Edge Science

Number 50    June 2022

Current Research and Insights

Harriet Tubman, Precog

Anomalistics and Science Have Exchanged Roles
The Pentagon’s Secret UFO Program, the Hitchhiker Effect,
and Models of Contagion A publication of the
EdgeScience #50
June 2022
EdgeScience is a quarterly magazine.
Print copies are available from
edgescience.magcloud.com.
CONTENTS
For further information, see edgescience.org.

3
Email: [email protected]
THE OBSERVATORY
Why EdgeScience? Because, contrary to public Anomalistics and Science Have Exchanged Roles
perception, scientific knowledge is still full of unknowns.
By Henry Bauer
What remains to be discovered — what we don’t
know — very likely dwarfs what we do know. And
what we think we know may not be entirely correct
or fully understood. Anomalies, which researchers
tend to sweep under the rug, should be actively pursued FEATURE
as clues to potential breakthroughs and new directions

5
in science.
Harriet Tubman, Precog
PUBLISHER: The Society for Scientific Exploration By Eric Wargo
EDITOR: Patrick Huyghe
The Pentagon’s Secret UFO Program,
12
ASSOCIATE EDITOR: P.D. Moncrief Jr.
CONTRIBUTORS:Henry Bauer, Colm Kelleher, Eric Wargo
DESIGN: Smythtype Design the Hitchhiker Effect,
and Models of Contagion
The Society for Scientific Exploration (SSE) is a By Colm Kelleher
professional organization of scientists and scholars
who study unusual and unexplained phenomena. The
primary goal of the Society is to provide a professional
forum for presentations, criticism, and debate
concerning topics which are for various reasons
ignored or studied inadequately within mainstream EDITOR’S NOTE:
science. A secondary goal is to promote improved
understanding of those factors that unnecessarily limit This is the 50th issue of EdgeScience
the scope of scientific inquiry, such as sociological and my last as editor. It’s time for
constraints, restrictive world views, hidden theoretical some new blood and new ideas. I’d
assumptions, and the temptation to convert like to thank Garret Model who
prevailing theory into prevailing dogma. Topics under asked me 14 years ago if I would
investigation cover a wide spectrum. At one end are
be interested in starting a magazine
apparent anomalies in well established disciplines.
At the other, we find paradoxical phenomena that for the public for the Society for
belong to no established discipline and therefore may Scientific Exploration. As a graduate
offer the greatest potential for scientific advancement of the masters in magazine journal-
and the expansion of human knowledge. The SSE ism program at Syracuse University,
was founded in 1982 and has approximately 800 how could I say no? The first issue
members in 45 countries worldwide. The Society appeared in October 2009. Ever
also publishes the peer-reviewed Journal of Scientific
since then Bill Bengston has been an
Exploration, and holds annual meetings in the U.S. and
biennial meetings in Europe. Associate and student enthusiastic supporter of the maga-
memberships are available to the public. To join the zine through thick and thin. That’s
Pieter Bruegel

Society, or for more information, visit the website at largely due to a bevy of wonderful
scientificexploration.org. writers, who have contributed their
thoughts and work over the years. A
PRESIDENT: William Bengston, St. Joseph’s College big thank you as well to Laura Smyth
VICE PRESIDENT: Garret Moddel, University of Colorado,
whose beautiful design for the magazine has been widely appreciated, and
Boulder
SECRETARY: Mark Urban-Lurain, Michigan State to David Moncrief, my most recent associate editor, who has been there to
University back me up, raising excellent questions and catching any potential embar-
TREASURER: York Dobyns rassments along the way. Taking the magazine forward will be Annalisa
EDUCATION OFFICER: Chantal Toporow Ventola, who is well qualified to take over the reins of the magazine. Please
EUROPEAN COORDINATOR: Anders Rydberg join me in giving her a hearty welcome.—Patrick Huyghe
Copyright © 2022 Society for Scientific Exploration
The authors, artists, and photographers retain copyright to their work.
ISSN 2330-4545 (Print)
ISSN 2330-4553 (Online)
Cover image: Harriet Tubman, probably at her home in Auburn, New York, 1911. Credit: Library of Congress
 EDGESCIENCE #50 • JUNE 2022 / 3

 ❛ THE OBSERVATORY ❜
Henry Bauer

Anomalistics and Science Have Exchanged Roles

A nomalistics might be somehow stimulated in reaction to or
protest against science, or by a felt need for knowledge or
understanding beyond what science offers.
Anomalistics has been largely the purview of amateurs, of
people looking into topics out of sheer interest, as had been
largely the case at the beginnings of “modern” science. The
Pundits in various disciplines have suggested a cycle: founders of modern science had not earned their living from
romanticism as reaction against Enlightenment rationality, their scientific efforts, and nowadays there are few if any genu-
followed by a return to rationalism as “science” became hege- ine anomalists who earn their living from devotion to or obses-
monic. Thus in the second half of the 19th century, interest in sion with their unorthodox pursuit. As I suggested long ago
psychic phenomena—mediumship, poltergeists, Spiritualism, (Bauer 1982), as part of the frequent discussions over seeking
and the like—might be seen as reaction against the materialist research funding for anomalous projects, anomalists should
implications of natural selection, proposed by Darwin and by rather enjoy the fact that they are not beholden—as main-
Wallace in mid-century; but materialistic science then won out stream researchers are—to purse-string holders whose sup-
through impressive achievements in many areas. port is inevitably contingent on doing what the patrons want:
The perceived reliability and authority of science reached researchers in the mainstream are increasingly preoccupied by
a high point through the scientific-technological achievements the need to continually gain grants for their work to establish
during World War II: not only atom bombs but also sonar, or further their careers, to the detriment of truly free inquiry.
radar, and more. In seeming reaction, following WWII there Over time, anomalists came across indications that the
was much heightened public interest in matters apparently dogmatism exemplified by the (pseudo)Skeptics groups was
ignored or disdained by science—Loch Ness Monsters, “abom- also present to a certain extent within the scientific community.
inable snowmen” (yeti, Bigfoot, Sasquatch), flying saucers, psy- That had been noted by sociologist Bernard Barber in his sorely
chic phenomena, and Velikovsky’s scenario of interplanetary neglected 1961 article “Resistance by Scientists to Scientific
phenomena (Dutch 1986, Bauer 1986/87). Discovery,” published in the journal Science. Similar instances
Although these movements were some sort of reaction in medicine may be somewhat better known, for instance the
against mainstream science, the authority of science—on mat- iconic case of Ignaz Semmelweiss, who was long ignored by his
ters of temporal knowledge, at least—was acknowledged, even colleagues for stressing the need for cleanliness when delivering
if only implicitly, among religious believers as well as those babies. Not nearly as well-known is the generality of “Hidden
concerned with topics nowadays included within the umbrella Events” below the mainstream’s horizon, for example the fail-
of anomalistics. Thus it was generally accepted that the topics ure of practicing physicians to recognize the phenomenon of
neglected or dismissed or seen as in some way outside or antag- physically abused children (Westrum 1982).
onistic to mainstream science ought to be investigated in the At any rate, members of SSE caught glimpses of main-
manner that science was thought to work, namely, basing theo- stream science’s dogmatism not only from its attitude to “out-
ries and interpretations on replicable, trustworthy facts. That side” topics such as parapsychology, cryptozoology, ufology,
is illustrated by the name chosen for the Society for Scientific and the like but also within mainstream science itself in its dis-
Exploration (SSE): the topics ignored by mainstream research- missing or ignoring or maligning of unorthodox claims on per-
ers should be looked into by making facts and evidence the fectly mainstream topics: on occasion, accomplished mainstream
primary concern, at least initially. researchers described being ignored or dismissed or maligned
Science was the acknowledged role model for anomalis- for making technical claims within their own discipline. Halton
tics, in other words. But today, the roles are reversed. How did Arp (1987, 1998, 2000), for instance, was a
things get this way? fully respected observational astronomer
The mainstream response to anomalistics was usually just who was essentially excommunicated—no
to ignore it, unless a particular subject gained too much favor- longer allowed telescope time—after
able public interest—as was the case for instance in the he pointed to seemingly convincing
Velikovsky affair (Bauer 1984). evidence that cosmological redshifts
More or less contemporary with the found- are not due solely to the Doppler effect.
ing of SSE there was a movement by self- Again, the highly respected astrophysicist
ck
s to

styled “Skeptics” seeking to ensure that Thomas Gold (1989) could get no hearing in
ter
ut
/ sh

anything incompatible with contemporary academic circles for his suggestions about the origin
on
alc

mainstream scientific consensuses should be of petroleum deposits on Earth.

nf
ow

given no shrift at all and consigned to the pejora- Such experiences as a member of SSE stimulated my
br

tive limbo of “pseudoscience.”1 As Marcello Truzzi choice of controversies in science as my special research inter-
(1987) pointed out, they were (and remain) not genu- est in the general field of Science & Technology Studies (STS);
ine Skeptics but rather pseudoskeptics, not at all skeptical about and that led to finding quite a lot of cases like those of Arp and
mainstream science, which they trust wholeheartedly.2 Gold (Bauer 2012), most strikingly the mistaken mainstream
4 / EDGESCIENCE #50 • JUNE 2022

