First Encounter

Woodrow Derenberger’s extraterrestrial contact case came to the attention of the UFO community, and the world, when his story was picked up by the wire services in the second week of November 1966. Before that month was out, investigators from both the Air Force and the planet’s largest civilian UFO group, the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena (NICAP) in Washington, D.C., were interviewing Derenberger and searching for evidence of the alien presence on Earth in the alleged landing zone of the flying saucer, just outside of Parkersburg, West Virginia.

His initial experience with the flying saucer and a being from another planet took place on the night of 2 November 1966. Derenberger, a salesman for a sewing machine company, completed his sale in Marietta, Ohio, and was on the road, driving his pick-up back home to Mineral Wells, West Virginia, on the outskirts of Parkersburg just off Interstate 77.

About halfway between Parkersburg and his home, a big saucer-shaped craft nestled down on the South Hill Road in front of Derenberger’s pick-up truck. The object literally covered the width of the highway from berm-to-berm. Surprisingly, Derenberger was more curious than anxious about the UFO landing.

Derenberger noticed a hatch opening up on the side of the object. There was an intense light pouring out from the open portal, and out stepped a slim, seemingly fit specimen of a man, dark-skinned and middle-aged. Derenberger estimated him to be about 40 years old, plus or minus five years.

The ufonaut started walking over to Derenberger’s pick-up truck. The mysterious craft suddenly rose about 50 feet in the air, hovering overhead while the visitor approached Derenberger’s truck, mentally transmitting the thought to him that he desired the experiencer to roll down the window and have a friendly chat with him.

Derenberger complied, rolling down the window. The extraterrestrial self identified as being one “Indrid Cold, a searcher of the cosmos.” Derenberger hesitatingly gave him his own name. Cold could sense that Derenberger was now getting a little edgy. At first, the Earthling thought the craft might be some kind of experimental aerial platform from the Air Force or the space agency, but now he was worried about his physical safety. Cold reassured him, declaring, “Have no fear. I am the same as you are. I sleep and breathe and bleed as you do. I wish you no harm, only happiness.”

Derenberger also answered other telepathic questions from Cold about his employment and his home. Derenberger mentally engaged the ufonaut and projected the thoughts that he needed to work for a living and that he lived not too far from the landing zone. The contactee also let the alien know that the lights off in the distance were the city of Parkersburg in the state of West Virginia. Cold relayed some information about the social structure of his planet, as well. Derenberger received a mental image from the ufonaut projecting a scientifically advanced settlement on a distant world that was referred to by the local inhabitants as simply a “gathering spot.” He also garnered from Cold’s thought transmission that his native planet was called Lanulos, but that it did not orbit our Sun and hence could not be found anywhere in our own solar system.

After a few minutes, the ship then descended just a few feet above Derenberger’s pick-up truck. Cold backed away from Derenberger’s vehicle while the saucer landed back over at its original position on the roadway. Another ufonaut then opened the portal again, and Cold got back inside the ship, slamming the hatch behind him “just like a car door,” as Derenberger later explained to a magazine reporter.¹ The contactee didn’t wait around to watch the UFO take-off, but revved up his pick-up and sped home as quickly as possible.

Derenberger would later remark that, “The papers said the ‘flying saucer took off with tremendous speed;’ but it really didn’t. I was the one who took off with tremendous speed!”

Taunia Bowman, Woodrow Derenberger’s daughter with photo of her famous father, maintains that the stress caused by media harassment caused her parents to divorce. See http://www.ghosttheory.com/2011/06/12/the-strange-case-of-indrid-cold-alien-from-planet-lanulos.

Disrupted Domestic Life

As many a contactee can attest, a close encounter of the third kind may do quite a bit in expanding one’s cosmic consciousness, but it wreaks havoc with the maintenance of a peaceful home life. “You should have seen him when he got home,” Derenberger’s wife, Ruby Nettie, proclaimed. “He looked awful. I thought he’d struck and killed somebody with the truck. He loves to play with the children, but not that night. I had to shoo them out. He just sat there in the kitchen, grey-colored and saying, ‘You’re going to think I’m crazy,’ and ‘you’re going to laugh at me.’ Then he told me what had happened.”

“I was in shock,” said Derenberger, adding, “That’s what the doctor told me.”

After Derenberger arrived at his home following the first encounter, Mrs. Derenberger states that, “He tried to make a report to the police and he couldn’t even hold the phone. I had to make the call and when I reported it, the officer said it was the third call like that they’d had that night.”

City and state police, as well as an Air Force sergeant and representatives from local media swarmed about Derenberger on the day following his encounter. “I consented to a TV appearance,” said Derenberger; but if I had to do it over again, there would be none of that. As a matter of fact, Cold appeared two nights later and we had another talk. I never mentioned it around here.”

No doubt, a seemingly unending stream of pressure and confusion has been brought to bear on Derenberger’s wife since her husband’s extraterrestrial encounter began to be the focus of a media blitz. Ever since the contactee’s appeared in the newspapers, the Derenbergers’ telephone has rung around at all hours of the day and night. The beleaguered couple had to have their phone number unlisted; but still inquisitive people kept calling. Mail keeps coming in on a daily basis from all over the world. Mrs. Derenberger clutched a fistful of letters from Germany, Japan and Okinawa that still remained unopened, as neither she nor her husband could read or write in any of the languages pertaining to those countries.

Derenberger himself also lamented that there were ten to fifteen callers almost every night, “just driving right up, some making all-night trips to get there, coming in the house. They think they’ll see the ship. It comes in often. Some of them see it, some don’t. We had one NICAP investigator out there who was carrying so much equipment, cameras, tape recorders, etc. he could scarcely get through the door. He didn’t see the ship.”

As time rolled on, however, it appears as though Derenberger paid a steep price for all the media attention his case had brought down on his household. The ongoing invasion of the Derenbergers private life was enough for Mrs. Derenberger to leave her husband, taking their two children (a son Greg and a daughter Taunia) with her. Taunia Bowman, Derenberger’s daughter, once remarked that, “Out at our farmhouse I was scared to go to sleep at night because there were guys with guns in the trees wanting to see what was going on and wanting to see the spaceships.”²

Second Encounter

The inquisitive ufologist M. Spohn Marling from Flying Saucers UFO Reports asked Derenberger to provide an account of his second meeting with the mysterious Indrid Cold. Derenberger related the following: “That night, 4 November 1966, I was driving home from Pomeroy, Ohio, with a friend. I got these messages telepathically that Cold was there and then I saw the ship. My friend saw it, too, and several people in the area saw it that night; but nobody knew about my talk with Cold.”

