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If one can place any faith in Steven Spielberg films like E.T. and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, the visitors from outer space are benign and friendly folk. But several recently reported episodes have been more sinister. High on the best-seller lists this past summer stood Communion by Whitley Strieber, previously known mainly as a writer of fantasies (The Wolfen, Warday), who vehemently describes as a "true story" his chilling account of being spirited onto a spaceship by a pack of 3-ft.-high "visitors." When they proposed sticking a needle into his brain, he recalls, one of them casually asked him, "What can we do to help you stop screaming?" More scare stories came from Intruders by Budd Hopkins, a chronicle of 130 people who claim to have been abducted by extraterrestrial visitors and tell tales of being subjected to various degrading medical experiments. On the other hand, the extraterrestrials who turn up in the course of channeling -- one of the most popular New Age sports -- appear almost unfailingly wise and benevolent.
Come to a rocky meadow on California's Mount Shasta, where a New Zealander named Neville Rowe tells the encircling crowd of 200 (admission: $10) that he speaks with the voice of Soli, an "off-planet being" who has never actually lived on earth. Dressed in a white-peaked cap, purple shirt and purple shoes, Rowe clutches a bottle of Evian water as the voice emerges from him in a rather peculiar British accent. "You are here to express who you are," says Soli. "You are here to search for yourself. The highest recognition you can make is that I am what I am. All that is, is. You are God. You are, each and every one, part of the Second Coming."
Somebody wants to argue. What about murderers? Are they God too?
"Your truth is your truth," says Soli, while his helpers start trying to sell videotapes of his latest incarnation. "My truth is my truth."
Not all the channeled voices are from outer space. Come to the Phoenix Institute in Lexington, Ky., for example, and hear Lea Schultz speak with the voice of somebody called Samuel. "What Lea does," says Tripp Bratton, an official at the institute, "is she calms herself and tunes in to a signal. Everything has a vibration, even if it doesn't have a physical form. Then she becomes animated by the energy on the other end of the 'line.' It's direct telepathic communication." Samuel usually discusses problems he feels are present in the audience and then takes questions: What happened to Atlantis? What happened to the Challenger?
Jach Pursel, a former Florida insurance agent living in Los Angeles, squints his eyes and speaks with the voice of Lazaris, a spiritual entity of uncertain origins.
"How old are you?" he is asked.
"In our reality, we have no time," says Lazaris.
"Why are you making your presence known to man?"
"Because you are ready now . . ."
"Is the world about to end?"
"No. In a word, no. This is not the ending. This is the beginning."