dogmas that AIDS is caused by HIV (Bauer 2007) and that ENDNOTES
global warming and climate change are being caused chiefly 1. So a rationalist back lash against perceived unscientif ic
by human actions that release carbon dioxide (Koonin 2021). “romanticism.”
The traditional and popular view of scientific activity is 2. “Both critics and proponents need to learn to think of adjudi-
that evidence is gathered and hypotheses are evaluated by their cation in science as more like that found in the law courts,
ability to explain Nature’s facts; and that all theories—and even imperfect and with varying degrees of proof and evidence.
facts—are tentative and provisional, since the history of science Absolute truth, like absolute justice, is seldom obtainable. We
is replete with examples of later discoveries requiring modifica- can only do our best to approximate them.”
So Truzzi (1987)
tion or even abandonment of earlier theories; to give only one gave a rationale for a Science Court, but he did not mention
example, that some of the so-called “inert” gases can indeed it in that article.
react to form compounds. 3. Abba Eban is credited with the insight that consensus means
That traditional, idealistic view of science may have been rea- stating collectively what no one believes individually.
sonably accurate in the founding years of “modern” science, but
it is far from appropriate about today’s scientific activity, where HENRY BAUER is Professor Emeri-
a whole host of outside interests have produced a hot-house cul- tus of Chemistry & Science Studies
ture of extreme competition, restricted goals of research in favor and Dean Emeritus of Arts & Sci-
of the interests of those who pay for the research, and pervasive ences, Virginia Polytechnic Institute
dogmatism about any contemporary mainstream consensus: & State University (“Virginia Tech”).
deviation from that consensus is punished by unfavorable peer He had held earlier appointments at
reviews, absence of invitations to conferences or seminars, and the Universities of Sydney, Michi-
failure to obtain research support from the usual sources; the gan, Southampton, and Kentucky.
case of the molecular biologist Peter Duesberg may be iconic He is Austrian by birth, Australian
(Bauer 2012: ch. 3, Lenzer 2008). by education, and a United States
Contemporary scientific activity does not have the contexts citizen since 1969. His publications,
needed for genuinely productive research, for which physicist chiefly in science studies and earlier in chemistry, include more
John Ziman (1994: 276) has summarized the requirements than a hundred articles and twelve books; the latest is Science
(italics in original): Is Not What You Think—How It Has Changed, Why We Can’t
• social space for personal initiative and creativity; Trust It, How It Can Be Fixed. His website is at henryhbauer.
• time for ideas to grow to maturity; homestead.com.
• openness to debate and criticism;
• hospitality towards novelty; and
• respect for specialized expertise. SOURCES
However, all those requirements are present almost inevi- Arp, H. (2000). “What has science come to?” Journal of Scientific
tably in the investigations pursued by anomalists. On anoma- Exploration 14: 447–54.
lous topics, there exists no monolithic, hegemonic paradigm Arp, H. (1987). Quasars, Redshifts and Controversies. Interstellar
enforced through control of peer review, publication, and pro- Media.
vision of research support. And although anomalist studies are Arp, H. (1998). Seeing Red: Redshifts, Cosmology and Academic
not welcome to mainstream science, anomalists nevertheless Science. Apeiron.
typically show “respect for specialized expertise” by seeking Bauer, H. H. (1982). “Comments to Ron Westrum’s ‘Crypto-
advice and even collaboration from mainstream scientists, some Science and social intelligence about anomalies,’” Zetetic
of whom are willing to become involved, even if only secretly Scholar, #10 (December 1982) 109–111.
and publicly unacknowledged. Bauer, H. H. (1984). Beyond Velikovsky: The history of a public con-
Anomalistics is thus comparable to the early years of troversy. University of Illinois Press.
“modern” science. Bauer, H. H. (1986/87). “The literature of fringe science,”
The roles of science and anomalistics have evidently been Skeptical Inquirer, 11 (#2, Winter 1986-87) 205–10.
exchanged. Contemporary science is an impossible, even unde- Dutch, S. (1986). “Four decades of fringe literature,” Skeptical
sirable role model for the investigation of controversial or Inquirer, 10: 342–51.
unorthodox matters. Instead, research scientists should take Gold, T. (1989). “New Ideas in Science,” Journal of Scientific
as their role model the approach taken by serious modern-day Exploration, 3: 103–112.
anomalists, placing the emphasis on facts and evidence rather Lenzer, J. (2008). “Peter’s Principles,” Discover, 29 (June),45–50.
than preconceived theories. It needs to be recognized that Truzzi, M. (1987). “On Pseudo-Skepticism,” Zetetic Scholar,
mainstream scientific activity nowadays is sadly corrupted and #12/13: 3–4.
quite different from the relatively disinterested days of natu- Westrum, R. (1982). “Social intelligence about hidden events:
ral philosophy and early “modern” science. In Ziman’s terms, Its signif icance for scientif ic research and social policy,”
today’s science fails to be hospitable to any novelty that does Knowledge: Creation, Diffusion, Utilization, 3: 381–400.
not comport with the current “scientific consensus.”3 Ziman, J. (1994), Prometheus Bound: Science in a Dynamic Steady
Science, not anomalistics, is now society’s problem. State. Cambridge University Press.
 EDGESCIENCE #50 • JUNE 2022 / 5

Eric Wargo

Harriet Tubman, Precog

“My people are free!” “My people are free!” She came more of Joan of Arc in the dreaming and gun-toting freedom
down to breakfast singing the words in a sort of fighter. Because so many children’s stories about Tubman play
ecstasy. She could not eat. The dream or vision filled up that comparison, serious biographers have had a hard time
her whole soul, and physical needs were forgotten. believing the supernormal aspects of Tubman’s story, assuming
Mr. Garnet said to her: “Oh, Harriet! Harriet! that her dreams and talking to God must simply be parts of the
You’ve come to torment us before the time; do cease myth, or at best symptomatic of slave superstition or even brain
this noise! My grandchildren may see the day of the disorder. But I will argue in what follows that, despite their
emancipation of our people, but you and I will never anecdotal nature—with history and biography, we’re inevita-
see it.” bly in the realm of anecdote—the abundant claims made inde-
“I tell you, sir, you’ll see it, and you’ll see it soon. pendently by Tubman’s many abolitionist associates, friends,
My people are free! My people are free.” and early biographers add up to a picture that historians of the
When, three years later, President Lincoln’s proc- supernormal should not ignore. Tubman does seem to have
lamation of emancipation was given forth, and there
was a great jubilee among the friends of the slaves,
Harriet was continually asked, “Why do you not join
with the rest in their rejoicing!”
“Oh,” she answered, “I had my jubilee three
years ago. I rejoiced all I could then; I can’t rejoice
no more.1

H arriet Tubman’s achievements—liberating large numbers of

 slaves from Maryland farms and then helping lead Union
forces in a major action during the Civil War—earned her
a central place in the story of the struggle against slavery in
America. After the war, she became a suffrage activist and tire-
lessly supported poor Black people in Auburn, New York, using
funds from her public speaking and donations. Ever since, she
has been a beacon for Black Americans and feminists—almost
the perfect icon and figurehead for multiple intersecting identi-
ties and struggles against oppression.

Benjamin Powelson
I say “almost” because there’s that nagging biographical
detail, which Tubman’s abolitionist friends and contemporaries
struggled to assimilate within the larger picture of this com-
plex woman, and which most historians since then have either
rejected outright or minimized: her propensity to have what
we would now call precognitive dreams and visions, as well
as her claims to have been frequently guided to safety by the
voice of God.
Tubman never learned to read or write, so despite years
describing her exploits to lecture audiences after the Civil
War—she was a brilliant and witty storyteller, by all accounts—
we today are limited to hearing her story mediated by others.2
It presents difficulties trying to extract the “actual, historical”
Harriet Tubman from the various religious, scientific, racial,
and political biases of her biographers, not to mention onion-
like layers of hagiography and mythmaking that have grown
up around her.3
As a conductor on the Underground Railroad, Tubman
earned the appellation “Moses,” but there was as much or even
6 / EDGESCIENCE #50 • JUNE 2022

regularly experienced precognition both in dreams and in her results of temporal lobe epilepsy precipitated by the injury—a
waking life, even if she herself used a religious idiom to describe plausible but also problematic assumption that I will also con-
and explain those experiences. Her story is consistent with what sider later.
has been reported by other, better-studied psychic individuals Ross took the name Harriet Tubman in 1844, at age 22,
in more recent times, including military remote viewers and when she married a free Black man named John Tubman. She
contemporary precognitive dreamers. remained the property of Brodess until the farm passed to his
wife upon his death in March 1849—a death Tubman had
started explicitly praying for just a little over a week before
Tubman’s Origins and Anti-Slavery Career it happened. There was growing fear among the slaves that,
Tubman was born Araminta (“Minty”) Ross, probably in early despite promises to the contrary, some of them would be sold
1822, on a plantation in Dorchester County, on Maryland’s away into far worse conditions on the malarial rice plantations
Eastern Shore, owned by a prominent local landowner named farther to the south, where any escape to freedom was less
Anthony Thompson.4 Her father, Ben Ross, was the property imaginable. Beset by persistent dreams of horsemen and the
of Thompson, but her mother, Harriet “R it” Green, was terrified screams of women and children, Harriet talked much
owned by Thompson’s stepson, Edward Brodess. When she of escape, even though her husband ridiculed and belittled her
was one or two, Minty Ross along with her four older siblings aspirations. There is no indication that these dreams were a
and mother were taken away from their father and brought specific premonitory warning or that it was a dream that finally
to Brodess’s plantation 10 miles away in Bucktown (also in prompted her escape. It was after learning (in the usual way)
Dorchester County). By law, the young Ross belonged to that two of her sisters had been sold away on a chain-gang, and
Brodess, but he frequently hired her out to other whites in the fearing that she was next, that she finally made her decision to
area, a common practice. Separation from her mother and sib- escape in autumn of that year.
lings during these long stretches away from the Brodess plan- Tubman made an initial abortive attempt with two of her
tation was itself painful, and adding to the suffering, some of brothers, but they changed their minds and wouldn’t con-
these temporary masters were quite cruel. Two of the defining tinue, so she made her second, successful attempt alone. The
traumas of her childhood, potentially relevant to the expres- Underground Railroad was already a well-functioning secret
sion of her psychic abilities, occurred during these stints. network at that point, made up of free Blacks, slaves, Quakers,
Probably around age 7 or 8, Ross was hired out to a mar- and other anti-slavery whites, as well as white people simply
ried woman, “Miss Susan,” to work as a maid and nurse for her willing to shelter escaped slaves in exchange for payment. (By
newborn. Miss Susan was sociopathically abusive, even by slave- the late 1840s, hundreds of slaves escaped from the Eastern
master standards—brutally whipping the child on her first day Shore each year, prompting slaveowners’ increased vigilance.)
of work for not knowing how to dust furniture, and so on. The Aided by a local white woman to whom she gave her favorite
mistreatment appalled even Susan’s visiting sister, who insisted bed quilt in exchange for her help, and following the North
Susan stop hurting her. The detail that is potentially relevant Star as her compass, Tubman made her way to the safe haven
to the psychic story I’ll be telling is that Miss Susan made her of Philadelphia in autumn of 1849. Having spent nearly three
young slave stay awake, long into the night, every night, to rock decades enslaved, crossing the Pennsylvania state line was like
the cradle of her “cross, sick child” to keep it from crying. We’ll being reborn: “I looked at my hands to see if I was the same
see later why this could be important. person,” she later recalled to Sarah H. Bradford, one of her
The episode that has received more attention from biogra- early biographers. “There was such a glory over every thing;
phers is a severe head injury Ross received probably in her very the sun came like gold through the trees, and over the fields,
early teens, after having been hired out to break flax for “the and I felt like I was in Heaven.”5
worst man in the neighborhood.” While she was on an errand Over the following decade, Tubman made multiple
to a dry-goods store for this temporary master, an overseer stealthy trips back to the Eastern Shore—including back to
from a neighboring farm commanded Ross to help restrain one the farm she had fled from—to bring her family members and
of his slaves who had fled and taken refuge inside. Ross refused, many other slaves to freedom.6 These adventures have been
and the overseer hurled a two-pound scale weight at the fleeing widely told, often with embellishment, in children’s books.
man, which fell short and hit her instead, breaking her skull. Popular accounts based on Bradford’s writings often claim
Ross was given no medical care and was made to return to work that Tubman freed 300 slaves on 19 such missions, but his-
after a day in bed, but she kept fainting, and blood and sweat torians now agree that Bradford’s figures are inflated. The
running into her eyes made it impossible to see. Her temporary truth is still impressive: Larson’s careful research points to
master returned her to Brodess as worthless, and Brodess was 13 separate missions and approximately 70 slaves directly led
unable to sell her thereafter because of her injury. to freedom by Tubman, who also left instructions for many
Ross experienced frequent headaches the rest of her life more to make their own way north, in what became a “stam-
as a consequence of her head injury. She also suffered extreme pede” of fugitives by the late 1850s.7 The Fugitive Slave Act,
lethargy and a tendency to fall spontaneously into deep, non- which legally obligated Northerners to return escaped slaves
restful slumber. Biographer Kate Clifford Larson argues that to their Southern masters, was passed in 1850, and although
her narcoleptic episodes as well as her lifelong religiosity and widely resented and often ignored, it made life for escaped
belief in the reality of her frequent dreams and visions were slaves perilous even in Northern states. So Tubman’s missions
 EDGESCIENCE #50 • JUNE 2022 / 7