Derenberger continued, “You see, Mrs. Marling, I wasn’t the person Cold planned to contact the first time. He’s told me since that he was really homing in on a car ahead of me, a fellow he’d kept under watch for several days and believed would be a good communicant. But the man’s car was so close to a busy intersection that Cold was afraid there might be an accident if he dropped down in front of him, so he chose me instead. He wasn’t sorry. He told me I’m receptive, a good communicant.”

Then Mrs. Derenberger interjected, “They aren’t making contact only around here. They are doing this all over the country. But they find the people in West Virginia more receptive.”

Lanulos and the Extraterrestrial Life Style

For the article in Flying Saucers UFO Reports previously cited, Derenberger opened up much more about conditions on the planet Lanulos, as well as the life styles of that distant world’s indigenous inhabitants. Perhaps this was because he realized that the readers of the UFO magazine weren’t going to laugh at him, since a good many of them had seen the mysterious objects zipping across the skies or maybe a few even experienced direct physical contacts with the ufonauts. This was evidenced in the letters to the editor which appeared in the previous two issues of that publication. Or then he could have considered the softer touch of the interview afforded by the female journalist, M. Spohn Marling, who didn’t press him as hard to answer questions he felt uncomfortable with, especially concerning his wife and children.

“It was at the second meeting, the night of 4 November, that Cold told me about himself,” explained Derenberger. The contactee continued, “He’s from a planet called Lanulos, orbiting a sun much like our own in the Genemedes star cluster. They have woods, streams, fields and oceans, the same as we do. They’ve taken samples of our vegetation and animals. Ours are much like theirs.

“Cold is married. His wife is named Kimi and he had two sons at that time. He has three children, now; one was born right around Christmas time, a little girl.”

At that point in the conversation, Mrs. Derenberger added that, “They’re time travelers.”

“That’s right,” Derenberger affirmed. “They’re in the fourth dimension. One reason they can’t stay here too long at a time is because they get younger down here instead of older. Their life span is 125-175 years; but if they stayed here too long, I think they’d go back in years so far that they might possibly forget how to manipulate their craft.”

Mrs. Derenberger told Marling that, “They have nine scout ships in this area,” providing the lead in for her husband to follow up with the details.

Taking the cue, he replied, “Yes, two men to a craft, except one ship that had four. On one craft there is a husband-wife team, Jitro and Elvara Cletaw.”

Marling wanted to know if Cold was still insisting that his visits to Derenberger were of a friendly nature, and that Cold had promised that no harm would come to him or his family in the future. “He reassured me,” said Derenberger. He’s told me on several occasions that the people on his planet travel and trade with other planets all the time; and that’s what they want to do here. Lanulos has many things that would be of value to us and we have many things that would be of value to Lanulos. Cold wants to have a friendly exchange.

The reporter/UFO investigator wondered if the Earth and our solar system weren’t too far away for a working trade agreement to be set up with the planet Lanulos. Derenberger replied that, “There is a landing base on the Moon, which is shared by many interplanetary civilizations. Those from Lanulos also have a mother ship up there, big as a football field and nine stories high, equipped with berthing docks. The scout ships land there and are taken aboard the mother ship.”

NASA Knows All About the Space People

Somewhat skeptical, Marling opined that, “If there’s something like that up there, I should think that scientists over at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) would be interested in it.”

“Oh,” exclaimed Derenberger, “NASA knows all about this, knows more about it than I do. I took my family down to Cape Kennedy not long ago and we were talking with some of the NASA people. I told them Indrid had seen all the devices we have put on the Moon, has even waved at the cameras. He’s seen every astronaut who’s ever gone up and has waved at them and they’ve waved back. NASA said they knew all about it. I’d told them nothing new.

“And when I told them there were people on Venus and Mars just like us, they knew that, too,” the contactee affirmed.

“You remember that space probe to Mars, when we went off course?” Derenberger questioned his interviewer. Marling nodded and then Derenberger explained that, “Cold was responsible for that. You see, our scientists down here had stocked that with unsterilized equipment and the people of Mars couldn’t risk germs and foreign matter being brought in. Cold had to misdirect the craft.”

Further Visitations by Indrid Cold

Derenberger explained that Cold frequently visited his home when the weather was bad, or it was snowing or pouring rain. The extraterrestrial timed his visitations during these times because most of our aircraft were grounded. Reporter Marling wanted to know if there was a lot of Air Force activity around Derenberger’s home, to which he replied that, “We’re told the authorities and the Air Force aren’t out there; but we’ve seen some uniformed and armed men there often. We don’t know who they are.”

As far as anyone else being in touch with Indrid Cold, Derenberger replied, “Yes, there is a group that gets together. They know him. There’s a doctor, a minister and several businessmen. You see, Mrs. Marling, Cold comes here often. He’s brought me bread from his planet. It’s richer and coarser than ours, like old fashioned biscuits. He even brought some spirits, Yucatan brandy in a wooden bottle.

“I’m not a drinking man, mind you, but I drank some of this. My father-in-law said it was like eggnog. But I thought it was syrupy.”

“How did you react?” Marling inquired.

“I really got high.

“I tried to keep that wooden bottle. I’ve tried to take things several times to have the evidence that Cold was here. I even tried to steal something; but I never got away with it.”

More on Indrid Cold

Journalist and ufologist Marling wanted to know if Indrid Cold was as friendly as Woodrow Derenberger said he was, then why didn’t the extraterrestrial let the contactee take his picture, or give him something that he could show to satisfy the curious and the skeptics, or at least make an appointment with the Air Force or NASA or some other government organization that could “really pin this thing down?”

“He says it is not the right time, Mrs. Marling,” declared Derenberger, adding that, “He’s been in touch with the head of our government and our military forces agreed to show up at any place agreeable to them. But our government laid down certain stipulations, telling him we’d have to determine when they came, when they could leave and when they could have their ship back. Cold wouldn’t hear of it.”

“Do you see him anyplace other than your home?” the inquisitive Marling asked.

“Oh, yes,” explained Derenberger, “but I never indicate that I recognize him. I’ve seen him on the streets of Parkersburg. We just barely nod. He wears clothes he’s bought right here, at a local department store.”

“Hmm,” Marling mused. “What did he use for money?”

“That’s just what I asked him,” said Derenberger. “He told me that someone around here had something of great value. I could only guess he’d hocked something, but I don’t know.”

