Joseph Burkes MD 2015 updated 2025
“Each object produces a unique signature”
Introduction: In this report I describe a mechanism of contact with UFO associated non-human intelligence. From the many comments made on social media in response, I have learned that the topic of telepathic communication involving tinnitus is very difficult for Experiencers to discuss. This is due in part to the impact on the authorities’ de facto policy of ridicule and denial concerning Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena. Thus, it has been extremely difficult for witnesses to broach the sensitive topic of telepathic communication. Fortunately, the situation has been changing as society is starting to become more open on what in the past have been considered to be forbidden topics.
In 1993, I travelled into the Volcanic Zone near Mexico City as part of a Close Encounters of the Fifth Kind (CE-5) investigation. “CE-5” can also be designated as a “Human Initiated Contact Event” (HICE). While in Mexico, I had a number of remarkable sightings. One night I witnessed a large silent triangular craft that signaled at our team. On another occasion in broad daylight at close range, I saw a metallic disc with rectangular windows as it flew past three members of our group.
MY LEVEL OF CONTACT INCREASED AFTER MEXICO
On returning to Los Angeles, I was very excited about what I had experienced in Mexico. I was eager to share with anyone who was willing to listen. During the weeks after arriving back to the States, I had several different kinds of “High Strangeness” experiences. I had two personal UFO sightings in broad daylight. In addition, during volunteer contact work in the Malibu Hills with my LA CE-5 team, an anomalous sound tracked through our research site. I also started experiencing a recurring ringing in the ears that seemed to represent communication.
RINGING IN THE EARS IS A COMMON
Tinnitus, or ringing in the ears is a common complaint associated with a wide range of ear disorders. Over the years I had occasionally experienced tinnitus, usually after hearing a very loud noise. The ringing never was very strong nor did it last long. In years past in the medical clinics, I had a small number of elderly patients that complained of tinnitus. Usually they had degenerative conditions of the inner ear.
In my four decades of internal medicine practice, I have never encountered a patient who told me that the ringing was brought on by a specific topic of discussion. As outrageous as it may seem, this is what happened to me when I returned from the Mexico in 1993. I actually heard a stereotypical ringing when talking about UFOs. By sharing this report, I imagine that I join other UFO witnesses that have learned from personal experience an important aspect of how UFO intelligence communicates. And yet I can provide absolutely no proof that any communication has occurred.
A CHANCE TO TALK ABOUT MY MEXICAN ADVENTURE
As part of my duties as a Kaiser ER physician, I had the opportunity to work several shifts per month at our company’s corporate office. It was kind of a treat to get away from the ambulance area and do semi-administrative work.
The Case Coordination Center was an office in Pasadena that received phone calls from hospitals all over Southern California. When Kaiser patients presented at outside ERs, those that was not part of our health plan, the non-Kaiser doctors were required to call us at the Pasadena office to discuss the case. If the patients were stable, we transferred them to our Kaiser medical facilities. It was all done over the phone. This job was a nice break from the stressful conditions of direct patient care in the ER. The nurses and clerical staff in the Pasadena office were very friendly. Another perk was that our corporate HQ had a cafeteria where the food was far superior to the usual hospital fare that I dined on at my Kaiser ER job.
THE STRANGE RINGING ONLY OCCURRED WHILE TALKING ABOUT UFOs
When there were no calls coming in, I had a chance to chat with my co-workers about what had happened in Mexico. To my utter surprise each time I spoke about UFOs, I noticed a strange ringing in my ears. It was not like the tinnitus that I had experienced after noise exposure. Instead of being high pitched, this anomalous ringing sound was low in pitch and very loud at first. However, after a few seconds, the volume dropped off considerably. Within a minute the ringing completely disappeared, only to recur immediately after I started up another conversation about flying saucers. In the course of a 24-hour shift, I heard the stereotypical tinnitus about a half-dozen times, but never when speaking about any other subject.
I WAS IN EXCELLENT HEALTH
I felt perfectly fine while all this was taking place. I was not suffering from any symptoms of ear pathology. There was no loss of hearing, no ear pain and no dizziness. According to my conventional medical training, tinnitus is a symptom linked to a specific disease process. It is not supposed to occur with conversations about any particular subject, nor be triggered by any kind of specific mental activity. Ringing in the ears is not considered by medical science to be some kind of auditory hallucination.