Raid of Second South Carolina Volunteers (Colonel James Montgomery) at the Combahee River, June 2, 1863. Harper’s Weekly

carried her and her companions from Maryland to Ontario, Tubman’s skills and experience using secret slave com-
in Canada, enlisting the aid of a wide network of abolition- munications networks also made her a valuable asset in larger
ists and fellow Underground Railroad conductors all along antislavery actions that were planned. In 1858, militant white
the way. abolitionist John Brown sought Tubman’s aid in planning his
Tubman’s skill moving secretly through dangerous enemy raid at Harper’s Ferry, Virginia (now, West Virginia), which
territory, utilizing disguise and trickery to evade detection, was intended to foment a slave uprising in that state. Then in
made her a legend among Maryland slaves—who called the April 1859, Tubman helped antislavery activists in Troy, New
mysterious (and, many assumed, male) liberator Moses. Her York, stage a daring rescue of a fugitive slave, Charles Nalle,
disguises were varied, including dressing as a man, but one from U.S. Marshalls. She began by infiltrating the U.S. com-
of her favorite tactics was hiding in plain sight, pretending to missioner’s office where Nalle’s fate was being contested by law-
be an old or confused woman. On one of her missions, she yers, in the guise of “a somewhat antiquated colored woman”
avoided the gaze of her former master by making a deliberate (as the local newspaper reported) wearing a conspicuous sun
commotion with some chickens she was holding. Effectively she bonnet. She sat unnoticed amid the proceedings and then,
cloaked herself within the prejudices of her enemies, who never when the authorities decided to move Nalle to a more secure
imagined a Black woman going about her daily business could nearby courthouse, she signaled the mob outside and then led
pose a threat.8 On another occasion she approached and essen- them in prying Nalle from the grip of authorities and convey-
tially flirted with some Irish laborers working on a Delaware ing him to a waiting ferry on a nearby waterfront.
bridge that her large party needed to cross. She struck up a The climax of Tubman’s anti-slavery career came at the
conversation and intimated to them that she was looking for a beginning of June 1863, when after an initial scouting mis-
white man to marry, successfully distracting the fellows long sion to gather intelligence on enemy locations, she helped
enough that her fugitives could slip by unnoticed. Although Union Colonel James Montgomery (a former compatriot of
her missions were perilous and there was a price on her own John Brown’s) lead a force of Union soldiers up the Combahee
head as well as those of many of her charges, she was fond of River in South Carolina, routing Confederate forces, setting
boasting that she “never lost a passenger.” plantations and storehouses ablaze, and liberating more than
8 / EDGESCIENCE #50 • JUNE 2022

700 slaves. She is widely claimed to be the first woman to lead Bradford, the first individual to attempt a book-length
U.S. troops in a Civil War battle.9 biography of Tubman, was of a similar mind to Sanborn. Her
two books on Tubman—a hastily composed set of personal
reminiscences and letters published in 1869 as Scenes in the Life
“Omens, Dreams, and Warnings” of Harriet Tubman and then a more polished but also more
The first person to tell Tubman’s story in print and “out” her sanitized version published in 1886 as Harriet: The Moses of
as the legendary Moses who had struck so many blows against Her People—relate several of Tubman’s claimed “dreams and
Southern slaveowners was Boston schoolteacher and journalist visions.” But like Sanborn, Bradford was quick to signal the
Franklin Sanborn. Sanborn first met Tubman in 1858 via the delicacy of the subject of Tubman’s supernormal experiences
network of abolitionists who were secretly funding Brown’s and her own semi-ambivalence toward them.16 She claims she
planned raid, and Tubman came to trust the writer as a genu- limited the stories in her book to those that could be verified
ine ally in the anti-slavery cause. Telling the rudiments of her by others or that she had witnessed firsthand, for fear of bring-
story in 1863 in the antislavery newspaper he edited, The Boston ing too much discredit on her subject.17
Commonwealth, Sanborn paints a compelling picture of a cun- Bradford reported witnessing episodes of religious rapture
ning tactician and fearless fighter in the cause of civil rights. He in Tubman, as well as the apparent facility with out-of-body
also admired her spy-like caution, for instance her practice of travel that Sanborn mentioned: “When the turns of somno-
carefully quizzing strangers (including Sanborn, on their first lence come upon Harriet, her ‘spirit,’ as she says, goes away
meeting) with daguerrotypes of mutual abolitionist friends, to from her body, and visits other scenes and places, and if she
ensure her visitors were who they claimed to be.10 ever really sees them afterwards they are perfectly familiar to
In his article, Sanborn described Tubman as “the most her and she can find her way about alone.”18
shrewd and practical person in the world, yet she is a firm In her first book, Bradford reproduces an account related
believer in omens, dreams, and warnings.”11 Pay attention to to her in a letter by Wilmington, Delaware, abolitionist
that “yet.” The journalist had difficulty reconciling Tubman’s Thomas Garrett, describing what has become one of Tubman’s
paramilitary prowess with her interesting but hard-to-explain most famous exploits as a conductor on the Underground
inner life, and this difficulty is a theme running through Railroad: leading a small group including two “stout men” to
pretty much everything that has been written about Tubman freedom. (Larson suggests this episode may have occurred in
since. Then as now, the sciences were ascendant among many the spring of 1856.) Garrett relates that about 30 miles south
educated persons like Sanborn, and with that came inher- of Wilmington,
ent skepticism at claims of miracles and the supernatural. Yet,
despite sympathy with readers’ inevitable doubts, Sanborn felt God told her to stop, which she did; and then asked
strongly that this “singular trait”12 in Tubman’s character was him what she must do. He told her to leave the road,
too important to be ignored. and turn to the left; she obeyed, and soon came to
For example, Sanborn described Tubman’s flying dreams a small stream of tide water; there was no boat, no
that may have been what we now call out-of-body experiences: bridge; she again inquired of her Guide what she was
to do. She was told to go through.19
She declares that before her escape from slavery, she
used to dream of flying over fields and towns, and rivers Despite the cold—it was March—Tubman had complete
and mountains, looking down upon them “like a bird,” confidence in her divine guide, so she began wading across,
and reaching at last a great fence, or sometimes a river, the water rising as high as her armpits. The men refused to
over which she would try to fly, “but it appeared like I follow her until they saw her safely reach the far shore but
wouldn’t have the strength, and just as I was sinking then entered the frigid water. The group then had to ford a
down, there would be ladies all dressed in white over second stream before they found the cabin of a Black fam-
there, and they would put out their arms and pull me ily who gave them shelter and dried their clothes. Tubman
across.” There is nothing strange in this, perhaps, but left them some undergarments in payment, but contracted
she declares that when she came North she remembered a respiratory ailment from the ordeal—she was barely able
these very places as those she had seen in her dreams, to speak when she and her party arrived in Wilmington two
and many of the ladies who befriended her were those days later. Garrett adds “the strange part of the story”: that
she had been helped by in her visions.13 Tubman and party discovered when they came out of hid-
ing that the fugitives’ master had put up reward posters for
Sanborn also wrote that on dangerous missions during the them at a nearby train station, suggesting by implication that
mid-1850s, after a reward had been offered for her capture, Tubman’s unexpected course of action may indeed have saved
“she several times was on the point of being taken, but always them from being caught. 20 Bradford retold this story in her
escaped by her quick wit, or by ‘warnings’ from Heaven . . .”14 second biography and added that she had also heard the story
These warnings, he wrote, came to her often as a fluttering in from Tubman herself on multiple occasions. 21
her heart. “She says she inherited this power, that her father Another oft-retold story first reported by Bradford is asso-
could always predict the weather, and that he foretold the ciated with one of those allegedly accurate somatic presenti-
Mexican war.”15 ments Sanborn mentioned: Tubman became “much troubled
 EDGESCIENCE #50 • JUNE 2022 / 9

