In October, the knights of Malta award Lyndon Johnson the Grand Cross of Merit of the Sovereign Order of Malta for his "significant humanitarian contributions." He is the first American to be so honored by the knights of one of the oldest Roman Catholic orders. Keep in mind that the Catholic Church has been coopted by the CIA and is an "intelligence asset."

Kennedy stands firm against Khrushchev during the Cuban Missile Crisis. By the end of November, the missiles have been shipped back to the Soviet Union.

The Esalen Institute was founded in 1964 by Mike Murphy and Dick Price out of Murphy's family resort. Murphy and Price had been running seminars at the resort beginning in 1962, with speakers gathered through an expanding network of contacts, beginning with Alan Watts, Aldous Huxley, George Bateson, Gerald Heard, and others. [see Anderson, Walter Truett, The Upstart Spring, Addison-Wesley Publishing, 1983 for an expansive history of Esalen]

While an engineering professor at Stanford University, Harman led a 1962 conference on human potentiality at the Esalen Institute called "The Expanding Vision". Harman went on later to head IONS with Astronaut Edgar Mitchell.

Project Starfish

On July 9, 1962, the US began a further series of experiments with the ionosphere. From their description: "one kiloton device, at a height of 60 km and one megaton and one multi-megaton, at several hundred kilometers height" (K.H.A., 29 June 1962). These tests seriously disturbed the lower Van Allen Belt, substantially altering its shape and intensity.

"In this experiment the inner Van Allen Belt will be practically destroyed for a period of time; particles from the Belt will be transported to the atmosphere. It is anticipated that the earth's magnetic field will be disturbed over long distances for several hours, preventing radio communication. The explosion in the inner radiation belt will create an artificial dome of polar light that will be visible from Los Angeles" (K.H.A. 11 May 1962).

A Fijian Sailor, present at this nuclear explosion, told me that the whole sky was on fire and he thought it would be the end of the world. This was the experiment which called forth the strong protest of the Queen's Astronomer, Sir Martin Ryle in the UK.

"The ionosphere [according to the under-standing at that time] that part of the atmosphere between 65 and 80 km and 280- 320 km height, will be disrupted by mechanical forces caused by the pressure wave following the explosion. At the same time, large quantities of ionizing radiation will be released, further ionizing the gaseous components of the atmosphere at this height. This ionization effect is strengthened by the radiation from the fission products...

The lower Van Allen Belt, consisting of charged particles that move along the geomagnetic field lines... will similarly be disrupted. As a result of the explosion, this field will be locally destroyed, while countless new electrons will be introduced into the lower belt" (K.H.A. 11 May 1962).

"On 19 July... NASA announced that as a consequence of the high altitude nuclear test of July 9, a new radiation belt had been formed, stretching from a height of about 400 km to 1600 km; it can be seen as a temporary extension of the lower Van Allen Belt" (K.H.A. 5 August 1962).

As explained in the Encyclopedia Britannica:

"... Starfish made a much wider belt [than Project Argus] that extends from low altitude out past L=3 [i.e. three earth radiuses or about 13,000 km above the surface of the earth]."

Later in 1962, the USSR undertook similar planetary experiments, creating three new radiation belts between 7,000 and 13,000 km above the earth. According to the Encyclopedia, the electron fluxes in the lower Van Allen Belt have changed markedly since the 1962 high- altitude nuclear explosions by the US and USSR, never returning to their former state. According to American scientists, it could take many hundreds of years for the Van Allen Belts to destabilize at their normal levels. (Research done by: Nigel Harle, Borderland Archives, Cortenbachstraat 32, 6136 CH Sittard, Netherlands.)

Alfred K. Bender declared that he would tell his story and wrote a book entitled Flying Saucers and the Three Men. It described astral projection to a secret base in Antarctica inhabited by male, female and bisexual creatures. Researchers were perplexed and wondered if the whole thing was just contrived to hide something more sinister. Lucchesi said that Bender was a "changed man" after the three men had visited him. He said "it was as if he had been lobotomized." Bender was obviously frightened, and suffered from extreme headaches whenever he even thought about speaking about his experiences and what the three men had told him. He withdrew completely from UFO research, and went to work managing a hotel, and refused to discuss anything about such matters ever again.

Not too many months after Bender's silencing, Edgar R. Jarrold, organizer of the Australian Flying Saucer Bureau, and Harold H. Fulton, head of Civilian Saucer Investigation of New Zealand, had received similar visits and disbanded their organizations.

General Douglas MacArthur: "You now face a new world - a world of change. The thrust into outer space of the satellite, spheres and missiles marked the beginning of another epoch in the long story of mankind , the chapter of the space age... We speak in strange terms: of harnessing the cosmic energy... of the primary target in war, no longer limited to the armed forces of an enemy, but instead to include his civil populations; of ultimate conflict between a united human race and the sinister forces of some other planetary galaxy." An address by General Douglas MacArthur to the United States Military Academy at West Point, May 12, 1962.

Major Robert White "There are things out there! There absolutely is!" White exclaiming over the radio about a UFO encounter taking place on a 58 mile high X-15 flight on July 17, 1962. "I have no idea what it could be. It was greyish in color and about thirty to forty feet away." He later reported.

Carl Sagan presented a remarkable paper to the American Rocket Society, arguing that not only was space travel possible, but that other civilizations "must today by plying the spaces between stars." He stated that radio was not always the best way to establish contact with others.

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