Time Traveling Extraterrestrials

Since the space people from Lanulos inhabit the fourth dimension, that of time, just like my friends the Venusians, I am speculating that it would be easy for them to go back into the past, retrieve rare silver and gold coins, and then return to the present where they could secure cash for these items from pawn shops. And without being too obtrusive and knowing the outcome of horse races and lotteries that took place in bygone days, it wouldn’t be too difficult for them to time travel to the past and place bets, winning sufficient money to meet their needs without attracting too much attention from the Internal Revenue Service or law enforcement agencies. They could easily blend into our society without the need of obtaining Social Security cards under false pretenses.

Back in the 1990s my friend and fellow contactee Rob Potter of the Promise Revealed from Mt. Shasta, California, was driving down in Southern California in Yucca Valley, on his way to Gabriel Green’s house for a strategy meeting of the inner circle of the Amalgamated Flying Saucer Clubs of America, when he went into a Seven-Eleven convenience store, after tapping off his gas tank, for the purpose of buying some sandwiches, snacks and soda pop for the road. As he entered the store, he turned around, his eyes catching a gleam of sunlight glancing off the highly polished chrome of a two-toned, sky blue and white 1955 Custom Bel Air convertible, pulling in to a parking space in front of the establishment. There were three in the car, two young women who looked like teenagers and a gentleman who seemed to be in his early twenties. The man was driving and the two girls were snuggled up in the front seat with him. The male just jumped over the driver’s door and ran around to the passenger side of the vehicle, showing courtesy and opening the door for the two female teens. The radio in the car was playing an oldie from the 1950s, “Maybellene,” by Chuck Berry.

Seeing a classic car like this 1955 Custom Bel Air convertible pull up into the parking lot of a Southern California convenience store, Rob Potter of Mt. Shasta wondered if the driver and its two passengers might be visiting extraterrestrials.

Rob waited a moment and held the door open for the three. They thanked him for his kindness and then proceeded directly to the cash register. Rob’s “proverbial spider senses were tingling,” so he held back in the store to watch the three and observe. Rob somehow knew that he was in the presence of some extraterrestrials. The young women were wearing bobby socks and poodle skirts, with white blouses; and the gentleman driver was wearing high-riding blue jeans, white socks and a clean, crisp, white tee-shirt, with no breast pocket. He purchased three Milky Way candy bars and a pack of Camel cigarettes, which he promptly stuffed under the right sleeve of his tee-shirt.

Rob telepathically projected a question to the gentleman, asking if he was a Venusian or some other kind of extraterrestrial. The young man immediately turned his attention to the back of the store and said, “Great day for touring, isn’t it?” On a telepathic level, however, Rob received a message from all three, “Yes, friend, we are from Venus!”

Rob, although somewhat stunned, acknowledged the gentleman and said, “Sure is. Have a nice trip.” Then the young man and his two girl friends waved to Rob as they left the store, got back into the Bel Air and drove off down the highway.

After going to the cooler to get some soda pop, and then picking up some chips and snacks from the aisles, Rob went over to the cash register to pay for the items. “Are they regulars in your store?” he asked the clerk.

“No, I’ve never seen them before. But nice car, that’s for sure,” the clerk replied. “Oh,” he added, “Here’s something interesting. He paid me with these old silver certificates and silver Franklin half dollars. I bet they are worth a lot to a coin and bill collector.”

I am only presenting this information because it confirms what Woodrow Derenberger was saying about some extraterrestrials being time travelers. Wouldn’t it be something if the Custom Bel Air was itself a time machine, much as Doc Brown’s De Lorean in the Back to the Future movies? And while I wouldn’t walk a mile for a pack of Camel cigarettes, I wouldn’t put it past an inhabitant of Lanulos, Mars or Venus to bridge the expanse of space and time to do it.

At Derenberger’s Home

In the October 1967 issue of Flying Saucers UFO Reports, Marling described her visit to the home of Woodrow Derenberger thusly:

“That night I went out to the Derenberger home, Woody was certain I would see something. It was a good night. He didn’t promise me Cold, but he promised me something. When I arrived he shook his head. ‘Nothing’s coming tonight,’ he said. ‘Look at the crowd. There must be 50 people out there.’

“Cars were driving in from every direction. One young man told me he’d heard the ship came every Tuesday night so he’d brought his girl over to see it.

“Many of the people were strangers to the Derenbergers, walking through their home and drinking coffee as fast as Mrs. D. could make it. ‘We lose a lot of stuff,’ Mr. Derenberger confided. ‘Little things are missing all the time.’”

Amazing Son

Amidst all the confusion that night, the reporter asked Derenberger’s then eight year-old son Greg if he was going to make a special drawing for her. Greg’s mother told Marling previously about her son’s remarkable talents, all acquired since her husband’s close encounter on 2 November. Greg, who used to be an average third grade student, was now on the Honor Roll, receiving straight A’s on his report card in place of the C average he held before. Now Greg could draw a sketch of the mystery ship, the planet Lanulos, explain advanced concepts like gravity compression and time travel, as well as list all the names of the visitors from outer space who had come over to the house to see his daddy. He would draw pictures of these all day long and talked of nothing but his father’s new friends from numerous planets, some of which local West Virginia folks never heard of.

“When I take him out for dinner, and we go out a lot now because it’s the only peace I can get,” Mrs. Derenberger explained, “Greg keeps right on talking about Cold and Kimi and Mars and Venus and Demos. I’ve told him he can do that at home, but he will have to talk about other things outside. This is all he knows.”

The following is the sketch that Greg Derenberger made for reporter M. S. Marling that night as it was later published in the October 1967 issue of Flying Saucers UFO Reports.

Greg Derenberger’s drawing and explanation of the time-traveling spaceship from Lanulos conforms nicely to the theories advanced by the prominent astrophysicist Dr. John Archibald Wheeler dealing with the creation of artificial wormholes for spacecraft to not only cover the vast distances between solar systems, but also break the time barrier in the process. See Dr. Raymond A. Keller’s Venus Rising: A Concise History of the Second Planet (Terra Alta, West Virginia: Headline Books, 2015), under the section, “NASA Encounters the Venusian Mothership,” pages 190-197 for a more detailed explanation.

State Police Involvement

On the night that Marling was interviewing the Derenbergers at their Mineral Wells home, Woodrow Derenberger needed to make a telephone call to the West Virginia State Police requesting assistance in dispersing a crowd. It was Sergeant S. P. Vandevender who came out to the Derenbergers’ residence to assay the situation and take charge. The police sergeant informed Marling that this had been the first time he was needed to direct traffic out at the Derenberger property, although the area had been attracting ever-larger crowds for months. He also confirmed that there was a sort of UFO flap going on around the city of Parkersburg and the surrounding vicinities.

