THE CLOSE ENCOUNTERS & CONTACT EXPLORERS

AN ASTRONOMY LESSON....

By HAROLD WALTER EGELN----journalist, peace and environmental activist, and S.P.A.C.E. founder.

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When I was a shy, lonely, insecure and homely 13 year old boy, my ambition was to become an astronomer and perhaps travel through space.

I had a telescope, a toy home planetarium and many books on astronomy and a few on UFOs. On two different nights one Spring I observed strange flying objects and made the mistake of telling children at my public school in Irvington, New Jersey about my sightings.

My principal was enraged about the ensuing bounding interest that gripped the school about my sightings, which spawned a maverick new subject for study, and summoned me into his office. He locked me in there alone as he went into the auditorium for a special emergency assembly to tell children that UFOs do not exist, that I misinterpreted conventional objects and to forget about the whole matter.

For punishment and correction, I was suspended from school and sent to a school psychologist. He told me to not even think about space ever again. My parents were instructed to throw all my astronomy, space and UFO books, and my telescope and planetarium, into the garbage, and to teach me how to play baseball, which I never learned to do.

As a consequence, I became a "laughing stock" in my own town and was called "the Martian" and "the flying saucer creep" in high school, shunned, taunted and rejected by my classmates.

For many years I, like many others, kept mostly quite about UFOs, forced and frightened away from it because of the judgements and ridicule of others, and never became an astronomer although I kept fully informed of the subject and associated sciences. Then intriguingly new, more intimate experiences drew me back in the enigma and I felt free to wonder once again.

Then, in October 1989, I wrote an article about a talk at a local community group on UFOs for the newspaper on which I was a staff reporter, featuring two people from Whitley Strieber's Communion Support Group.

As the editor read it, she said, while laughing, "Harold, I really hope you don't believe in this!" She then sternly told me that I wrote the story all wrong, that instead of doing the objective and straight-forward story that I did, I should have made it humorous, as UFOs "are not real."

"Harold, no more flying saucer stories ever again!" she told me.

But, in February 1992, driven by a passionate curiosity for the truth, I took a risk and began S.P.A.C.E., inviting others with similar experiences and interests, and resumed a journey through Lost Horizons.

This is our MISSION and this is who we, the ENCOUNTER EXPLORERS, are....

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MISSION STATEMENT

for CLOSE ENCOUNTERS & CONTACT EXPLORERS S.P.A.C.E.---the Search Project for Aspects of Close Encounters---, an exploration system and proactive research program of Close Encounters and Contact Explorers, was founded in New York City in March 1992. The voluntary organization offers UFO and Close Encounter witnesses/interfacers a chance to share openly in confidential social settings, and to explore the entire range of their interactions on the unknown frontier of close encounters. This interactive program supports explorers by providing compassionate understanding; gives non-judgemental, meaningful feedback unencumbered by belief systems and preconceptions; advocates a multi-disciplinary study approach from the sciences to the arts; provides public education; and offers resources for experiencers. In our mutual search for truth, we hope to encourage interfacers/witnesses towards real empowerment by overcoming fears; cultivating coping skills; nurturing transformation and the integration of the experience into their lives; and, for those who wish, conducting proactive interaction with the Unknown, becoming "Encounter Explorers." As interactive explorers who willfully choose to pursue a participatory role in our encounters, we are determined to move this extraordinary experience forward towards a breakthrough. We are employing experimental new ways of thinking and new tools to understand and to engage that which does not conform to usual expectations and methods of study. The Close Encounters & Contact Explorers S.P.A.C.E. Program conducts regular private gatherings and public educational meetings, publishes the CLOSE ENCOUNTERS NEWS, engages in field work and skywatches, and networks with others in this field. ***************************** We do not ask you to believe what you read here, as we all learn together. We only ask that you kindly LISTEN DEEPLY and SHARE... *** *** ***

S.P.A.C.E. ENCOUNTER EXPLORERS: WHO ARE WE?

The question of who we are is as important as who "they" are who interface with us through stealth encounters, direct visitations, sightings and other
extraordinary experiences, whatever people label
them. Through looking at ourselves, we view the reflection, in our mirrors of experiences, of those enigmatic beings who come to us.

