by Phillip H. Krapf

from PhysicalUFO-Contacts Website

"THE CONTACT HAS BEGUN"

Part 1
 

From the book from 1998 of Philip H. Krapt - the true story of a former skeptical journalists encounter with alien beings (some words are translated to Norwegian and there MAY BE some word mistakes here because this is scanned from the book. Some headlines are added)


INTRODUCTION

On 11th June - 97 - 2.32am - the 62 years old Krapt suddenly saw a ray of light coming into his room. His wife was away for some days and he was alone. Suddenly he found himself transported to a big room together with some people apparent not of this earth. He spent the next three days being peacefully indoctrinated into a fascinating new world by extraterrestrials that called themselves "Verdants". They said that had been observing earth for nearly 1000 years and had now decided that the time was soon ripe for humankind to be invited into the "cosmic family".

He learned that hundreds of prominent world citizens have been and still being recruited to serve as emissaries to help smooth the way for the eventual extraterrestrial contact that is planned to occur by about or within ca. 2010. But they could not say exactly when - many factors came in. Philip H. Krapts task was to serve as an official chronicler for the planned event. He was given special help to remember the whole occurrence.

(Runes comment: some of such books have been written (ex.Sheldon Nidles) that talk of such plans - but this seem to give a relative logic scheme - and it is right clear that Philip H. Krapt has experienced this - and the book shows that he has no former insight in spiritual and cosmic thinking. He seems to be a normal materialist who didn't believe in a god or in higher/other states of existent. He - for example is deep impressed of the information from them that all beings have an immortal soul.)

Meets a confidence - inspiring "contact - witness" aboard

Here we enter the book where he also meets a - for him - well-known earth - person aboard on the ship - but not yet giving the persons name. This person he met was to serve as one of the ambassadors that they were now educating as one of many confidence - inspiring (tillitsvekkende) "contact - witness":

I was confused. "Wait a minute," I said. "I can drop out of sight for a few days and not be missed because I don't have a public. But how can you?"

He chuckled.

"Oh, my wife and I are on vacation in Hawaii. Well, that's where we're supposed to be," he said with a wink.

"Your wife is with you?" I asked.

"Oh, definitely. We came up together. Now that's what I call a ride," he said with obvious merriment.

I was surprised to learn this in light of what I had been told. What was it they said - only lone individuals were chosen? (they has said that just before). Of course, there was no longer any need for secrecy, so the policy against multiple abductions to prevent corroboration (bekreftelser) apparently was no longer operational. That made sense. In fact, corroboration was actually an asset (aktivum) now that the extraterrestrials were about to reveal themselves.

"See you down below," he said as he continued his stroll.

Gina (the ET - person of feminine sex that showed him some of the ship - and the name was some earthlike he was given for identification) and I resumed our walk down this long, wide corridor.

Actually, Gina pointed out, unlike the visitor we had just met, many of the potential Ambassadors were not able to disappear for any length of time without arousing great suspicion, or, even worse, alarm that might bring the police or other authorities to investigate. In those situations, it was necessary to return the visitors to their beds each night so they could maintain their public visibility and avoid unexplained absences.

This meant, of course, that the POEI (Preparatory Orientation, Education and Indoctrination) - program had to be dragged out over a period of several weeks, or even months, depending upon the availability of the potential Ambassadors. The Verdants preferred to complete the program in one intensive three - or four - day session, such as the one that I was currently going through, but these extended exercises were simply unavoidable at times.

High - profile personages simply did not have the luxury of being able to drop out of sight for several days at a time. And, of course, the nighttime sessions had to be limited to no more than two or three hours at a stretch lest the visitors become sleep - deprived and be unable to function properly while pursuing their duties on Earth the following day.

Thus, numerous trips back and forth from their beds to the ship over a period of weeks or months were required before they completed the program.

"What happens if the person doesn't cooperate?" I asked. "Then you've got a very prominent person - not some obscure rancher - who can get a lot of attention and blow your cover if he goes back and starts talking."

"Give us a little credit," she replied. "A thousand years of studying the human species - including its psychological makeup - has given us complete insight into the workings of the human mind. We can predict with 100 percent accuracy how any particular individual will react to any given set of circumstances. We have never made the mistake of bringing anyone aboard who does not fit the profile that we are looking for."

"So there's a particular type that you select?" I asked.

"Of course. Visionaries," she said.


More guided tour on the ship

Gina was explaining all of this as we walked, but I had no idea where we were going. We passed many doorways. Some of the doors were open and looked into large rooms with an array of equipment so strange that I wouldn't even be able to describe it. Although there was the usual assortment of electronic consoles, with their peculiar lights glowing screens, and crazy dials and gauges, most of the gear was so foreign to me that I had never seen anything like it - not even in science fiction movies and TV shows.

my idea of his look in the control room in their special robe-like garments that Mr. Krapf also got.

The picture is not of Mr. Krapf - but quite similar according to picture on the back-cover of the book.
The ETs has small noses but bigger ears than earth-people - but no hair on head.
 

"Why aren't we weightless?" I inquired.

Without turning to look at me or breaking stride, Gina said simply, "Artificial gravity."

"What is our position?" I asked. My curiosity was growing with every step.

"I don't think you would understand if I merely told you," she replied.

"Try me," I said.

"You'll see. It's better that I show you."

She turned into one of the open doorways, we walked several hundred feet through the room, came to another doorway, and continued along another corridor. Then we entered another one of those mysterious "elevators," and got the impression but not really the sensation of "going up." Ten to fifteen seconds passed, and the "elevator" door opened. We stepped out, and the sight that greeted us was so stunning that my knees actually buckled.

