HUNTER GRAY [HUNTER BEAR]
Contemporary Photo By Thomas Gray Salter
UFOS, ETS, AND CLOSE EXTRATERRESTRIAL ENCOUNTERS: SOME PERSONAL EXPERIENCES, AND REFLECTIONS BY HUNTER GRAY [HUNTER BEAR]; BETTY AND BARNEY HILL; DISCUSSION -- JUNE 12 2006 -- EXPANDED REGULARLY AND CONSISTENTLY
"I was
the only one who spoke on the possibility that, in order to reach
their tech point, the ET culture[s] had to have achieved a careful balance
between individual creativity and collective endeavor -- and probably in a
non-violent context. Admittedly, that could be tagged a superimposition of
my own long-standing philosophical wishes -- but, frankly, it does make
sense."
NOTE BY HUNTER BEAR:
At this point -- Fall 2008 -- I am adding
these three up-date dimensions:
Hunter Gray [Hunter Bear]
__________________________________________________________
In the spring of 2000, now in Idaho, I was contacted
by Shawn Casteel, an
established writer for the quite attractive journal, UFO Magazine. The
publication was interested in three very substantial pieces on university
academics active in the UFO/ET field -- and had chosen David Jacobs
[History] of
Temple University, John Mack [Psychiatry] of Harvard, and myself [recently
retired from
University of North Dakota.]. I gave him a very extensive interview on my
ET experiences and analyses and conclusions; sent background photos
regarding me including several from my Southern civil rights work; one of
myself painting my Native war drum at age seven; a photo of my oldest son,
John; news clippings; much more. We were extremely pleased with the result
which appeared in the September 2000 issue. It was a very good and full
roundup covering eight pages with side-bars, many photos [some in
color] -- including a fine shot of the syllabus from my great course,
UFOs,
ETs, and Close Encounters. Most importantly, my consistent position
regarding the friendly nature of ETs and ET visitation was accurately
stated with clarity -- and reiterated. He also did a good one on
Professor Jacobs -- and another writer, Richard Cutting, contributed a long
questions-and- answers piece with Dr. Mack.
In his prologue to the long piece involving me, Shawn Casteel wrote:
"Activists typically organize and rally for a particular political or social
agenda. And so it was for this North Dakota professor, who never dreamed
his experiences on the forefront of social activism would include
life-changing encounters with otherworldly beings."
And my final sentence in the long piece: "The [ET] people we met we liked.
This is something that you know. This wasn't something they had done to us."
[Cover with content listing of UFO Magazine.]
Hunter Bear
_____________________________________________________________
And finally, a contemporary note on my battle with
the genetically-based
and frequently lethal disease, Systemic Lupus [SLE]. Relatively rare and
with no cure, this has an especial preference for men and women who are
Native American, African American, Chicano -- and for women in general. [It
doesn't seem interested in Anglo men.] It's obvious from our retrospective
medical detective work that it has waxed and waned at several points since I
was 25 years old. In the "old days" we had no idea what it was, I went to
no physicians, took no medicines, kept on working at full steam -- and
suppressed it for long periods. This most recent attack, which became
obvious in 2003, brought me very close to death three times. The several
physicians involved have been surprised at my survival -- and substantial
upsurge. It continues to remain a Challenge -- can be a tug-of-war -- but
we have it essentially under control and I fight to put it down Forever. As
we all consistently said as we organized the massive and historic Jackson
Movement in the Mississippi of the early 1960s, "WWW" -- We Will Win.
Nialetch / Onen
Hunter [Hunter Bear]
In the mountains of Eastern Idaho
IMPORTANT BOOK NOTE [CAPTURED] AUGUST 7 2007: [Hunter
Gray]
A fine book on the Betty and Barney Hill
case has just appeared this summer,
2007. Written by Betty's niece, Kathleen Marden, and Stanton T. Friedman,
MSc, noted nuclear physicist and veteran UFO researcher, it's titled,
CAPTURED: THE BETTY AND BARNEY HILL EXPERIENCE [The True Story Of The
World's First Documented Alien Abduction]. Published by New Page Books [A
Division of Career Press, Inc.], Franklin Lakes, New Jersey, it is 319
pages, thoroughly detailed and documented, with many photos, notes,
bibliography and index. It features a foreword by Dr. Bruce Maccabee and is
widely available at bookstores and Internet sales sources for $16.99 [U.S.].
Strongly recommended. [H.G.]
