William Herrmann, aka "Bill Hermann" or "Herman" or "Hermann", was a diesel mechanic, born-again Christian, church custodian, living in a mobile home in North Charleston, South Carolina, USA, who claimed contact with aliens.
Tough at the time he reached some fame in the Press, magazines, and even Japanese TV, and managed to get the attention of ufologist because of his claims, he was soon forgotten, like many so-called "contactees".
In 1977, aged 26, he claimed, he saw a "glowing disc" on several occasions, and once managed to capture it on 9 photographs. He claimed he wasn't alarmed, first thinking it was some sort of military aircraft flying out of nearby Charleston Air Force Base.
He explained to a newspaper later: "I'd never been interested in science fiction. I thought that was all hogwash. Garbage. But I've had two contact experiences and 15 sightings of UFOs, and I've also investigated 40 sightings statewide."
The first encounter wasn't remembered until months after it happened, March 18, 1978, he says. At about 9:25 p.m., he had gone out of his home to a field to get a better look at a UFO in a marshy area, flying low over his home. He watched it through binoculars, and walked toward it for a closer look. The next thing he remembered was finding himself in a "strange area" with the UFO whirring away above him, in Summerville, 15 or 20 miles (depending on the versions) away from his home. One report says he found himself standing in a plowed field about midnight, surrounded by a light glow, and ran hysterically toward a distant road where he could see cars. There he was picked up by a policeman who phoned his family.
Another report says he was terrified, flagged down a car and found that he was in a wooded clearing near Bacons Bridge Road near Summerville, several hours later than he thought it should be.
Later, he "recalled" - under hypnosis - what happened during the several hours he could not account for: he watched the UFO from some railroad tracks, when it suddenly zoomed toward him, and projected a blinding beam of aquamarine light at him. The UFO "dropped, and I was scared." "A green light came up around me. I was disoriented. At my feet there was an orange circle of light..."
"I tried to run, but my legs wouldn't move, I was like I was paralyzed. I couldn't yell. I thought Oh God, I'm going to die." Later, he says he was "on this low examination table only 2 feet above the floor" inside the UFO, with three strange-looking being watched him, using a "blinking X-ray-like device." They told him there are three races of intelligent beings from space that visit Earth and conduct experiments and observe life here.
He said he distinctly remembered the craft was a molded metal, two-decked contraption about 70 feet in diameter and 25 feet high. The occupants were about 4 1/2 feet tall, with marshmallow-colored skin, hairless, and without eye pupils. "Their skin was the color of a marshmallow. Their eyes were long and dark with a brown iris. Their heads looked like overgrown human fetuses with no ears or hair" he told later.
They spoke English with no accent and told him not to be afraid, but he was. The UFO crew callously referred to him as a "subject" and said that he, along with certain other earthlings, had been chosen for their experiments. They anticipated his questions, and they spoke without moving their lips.
He claimed he had no memory of this "UFO abduction" for a year, but on April 21, 1979, a mysterious metal bar shaped like an ingot and bearing the letters "MAN" and some mysterious symbols, suddenly "materialized" in "a globe of blue-green light" in his bedroom.
One source said after the first close encounter he suffered insomnia and general nervousness and unrest, and was submitted to hypnosis under the guidance of James A. Harder of APRO some days later.
In this version, we learn that one of the three beings spoke to him while his mouth did not appear to move, that he was given a brief tour of the spacecraft and then lost consciousness. He had learned that the beings were from Zeta Reticuli and had been observing Earth for half a century, being concerned about humanity's tendencies toward war and warning that our violent natures would destroy human civilization.
In the weeks following the hypnosis session, Herrmann claimed other UFO sightings, and told he had a compulsion to write, from right to left, pages of a script in an unknown language, channeling messages from the people who had abducted him.
Herrmann said he had just finished writing about three pages of such messages, on April 21, 1979, when he felt his home shake, saw his lights flicker and go out and saw "a globe of blue-green light" begin to grow on his desk. "I was so frightened I couldn't look at it. When the glow subsided I saw the bar lying on the edge of the desk. I thought it would be hot but it felt cold."
Herrmann claimed a second encounter on May 16, 1979, after that bar "appeared" in his home. He voluntarily climbed aboard the UFO after feeling an urge to go to a spot where the UFO met him, he said.
"It was a 3 1/2 hour trip down to Florida and back. We flew above an orange grove and over the (Kennedy) space center. I remember looking down through some kind of monitor at the face of people looking up at us." The aliens told him they were from Zeta Reticuli, "a solar system 32 light years from here," Herrmann said. "They said I'll see them again, but I haven't. Not that I am looking from them. December 1982 was my last sighting. But I won't be afraid next time."
Omni magazine had a sample of the bar scraped from the bar and analyzed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; which found the bar was made of ordinary elements, a cast alloy of lead and 6 percent antimony, approximating the composition of lead pipes or grid from an auto battery. Herrmann said the aliens told him the bar is of a substance worthless to humans but of great value to the extraterrestrials.
A major player in the case was retired Air Force Colonel Wendelle C. Stevens of Tucson, then investigator for Aerial Phenomena Research Organization (APRO). Stevens, like he often did even with "contactees" who were proven liars, supported Herrmann's story entirely. He said he spent 11 days investigating Herrmann's first encounter story and that it really happened because he had "a lot of data to support it."