The room was a giant, transparent bubble. The view from an observation tower in a skyscraper would be a distant cousin to what I beheld, because instead of looking down upon a city of lights, we were looking out into the endless cosmos. A billion stellar diamonds sparkled brilliantly upon the black velvet backdrop of space.

The giant ship itself stretched out before us for what seemed to be at least a mile, and I watched perhaps half a dozen shuttle craft come and go from several ports along the bow of the superstructure. Large floodlights played across the ship, and a thousand portholes shone with interior lights.

The room we were in was very dark, with just enough light to allow us to keep from bumping into objects or each other. Gina took my hand and led me to a raised circular platform in the middle of the dome, with two steps running around its perimeter. We stepped up to a bank of about 20 plush, upholstered chairs occupying the platform, and she guided me into a seat and took the one next to me.

At the time, I thought that her grip on my hand seemed to be a little tighter than was necessary, that there was - how can I put it? - a certain vague intimacy about it. (He had earlier not seen any of particular expressions in their actions.) I immediately dismissed the thought as imagination on my part.

A recessed walkway circled the dome along the transparent walls. The platform was high enough, and the walkway recessed enough, so that anyone standing on the esplanade would be sufficiently low so as not to obstruct the view of those in the seats. As soon as we had settled into our chairs, the interior lights went out completely, but the illumination from outside was bright enough for me to see details in the room, including Gina's profile. It would be useless to try to describe her, because I was incapable of distinguishing one star traveler from another. They all looked alike to me, as if they had been cloned. But I suppose there were distinguishing characteristics that would make each individual recognizable.

About the best analogy I can think of is if a person entered a kennel containing one breed of animal such as a dog or a cat. Assuming that the animals were all of very similar coloration, it would be difficult upon first glance to distinguish one from another. Yet, as any pet owner knows the ability to recognize individual animals grows with increased familiarity and exposure to them.

If that were true of these E.T.'s, I had not yet reached the point where I could make such distinctions.

We were essentially in a half - sphere that provided us with a sweeping view of the heavens. Gina used her right hand to toggle a switch that allowed the chairs to swivel 360 degrees. Another switch was activated, and the porthole lights and exterior floodlights that illuminated the ship itself flickered out. Without this corrupting light source, the stars themselves leaped into even more brilliant contrast against the pitch - black of space.

"Did you turn them out?" I asked.

"No, I just accessed a filter to screen out the artificial lights. Only the natural light from the heavens is now visible," she said.

I was mesmerized. Nearby stars, unfiltered by atmosphere, shone in stark contrast against the blackness of t surrounding space with a clarity that I had never experienced on Earth. They were more sharply defined than I could ever imagine. Some were large, maybe two to three times the size of the brightest objects visible in the night sky from Earth, save for the moon.

They ranged from a brilliant glitter many times brighter than any star or planet seen by the naked eye - to mere pinpoints of barely perceptible light. Some were a fuzzier, and were actually distant galaxies of millions, perhaps billions, of individual stars. Together, they bathed room with a level of illumination that was perhaps one - quarter as bright as a moonlit night at home.

It was a spectacle of such beauty that my eyes stung and glistened with emotion. I was literally speechless as I drank in the grandeur of it. But if I was incapable of speaking, Gina showed no signs of being so affected, because she launched into a patter (tripping) that reminded me of the monotonous recitation of a bored tour guide. I suppose this could be expected. After all, a tour guide would view the Grand Canyon with a perspective far different from a first - time visitor.

She rattled off facts and figures like an old pro.

She told me that the ship was a medium - size star cruiser, one of thousands in service throughout the universe, designed specifically for monitoring any planet to which it was assigned. This particular one was built 200,000 Earth years ago. Its name, literally translated, was "Goodwill." It was home port to several hundred smaller shuttle craft that are capable of traveling at sub - light speeds to the surface of the planet under observation.

A larger mother ship about 20 times this size is always within close range and is capable of speeding to the monitoring ships within a short period of time, although the distances can be hundreds of trillions of miles of separation. She didn't say if that was in "conventional" travel mode or through those mysterious black holes that they had mentioned earlier.

Communication between the cruisers and the mother ship cannot even be explained by a mere Earthling such as myself. And I'm not talking about just laymen (lekmann). I mean that the most brilliant scientific minds on Earth probably would not be able to grasp the principles involved. They are utterly beyond the realm of human experience and comprehension. At least that's what Gina told me. I have to take her word for it.

Simple radio waves for communication are totally unfeasible because of the distances involved. Suffice it to say that some kind of inexplicable energy link exists between the various ships to keep them constantly in touch with one another and the home planet. This link is like a giant umbilical cord of energy tha is reeled out as the ship travels through space from its home planet.

It is infinitely elastic, is never broken, and constantly keeps the ship in touch with the home planet - no matte how far the craft ventures into the vast reaches of space. To put it in simpler terms, imagine the seafaring ships of old that laid transoceanic telephone cables on the ocean bottoms to connect the continents. The farther they went the more cable they reeled out, which kept them connected to their home ports.

Whereas it might seem that this connection would be necessary so that the mother ship could speed to the star cruiser in the event of an emergency, that is not the purpose of this system. It is strictly for routine communication, much as the telephone on Earth keeps family members, friends, business associates, and neighbors in contact with one another.

A constant and voluminous stream of information flows from the various ships throughout the universe to the home planet's Space Exploration Operations Center (SEOC). Almost all of it is of a routine nature. Crews must be rotated and orders forwarded. Monitoring ships must report new planet discoveries. Status reports must be filed. Field assignments must be made. Captains' logs must be transmitted.