AND A BOOK NOTE FROM KATHY [12/16/07]:
NOTE BY HUNTER BEAR:
[Kathy Marden is a good personal friend indeed, niece of
Betty Hill, and
executor of Betty's papers and related materials. She wrote in response to
my recent post, "Sun on the Water." But she also mentioned at length
current attacks by "professional" skeptics on her late aunt, a very dear
friend of ours in her own right, who, with her husband Barney, experienced a
close-up and friendly encounter with ETs at night in a remote section of New
Hampshire's White Mountains in 1961. Betty, an Anglo social worker, was
from a very old New England family; and Barney Hill, Afro-American, was
originally from Pennsylvania and a respected Federal employee. John Fuller
wrote a well documented best seller, The Interrupted Journey -- which was
the basis of a well known film, The UFO Incident, starring James Earl Jones
and Estelle Parsons.] H
____________________________________________________________________________
___
Dear Kathy:
We were certainly glad to hear from you. But we were quite distressed to
learn of the sniping attacks against Betty. We are not especially
surprised. "Cheap shots" are always the "tactical" weapon-of-choice by
mediocrities -- whatever their presumed academic background.
[I am sending a copy of this to Eldri and the Offspring -- and also to our
very good friends, Scott Colborn and Scott Jones.]
No one, with any semblance of open mind, who ever met or talked with
Betty -- and we are sure this was equally true with Barney who had passed
away before we appeared on the ET scene -- could ever have doubted her
tremendous honesty, absolutely pervasive sincerity, and her powerful
commitment. And that commitment, of course, embraced not only the reality
and extremely thoughtful comprehension of their great ET experience -- but
also their rich activities on behalf of social justice. I have always
appreciated the fact that they were always faithful and active Unitarians.
When my son, John, and I had that 1988 conscious ET/UFO experience -- first,
as you know, in darkened Wisconsin and then the up-close sighting in broad
daylight in western Illinois -- I immediately recalled that of Betty and
Barney. Although we had had no conscious interest in ET phenomena up to
that point, I had been aware of Betty and Barney because of the great
strength and depth of their interracial marriage. In short time, I
contacted Betty and our friendship grew rapidly and, from our perspective,
in enormously beneficial fashion. Our considerable correspondence began and
lasted for many years [those letters are in my closed collected papers at
the State Historical Society of Wisconsin and, along with other personal
correspondence on many topics, will be opened in 2010.] Eldri and I and
Josie visited Betty in New Hampshire on two occasions and I saw her again
when I spoke at the N.H. MUFON gathering late in 1994. And our great
correspondence continued long indeed after that. [Josie, I should add, has
always recalled those meetings with the greatest fondness. And, of course,
being Cat People, we remember that array of furry friends very well indeed!]
Betty was an extremely important and enduring force in getting John and I
[and our whole family] off to the best kind of start and the long term [to
this very moment and into our future] full comprehension and realization of
the very human meaning of our ET visitors. In time, we learned more -- but
have always been profoundly aware of the great role played by Betty [and
then others] in assisting us in our Climb Toward The Sun. We have always
been convinced of the rock-solid reality of the experiences of she and
Barney, and of our own, and those of many others. We continue to see the ET
visitors as friendly [though understandably cautious] with a primary focus
on sensitizing our humanity to the nearby presence of friendly ET life not
far from our own solar system.
In my current struggle with systemic lupus [genetic and frequently lethal],
we know I threw it off on my own 40 years ago and kept it at arm's length
until it emerged openly and full-blown three years or so ago. From 1988
until it struck very hard in 2003, I took not one aspirin. Even in the
midst of its still current onslaught, I have survived and kept fighting --
my inherent toughness reinforced, we are certain, by our ET legacy. The
doctors have been surprised at my resiliency -- and survival. Fairly early
on, we told my primary physician -- a young and devout Mormon -- about our
ET experiences. He listened carefully, never blinking an eye. On the
matter of the positive physiological changes engendered by our 1988 close
encounter, he remarked that every one of them was consistent with human
growth hormone. [We all knew, of course, that I had never taken that and,
frankly, we were hardly aware of its existence as a very latter day medical
substance.] He asked if this could be entered into my medical record and
both Eldri and I agreed immediately and affirmatively -- and so he wrote it
all out carefully with some detail. I should add that, even in the pits of
this Lupus, most of those positive physiological changes continued [I trim
my fingernails very frequently and my feet grew steadily to their just
attained length of Size 17!] Others of those changes have now been
re-emerging openly.