in spirit about her three brothers, feeling sure that some great associates reported other remarkable, seemingly “clairvoyant”
evil was impending over their heads.”22 So she enlisted a friend episodes centered on specific sums of money being sent or set
to write a letter for her to a literate free Black man in the area aside for her—first to finance her missions and then, after the
where her brothers lived, named Jacob Jackson, indicating in Civil War, to support the poor Black people she boarded at her
code that her brothers should be ready for her arrival. The mes- home in Auburn, New York. For instance, Garrett recounted a
sage evaded detection by inspectors who were reading Jackson’s visit in which she said, “God tells me you have money for me.”
mail, and her arrival came, she said, just in the nick of time: “Well!,” he exclaimed, “how much does thee want?” “About
twenty-three dollars,” Tubman answered. Garret writes that
When Harriet arrived there, it was the day before he “then gave her twenty-four dollars and some odd cents,
Christmas, and she found her three brothers, who had the net proceeds of five pounds sterling, received through
attempted to escape, were advertised to be sold on Eliza Wigham, of Scotland, for her.”27 This was the first time
Christmas day to the highest bidder, to go down to Tubman had come to Garrett for money, and the first time that
the cotton and rice fields with the chain gang. . . . When he actually had received a donation for her, so the timing as
the holidays were over, and the men came for the three well as the precision are interesting.
brothers to sell them, they could not be found.23 Tubman called on Garrett again a year later, saying God
had told her he once more had “some money for her, but not
There is no way to verify the accuracy of Tubman’s claimed so much as before.” The abolitionist had indeed, just a few days
presentiments—for instance that she knew in advance the prior, received the equivalent of one pound and ten shillings
urgency of going to rescue her brothers, or that God’s voice sent from Europe for her cause. “To say the least,” Garrett
directed her to ford a stream because pursuers were close to noted, “there was something remarkable in these facts, whether
catching them. Nor is there any way to verify the claims that clairvoyance, or the divine impression on her mind from the
Tubman had actually seen her future refuges and helpers in source of all power, I cannot tell; but certain it was she had a
her dreams or out-of-body travels—which would make those guide within herself other than the written word, for she never
experiences “veridical” in the language of parapsychologists. had any education.”28
But slaves she had helped to freedom witnessed these kinds of Bradford reported that, on another occasion, Tubman
marvels firsthand and held her in awe because of them. “received an intimation in some mysterious or supernatural
When Black novelist and historian William Wells Brown way” that her parents needed rescue and “asked the Lord where
interviewed former slaves in Canada in 1860, they told him she should go for the money to enable her to go for them.” In
that “Moses has the charm”—a kind of superhuman charisma. answer, she was “directed to the office of a certain gentleman,
“The whites can’t catch Moses, cause you see she’s born with a friend of the slaves, in New York,” whom she asked for $20,
the charm. The Lord has given Moses the power.”24 Brown also explaining that the Lord had sent her. Incredulous and hav-
wrote that Black soldiers in camps Tubman visited during the ing no money for her, the gentleman said, “Well I guess the
Civil War “would have died for this woman, for they believed Lord’s mistaken this time.” Undeterred, Tubman sat and slept
that she had a charmed life.”25 Tubman herself believed this, the whole day, arousing the attention of visitors to the office,
saying that the charm gave her courage, “nerved her up” in who shared stories of her exploits. “At all events she came to
adversity and did the same for her followers. In her totally con- full consciousness, at last, to find herself the happy possessor
fident hands, they felt safe. of sixty dollars, the contribution of these strangers. She went
There seemed to be more to this quality than just cour- on her way rejoicing to bring her old parents from the land of
age. Sanborn, trying to explain Tubman’s charm, attributed it bondage.”29
to her intelligence and her heavenly warnings. Thomas Garrett, In a revised edition of her second biography of Tubman,
in his letter to Bradford, attributed it to her overriding trust Bradford also recalled an episode some years later, when she
and confidence in God, her guide: forwarded a $7 donation for Tubman to a prominent woman
physician in Auburn, New York, who was acting as Tubman’s
[I]n truth I never met with any person, of any color, treasurer. Bradford later received a letter from the physician say-
who had more confidence in the voice of God, as ing Tubman had previously come to her asking for a $7 loan
spoken direct to her soul. She has frequently told to pay her bills and promising she could repay the debt the fol-
me that she talked with God, and he talked with her lowing Tuesday. Teasing her, the physician had asked her how
every day of her life, and she has declared to me that she could trust that the debt would be repaid on Tuesday, to
she felt no more fear of being arrested by her former which Tubman reiterated her promise, saying “I can’t just tell
master, or any other person, when in his immedi- you how.” The physician received Bradford’s package with the
ate neighborhood, than she did in the State of New $7 for Tubman on the Tuesday in question. “Others thought
York, or Canada, for she said she never ventured [any- this strange, but there was nothing strange about it to her.”30
where except] where God sent her, and her faith in a
Supreme Power truly was great.26
Ghosting John Brown
Although less colorful and dramatic than the alleged pre- Besides Tubman’s oft-quoted dream of Emancipation that
sentiments guiding Tubman in her rescue missions, friends and caused her to rejoice three years ahead of the actual event, the
10 / EDGESCIENCE #50 • JUNE 2022

best-known of Tubman’s dreams, and the only one recorded

in much detail, is a recurring dream that she told Sanborn had
preceded her first meeting with John Brown in St. Catharines,
Ontario, in April 1858. Brown, it must be noted, was already
in awe of Tubman, calling her “the General,” and desperately
hoped for the seasoned guerrilla’s participation in the raid he
had been planning—for several years by that point—to conduct
on Harper’s Ferry.31 Sanborn writes that, in Tubman’s dreams,

She thought she was in “a wilderness sort of place,

all full of rocks and bushes,” when she saw a ser-
pent raise its head among the rocks, and as it did so,
it became the head of an old man with a long white
beard, gazing at her “wishful like, just as if he were
going to speak to me,” and then two other heads rose

Martin M. Lawrence
up beside him, younger than he,—and as she stood
looking at them, and wondering what they could want
with her, a great crowd of men rushed in and struck
down the younger heads, and then the head of the old
man, still looking at her so “wishful.” This dream she
had again and again, and could not interpret it; but,
when she met Captain Brown, shortly after, behold,
he was the very image of the head she had seen. But
still she could not make out what her dream signified,
till the news came to her of the tragedy of Harper’s
Ferry, and then she knew the two other heads were
his two sons.32

Brown’s plan was to lead an army of volunteers, includ-

John Brown, 1859
ing fugitive slaves, to take over the armory in Harper’s Ferry.
They were going to distribute the weapons to the local slaves,
enabling them to rise against the slaveowners. The idea was perhaps she fell sick or had to attend her sick parents. But it has
to deplete Virginia of its slaves, county by county, in a grow- occurred to some historians like Larson that Tubman may have
ing movement that would ultimately shatter the slave economy realized the flaws in Brown’s plan and feigned being sick to
throughout the South. After a year’s postponement, Brown avoid his disapproval—“ghosting” him, as we would now say.
finally led his crusade on October 16, 1859, with the help of I’m not aware of historians drawing a connection between
only 21 men—far fewer than what he had hoped for. Tubman’s absence at Harper’s Ferry and her famous dream
According to Sanborn, Tubman was in New York at the about Brown, but it strikes me as an obvious piece of the puz-
time and “felt her usual warning that something was wrong— zle. Tubman was a conscious shaper of her own story, and that
she could not tell what. Finally she told her hostess that it must would have included her divulgences to her white biographers
be Captain Brown who was in trouble, and that they should like Sanborn about her dreams and how she interpreted them—
soon hear bad news from him. The next day’s newspaper or in this case, didn’t interpret them. Assuming the dream
brought tidings of what had happened.”33 The tiny force had account itself is true and faithfully told, I find it implausible
successfully captured the armory and cut off telegraph commu- that someone as attuned to her dreamlife as Tubman was would
nication to the outside world; but a railroad carried news to a be able to tell that the serpent in her dream was Brown upon
neighboring town and a militia was summoned to put down meeting him but only recognize the ominous symbolism (the
the insurrection. One of Brown’s participating sons escaped, serpent-heads being struck down) after the failed raid. Was it
but two were killed. Brown himself was captured, tried, found the dream that kept her away? Might it at least have confirmed
guilty, and executed by hanging on December 2. a conscious inkling that, however noble Brown’s intentions in
One of the big question marks in Tubman’s life centers on making open war on Southern slavery, his crusade was doomed
her absence at that ill-fated raid. In her initial meetings with to end in failure?34
Brown and his followers in April 1858, she was enthusiastic and There is no way of knowing, but I believe circumstances
proceeded to help him recruit volunteers among former slaves do point to the dream-story’s authenticity. Why invent such
in Ontario. She met with him again as late as May 1859. Yet an obviously dark oneiric prophecy about her friend and ally
strangely, Tubman was nowhere to be found in the summer and Brown that she obviously did not act on (i.e., she didn’t warn
fall of that year as the planned action drew near. All efforts of or dissuade him). Relating it to Sanborn as a dream that she
Brown’s followers to locate her failed. Sanborn suggested that just didn’t understand the meaning of until too late seems
 EDGESCIENCE #50 • JUNE 2022 / 11

