Strange Nation: UFOs and the Australian Aborigines

UFOs and the Australian Aborigines

By Bill Chalker

The legends and lore of the indigenous Aborigines also provides material suggestive of interactions with anomalous aerial phenomena. Of course, in speculation about such data, it should be realised that the accounts are of historical and anthropological nature and therefore care should be taken not to interpolate too much into them.

PREHISTORY
Aboriginal myths incorporate the idea of "sky-beings", with the Wandjina being among the most interesting to consider. The Wandjina have been preserved in a fascinating oral tradition and in a large collection of rock paintings scattered throughout the Kimberley region of northern Australia. The paintings have received all manner of interpretations from stylised representations of a pervasive myth system to naive "ancient astronaut" theories. It is however fascinating to see that the indigenous tribes viewed the Wandjina as "the spirit in the cloud." Indeed, the unique painting style shows a logical sequence from human figures to stylised representations of clouds. This duality of anthropomorphic form and "clouds" is widespread in primitive cultures and finds an interesting parallel in the biblical accounts in "Exodus." While this line of thought is suggestive of superior "sky beings" acting as cultural catalysts for primitive societies, I should point out that making mythological component comparisons, can make for interesting exercises, full of emotive similarities, but are purely speculative. [1]

ANCIENT TRACES?
There are numerous elements of Aboriginal lore in which provocative parallels can be seen with modern day UFO experiences. To argue that identical stimuli may have been involved may be foolish as it is impossible to prove either way. Never-the-less some accounts are startling. Prosaic explanations are probable but consider the following.

The Aboriginal tribe, the Bad, of the West Kimberly area, Western Australia, revered "a supreme being" called Djamar. According to tradition he manifested in a manner highly suggestive of "something" landing and leaving behind a physical record. Of course the reverse can argued. That is that the Aborigines invested supernatural dimensions into many prosaic features of the natural landscape.

The young initiates of the tribe were led to the stony bed of a creek and were shown the holes where Djamar had planted his "bullroarer". In Aboriginal lore the sound of the "bullroarer" -- a roaring wind noise -- symbolised the approach of the god. The original accounts indicate that Djamar's bullroar or "galuguru" are representations of the "being" itself. According to E.A. Worms:

"Earnestly the old men impress on the youths the terrible force of the original tjurunga, by pointing out the baldness of the surrounding hills and the damaged bark of the trees struck by Djamar when he whirled the bull-roarer. It smashed the rocks of the foreshore."

After the manifestation of Djamar, which left behind all this damage, the supreme being himself ascended once again into the sky with his "tjurunga". Such accounts lost in prehistory are full of emotive similarities but beyond that they are only diverting tales of the Australian Aboriginal 'dreamtime'. [2]

According to Bundjalung tribal tradition, Salty Lagoon, north of the Broadwater National Park, near Evans Head, on the NSW north coast, was home to a female ancestral being called Gaungan. Described as "tall and slim, with long flowing hair, beautiful hands and long fingernails," when she moved between Salty Lagoon and Wardell, Gaungan often appeared as a shining light. The legends indicate she would try to seduce men into the sea or the lagoon. Tradition has it that Gaungan flew from Woodenbong, landed on a beach near Salty Lagoon and turned into a black rock. [3]

"MEN OF HIGH DEGREE"
Indigenous "abductees" The Australian Aboriginal shamans -- "clever men" or "men of high degree" -- described "celestial ascents" to meet with the "sky gods" such as Baiame, Biral, Goin and Bundjil. Many of the accounts of ritualistic initiation bare striking parallels to modern day UFO contactee and abduction lore. The Aboriginal shamanic "experience of death and rising again" in the initiation of tribal "men of high degree" finds some fascinating parallels with modern day UFO abduction lore. The "chosen one" (either voluntarily or spontaneously) is set upon by "spirits", ritualistically "killed", and then experiences a wondrous journey (generally an aerial ascent to a strange realm) to met the "sky god." He is restored to life -- a new life as the tribal shaman.

Ritual death and resurrection, abduction by powerful beings, ritual removal or rearrangement of body parts, symbolic disembowelment, implanting of artifacts, aerial ascents and journeys into strange realms, alien tutelage and enlightenment, personal empowerment, and transformation - these and many other phenomena are recurring elements of the extraordinary shamanic tradition.