Stevens said he collected testimonies from "a number" of Charleston-area residents who told they saw a similar UFO, including sightings on the same night as Herrmann reported his encounters. He also said Herrmann's color photos, which include a shot of a purpoted UFO trailing an Air Force jet near Charleston Air Force Base, are genuine. He apparently sent Herrmann's UFO photos to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena for enhancement and computer evaluation, but I found no report of the findings.
It seems Stevens also had APRO test the metal bar, though I did not find what was concluded. But Stevens said the markings on the bar, molded in the metal, included a map of the star group Reticulum, from which Herrmann says the aliens told him they came. Stevens argued that as the star group is visible only from the Southern Hemisphere, and the star map puts the star in a configuration never seen from Earth, Herrmann could not have made it up: "Only one star chart shows such a projection, and the chart is in Hungary and printed in Hungarian. Most people have never heard of the chart, and there is no way Herrmann could have ever seen it. The chart is only known to highly advanced astronomers." He explained that the bar is "a form of recognition, given only to a few Earth people, for having overcome the trauma and maintaining communication" with aliens. Herrmann similarly claimed he was told by aliens on his second encounter with them that the bar "was a gift for me signifying they were thankful for and appreciative of the way I handled the situation" after the first abduction.
Stevens also investigated Herrmann's automatic writings, and said an IBM design engineer examined some of the script and told it could represent a formula for "accelerating matter to a dematerialized state."
It was reported that he underwent "psychological stress evaluation, polygraph tests" that convinced "investigators" that he believes he was actually aboard a UFO, but the tests, "however, are incapable of determining whether the encounter actually took place." Apparently the test was given by one Charles R. McQuiston of West Palm Beach after Herrmann reported his first encounter of the aliens. McQuiston said his test measured stress in speech patterns which would detect attempts at deception in a manner similar to that of a polygraph, and he told: "I don't remember any fraud" and" I didn't find anything wrong with his story at all. That's what he believes, and that's as far as I can go." McQuiston said he had performed the same test on hundreds of purported UFO witnesses and contactees each year for magazines and ufologists, and that about one-half of the purported UFO stories he tested came out classified "for no further consideration."
A major film and record making firm headquartered in New York, Abcko Industries, put together plans for a film documentary on UFOs, and wanted to include Herrmann. Malcolm Clarke, film director, expressed his belief: the sheer numbers of persons with stories similar to Herrmann's which can't be disproven indicate "that some are telling the truth." "The point is there are a number of people like Herrmann", he argued.
Abkco brought Herrmann to New York for "hypnosis tests". At the time, many believed hypnosis sessions was a valid manner to get "recovered memories" of forgotten events such as having been in an alien spacecraft.
Dr. Bernard Stern, a New York physician and teacher of hypnosis therapy at Columbia University and UFO witness himself, questioned Herrmann under hypnosis and was also convinced Herrmann believes his own story to be real. Stern specified that it does not prove the reported events actually happened. Though "Herrmann is honest. He honestly believes he was in a UFO", Stern said questioning under hypnosis "doesn't prove anything. It doesn't mean the abduction is so" and Herrmann may have been able to "hypnotize himself" into believing his UFO encounters, fantasizing without knowing it. Stern added, "In all fairness to Herrmann, I didn't challenge him in great detail. I asked him to describe what he was seeing in the UFO and he gave a vague description." Stern also said Herrmann was the only "abductee" he has questioned under hypnosis.
His story appeared in Omni Magazine in November 1978. Then a Japanese film crew visited him, to film a documentary film including his claimed experience. In 1981, Stevens self-published a book about Herrmann's stories, "UFO Contact from Reticulum: A Report of the Investigation". Herrmann said 5000 copies were sold.
There were also vague claims that Herrmann was the victim of "insidious attacks" by "a mysterious group of government operatives whose purpose appears to be to frustrate both himself and the team of UFO researchers who were investigating Herrmann's multi-year contact case." Apparently, from a visit by ufologist Thomas Olsen, grew a story that it was not really Thomas Olsen who came but someone posing as him, as Olsen denied having been at the meeting. Though the alleged impostor was not described as a "man in black", it later appeared as one of the so-called "Men in Black" case.
It seems that on November 10, 1981, Herrmann was fired from his position of children's church teacher, because they believed he was involved in satanic things when he spoke about UFOs on TV. Four days later, he allegedly received by "telepathic transmission" from his alien friends a sketch if a "power unit which contained a pair of eyes". The same day, apparently, he wrote an essay titled "Inevitable Destruction" in which he warned that the entire Earth would soon be engulfed in an "eternal firestorm" because of "geopolitical events."
After his last UFO sighting in 1982, Herrmann was occasionally interviewed in local newspapers. He told "I've gone through all kinds of medical batteries, and I don't have any radiation or side effects. And no implants [...]" He told that his life had changed, regretted the "harassment" he was subjected to, insisted that he had not looked for any publicity.
Like many cases that first appeared as classic "CE3" to ufologist but then developed in repetitive encounters with "messages" from benevolent aliens, the Herrmann case was soon forgotten as one more contactee tall-tale. It was however still mentioned in several catalogues od close encounters of the third kind with no word of caution or doubt.
The latest echo I could trace was a remark on the "Above Top Secret" ufology forum, in which an anonymous participant gave news of Bill Herrmann: "Bill now denies everything and chalks his whole experience up to demonic possession or something ever since he became a fundamentalist evangelical." "He's also traded in the Reticulan ships for Star Trek ships and become some sort of uber-Trekkie".