Vandevender let Marling know that he was also working closely with Larry Murphy, a reporter for the Parkersburg News that had been assigned to covering the Derenberger story from the very beginning. One night, the state policeman drove up to Dry Ridge with Murphy following call-ins of several UFO sightings. The reported objects were flashing alternating white and yellow lights, moving from the south in a due north direction. By the time they got from the state police headquarters to a prime viewing location up on the ridge, the policeman and the reporter only had the UFOs in view for about 60 seconds. Murphy got a better look at them with a pair of binoculars. According to his testimony, one of the UFOs emitted a “funnel-shaped beam of light” that came straight down. This light beam lasted for the whole minute that the UFOs were under observation. The UFOs were noiseless and could no longer be seen once the beam went out and they disappeared over the northern horizon.

Marling wanted to know from Vandevender if anybody else reported UFOs on the night of Derenberger’s first encounter. The state policeman informed her that there were no unusual incidents coming to his attention that night, other than the Woodrow Derenberger episode. When Marling asked the officer if he believed in the existence of flying saucers from outer space, Vandevender could only reply with, “I think there’s something up there, but I’m not going to make any pronouncements as to what that might be.”

Reporter’s Sympathy

The journalist and ufologist for Flying Saucers UFO Reports found that her time spent with the Derenbergers was rewarding. She reported, however, that she “felt more sympathy than anything else for a family that had been practically displaced by the circus atmosphere that attended Woody’s experience.”

Even Mrs. Derenberger agreed with that assessment and told Marling that, “It’s really all too much.” Later, the entire Derenberger family had to move out of the area, settling in at 25408 Butternut Ridge Road in North Olmsted, Ohio, a suburb of Cleveland. Even though they had an unlisted phone number at their new location, they continued to be pestered with calls day and night.

Of this turn of events, M. S. Marling could only conclude, “An unlisted number wasn’t enough. They really needed an unlisted planet. I hope these two likable people, genuinely trying to return to normalcy, can make it.” Unfortunately, as with so many other UFO experiencers, their relationship was not strong enough to withstand the constant strains.

Local Ufologist Defends Derenberger

Almost from the beginning, normally police beat reporter Larry V. Murphy of the Parkersburg News found himself assigned to cover the ongoing Woodrow Derenberger extraterrestrial contact case as well as the plethora of UFO reports emerging from the region. Locals from Parkersburg and the surrounding area were experiencing a wave of UFO reports from November 1966-March 1967, as these are amply documented in the personal files of John A. Keel, the premier paranormal investigator of the mysterious Mothman sighted on numerous occasions in nearby Point Pleasant, West Virginia, on the east side of the Ohio River. Keel was a frequent visitor to West Virginia investigating numerous reports of strange occurrences. Sometimes on these excursions he would team up with Gray Barker, the editor and publisher of the Saucerian Press in Clarksburg, West Virginia.³

From the above-cited cache of Keel’s files, comes a report on his first meeting with Barker to discuss the Derenberger case:

“On Saturday, March 25^th, 1967, I spent several hours with Woodrow Derenberger of Mineral Wells, West Virginia. Mr. Gray Barker of Clarksburg accompanied me on my visit to Mr. Derenberger’s home. On November 2, 1966 (a Wednesday), Mr. Derenberger was allegedly stopped on Highway 77, just outside of Parkersburg, West Virginia, by a UFO and was engaged in a brief conversation by the object’s occupant. His story has already been widely reported and I won’t retell it here.”

Keel does go on to report his first and general impressions of the UFO experiencer:

“Derenberger is a charming, outgoing man with a sincere, ingratiating manner. There were several witnesses to the original contact, people who were driving along Highway 77 and who claim they saw him actually “talking” to the UFO occupant. Since that experience, Mr. Derenberger has been frequently visited by the UFOs and has been taken for trips to the Moon, Jupiter and Saturn.”

Of Derenberger’s wife, Keel opines that she is “a very attractive lady who blandly backs his stories and claims that the UFO occupants have visited their home, which is located on a hilltop surrounded by wide fields. She is somewhat afraid of the occupants.”

Keel then describes the alien: “His original contact was with a man named ‘Indrid Cold,’ he says, and he came from the planet Lanulos. He has also been contacted by Jitro Cletaw of Venus and his wife Elvane. Dodd Hendricks and Vina of Mars have also been in touch with him.”

Perhaps Keel became a wee bit skeptical of Derenberger as he considered some of his more fantastic claims: “On Wednesday, March 8^th, 1967, Mr. Derenberger was taken for a four-hour ride to several planets. Like most of the contactees of the old school, he seems to have an answer for every question. He is also able to reply with manufactured ‘facts.’ Yet he tells his story with incredible conviction and sincerity. Since he is planning to write his story for Dell’s new flying saucer magazine, I will not go into full details here.”

Gray Barker’s Role

As Gray Barker was the one who wanted to bring Keel and the Derenbergers together, in person for this interview, it was clear to the paranormal journalist that Barker put a lot of stock in Woodrow Derenberger’s contact claims. In the next paragraph of Keel’s Derenberger summation, he notes that, “Gray (Barker) insisted that he had not spoken with either Derenberger for months.” So taking Barker’s word for this, Keel assumed that nothing in the Derenbergers’ responses to his and Gray’s questions were in any way rehearsed.

Since Barker and Keel interviewed the Derenbergers in the last week of March 1967, and since Barker maintains that his last meeting with the Derenbergers took place months ago, that means that Barker probably spoke with the Mineral Wells couple not too long after Woodrow Derenberger reported his initial contact with Indrid Cold back on the night of 2 November 1966. Equipped with this information, I made a trip to the Gray Barker Collection at the Waldomore House on the grounds of the Harrison County Public Library in downtown Clarksburg, West Virginia, to see if I could find some evidence of the initial meeting between Gray Barker and the Derenbergers. What I found was an article written by none other than the staff reporter of the Parkersburg News, Larry V. Murphy, confirming that Gray Barker was one of the first prominent ufologists on the scene, proving himself early on to be a staunch defender and promoter of Derenberger and his claims of contact with a cosmonaut from the distant planet Lanulos.

