UFOs over New York, & I ain't too surprised

Today is a sad anniversary for the world, so I have decided to post a special blog entry.

Thirty years ago on this date, former Beatle John Lennon was senselessly killed in New York City.  What many of you might not know is that John was also "UFO experiencer."

Author Michael C. Luckman details this in his book, Alien Rock, a text that explores the UFO stories and mythos surrounding rock stars.  I recommend it as it is a highly enjoyable read for anyone who loves either rock music or UFOs.  In addition to the research in Luckman's book, there was also a statement from John himself on the matter in an interview conducted for Andy Warhol's Interview magazine.

Anyway, the first event in question occurred in August of 1973, during the so-called "lost weekend" that Lennon had with girlfriend May Pang.  John was in the living room of Pang's East Side apartment in New York City when he noticed a saucer-shaped object hovering outside the patio door. 

"'What the Nixon is that?' I says to meself," John said.  He described the craft as being metallic in color with "ordinary electric lightbulbs flashing on and off round the bottom" and one solid red light on the top.  He described feeling the hair on his arms and the back of his neck stand up, a phenomenon common to those have reported being in close proximity to a UFO.  The UFO then slowly drifted over the city towards Brooklyn.  John went outside and shouted, "Stop!  Take me with you!" It was at that point that May Pang urged him back into the apartment.

In retelling this sighting to friends, John went to great lengths to assure that he was completely sober at the time.  His fascination with Ufology grew and John began to formulate his own hypotheses, such as there was a fleet of UFOs in upstate New York, powering themselves off of the electrical grid.  

Interestingly enough, the NYPD logged 5 calls that night from people reporting a UFO in the same location.

John Lennon's extraterrestrial encounters did not stop there.  If anything, they intensified.  In time he became friends with so-called psychic and spoon-bender, Uri Geller.  Geller lived in an apartment around the corner from John and Yoko's home in the Dakota, so they socialized frequently.  Just weeks before his murder, John supposedly brought Uri an odd, egg-shaped object that seemed composed of a metal similar to brass...and with an even weirder story to go along with it.

John told Uri that a blinding light awoke him from a deep sleep one night in the Dakota.  Thinking the lights to possibly be searchlights and that the building was on fire, John got up to investigate.  It was then that he saw "four little people."

Uri asked if they were fans, to which John responded, "Well they didn't want my fucking autograph."

"They were...little," Lennon continued.  "Bug-like.  Big bug eyes and little bug mouths."

John remembered little after that, so I'm just hoping they didn't use the butt probe on him.  

It was the following morning that John awoke to find the strange, egg-shaped object in his hand.  Visibly shaken, he met with Geller and handed it over to him.

"Keep it," John said.  "If it's my ticket to another planet, I don't want to go there."

And a few weeks later he was gone.  If there was more to tell about his story, we will never know.

The affect of the UFO sightings on John, however, is self-evident.  The title for this blog post are lyrics from his song, "Nobody Told Me."  Lennon even makes reference to his first sighting in the liner notes to his record, Walls and Bridges.  "On the 23rd of August, 1974 at 9 o'clock I saw a UFO--J.L."   You don't get much more straightforward than that.

But what of the supposed "space egg?"  Uri Geller claims to still have it in his possession, but will not loan it out for testing as he wants to "keep the mysticism around it." 

Uh-huh.

Given John's reputation for drug use, it is difficult to discern truth from what might have been hallucination.  His description of the entities he purported to encounter do dovetail with the description given by the vast majority of abductees and experiencers...and this was long before the proliferation of the "little almond-eyed alien" meme that dominates our perceptions today. 

At a Beatlefest in Las Vegas, I once heard actor Victor Spinetti (A Hard Day's Night) say that "The Beatles are magical beings."  Don't know if I believe that, but it's not hard to speculate that John Lennon might have been more in tune with aspects of the universe than many of the rest of us are.  Therefore, he might be a likely candidate for alien visitation.  A conspiracy theorist might latch on to this quote from John after his first UFO sighting: "If the masses started to accept UFOs, it would profoundly affect their attitude toward life, politics, everything.  It would threaten the status quo."  Even John Lennon began to speculate about a government cover-up on the subject of UFOs.  Was his senseless murder a bit more sense-driven (though no less evil) than we suspected?  Was it a political hit job to silence him before his celebrity could build more momentum for UFO truthseekers much as he did for the peace movement?  As I said, it's just conspiracy talk.  Unfortunately, we are unable to ask him more about his experiences to get the full story.

Just one more reason that Mark Chapman is safer in prison.

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