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[Ref. cn1:] "CHARLESTON NEWS AND COURIER" NEWSPAPER:
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UFOsCharleston Resident Claims They've Paid Him A VisitBy EDWARD C. FENNELL "Their skin was the color of a marshmallow. Their eyes were long and dark with a brown iris. Their heads looked like overgrown human fetuses with no ears or hair. I heard a voice telling me to have no fear." The narrative is by William Herrmann, a North Charleston resident who maintains he has twice been taken aboard a craft from another world. True or not, Herrmann's tale is believed by some UFO investigators to be among the most documentable of all UFO abduction cases, and his story is attracting national attention. Herrmann, a 27-year-old auto mechanic, is the subject of writeups in November's Omni magazine and in at least one current publication devoted to the study of UFOs. A Japanese film crew visited Herrmann recently to film a documentary film to include Herrmann and a book about his experiences is being planned. Since reporting being abducted by a UFO near his mobile home off Dorchester Road March 18, 1978, Herrmann has undergone psychological stress evaluation, polygraph tests and interrogation under hypnosis. Investigators say the tests convinced them Herrmann believes he was actually aboard a UFO. The tests, however, are incapable of determining whether the encounter actually took place. Herrmann's story is certainly one of the most bizarre in the history of reports on UFOs. Herrmann says his first meeting with aliens took place after he had seen a glowing disc on several occasions and photographed the disc on another occasion. Herrmann says he suddenly found himself in a Summerville field after spotting the UFO near his home. His memory of the abduction remained blank for a year, he says, and then on April 21 of this year a mysterious-looking metal bar, shaped like an ingot and bearing the letters "M A N" and some mysterious symbols, suddenly materialized in "a globe of blue-green light" in his bedroom. On a second trip aboard the alien's craft May 16, Herrmann says the bar was sent as a gift. Omni magazine had a sample scraped from the bar and analyzed. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology analysis found the bar to be made of ordinary elements - a cast alloy of lead and 6 percent antimony -approximating the composition of lead pipes or grid from an auto battery. Herrmann maintains the aliens told him the bar is of a substance worthless to humans but of great value to the extraterrestrials. Charles R. McQuiston of West Palm Beach remembers giving Herrmann a psychological stress evaluation test after he reported his first meeting with aliens. The test measures stress in speech patterns which would detect attempts at deception in a manner similar to that of a polygraph, McQuiston says. "I don't remember any fraud" on Herrmann's part, McQuiston says of the test. "I didn't find anything wrong with his story at all. That's what he believes, and that's as far as I can go." McQuiston says he performs PSE tests on hundreds of purported UFO sightees and contactees each year for magazines and UFO investigators. His machinery prints out a chart of changing speech patterns. A deliberate lie will result in "automatic nervous responses" which will affect elements of speech that can be detected by instruments, McQuiston says. McQuiston says about one-half of the purported UFO stories he tests are classified "for no further consideration." A New York physician and teacher of hypnosis therapy at Columbia University, Dr. Bernard Stern, questioned Herrmann under hypnosis and is also convinced Herrmann believes the meetings with aliens to be real, But Stern, who says he and his wife saw a whirling disc above the road of Florida several years ago, is not sure Herrmann's reported events actually happened. Stern says he "regressed" Herrmann's mind to the time of the reported abduction. "Herrmann is honest. He honestly believes he was in a UFO." But Stern says questioning under hypnosis "doesn't prove anything. It doesn't mean the abduction is so." Stern says he thinks Herrmann may be able to "hypnotize himself" into believing his reported UFO encounters. "He is fantasizing but doesn't know it." But Stern adds, "In all fairness to Herrmann, I didn't challenge him in great detail. I asked him to describe what he was seeing in the UFO and he gave a vague description." Stern also says Herrmann is the only reported UFO abductee he has questioned under hypnosis. Stern's lack of faith in Herrmann's story, however, is not shared by Abcko Industries, a major film and record making firm headquartered in New York. Abkco is putting together plans for a film documentary on UFOs, and wants to include Herrmann. Malcolm Clarke, who will direct the film, says the sheer numbers of persons with stories similar to Herrmann's which can't be disproven indicate "that some are telling the truth." It was Abkco that brought Herrmann to New York for the hypnosis tests, Clarke says. "Scientifically speaking, his story seems to stand up. His experience seems to be interesting and unusual." Clarke says Abkco is putting together a film on UFO experiences "on a global scale. The point is there are a number of people like Herrmann." Also standing behind Herrmann is retired Air Force Col. Wendelle C. Stevens of Tucson, now an investigator for Aerial Phenomena Research Organization. Stevens says he spent 11 days here investigating Herrmann's first encounter story, which he labels "a classic" It really happened. "I have a lot of data to support it." Stevens says he has testimony from a number of Charleston-area residents who have reportedly seen a UFO similar to the one Herrmann claims to have boarded, including sightings on the same night as Herrmann reported his encounters. APRO has conducted tests on the metal bar Herrmann says materialized in his home and has sent Herrmann's