Murphy’s article was titled, “Ufologist Urges ‘Open Mind;’” but the clipping from the Gray Barker Collection did not have a date penciled in, like most of the other newspaper stories saved by the Clarksburg ufologist and assiduously cataloged and maintained in his files of the Saucerian Press. But based on the contents of the article and Gray Barker’s comments to Keel, I would estimate that the article was written and published sometime in mid-to-late November or early December 1966, within one month of Derenberger’s initial encounter on 2 November 1966.

The following is my preamble to Murphy’s rendition, followed (word for word) by the article itself:

Larry W. Murphy spoke extensively with premier ufologist Gray Barker, editor and publisher of Spacecraft News in Clarksburg, West Virginia, about his investigations into the alleged extraterrestrial encounter of fellow West Virginian and salesman, Woodrow Derenberger, from Mineral Wells, outside of Parkersburg. Barker was one in the first contingent of UFO investigators on the scene to interview Derenberger and document his claims of alien contact. Barker comes to believe that Derenberger is a “sincere man” and defends him against the assertions by some in the UFO community that he is just another fraud and huckster.

A West Virginia author and ufologist (unidentified flying object “expert”) has conducted his own private investigation in this area and personally interviewed Woodrow Derenberger at his home this past week, and has concluded that the Mineral Wells salesman’s story of meeting a spaceman on I-77 near Cedar Grove on the night of November 2 is “entirely plausible.”

At the same time he decried investigation methods allegedly employed by a group he refers to as a “Pittsburgh flying saucer club.”

Gray Barker of Clarksburg, editor of the staff of Saucerian Publications, which recently released its second Fall issue, of a publication known as Spacecraft News, in disclosing his conclusions following his personal and somewhat hasty investigation of the Derenberger case, said:

“They (the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena) are not an official organization, as their name implies. Instead, they are people just like me, private individuals who are fascinated by the subject of flying saucers.”

A “Very Sincere” Man

Barker, an audio visual consultant for a Clarksburg school equipment firm, stated:

“I found Mr. Derenberger a very sincere man.”

Barker claims he has in his files hundreds of cases of people who have seen mechanical craft of various shapes close up, many with “windows, doors, antenna, and other apparently logical configurations.”

According to Barker, “Creatures appearing humanoid, sometimes not, often reportedly have been seen in connection with these unidentified flying objects.”

In reference to Derenberger’s claim that he had engaged in telepathic conversation with the spaceman he encountered on I-77 near State Rt. 47, about two miles southeast of Parkersburg, Barker pointed out:

“A few other persons have claimed to have made various sorts of contact by radio, by voice communication, and even by telepathy.”

No Ulterior Motives

Barker said that since Derenberger told his incredible story to city and state police, an Air Force recruiter, and a number of news media representatives, he has suffered from ridicule and financial losses as a result of harassment by various teams of investigators.

Derenberger, according to Barker, “has no ulterior motives, and has displayed no interest in benefitting financially from what happened to him. Instead, it has caused him to lose valuable work time.”

Incidentally, Derenberger on more than one occasion since November 2 has told a staff reporter of The News:

“This didn’t happen to me for any personal profit. And, if I can help it, I’m not going to sit by and see somebody else gain personal profit from my experience.”

Barker Is Angered

The Mineral Wells salesman, who was employed as a welder at the Union Carbide Corporation mining and metals division plant in nearby Ohio, until the union went on strike there several weeks ago, indicates that he believes he is some sort of “middleman,” who is helping to pave the way for closer contact between inhabitants of the Earth ad intelligent creatures from elsewhere in the universe.

Barker seemed to be particularly angered by the “suggestion” by a group of investigators that Derenberger undergo hypnosis and various psychological tests.

“I think those investigators should take those tests themselves,” Barker stated. “I also think they plan to come up with a very negative report. And the people of the Parkersburg area should be righteously angry at the treatment afforded one of their citizens by this innuendo.”

Charges News Suppression

According to Barker, Derenberger had told him that the “Pittsburgh group” insisted that he tell his story only to them and give it to nobody else.

“That is definite attempted suppression of the news,” Barker remarked.

Barker, incidentally, is the author of several books about Unidentified Flying Objects,⁴ and a member of the Congress of Scientific Ufology, which plans to hold its next annual meeting in New York next year.

The Congress last year adopted a resolution censuring NICAP, and made several suggestions for NICAP’s improvement, including the use of computers in evaluating and studying the hundreds of flying saucer reports which reportedly have been received at the rate of 700 reports per week by the U.S. Air Force’s “Project Bluebook,” at Dayton, Ohio, during part of 1965.

Barker, incidentally, has been expelled from NICAP, which refused to renew his membership, according to Spacecraft News (Fall, 1966 issue), of which Barker is editor.

Urges “Open Mind”

“I do hope that the local people will keep an open mind about Derenberger’s experience,” Barker stated.

“After all, everybody laughed at the Wright brothers, and for years reputable scientists scoffed at meteorites and said they were hoaxes.

“Today people scoff at mental telepathy, such as Mr. Derenberger said he experienced. Yet a recent story described how electronic impulses can be directed at the brain and influence human behavior.

“Within 25 years,” Barker continued, “we will be able to transfer brain waves into greatly amplified electronic impulses and affect such communication. Right now the Russians are experimenting with telepathy on a scientific basis.

“Within a few years,” Barker added wryly, “I predict that Mr. Derenberger will be laughing at us!”

***

Claims of Hucksterism Continue

In the previous article by Murphy, it became clear that many believed Derenberger was some kind of fraud and huckster. Barker was disappointed that the directorate of the then largest civilian ufology research organization, NICAP, was leading the charge in leveling these accusations against his fellow West Virginian and UFO experiencer. The same NICAP group had even removed Barker from its membership rolls, perhaps for giving a platform to others like Derenberger who claimed contact with extraterrestrial beings.

Barker’s friend and research associate in New York City, paranormal expert John A. Keel, felt that UFOs were just one of many facets to a “super spectrum” of strange phenomena that manifested throughout the universe. In his personal reference notes that Keel used for writing books on such phenomena, he tries to fit where UFOs belong in this vast cosmic puzzle.

Once upon a time, Keel was an adherent to the extraterrestrial hypothesis, i.e. that the Earth was being visited by beings from other planets in outer space. In a letter written to Gray Barker’s Newsletter #5, dated March 1976. Keel points out some of the weaknesses in the extraterrestrial hypothesis.