I had just spent a week travelling to Mexico and participating in an intense contact program. On several occasions, I had been just a few hundred feet from what we believed were “ET spacecraft.” During our work in Mexico we had spent long hours in meditation to facilitate telepathic communication with UFO intelligence. Could the powerful consciousness link that we had established during fieldwork still be intact on my return to the States? Was my tinnitus serving as a kind of primitive communication between an unseen non-human intelligence and me?
TINNITUS IN CONTRAST TO DIRECT TELEPATHIC COMMUNICATION
From the UFO literature, I knew that I wasn’t the first flying saucer experiencer to describe tinnitus as being associated with close encounters. The ringing in my ears however was truly bizarre. It happened when I was merely talking about UFOs. Fortunately, this was not particularly bothersome. There was actually a kind of playful quality to the experience. In my opinion, it was certainly less threatening than full blown mind-to-mind communication of a “voice in the head.” Perhaps a little ringing was deemed by UFO intelligences the limit of “what I was able to handle.”
Direct telepathic communication (another’s voice in one’s head) I suppose can be quite intrusive. As it is considered to be a symptom of schizophrenia, I imagine that most contact experiencers wouldn’t want to openly discuss it. Accusations of their being insane would likely ensue.
TELEPATHY MAY REQUIRE SPECIALIZED TRAINING
My guess is that if an individual were selected by UFO intelligence to have direct telepathic communication, then a program of careful preparation would be required. I have met a few people that claimed to have, or I strongly suspected that they had, direct telepathic communication with non-human intelligence. In each of these rare individuals, there was evidence from their personal histories that they had indeed received an extensive program of psychic and spiritual training. I presume that such training helped them deal with the potentially frightening high strangeness aspects of direct telepathic communication.
In my particular case, after just a few weeks, the episodes of tinnitus linked to speaking about the UFO subject became less frequent and eventually stopped completely. Over the next few years, only on very rare occasions did I hear ringing, and it didn’t seem to have any particular communication significance. The “symptom”, or better expressed “the sensation,” was pretty much absent for several years when it came back in a strikingly comical fashion.
A DOCUMENTARY ABOUT NUCLEAR SUBMARINES SET THE STAGE
During the 1980s I was an activist in the group Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR). We carried out an educational campaign about the dangers the nuclear arms race. Our physicians’ peace organization gave lectures about the devastating effects of H-bomb explosions on American and Soviet cities if nuclear war occurred. PSR members became familiar with the various types of delivery systems for atomic weapons. These included submarines, jet-bombers and land-based missiles.
Several years after I returned from the Volcanic Zone near Mexico City, I watched with great interest a special documentary. For the first time in history a film crew had been allowed inside a US atomic submarine equipped with nuclear missiles. The reporter interviewed one sonar specialist about the highly sophisticated equipment onboard.
From the Navy technician, I learned that by using advanced sonar any object under the water could be detected and identified with great accuracy. I remember snuggling in bed, watching the program in which a crewman said that each type of vessel, each object, produces a unique sonar signature. Suddenly out of nowhere a loud low-pitched ringing, sounded in my right ear. It lasted for just a few seconds, then decreased in volume and disappeared. Once again, the consciousness link was apparently in evidence. My old “friend” had returned and at the best possible moment for didactic purposes. It was so astounding, so outrageously funny that I threw off the covers, sat up in bed and laughed out loud.
Ongoing consciousness/mind-based communications appears to be a regular part of the contact experience. I suspect that my old one-liner is still true, “Once you join the contact underground you will never be lonely again.”
About the author: Joseph Burkes MD is a Board-Certified Internal Medicine physician. He retired from the Southern California Permanente Group after 30 years of service in 2008. During the 1960s through the 1980s he was a volunteer peace and social justice activist working with Physicians for Social Responsibility, The United Farm Workers Union and pro-labor coalitions that were part of the occupational health and safety movement.