At the turn of the last century, anthropologists Spencer and Gillen, in their book The Northern Tribes of Central Australia (1904), provided a classic account of the extraordinary shaman genre.

An Aborigine, Kurkutji, was set upon by two spirits, Mundadji and Munkaninji, in a cave:

"Mundadji cut him open, right down the middle line, took out all of his insides and exchanged them for those of himself, which he placed in the body of Kurkutji. At the same time he put a number of sacred stones in his body. After it was all over, the youngest spirit, Munkaninji, came up and restored him to life, told him that he was now a medicine-man and showed him how to extract bones and other forms of evil magic out of them. Then he took him away up into the sky and brought him down to earth close to his own camp, where he heard the natives mourning for him, thinking that he was dead. For a long time he remained in a more or less dazed condition, but gradually he recovered and the natives knew that he had been made into a medicine-man. When he operates the spirit Mukaninji is supposed to be near at hand watching him, unseen of course by ordinary people."

This is an excellent description of the initiatory experience of an Australian Aboriginal shaman. A.P. Elkin aptly referred to these individuals as 'Aboriginal men of high degree.' There are numerous other accounts of this kind from the past, from more recent times and the present. [4]

I first drew attention to the similarities between UFO abduction narratives and the initiation accounts of shamans in a paper I presented to an Australian UFO conference in November, 1977. I noted then that "while these accounts often mirror many aspects of the contemporary contactee tales and also a number of the "abduction" cases, further remarkable correspondence can be found in documented shaman lore..."

Elkin pointed out one particularly evocative example of shamanic lore:

"Amongst the powers of the Mara medicine-men is that of climbing at night by means of a rope invisible to ordinary mortals up to the sky, where he can hold converse with the star people."

Eliade quotes A.W. Howitt's "The Native Tribes of South-East Australia, when he recounts the initiation of a Wiradjuri medicine man:

"We will go up to Baiames camp. He got astride of a Muir (thread) and put me on another, and we held by each other's arms. At the end of the thread was Wombu, the bird of Baiame. We went through the clouds, and on the other side was the sky. We went through the place where the Doctors go through, and it kept opening and shutting very quickly. My father said that, if it touched a Doctor when he was going through it would hurt his spirit and when he returned home he would sicken and die. On the other side we saw Baiame sitting in his camp."

In modern parlance we have a lesser, but never the less similar Australian account:

"...a beam of white light dazzled my inner eye and I felt myself soar through the air, upwards into the sky and I was spinning all the while ... I was drawn along this beam of light, but then the effort was too much and it flickered away. Then in what seemed only minutes later I burst back to full conscious awareness ... I was lying on a floor of a room which was dimly lit ... I looked up ... and saw the figure of a man..."

This description comes from an Australian UFO contactee and "astral" abductee named Frank Lavery. His account appeared in Psychic Australian, July, 1977.

Even then in 1977 I was pointing out the common denominators between UFO contact and abduction accounts with shaman initiation accounts, for example the alien entity, the period of disorientation, the travelling into the sky in some cases, and the "experience of death and rising again." [5]

Because of the many similarities between elements of shamanic initiation experiences, modern UFO abduction and contact narratives, and even "near death" accounts, the modern travellers of what may be the same realm could be seen as potential "cosmic shamans" of the UFO abduction and contact or "near death" genres. Because modern society has not recognised the utility of the shamanic experience in interpreting the significance of these contemporary "alien visions", their percipients are seldom able to confront the possible lengthy tradition of their experiences. It should be said, however, many UFO abduction researchers do not accept this interpretation and instead contend we are dealing with bonafide extraterrestrial abductors. Needless to say a sizeable part of the general community completely rejects any arguments for the reality of these experiences. Whatever the eventual explanation, it is impossible to ignore the parallels between traditional shaman initiation experiences and contemporary UFO abduction and contact reports.