like a judicious compromise. Interestingly, and I suspect also Fanny Seward died in October 1866, so this story was
relevantly, Sanborn reported that Tubman retained a practi- likely based on notes from interviews Bradford had conducted
cally religious devotion to Brown after his death, saying that years earlier, for her first biography of Tubman.38 She may have
it was God who died at the gallows that day, not a mere man. left it out of that book because of its uncomfortably supernat-
A Freudian, attuned to how people often overcompensate for ural-sounding subject matter.
unconscious guilt feelings, might have something to say about
that devotion.
Other precognitive dreams of Tubman were reported by Explaining Away
her friends after the Civil War. For instance, in late January Unsurprisingly, given the variable nature of the evidence and
1884, Tubman visited friend and fellow suffragist Eliza Wright the fact that it all dates from a fading, sepia-toned past, skepti-
Osborne and told her host some “mysterious dreams and cism still clouds the reports of Tubman’s premonitory dreams
thoughts that had come to her” that were troubling, including and presentiments. While a few of the above stories have found
a dream about a week before in which she “saw so many people their way (sometimes embellished) into children’s books or
drowning and some burning up.” Osborne showed her a news- writings and videos on dreams or the paranormal, 39 serious
paper from the time of the dream, reporting on the wreck of biographers have minimized or wholly ignored this dimension
the steamer City of Columbus off Martha’s Vineyard, in which of Tubman. At best, it is considered an unverifiable and unex-
more than 100 lives were lost—among them, many women and aminable “subjective side” of her story, as historian Milton C.
children. Tubman said she “had not heard of it.”35 Sernett puts it—part of Tubman’s “non-white religious self.”40
In the revised edition of her second Tubman biography, What was that religious self? Tubman’s background was
issued in 1901, Bradford included several pages of new material probably a mélange of many faith traditions and practices. The
based in part on recent interviews with her subject. There were Brodesses were Methodists, and Tubman and her fellow slaves
additional dreams, including one about a terrible earthquake: were forced to attend Methodist services. But there may have
also been Baptist, Episcopal, and Catholic influences (Tubman
She woke from a sleep one day in great agitation, and fasted on Fridays, for instance—a mainly Catholic practice), as
ran to the houses of her colored neighbors, exclaim- well as influences from increasingly popular Black evangelical
ing that “a dreadful thing was happening somewhere, churches, which subversively preached the promise of deliver-
the ground was opening, and the houses were falling ance from enslavement. To these various flavors of Christianity
in, and the people being killed faster than they was in must probably be added West African beliefs and traditions,
the war—faster than they was in the war.” which included beliefs in magic and divination and the real-
At that very time, or near it, an earthquake was ity of prophetic dreams.41 There is reason to think that at least
occurring in the northern part of South America, for one of Tubman’s grandparents was brought on a slave ship
the telegram came that day, though why a vision of it from what is now Ghana, on the Gold Coast; and as a child she
should be sent to Harriet no one can divine.36 was told that her heritage was Asante, one of the main ethnic
groups of that region. Whatever went into the mix, Tubman’s
There is no date given for this dream or the earthquake, was a vivid and daily—or constant—lived experience of a
but it was probably the devastating San Narciso earthquake real and vital connection to a higher power. Biographer Jean
that caused fissures in the ground, building collapses, and Humez writes that “Tubman’s God emerges … as an approach-
many deaths in towns near the Venezuelan coastal capital of able partner and unfailing support for those who were righting
Caracas in 1900. wrongs. God was her name for the source of visionary guidance
Bradford also reported how Tubman learned in a dream for her antislavery action. Prayer enabled her to tap directly into
of the unexpected death of young Fanny Seward, a friend of the source of such guidance.”42
hers and the daughter of Lincoln’s Secretary of State, William Nor would Tubman’s earliest biographers have had much
H. Seward: besides a religious idiom in which to explain her experiences—
indeed a much narrower Christian idiom—and this accounts
Sitting in her house one day, deep sleep fell upon her, for some of the hesitation shown toward her stories. Most white
and in a dream or vision she saw a chariot in the air, Christians of the time believed that God heard their prayers,
going south, and empty, but soon it returned, and but the idea that God talked back was not yet the mainstream
lying in it, cold and stiff, was the body of a young belief that it became for white evangelicals in the next cen-
lady of whom Harriet was very fond, whose home was tury.43 A Presbyterian, Bradford herself was uncomfortable with
in Auburn, but who had gone to Washington with the idea of Tubman actually getting a reply when she talked to
her father, a distinguished officer of the Government God, as in the episode with the cold river-crossing.44
there. Especially in the latter part of the 19th century, there
The shock roused Harriet from her sleep, and she were alternative framings that writers could have drawn on,
ran into Auburn, to the house of her minister, crying had they been cognizant of them. The new religious move-
out: “Oh, Miss Fanny is dead!” and the news had just ment Spiritualism had already been flourishing in the west-
been received.37 ern half of New York state, where Tubman settled after the
Civil War. Many abolitionists embraced this trend, and it may
12 / EDGESCIENCE #50 • JUNE 2022

have had some effect on the positive acceptance of Tubman’s omens (noting that she was regarded by those who knew her
story in these circles, if not among her biographers.45 Soon, as “touched in the head”). He received replies from physicians
the world of science and technology would provide new meta- who variously attributed these things to her traumatic experi-
phors that eventually helped frame things like prophetic dreams ences as a slave, to hysteria, and to the head injury.46 Since there
and visions in a less spiritual or religious way. Drawing on the was no consensus of professional medical opinion, he ultimately
recent innovation of the telegraph, English classicist Frederic left the matter of his subject’s visionary experiences out of his
W. H. Myers coined the term “telepathy” in 1882 as a theory 1943 biography, Harriet Tubman.47
to explain what we would now call psychic or ESP experi- Alice Brickler, a daughter of one of Tubman’s nieces, con-
ences, including the kinds of premonitory visions and dreams ducted a cordial but disputatious correspondence with Conrad
that various friends and biographers of Tubman described. about this aspect of her great aunt while he was researching his
But the ideas and findings of nascent psychical research don’t book. Conrad had asserted in a letter that Tubman’s visions and
seem to have influenced Tubman’s biographers any more than dreams were “by no means the most important thing” about
Spiritualism did. her, but Brickler forcefully countered that her religious life
should not be omitted:

I may be wrong but I believe that every age, every

country and every race, especially during the darkest
The sort of somatic, “heart- history, has had its unusual Souls who were in touch
with some mysterious central originating Force, a
fluttering” warnings Tubman comprehensive stupendous Unity for which we have
no adequate name. Aunt Harriet was one of those
unusual souls. Her religion, her dreams or visions
reported . . . are also a common were so bond together that nobody, and I certainly
should not attempt it, could separate them.48
feature, anecdotally, in the
Although not religious herself, Brickler added that as “a
lives of psychics; the military member of an oppressed race” her Aunt Harriet needed “the
inspiration of the mystic as well as sagacity,” and that “It
was her dreams which saved her life often . . . and it was her
is even known to have funded superhuman courage and beliefs which gave her the power to
accomplish what she had undertaken.”49 Conrad, who could
research on “Spidey sense.” not imagine a religious worldview that was not an opium of
the masses, was not to be swayed. He replied to Brickler that
“God is a piece of heavy artillery, employed by the rich to keep
the poor content, satisfied, unrebellious, unmoving.”50 And
that was that.
In the 20th century, mainstream academic or scientific cul- A neurobiological explanation for Tubman’s experiences
ture continued to marginalize psychical research, even after J. has served as an escape hatch for other biographers. In her com-
B. Rhine and Louisa Rhine introduced more rigorous scientific prehensive and otherwise excellent 2003 biography, Bound for
methods in studying ESP at Duke University in the 1930s. The the Promised Land, Larson attributed Tubman’s sleeping spells,
persistent gap between the robust support for ESP generated visions, and religiosity to temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE), a neu-
by parapsychologists and skepticism by mainstream scientists rological disorder first described in the mid-1970s (originally as
is well-known. The same skepticism—or really, ignorance of Geschwind Syndrome).51 Powerful religious visions, disembod-
the whole topic—pervades the humanities as well. Thus it is ied voices, alternating hyperactivity and fatigue, out-of-body
unsurprising that modern historians have mostly failed to even experiences, and trance states are famous symptoms of this
consider Tubman’s experiences as ESP evidence. condition, and they sometimes arise after severe head injury.
The problem is compounded by Tubman’s status as a pro- Given how closely Tubman’s behavior matches TLE symp-
gressive icon. After Bradford, the next person to write a major tomatology, it is certainly plausible that she had it. But we must
biography on Tubman was a leftist journalist named Earl be careful: Neuroscience is often used as a cudgel against para-
Conrad, who went to great lengths to minimize the spiritual normal claims. Any diagnosis of brain injury or disease tends
and supernatural dimension of Tubman’s story. Conrad was to carry the implication that, whatever the individual’s own
keen to portray Tubman as an effective radical and a revolution- convictions, their experiences are not “real.” In writings on
ary—perhaps the greatest-ever American hero—but his Marxist dream research, one will often see some version of the trope:
materialist worldview could not assimilate her mysticism. When “dreams were once thought to carry omens of the future, but
he was researching her life in the 1930s, he wrote to psychi- then science showed that they could be explained as phenom-
atric hospitals for insight, describing her narcolepsy, halluci- ena of the brain.” The both-and possibility (which I make a
nations, talking to God, and belief in prophetic dreams and case for in my work52) remains unconsidered. To acknowledge
 EDGESCIENCE #50 • JUNE 2022 / 13

that Tubman may have had TLE, in other words, says nothing untrained ability and those who have been trained in modern
about the possible veridicality of the dreams and visions that methods like remote viewing. Three of the most studied and
her condition might have produced or facilitated. storied psychics of the famous Star Gate psychic spying pro-
Also, people can be religious and believe in their dreams gram and the research at Stanford Research Institute that led to
and visions without TLE. Those things were very much fea- it—McMoneagle, Ingo Swann, and Pat Price—reported a facil-
tures of Black culture at the time, and after. As Sernett writes, ity with traveling out of body; Swann and Price, who developed
“What Conrad missed and Bradford sought to domesticate this ability as part of their Scientology training, both reported
belongs to the prophetic and visionary strand within African obtaining psychic information in such a state.62 An argument
American religion sometimes associated with the belief that can be made (controversially) that what seem like “out of body”
certain individuals are born with unusual seer-like powers.”53 experiences are really vivid or video-quality previews of in-body
But the fact that a folkloric belief in psychic phenomena was experiences later during waking life.63
part of Tubman’s cultural milieu again lets biographers wash The “charm” attributed to Tubman is a familiar part of
their hands of the precognitive claims—they can chalk it up battlefield folklore, going by different names. Some charismatic
to her (implicitly superstitious) “non-white religious self.” individuals seem magically protected from danger and emanate
Once more, there’s a both-and that falls through the cracks. a kind of calming authority. Colonel Kilgore (Robert Duvall)
Abundant robust evidence suggests that, on the subject of what in Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now is a fictitious ver-
we can loosely call prophecy, folklore—including African reli- sion of this archetype, but a real one might be the Australian
gious beliefs—is far closer to the reality than mainstream sci- photographer and explorer Sir George Hubert Wilkins. During
entific psychology currently is. World War I, Wilkins was seen striding fearlessly across battle-
fields with his camera, bullets whizzing by him or harmlessly
bouncing off his coat. He felt protected by a supernatural or
Super + Natural supernormal force. Like Tubman, he described what we would
Decades of findings from multiple laboratories now support now call extrasensory presentiments and warnings—a sort of
precognition in various forms. A famous meta-analysis of Spidey sense, which baffled and inspired his companions and
forced-choice (Zener-card) precognition experiments con- later saw him through numerous perils as a polar explorer.64
ducted over several decades revealed astronomically high Precognitive dreams are the most common paranormal
support for precognition.54 Using remote viewing-type tasks, experience, reported by a large percentage of the population
researchers at Princeton’s PEAR lab gathered signif icant and accepted as a normal feature of dreaming by most non-
evidence that participants can draw or describe targets that Western cultures, including African cultures like the Asante
haven’t been selected yet with greater-than-chance accuracy.55 that influenced slave folklore and beliefs.65 As is quite typical for
Predictive physiological responses, or “presponses,” to stimuli those who report such dreams, Tubman’s dreams sometimes
have garnered considerable research attention since pioneering related to events that were soon to be reported in the news or
studies by Dean Radin in the mid-1990s, and meta-analyses that she would soon be told of, even if they had already hap-
of this body of research also show overwhelming statistical pened. These kinds of uncanny yet “random” and often news-
support. 56 The sort of somatic, “heart-fluttering” warnings associated dreams are sometimes called “Dunne dreams,” after
Tubman reported to Sanborn are also a common feature, anec- the precognitive dreamwork pioneer J. W. Dunne, whose 1927
dotally, in the lives of psychics; the military is even known to book An Experiment with Time is one of the most important
have funded research on “Spidey sense.”57 And there is grow- books ever written on the subject.66 Dreams are notoriously
ing evidence for behavioral presponses as well: Findings from hard to study scientifically, however, and this is doubly the case
Cornell psychologist Daryl Bem’s famous “Feeling the Future” for precognitive dreams. They typically occur spontaneously,
series of experiments published in 2011 have been replicated and with limited exceptions, experiencers typically aren’t aware
by multiple labs.58 of having had a precognitive dream until the precognized event
Precognition/presentiment often anecdotally manifests as comes to pass. Skeptics thus dismiss precognitive dream reports
auditory “hallucination.” A psychic and ESP researcher in the as hindsight memory distortion; yet when dreamers do care-
mid-20th century, Rosalind Heywood, reported receiving what fully record and date their dreams, the records can frequently
she called “orders” from a disembodied voice that only made be shown to match later events and learning experiences, just
sense in light of information she would learn later, typically after as Dunne claimed. As I and a growing number of researchers
following the voice’s strange instructions.59 One of the most in this field have shown, there is more than ample evidence that
famous living psychics, the remote viewer Joe McMoneagle, dream precognition not only is real but in fact is common. I
reported an inner voice guiding him away from danger dur- argue it is basic to dreaming’s function.67
ing his time in Vietnam.60 Trance medium Jess Taylor describes A detail of Tubman’s life that is consistent with the biog-
receiving “telepathic” instruction as though via an earphone raphies of some psychics is the head injury she received in her
that discretely directs her to places where she will find a person early teens. The only Tubman biographer to take the psychic
in need of aid and then instruction in how to provide that aid— claims seriously, James A. McGowan, argued that it was this
information that, she claims, proves accurate.61 event that activated her abilities, noting that some contempo-
Proneness to out-of-body experiences is another commonly rary psychics similarly attributed their powers to head inju-
reported characteristic of psychics, both those with a natural ries—Dutch psychic Peter Hurkos being a famous example.68
14 / EDGESCIENCE #50 • JUNE 2022

