In the 1970s, when we first became fascinated by the UFO phenomenon, opinion among researchers was divided between two views: the Extraterrestrial Hypothesis (ETH) – UFOs are spacecraft from other worlds; and the ‘Magonian Hypothesis’ (after the 1970 book by the intelligent Ufologists’ hero Jacques Vallée, Passport to Magonia). Pro-Magonians believe something from Earth is behind UFOs, a race of tricksters that surface from time to time as alleged angels, visions of the Virgin, demons, fairies – and now, space-travelling aliens? They’ve just updated their image.

The theory acknowledges the close parallels between alien encounters and experiences with non-human entities that litter the annals of folklore. But it also recognises the often-reported absurdity and pointlessness – the ‘high strangeness’ – which challenge the simplistic notion of UFOs as technological craft crewed by biological entities. It was this Monty Pythonesque quality that led investigator John A. Keel to develop his ‘ultraterrestrial’ hypothesis – the aliens are visitors from another plane of existence – outlined in the 1973 classic UFOs: Operation Trojan Horse.

However, since 1980 this approach has lost ground to the ETH – a pity, as it offers a more complete explanation of the whole phenomenon. Even ETH-ers usually acknowledge a paranormal component in alien contact, most obviously in the mental manipulation of abductees, often at a distance. There’s also the most direct psychic contact, the channelling of alleged extraterrestrial entities.

The ETH has become so dominant partly because the Magonian approach challenges our cherished consensus reality so outrageously, whereas the concept of space ships from other planets doesn’t. Also, high-profile cases such as Roswell, Area 51 and Majestic 12 – all firmly based on the ET interpretation and centred on government conspiracies and cover-ups – came to dominate Ufology in the 1980s. But paradoxically they derive from the very agencies allegedly behind the conspiracy. In fact, trace any famous case back to its source and you will find that one way or another it originated within the military and intelligence community.

(It always amazes us that Ufologists often obey the unwritten rule: never believe anything that anyone in government, the military or the intelligence community tells you – unless it’s that UFOs are real ETs in secret contact with world authorities. Then believe everything they tell you…)

In fact, far from trying to cover up the existence of UFOs, government agencies have actively encouraged belief in them – specifically the ETH. Our own research has convinced us that this ‘Federal Hypothesis’ is the most accurate, and indeed there is a groundswell of similar opinion, as seen in Mark Pilkington’s recent Mirage Men and Lynn’s Mammoth Book of UFOs (2001). It does seem the whole UFO thing has been exploited – maybe even invented – to provide a convenient cover for all sorts of black ops, from testing secret aircraft to psychological warfare experiments. Even this, however, barely scrapes the surface of the sinister goings-on associated with over six decades of UFO research.

Enter the Nine
In the late 1990s we researched a story packed with all the paradoxes and questions just discussed, as detailed in our The Stargate Conspiracy (1999, updated 2000). These events represent either the biggest and most concerted attempt yet at extraterrestrial intervention – or a criminal manipulation of the belief in it. Either way, it’s sensational and terrifying.

The central character is the American Army physician and parapsychologist Andrija Puharich (1918-1995) who experimented with stimulating psychic abilities using hypnosis, psychoactive drugs and electrical devices. He was also obsessed with the possibility of psychic communication with non-human intelligences.

In 1948 – after being discharged from the army on medical grounds – Puharich created the Round Table Foundation in Maine, to carry out ostensibly private experiments with psychics such as Eileen Garrett and Peter Hurkos. The Foundation soon attracted wealthy backers, even including Henry A. Wallace, Vice President of the USA under Franklin D. Roosevelt, who funded Puharich through his Wallace Foundation. Another supporter was Ruth Forbes Young, from the stupendously rich Forbes family, and her husband, the ubiquitous inventor Arthur M. Young, besides Alice Bouverie, heiress to the Astor dynasty.

From research in the 1990s we now know Puharich’s Round Table Foundation was also covertly funded by the US Army. He himself recorded several visits from military top brass, including the head of psychological warfare research. So was it a front for military psi experiments on civilian psychics, with his discharge merely a cover?

Puharich was a passionate advocate of the military use of psi, presenting the paper: ‘An Evaluation of the Possible Usefulness of Extrasensory Perception in Psychological Warfare’ to the Pentagon in November 1952. He was redrafted the very next day…

But before taking up his duties, a seminal event occurred at the Round Table Foundation. Puharich’s team were working with the Indian channeller Dr. D.G. Vinod, who on New Year’s Eve 1952 declared, in trance, “We are Nine Principles and Forces,” going on to channel them. The Nine described themselves as separate entities that function as one – claiming (with typical lack of modesty and lofty disdain for mere mortal grammar): “God is nobody else than we together, the Nine Principles of God. There is no God other than what we are together.” The communications continued for six months until Vinod’s return to India.

Deeper and Darker
In parallel with the Vinod communications, from February 1953 until April 1955, Puharich was stationed at the Army’s Chemical Centre at Edgewood, Maryland – although he often returned to the Round Table Foundation. The exact nature of his duties remains unknown, but Edgewood was the Army’s research facility into both chemical and psychological warfare – and at that time it was involved with a joint project with the CIA’s notorious MK-ULTRA.1 Puharich’s Army career certainly puts a different spin on the debut of the Nine.

In 1956 the extraterrestrial element was spliced to the story. In Mexico, Puharich and Arthur Young encountered Charles and Lillian Laughead, who were working with a young man who claimed to be in psychic contact with aliens. The Laugheads sent Puharich messages from these ETs, containing cross-references to the earlier Vinod communications, apparently revealing that the same cosmic intelligences were contacting different people.

In the 1960s Puharich devoted himself to parapsychological research and the development of patented medical devices. Then, in 1970, Puharich met Uri Geller in Israel, becoming convinced that his spoonbending and other talents were genuine. When he experimentally hypnotised Geller, the young Israeli channelled the entity ‘Spectra’, allegedly a conscious computer aboard a far-distant spaceship. Spectra said ETs had programmed Geller with his powers as a toddler, and effectively anointed him as a new Messiah for coming world changes, stating, “He is the only one for the next fifty years to come.”

When Puharich then asked the somewhat leading question, “Are you of the Nine Principles that once spoke through Dr Vinod?” Spectra unsurprisingly replied, “Yes.” It then confirmed that the Nine were behind UFOs, right from Kenneth Arnold’s seminal 1947 sighting.

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