A BURNING TALE?
About six kilometres north of Wingen, an underground coal seam has been burning for possibly 5,000 years. Sydney newspapers in March, 1828, reported that a farm worker saw the mountain area on fire. Initially thought to be a volcano by the settlers who first saw it, it was soon verified as resulting from the underground burning coal seam. The Burning Mountain Nature Reserve was created to highlight its existence. It was ostensibly named by local Aboriginals as wingen (win -- burning, gen -- mountain) or wingen (meaning fire). Kisha, who wrote a psychic column for the Australiasian Post, recorded a bizarre story of a strange flying object landing at Burning Mountain (or Mount Wingen). She attributes the following tale to a man called Ted:

"Grandad used to say that it was cigar-shaped and had a funny silver colour. When it landed it set fire to all the vegetation and killed the cattle. "The noise was dreadful and there was a series of loud bangs. Grandad also spoke of tall strangers appearing in town. They never said anything but always pointed to the things they wanted. "Quite often people just disappeared and dogs and domesticated animals disappeared too. We always thought that Grandad's stories were good but he knew they were true and never made light of them."

Kisha did not indicate a date for the events in Ted's granfather's tale, but presumably its vintage would have to be at least contemporary with the first settler awareness of the burning mountain back in 1828. [6]

AN "ET" ELF IN A MANDURAH HUMPY?
In 1982 a 67 year old woman saw a picture of "ET", Steven Spielberg's cute alien creation. It made her think of an experience she had as a 15 year old girl, near the estuary at Mandurah, Western Australia. She supplied a report to the Perth UFO Research Group which stated:

"(In 1930 I was) sitting reading with my parents in a humpy, on a block in Mandurah, in Greary Rd, by the light of a hurricane lamp, with the door partly open. The time (was) about 8 pm as we went to bed early. "A little pink creature walked in. (It was) about 24 inches in height (with) large ears, big bulbous eyes, covered with a film, small hands, large feet, slit of a mouth, no hair, and shiny as if wet or oily. "We were terrified and my father went white and being a religious man said it was the work of the devil. "Picking up a prawning net, he picked it up in it and it made a noise like 'EE...EE' and my father put it outside. We never saw it again and went to bed feeling very scared. This was in 1930 and I never thought any more about it until I saw a picture of 'ET,' although only its eyes were the same. ... It did not have a round body, more straight down like a child's body. I cannot remember seeing any sex organs... (It's shape was) like an elf." [7]

Before we leave this quaint tale behind, I will mention anthropologist's Dr. Charles Mountford's description of a "spirit child" in his fascinating study, Nomads of the Australian Desert:

"This child, called mulu-kuranti (nose-spirit), was a mamu (malignant being). Its fingers were twisted, it had ears like a kangaroo, large eyes resembling those of an owl, a grotesque face, and projecting teeth. When Kuntunga (mother of all spirit-children, the "julanja") was suckling this infant, it bit her so often that she finally killed it and left the body in the creek, where it was transformed into (an) irregularly-shaped boulder." [8]

AN ABORIGINAL WOMAN'S ABDUCTION EXPERIENCE IN 1933!
Australian mysteries researcher Rex Gilroy records an intriguing tale allegedly from 1933 that reportedly involved an Aboriginal woman in a UFO abduction experience at the isolated locality of Discovery Well, on the northern edge of the Great Sandy Desert, in Western Australia.

The story echoes the tribal legends and traditions of men and women being abducted by "sky gods" or "culture heros" in the dreamtime and the initiation experiences of Aboriginal "men of high degree" or shamans.

In Rex Gilroy's account, the Aboriginal woman claimed her tribe had been frightened off from Discovery Well when a "large shiny egg" suddenly came down out of the sky. In broad daylight the strange object flew low over them. Several beings, described as strange, grey-skinned and man like, came out of the "egg". The woman said she was "stunned" by an object carried by one of the beings. Her story indicates she was carried aboard . Inside the "egg" the interior was glowing. She was strapped to a shining table and apparently "experimented with". The woman told stockmen of her experience, but perhaps not surprisingly they laughed at her. [9]

This 1933 tale also anticipates the spate of UFO abduction tales that would virtually domininate the UFO landscape by the 1990s. It was not until 1957 that the sexual abduction experience of Antonio Villas Boas from Brazil occurred. The famous Betty and Barney Hill abduction story in the United States did not take place until 1961. Neither story was well known until the mid 1960s.