Other physical traumas like lightning strikes or fevers, as well in accessing, abiding in, and perhaps attending to these poten-
as psychological traumas including histories of abuse, are also tially precognogenic liminal-dream states.76
common in the biographies of psychics and experiencers of the I also consider Tubman’s famous prayer for the death of her
paranormal, as they are, notably, in spiritual workers like sha- master Edward Brodess to be an item potentially added to the list
mans throughout the world.69 of evidence for her specifically precognitive (and not generalized
Some writers have talked about physical as well as psycho- “psi”) abilities. She told Bradford that she had regularly prayed
logical trauma as “unlocking” (or in Whitley Strieber’s phrase, for Brodess to repent of his wickedness, but that upon hearing
“cracking open”70) supernormal capacities and perceptions. It plans to sell her and her siblings away, she changed her prayer:
is an intuitively compelling metaphor, but it may be possible “First of March I began to pray, ‘Oh, Lord, if you aren’t ever
to specify some more precise psychological mechanisms— going to change that man’s heart, kill him, Lord, and take him
most notably, dissociation. Out-of-body experiences may be out of the way.”77 Brodess died just over a week later, on March
triggered as a way of escaping traumas when they are occur- 9, 1849. Parapsychologists interested in PK and the “power of
ring. With repeated traumatic experience, that dissociation can prayer” will certainly disagree here, but I’ve argued elsewhere
become habitual or second nature. Unsurprisingly, out-of-body that conscious intentions or decisions, especially of highly intui-
“flights to freedom” were a common slave experience;71 this is tive people, may be precognition misrecognized.78 Individuals
easily attributed, reductively, to cultural tradition and, implic- with a strong and perhaps overdeveloped sense of self-efficacy—
itly at least, a kind of Freudian wish-fulfillment, but trauma sometimes called “internal locus of control”—may overinterpret
must be considered as a factor.72 Anecdotally at least, trauma- their own intentions as directly causative over events or causative
induced dissociative experiences may contain veridical precog- via the mediation of some reliably compliant supernatu-
nitive information similar to that available in dreams.73 ral power.79 Such a sense of self-efficacy (via God) cer-
Another circumstance that can produce waking tainly applies to Tubman.
and semi-waking altered states is attempting to stay Referring to the role of unrecognized or mis-
awake despite extreme fatigue. Although writers on recognized precognition in producing expectation
Tubman’s dreams have given it less attention than the effects in laboratory research, Edwin May describes
head injury, the terrible period “Minty” spent as a “decision augmentation”: precognitively making
nurse for the cruel Miss Susan is potentially just as choices (e.g., in sorting of test and control subjects
relevant. To keep Miss Susan’s “cross, sick child” or in experiment timing) that will lead to the
from rousing her mother, Minty had to fight desired result.80 Tubman’s change of her prayer
to remain conscious and would be promptly just a week before Brodess’s death could have
whipped about the face and neck when she been decision augmentation in more or less this
(inevitably) did fall asleep. (Bradford said sense. The same framing potentially applies to
that the scars from those punishments, many of Tubman’s decisions, such as the timing
like the head wound, were still visible of her rescue missions that (she claimed) came
decades later.) The desperate effort to often in the nick of time.
remain awake despite overwhelming sleepi- The bottom line: For those with awareness
ness readily generates hypnagogic expe- of the kinds of phenomena reported in parapsy-
riences—both visual and auditory—as chology—some with strong laboratory support,
well as more profound perceptual dis- others necessarily more anecdotal—the claims
tortions and out-of-body experiences. made by and about Tubman fit a familiar pat-
So does constantly interrupted tern. Nevertheless, with Conrad, Larson, and
sleep from tending infants. 74 other academic biographers, we find our-
W hat is more, d rea mwork- selves in the typically ossified and brittle
ers may find that hypnagogic discursive universe that Rice University
images and voices may relate Religion Historian Jeffrey J. K ripal
to later or imminent experi- has noted characterizes the humani-
ences as much or more even ties around the most remarkable,
J. C. Darby/Tennessee State Library and Archives

than standard dreams. 75 “super” human experiences. First of

Whatever the added effect all, there is an inability or unwill-
of the later head injury in ingness to confront challenging
inducing her “sleeps,” I topics by “making the cut”—that
think it is important to is, to separate ostensible paranor-
consider that 8-year-old mal experiences from supernatu-
A raminta Ross’s stint ral explanations given them by
with Miss Susan could experiencers themselves and, as
have been what effec- in this case, their biographers.81
t ively “ t r a i ned” t he We need not see any account of
future Harriet Tubman Tubman’s dreams and visions
 EDGESCIENCE #50 • JUNE 2022 / 15

and answered prayers as a “biography of the Supreme Being,” committed Black people of that era. Lee is right. Somehow, the
as Conrad reductively and obstinately put it in his correspon- hard-as-nails, coarse-mouthed guerrilla, who would threaten
dence with Brickler.82 Humez’s remark that God was Tubman’s hesitant fugitives with a gun to their head, saying “Go on or
word for the visionary source of her antislavery action is what die,” magically transforms in some biographers’ and artists’
we need to bear in mind. It is perfectly possible to set aside or eyes into a nonviolent do-gooder, a Florence Nightingale-type
bracket the question of who was talking to Tubman—God, her and a “visionary.” I admit that I too succumbed to this beguile-
own future self, or something else entirely—while acknowledg- ment when I first began researching Tubman a few years ago,
ing both the importance of those inner dialogues to her life tending to just skip over the violent, darker stuff, in search of
and achievements and, more to the point, the possible veridi- that nurturing, superhuman rescuer and dreamer.
cality of the information that inner voice provided. Her experi- Bradford’s well-intentioned and still widely read biogra-
ences could be both “super” and “natural,” in other words.83 phies, especially the sanitized 1886 Harriet: The Moses of Her
People—written at Tubman’s request, to provide needed reve-
nue or her boarding of poor Blacks in Auburn—unfortunately
Toward a Multidimensional perpetuate this one-sided, charity-working view of Tubman.
Harriet Tubman Calculated to appeal to white readers in a wounded nation still
This year is (probably) the bicentennial of the birth of Araminta trying to heal from the North-South divide, Bradford mini-
Ross in a Maryland slave cabin. At this historical distance, a mized the horrors of Tubman’s slave experiences and softened
complete and clear picture of the woman she became is difficult the rougher edges of her personality.85 And by using dialect
to assemble, and likely we will never have it. Her slave-liberat- (“de” instead of “the,” etc., when quoting her), the effect
ing actions before the Civil War and her military missions dur- was to compromise her subject’s dignity and intelligence. The
ing it were conducted with great secrecy; and because she could ironic result is that Tubman’s favorite disguise—the harm-
not write her own story, we are forced to extract it from the less, possibly touched-in-the-head, God-praising old Black
written narratives of o ­ thers—individuals who, however well- woman—still exerts its effect on many white Americans more
meaning, had their own distinct biases. Tubman was biased than a century and a half later.
too. Humez stresses that even if she could not write, she was an All of which is to say that the psychic Harriet Tubman,
active shaper of her own narrative via those abolitionist and suf- with visions and dreams and conversations with a higher
fragist allies helping her tell it. Consequently, Harriet Tubman power, must remain properly framed in the context of
remains an ambiguous figure, with many seemingly hard-to- Tubman the freedom fighter, Tubman the activist, Tubman
integrate facets, a kind of Rorschach blot for later writers. the suffragist, and yes, Tubman the Amazon. Somehow inte-
I am sensitive to the fact that, outside the narrow confines grating all these sides of her would create a more multidimen-
of discourses of the paranormal and parapsychology, psychic sional picture than any of those yet written: of a Black woman
experiences are sometimes used to invalidate those who express who contributed in significant ways to the most important
or believe in them as being naïve or uncritical. So, is “Harriet social struggles of her time and (not “yet”) whose intuitive
Tubman, Precog” ready for prime time? Only if, in telling this or psychic abilities played an important role in those efforts.
part of her story, we do not lose sight of the other, equally That she was some kind of psychic superspy scanning the
important and timely Harriet Tubman stories, of which there paths ahead with nonlocal consciousness is perhaps debatable.
are a growing number. “Harriet Tubman, Astronomer” is one (I think that appealing picture is debatable with Cold War
of them. Her name has recently been put forward to replace psychic spies too.86) But that she exercised precognitive intu-
that of the homophobic NASA administrator James Webb for ition throughout her life and work, and that her open com-
the lately deployed deep-space telescope, as she famously used munication with the divine gave her an aura that galvanized
her knowledge of the stars to tell time and guide her in her and strengthened herself and others during adversity, seem
flight to freedom; she was also a witness to one of the most hard to question. In fact, that supernatural-seeming charm
spectacular meteor showers ever recorded, in 1833.84 may, in the end, be the most crucial part of the psychic pic-
“Harriet Tubman, Amazon,” is another important story ture I have tried to paint. The fact that Tubman’s story has
being (re)told. A rousing 2015 “re-biography” by feminist his- reminded so many people of Joan of Arc is no counterargu-
torian Butch Lee attempts to restore Tubman’s political acuity ment to it. If anything, it should prompt us to make the cut
and revolutionary militancy that somehow get lost in most of and consider the both-and possibility: that prophetic dreams
the books about her life. Long before the first shots were fired and the charm that comes from a divine mandate could be a
at Fort Sumter, Tubman was helping current and former slaves real pattern in the lives of charismatic freedom fighters, when-
wage a successful war on slavery; she wasn’t just rescuing people ever and wherever they appear. Super and natural.
on some humanitarian Red Cross mission. And like Conrad If I seduced you at the beginning of this article with the
before her, Lee leaves the dreams and talking-to-God com- visionary Tubman and her nice dream foretelling Lincoln’s
pletely unmentioned. The reasons are obvious: Lee asserts that Emancipation Proclamation, I would leave readers with another
most white-written histories make Tubman out to be an anom- image that seems to encapsulate not only her commando skills
aly, something exceptional and superhuman, which ultimately but, at the same time, her immense humor and her charm (in
minimizes her political thoughtfulness, her military prowess, its more mundane sense). Alice Brickler recalled a childhood
and her professionalism—qualities shared by many equally visit with her mother to the elderly Tubman’s Auburn home:
16 / EDGESCIENCE #50 • JUNE 2022