All of this information flowing into the central brain center provides the basis for the millions of decisions that must be made. They could be as routine as reassigning a particular star cruiser to another sector or could involve complex matters dealing with the High Command.

Although the mother ships are always nearby, astronomically speaking, the likelihood that any would be required to respond to another ship to deal with an emergency exists only in theory. In reality, there hasn't been an accident or other emergency situation that required such action in several million years. For all practical purposes, the Verdants' technology has virtually eliminated the p05sibility of any real emergency.

No Verdant spaceships have ever crashed on Earth or on any other planet, Gina said.
 

The Roswell Incident
"So there's nothing to the Roswell stories?" I asked.

"That was not a Verdant ship," she replied. "Yes, a spacecraft did crash near that New Mexico town in 1947. It belonged to a race of people from a planet in what your astronomers call the Large Magellanic Cloud. That's a galaxy about 200,000 light - years away from Earth and is visible to the naked eye in your Southern Hemisphere."

According to Gina, the ship was a shuttle craft and was on a routine assignment. There was an official investigation by an IFSP board of inquiry, which concluded that the accident was caused by "mortal error," meaning that the pilot made a big mistake. On Earth, if the captain of an airliner made a miscalculation that caused his plane to crash, we would call it "human error."

The starship on which the shuttle craft was based, was passing through Earth's solar system for a standard visit to the Goodwill, the ship that I was currently on. The ship had slowed to sublight speed travel mode as it was approaching the moon - when the Verdants requested the Capt. make a stop on Earth to pick up some soil and air samples from a nuclear test site in the American Southwest. The Verdant scientists aboard the Goodwill were closely monitoring humankind's emergence into the nuclear age and wanted the samples for tests they were conducting.

Of course, it was understood that the star cruiser itself would not land on Earth but would dispatch a shuttle to run the errand. It was a rather routine request, and a subordinate officer was assigned the duty of carrying out. Unfortunately, this race of people was extremely inexperienced in such tasks because they had been in the IFSP for only a few thousand years.

The subordinate officer himself, who was piloting the shuttle craft, had made no more than two or three landings on any planet except his own. Because this species' home planet has an extremely thin atmosphere, the pilot was not familiar with the heavier type of atmosphere envelops Earth. He approached Earth too fast and was buffeted out of control when the ship slammed into the surprisingly heavy gaseous envelope.

"He was able to regain some control after a few moments, but not enough to avoid the accident, and he crash4anded," Gina said. "After the board - of-inquiry hearining, steps were put into effect to ensure that such an event would not be repeated. The alien bodies were recovered by your military. Naturally, we were concerned that mass hysteria could ensue, but thanks to the military mind and its proclivity for secrecy, that was avoided."

The military put such a tight lid of secrecy on the event that even the highest civilian authorities of the land were never informed of the discovery. When questioned by members of Congress and the president, the military brass completely denied the story. All military personnel who had any knowledge whatsoever of the event were sworn to secrecy and denial. Violation of the order carried an automatic and immediate death sentence from which there would be no appeal. No courts would be involved no hearings, no trial. Just simple assassination with dispatch, Gina told me.

Eventually, the incident became a non - event. It simply never happened officially.

"So no current government leaders have any knowledge of your presence in our neighborhood?" I asked.

"None," she replied. "Does that answer all of your questions?"

I said it did, and she continued her tour - guide monologue.

artpicture of their smaller ships that they use as shuttles.

THE CONTACT HAS BEGUN

Part 2

Extract from a later part from page 82 of the book where the education continues:

The human species
We took our seats, and the "orientation and education" resumed. The pattern continued like that for the next 40 or so hours - the questions and answers, the long explanations the continuous stream of information that was fed to me in college classroom - type lectures and discourses. The sessions would last for four to six hours, punctuated by meal and bathroom breaks, at least for me. There was one other longer break in which I slept for eight hours, meaning that I had two full nights' sleep during my three days aboard. These would equate to Wednesday and Thursday nights at home.

In the initial stages of the study of Earth, the human species was classified as borderline, one that quite possibly would have to be confined to its home planet. While the human animal was not considered anywhere near as vicious or ferocious as some of the worst species that the Verdants had come across, its warlike tendencies were cause for some concern.

as long as earthhuman is bound to earth - he can only do harm to himself but is not allowed to enter deep space with his animal-tendency or even worse....
 

The human species, I was told, is the most diverse that the Verdants had ever encountered. Such diversityis a rarity in the universe of civilized beings, and although the Verdants have come to expect the unexpected, this came as a mild surprise to them.

Until they discovered humans, they had never encountered a species in which there were wide character variations between individuals in the group. That is, a species might be good or evil, or any gradation in between, but never good and evil existing side by side in the same species. Additionally, each individual was a microcosm of the whole.

picture showing the two opposite poles that is fighting on earth in this time. the"animaconsciousness" and"christ/angel - consciousness
 

"That meant that we could judge the character of an entire civilization by simply studying one individual," Tom (anther ET - person that educated him - and the name was some earthlike he was given for identification) said. "If we found a moral individual, the species itself, as well as all other individuals, was moral. Where we came across barbarians, the species invariably turned out to be barbaric."

However, discovery of human beings - and the infinite variations in character that constitute the species - threw a monkey wrench into that formula.

