Joseph Burkes MD 2018, edited 2024
INTRODUCTION
In 2016 I became a consultant in medicine for the research group called FREE*, The Edgar Mitchell Foundation for Research into Extraterrestrial and Extraordinary Experiences. In FREE’s mission statement it is hypothesized “that there are many different ways, or mechanisms, where humans are having “contact” with non-human intelligent beings. These “Contact Modalities” include interactions during: Near Death Experiences (NDEs), Out of Body Experiences (OBEs), UFO visitations, Channeling, Mystical Meditation, Remote Viewing, Lucid Dreams, Shamanic Hallucinogenic Experiences, etc.” In the following narrative, I describe how a non-human intelligence possibly demonstrated the inter-connectedness between UFO experiencers and religious phenomena.
I am of mixed Russian-Jewish and Irish decent. In 1992, I co-founded a contact team in Southern California that used meditation and thought projection to attract UFOs to our night sky-watch sites. We were part of the Close Encounters of the 5th Initiative and had pretty good success initially. Red orbs, golden globes and other types unidentified aerial phenomena manifested during our field investigations. But things really took off when a young Jewish man from White Russia that I call “Misha” joined our team. With him at my side, I experienced ” telepathic overrides” while doing fieldwork in Southern California. There were two outings in which I was notified at the level of knowledge when at night the UFOs were going to show up, how many would there be and where in the sky they would first appear. Believe it or not, when we did have sightings during those nights, they actually matched the information that I had received several hours before.
MISHA CLAIMED TO HAVE HAD A PRESCIENT DREAM
Misha claimed that he had a dream while living in the White Russia in which he would emigrate to the US and that he would do UFO research with a tall bearded Jewish doctor. When he went to work in our Kaiser Panorama City ER, the first time he saw me he allegedly recognized me as the man of his dream. With this background information mentioned, I will describe an incident of spontaneously bleeding in my fellow contact activist Misha which raises some the question of a possible religious connection with UFOs. It has to do with the stigmata phenomenon in which people report having spontaneous bleeding from their hands and other body parts with no apparent cause. Among Christians, it is cherished as a miraculous remembrance of the crucifixion.
STIGMATA AT OUR HOSPITAL?
On our contact team, there were a number of other people that worked at the Kaiser San Fernando Valley Medical Centers. One was Shirley, an older woman who was a respiratory therapist in our hospital. In the fall of 1993, she and Misha attended a hospital administration sponsored meeting of ER workers. Right there in the conference room according to Shirley, Misha’s hand started bleeding profusely; the blood was literally steaming out. So, out from her pocket she took an alcohol swipe and rubbed away the blood from the bleeding source on one of his fingers. To her amazement she saw a distinct (about ½ to 1 cm wide) circular open wound from which the blood was pouring out. Shirley quickly obtained a sterile gauze pad that she planned to use to apply direct pressure on the wound. When she looked at the wound a later, to her amazement, the gaping circular wound was completely gone and the bleeding had ceased. There was no scar or scab. The finger appeared completely normal. Misha told us that he had similar episodes in the past.
WAS THIS HIGH STRANGENESS A FORM OF COMMUNICATION?
Well, what can one make of such a bizarre account? The only conclusion that made some sense to me at the time was that the intelligence behind the flying saucer phenomenon wanted us to know that there was a religious connection to UFO intelligences that we were interacting with. The fact that Misha and I are Jewish, and the “blood of Christ” interpretation of stigmata had no particular significance to us, was perhaps their way of saying this is just something that they can do. Perhaps it was some kind of “show and tell” of their amazing capabilities when interacting with humans. For Misha and me it was merely a bizarre demonstration consistent with what is called the “High Strangeness” aspects of Close Encounters. If we were pious Christians however, I suspect that we would have had a very different interpretation. If non-human intelligences associated with UFOs can cause spontaneous bleeding from the upper extremity of contact experiencer, then they might also be able to stage stigmata. Thus, UFO intelligences may be playing a role in religious phenomena.
The Foundation for Research into ET and Extraordinary Encounters (FREE) has now been folded into a new group called the Consciousness and Contact Research Institute (CCRI). Rey Hernandez co-founder of FREE and CCRI has published a new compendium that explains why consciousness, (mind stuff) and not matter and energy is the wellspring of creation. This book is titled “A Greater Reality.” Volumes One and Volumes Two can be downloaded for free at:
My chapter titled, “Report from the Contact Underground: Human Initiated Contact, the Consciousness Connection and the Virtual Experience Model” can be downloaded at:
Contact Underground 
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