Wrote the assiduous Keel: “On the other hand, if the ETists (proponents of the extraterrestrial hypothesis) are right, if UFOs are real machines from some other planet, then the historical record suggests only one proper avenue of approach. The subject is a matter exclusively for a highly trained, highly secret group of intelligence agencies, and not a matter for amateur investigators. If UFOs are real, then the situation is so grave that all amateur groups should be ruthlessly crushed, all UFO news should be censored, and the general population should be kept in total ignorance as long as possible. Apparently the government did try to implement such a program on a modest scale in the 1950s but it was fragmented, poorly financed and inefficient. The phenomenon itself has so many built-in contradictions it doesn’t need any outside help. If the government had found a real cause for alarm, you can be sure that people like (Major Donald E.) Keyhoe, Coral Lorenzen, Jim Moseley, etc. would have been jailed on trumped-up charges and no civilian UFO movement would have ever had a chance to organize.”

With all of these doubts about the extraterrestrial hypothesis, what would Keel make out of Derenberger’s claims? Like a good many of the contactee’s neighbors, would Keel just write off Derenberger’s story as some kind of publicity stunt, a fabrication hyped up by and for him to hit the UFO lecture circuit and sell some books? Or was Derenberger simply deranged?

Some clues to the development of Keel’s UFO philosophy are also garnered from this same letter to Barker’s Newsletter #5. We see it in his assessment of the state of ufology in 1976, wherein he classifies the belief structures of various prominent ufologists along the philosophical lines of a cosmic super spectrum, rife with possibilities. As to the extraterrestrial hypothesis, Keel notes that all who believe this is the only tenable explanation should be lumped together. He sees no reason to separate the contactees from the hard core scientists since they are all saying the same thing about UFOs. Among the more well-known proponents of the extraterrestrial hypothesis he lists the Mutual UFO Network, NICAP, Dr. Stanton Friedman, an astrophysicist; Major Donald E. Keyhoe, USMC, Ret.; as well as all the leaders and followers of the so-called “contactee cults.”

Politics of Ufology

Basically, and for the sake of convenience, Keel assigned the various UFO philosophies to a space along a political continuum. On one extreme was found the Radical Left; and moving toward the right the next was the Conservative Left, followed by the Middle, followed by the Conservative Right, and ending up at the other extreme of the Radical Right, which is where the astute Keel lumped all the adherents of the extraterrestrial hypothesis.

In justifying this amalgamation, Keel informs Barker and his newsletter’s readers that, “The extraterrestrial hypothesis has always been the core of the UFO belief and is therefore the best criterion for assessing the various factions of the so-called Ufological Movement. NICAP, for example, has always claimed to be ‘conservative’ because it excluded all other explanations. Actually, its basic position is the same as the contactee cults. Those who have dismissed the extraterrestrial hypothesis in favor of more complex concepts belong at the opposite pole, or the Radical Left. Eccentric theories such as those of (Raymond) Palmer, (Richard) Shaver, various religious groups, etc., cannot be fitted onto this scale.”

In maintaining his movement from right to left on the scale, Keel brings us to the Conservative Right. In this category are all of those who believe that the extraterrestrial hypothesis is probably the “most likely explanation.” Here we would find such luminaries as Coral and Jim Lorenzen of the Aerial Phenomena Research Organization of Tucson, Arizona, that so carefully considered all UFO occupant reports, and Otto Binder, the famous comic book and science fiction author who also wrote non-fiction books and magazine articles about UFOs⁵ and various aspects of space exploration. Binder is also crediting with developed the extraterrestrial hybrid hypothesis slightly before Erich von Dӓniken came along with his Chariots of the Gods?⁶ Of the over 200 comic book and science fiction characters created by Binder, he is most noted for Supergirl and Ms. Marvel.

As one continues to drift leftward along this continuum, the questing ufologist will come to the Middle of the UFO universe. According to Keel, it is here that we find the moderate and cordial seekers, operating from the premise that, “All possible explanations should be equally considered.” Here we find some of the giants from the field of ufology, like Dr. J. Allen Hynek of Northwestern University, as well as all of the editorial staff and writers over at the Flying Saucer Review in the British Isles,⁷ which in 1976 was considered the epitome of UFO publications for both its accuracy and objectivity.

For the category of the Conservative Left, Keel placed first and foremost the United States government. Also included were some of the more vocal proponents that the extraterrestrial hypothesis was untenable, like the Aviation Week and Space Technology editor Phillip J. Klass, and the Harvard astronomer Dr. Donald H. Menzel, who wrote one book on his own, two others with co-authors, as well as numerous scientific journal and magazine articles, all debunking any possible extraterrestrial connections with the UFO phenomenon.

And at the Extreme Left, Keel finds himself most comfortable. Here we find those who subscribe to the notion that while the extraterrestrial hypothesis is untenable, the UFO phenomenon itself is very real. By this, Keel expounds that, “All UFO manifestations can be explained in philosophical and psychological terms as part of an environmental mechanism for producing beliefs and myths.”

Here Keel places himself in the company of such pronounced personalities in the UFO community as Dr. Jacques Vallee, a French computer scientist and author of many UFO books, Jerome Clark, similarly a UFO author and editor of the prestigious Fate magazine, and Gordon Creighton (1908-2003), a regular contributor to the United Kingdom’s Flying Saucer Review. The magazine was started in 1955; and Creighton became its editor in 1982 until his death. There was some criticism of the Flying Saucer Review after Creighton took the editorship, as many in the UFO community believed that the new editor’s penchant for conspiracy theories diminished the overall objectivity, and hence credibility, of the publication.⁸ Please keep in mind that as Keel was formulating this philosophical continuum in 1976, Creighton was still only an occasional writer for the periodical.

Derenberger’s NICAP Woes

Even though John A. Keel classified Derenberger and Keyhoe in the same philosophical camp when it came to UFOs and the extraterrestrial hypothesis, the NICAP organization never could embrace the West Virginia sewing machine salesman’s story of contact with Indrid Cold of Lanulos as well as other alien beings from more familiar planets in our own solar system. On 3 June 1968, Woodrow Derenberger of 25408 Butternut Ridge Road in North Olmsted, Ohio 44070, wrote a letter which he included in a package to Gray Barker at P.O. Box 2228, Clarksburg, West Virginia, no zip code given, providing him with a manuscript for his forthcoming book, along with some additional material. Below the letter is reproduced for the benefit of you, the inquiring reader.

Letter from Woodrow Derenberger to Gray Barker, 3 June 1968, reveals something of the nefarious tactics employed by NICAP against the contactees.

Please pay special attention to the third paragraph of this letter: “Also, the story of Alan Roberts, M.D., is the story of Robert Jenkins, the psychiatrist who examined me for NICAP who also didn’t want me to use his name in relating his own personal experiences with the space people.”