"Never before had we seen cruel and remorseless individuals exist side by side with kind and compassionate ones within the same species," Tom said. "Destructive and murderous people walk among the caring ones on Earth. Tyrannical governments rule over peaceful and gentle people, while immoral people exist under benevolent governments. This phenomenon - this range of diversity among humans - is absolutely fascinating."

They came to understand that humans not only vary from individual to individual, but also between individuals and the group as a whole. It took some time for the Verdants to make these distinctions.

another picture showing the fight on Earth between REAL love and SELFLOVE. a=higher worlds that bring spiritual help and inspiration. b=the fightingzone c=the hegative pole in earths cons. d= we - the earths braincells are in the middle of the test and fight. e=cells for the negative pole of earth. g= ufos bringing inspiration and direct help from other pfysical worlds.
 

"Your long history of warfare - which we have personally observed - told us that we were looking at a savage (primitiv) race," Tom continued. "On the group level we witnessed international conflict, corruption, thievery, the rape of the environment, the plunder of natural resources, and the unspeakable cruelty of genocide. On an individual level, we observed mendacity, thievery, murder, child abuse, hypocrisy (hykleri), sadism, and cowardice of epidemic proportions."

All of these things spoke of a depraved (fordervet) species, Tom explained. But closer scrutiny (granskning) revealed individual accomplishments (talenter) in the arts, music, literature, and architecture that demonstrated a surprising nobility of spirit and mind. It was these redeeming qualities that caused the Verdants to change their minds about us.

Humankind's status was upgraded to "acceptable' after the Verdant scientists had enough data to confidently predict that the species could safely be welcomed into the intergalactic community - with certain reservations.

So, it wouldn't be a stretch to say that humankind will find its place in the heavens thanks to the refined, intelligent, gentle, cultured people who walk among us. It was their contributions that caught the Verdants' attention and convinced them that the species was worth nurturing.

This nurturing of the human species presented a unique challenge, they said - one that they had never faced before. Typically, when helping to prepare other species to make the transition from planet - bound animal to star traveler, the Verdants simply shared their technology with the entire civilized species.

But that formula won't work because of humankind's unrivaled (uforlignlige) diversity. The goal, in this case, is to preserve the redeeming qualities in the species while ensuring that the darker elements of the human character - personified by the dangerous rogues (kjeltringer) of society - are isolated. In other words, to resort to a platitude (platthet), they wouldn't throw the baby out with the bathwater.

That is, the better nature of humankind, represented by the gentle people, the artists, the thinkers, the lovers, the dreamers, the scholars, the builders, the hundreds of millions of moral people who live ordinary lives of decency, would be welcomed into the intergalactic federation. But there would be no place in the cosmos for the wicked and immoral - those who by their very words and deeds on Earth have demonstrated that they are not fit candidates for membership in the cosmic community.

One prime example of those to be excluded would be leaders of governments whose record on human rights falls short of minimum standards.

The Verdants have decided that the best approach to achieve these goals is to encourage the good people of Earth to police themselves, to take responsibility for ensuring that dangerous scoundrels are quarantined and not allowed access to the heavens. Any failure in this regard could lead to loss of privileges for the entire species. This could mean being forced back out of space until such time as humankind demonstrates that it has resolved the problem and can keep the troublemakers restricted to the planet.

"How does humankind rate overall in comparison to the norm among the various species in the planetary community?" I asked.

"Taking the top 80 percent of the population and discounting the other 20 percent, whom we consider irredeemable, man is inherently good," the one called "Robert" replied. "When the species takes its place in the federation, it will consist solely of that top 80 percent."

"And the bottom 20 percent?" I asked, leaving the question hanging.

Several moments of silence passed before several of the extraterrestrials started speaking at once. "Gus" decided to field the question, and the others deferred to him.

"We do not deal in cruelty or death, nor do we inflict pain," he said. "But we also do not tolerate dangerous rogues who cannot or will not abide by the standards and rules of civilized society."

He was speaking, of course, about the intergalactic community because, as I had been told earlier, the Verdants do not interfere in the internal affairs of other species.

"I think we should leave it at that," he said.

I interpreted the latter statement not as a suggestion, but as a directive, so I exercised discretion and dropped the subject.

In terms of native intelligence, humankind rates at about a 2, certainly no higher than on 3, on a scale of 1 to 10 when compared with other species when they are first brought into the IFSP, Robert continued. I was extremely disappointed with that assessment, and I suppose my face showed it.

"But that will improve," he said. "It always does."

Left alone, he said, the human species would require another two million years, according to the best estimates of the Verdants' scientists, to achieve absolute intelligence.

There was that phrase again.

"Absolute intelligence," I said. It was really a question.

"The point at which it becomes biologically impossible to become any more intelligent. There are limits to everything," Robert said.

But, again, he pointed out, the relatively low rating of a 2 or 3 on a scale of 1 to 10 is due to the immense diversity of the human species. Most other species have intelligence levels that do not deviate more than one percent from the most intelligent to the least intelligent individuals. For all practical purposes, except for very slight variations, that means that every individual is of equal intelligence.

"If we compared just your most intelligent people - the top 10 percent - your species would rank at perhap 8 or a 9," Robert continued. "But the sheer vast numbers of the less intelligent draw down the average considerably. Again, this is an anomaly that we had never experienced before. We previously had thought that it would be impossible to find such a wide difference among individuals in the same species."

However, with the proper guidance provided by available technology, man will not have to wait for two million years to achieve absolute intelligence. The process can be speeded up enormously so that a race of humans of super intelligence can be created within no more than two or three thousand years.

In terms of physical appearance, humans are neither more attractive nor less attractive than any other species. Humans simply are viewed as a species with unique characteristics, just as every other species brings to the planetary community its own unique physiology.