[Aunt Harriet] and Mother were talking as they sat 5 Bradford, Sarah H. (2018[1869]). Scenes in the Life of Harriet
in the yard. Tiring of their conversation, I wandered Tubman. [np].
off in the tall grasses to pick wild flowers. Suddenly 6 In Harriet’s absence, John Tubman married another woman.
I became aware of something moving toward me Although it has often been portrayed as a painful blow to
through the grass. So smoothly did it glide and with Harriet when she returned for John and found him remarried,
so little noise, I was frightened! Then reason con- she used the opportunity to rescue several other slaves, and
quered fear and I knew it was Aunt Harriet, flat on later in life, she recounted this episode, and John’s unfaithful-
her stomach and with only the use of her arms and ness, with much amusement.
serpentine movements of her body, gliding smoothly 7 Sernett (2007) argues that the evidence points to 9 trips and
along. Mother helped her back to her chair and they from 60 to 80 people liberated. Humez (2003) arrives at 11
laughed. Aunt Harriet then told me that that was the or 12 trips and 66–77 people liberated.
way she had gone by many a sentinel during the war.87 8 Lee, Butch. (2015.) “The Re-Biography of Harriet Tubman.”
In Jailbreak Out of History. Montreal, Canada: Kersplebedeb
Publishing.
Acknowledgments 9 Sernett (2007) disputes the appellation “General” often given
This article is based on a presentation given in December 2021 at to Tubman as a result of her Civil War exploits, noting that
the first Black Superhumanism symposium at Esalen’s Center for Tubman herself acknowledged in a letter that Montgomery
Theory and Research. I thank the organizers, Dr. Stephen Finley actually led the raid, even if she did the advance intelligence
and Dr. Biko Mandela Gray, for inviting me and for giving me the work and planning.
opportunity to present my still-forming thoughts on Tubman. I 10 Bradford, 1869.
also thank the seminar participants for extremely valuable feed- 11 Sanborn’s 1883 Commonwealth article, partly reproduced In
back and discussion, which contributed greatly to this article. Bradford, 1869, 39.
12 Ibid.
13 Ibid.
ERIC WARGO is a researcher 14 Ibid.
on precognition, dreams, and the 15 Ibid., 40.
paranormal. He has a Ph.D. in 16 Sernett, 2007.
anthropology from Emory Uni- 17 Bradford, 1869, 28.
versity and is the author of two 18 Ibid.
books: Time Loops and Precogni- 19 In Bradford, 1869, 26.
tive Dreamwork and the Long Self. 20 Ibid. This story was embellished, as well as conflated with
He is currently working on a book what was probably a separate mission, the rescue of Josiah
Laura Kwerel

about precognition and creativity. Bailey, in Ann Petry’s 1955 young-adult biography, Harriet
He also writes about parapsychol- Tubman: Conductor on the Underground Railroad (New York:
ogy, time travel, and conscious- HarperCollins Publishers). Popular dreamwork teacher Robert
ness at his blog, The Nightshirt. Eric lives in Fairfax, Virginia, Moss, drawing on Petry’s account of Tubman’s precognitive
and can be reached on Twitter @thenightshirt. dreams in his 2000 book Dreaming True (New York: Pocket
Books), reproduced Petry’s inaccuracies, for instance saying
that Tubman’s guidance in this instance came in a dream dur-
ENDNOTES ing one of her “sleeps.” The guidance in this case came in a
1 It was the convention in the 19th century to quote Black waking state. Petry also writes that the fugitives returned to
voices in dialect—“de” instead “the,” “dere” instead of the shore of the river where they had first crossed and found
“there,” etc. Throughout this article, I am removing the dia- trampled grass and cigar butts indicating that the search party
lect in direct quotes related by Tubman’s early biographers, had been there, an embellishment of Garrett’s detail about the
such as this vignette recounted in Sarah H. Bradford’s 1886 posted reward at a nearby train station.
book Harriet: The Moses of Her People. 21 Bradford, 1886.
2 Humez, Jean M. (2003). Harriet Tubman: The Life and Life 22 Bradford, 1869, 29
Stories. Madison, Wisconsin: The University of Wisconsin 23 Bradford, 1869, 29–31
Press. 24 In Sernett, 2007, 134
3 An invaluable guide to the uncertain and sometimes con- 25 In Sernett, 2007, 134
tradictory landscape of Tubman historiography is Milton C. 26 In Bradford, 1869, 26.
Sernett’s 2007 Harriet Tubman: Myth, Memory, and History 27 In Bradford, 1869, 26–7.
(Durham, NC: Duke University Press). 28 Bradford, 1869, 27.
4 Unless otherwise noted, I’m taking Tubman’s biographi- 29 Bradford, 1869, 50 (italics in original).
cal details from Kate Clifford Larson’s comprehensive 2003 30 Bradford, Sarah H. (1901). Harriet: The Moses of Her People,
biography, Bound for the Promised Land (New York: Random revised edition; https://www.gutenberg.org/files/9999/
House). Other sources have put her birth in 1820. old/8htub10.txt
 EDGESCIENCE #50 • JUNE 2022 / 17

31 The day after the meeting, Brown wrote to one of his sons of 57 Beidel, Eric. (2014, March 27). “More than a Feeling: ONR
Tubman, “He is most of a man that I ever met with” (Larson, Investigates ‘Spidey Sense’ for Sailors and Marines (Media
2003, 157–8). In Brown’s eyes, Tubman’s leadership qualities Release).” Arlington, VA: Office of Naval Research.
earned her the masculine pronoun. 58 Bem, Daryl. (2011). “Feeling the Future: Experimental
32 Bradford, 1869, 40–41. Evidence for Anomalous Retroactive Influences on Cognition
33 Bradford, 1869, 41. and Affect.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
34 Larson, 2003. Butch Lee (2015, 57) writes: “The plain truth 100:407–425. Bem, Daryl; Tressoldi, Patrizio E., Rabeyron,
was that Harriet wasn’t spending her life waiting around for Thomas; Duggan, Michael. (2015). “Feeling the Future:
white men to get it together. She had her own guerrilla work, A Meta-A nalysis of 90 Experiments on the A nomalous
her own political agenda, and she was pursuing those while Anticipation of Random Future Events.” F1000Research.
the dedicated but disorganized John Brown was figuring out 2015;4:1188.
what to do.” 59 Heywood, Rosalind. (1964). The Infinite Hive. London:
35 Larson, 2003, 262. Chatto & Windus.
36 Bradford, 1901. 60 McMoneagle, Joseph. (2002). The Stargate Chronicles.
37 Ibid. Charlottesville, Virginia: Hampton Roads.
38 Larson, 2003. 61 Taylor, Jess. (2020). The Voice. Author. Taylor attributes “the
39 See Moss, 2000; a 2019 YouTube video, “Harriet Tubman— Voice” to a nonhuman intelligence (not God).
Psychic, Seer” by Think A noma lous also summarizes 62 Wilhelm, John. (1976). The Search for Superman. New York:
Tubman’s life and psychic claims: https://www.youtube. Pocket Books.
com/watch?v=IkEWBA9yYDw 63 Wargo, 2021.
40 Sernett, 2007, 134. 64 Nasht, Simon. (2005). The Last Explorer. New York: Arcade
41 Chireau, Yvonne P. (2003). Black Magic. Berkeley: University Publishing. Parapsychologists will know Wilkins as the
of California Press. Shafton, A nthony. (2002). Dream- “sender” in the interesting 1937 long-distance telepathy
Singers. New York: John Wiley & Sons. experiment with Harold Sherman, published as Thoughts
42 Humez, Jean M. (1996). “In Search of Harriet Tubman’s Through Space.
Spiritual Autobiography.” In Judith Weisenfeld, R ichard 65 Shafton, 2002.
Newman, Eds., This Far by Faith. London: Routledge, 252. 66 Dunne, J. W. (1927). An Experiment with Time. London:
43 Sernett, 2007. Faber and Faber.
44 Ibid. 67 Wargo, 2021.
45 Ibid. 68 See McGowan, James A.; Kashatus, William C. (2011).
46 Ibid. Harriet Tubman. Santa Barbara, CA: Greenwood.
47 Conrad, Earl. (1943.) Harriet Tubman. Washington, DC: 69 One of the best-attested contemporary “precogs” (people
Associated Publishers. with a high degree of precognitive ability) is a Houston
48 In Sernett, 2007, 142. woman named Elizabeth Krohn, whose precognitive dreams
49 Ibid. of air and other disasters followed being struck by lightning in
50 In Sernett, 2007, 143. 1988. Krohn, Elizabeth Greenfield; Kripal, Jeffrey J. (2018).
51 Larson, 2003. Changed in a Flash. Berkeley, California: North Atlantic
52 Wargo, Eric. (2018). Time Loops. Charlottesville, Virginia: Press.
A noma l ist Book s; Wa rgo, Er ic. (2021). Precognitive 70 Strieber, Whitley; Kripal, Jeffrey J. (2016). The Super Natural.
Dreamwork and the Long Self. Rochester, Vermont: Inner New York: Tarcher/Penguin.
Traditions. 71 Johnson, Clifton H., ed. (1969). God Struck Me Dead.
53 Sernett, 2007, 144 Eugene, Oregon: Wipf & Stock. Sobel, Mechal. (2000). Teach
54 Honorton, Charles; Ferrari, Diane C. (1989). “’Future Me Dreams. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University
Telling’: A Meta-Analysis of Forced-Choice Precognition Press.
Experiments, 1935 –1987.” Journal of Parapsychology 72 As Sernett (2007) notes, the mythologization of Tubman’s
53:281–308. story has had a way of occulting the reality that many other
55 Dunne, Brenda J.; Jahn, Robert G. (2003). “Information slaves escaped to freedom and served as conductors on the
and Uncertainty in Remote Perception Research.” Journal of Underground Railroad; we just know way less about them.
Scientific Exploration 17:207–241. One wonders how often dreams may have played some role,
56 Mossbridge, Julia; Tressoldi, Patrizio; Utts, Jessica. (2012). as it did for Tubman.
“Predictive Physiological Anticipation Preceding Seemingly 73 The story of San Quentin prisoner Ed Morrell (basis of Jack
Unpredictable Stimuli: A Meta-A nalysis.” Frontiers in London’s 1915 novel The Star Rover) is one example: Morrell
Psychology 3(390):1-18. Radin, Dean I. (1997). “Unconscious claimed that while straightjacketed in solitary confinement, he
Percept ion of Fut u re E mot ion s: A n E x per i ment i n traveled out of body and saw things he later confirmed—includ-
Presentiment.” Journal of Scientific Exploration 11:163–180. ing health issues of other inmates and the new prison warden who
would ultimately pardon him. Morrell, Ed. (1955). The 25th
Man. New York: Vantage Press.
18 / EDGESCIENCE #50 • JUNE 2022

