Joseph Burkes MD 2026
A Fateful Decision
Following my June 1992 sighting of a UFO during my first night of fieldwork in West Palms Beach Florida, I knew what I wanted to do. The next month after reading and re-reading the CSETI literature that I had purchased at the Florida workshop, I called the CSETI national office. It turned out to be in Dr. Greer’s living room. His wife Emily told me that they were looking for a leader to coordinate the formation of a CSETI research team in Southern California. I took a breath and audaciously replied, “You’re looking for a Working Group Coordinator? Well, I think you’re talking to him.”
I was named as coordinator of this fledgling contact team and was designated the responsible party for all its operations. Needless to say, I had a great deal to learn. I was not an experienced meditator. Thought projection while in a meditative state is an essential component of the CE-5 contact protocols. In medical school, I had heard about the beneficial effects of meditation in terms of treating hypertension and reducing emotional stress; nevertheless, I had never dreamed of trying to follow a disciplined practice of daily meditation as recommended by the CSETI Director. However, I did have some very limited exposure to applied psi. When I was a first-year medical student twenty years previously, I took a one-day course in what was called “Silva Mind Control.” It involved relaxation techniques that were supposed to increase one’s powers of clairvoyance. After taking the course, I found that the Silva method helped me in one area only. After taking a deep breath and attempting to clear my mind, it seemed to help me visualize open spaces in crowded parking lots. It was effective about six or seven times out of ten attempts. So, I occasionally still use it today fifty years later.
With Daily Meditation I Suddenly Lost My taste for Meat.
My wife Yael was far more interested in meditating than I was, and her enthusiasm propelled me to sign the whole family up for a course in Transcendental Meditation (TM). Our ten-year-old, Julia, didn’t want any part of the course, but Jonathan at nearly sixteen took the course with us and became a regular meditator. As an aspiring rock guitarist, I recall him saying that he thought meditation would improve his music. I remember being somewhat disappointed after receiving only about ten hours of formal instruction; it seemed that our Transcendental Meditation course ended far too abruptly. I felt that I needed more training. In a candle lighting ceremony, my instructor simply gave me my mantra and that was it. I did not feel very well prepared to go out and continue to meditate on my own. I said to Yael, “Is this all there is to TM training?” Nevertheless, I was determined to give it a try. Yael became a regular meditator as well. Soon after starting a daily meditation practice, I noticed changes taking place in our household. My wife abruptly decided to prepare only vegetarian food at home. I had always been an avid “meat and potatoes” man and had never seriously given vegetarianism a moment’s thought. Now, all of a sudden, I was going without the steaks and lamb chops that I had once believed I couldn’t live without. Strangely it didn’t seem to bother me much. I was surprised to find that I had lost all my taste for being a carnivore. Other meditators told me this reaction to daily practice was not uncommon.
“Isolated, yet Accessible”: the Challenge of Finding a Research Site
I began a seemingly never-ending search for the perfect research site. The CE-5 maxim that the location should be both isolated and at the same time accessible was clearly an impossible combination in Southern California. There were people, homes and barking dogs seemingly everywhere. I had to exercise considerable caution in my search as LA nights are populated by a wide assortment of dangerous people. During those first months of Working Group operations, I did a great deal of hiking and checking out wilderness real estate. That too was something new for me. The last pair of hiking shoes that I had purchased was when I was a medical student, some two decades prior. I bought a new pair of boots and was ready for action. Every weekend during that fall of 1992, I found myself climbing up steep arid hillsides trying to find a safe and quiet place to position my team during our investigations.
Preparing for Contact Led to Some Important Personal Changes
In combination with my vegetarian diet, all this vigorous exercise caused me to lose almost 20 lbs. The middle age spare tire around my abdomen melted away. The chronic low back pain that had been plaguing me for years suddenly got much better. I was now more physically fit than I had been in decades. Participating in group meditation outdoors in nature facilitated some sorely needed spiritual development as well. My growing acceptance of universal consciousness as a possible link between human and extraterrestrial intelligence reassured me that the “visitors” might not be so alien after all.
The project, however, was not all heavy physical and mental exertion. Our team had time for fun as well. In a comic frame of mind I fancied, based on my personal transformation, that if CE-5 network ever wanted to recruit hordes of new members, it might try to sell its flying saucer contact program as a self-improvement course.
“Yes. you too can lose weight and look better!
Just follow CSETI’s program of meditation, vegetarianism and vectoring in “ET spacecraft, You will lose 20 lbs., look more attractive and be healthier!”
The zany notion added a light touch to my local recruiting efforts. After all, in Southern California it sometimes feels like everyone is obsessed with their looks. As they say in Hollywood, “It’s better to look good than to feel good!”
Dr. David Gordon was a Great Addition to our Contact Team.
I explored the rugged terrain with the assistance of my medical partner Dr. Dave Gordon. He owned a four-wheel drive vehicle and was an experienced backpacker. Another reason that David was an invaluable assistant in my search was that with the approval of his department chief, he was conducting an informal survey concerning sightings of UFOs by patients and workers at the Woodland Hills Kaiser Medical Center. His study indicated that about 10% of those he interviewed at his facility had sightings of what they considered to be UFOs. Half of the sightings were of what are called “anomalous nocturnal lights”, and the other half were of structured unknown objects that could be called “craft.” As the result of his experience as a private pilot and a basic knowledge of astronomy, Dr. Gordon was able to eliminate misidentifications of prosaic phenomena during his interviews. This meant that many of the identifications were likely to be what are called “true unknows, i.e., Unidentified Flying Objects. The survey, although informal, had certain special advantages over most anonymous questionnaires in opinion polls.
