THE NEAR DEATH EXPERIENCER AND THE UFO ABDUCTEE

Vincent Luciani

I am from a segment of the population known as near death experiencers (NDEr) -- those who once momentarily died and enjoyed a mystical encounter in the process.

My turn came in 1985 when I collapsed at my New Jersey home during a protracted illness, and awoke in the local hospital about an hour later where I hung around for a few days on life-support and monitoring devices.

The emergency ward had wall-to-wall consoles filled with flashing lights and displays, loads of toots and whistles. I mention this because when I finally regained consciousness, all this hi-tech stuff was the first thing I saw. At that instant, not a soul was in sight.

So what do you think entered my mind? Where am I? Or, what happened? Or, did I kick the bucket? No, not me. My very first reaction was, "Geez! I've been taken on board a UFO!" Typical, huh? And then a nurse came into view, totally destroying my fantasy when I realized I was in the hospital. Maybe it proves that some UFOers are born, not made; that maybe deep in the most distant reaches of my/our mind(s) something is trying to get out. I hope so.

In my vision, at the instant of collapse, I met with a spiritual figure with whom I reviewed my entire life in mere earth-equivalent seconds. (The total vision time was equivalent to about 15 earth minutes; yet, I am convinced it all transpired in the fractional second between when I suddenly keeled over backward and when I hit the floor.)

We discussed much between us, my Guide and I, and then I asked to be returned to live. (Most NDErs are told to go back.)

For reasons not pertinent to the moment, I shall only briefly mention that three years later, in 1988, I divorced from not only a marriage (already marginal) but also, from my entire life to date. And so I left New Jersey for good (which isn't hard to do if you are a kid from the hills of Pennsylvania). I set out to travel, and have been traveling ever since.

My UFO interests took a decided turn upward when the Gulf Breeze book almost literally fell into my hands while I was browsing in a South Carolina library. Soon, the UFO dreams were back but not those I used to have when as a kid I would wake up glowing from having flown to wonderfully strange places in wonderfully strange machines. Back then, I thought everybody had such dreams.

(Even spookier to my childhood, and as an aside which, had to do with my being the son of Italian immigrants. We lived poor. Mom had only one knife in the house with which she cut everything. I mean everything -- slice the homemade bread, the weekly chicken's neck, butter the toast, chop garlic cloves.. and there it was, for I was a disgrace and as an Italian kid because I hated garlic, still am not keen on it. It made me throw up when Mom would hide a chunk of garlic in the salad or spaghetti. Walking into a closed house on a winter day when garlic was cooking made me run directly to the bathroom to throw up. Sigh. Worst of all, for three days after she chopped garlic, the toast was contaminated with garlic taste. Now, isn't this substantial evidence I must have been the child of an alien father? Or the milkman?)

Anyway, from South Carolina I headed out to Buena Vista, Colorado, where I met UFOer, Elly Fithian who gave me the name of UFOer Mildred Biesele in Salt Lake City, my next stop.
In Salt Lake, a few weeks later, Mildred referred me to Kaye Studstrup who was hosting a UFO gathering at her home that weekend, and would I like to give my NDE talk? You bet! (Kaye Studstrup was an Associate Director in my organization, UFOCCI.)

Over 30 keenly-oriented UFOers showed up in her living room, Saturday. Activities started off with each one giving their latest experiences and feelings on what was new with them, UFO-wise.

As one after another expressed themselves I began to feel the room fill with powerful energies. I simply had never been with people like this; I wasn't prepared for my own reactions. Actually, I began to feel weakened, and if I were to look for an answer I'd say it had something to do with the presence of kindred spirits. I don't yet know, for sure.

I recovered sufficiently to give my talk, however, which included my views that there is much in common between some abductees and some survivors. Also, I added my conviction that UFO research continues to be flawed by its omission or skimpy recognition of God's influence in all this.

Regarding the former, eminent UFO-oriented psychologist DR.Leo Sprinkle had sent me a paper he'd written which, as I read, placed my sensors on red alert. Why? Well, as I later told him, were he to change all his references of "abductees" to "near-death survivors," I'd say he was talking about me.

On the latter, I will say that until fate brought me back into the UFO arenas I wasn't asking for any more fields to plow. But now that I've been hurled into it all, I am asking: Will you UFOers please consider that aliens, from whichever universe, may be from the same God as are we? And that we might do well to reorient our involvement's to factor the God Presence into the UFO equation? Or am I reinventing the wheel, is there already intensive discussion going on of which I simply am not aware?

After the Gulf Breeze chatter, I quit reading UFO books because they all seem to have the same hang-ups. As I told the GB author in a letter, and as I suggest to all would-be UFO book authors, if you want maximum credibility then publicly assign your advance and royalties to charity or to a nonprofit UFO organization. And speak more of God.

While I am yet dreaming of impossible dreams, I wish to quickly run through other UFO thoughts, any one of which could fill a lengthy article:

1. Contact and voluntary boarding is my need; to help with the upcoming transition.

2. Millions of us are likely to soon cross over. Not all, just millions and millions. But it doesn't have to be.

3. Atlantis. Two years after my NDE I would still need to be careful to avoid use of personal pronouns I, we, our, in talking about Atlantis.

4. Polaris. Dreams, again. Something a smaller star-sun in back of the big one, and 15 planets of which the fifth is life supportive. Does anyone share this awareness?

5. Edgar Cayce, who often spoke of Atlantis, would admonish, "Mind is the builder." He knew. (UFOers who do not know of Cayce would do well to learn.)

I like to make the point in my talks that we create our own realities, that perhaps we each have our own universe exclusively ours which is what some say the minds really is... our own universe.

Mind, when we ultimately do solve the UFO and the NDE equations, may turn out to be more a constant than a variable. We simple folk do not yet have the smarts or the dedication by which to figure it out. Someone once said, the mind is like a parachute -- it functions best when kept open.

In covering 75,000 miles these past three years, you can believe I have enjoyed some scary situations from which the only comfort came from those 2,000 year old words, "Seek ye within..."

Do you know?