Contact Network History Project, Joseph Burkes MD, 2022
Introduction: Staging Human Initiated Contact Events (HICE) involves much physical and mental work. This report covers two field investigations that my Los Angeles based CE-5 team conducted during the 1990s. As this narrative describes, volunteers often deal with adverse weather conditions and participants that are not adequately prepared for the mental aspects of engaging flying saucer intelligences. Our sightings on the second night were consistent with the Virtual Experience Model. This radical paradigm proposes that illusory mechanisms are employed by UFO intelligences.
My Team Selected a Challenging Location
Sandstone Peak is the highest point in the Santa Monica Mountains. At just under 3000 feet in elevation, one might say it’s not much of a mountain. What gives it considerable power is its majestic location right on the coast. There are few homes on the slopes. Sandstone Peak’s relative isolation, proximity to Los Angeles and its spectacular view, made this location a prime site for UFO contact fieldwork.
There were several drawbacks, however. During the previous fall with temperature soaring, catastrophic fires had ripped through the area. Trees, grass and shrubs, all vegetation had been burnt away from the mountain’s slopes. Following this, the rains came. Without vegetation to hold down the soil, torrential downpours in the canyons below the peak stripped away the most direct trails leading up to the summit. During a daylight reconnaissance hike and without the benefit of a well-maintained trail, I failed to make it up the steep side of Sandstone Peak that faced the ocean. Before the storms, a vigorous hiker in daylight could scale the rock face in 25 minutes. This was now impossible.
However, there was another way up. It was through a kind of “back door.” A four-mile trail led up the back of Sandstone Peak all the way to the summit. The path followed a gentle slope with a series of switchbacks. I deemed it so safe that I willing to take a contact team up at night. Unfortunately, the first night we chose in March of 1995 was during a storm. My two intrepid co-workers for that night were not discouraged by the bad weather though, we went up anyway.
My contact team had a couple of new members. The investigator with the most promise liked to go by nom de guerre (pseudonym) “Natasha,” the nickname for Natalia. Tall, dark haired, and athletic, she looked more like a fashion model than the cosmetologist that she said was her profession. Natasha played a key role in fieldwork operations during the entire following year. She revealed herself to be one of the most determined human initiated contact investigators that I worked with on the West Coast. After my LA based CE-5 team carried out our last field investigation in the fall of 1997, Natasha continued to lead groups of volunteer contact workers out into the hinterlands around the LA megalopolis.
My medical partner Dave Gordon MD also accompanied us. He was part of the initial group that had initiated investigations in the summer of 1992. David carried his video camera packed in plastic under a poncho. As our documentation specialist, he was well prepared if anything spectacular were to take place. The landscape on the climb up was hardly photogenic. The fires had certainly done their dirty work. Shrubs and small trees were stripped bare of leaves. In the dark. the burnt-out trunks looked like eerie skeletons. I recalled news clips on TV during the Vietnam War. Images of napalm exploding on hillsides flashed through my mind. The aftermath of napalm looked like the devastation surrounding us on the trail to Sandstone Peak.
The storm’s center was offshore. The rain was constant but at first not too heavy. As we got closer to the summit climbing up the back of the mountain, we lost the shelter from the wind provided by the ridgeline. Now we directly faced the Pacific. As wet gusts of cold air flapped our rain gear, I began to wonder if it was such a good idea to do mountain fieldwork on a night like this. At the peak, we finally got some protection from the storm because a few stunted trees had been spared from the fire. So, we huddled behind them some 20 feet below the top of the mountain. I decided to try a round of meditation. In the rain and wind, with my back to the mountain, I conducted the CE-5 prescribed guided meditation called “Coherent Thought Sequencing.”
Despite Adverse Weather We Persevered!