Dave knew all his patients quite well and he chose to exclude those patients that were alcoholics or had other mental disorders. He also included, in his survey, personnel at the hospital. Dr. Gordon included doctors, nurses and support staff, those that he was friendly with and were receptive to a few questions on an unusual topic. This part of his survey was composed of working people who generally were in good health. This aspect of the study refuted the claims of self-styled debunkers asserting with no proof that, “Only kooks have flying saucer sightings.” Another consideration was the truthfulness of responders to his survey. David Gordon MD was highly respected by his patients, fellow physicians and the other staff members at the medical center. They took his questions seriously and it was Dave’s assessment that they answered truthfully.
By the time he was chauffeuring me around in his truck, he had interviewed several hundred individuals. In the process of asking about sightings, he had inadvertently developed a network of informants that faithfully took it upon themselves to contact their respected doctor concerning ongoing encounters with UFOs in our area. Through David, I had tapped into a veritable gold mine of intelligence about the territory I was supposed to cover for CSETI’s CE-5 Initiative. As I bounced around in his truck, Dr. Dave enthusiastically described the various UFO sightings he was diligently documenting in his ongoing study. Some of the local sighting had taken place in the very same places that we were reconnoitering as possible research sites!
My Colleague’s Hunch led to a Great Research Site
One deserted trail looked particularly promising to David. It was located off Old Santa Susana Road near the Rocky Peak Exit from the 118 Freeway. The path pointed down into the canyon. In my view, this was not a very encouraging road to pursue. I guessed that the lower parts of the ravine were loaded with rattlesnakes hunting in preparation for the winter’s hibernation. I tried to talk David out of following the trail, but he had a hunch that it would lead us to a promising site. Following his intuition really paid off. After marching down the rocky trail for only five minutes, the path began to climb. This was becoming more encouraging. As we reached the crest of the hillside, my heart was pounding, not just from the climb but also from excitement at what we saw from the ridge. Below us was a relatively flat area some 300 feet long and 200 feet across. It was an enormous site with a spectacular view of the entire southwestern portion of the San Fernando Valley. We had found what we had been looking for, the perfect location to do fieldwork!
This site was just a few hundred yards south of the Santa Susana Pass, a high desert locale through which the 118 Freeway connects the San Fernando Valley with and the bedroom community of the Simi Valley. Large boulders and spectacular rock outcropping studded the arid hills on both sides of the pass. At that time in the early 1990s, there was no housing in the immediate vicinity. The site’s location, on a large and relatively flat outcropping from the hillside, provided ample room for a regiment of UFO investigators.
The majestic Santa Monica Mountains were just ten miles to the south. They stood before us on the horizon like a wall of mighty sentries. Beyond that wall lay an endless expanse, the Pacific Ocean. At our backs was a slight rise. It was the hill we had just scaled. It provided us with cover from the spying eyes of those passing by on the 118 Freeway. Without such a shield, our contact efforts employing powerful lights would attract a lot of attention. To the north over the hillside, vehicles slowed down during the climb into the Santa Susana Pass. The exit for to Rocky Peak State Park was located at the top of the pass. If our contact work were not shielded, the use of powerful lights might appear as an attempted remake of Spielberg’s “Close Encounters of the Third Kind.”
David and I checked the location out for clues human activity. The few corroded beer cans that we found were obviously several years old. Pop bottle fragments gratefully had a weathered appearance to them with sharp edges smoothed out by years of rain and wind. If this were once a local party place, it was likely to have been so during a previous era, probably before a locked gate had been placed at the trailhead. The gate was meant for vehicles, but hikers could easily pass through. Without such a barricade, open access to a secluded glen with a spectacular view would have certainly brought on caravans of young people seeking close encounters of a passionate kind. We also carefully checked the ground for the presence of shell casings or bullet riddled targets. With a sigh of relief, I found not even one, thus assuring me that the area was not likely frequented by gun enthusiasts. This is always an important consideration in selecting a research site for contact work. I wanted our UFO research station to be safe not only for us, but also any flying saucer on the chance that one might show up.
Now with a research site, the next step in organizing a team had arrived. Dr. Steven Greer scheduled a weekend workshop in Southern California. With the help of Dr. Dixie Sullivan, a PhD psychologist, we located a venue I the San Fernando Valley that was close to the Santa Susana Pass. During the 1990s when I worked closely with the CSETI Director, it immediately became apparent to me that he functioned like a human UFO magnet. I was encouraged that we would have a UFO sighting during the CE-5 fieldwork demonstration that was scheduled to follow the workshop.
For more narratives in this series on “The Making of Contact Team” the following links are provided:
“My Volunteer Contact Work Begins.” In this detailed narrative I describe the circumstances of how I met a fellow emergency room physician names Steven Greer MD in 1992. This was the beginning of my participation in project to facilitate human-initiated contact events involving the non-human intelligences responsible for what are now called UAP. I had a six-year association with the Center for the Study of ET Intelligence (CSETI) during which I helped organized contact teams primarily in western cities of North America. I describe the rationale behind the CSETI Contact Protocols including meditation, playing crop circle tones and using powerful lights during fieldwork. Links to recordings of the tones and a video of the Gulf Breeze CSETI encounter are included.
On My 1st Night of Fieldwork, I Saw a UFO! I describe my first sighting during a CE-5 training workshop at West Palm Beach in June of 1992. I briefly explain the contact technique called “Coherent Thought Sequencing.
Contact Underground 