Most of us are everyday people who have
had remarkable unexplainable events beyond
accepted reality, which puzzle, disturb, enlighten
and drive us to explore those events through
various venues.

"THE UNIVERSE IS NOT CHAOS...IT IS CONNECTION. LIFE REACHES OUT TO LIFE"---an astronaut-scientist in the movie "Mission To Mars" Many of us have come together since March 1992 to seek an understanding, supportive community to end our isolation and a way to learn. We who are certain that something unusual and disturbing is interacting with us. We who are uncertain about the anomolies that have entered into our lives. And we who want to explore this fascinating, powerful, provocative, intrusive, compelling, and ego-shattering and world-shattering intelligence which is drawing us deeper into the Unknown that surrounds our daily world with challenges, whether unwelcomed or welcomed. The weave of the UFO interfacers' fabric of anomalous encounters is an unfinished tapestry of a perplexing undefinable reality, often leaving us with more questions than answers. Sometimes we reach out to find out, and other times we pull back in fear or doubt. At all times the Unknown persists in recesses of our lives...intruding, visiting, probing, awakening with persistent subtle glimpses or with startling close encounters. Often alone and isolated in our experiences, without support, we seek out someone who will listen and, maybe, understand and help. S.P.A.C.E. was created out of intense, profound and driving needs to be supported, to learn about the nature of our relationship and role with the Unknown, exploring that mysterious interface. Over time, hundreds have come our way, seekers of support, understanding and growth. We may ask, "Can I do anything about this mystery in my life? Who am I? Who are we that this comes to us? Who and what is that unknown in our lives?" Extraordinary encounters demand extraordinary explorations. With S.P.A.C.E. the Unknown persists in conveying, so it seems, something which cannot be ignored. An extraordinary consciousness, from some mysterious source, in an apparent remarkable effort to break through, has shown an ability to alter basic perceptions, for reasons still unknown. Before and since the founding of S.P.A.C.E. UFO interfacers have had fully conscious close encounters with nonhuman beings and UFOs, sought out by humans and seemingly orchestrated by the Unknown forces. We regard this proactive interface as going "beyond abductions" into a revolutionary new phase of the UFO experience. Some of us refuse to let this experience just happen to us as pawns and are tying to affect the nature of the experience, which may result in new discoveries. However you choose to explore your own possible experiences, no matter how you feel about them, you are welcomed to join us in whatever way you chose. How we can help is up to you, not us. ************************************* ORIGINS OF S.P.A.C.E. The project grew out of the exploration that Harold Egeln, currently a New York City journalist employed by two long-established community newspapers and a former professional organizer, did of his own experiences with Jean Mundy, Ph.D., a psychologist once based in New York City (now retired), after he was referred to her by Budd Hopkins in 1988. At that time Egeln was the executive director of a large peace organization in New York City, the Metropolitan New York Council of the national Committee for a SANE Nuclear Policy, from 1984 to 1989, with 7,000 members and several chapters in the city. He also served on the board of Psychosocial Issues in the Nuclear Age, based at Hunter College. Previous to that time, he was a grassroots peace activist, who became involved while opposing the Vietnam War while he was a draftee in the Army, at age 22, where he pledged to devote his life to nonviolence. In 1989 he was part of the Communion Network Support Group in NYC, one of several such groups across the country founded by author Whitley Strieber. SPACE came about from people he knew from the Communion group and people he met through Mundy, who referred other people she was working with to him through a "buddy system." The beginning of SPACE was also sparked by Egeln proactively exploring his own encounters at sites in the Hudson Valley in 1988 through 1991, in places where a major flap occured in the 1980's, part of an attempt to understand the mystery and to learn the nature of his relationship with that who engaged him in that mystery. It was at one of those places that he first met, through unusual circumstances, Roberta Puhalski, later the founder of SPACE-South, while she was living in New England. SPACE held its first private, invitation-only exploration gathering in March 1992 and has held about 100 gatherings since, for the first five years on a monthly basis and on a regular basis after that. Guest visitors have included: **Dr. John Mack **Budd Hopkins **David Jacobs **George Wingfield **Dr. Steven Greer **Whitley Strieber **Jean Mundy **Antonio Huneeus **Michael Mannion **Scott Mandelker **Richard Boylan **Dr. Howard Schacter. In early 1999 a second community, SPACE-South, was founded in northern Florida by Puhalski and other abductees and experiencers. Before entering the exploration system, people are referred to us or contact us. We give them an initial interview, in a comfortable environment of relaxation, determining with them how they want to explore their possible experiences. Hypnosis is not a requirement, although it has its immense benefits in terms of providing a release. The exploration community gatherings are private to provide a maximum zone of comfort, support and networking. The communities (a term perferred over "groups") also pursue attempts to comprehend the nonhuman realities by understanding what is going on with us first, and to explore a basis of forming a more conscious and interactive relationship with the unknown. Sensitive to terminology in language, we use the simple, neutral term INTERFACER rather than "experiencer" or "abductee" or "contactee," and we use ENCOUNTER EXPLORER to define interfacers who investigate their experiences. As of January 2008 the overall name of S.P.A.C.E. became the "CLOSE ENCOUNTERS & CONTACT EXPLORERS" (CECE) organization, with "S.P.A.C.E." as its educational and exploration project. ************