Dr. Burkes volunteered as a Working Group Coordinator for the Close Encounters of the 5th Initiative from 1992 till 1998. He has continued to study the flying saucer phenomenon working with MUFON, the Foundation for Research into Extraterrestrial and Extraordinary Experiences (FREE) and the Peruvian contact network now called Rahma. Joseph Burkes MD is co-author of the book “Paths to Contact” edited by Jeff Becker. He also has co-authored a chapter on UAP associated medical healings with researcher Preston Dennett in the FREE compendium “Beyond UFOs” edited by Rey Hernandez. In addition, he contributed a chapter to “A Greater Reality” Volume II, also published by Rey Hernandez. The title of the chapter is “Human Initiated Contact, the Consciousness Connection & the Virtual Experience Model” which is available as a free pdf file at: https://agreaterreality.com/downloads/articles/Burkes%20-%20Report%20from%20the%20Contact%20Underground.pdf
Selected Comments:
Reinerio Hernandez: I remember when I attended my second ever UFO conference and I was staying at a hotel in Nevada. My roommate, who is a major contact experiencer, heard the familiar ring in his ear and he told me “Rey, they are here”. I was so tired and I told him “Ok, I am tired. Let them know I said hello”. Well, the next day I woke up with a perfect equilateral triangle, dark red color, on the top of my left hand. The color faded and after the 3rd day is completely disappeared. My friend hears a distinctive noise in his ear before they appear to him. Note: He posts on this board and he might not want me to identify him. Also my friend, Dennis Briefer, who is also a major contact experiencer, and is a retired engineer, hears a distinctive ring only on one side of his ear before they convey a downloaded message to him. He told them many years before to only put it in one side of his ear because he had difficulty listening to other things. They dutifully complied, LOL.
Name Deleted:This exact thing started happening to me a couple of weeks ago. I can hear it as I read your piece Joseph and as I’m typing now. It stops and starts exactly as you say. Switching thought off the subject and it disappears or fades away. I was wondering why it was happening and thought it might be something like you describe but of course have no way of knowing, just the sense. Serendipity perhaps.
Jane Borthwick-Swanek:
Same here
My experiences with tinnitus are directly related to my experiences with UFOs
I’m certain.
It started after contact.
It’s definitely more present and louder when I’m practicing CE-5.
I’ve taken a “break” from CE-5 and the tinnitus has disappeared.
The loudest and longest ring I’ve experienced- I got up and went outside to an immediate flash. Big one
It really felt like I’d been called outside.
And Joseph- you’re psychic… again.
I’ve really been thinking about writing to you about tinnitus for the past two days
Because I’m now sure that it’s very much related to the UFO phenomenon.
Name Deleted: I’ve been having ringing for about 2 years now. I’m in completely agreement because when I get the ringing it’s also accompanied by a subtle “feeling”. It is more frequent when I am talking, reading or thinking about anything spiritual or anything that would be considered highly “strange” for a lack of better words. I had an experience a few months ago where I encountered a light in the sky that was just there – glowing and I asked my brother (who was there) if he saw it and he said he saw it too, so as we are looking at it I suddenly felt like I had been called on in class… I got a little nervous and looked away and the light dimmed. I told my brother that I thought the light had responded directly to my feeling of being nervous and had dimmed and it was weird because I felt like I had some kind of connection to it. He encouraged me to try to relax and bring the light back and make it brighter again ( at this point it was still there it was just dim) so I tried to put out the energy and I basically told the light to come back at that moment the light got brighter and started moving towards us as it came towards us I got nervous again and I kind of looked away and then looked back and at that point it dimmed, turned to the left and disappeared. Now I’m not really sure what that was but It was definitely meant for me and was responding to me. I’m not really sure what is going on but there seems to be a lot of energy and many people are starting to wake up, including me! It’s so fascinating but also frustrating at the same time when I look at the world and the state that it’s in and I’m not sure where to start to make it better but I feel like part of my job is to help others wake up. If anyone else had had an experience like this or had any suggestions or advice, I’d love to talk about it! Mr. Joseph Burkes if you have any input. it would be of great value to me! Thanks!!
Joseph Burkes MD: If the interactive component was just once or twice you might invoke coincidence, but three times makes it fairly certain.
For additional reports of High Strangeness from the “Contact Underground” the following links are provided:
British contact activist David Kingston had a meeting with four elegantly dressed strangers who might have been “ETs.”
A classic contact experiencer case is described by Jacques Vallee in his book “The Invisible College. It involved a French physician and his young son. After their sighting the doctor experienced two astounding medical cures of traumatic injuries that he had sustained. A link to a brief documentary on this classic case is provided:
I met author Jim Sparks and subsequently had a high strangeness experience that taught me about “cloaking”/ invisibility.
Contact Underground 
One thought on “When Ringing in the Ears is More than Tinnitus: A Stereotypical Ringing was Apparently Linked to Consciousness & May Have Represented a Form of Telepathic Communication. ”