Most of the space beings are what could be described as anthropoid in form, although with great variations. But despite these vast differences in appearance between the species that do evolve into space travelers, they all have at least two physical features in common, I was told. One is the ability to grasp with enough dexterity to make tools.

In humans, and these E.T.'s themselves, that would be the fingers with the opposable thumb. From this amazing anatomical feature come the tools that lead to mining, manufacturing, agriculture, and dominance over fire. All of these things eventually lead to outer space.

There are some pretty strange - at least from my perspective - creatures out there, based upon descriptions - that I heard. For instance, not all of the grasping appendages are necessarily of the human type.

artpicture of a being from planet IARGA -

according to a book worth to look closer at
 

Some star travelers have dual prehensile organs that are every bit as efficient as the human hand. Even the elephant, with its dexterous trunk, has the physical ability to perform simple grasping chores, although it lacks the intelligence to take full advantage of that faculty. The trunk does fall short though, of the fuller range of refined movement that the human hand possesses. It can pick up a peanut, but cannot operate a pair of pliers.

Also, even if the trunk were as adroit as the human hand, the elephant's massive body itself presents an insurmountable (uoverkomlig) barrier to the dexterity (dyktighet) required to become builders of cities. In other words, the grasping hand is vital but it is useless if the rest of the body is incompatible.

That brings us to the second major feature that all star travelers share. The body must be capable of the mobility required to transcend its native environment. It's hard t imagine an elephant climbing a ladder into the business end of a space capsule. The elephant, in fact, is the only Earth land animal that cannot get all of its feet off the ground at one time.

 

 

Creatures that cannot live outside of water

In other cases, I was told, there are species that have developed super intelligence through evolution, but their bodies are not compatible with that intelligence to allow them to make and use tools or to travel outside of their restricted environment.

The Verdants have discovered many creatures, including those on Earth that cannot live outside of water. Because they are swimmers, they have not developed the physical ability to manipulate their environment in order to mine, to forge, to farm, to manufacture, or to weave clothing. Naturally, familiarity with fire is totally out of the question. And yet some of these creatures have great intelligence whereby they have spoken languages, understand mathematics, and form abstract thoughts.

The Verdants have determined that certain Earth marine species, specifically whales and dolphins, will eventually arrive at that point if current evolutionary processed are not disturbed. But in their present form, even if they developed the intelligence, they will be restricted to the oceans and therefore excluded from the astral community The body itself is a prison. Of course, that could change through some as - yet unforeseen evolutionary mutation.

As for reproduction, some species in the intergalactic federation give birth to live young, while others lay eggs. There is at least one species that produces several identical offspring during the adult's 100 - year life span through an internal cloning mechanism. This species has no sex.

The offspring then internally clone offspring identical to themselves when they reach adulthood, which are identical to their parent, and their parent before them. In effect, the population basically consists of one "person" in millions of bodies. This is as close to physical immortality as the Verdants have ever come across.


Some pages foreward in the chapter THE WORLD TO COME:

"Can't predict the future"

….he replied. "You are glimpsing the glorious future, and you are aware that it is tantalizingly (forlokkende) just beyond your grasp. And because of that you are angry and frustrated and you feel cheated. But that is the nature of life."

He was right, of course. Oh, how I wished that I could have been born a century later (he was ignorant that LIFE reincarnate. R.Ø.anm.) But wishing wasn't going to make it happen, and I had to deal with the reality of the here and now.

"Tell me what it will be like," I pleaded.

"We can't predict the future," George continued. "No one can. But based upon our experiences, we can, with great accuracy, tell you what can be expected in general terms."

Humankind will take its place in the Intergalactic Federation of Sovereign Planets sometime early in the 21st century if all goes according to the established timetable, the Verdants told me.

In the short run, in the first 100 years after that event, great strides will be made on the road to curing the ills that have plagued the species from the time that humankind took its first halting footsteps upon Earth. These will not just be physical ailments, but afflictions (sorg) of the spirit and social order as well.

Many diseases of the body will be conquered, intelligence levels will rise, poverty will start to disappear, common courtesy (høflighet) and civility will flourish, nations will begin to consider war unthinkable, crime will plummet (fall), and other antisocial behavior will wane.

But progress does not happen overnight, and it will be several centuries before humankind achieves what today would be considered utopia.

Within 1,000 years, humankind will have been transformed. Great spaceships will be exploring other galaxies. In the absence of poverty, sickness, war, and crime, complete individual happiness will be a universal reality. Illiteracy (analfabetisme) will be but a notation in the history books. Life spans will have increased dramatically. Every citizen of Earth will have any creature comfort necessary to live satisfying and rewarding lives of peace and contentment (tilfredshet).

There will be abundance in the land, and every living person will share in it.

The air and water of Earth will be as pristine (som opprinnelig) and pure as it was before man's ancestors began to befoul them. The rain forests will be restored, the rivers and oceans cleansed. Keys and locks will become a thing of the past, as will police forces and theft insurance, for no person would even consider stealing another person's property or engaging in any other form of antisocial behavior. People will move about the world in great ultramodern vehicles without concern for their personal safety or security.

National armed forces will have disappeared as unfathomable relics (bunnløse levninger) of an insane past.

The Verdants went on and on, painting a magnificent verbal picture of a world that I was incapable of visualizing.

"I'm dumbfounded (stum av forbløffelse)," I said. "It's incomprehensible to me. How - what processes can bring such revolutionary changes? You're essentially talking about the restructuring of human nature as I know it."