UFO photos to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena for enhancement and computer evaluation. Stevens believes the color photos, which include a shot of a UFO trailing an Air Force jet near Charleston Air Force Base, are genuine. Stevens says studies of the markings on the bar, which he says appear to be molded in the metal, have determined some of the symbols to be a map of the star group Reticulum, from which Herrmann says the aliens told him they came. The star group is visible only from the Southern Hemisphere, and the star map puts the star in a configuration never seen from Earth, Stevens says. "Only one star chart shows such a projection, and the chart is in Hungary and printed in Hungarian. Most people have never heard of the chart, and there is no way Herrmann could have ever seen it. The chart is only known to highly advanced astronomers." An astronomy book identifies Reticulum as a faint constellation in the Southern Hemisphere. Herrmann says the aliens are from a world with twin suns. The Encyclopedia of Astronomy and Space identifies Zeta Reticuli (in Reticulum) "as a widely separated pair of stars similar to the sun, about 30 light years from Earth." Stevens says he knows other cases where UFO occupants have given Earth residents objects similar to Herrmann's bar. "It's a form of recognition, given only to a few Earth people, for having overcome the trauma and maintaining communication." Another mystery associated with the Herrmann case is also under investigation by Stevens. Since he allegedly encountered the UFO occupants, Herrmann says he has felt a compulsion to write, from right to left, pages of a script of a language unknown to Herrmann or Stevens. Stevens says an International Business Machines Corp. design engineer examined some of the script and says it may represent a formula for "accelerating matter to a dematerialized state." Herrmann says he has just finished writing about three pages of the script when he felt his home shake, saw his lights flicker and go out and saw "a globe of blue-green light" begin to grow on his desk. "I was so frightened I couldn't look at it. When the glow subsided I saw the bar lying on the edge of the desk. I thought it would be hot but it felt cold. He called Stevens right away. Stevens remembers Herrmann "was genuinely frightened. His teeth were chattering." Herrmann says he was told by aliens on his second encounter with them that the bar "was a gift for me signifying they were thankful for and appreciative of the way I handled the situation" after the earlier abduction. The second encounter was a voluntary one, he says, which came the months after the bar appeared in his home. He climbed aboard the UFO after feeling an urge to go to a spot where the UFO met him, he says. The first encounter wasn't remembered until months after it happened, he says. He had gone out to a field to get a better look at a UFO after spotting it from his home and the next thing he remembers was finding himself in a strange area with a UFO whirring away above him. Terrified, he flagged down an auto and found that he was in a wooded clearing near Bacons Bridge Road near Summerville. It was several hours later than he thought it should be. Later, Herrmann says, he recalled what happened during the several hours he could not account for. While watching the UFO from some railroad tracks, the UFO suddenly zoomed toward him, and projected a blinding beam of aquamarine light at him. "I tried to run, but my legs wouldn't move, I was like I was paralyzed. I couldn't yell. I thought Oh God, I'm going to die." Later, he says he was "on this low examination table only 2 feet above the floor." Three strange-looking being watched him. The aliens told him there are three races of intelligent beings from space that visit Earth and conduct experiments and observe life here. Herrmann says his life has changed greatly since he spoke about his UFO encounters, although he denies he is seeking personal publicity. Life will probably never be the same for him again. He says he was told on his second meeting with the aliens that they would return for him again. |
[Ref. lf1:] LUCIUS FARISH:
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UFO investigator Wendelle C. Stevens has received a lot of flak (totally undeserved, in my opinion) from many individuals and groups regarding his involvement in the Eduard Meier contact case in Switzerland. Now, he has published a book on yet another controversial case, that of William J. Herrmann of Charleston, South Carolina. Herrmann, a non-believer in UFOs, was forced to re-evaluate his views and concepts when he began seeing UFOs in 1977. He managed to take several photos of the objects and then claimed to have been abducted by UFO occupants. Stevens entered the picture early in 1978, upon reading of Herrmann's initial sightings and photographs. Since that time, he has kept in constant touch with the witness, following the events as they progressed. When the book went to press, Herrmann claimed to have been on board a UFO on two different occasions, although his conscious memory of the events was temporarily blocked. He has now achieved full (?) recall of those experiences. The aliens claim to be from Zeta 1 and Zeta 2 Reticuli, the stars which figured so prominently (and now, controversially) in the "starmap" research of Marjorie Fish. Their conversations with Herrmann make for very interesting reading, and there is much other material of considerable interest in the book. The volume is not designed as a literary work, but as an investigative report. It has an unfortunate number of typographical and printing errors, but is attractively produced, with color and black-and-white photos of the "Reticulan" craft, as well as numerous illustrations. I consider it an important work and one which is well worth reading. Copies are available at $16.95 each from Reticulum, Box 17206, Tucson, AZ 85710. |
[Ref. tn1:] "TUSCALOOSA NEWS" NEWSPAPER:
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Former UFO 'subject' recalls experiencesBy Jim DUMBELL CHARLESTON, S.C. (AP) -- For the past five years, life has been one frustration after another for Bill Hermann. He feels the fear and terror that swept over him when he rode in a flying saucer and spoke to the saucer drivers should have been enough. He doesn't need the pervasive disbelief that surrounds him now. Hermann, 30, a diesel mechanic by trade and church custodian of necessity, recently ruminated over what has happened since March 1978, when he rode his first UFO. "I'd never been interested in science fiction. I thought that was all hogwash. Garbage. But I've had two contact experiences and 15 sightings of UFOs, and I've also investigated 40 sightings statewide." Herman first saw the saucer hanging around his neighborhood in late 1977 and early '78, and he wasn't alarmed. At first, he thought it was some sort of military aircraft flying out of nearby Charleston Air Force Base. When it flew low over his home in North Charleston one March evening, he went outside and walked toward it for a closer look. "It dropped, and I was scared," he said in a hushed tone. "A green light came up around me. I was disoriented. At my feet there was an orange circle of light..." When he became reoriented, he was on an examining table inside the UFO. He distinctly remembers the craft was a molded metal, two-decked contraption about 70 feet in diameter and 25 feet high. The inhabitants were about 4 1/2 feet tall, Hermann remembers, "and looked like human fetuses." They spoke English with no accent and told him not to be afraid, but that didn't help much. "I had this horrible fear." The UFO crew callously referred to him as a "subject" and said that he, along with certain other earthlings, had been chosen for their experiments. They anticipated his questions, and they spoke without moving their lips. Hermann came to later that night in Summerville, nearly 20 miles away. The second ride was something similar but much less scary. "It was a 3 1/2 hour trip down to Florida and back. We flew above an orange grove and over the (Kennedy) space center. I remember looking down through some kind of monitor at the face of people looking up at us." His visitors told him they were from Zeta Reticuli. ("There is such a star." says Lee Shapiro, director of the University of North Carolina's Morehead Planetarium.) "That's a solar system 32 light years from here," Hermann said. "They said I'll see them again, but I haven't. Not that I am looking from them. December 1982 was my last sighting. But I won't be afraid next time." Word of Hermann's visitors got around, as word of such things will, and in no time he'd made television and newspapers. That's when the real trouble started. He began getting harassing letters and phone calls. Then threatening calls. "Some people fear the unknown. They think you're some kind of threat." People began to follow him, he said, and the most threatening thing was when two men tried to run him off the road. He still doesn't know why. The fact that he lost his job as a diesel mechanic was unrelated, he emphasized. "My company had to cut back because of the economy, and I was one of the several that got laid off." One the positive side, retired Air Force Lt. Col. Wendelle Stevens of Tucson did report Hermann's encounters with the extraterrestrials in exhaustive details in a hardback book. Hermann says 5,000 copies of the $17 book have been sold. So, Hermann counts his blessings. He has a job. The publicity has pretty much died down. Most people accept him. "I've gone through all kinds of medical batteries, and I don't have any radiation or side effects. And no implants, like one woman got." He thinks his visitors are peaceful. Still, he would not advice anyone encountering extraterrestrials to run and tell the media about it. "This has changed my life," Hermann said. "Nobody's said I'm a nut, but they look at me like I'm out in left field. Nobody calls me a liar, particularly after all those experts said I believe what happened to me. But nobody says that what happened actually happened, just that I believe it did. "That's the sad drawback." |
[Ref. rh1:] RICHARD HALL:
The ufologist says that on March 18, 1978, in Charleston, South Carolina, there was a case with a light beam, memory loss, an abduction, physical examination on a table, messages, translocation, and an artifact.
He says that about 9:25 p.m. while observing a UFO through binocular in a marshy area, Bill Herrmann, 26, an auto mechanic, was rendered unconscious by an aquamarine light beam from the object. His next conscious memory was of standing in a plowed field at a different location about midnight, surrounded by a light glow.
He ran hysterically toward a distant road where he could see cars and was picked up by a policeman who phoned his family.
Later, under hypnosis, he described being examined on a low table by three small humanoid beings who employed a blinking X-ray-like device. The beings were about 4.5 feet tall, with marshmallow-colored skin, foetus-like faces, hairless, and without eye pupils.
They told Herrmann there are three races of beings from space visiting the earth to observe and conduct experiments.
On April 21, 1979, a mysterious metal bar with symbols on it materialized in a globe of blue-green light in Herrmann's bedroom.
On May 16 he felt an urge to return to the abduction site and voluntarily went on board a waiting craft, and he was told the metal bar was a token of appreciation, and that they would return for him again.
Richard Hall notes that some details of these news stories, as is common, may be garbled, that the case has been investigated by others.
He says the sources are The Journal, Summerville, S.C., Jan. 31, 1979; News & Courier, Charleston, S.C., Nov. 18, 1979; UFO Contact from Reticulum, by Wendelle C. Stevens with William Herrmann, privately published, 1981.