TALES OF "FEATHER FOOT" AND PHANTOM PREGNANCIES
John Kernott, who does a mail run in the Kimberleys, has heard a lot of strange stories from Aboriginals. He told me of tales of sexual contact of an abduction kind that were apparently very common amongst Aboriginal women in the Great Sandy and Central Deserts. John told me this before I was aware of Rex Gilroy's story. Since about 1986, Central desert Aboriginal women have told him of "feather foot" spirits (which do not walk on the ground, they walk in the air; they can move through walls and things; they can come and punish people), which he connected with possible UFO abduction situations. They talk about waking up and spirits having sex with them, having babies, and no baby ever comes. Often their stomachs swelled up , then go down. Their sexual assailants were often described as being like "men in black"! It was often hard to see their eyes. "Phantom" or "false" pregnancies, or missing fetuses feature in UFO abduction lore. The concept of "spirit children" is also widespread. Such comparisons are fascinating, but ultimately they are difficult to interpret, given the cultural filtering and distortion that is likely in such a fringe area.

In about 1989 John's father-in-law, an Aborigine, told him that when he was a young man (in about the 1930s) camping with a group of Aborigines, before the white man took them off their land, they saw a green light spinning around in the sky. It landed behind trees. Lots of little men shining with green light came. They walked around the Aborigines, looking at them, and then walked back to the UFO, which then took off. [10]

CONTEMPORARY ABORIGINAL UFO STORIES
Dr. Hannah Wolfe, a teacher, a member of the Anthropological Society of Western Australia and an anthropologist who has done extensive field work at Western Australian Aboriginal sites, undertook a trip to the Northern Territory, with the Victorian UFO Research Society's (VUFORS) veteran investigator, Paul Norman, during 1992, to look into a contemporary report of a sighting over an Aboriginal community on one of the islands off Arnhem Land, west of Kakadu National Park.

Dr. Wolfe, after talking to Aboriginal people and examining their art, had already concluded that elements of their culture seemed to reflect the possibility that Aborigines may have been visted by extraterrestrials, during the long history of the idengenous peoples presence in Australia. Dr. Wolfe suggests that examples of evidence for this may possibly be seen in the Wandjina tradition and in a faded cave painting in southern Australian, which depicts a circular, striated image with what may be "rays" coming out of one side. The cave is linked to a tradition involving a man who came from the moon. While on Earth he lived in the cave. He eventually departed his cave through a hole in the roof and returned to the moon. [11]

Dr. Wolfe does not identify the location, but anthropologists, Spencer and Gillen, recorded in their 1899 study that the Aboriginal men of the Aranda tribe in the southern portion of the Northern Territory, believed that at one time the moon-man lived on earth. A pancake- (or it could be said "disc" or "saucer") shaped boulder, approximately two feet wide, in the western Aranda territory was pointed out as the place where the moon-man once rested. The Ngatadjara tribe of the Warburton ranges, in central west of Western Australia, had a myth which described how a group of women, the Kunkarunkara, were protected from the unwelcome attentions of the moon-man, Kula. Another variation, indicates they were being continuously pursued, and occassionally raped, by Jula, a man of the constellation of Orion. The women, legend has it, finally escaped into the sky and became the Pleiades. [12]

The sighting report Paul Norman had received described a silver elongated object that hovered over the area until an aircraft appeared. Norman and Wolfe were not allowed to visit the area, according to local administrative officers.

On the border of Arnhem Land and Kakadu National Park, Dr. Wolfe was told by a local Aboriginal elder, Joseph, that a community to the south-west, had once been forced to run from a UFO encounter. At another place, Joseph indicated, that aliens had abducted an Aboriginal child. The two year old had not returned. Norman and Wolfe visited the isolated, river-side community referred to by Joseph. A local man, Steven, told them that when he was a boy on a station in the area, he had witnessed a UFO landing. A woman there allegedly recieved a telepathic message from the alien beings that they wanted to take her. The UFO left without the woman when the station manager emerged with a gun. The object left behind a physical trace of its landing -- a circle on the ground, which according to Steven can still be seen. [13]