"It's really not all that complicated," George said.

I got the feeling that this particular alien, because he was doing most of the talking on this subject, might have been the designated expert on human psychology.

"As we told you earlier, the human species has been assessed (taksert) as being essentially moral and worthy of nurturing. Think about it. Without exception, all of the mischief in your world is and has been the handiwork of a small percentage of your population. We judge that element to be about 20 percent of the total."

No longer would that minority of troublemakers run roughshod over the world's population, making war and committing crimes against people and property. Tyrants and criminals, both of the street-thug and white-collar variety, will be isolated from the mainstream and effectively rendered incapable of inflicting their rascality (aggresjon) upon the innocent masses.

Such isolation would not take the form of prisons as we know them today, but rather a benign and compassionate (mild og medfølende) separation from the main body of decent people in which they will live out their lives in comfortable seclusion. Naturally, they will not have the option of reproducing, I was told.

"Who will oversee these changes?" I asked. "Will the Verdants become the rulers of Earth?"

"Oh, not at all," George replied. "Mankind will maintain complete and sovereign control over its own destiny. We will merely offer you guidance, which you will be free to accept or reject. But based upon our experiences with other alien species, we fully expect that the lessons you learn from us will lead to a hastened social evolution as you apply our teachings to deal with your human problems. It will be a totally natural process."

I may have touched a nerve, because one of the star travelers made it a point to assure me that, while the Verdants are the dominant species in the known universe, the only species that has colonized other worlds, they are not rulers. Every species, he said, is an equal part of the whole. There is no superpower, as such. Every world maintains its sovereignty while participating equally in the intergalactic community.

Earth and humankind will share a similar status.

 

 

Extract from chapter 11
Indecent Proposal

 

There had been three sessions, with breaks in between, over the previous ten hours. Hour 40 had passed. It would be about 6 or 7 PM. Thursday at home. I ate my "evening" meal, got cleaned up, and slapped a generous sprinkling of cologne onto my face. I wasn't yet ready to settle down to bed, so I asked Gina for another cook's tour.

We peeked in on the engine control room, which was surprisingly small considering the size of the ship itself. I saw only three other travelers, who I presumed were crew members. It was pretty boring, just a typical computer clean room. I had misunderstood, thinking that we were actually going to the engine room. This was just the brain center for the engines, which I was told were inaccessible to me.

From there we went to the navigation center and then toured one of the flight decks from which the shuttle craft depart and arrive. Each deck serves one shuttle craft exclusively, and the one assigned to this port was berthed there when we arrived. I was astounded by its size. It was huge much larger than any aircraft I had seen on Earth.

I had seen several of them from afar, illuminated by the star cruiser's floodlights, when I was in the observation dome with Gina during my first tour, but they were on toys on the horizon, and it was difficult at that distance to estimate their true size. She took me into the craft, and reminded me of the mammoth ballrooms that graced old ocean liners such as the Queen Mary minus the massive crystal chandeliers and grand staircases, of course. But it certainly had been designed to provide physical comfort to its occupants.

I expected the cockpit area to contain more dials than would be found on a 747 jumbo jet, but it was surprisingly uncluttered. There seemed to be just a few simple controls facing the two pilot seats. There was no windshield as we know it, but rather a very large rectangular viewing screen. Data from sensors on the outer shell of the ship faithfull reproduced the outside view on the screen, Gina said.

The craft normally carried a crew of 20 to 30 and was equipped with enough food, fuel, and other supplies to enable it to be self-sustaining for up to a full Earth year at a time.


Their food/eating

Afterward, we wandered to one of the crew dining areas, which didn't make much of an impression on me. I guess if you've seen one mess hall (spiserom) you've seen them all. The Verdants are strictly herbivores (planteetere/vegetarinanere) and are actually incapable of digesting meat or meat products. Plant matter is grow aboard the ship hydroponically, and a ton of ripened vegtation can be processed into a package weighing no more than a pound and preserved indefinitely.

 

To prepare it for eating, it is reconverted in the galley to its original weight and is as fresh as the moment it was harvested. (this is what the science on the spiritual tells - that the development gradually changes the being from meateating "animal" to a real - nonkilling human - that is not capable of eating meat because it has left the "killing phase" in the cosmic evolution. This information here seems to indicate for me that this story is a real occurance. R.Ø.remark.)

One meal for the entire crew requires 50 pounds of the processed food, which becomes 50 tons when reconverted. The Verdants eat but one meal in a 36-hour cycle.


Their less need for sleep

This part of the tour was pretty humdrum (ensformig), and I fully expected Gina to take me to the sleeping quarters next. Surprise, surprise, there are no sleeping quarters, I was told, because the Verdants don't sleep as we know it . (again - this is what the science on the spiritual (Martinus Cosmology) tells - that the development gradually changes the being so that it needs less sleeptime when the coarse thoughts decrease.This information here again indicate for me that this story is a real occurance. R.Ø.remark.)

They have rest areas, lounges, recreation areas, and places for quiet moments of relaxation. But they consider sleep an abbreviated form of death and a terrible waste of time. Through technology, they eliminated the need for sleep millions of years earlier.

They do enjoy their rest periods, however, which essentially are of a social and recreational nature.

"After all," Gina said, "the whole purpose of life is to enjoy it."

And what brings them joy?

"Our greatest pleasure comes from exploration and learning," she said. "They are as important to the enjoyment of life as are the physical gratifications (tilfredsstillelse). Of course, we delight in many of the same things that you find enjoyable. In some respects, we are very much alike despite our vast differences."

