UFOcity.com website (on our Links Page) under the section "Mindshift 2000.")

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ENCOUNTER WITNESSES: "UP CLOSE AND PERSONAL"

In early 1998 Whitley Strieber and a team of professional, top-notch photographers, led by Timothy Greenfield-Sanders, set out to photograph close encounter witnesses "up close and personal" at diverse sites across the United States in preparation for a photo spread, with text by Strieber, for LIFE magazine.

SPACE was asked by Strieber to provide people for photo shoots around Manhattan, and we supplied about ten people at three locations, two on the Upper West Side, with Reverend Michael Carter, Alan White and others, and one in Greenwich Village, with Joseph Wiek, Marjorie O'Brien and Harold Egeln, at the corner of Christopher Street and Seventh Avenue by Sheridan Square.

When Strieber and the photographers were in Gulf Breeze, Florida a few months later finishing a photo shoot, a strange bright ruby red light appeared in the sky. LIFE editors, not enthused in the first place about the subject, subsequently refused to go ahead with the photo spread because of that "UFO," and the project was scraped.

In Summer 1999 the eight page photo spread appeared, instead, in the premier issue of a new photo magazine called "(t)here"---with the title "Beyond the Beyond." But we in SPACE did not know about this until Strieber, to our delightful surprise, dropped off an issue to Egeln n May 2000.

The issue includes wonderful photos of groups of encounter witnesses in Glenrock, Wyoming, Boulder, Colorado, Ventura, California, Gulf Breeze, Florida, and our group of O'Brien, Wiek and Egeln in New York City.

Strieber refers to O'Brien's many encounters nearby, Egeln and Wiek's encounter experience (in January 1993) in a Sheridan Square restaurant, and the fact that New York City is the leading home among cities to many sightings and encounters.

Then Strieber asks what such witnesses do? "Harold Egeln and Joseph Wiek have been struggling with these questions since the late eighties, when they founded a small organization for New York City witnesses called the "SPACE" group. They meet occasionally to share their latest encounter experiences, (it happens more than you would think), and to wonder."

(SPACE has been a busy organization, without a confining structure, and many of our exploration meetings of witnesses and our supporters have been packed.)

The article also includes 13 frames of that "ruby red light" that appeared in Gulf Breeze. Hey, thanks, Whitley for your support! It helps to show people how we really look and who we really are---real people!

LIFE did do a front cover feature of its own in March 2000, with the teen actors from the TV network show "Rosewell," holding an old UFO photo. Not photos there of witnesses on the cover, but a bow to UFOs as entertainment.

"UFOs-Why do we believe?" is the title of the article by reporter Cynthia Fox, subtitled "The Search for Extraterrestrial Life" under a SCIENCE heading. Several famous older UFO photos appear, NASA astrobiologists are interviewed, as are Roswell mortician Glenn Davis and abductee Sandy Nichols from Tennessee, with a LIFE UFO Poll thrown-in. The reporter was rightly crticized for an unprofessional approach to the subject.

Strieber's text and Greenfield-Sanders photos in "(t)here" magazine have far more life in them and say so much more about us than LIFE magazine with its faltered approach and its missing the essence of who we are.

Thank you Whitley Strieber and Timothy Greenfield-Sanders for your persistence and your gift, and thank you "(t)here" magazine for not only your commitment to professional journalistic standards but to your courage.

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STRIEBER ON S.P.A.C.E.

THE SPACE Group (Search Project for Aspects of Close Encounters) is one of the very few groups of close encounter witnesses who have had shared encounters.

Their website contains a record of what has happened to them, and offers other witnesses in the New York area an opportunity to participate in their group.

They have been together for many years. They also offer a quarterly newsletter that I have been reading since its inception. It's always informative and a pleasure to read.

(This was written by Strieber on May 15, 2000 as he formed a link with SPACE to his "Whitley's World" website.)


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'THE ABDUCTION PROJECT" -- A New Play by COLLISION THEORY...in New York City

The play was performed from FEBRUARY 24 to MARCH 17, 2001, with previews Feb. 24-28. Opening Night was on March 1, with Performances Wednesdays through Sundays at 8:30 p.m. @ $15 and Mondays at 8:30 p.m., pay what you can. No performances were held on Tuesday.

A special performance on Sunday, March 4 was followed by a discussion, moderated by Stephanie Gilman, with representatives from the Intruders Foundation and Search Project for Aspects of Close Encounters.

The play was at The HERE Arts Center, 145 Sixth Avenue (between Spring & Dominick Streets), in Soho, Manhattan, NYC
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An innovative acting ensemble, founded in 1996 by Stephanie Gilman and K Tanzer, and composed of professional actors, put the close encounter experience on stage off-Broadway in New York City in 2001 with an original play, "The Abduction Project," another startlingly, image saturated work by the ensemble, this one about extraterrestrial visitations and alien abductions.

The ensemble, "Collision Theory," which most recently looked at the corporate world in its last play, has a deep interest in the UFO encounter experience. As part of its performance creation process, which included research, it interviewed close encounter witnesses from Dr. John Mack's PEER, Budd Hopkins' Intruders Foundation and from S.P.A.C.E. to get a feel and a sense of the encounter experience from the inside.

"Collision Theory" presented an innovative drama about alien encounters set against the backdrop of 1950's suburban America--- a world of poodle skirts and hula-hoops, stay-at-home moms, the early days of TV, space exploration, and the birth of rock 'n roll. "The Abduction Project" is a piece about memory, fear, violence, and escape.

With this project, Collision Theory leaped beyond the famliar, the tangible, and the scientifically observable into a surreal landscape of outer space, hyper-space and the vast inner spaces that compose the human mind.

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This is at least the third encounter play to be performed in the city in the last three years. At Joseph Papp's Public Theatre last Autumn, a play called "SPACE" was performed, dwelling on the dynamic between a Dr. John Mack-type investigator and a SETI astronomer, modeled after Jill Tartar, (who was the model also for Carl Sagan's Dr. Ellie Arroway in "Contact") at the same university.

A one-man play, "Abduction" three years ago placed several "abductees and an alien" into one body. In the early 1990's a play called "Believe Me!" by a researcher and psychologist, Dr. Jean Mndy, was performed during a UFO conference at the now gone Village Gate in New York City.

In October 1992 composer Phillip Glass premiered a space themed opera with otherwordly explorers at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City. In May 2000 the "UFO Symphony" was premiered by the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Kurt Masur, in Avery Fischer Hall. ....Yes, Lincoln Center has Close Encounters of the Musical Kind!

Author, researcher and playwrite Eugenia Macer-Story wrote and presented two plays, "The UFO Show" performed at the Westbeth Arts Center in 1982 and a one-act play, "Yelephone Taps Written Up For Tabloids," at the Wellness Center in 1994.

Within S.P.A.C.E., newsletter writer Alan White is attempting to get his marvelous play, "Viv From Venus" performed on stage, and has another one called "The Beyonders."

The performance format is an excellent venue for expressing this experience, as the arts can express more. In fact, the encounter experience often unfolds as theatre on a stage of consciousness.

For more information on Collision Theory at 1-718-398-4099 or visit the website at www.collisiontheory.org

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