[Ref. mk2:] MARTIN KOTTMEYER:
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186. The abductee Bill Herrmann pens an essay titled "Inevitable Destruction" which warned that current Geopolitical Events were leading Humanity on a Collision with Thermonuclear Holocaust. |
[Ref. lf2:] LUCIUS FARISH:
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A new videotape, UFO ... ABDUCTION, dealing with the William J. Herrmann case from South Carolina, is now available from Genesis HI Publishing - Box 25962 - Munds Park, AZ 86017. The price is $43.95 for the 100-minute tape which gives a detailed account of Herrmann's UFO experiences, as well as corroborating evidence from other witnesses. Herrmann's photos of UFOs are examined, as well as photos taken by others in the same area. You'll find much of interest in this examination of one of the earlier abduction cases. |
[Ref. ge1:] GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA:
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William J. Hermann, flying saucer contactee and channeler, emerged out of obscurity in 1978 after claiming to have had a series of sightings of a UFO over Charleston, South Carolina, beginning in November of 1977. On January 22, 1978, he was able to take nine photographs of the object. Two months later as he was out looking for more UFOs, the disc he had sighted earlier reappeared and came toward him. According to Hermann, it sent out a light beam that paralyzed him. He lost consciousness and awakened three hours later 15 miles away. He watched the UFO depart. He called the police, who took him home. Several days later, after suffering from insomnia and general nervousness and unrest, he submitted to hypnosis under the guidance of James A. Harder, a UFO researcher associated with the Aerial Phenomena Research Organization, one of the prominent UFO research groups of the time. Under the hypnosis, he talked of being aboard the UFO. He was on an examination table being looked at by three humanoid creatures. They had large hairless heads, oversized eyes, pale skin, and red clothing. One of the three spoke to him, but his mouth did not appear to move. He was given a brief tour of the spacecraft and then lost consciousness. He had learned that the beings were from Zeta Reticuli. They had been observing Earth for half a century. They were concerned about humanity's tendencies toward war and warned that our violent natures would destroy human civilization. In the weeks following the hypnosis session, Hermann had other sightings and began channeling messages from the people who had abducted him. He also produced a metal bar that he claimed came from the aliens. It proved to be made of lead and antimony, similar in content to the material in an automobile battery. In May of 1979 Hermann claimed to have had a final contact with the saucer beings, who took him for a ride. As his story was publicized, Hermann contacted Wendelle Stevens, a publisher of UFO contactee material, who coauthored a more complete account of his story, which was published in 1981. The volume circulated in the contactee subculture but was generally dismissed by ufologists as lacking any collaboration. Sources: Stevens, Wendelle C., and William James Hermann. UFO…Contact from Reticulum: A Report of the Investigation. Tucson, Ariz.: Wendelle Stevens, 1981. |
[Ref. bh1:] ROBERT E. BARTHOLOMEW AND GEORGE S. HOWARD:
The authors indicate that on March 18, 1978, in North Charleston, South Carolina, at night, investigating a UFO in a field, auto mechanic William Herrmann left his mobile home and next recalls being in a strange area with an object whirring overhead. After flagging a car, he found it was several hours later than he thought. Herrmann didn't recall the abduction until nearly a year later, when he says a UFO raced toward him, projecting a blinding aquamarine light. "I tried to run, but my legs wouldn't move... I was paralyzed. I couldn't yell. I thought, oh God, I'm going to die."
Later, he was "on this low examination table only two feet above the floor", three strange-looking beings watched him. "Their skin was the color of a marshmallow. Their eyes were long and dark with a brown iris. Their heads looked like overgrown human fetuses with no ears or hair. I heard a voice telling me to have no fear."
The aliens said there are three races of intelligent space beings that visit Earth, conduct experiments, and observe life.
On April 21, 1979, he says a metal bar bearing the letters "MAN" and mysterious symbols suddenly materialized in "a globe of blue-green light" in his bedroom. On a second trip aboard the UFO (May 16, 1979), he was told the bar "was a gift... signifying they were thankful for and appreciative of the way I handled the situation" after the earlier abduction. A Massachusetts Institute of Technology analysis of the bar revealed ordinary elements (a cast alloy of lead and 6 percent antimony).
The authors say the source is the News and Courier, Charleston, South Carolina, for November 18, 1979.
[Ref. mk1:] MARTIN KOTTMEYER:
The author says that during an encounter in May 1979, William Herrmann, aboard a saucer, witnessed a rendez-vous with an "observance vehicle". The source is indicated as "Stevens, 1989".
He indicates that on November 10, 1981, Herrmann was fired from his position of children's church teacher because the church believed he was involved in satanic things when he spoke about UFOs on TV.
On November 14, he received by "telepathic transmission" from his alien friends a diagram of "the power unit which contained a pair of eyes". The same day, he wrote an essay titled "Inevitable Destruction" in which he warned that the entire Earth would soon be engulfed in an "eternal firestorm" because of geopolitical events. Korrmeyer points out that such paranoid ideas are logical as he had just been humiliated by his church.
[Ref. js1:] JOHN SCHUESSLER:
John Schuessler indicates that on 1978/03/18 in South Carolina, in Summerville, Bill Herrmann was abducted from his backyard and deposited back on the ground some 15 miles from his home. He was first struck by a blue beam and was paralyzed. He lost nearly 3 hours time during the event, during which time he was given a medical exam. After the event he had migraine headaches and sleeplessness.
John Schuessler lists as effects: Abduction; Blue beam; Medical examination; Time loss; Headaches; Sleeplessness.
John Schuessler indicates that the sources are a "Personal communication with Len Stringfield, June 7, 1979" and the National Enquirer, May 8, 1979; the Journal, Summerville, SC, Jan. 31, 1979; The State, Columbia, SC, June 28, 1981.
[Ref. gd1:] GEOFF DITTMANN:
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Witness: Bill Herrmann Location: Summerville, South Carolina, USA Date: March 18, 1978 Time: 2130 The witness began suffering from migraines and insomnia after an encounter. (Schuessler, UFO Related…) |
[Ref. jb1:] JEROME BEAU:
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[...] 186. November 14, 1981. Abductee Bill Herrmann pens an essay entitled "Inevitable Destruction" warning that the geopolitical events directed humanity towards a thermonuclear holocaust (237). 237: Stevens, W. C.: UFO Contact from the Reticulum Update Stevens, 1989, pp. 70-1 [...] |
[Ref. ar1:] ALBERT ROSALES:
Albert Rosales indicates in his catalogue that in Summerville, South Carolina, on March 18, 1978, at 2115, previously William J Herman had seen strange objects over the area. On the above date he spotted a silvery disc shaped object, about 60 feet in diameter, performing triangular maneuvers overhead. He ran towards the object, cutting across marshy ground near a river. The object suddenly rushed towards him, he started to fall when a tubular beam of blue light enclosed him. The beam of light led to the craft, now hovering nearby. He became disoriented and numb, then lost consciousness. He woke up lying on a table in a hospital-like room that glowed with a red light. His shirt was open and a cold metallic box sat on his chest. Three beings were in the room and were looking at a row of flashing lights and a TV screen. One being spoke by using telepathy to the witness and led him through a curving hallway and a small airlock to a room filled with computers and other equipment, it was apparently the control room. The beings were humanoid, with large bulging and hairless heads, almost jawless, with small mouths, slit nostrils and no ears. The eyes were large and glowing and seldom blinked. The beings were 4 to 5-feet tall, seemingly frail with pale, soft skin. They wore red overalls. One of the beings appeared to be the leader and guide. The leader told the witness, among other things, that they were from Zeta Reticuli and that time was short for humanity. He was then led back to the initial room and made to lie down on the table again. He felt relaxed then passed out. Soon he found himself on the ground looking up as the object rose away from him.