"Such as?" I asked.

"A good meal-"

"That processed plant food?" I interrupted. "You like that?"

"Did you enjoy your meals?" she asked. "Well, every dish that you were offered was made from it. Of course, it was tailored (skeddersydd) to your limited tastes. We have an endless variety of dishes, more than you could ever imagine, which are even more pleasing to our palates."

When I stick my foot in my mouth, I really open wide.


Their look at SEX

"Like you, we also enjoy good conversation ... good friends. Sex," she added.

The word was hanging by itself, set apart from the other examples that she had cited. I turned to look at her, but her face, as usual, said nothing.

"Sex is engaged in almost exclusively for pleasure because each female is genetically incapable of producing more than one offspring in her 20,000-year life span. Of course, science can circumvent that restriction, but it rarely does.

Verdants are quite capable of reproducing scientifically outside the confines of the body, she said. And for a brief period in their history they did procreate in the laboratory, as it were. But they have rejected that process-not for any moral reasons nor because they consider it unnatural - but because they simply find that they suffer a loss of fulfillment when they procreate artificially. So now they continue to reproduce biologically as nature intended from the day they began to evolve.

Gina could not recall any instances in her lifetime when a female had a baby under any but natural circumstances.

"But what if there is a miscarriage, or the baby is born with a severe defect that threatens its life?" I asked.

"That does not happen," she said. "All children are born perfect, strong, and healthy. And they are all equally intelligent, as are all adults."

We had been walking, turning into doorways, riding elevators and trams while we talked, and after about ten minutes we arrived in a small, rather intimate lounge area. It was unlike the large lounge - recreation rooms that I had seen up until then. Whereas there might have been 60 or 70 E.T.'s in one of the larger rooms, engaging in quiet conversation, playing what appeared to be board games, or just sitting in lounge chairs and looking out of the fairly good - size viewing ports into the blackness of space, this room held only a few lounge chairs and was unoccupied at the time, save for ourselves.

Again with the hand, I thought, as Gina guided me into one of the chairs and took a seat next to me.

The Verdants have achieved such "absolute intelligence" that they know there is no way to travel faster, to live longer, to build more perfect ships, or to make any new advances in their own civilizations, she continued. That is why one of their great satisfactions is to explore, to learn, to find new wonders in the universe.

"You cannot imagine the thrill, the excitement to come upon an unknown planet, an unknown life form," Gina said. "We never become jaded (trett/medtatt), no matter how many times we have experienced it before. It is just the sheer rapture of discovery."

 
THE CONTACT HAS BEGUN

Part 3

They don't use drugs (from chapter11 page 108)

" We don't use drugs," she said. "They impair and dull the senses, and we believe that we can't experience the full exhilaration of life in that state."

He says: "Now that we have been introduced, I want to learn everything I can about you. Where you were born, what your childhood was like, what your interests are, what your home life was like, what your occupation is. I want to know about your friends, your parents, your hopes, and your dreams for the future," I said.


The extraterrestrial women past and social life on home planet

She told me that she was born on one of the Verdants' colonized planets in the Milky Way Galaxy approximately 800 Earth years ago. The planet's name cannot be translated into English simply because there is no counterpart word in our language for it. If I had to take a stab at spelling it according to the sound I heard when she pronounced it, it would be something like Hoksperlmizache. That is only an approximation, however, because some of the sounds in their speech can't be duplicated by human vocal cords, and, thus, there is no way to spell them.

That is, how does one spell the sound that a human makes when he is gagging, giggling, and hiccuping at the same time? It can't be done.

Surprisingly, there are great similarities between the Verdant culture/social structure and Earth's. All Verdant children attend what (on Earth) would be equivalent to public school, although for a much longer period of time because they do not reach adulthood until they are approximately 60 Earth years of age. Remember that the Verdant year is about three Earth years long, or approximately 1,000 Earth days.

Even on the colonized planets, time is measured in standard Verdant terms despite the fact that the length of the days and years on the manifold worlds vary widely. Some have years that are equal to four or five Earth years, while others are as short as several Earth months. The length of the days are as equally varied.

After reaching adulthood, education continues for every person at what would be considered the university level on Earth. Typically, this would amount to about another 20 Earth years. But because the Verdants do not sleep as we know it, but simply engage in rest and relaxation periods, life is bustling every hour of the day and night.

A typical human with a university education might have spent 6 hours a day, 180 days a year for 16 years in class, or about 17,000 hours total. A Verdant attending school 15 hours a day, 300 days a year for somewhere between 50 and 60 years would spend perhaps 250,000 hours in class. Consequently, a Verdant university education would equal perhaps 15 university educations on Earth.

"That sounds so oppressive," I said.

"On the contrary, our love of learning is so great that every moment is exhilarating. We can't get enough of it," Gina said. "But eventually, our course of formal study comes to an end, and then we have to go out into the world - to put it in terms familiar to you - to take our place in society. Of course, study and learning are lifelong pursuits for us and the universe then becomes our educational laboratory after our formal classroom instruction is complete."

"But don't you take time to play as children?" I asked.

"We do, just like normal children everywhere," Gina explained "Believe it or not, childish play is a universal characteristic. There are few sentient animals that we are aware of that don't engage in play. Did you ever observe a litter of your Earth puppies, or tiny lion cubs in a jungle nest? Or how about a family of baby monkeys? Play is necessary ingredient of learning, of growing up."

Gina was raised in a large city in a family unit that consisted of her and her two parents. There are, of course, no brothers and sisters because of the inability of females to produce more than one offspring in their lifetimes. They also have no institution equivalent to the human state of marriage.

