Like many UFO researchers I have found our subject cannot be confined to nuts and bolts - not when the mysterious objects come and go like will'o'the'wisps and abductees report beings suddenly materialising inside locked homes abducting people through solid walls.
True there may be a number of different phenomena operating here but it seemed to me logical to explore related psychic events where similar happenings appear to occur - materialisation of matter, psychokinesis, communication with alleged spirits etc.
And that's where Tom Harrison comes in - a very dear and close friend of mine who died just a few weeks ago in his 90s.
Tom was an ardent Spiritualist but the stories he told me were far more spectacular than mumbled ambiguous messages from dodgy mediums.
From April 1946 Tom and his then wife Doris were part of a unique home séance circle known as The Saturday Night Club, a small group of family, friends and occasional fortunate guests who witnessed wonders that Spiritualists of today can only dream about. From that time until the passing of his mother Minnie Harrison, who was an exceptionally gifted medium, Tom and his fellow circle members claimed they met and talked with literally hundreds of materialised spirit people, all completely visible in good red light in the small back room of a house in Middlesbrough, UK.
In his own words Tom said: "They returned not as fleeting, passing visions in somebody's mind, not even as wispy, transparent ghosts or spectres. They returned in fully-functioning, warm, heart-beating physical bodies. They returned and spoke with the same-sounding voices you would recognise. They returned with the same laughter, the same personality; and as you thrilled to feel their arms embracing you, and even kisses from their lips - the same love."
Now this whole concept of dead people materialising so you could touch and chat with them was pretty mind blowing and I would have probably dismissed it completely unless I read of similar phenomena from the likes of Oliver Lodge and Sir Conan Doyle in the annuls of parapsychology.
So I got to know Tom who showed me some time-exposure photos he'd taken and his hand written diary of each occasion these phenomena occurred - literally hundreds of times.
He talked of 'apports', objects suddenly appearing in their room and flower blooms being teleported through the wall from a garden outside.
When I challenged him about the conversations with the visitors - some recorded on reel to reel tape - how could he be sure his group weren't all hallucinating, he would relate how a doctor guest once took the pulse of a materialised spirit and told her 'You'll live' and she replied 'Yes I am living', and how with scissors he was permitted to snip some ectoplasm, from which the bodies formed, and take it in a jar to his hospital to have it analysed.
When I asked Tom how he really knew the form he embraced and conversed with, was his mother, he replied "You would know your own mother, wouldn't you?"
In his latter years I played a small role in helping him write a book about his experiences and secured him an interview on the Jeff Rense Show.
Now following his passing, I note that somebody has posted an hour long video of Tom telling in detail of his experiences. The link for Visitors from the Other Side is here:
It's a home made video so sometimes the sound is a little rough but you'll hear Tom and former members of his circle telling of their experiences. And like me you might wonder if it could be true....
Like me also, you might conjecture, what could be the connection between these ethereal visitors and the ones we are more familiar with in UFO lore, who invade our homes unbidden?
My view is that in the quantum non-linear world there may be myriad dimensions which sometimes for reasons we currently cannot imagine, can blur into our own reality - hence the bizarre happenings at the Skinwalker Ranch and possibly in Nancy Talbott's current research linking UFOs with the world of the dead.
I can well imagine the nuts and bolts brigade will criticise me from straying into 'la la land' - but if that's where the evidence leads, so be it.
Dave Haith
Subject: Dead People and Ufos - Is There a Connection? Dave Haith Posted December 2, 2010