QUESTIONS OF PERSPECTIVE
This sort of information argues for a literal extraterrestrial interpretation of such incidents, but one should be careful not to uproot such tales from the cultural setting they emerged from and to stamp them with western cultural imperatives, such as our fascination with extraterrestrials and their possible relevance to UFO experiences. This caution is particularly relevant to the tribal legends and oral traditions. Even though similarities occur between say UFO abduction stories and the shamanic experiences of Aboriginal men of high degree, literal interpretations may be incorrect. Instead of exterrestrials we may be dealing with something else. The perspectives offered by indigenous cultures such as Australian Aborigines may support other interesting possibilities. Such experiences may be about the effect that subtle forces have on humans. Fascinating work is being done on the effects of the natural landscape, "places of power" (or locations of unusual natural energies), hallucinogens, our modern electromagnetic environment, and so-called "earth lights". These are areas rich in possibilities for the extraordinary worlds of UFO and alien abduction experiences. The popular acceptance of a literal extraterrestrial explanation may be premature or incorrect. [14]

I have talked to a number of people about this sort of perspective. Robert Lawlor, author of Voices of the First Day - Awakening in the Aboriginal Dreamtime, provided me with some interesting insights. He told me that he had come across abduction stories in at least three Aboriginal areas -- the Kimberly, the Nowra area and Bathurst Island. In each case they were linked with initiation procedures and were associated with a particular place, known to be highly charged with 'spiritual force'. I have already mentioned accounts of this nature, collected by athropologists. Such abductions by powerful spiritual beings, are almost provoked or are sort as a legitimate or fulfilling part of the young males initiation. Such events are certainly part of the initiations of tribal shamans -- Aboriginal men of high degree. It is well known in the tribal context that such aspects occur in initiation ceromonies.

Robert Lawlor had his longest conversations on this theme, in the Nowra area, with a full blood Aboriginal, who was passing on the traditions and memories of his father. He had been dislocated from a tribal environment further south. While the later environment served to erode traditional values, the Aborigine had long memories of his father, which were of a magical nature. He talked about a cave area, where young boys were taken by a spirit and had to endure fearful sights, without loss of courage, as part of their initiation rituals. Outside of these rituals, the boys knew to stay away from the cave site. Robert Lawlor suggested this may have been due to the "natural telluric ambience" of such sites, as researchers like Paul Devereux have suggested. The experiences there parallel UFO abduction tales, but the extraterrestrial perspective is a technological orientated metaphor or explanation. The ET perspective, according to Robert Lawlor, plays into the vanities of modern culture. That perspective is the preferred propaganda in our western world. The indigenous view (the shamanic world) validates the realities and the cultural development of primitive peoples. The former is more palatable in the western technological setting. Robert Lawlor suggested the rash of modern UFO abduction experiences may be due to an intensification of industrial energies or electromagnetic pollution, and the indigenous accounts may be due to abnormalities in the electromagnetc ambience of the natural landscape. All this tells us that there are many perspectives to examine when considering UFO experiences, beyond the obvious mainstream appeal of the extraterrestrial hypothesis. [15]

AN ABORIGINAL IS LEVITATED THROUGH A CLOSED WINDOW DURING A UFO FLAP IN 1971
The town of Kempsey situated on the Macleay River in northern New South Wales has been the centre of extensive UFO activity, since at least 1971. Like a small number of other areas throughout the rest of Australia, sightings have continued, suggesting that factors common to the area are of significance to the manifestation of the UFO phenomenon. Enquiries into these areas may eventually lead to the elucidation of the nature and motive of this elusive phenomenon.

Just after 6 pm, on Friday, April 2nd, at least 14 Kempsey residents observed what appeared to be a pink flare approaching the river from the south. Reaching the river, the light turned, following the course, of the Macleay River, in a north-westerly direction. It finally disappeared in the direction of Greenhill, an Aboriginal settlement area. It was at Greenhill that an extraordinary drama unfolded several hours later on the same night.