David volunteered to be the spotter. He climbed to a rock ledge above us carrying a 500,000-candle-power lantern that he used for signaling. He peered into the cold wind looking for a sign of contact. Facing thirty plus mile per hour gusts, after a few minutes he couldn’t take it anymore. He climbed down to Natasha and me. We all huddled together trying to stay warm. I then volunteered to climb to the top. The cold wind was more intense than I had imagined it would be. With tears streaming from my eyes because of the wind, I scanned the sea and land. Even in a storm, with limited visibility, the view was spectacular! To the north, the lights of Oxnard glowed yellow through dark gray clouds. Los Angeles lit up the horizon to the southeast. Clinging to the rock ledge I felt like I was flying into the storm. My exhilaration however was quickly washed away by wind and rain. After just a few minutes I climbed down to the others.
We took turns, climbing up to the peak, scanning the horizon and signaling. Although at first thrilled by the excitement of the physical effort, each of my co-workers soon became exhausted. After being up at the top for less than an hour, we called it quits and headed down the trail. I was grateful that the steep canyon walls shielded us from the wind. David and I were partners in the same large medical group. We were now in the third year of our volunteer contact work. Despite having a busy practice and helping his physician wife Eve raise two children, he continued to support our efforts to engage UFO intelligences. I contemplated with some amazement his determination. What a strange passion guided us on this night!
I recalled a quote attributed to President Eisenhower that we in the nuclear disarmament movement had paraphrased. It went something like, “someday the passion for peace of the world’s peoples will be so strong that their leaders will just have to step aside and let them have it.” Cold and wet on the hike down from Sandstone Peak, I wondered if our contact network was driven by a passion of similar determination. I shared this thought with my coworkers “Someday the desire for contact with UFO intelligences will be so strong, the world’s elites will just have to step aside and let the people have it.” I suspected that such a day was far off in the distant future. Perhaps such a transformative event will never occur. Nevertheless, after nearly three years of UFO research activities, my contact team was still able to carry out operations, even under adverse weather conditions. I was proud of our willingness not to give up.
The Next Outing Involved Two New Volunteers
The following month, in April of 1995, Natasha convened the next attempt to make contact at Sandstone Peak. This time we numbered four. Natasha had brought in two new researchers. Neither had any formal contact team training and both were single and in their 20s. I was concerned about their lack of preparation for mental aspects of our work. David was a professional singer who often traveled abroad on cruise ships to entertain tourists. Justin was a maintenance man who was fascinated by UFOs but had no consciousness training whatsoever. Unlike David, who meditated regularly and was open to the possibility of telepathic communication, Justin seemed only interested in having a sighting. His wish came true during his first and only time that he did fieldwork with us.
This Time We Encountered Dense Fog
This second night at Sandstone Peak we found the mountain blanketed with dense fog. It was nearly 10 PM when we set out. Climbing up the long back door trail, we hiked into the mist hoping that the summit would be clear of fog. The moisture attenuated all sound producing an eerie silence. We were on an open trail without any tree cover. Unlike the previous outing this time there was no wind or rain. It was so quiet that it seemed like I was walking inside a vacant studio sound stage. Justin however broke the silence by chattering about how excited he was to be “hunting UFOs”. Natasha was clearly starting to get annoyed with him. David quietly shared with me his interest in astrology, a subject I had practically no knowledge of. My scientific education and former materialist worldview had compelled me to take a dim view of astrology. I just listened and tried to keep an open mind.
Halfway up the mountain, we had climbed out from the fog. The trail behind us disappeared into the mist. All the usual landmarks below us were covered. Hiking above the clouds and not being able to see the ground below conveyed a sense that we might be at a great elevation. In this case it was merely an illusion: We were no more than 2500 feet in altitude, yet I fancied that I was on a “mighty trek through rugged terrain.” Above us. the stars were visible in an expanse of sky that was free of cloud. It felt good to be out in the fresh spring air. The city with all its fuss and bother seemed a million miles away.
At Sandstone Peak we again set up a camp just below the summit. Justin fidgeted while the rest of us sat still, and we meditated. A tape recorder played anomalous sounds that had been recorded in a crop circle. I started the first round of guided meditation.
“Take several deep breaths from you diaphragm and let all of your air out.
Let go of all things.
Let go of all thoughts.
Let go of all feelings.
Be still, quietly let your mind follow your breathing.