Albert Rosales indicates that the source is "Wendelle Stevens, Dr. James Harder."
[Ref. ar2:] ALBERT ROSALES:
Albert Rosales indicates that in Summerville, South Carolina, on May 17, 1979, at 12:25 a.m., "William Herrmann saw a UFO at home and felt an urge to get in his car and go to a location. In a remote spot everything became silent and an object descended and pulled him inside by means of a beam of blue light. He lost consciousness then awoke on a table. He was medically examined by short light skinned beings, with large heads and large oval shaped eyes. They wore red tight fitting coveralls, and pullover boots, and their leader had an emblem like a winged serpent on his chest. They conversed extensively with the witness providing him different type of information. He was then taken on a ride and was allowed a view of a larger vessel in flight and of people on the surface looking up at the craft. He was eventually returned."
Albert Rosales says the source is "Wendelle C Stevens".
[Ref. ni1:] "THE NICAP WEBSITE":
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March 18, 1978; Summerville, SC |
[Ref. tb1:] TONY BRUNT:
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We now know from the highly credible William Hermann contacts in Summerville, South Carolina, in 1978 and 1979 that it appears the greys had been taken unawares by the new ‘lock-on' radar in use in New Mexico in the late 1940s. Hermann's pivotal contact of 18 March, 1978, appears to be one of the few times that the greys have spoken with an abductee on the basis of equality and a friendly exchange of information. They told him that many years before they had lost some of their craft because of interference with on-board systems from radar emissions. They said that even though the technology was, by their standards, primitive it could still be disastrous if it locked on to their machines for more than 90 seconds. That was why they were flying the sharp triangular movements that Hermann had observed and photographed near Summerville. |
[Ref. rk1:] RICK KEEFE:
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An excellent introduction to the Bill Herrmann UFO contact case is "UFO Abduction: A True Story" which is a sobering, early Eighties classic UFO documentary, co-produced by Jun-Ichi Yaoi of Nippon Television in Japan and Wendelle Stevens that demonstrates the enormous evidence surrounding the contact case of William Herrmann, an inquisitive young man from South Carolina who finds himself caught between contact with extra-terrestrials from Reticulum and the opposing forces from his fundamentalist church. Herrmann also suffered insidious attacks by a mysterious group of government operatives whose purpose appears to be to frustrate both himself and the team of UFO researchers who were investigating Herrmann's multi-year contact case.
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[Ref. at1:] "ABOVE TOP SECRET" WEB FORUM:
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reply posted on 21-3-2008 @ 06:31 PM by an onymous Bill now denies everything and chalks his whole experience up to demonic possession or something ever since he became a fundamentalist evangelical. He's also traded in the Reticulan ships for Star Trek ships and become some sort of uber-Trekkie: http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread314043/pg1 |
[Ref. se1:] "SERPO.ORG" WEBSITE:
(Note: "Serpo" is about a hoax about aliens called "Ebens", see here.)
12) What the Ebens may look like, taken from Wendelle Stevens' book UFO Contact from Reticulum.These images below are NOT photographs of an Eben, but are taken from a lifelike sculpture of a "Reticulan" created by the artist Alan Levigne, who did work for many of the major movie studios in California. Levigne created the sculpted head in close consultation with Bill Herrmann, an contactee and abductee whose graphic and detailed experience is the subject of Lt Col Wendelle Stevens' excellent book UFO Contact from Reticulum. Readers are left to judge for themselves whether the Reticulans and the Ebens (both from Zeta Reticuli, and apparently not the Grays) are one and the same. 