As the developing field of psychical research -- parapsychology --
recognized more than a century ago, no amount of hard, scientific evidence
can convince a "box-canyoned" skeptic. I have been a member of the American
Society for Psychical Research since the early '60s [because of my own
inherent experiences, healthy curiosity, and fine examples of such early
pioneers as William James and later Gardner Murphy and many others.]
The kind of evidence involved in the experiences of Betty and Barney and
many people is obviously incontrovertible. [When people contact me on the ET
topic, I always mention Betty and Barney in some detail and make reference
to the appropriate books and other works.] But Skeptics [and I am not
talking about careful researchers of any kind], are, it has always seemed to
us, to be motivated by generalized fear and/or career climbing. People, if
they will it, can often overcome fear. A career-oriented skeptic, though
he/she can do a certain amount of damage to others, will never get higher
than the lowest plateau. In both cases, fear and/or career, they are
destined to reside in a closed box canyon with the narrowest of horizons.
Betty and Barney climbed high -- recognized that our Universe is vast and
that they had "caught" a highly significant piece of it. And they went on
to influence, in the most thoughtfully altruistic traditions, a wide segment
of our own long suffering humanity.
They and their message will never die.
Take care, Kathy, and our very best. Please feel very free to share this
letter. Hunter
___________________________________________________________________________
KATHY MARDEN WRITES:
__________________________________________________________________________
FROM SCOTT COLBORN:
__________________________________________________________________________________
Hunter Gray
__________________________________________________________
COMMENT BY
HUNTER:
[Sent to the Sycamore list -- with the comment that, while I am not
especially congenial with mindless skeptics, I have no problem at all with
[circumspect] agnostics.
Thanks for your note, Bob. So I shall add just a bit more. I [and I am not
alone on this] do see ET visitation as a serious topic -- worthy of careful
study, research, reflection. Although there are people who may see it as
sinister, actively or potentially so, most of us who have been pretty
involved at various points [along with all of our other priorities] see it
as cautiously friendly. Again, I am not alone in seeing these visits --
which are not unusual -- and close and direct contacts with humans which are
rare [but not super-rare] -- as a very long term ET project designed to get
us [humanity] attuned to the idea of cosmic neighbors.
Some years ago, a closed and unpublicized three day meeting of about 30
people occurred high up in the rural Rocky Mountain country. The invitation
list was, frankly, select. Virtually every person there had a substantial
academic background -- many in the hard sciences -- and all had a
demonstrated record of cool and careful thinking generally, including with
respect to ET matters. Most knew a few of the others. The core purpose of
the meeting was to exchange perspectives, even make predictions. I was one
of those invited and I was present and active throughout. One interesting
figure was a retired Major General in the US Army whose forte had been
formally in Intelligence. The funding and sponsorship of this fascinating
affair were always rather vague but did have, at the point of fiscal
deliverance, a university connection.
I fell into a somewhat unique category: multi-faceted race relations and
activism, considerable background in multi-disciplinary university teaching
and some research, and an actual [with my son, Beba] hour and a half
first-hand encounter with ETs. There were a couple of other people who had
had comparable direct experiences.
The discussion was totally free-wheeling and sparky. [The only "outsiders"
were non-communicative servants.] At appropriate points, I presented my
essential view: Friendly, cautious visitors -- people similar to ourselves;
fairly rare and selective close-up encounters; very long-range education.
I made it quite clear, as did everyone else, that these Visitors were not
saviors, angels, devils, supernatural entities, or time travelers.
As far as I know, no comprehensive notes were taken. We all jotted down
things from time to time. I saw nothing being recorded.
In the end, there was not complete consensus. Some people felt there was
definitely a Federal cover-up; others saw the governments of the world as
being much in the dark -- maybe having only more reports at hand than, say,
lay people. By the time of this meeting, some governments -- such as
France, Belgium, Mexico, China, Russia and the Vatican -- were [and are]
officially sponsoring research into the ET phenomenon. [But the US and
Canada have never done this openly.]
Some discussed anti-gravity in space travel; others gave informed
speculation on possible ET origin points [e.g., Zeta Reticuli.]
No one saw the ETs as a sinister force. Some simply viewed them as
"non-threatening." Others, such as myself, saw friendly people [albeit very
cautious and wary.] Several of us felt that, as time passed and such
visitation waxed and waned and waxed again, ET appearances would become,
very carefully, more obvious and designed to be witnessed by many.