There are several important conclusions that ufologists can glean from the paragraph above:

First, NICAP was dismissive of Derenberger’s case from the very start of any investigation insofar as the first person they send to check into the matter is a psychiatrist, and not a physical trace chemist or other expert from the hardcore, “nuts and bolts” sciences. After all, there was a huge burn mark across the road where Indrid Cold’s flying saucer had allegedly landed and taken off. But the only thing NICAP officials were concerned about was finding some maladjusted character traits in Woody Derenberger that could be used to bring down his credibility.

Second, the psychiatrist, although engaged by NICAP to analyze Derenberger, admits to the contactee that he, too, has had his “own experiences with the space people,” and this in spite of NICAP’s director Keyhoe and the organization’s board making public statements disavowing any support for claims of contact with any of the UFO occupants.

Third, the psychiatrist’s frank admission to Derenberger underscores the growing rift that existed between the membership of NICAP and its leadership. Just one year after Derenberger’s letter, NICAP went into a gradual decline in its membership, starting with the expulsion of the retired Marine Corps Major Donald E. Keyhoe as its director, replacing him with retired Air Force Colonel Joseph Bryan, III, who was also an employee of the Central Intelligence Agency.

The preponderance of federal government employees, active and retired military personnel, as well as scientists contracted through federally-funded research grants at major universities, in the leadership positions in the UFO group, lent itself to the UFO community’s suspicion that NICAP was a puppet organization of the Silence Group, infiltrated at every level. It was no surprise to anyone that NICAP was dissolved in 1980 and its files transferred to Dr. J. Allen Hynek’s Center for UFO Studies in Chicago, Illinois. Dr. Hynek was, of course, the Air Force technical consultant on UFO research for over twenty years, up until Project Bluebook dissolved in 1969 upon the recommendation of Dr. Edward U. Condon’s Committee for the Scientific Study of Unidentified Flying Objects,⁹ conducted out of the University of Colorado at Boulder during the period 1966-1968.

It comes as no small wonder why Gray Barker was ejected from NICAP not long before he met Woody Derenberger. There is some speculation in the UFO community today that this same type of scenario is repeating itself with the Mutual UFO Network. One prominent ufologist in Pennsylvania confidentially informed me that, “I’ll give MUFON another five years before it becomes defunct.”

Book Promotion

Since their first meeting in November 1966, the friendship between Gray Barker and fellow West Virginian Woodrow Derenberger continued to grow ever stronger. It is clear that Barker respected Derenberger for his courage in coming out to the public-at-large about his alien encounters, despite the ridicule that sometimes was heaped upon him and his family members. Derenberger wasn’t the most prolific writer that ever came down the pike; but Barker encouraged him to write a book and promised the contactee that would do an outstanding job in the editing of the final manuscript, much as he had done with the manuscript of another contactee, Howard Menger of High Bridge, New Jersey, whose book, From Outer Space to You, ultimately became a UFO classic and bestseller, after being picked up from Saucerian Press for a mass paperback published by Pyramid Books.¹⁰

Visitors from Lanulos is the one and only literary product of Woodrow Derenberger, which was co-authored by an associate ufologist, Harold Hubbard, the director of a local UFO discussion group that met during the evenings on the third Saturday of each month in a pancake house off Route 62 in Sebring, Ohio. In the book, Hubbard shares some of his own experiences with UFOs and the space people. The book also contains an introduction by John A. Keel dated 12 October 1968, but wasn’t self-published until three years later by Vantage Press in New York City. Although the company went out of business in 2012, in 1971 it was considered the largest self-publishing company in the entire world.

Why Derenberger did not go with Barker’s Saucerian Press is unclear. Barker did a commendable job in editing Woodrow Derenberger’s text, as you can see from the first two pages of his original manuscript which I have provided for you below. I can only speculate that the climate in the UFO community in 1968 through 1971 was turning against the contactees. Attendance at the annual Interplanetary Spacecraft Conventions at George Van Tassel’s Giant Rock Airport in Landers, California, was at an all-time low, finally shutting down completely in 1978 with Van Tassel’s death; and the dismissive findings of the Condon Committee with respect to the authenticity of UFO reports overall in 1968 led to the closure of the Air Force Project Bluebook in the following year. Derenberger, initially taken aback by all the negative publicity engendered by the media with regard to his revealed contacts, most likely decided it would be beneficial for himself and his family to just let things cool down for a while. Interestingly, when Derenberger and Hubbard finally opted on self-publishing the book, its distribution and sale was limited only to their appearances at UFO and metaphysical club-sponsored events. Apparently Derenberger garnered from his initial public speaking engagements that it would prove more fruitful to just “preach to the choir,” so to speak, and thereby dodge any flack that might be coming in his direction.

Gray Barker, who briefly taught English at a Maryland high school, lent an aura of credibility to many of the contactees through his professional editing of their personal accounts of alien contact.

Woodrow Derenberger’s received global attention following the publication of his interview by M. S. Marling in the October 1967 issue of Flying Saucers UFO Reports. Barker realized that in order to capitalize on this type of free publicity, Derenberger would have to strike while the iron was hot, and urged the contactee to write his story of the encounter so it could be published in book form. In the following article, Frank C. Walosin of the Bachelor News underscores many of the credibility issues Derenberger faced in getting his book published, even though one of Barker’s associates, his UFO photographic consultant at the Saucerian Press enterprises, had a demonstrative inside track with the editor of the Bachelor News.

There is really nothing to add to the editor’s note introducing Walosin’s “Derenberger” article. The Bachelor News editor succinctly states his case, casting reasonable doubt on Derenberger’s assertion that he met an alien being on a lonely country road in West Virginia and communicated with the entity through mental telepathy. It is clear that the editor believes that while Derenberger is sincere, he is also self-deluded. The editor also opines that the contactee is probably being exploited by the book promoters interviewed by his reporter, Frank C. Walosin.

Article: “Derenberger A Fraud?”

Author: Frank C. Walosin

Publication: Bachelor News, Paterson, New Jersey

Date: 11 May 1968

(Editor’s Note: The Bachelor News (BN) is interested in Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs) and possible space exploration, as are the majority of Americans. It is our position that UFOs do exist; but we also don’t know where they come from or to whom they belong. It is in the interest of solving this mystery of our times that the BN staff is exploring or attempting to explore the UFO and space civilization contactee reports.

It was in this spirit of exploration that contact was made with Woodrow Derenberger, a Parksburg, West Virginia, salesman who claims to have been in contact with saucers and space people.