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[Ref. wh1:] "THE WHY FILE" WEBSITE:
Some significant incidents involving MIB's:
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[Ref. ns1:] "THE NIGHT SKY" WEBSITE:
The Bill Herrmann AbductionDate: March 17th, 1978 Location: Charleston, South Carolina In another instance, a young motor mechanic called Bill Herrmann witnessed & photographed UFOs on several occasions. On March 17th, 1978, Bill Herrmann left his house at around 9:30 p.m. in order to get a better view of a bright light which was hovering over transmission towers near a local air force base. Bill was shocked to find himself in a field to the south of Charleston, approximately 15 miles from his home, some 3 hours later. Deputy Sheriff Pike Limehouse was called to the scene and found Herrmann in a very excited and distressed state, Herrmann suspected that he had been abducted. He certainly could not account for the missing time, or explain his being 15 miles from home. On a separate occasion Herrmann was driving to church one Sunday morning when a UFO shot across the road and then continued to follow a peculiar triangular flight pattern. Herrmann had succeeded in obtaining a number of good quality photographs of the objects he had sighted and the following day at 3:30 p.m. he received a call from the air base asking him to let the information officer have the photos. Herrmann drove to the base at about 5:30 p.m. but was told that the information officer was not on duty. However after 20 minutes or so a Captain King arrived, demanding, via the guard, that he hand over the UFO photographs. Herrmann refused but did give up one photo and received a receipt. Herrmann did receive further menacing messages from the base telling him he had, in fact, photographed a phantom aircraft. A short time later Herrmann received a telephone call from a Tom Olsen, who claimed to be a UFOlogist from Maryland, Olsen asked to meet Herrmann and when he arrived he produced identification from The UFO Information Retrieval Center. Herrmann then went with Olsen to the locations where the UFO photos had been taken. At this stage Olsen asked Herrmann if he would agree to take a polygraph test. Herrmann did consent to the test but was surprised to find that it was to take place immediately, in a secluded room at a local luxury hotel, Room 520 at the Mills Hyatt House Hotel. Upon entering the room there were two other men present, one of whom claimed to be a member of a polygraph association, the other said he was a doctor and proceeded to inject Herrmann with a relaxant. Herrmann became very relaxed and the doctor then asked him a number of questions regarding his UFO sightings for approximately 60 to 90 minutes. With the polygraph test was concluded, the men held a mumbled conversation and offered to take Herrmann anywhere, meal, drinks et cetera. Herrmann, however, felt exhausted and insisted that they take him home. They told Herrmann that he would hear from them within a few days and when he asked if the objects were military, he received the reply: I wouldn't bet on it. A week after these events, Herrmann received a message from Thomas M. Olsen of Maryland, asking for copies of his photos and included a questionnaire. At this stage it became evident that the man who had previously called himself Olsen was, in fact, an impostor. The real Olsen sent a mailgram to Herrmann categorically denying that he had ever visited him. One night at about 9:30 p.m., while at work, Herrmann was dumping trash outside of the rear door of the premises when a car swung round. In the car was the fake Olsen, Herrmann demanded that he properly identified himself. The response was: It's for your own protection, be careful what you say for your own good Strangely, a UFO investigative team, who later spent several hours interviewing Bill Herrmann, received a series of inexplicable telephone calls at the hotel they were staying in and a friend of Herrmann, who substantiated his claims, also received intimidating telephone calls both at home and at work, via his boss. Last Updated: 12/27/2011 03:11:01 |
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William J. Herrmann said that at 5:30 p.m. on April 4, 1980, he saw and photographed this silvery disc-shaped object flying erratic maneuvers near Charleston Air Force Base. |
For this fourth shot in his series of color pictures, Bill Herrmann said he was standing in a field holding his breath as the 40ft diameter object hovered, wobbling around its vertical axis. This one, he said, made a loud buzzing noise at another time. |
The case can count as one of those which would demonstrate the idea that "abductions" and "contactees" stories are not of an entirely different nature as certain ufologists think.
It is said the "metal bar" had the word MAN on it, and about its composition we are told it has something to do with batteries; and of course, given his job, Herrmann would have easy access to vehicle batteries, and tools to work on it.
Need I recall that MAN is a manufacturer of truck batterries?
| Id: | Topic: | Severity: | Date noted: | Raised by: | Noted by: | Description: | Proposal: | Status: |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Data | Medium | April 18, 2012 | Patrick Gross | Patrick Gross | Stevens sources not available. | Help needed. | Opened. |
| 2 | Ufology | Severe | April 18, 2012 | Patrick Gross | Patrick Gross | Single witness case. | Help needed. | Opened. |
| 3 | Ufology | Severe | April 18, 2012 | Patrick Gross | Patrick Gross | Involvment of less than reliable investigator. | Help needed. | Opened. |
| 4 | Ufology | Medium | April 18, 2012 | Patrick Gross | Patrick Gross | None of the alleged UFO photographs is available in a format allowing at least some evaluation. | Help needed. | Opened. |
| 5 | Medium | Severe | April 18, 2012 | Patrick Gross | Patrick Gross | No picture of the alleged "metal bar" hard evidence available. | Help needed. | Opened. |
| 6 | Ufology | Medium | April 18, 2012 | Patrick Gross | Patrick Gross | None of the "automatic writings" is available. | Help needed. | Opened. |
"Contactee"-type tall tale.
* = Source I checked.
? = Source I am told about but could not check yet. Help appreciated.
| Main Author: | Patrick Gross |
|---|---|
| Contributors: | None |
| Reviewers: | None |
| Editor: | Patrick Gross |
| Version: | Created/Changed By: | Date: | Change Description: |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0.1 | Patrick Gross | April 18, 2012 | Creation, [cn1], [tn1], [rh1], [ge1], [bh1], [js1], [gd1], [ar1], [ar2], [ni1], [tb1], [rk1], [lf1], [lf2], [se1], [ns1], [mk1], [mk2], [wh1], [jb1]. |
| 1.0 | Patrick Gross | April 18, 2012 | First published. |
(left) Bill Herrmann - his UFO experiences were of great interest to "MIBs".
(left) One of many UFO photos taken by Bill Herrmann.
Room 520 of the Mills Hyatt House Hotel - Herrmann was subjected to a polygraph test in this secluded hotel room.
Tony Martin - a friend of Bill Herrmann's - he received several threatening telephone calls