Who is watching your breath?”
I led the team through the required visualizations. For those members of the working groups with advanced psi capability, presumably they might be able to remote view deep space. I simply described mental pictures of the earth, the solar system, the Milky Way and then distant galaxies, all the while sending out a message of welcome to what I hoped were “ET beings” that might be capable of receiving projected thought.
We spent about an hour and a half carrying out the contact protocols, doing light work by signaling with a powerful light, meditating and taking brief breaks in between to chat. We had no sightings while taking turns sky watching. Around 1:30 AM we headed down the mountain. Natasha wanted to stay longer. On the trail she kept urging us to go back. Apparently, she had received “at the level of awareness” a message that contact was likely to occur imminently. She kept looking behind to the north as if she expected “them” to appear from that direction.
A Small Plane Was Flying at Night Despite the Dense Fog
I had the responsibility for keeping the team together and the consensus was that it was time to depart. While still hiking above the cloud line, a small plane descended towards us from the north. It was a single engine job that slowly flew by. Its reduced speed was truly bizarre. It was going at no more than sixty miles per hour. Even though it passed over us by less than 600 feet, I was surprised how quiet its engines were. The craft continued descending while following the course of the ravine in which we found ourselves. It dropped down below us into the canyon. The small plane then made an abrupt right turn and disappeared into the misty soup of dense fog.
I was amazed. What kind of wild pilot was willing to fly into a canyon shrouded in fog? I listened holding my breath, half expecting to hear a crash. I heard nothing. It was gone. I presumed that the pilot had found a clear path out to sea. This sighting was what appeared to be a conventional craft. Nevertheless, it had flight characteristics that subsequently made me question whether it might be some kind of anomalous visual display. In other words, a holographic like projection that simulated the appearance of prosaic craft. It was flying very slowly and was strangely quiet. In addition, it flew into a dense fog bank, a maneuver that seemed to be incredibly dangerous. The flying saucer literature has occasional accounts of what appear to be conventional craft flying in ways that are highly anomalous, sometimes even “morphing” into flying saucers.
After the disappearance of the “plane”, Natasha settled down. However, when we reached the wilderness parking lot at the base of Sandstone Peak, she again asked that we do another round of meditation and thought projection. Although it was close to 3AM, and I was really tired, I consented. I imagined that such determination to do contact work should not be ignored by any contact team coordinator.
Our Efforts to Make Contact Were Rewarded with Dramatic Sightings
We formed a small circle a few yards from our vehicles. This time Natasha led the meditation. David served as spotter. He suddenly interrupted the meditation and urged us to look to the southwest. He reported seeing a small, bright, and rapidly moving star like object overhead. It was located over the Pacific to the south. I estimated that there was at least two-and-a-half more hours till sunrise, a bit early for satellite spotting I thought.
We stopped our meditation and scanned the heavens. Suddenly another object appeared. Through binoculars it was visible as a tiny white glowing disc. We all burst out in a cheer. Justin was shouting the loudest. Natasha tried to get us to focus and send a united and coherent message for the unidentified object to come closer. Instead of following her lead in a disciplined way, Justin repeatedly interrupted Natasha with exclamations like, “Oh boy. Oh my God. This is great. I can’t believe it, a CE-5, a CE-5.”
Following these initial sightings, a series of rapidly moving lights appeared one after another in quick succession. They were headed out to sea and were so numerous that it was hard to track all of them at once. I asked each observer to follow one object at a time. We saw no less than fifteen, perhaps twenty of these small discs moving in rapid succession. All followed the same flight path going in a southwesterly direction. Without the aid of magnification, they were mere points of light. Through binoculars each had a circular or slightly oval appearance. Their altitude was unknown, but we guessed they were probably many tens of thousands of feet up.