At about 10.00 pm, an Aborigine went into the kitchen of his home at Greenhill to get a drink of water. Suddenly he saw a "small face pressed against the window pane. It had no hair and was the shape of a small saucer". Too terrified to run away, the Aborigine was drawn towards the face by some unseen force. His wife in the next room, heard glass breaking and ran into the kitchen just in time to see her husband disappearing horizontally through the top section of the bottom window. The 5 feet 3 Aborigine was apparently lifted bodily a distance of four and half feet and transported horizontally without any body movement, smashing through a window pane (only I0" by 32") above a sink piled high with dishes. He landed on his back seven and a half feet below the window level, but he wasn't even winded or stunned by the fall. The man's wife rushed outside to see him jump up and run "like hell down to the gravel near the house", where she found him crying and shaking. "I thought he had the horrors", she said later. She accompanied her husband to hospital where one stitch was put on his finger. The man had been drinking but was sober at the time of the incident. I would think that indeed the experience would be very sobering anyway! [16]

AN "EARTH LIGHT INFESTATION" ON A REMOTE ABORIGINAL SETTLEMENT IN NORTHERN AUSTRALIA
Late in 1995, the well known "earth lights" researcher and author, Paul Devereux, travelled to a remote location in northern Australia, with Erling Strand, a Norwegian engineer (who wrote the Project Hessdalen report, covering the extraordinary depth of recurring nocturnal light activity at the remote Hessdalen Valley) and a cameraman. They were there for 11 nights attempting to document the extent of recurring light phenomena. Dr. David Seargent and I had been assisting Paul Devereux, trying to establish whether the locality did indeed play host to recurring anomalous light phenomena.

This possibility represents great opportunities for serious researchers to actively interact with unusual phenomena in the context of possible repeatable observations and experiments -- potent mainstays of the scientific method. We were open minded as to what was going on there. The most intriguing possibility was that at this remote Aboriginal property we had a recurring anomolous light "infestation" that offered researchers exciting opportunities to document and attempt to understand the nature of the display events. At the very least we were dealing with an area rich in "min min light" style reports and other anomalies. Our research into the area confirmed that Aboriginals in the area were witnessing recurring light shows but its repeatability was questionable. Aboriginals and white people described sighting a variety of strange lights and other experiences. Some of these experiences were also occuring in localities further north. These included transient white lights and "bubble shaped" jelly-like things that floated about. One of these came down near the ground and a man approached it with a cigarette lighter. It appeared to sublimate on contact to a precipitate. On another occassion the same man witnessed a luminscent "bubble" appear to take on the form of a person in what seemed to be a silver suit. [17]

That incident reminded me of a strange event that befell the wife and 2 daughters of a well known country and western singer (whose name is known to me). On a road south of Broome one night in about 1971, while travelling in a truck, towing a caravan, some distance behind the singer's vehicle, they observed a light on the side of the road. Thinking the singer had pulled off, they investigated. Instead they found that the light came from an extremely large humanoid "figure", bathed in a luminous glow. One hand was outstreched in which there was some sort of ball of light. The "ball" bounced up and down from the ground to the figure's hand, rather in the manner of a yo-yo. The 3 witnesses found they were surrounded by thousands of small mushroom shaped lights, arranged in regular patterned rows as far as the eye could see. Although frightened, they were able to turn the vehicle around and as they drove out each row would go out with the truck tires impact. Whatever it was they were pleased to leave it behind. [18]

Devereux, Strand and company did not see any substantial light activity during their stay, but there were some intriguing events. When they observed flickering lights on hills to the south, their magnetometer started registering anomalies for several hours. The lights however lasted only a few minutes. Devereux characterised the magnetic anomalies as registering some 800 times above normal terrestrial fields. There were other less compelling observations. Local Aboriginals were helpful. Some were in a state of excitement as they had been "buzzed" by a large white light. Paul Devereux was impressed enough to believe that the area warrants further monitoring. Given the sensitivity and scientific nature of the project, the locality needs to been kept reasonably confidential. Otherwise the potential for further research and the privacy of the Aboriginal owners may be compromised. [19]

AN ABORIGINAL "ABDUCTEE" SPEAKS OUT
Some Aboriginal people are already coming forward to tell of possible UFO or abduction related experiences. For example, Lorraine Mafi-Williams, who has been described as a storyteller and 'liaison officer' for the spiritual truths of her Githebul group from the Bundjalung tribe, has revealed to me some of her perceptions of these intrusions into both Aboriginal and western lives:

"Our attitude to what goes on up in the heavens is what rules us Aboriginals. Its similar to religion, whereby Christians believe in a religious world ruled by one God, but many "Saints", we believe the same only the many "saints" to us are planetary ones whom you in the the Western world refer to as ET or aliens. We call them Wandjinas and Mimi Spirits, and have done so for thousands of years, until 1788, when an English concept of the above was interestingly enough (found to be) parralel to what we have practised for eons; that we commonly refer to as our Dreamtime, that began in the Milky Way." Lorraine suggests that communications from these beings is ongoing and cites her own experiences with her "old friend" since the age of 12. She feels she is an "abductee". "... my dear old friend took me up, yes in a UFO, but a different sort to the western beliefs." Her experiences were more spiritually orientated. She adds, "I went through all or nearly what abductees did ... " Lorraine indicated, "We believe in UFO, but here to we have the Aboriginal concept and belief, and we know about abductions and why."