SPACE ENCOUNTER EXPLORERS SPEAK-OUT

Sit down with us now at a table and sip a cup of coffee, tea or hot ovaltine, as we talk about our experiences and observations with you. We do this often, in a host of coffee shops, in Bob's Diner, at our meetings and in our homes, or over the telephone, at our computers or Web TVs.

************************************************* Most folks who have had a UFO sighting, a close encounter or a stealth visitation are reluctant to speak out because of various factors. Many chose to remain silent. Others may confide in a best friend or close relative, while others seek out invesitgators and/or enter private support groups of all kinds. Beyond these private venues, going public is very risky, and takes much courage, as it is not always easy. Even getting this SPACE website out to the public took awhile, but it is a way we can share and all learn about this mystery, to harvest some understanding and maybe to plant the seeds for new discoveries. *** *** *** Here, through excerpts from our S.P.A.C.E. EXPLORERS newsletter in articles by encounter explorers, we submit to you what we have to say. Most of these observations are the individual's own thoughts, as SPACE does not endorse any particular viewpoint in the interest of open scientific, psychological and cultural research, but offers the range of experiences that is critical to our understanding in our mutual search for truth. The quotes come from people who have been immensely touched by encounters, brushed by them, or connected with them by supporting those who have the interactions, a wonderful mix and blend of people who have traveled through the SPACE Program. Hopefully this will give readers a feel for this experience from deep inside our encounters, whatever their core source or however they are labeled, as to "Who We Are." Through that exploration, we may gain more understanding of what we experience and our relationship with the nonhumans, and learn who they might be. ******** ***"I remember as a child, looking at myself in the mirror for long periods of time. A chill would creep over me as I became unrecognizable to myself, a stranger. As I tried to see behind my own eyes, the feeling that I wasn't who and what I saw in the mirror intensified...." --Joseph Wiek ("Who Am I? What Am I?"-March 1995) ***"For years researchers have been gathering information concerning abductees and writing books about the subject. However, there are only handful of books written by abductees themselves. And even fewer books where abductees are willing to reveal the 'more intimate and personal' details of their own experiences...Perhaps the time has come when the general public, as well as non-experiencers in the UFO community, should learn what it really means to live your life as an abductee..."--Roberta Puhalski, the Pensacola Beach Lady," ("Big Girls Don't Cry"-Autumn 1999) ***"We can't depend on Earth logic in trying to understand the UFO abduction experience and all its surrounding mysteries, especially when we are dealing with a different kind of thinking...So, I believe it is the experiencer's responsibilty to come to grips with the position we find ourselves in as the true communicators with these visitors, and to strive to rise above fear..." --Alan White ("Experiencers: The Real Communicators"-January 1996) ***"The job, then, if one is to investigate the highly unusual but avoid myth-making, is first to identify what can bluntly be labeled as Cargo Cult thinking and avoid it. The projection of all too human fears and desires, the mystification of facts and events, and indulging in fantastic speculation solves nothing and prevents progress towards what may be valuable truths..." --Meryl Johnson ("Plaid Elephants, Red Crosses, And Little Grey Men"-Winter 1999) ***"My hungry eyes feed upon the beauty of the newborn twilight sky. My starving soul struggles, and begs to be set free, from the force which confines it, The force which is me. As though trying to answer an unheard voice, my soul fights, to tear its self from me, and to go beyond what my eyes can see, to be free to seek it's destiny..."--"L" ("Soul's Destiny"-June 1994) ***"I am not saying that negative experiences don't happen. However, what about those who feel that their experiences have been positive and spiritually uplifting?...Let's avoid intergalactic Racism. Sure, strange looking beings are unsettling at first, but that doesn't mean that all are menacing. Let's at least try to keep an Open Mind and an Open Heart..."--Rev. Michael J. Carter ("Close Encounters of the Positive Kind"-April 1994) ***"We are taking in a tremendous amount of information on all levels of conscious all the time. For many reasons we don't allow it to register on the awake level of consciousness. The information sometimes breaks through in dreams, memories, flashes, insights, feelings and questions as 'Did I really see that?'...We are getting better at remembering (and) at knowing. Our awareness is expanding." --PS ("Consciousness"-December 1995) ***"You can never return to the safety of where you were, or what you were before. The logic and understanding you had is shattered irreparably, and so completely, that attempting to return to the 'normalcy' hurts more than proceeding into the 'unknown' of what lies ahead..."--SE ("Reflections of the Next Steps: Personal Thoughts of an Experiencer"-Aug.-Sept. 1995) ***"But the anguish is still there. And you can't put it into words. Sometimes you find yourself on the edge of consciousness, perhaps between sleeping and waking, and you can almost touch those memories...almost. They are shapes, doors, lights, eyes. You wake up and run for the bathroom mirror. You need to check to see if the face in the glass is really yours. It is, but it seems, just for an instant, that you are seeing it through someone else's huge black eyes..."--KN ("Bit And Pieces"-January 1994)