After the encounter was over, we compared notes. The most remarkable display was described by David, the aspiring astrologer. He saw one disc do a series of loop-de loops as it continued to fly to the northwest. My most remarkable sighting of the series was an object which flew as it if were riding a wave. Every few seconds it dropped down in altitude in a stepwise fashion. There was one troublesome aspect to the individual verbal reports that I was given. Although we all agreed as to the general appearance of these white discs, the approximate number of them and in which direction they flew, the more unusual flight patterns could not be corroborated by other similar observations. My description of one object “riding a wave” in a “step-wise fashion” was described by me alone. Only one observer described the “loop de-loops” maneuver. I observed no color change during the sightings. Other investigators thought some had changed colors. These were subtle differences that raised the question in my mind whether what we were seeing were “visual displays,” or thought projections, rather than actual physical objects.
Were Our Sightings of Physical Objects, or Perhaps Something Else?
I raise this concern because of the following reason. In the course of doing real time UFO investigations, I came to the opinion that non-human intelligences have the capability to create visual illusions using some kind of conscious influencing technology. This is conceivably the result of extraordinary psi prowess which enable them to produce the image of an object that is not physically present. Seen by multiple witnesses this should not be misconstrued as some kind of hallucination. In November 1994 during fieldwork at Joshua Tree with fellow contact worker “Misha”, I observed the most important human-alien interaction of my career that gave me solid evidence demonstrating this ability of non-human intelligence to create illusions. As the result of my investigations, I have developed a radical new paradigm for conduction UFO research. I call it the Virtual Experience Model. See the links below for blogs on this topics.
Now returning to the night of our second Sandstone Peak mission in 1995, I now strongly suspect that the succession of tiny saucers that appeared in the sky might not actually represent craft, but rather technologically mediated displays that had been individualized for eager observers on the ground, myself and fellow contact team members. This might explain why there was wide variation in the characteristics of the discs seen. The consciousness of each investigator was the screen on which a different display pattern had been projected.
Illusory Mechanisms of Contact: The Virtual Experience Model
Non-human intelligences’ alleged capacity to create illusion is admittedly a very radical notion. In my judgment it should be entertained by all UFO investigators and especially by contact workers who are attempting to stay on the path of truth. For those who are merely looking to have their beliefs in friendly ETs reinforced, I suspect this hypothesis will be ignored or rejected outright. This is an issue I have struggled with for nearly three decades. We are studying a phenomenon that is transformative at both the individual and societal levels and I must admit to feeling a profound sense of gratitude to the intelligence responsible for Misha’s and my sightings on that fateful night of November 11th, 1994. It felt then as it does now, as if I was privileged to know a deep dark family secret. One that might shock and disappoint my fellow contact workers, but one that was important enough to reveal to a devoted friend. I like to imagine that I am that friend and my years of service to what I have called the “Contact Underground” is a token of how important I believe the UFO phenomenon is for all mankind.
Concluding our investigation at Sandstone Peak, all and all it was an exciting night’s work. I was happy to be working with Natasha. I needed her strength and determination to keep the team going. Our research sessions were few and far between, averaging once every two to three months. After doing contact work for nearly three years, my group was showing definite signs of wear and tear. We all had day jobs and family life to attend to.
I continued to stage Human Initiated Contact Events as best I could. The dedication of so many volunteer investigators never ceased to amaze me. Those brave souls who were not content to be armchair researchers. They knew as I did that real time field research involving consciousness techniques was far more productive than attending flying saucer conferences, talking about the latest sighting report, or watching videos of alleged UFOs.
Natasha told me that she did not want to invite Justin back for more fieldwork. His lack of focus and conscious training were major obstacles. I agreed to honor her request. Justin telephoned me several times but became discouraged when we had no further fieldwork planned. He stopped calling me after a few weeks. Rumor had it that he returned to the Sandstone Peak by himself. Working alone he reportedly had poor results, no more sightings.
Natasha continued to work Sandstone Peak for some time. I never returned, preferring the site picked out by Tony Craddock of the Santa Barbara CE-5 team. His site was near the Ronald Reagan Ranch. I was proud of the fact that after nearly three years, I was still able to bring a diverse team of field workers together and find volunteer activists like Natasha to facilitate our staging Human Initiated Contact Events.
Virtual Experience Model is explored further in the blogs linked below.
Contact Underground 