I was the only one who spoke on the possibility that, in order to reach
their tech point, the ET culture[s] had to have achieved a careful balance
between individual creativity and collective endeavor -- and probably in a
non-violent context. Admittedly, that could be tagged a superimposition of
my own long-standing philosophical wishes -- but, frankly, it does make
sense.
I appreciated the mountain view from my own excellent room. Food was truly
great. And I found the people, one and all, cordial and extremely
interesting.
But it was very serious.
Hunter
____________________________________________________________
Hunter speculates: "a very long term ET project designed to get us
[humanity] attuned to the idea of cosmic neighbors." Very ambitious, or
naive, applied to a globe full of beings that hasn't even got attuned to
those of their own kind who were born on a different patch of that
globe, go to a different church, are a different skin color, or enjoy
different sexual activity.
- Reber Boult
___________________________________________________________
HUNTER BEAR RESPONDS:
__________________________________________________________
FROM REBER BOULT:
There's a novel by Doris Lessing (written, I think, after she moved to
the right) named Shikasta that deals with this in what I found to be a
really interesting way. The ET's go through much pain to deal with us
denizens of earth but it's important to them (for reasons that I don't
recall).
"BTW, hope you all are finally getting at least some good rain down in
the Land of Enchantment." Abso****inglutely not. In Albuquerque we, if
I correctly heard the weather report that I never pay much attention to,
are still not up to our first inch of rain this year. The yearly
average is about 9 inches. It didn't rain or snow much in most of 2005,
either. The air's so dry the windshield dries before you can get the
squeegee to it. The dry heat is evaporateing the rain showers before
they get to the ground. The globe is warming. Except in Idaho and
Colorado.
- Reber Boult
__________________________________________________________________________
KIND WORDS FROM NEBRASKA: GARY MATTESON, 12/19/06
By all means, let us keep in close touch.
Our very best wishes to you, Hunter Gray [Hunter Bear]
___________________________________________________________________
A MOST KIND LETTER FROM A FORMER UND STUDENT: 4/22/07
Dear Professor Salter,
COMMENT BY HUNTER BEAR -- 4/22/07:
This is a very welcome letter to which I shall respond today.
NOTE BY HUNTER BEAR:
Although my present circumstances hardly connote the
gentle "Mr Chips," I do receive regularly and much appreciate kind words
from former students and other friends over many decades. This came today.
When Darin refers to "CBS Nightline," I believe he is thinking about
"Visitors from the Unknown." This is a very well done presentation on the ET
encounters of Travis Walton and friends in Arizona, Officer Alan Godfrey of
England, and myself and John III [Beba] in Wisconsin and Illinois. This
aired initially and nationally on CBS prime time in May 1991 and was very
well received -- and it occasionally still plays. It's also been abroad.
A big plus for us all was/is that it is narrated by James Earl Jones.
See the cast, etc. at
___________________________________________________________________________________
NOTE BY HUNTER: APRIL 1 2008
_______________________________________________________________
AND GOOD WORDS FROM SCOTT:
__________________________________________________
FROM KATHY MARDEN: APRIL 2 2008
________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________
MARVIN VINING:
Dear Hunter,_______________________________________________
SCOTT COLBORN:
NOTE BY HUNTER [MARCH 21 2009]: I had a fine, most enjoyable time today on Scott's fine radio program. I've been on it several times over the past years. In addition, I've spoken on the ET topic at Lincoln and under his auspices in 1992, 1993, and 2003. I am always very pleased to join with Scott.
__________________________________________________
AND FROM KATHY MARDEN:
FOR AN ACCOUNT OF THE SALTER UFO ENCOUNTERS OF MARCH , 1988: THEIR BACKGROUND, DEVELOPMENT , AND RAMIFICATIONS, PROCEED TO THE NEXT FOLLOWING PAGE.
HUNTER GRAY [HUNTER BEAR/JOHN R SALTER JR]
Mi'kmaq /St. Francis
Abenaki/St. Regis Mohawk
Protected by Na´shdo´i´ba´i´
and Ohkwari'
Check out our Hunterbear website Directory
http://hunterbear.
[The site is dedicated to our one-half Bobcat,
Cloudy Gray:
http://hunterbear.
See our Community Organizing Course [With new
material]
http://hunterbear.
And see Hunter's Movement Life Interview:
http://hunterbear.