EXPERIENCERS MANIFESTO FOR ENCOUNTER EXPLORERS by Meryl Johnson

ONE...We are the ones having the experiences.

TWO...Our experiences belong to us.

THREE...Only we know what really happened. Nobody else is in a position to judge what is "real" about our experiences, much less to dismiss what they do not want us to hear as fantasy, or as speculation. NOBODY ELSE IS IN A POSITION TO KNOW. There is no requirement that we give our experiences to someone else to explain them to us.

FOUR....We will make mistakes. That is the nature of science. Science is self-correcting -- because scientists make mistakes and correct them. We have as much right to make mistakes, to speculate when we need to, to change our theories, models and speculations when acquiring more data shows us that we need to make changes, as anybody else investigating an unusual phenomenon.

FIVE....We have new knowledge. New knowledge is always despised. It makes people angry when it goes against established beliefs. Tough. Remember Galileo. The Sun is the center of the solar system, whether the church liked it or not.

SIX....We have achieved considerable empowerment by daring to own our experiences, taking responsibility for them, and by begining to investigate and interpret them for ourselves. We are not a bunch of nuts. we are not commiting any kind of religious or intellectual sin. We have every right to do what we are doing and we should continue doing it.

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SPACE ENCOUNTER EXPLORERS COMMUNITY GATHERINGS

SPACE's exploration program functions through regular private gatherings, to give support in secure surroundings and to discover, through cooperative learning, more about this immense drama playing out on the stages of our lives, and to understand our performance in those dramas, whether unwanted or sought-out, and to tune into those "WOW!" signals within us through deep listening.

We prefered to call our SPACE meetings Exploration Gatherings. They are more in the nature of "a community" rather than "a group." The range of groups offering such support meetings and the researchers facilitating them vary greatly, all exploring a portion of the larger picture.

Our community gatherings are not meant as a substitute for therapy, nor do we engage in therapy at any time, but allow for a chance for talking freely while listening deeply. Those who choose to participate are free to explore their experiences as they desire, and to trust their own feelings.