Lorraine has, over a number of decades, courageously tried to act as a bridge between western and indigineous cultures, to improve understanding between both. In doing so, she has occassionally drawn the ire and prejudices of both cultures. One wonders what her expressions on what seems to be interactions with another culture -- a native spiritual or an alien culture -- might lead to.

References:

1: The Art of the Wadjina by I.M. Crawford (Western Australian Museum), 1968; The journals of George Grey, "Expeditions of Discovery"; The Australian Aboriginal by A.P. Elkin (1954); Australian Religions by M. Eliade (1973); The Past is human by P. White (1974) ;Yorro Yorro - Everything Standing up alive - Spirit of the Kimberley by David Mowaljarlai & Dutta Malnic, Magabala Books, Broome, WA, 1993; Messengers of the Gods - Tribal Elders reveal the Ancient Wisdom of the Earth by James Cowan, 1993, re; The cave at Wanalirri

2: Djmar, the Creator, E.A. Worms, Anthropos, XLV, 1950, pgs. 643 - 58;
Also quoted in Eliade's Australian Religions.

3: Burnum Burnum's Aboriginal Australia - A Traveller's Guide edited by David Stewart, 1988; Personal communication from area teacher

4: Aboriginal Men of High Degree by A.P. Elkin (1945, reprinted in 1977); Australian Aborigines by Mircea Eliade (1973)

5: Beyond the CE3 down under - Notes on the apparent abdence of contact, time lapse and abduction cases in Australia by Bill Chalker, 1977, UFO conference paper, Surfers Paradise, Queensland, UFOCON3; "Alien Abductions - a shamanic perspective on UFOs" by Bill Chalker, Nature and Health Vol. 11, No.1, Autumn, 1990; UFOs - a shamanic Perspective, lecture by Bill Chalker to Theosophical Society, Sydney, June 3rd, 1994

6: Australasian Post June 17, 1989

7: Perth UFO Research Group sighting report form, 1982

8: Nomads of the Australian Desert, by Charles Mountford, 1976

9: Mysterious Australia by Rex Gilroy, Nexus, 1995; Personal interview with Rex Gilroy, January, 1996

10: Personal interview with John Kernott, September, 1993

11: "Australia's aborigines have long known about UFOs", by Dr. Hannah Wolfe, FSR, Vol.39, No.3, Autumn, 1994; "Trip to the Northern Territory" by Hannah Wolfe, Australian UFO Bulletin, VUFORS, December, 1992

12: Northern Tribes of Central Australia by B. Spencer & F.J. Gillen, 1904
Native Tribes of Central Australia, ibid., 1899; Nomads of the Australian Desert, Mountford, 1976)

13: Ibid 11.

14: See the work of Devereux, Persinger, Budden, McKenna, Luna, Harner, Fred Wolf. Luis Eduardo Luna & Pablo Amaringo, Ayahuasca Visions - the religious iconography of a Peruvian Shaman, 1991, is especially fascinating re: comments on UFO imagery

15: Personal communication with Robert Lawlor, January, 1996; Dreamtime & Inner Space - The World of the Shaman, by Holger Kalweit, 1988; The Way of the Shaman by Michael Harner, 1980; Black Elk - The sacred Ways of a Lakota by Wallace Black Elk & William S. Lyon, 1990

16: "The Macleay UFO Window," by Bill Chalker, in 2 parts, Psychic Australian, March & April, 1977

17: Personal research by Bill Chalker & David Seargent, 1993 - 1996
Personal communications with Paul Devereux, 1993 - 1996

18: Personal communication from James Oram, 1975
The Last Showman - Larry Dulhunty's Larrikin Life by James Oram, 1992