Typically, most Verdants have multiple partners during their extensive lifetimes, with pairings lasting anywhere from 10 to 500 years. Once a child is conceived in an union, however, no matter how long the parents have been together, a family unit has been formed and will not be dissolved before the child leaves the home. That would be minimum of 50 to 60 years, when the child has reached the age of early adulthood and has completed its course of formal education.

Often, depending upon the circumstances, the child might stay in the family home for up to 100 years. Eventually, though, the adult children themselves pair up with chosen partners and leave the parents' home.

"But no marriage?" I asked.

"No, just a spiritual bonding," she replied. (this is again what the danish visionary Martinus has written about the natural changes in humans way to live or stay together in the future. R.Ø.anm.)

"And then you begin your own families?" I asked.

"Rarely do first pairings result in a child," she answered. "We simply pair up and share our lives for a period of time. At some point, by mutual agreement, we each choose another partner and proceed to a new level in our lives. It is all a very rewarding (givende) and satisfactory arrangement. It keeps life interesting."

"Do you fall out of love, then, when you decide to move on to a new mate?" I inquired.

"It's impossible to fall out of love because we don't fall in love," she said.

This was disturbing to me for some reason. I tried to analyze it, to try to put my finger on the feeling of uneasiness I experienced upon hearing this statement. And then it hit me. The arrangement she was describing struck me as the simple mating of two barnyard animals, a carnal union driven by instinct and devoid of the human qualities of caring, compassion, and tenderness - in other words, the ingredients of love. I expected so much more from these creatures of such advancement - a more noble quality of spirit.

"You pair up just for sex, without love?" I asked, barely hiding my disappointment.

"Oh, I see what you are saying," she said. "My goodness, no. Of course not. Do you remember the first time you fell in love, as you humans term it?"

I said I did. I don't think anybody ever really forgets that singular event in his or her life.

She asked me to describe my feelings at the time.

It was a tough question. I made several faltering attempts to answer. Finally, I told her that I didn't think the feelings could be translated into words. She pressed me to try. I put aside all of the thoughts about the first kiss, the fluttering heart when taking the beloved's hand for the first time. I looked at the bigger picture.

"Happy," I said. "No, more than that. Deliriously happy. Enraptured. Walking on air."

"What did she look like?" Gina asked.

She was wonderful, I told Gina. But for the life of me - I really couldn't visualize the girl's face. Nor, for that matter, could I even remember if she was pretty or plain, intelligent or dull, overweight, underweight, or average weight.

"You don't remember because it's not the person who stirs the cherished memories; it's the event itself," Gina said. "The love is the experience; the girl could have been any one of a million others. You would still carry the fond memories no matter who the girl was."

The human brain, she said, stores billions of bits of information that define a lifetime of experience. But only the momentous events, the ones that stand apart from the mundane, everyday occurrences, are easily recalled. Gina said that may be because these milestone markers are the ones that most critically influence the development of the person, the way the person views life. Whether they strike chords of joy or sorrow, fear or confidence, anticipation or dread, celebration or mourning, they stand the test of time by remaining keenly vivid.

I think that Gina was giving me a lesson in life, and I must admit that she may have had something there. I thought about some of the key incidents in my life that so easily spring to mind with no effort, even decades later. That would include my induction into the Army as a 19 - year - old draftee (apprehension), my graduation from college (gratitude), my first job (excitement), the birth of my daughter (bliss), and the day she left home for college (pride combined with a broken heart).

I admitted to Gina that she was indeed right. I was long on the memories of the emotions and stirrings I felt for my first love, but short on the details of the girl herself.

"Just imagine that you felt the same way about every person on Earth," Gina said. "We do not fall in love - because we love all of our people uncompromisingly, every individual one, all the trillions of strangers. We adore one another, but on what you would consider a platonic level, without the sexual element. Only when the male and female pair up does the additional element of sex enter the relationship."

"Then why do your couples break up?" I asked. "I'm confused."

"I'm not sure you will ever understand," she said. "But it's because love and sex are not intertwined for us as they are in human romantic relationships. Our love for one another never wanes, even as we move on to other partners. But we simply move on sexually when the physical union begins to lose its intensity, much as you might move on to a different job when your current one does not provide you with the same satisfaction and rewards that it originally did. I cannot explain it in any simpler terms." (As Martinus learns on the sexual development in human. R.Ø.anm.)

Well, I still wasn't sure that I understood, but I let the subject lie. Obviously, we were having a culture clash of sorts.

Anyway, Gina left her parents' home at about 90 years of age, again in Earth terms, and held a variety of jobs in both government and private industry over the next several hundred years. In that time, she had paired up with about eight to ten different males, with the relationships lasting for as little as 10 years to as much as 75 years.

Once, when she was about 400 years old, she joined the crew of an ore ship that mined asteroids for precious metals that were used primarily to construct the great ships of the Verdant empire. She retired from that job after about 35 years and settled on the home planet of Verdant to continue her studies, concentrating on foreign languages. After becoming proficient in every known language and dialect in the universe, well over 30,000, she signed on as a linguist on a star cruiser assigned to explore a quadrant of the Andromeda Galaxy.

During her tour of duty, the ship discovered two planets inhabited by intelligent beings. Both races are still in the preliminary stages of development, however, although they do have organized civilizations and are still thousands of years away from evolving to the level of potential star travelers. After that, Gina was assigned to the Goodwill about 60 years ago as part of the team observing Earth.

"And that's the story of my life in a nutshell," she said.

End of extract from book.