The search for truth is a road that travels within a person, who decides where to go with this. And, for a few hours, those roads come together at our gatherings.

SPACE tries to avoid any particular, specific spin or the creation of belief structures in its exploration gatherings, of which almost 100 have been held since March 1992, and we try to avoid, as much as possible, subjects which are beyond the immediate concern...which is to deal, through compassionate understanding, with our feelings, thoughts and searches as human beings whose lives have intersected with a great unknown.

The words you have read in the "Speak-Out" typically reflect the range of discussions at our private, invitation only gatherings. These gatherings are but one prime focus of SPACE's program, which includes intensive field work, dream study, public meetings and networking with other researchers and organizations.

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"A PIONEER'S JOURNEY"

Dr. Jack Mack, Harvard psychiatry professor and author of two groundbreaking books on close encounter witnesses/interfacers, calls those who explore their encounters "like pioneers on a hero's journey."

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EXPLORING NOT FROM FEAR BUT WITH CURIOSITY....

As SPACE explores, not out of fear but out of
deep curiosity, it aims to nurture the fragile
discoveries we make and to see where they may
take us. This site is designed to have one area of
exploration connect with another, as contacts,
dreams, direct encounters, synchronisities, sightings and high strangeness aspects of this mystery all intertwine. It is also designed with an openness in mind and with a re-creation of the atmosphere which sustains our witness-driven support and research....


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CONTACT S.P.A.C.E.

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If you have read through this information, what have you learned? What can we learn from YOU? We would appreciate any comments you may have. We are eager to hear from you, whether you have comments, questions, suggestions, inquiries, etc. Working, learning and sharing together, we may be able to advance knowledge on this subject and use the wisdom of our hearts in doing so...If you want more information about S.P.A.C.E., please contact us at any one of these e-mail addresses....

[--Picture is of ROBERTA PUHALSKI, S.P.A.C.E. South facilitator as of 1999, speaking at a psychotronics meeting in Feb. 1992. Her talk, Puhalski's first public appearance in relating her close encounter experiences, was one of the factors which led to experiencer Harold Egeln's founding of S.P.A.C.E. in March 1992.]

***For information on the support system, proactive research program, and meetings, based in metropolitan New York City-Hudson Valley region: Harold Walter Egeln, Jr., SPACE founder & SPACE-North Director at HEgeln@webtv.net NOTE: All material in the site is copyrighted by SPACE, the Search Project for Aspects of Cosmic Encounters, 1999-2008. Individual articles, poems, comments and other items are also copyrighted by the writers.--All Rights Reserved. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

HAROLD WALTER EGELN's Careers as an Activist & Journalist

Egeln was born in Irvington, New Jersey and grew up in a time when UFOs were big news and the Spage Age began.

1960s & 1970s

He was drafted into the U.S. Army and was shipped to Fort Dix, New Jersey. There Egeln, always an outsider, refused being shipped to basic military training camp in protest to the Vietnam War, gaining support of other draftees there and unexpected national publicity. He then filed for discharge as a conscientous objector, but the application was refused, and he refused to cooperate with the mlitary. Threatened with court martial, Egeln was given a general discharge under honorable conditions after 186 days in the Army

After that he was a volunteer activist and leader in the anti-war and peace movement in Essex County, New Jersey, working on local issues and actions. He was part of several national marches, including the March on the Pentagon in Oct. 1967, the National Mobilization March in Nov. 1969, and the March on Washington following the Kent State deaths in May 1970.

He was a founder and faciliator of the Essex County Peace Action Committee (a coaliton of local peace groups) and the Johnny Appleseed Committee for Peace and Human Rights, and editor and publisher of its newsletter, "The People, Yes!" Johnny Appleseed worked on peace, tenants rights and community-based mental health centers. Egeln is a veteran of the Woodstock Music Festival of August 1969.