Derenberger, currently engaged in a lecture tour in Cleveland, Ohio, and the author of a book on his experiences that will soon be published, is represented by Harold Salkin, president of Space Age Communications of Washington, D.C.

Our offer to Derenberger was sincere. The results of our efforts are printed below. It is our conclusion that Mr. Salkin is an overzealous promoter and that Derenberger is a truthful, sincere man who is a subject of self-hypnosis, telling a story that he firmly believes is true but is actually more of a dream than factual.)

UFO contactee Woodrow Derenberger tells of close encounters with beings from the planet Lanulos.

Woodrow Derenberger, a former West Virginia salesman who is firmly convinced that he has seen a flying saucer and has spoken on many occasions with its occupant, is a product of our times…. a period when our civilization is reaching out into space with the same degree of urgency that led to the founding of our nation by explorers of the Old World.

The BN came into contact with Derenberger and his story, which has been published in a national magazine and which will soon be in the book stores in book form, early this month, when a phone rang.

The voice on the other end of the line introduced himself as Harold Salkin of Washington, D.C.

“I’m in Paterson, New Jersey, and would like to stop at your office to pick up several copies of the March 30, 1968 issue of the BN in which the Joseph Ferrierer story was printed,” Salkin said.

The editor said that he would like to have Salkin meet the BN UFO expert, August Roberts, at 2 p.m., and that Roberts would pick him up and drive him over to the office.

That afternoon Roberts came to the BN office with Salkin and Gordon F. Shandley of Philadelphia, who introduced themselves as president and vice president of Space Age Communications of 1737 De Sales Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C., a UFO promotion agency.

The conversation covered flying saucers and the government’s apparent attempt to keep the facts from the people; and then the name of Derenberger came up, Salkin said. Derenberger has just spent six weeks working at his home in Washington working on a book in which he related his experiences with space people, represented by one identified as Indrid Cold.

Salkin, who has Derenberger as a client, said the former West Virginian had many contacts with space people, and said one group of fifteen people from a town in Ohio had watched as a saucer landed and Derenberger went out and talked to a man who got out. None of the fifteen persons who made the trip to the landing site in anticipation of seeing the saucer land a spaceman talk with Derenberger had a camera, according to Salkin.

Salkin said Derenberger was in Cleveland, Ohio, working as an appliance salesman on commission. He said Derenberger was not financially exploiting his space adventure and, in fact, was finding times a little rough.

In the interest of UFO research, we offered Derenberger a sales position on salary. We also asked:

“Why is it that space people always are reported contacting a salesman, milkman or common citizen, instead of making contact with responsible officials of our government or the United Nations (UN)?”

“They don’t like densely populated areas, where those kinds of officials could most likely be found,” is the response that Salkin said Derenberger had given.

We asked if Derenberger would be able to contact his spaceman and arrange a meeting with responsible people, like Dr. J. Allen Hynek, former head of the Air Force’s UFO research project, and a representative of the UN, if a site was selected away from cities.

The BN offered to meet the expenses of flying the officials to the site, an undeveloped tract of woodland in Sullivan County, Pennsylvania.

Salkin and Shandley said they would have Derenberger call the BN.

On Wednesday, April 24, Salkin phoned to say that Derenberger had accepted the offer of a sales position.

“What about the meeting in Pennsylvania?” we asked.

“Oh, Woody said that U Thant, UN Secretary General, met with the spaceman twelve days ago in Washington, D.C.,” Salkin said. He said Derenberger had told him that the spacemen were interested in arranging a trade agreement with Burma and that U Thant had said he would have to check with other officials before replying.

The matter of checking on the possible meeting in Washington, D.C. on April 12 was simple, Salkin was informed.

On the morning of April 25, BN called the first secretary to the Secretary General at UN headquarters in New York City, speaking to Mr. Lucian Lumieux.

“Mr. Thant was not in Washington on April 12,” Mr. Lumieux said. “He was in Paris, and then flew back to New York. He was not in Washington.”

From left to right, UFO promoters Gordon F. Shandley and Harold Salkin of Space Age Communications in Washington, D.C., look over a recent edition of the Bachelor News (BN) in the offices of that Paterson, New Jersey, newspaper. They wanted the BN’s editor to help them publicize their client, Woodrow Derenberger, and his soon-to-be published UFO book about his encounter with extraterrestrials from the planet Lanulos, which is outside our solar system.

Conclusions

Other contactees, such as I, have much to learn from the Woodrow Derenberger case. From the BN article, we come to understand that Derenberger had fallen on hard economic times. In the few years following his encounter with the alien Indrid Cold, he went from job to job, and even had to move out of his home in West Virginia because of the undue amount of negative publicity generated in the media. This forced him to start all over as a salesman in a suburb of Cleveland, Ohio. Perhaps this was the primary factor that impelled him to write his book. However, he should have put more time and research into writing it. He could have considered hiring a ghost writer to do it correctly. It surprises me that when the book was finally published in 1971, the introduction by the prestigious paranormal investigator John A. Keel was not even listed on the cover.

From the likes of the BN article, it appears as though Derenberger’s situation was such that he could not afford to self-publish his book in 1968, nor could Barker afford to finance the undertaking at the Saucerian Press. With Barker’s UFO photographic consultant having an inside track at the BN, it seems that the meeting with the Space Age Communications representatives may have been somehow engineered by Roberts, staged for the sake of generating a publicity campaign for Derenberger’s book in the pages of the tabloid BN, that had covered other UFO events and contactees in its pages.

It is clear that Woodrow Derenberger lost control of his own narrative. I, for one, believe his story to be true. However, lacking any higher academic background, he failed to document the information in his book, either in the text or with applicable footnotes. In addition, he was too generous in providing information in sundry media outlets. Lacking discernment, he initially would speak to anyone who wanted to know about his experiences.

There are profoundly esoteric implications in Woodrow Derenberger’s contacts. Insofar as much of the public-at-large is unable to assimilate such advanced celestial information, it would have been wiser for him to limit his interviews to UFO and metaphysical circles from the very start. Among these dear ones, Derenberger would have found an appreciative and sympathetic audience. Sadly, it took him almost five years to figure this out. As the spiritual Master Jesus the Christ once taught, the teacher of such sublime truths should not find him or herself in the position of “casting pearls before swine.”

In the King James Version of the Holy Bible, this scripture is found in Matthew7:6:

Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you.

Cover of Woodrow Derenberger’s book, Visitors from Lanulos (New York, New York: Vantage Press, 1971)