As an activist, he also did media work, including an interview on WFMU Free Forum radio in East Orange, NJ by dejay Vince Scelza about his peace actvities He wrote press releases which appeared in the East Orange Record, The Independent Press (Bloomfield, NJ), and the Glen Ridge Paper. He appeared in the Newark Evening News and Star Ledger. He spoke at rallies, and at local and national peace conferences. He helped organize the first Earth Day rally in 1970 in Newark, NJ.

1980s

From May 1984 to February 1989 he was the executive director of the Metro New York Council for the National Committee for a SANE Nuclear Policy, in charge of its office, liaison for its city chapters and to other groups, editor of its newsletter, media coordinator, and general professional organizer.

Egeln was the Metro SANE Peace Council's representative on the Coalition for a Nuclear Free Harbor, which worked successfully to keep nuclear-armed cruise missiles out of NYC.

While working for the Metro SANE Council, Egeln served on the Advisory Board of The Center for Psychological Issues in the Nuclear Age, directed by Dr. Harris Peck, Professor Emeritus of Psychology of Albert Einstein College of Medicine and former editor of the "International Journal of Group Psychotherapy."

In media work then, Egeln wrote the weekly "Peace Talk" column from 1984 to 1989 in a Brooklyn weekly newspaper, was editor of the Bay Ridge Peace Coalition's "Peace Alert!" newsletter, and appeared on two WBAI-FM radio programs, including Dr. Michio Kaku's "Connections," and on local TV news reports. In 1987, he was interviewed on the national Soviet Union news program, "Vremya." When the First Global Radiation Victims Conference was held in NYC in 1987, he arranged its videotaping, thanks to a video producer prompted by a UFO sighting to work for peace.

1990s & 2000s

From March 1989 to December 1991, Egeln was a general assignment news reporter and photo-journalist for two mainstream Brooklyn weekly newspapers. Before and during the Gulf War in 1991, he wrote articles for "The Guardian Radical Weekly" national news weekly, reporting on anti-war activity in NYC.

In March 1992 Egeln founded S.P.A.C.E., formed from people he knew from working with psychologist Dr. Jean Mundy, Whitley Strieber's former NYC Communion Support Group and a cross-over from Budd Hopkins' support group.

From February 1992 to January 1995 Egeln was an environmental columnist for "Downtown," an alternative arts and politics newspaper based in the East Village in NYC, writing a column called "Eco-Frontier," dealing a widerange of ecological issues in about 130 columns.

From January to June 1993 he worked as a program organizer for the Learning Alliance. Soon after that, Egeln returned as a free-lance reporter for the two Brooklyn weekly newspapers. Since June 1994 until October 2004 he worked as a reporter and photo-journalist for those two newspapers.

In October 2004 Egeln was hired as a New York City government employee, working as a City Council Aide for a Council Member at his district field offce. Then, in April 2005 he was hired as a full-time reporter for a large weekly neighborhood newspaper group in Brooklyn, and as a reporter for the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce's newspaper, until July 2007. He was host of the "Jobs TV" program on Brooklyn Cable Public Access TV for the second half of 2006.

Since October 2007 Egeln has been working as a full-time reporter and consulting editor for the "Brooklyn Daily Eagle" newspaper (founded in 1841) and "Bay Ridge Eagle."

During his years with SPACE, Egeln has made over three dozen cable TV and radio appearances. They included two national shows on the MSNBC cable network, one with Joseph Wiek and the other with actress Shelia McRae ("Alice" of the later "Honeymooners") and UFO Magazine's Don Ecker. Radio shows include "Night Search" with Eddie Middleton and Janet Russell.

Egeln, along with other SPACE encounter explorers, has spoken at several UFO and related conferences, in NYC, Long Island, New Jersey and New England, such as John White's "The UFO Experience" in North Haven, the "New Jersey UFO and Abduction Conference" in Bordentown, four Whole Life Expos, the Eyes of Learning UFO Conference, the UFO Conference at the Village Gate, and Westchester MUFON, among others.

As a pro-space activist, he served as president of the NY Space Society (the NYC chapter of the National Space Society) from June 2006 to December 2007, and as the chapter vice president fro June 2005 to May 2006. The chapter holds free public seminars at NYU's Silver Center for the Arts and Science under the sponsorship of NYU's Physics Department.

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