74 Hurd, R. (2014). “Unearthing the Paleolithic Mind in Lucid 79 “PK Man” Ted Owens would be an example, as at least some
Dreams.” In R. Hurd & K. Bulkeley (Eds.), Lucid dream- of Owens’ claimed feats arguably fit a misrecognized pre-
ing: New perspectives on consciousness in sleep: (pp. 277–324). cognition model. See Mishlove, Jeffrey. (2000). PK Man.
Westport, Connecticut: Praeger/ABC-CLIO. I myself expe- Charlottesville, Virginia: Hampton Roads.
rienced altered sleep states including sleep paralysis and lucid 80 May, Edwin C. (2015). “Experimenter Psi: A View of Decision
dreams, in some cases precognitive, in the first sleepless Augmentation Theory.” In E.C. May & S.B. Marwaha (Eds.),
months caring for both of my children. Extrasensory Perception Vol. 2. Santa Barbara, California:
75 Wargo, 2021. Praeger.
76 Bradford (1869, 10) even muses that “Perhaps [Miss Susan] 81 Strieber & Kripal, 2016.
was preparing her, though she did not know it then, by this 82 In Sernett, 2007, 143.
enforced habit of wakefulness, for the many long nights of 83 Strieber & Kripal, 2016.
travel, when she was the leader and guide of the weary and 84 Larson, 2003; Prescod-Weinstein, Chanda. (2021). The
hunted ones who were escaping from bondage.” The biogra- Disordered Cosmos. New York: Bold Type Books.
pher may be more right than she could have realized, even if 85 Humez, 2003.
wakefulness per se was not the only effect of this “preparation.” 86 Wargo, Eric. (2020, June). “Pat Price, Precognition, and
77 Bradford, 1869, 11. ‘Star Wars,’” EdgeScience. https://scientif icexploration.
78 Wargo, 2021. s3.amazonaws.com/files/edgescience-42.pdf#page=10
87 Humez, 2003, 137–8.

Noteworthy Books

Science Is Not What You Precognitive Dreamwork and the Skinwalkers at the Pentagon: An
Think—How It Has Changed, Long Self: Interpreting Messages Insiders’ Account of the Secret
Why We Can’t Trust It, How It from Your Future Government UFO Program
Can Be Fixed By Eric Wargo by James Lacatski, Colm A.
by Henry Bauer Inner Traditions, 2021 Kelleher, and George Knapp
McFarland, 2017 RTMA, 2021
 EDGESCIENCE #50 • JUNE 2022 / 19

Colm A. Kelleher

The Pentagon’s Secret UFO Program, the

Hitchhiker Effect, and Models of Contagion

I n September 2008 the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA)

initiated a $22 million, two-year contract with Bigelow
Aerospace Advanced Studies (BAASS) to scientifically study
Axelrod, accompanied by Jim Costigan and David Wilson,
encountered an anomaly on the ranch that caused a lot of fear
in all three men. But little did he know that this incident was
UFOs and their effects on humans. And so began one of the only the beginning of his troubles. Within a month of arriving
most controversial programs in the history of the United States back home in Virginia, a plethora of paranormal phenomena
Government. The program was named Advanced Aerospace suddenly erupted in Axelrod’s home.
Weapon System Applications Program (A AWSAP) and was For several years following his July 2009 and subsequent
kept secret from the public until The New York Times broke trips to the Ranch, Axelrod’s wife and teenage children were
the story in December 2017 (Cooper, Blumenthal & Kean, subjected to nightmarish “dogmen” appearing in their back-
2017). DIA senior analyst James T. Lacatski was the primary yard; to blue, red, yellow, and white orbs routinely floating
creator of AAWSAP. through the home and in the yard; to black shadow people
Within five months of the AAWSAP start date in 2008 a standing over their beds when they awoke; and to a relentless
team of 50 PhD and Masters level scientists, technicians, engi- barrage of loud, unexplained footsteps walking up and down
neers, analysts, military intelligence professionals, program the stairs of their house.
managers, and security officers had been recruited, hired, and The Axelrod teenagers endured some very scary episodes
were being assigned security clearances. During the program’s in their bedrooms; Paul, the younger teenager, claims to have
24 months duration plus a three month no-cost extension, been attacked by blue and red orbs in his bedroom on the night
BAASS delivered over one hundred technical reports on differ- of February 7, 2011. But they kept quiet about their strange
ent aspects of UFO performance, as well as reports describing experiences. So imagine Paul’s shock when he was approached
medical, psychological, and physiological effects of UFOs and by one of his high school friends in 2011 who told him that on
associated phenomena. the previous night, he had looked out his bedroom window and
had witnessed a large wolf-like creature standing outside his bed-
room looking in at him. A few weeks later another friend told
Skinwalker Ranch Paul of seeing strange blue lights flying around his backyard.
One area of investigation initiated by AAWSAP involved the These revelations by the two friends came without prompting
(in)famous Skinwalker Ranch where multiple UFO sightings from Paul. In other words, they cannot be dismissed as “me too”
had taken place over decades as well as a plethora of anomalies phenomena. The experiences by Paul’s school friends suggests
that included cattle mutilations, sightings of orbs of different that the perception of bizarre creatures and blue orbs was trans-
colors, discarnate entities, and poltergeist activity (Kelleher ferable beyond the Axelrod family home and out into the neigh-
and Knapp, 2005). Shortly after the AAWSAP investigations borhood. It’s unlikely that these events could be explained as a
began, the DIA deployed several military personnel on site series of improbable coincidences. Likewise, since the Axelrod
visits to Skinwalker Ranch to corroborate and evaluate earlier children were very reticent in discussing these experiences out-
reports of anomalous phenomena. Lacatski himself had expe- side their immediate family, the incidents with their school
rienced a profound anomaly on the ranch in 2007; this experi- friends cannot be dismissed as peer mimicry.
ence, in fact , was a significant instigation for the formation of The Axelrod family also suffered health effects with the
the AAWSAP/BAASS program. wife suffering f lare-ups of Systemic Lupus Erythematosus
All five DIA personnel deployed to the ranch experienced (Lupus) and Raynaud’s Disease. Both Axelrod teenagers also
profound anomalies while on the property, and more impor- endured intense flu-like symptoms at different times following
tantly, all five “brought something home” with them. The anomalies in their home, with the most serious medical symp-
leader of these five military personnel was a Naval Intelligence toms occurring in the younger teenager.
officer whom we gave the pseudonym Jonathan Axelrod in What was once a normal middle-class home in subur-
our book (Lacatski, Kelleher & Knapp, 2021). Axelrod was ban Virginia became an inferno of unexplained phenomena.
an accomplished engineer who would eventually be promoted And Axelrod and his family were certain that the trigger for
to the rank of two-star admiral within Naval Intelligence this transformation was his first trip to Skinwalker Ranch.
and who possessed Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Axelrod and his family can be considered the “poster children”
Information (TS SCI ) clearances at the time of his ranch for the eruption of anomalies in the home following trips to
visit in July 2009. Skinwalker Ranch.
20 / EDGESCIENCE #50 • JUNE 2022

Health Effects Lacatski himself and his wife experienced a few, but not
The Axelrods were far from alone. During the A AWSAP/ many, anomalies in their home in the years following his
BA ASS program, the phenomenon of ranch visitors bring- Skinwalker Ranch experience. But DIA official Susanna Ash,
ing something home with them became the rule rather than who was hired at the Defense Warning Off ice in January
the exception. Even ranch owner and BAASS founder Robert 2011 and sat in the office cubicle at DIA next to Jim Lacatski
Bigelow reported numerous anomalies and unusual activity between February and June 2011, reported that on the night of
in his home in the months and years after visiting Skinwalker February 6, 2011, Eddie Ash, Susanna’s brother who previously
R anch. Journalist George K napp made several visits to had no experience whatsoever with anomalies, had an escalat-
Skinwalker Ranch before and after the A AWSAP/BA ASS ing series of close encounters with UAPs in rural Mocksville,
investigations on Skinwalker Ranch, some lasting overnight. North Carolina, that continued for months afterwards. Eddie’s
Subsequent to the trips, Knapp reported that his wife experi- quiet country home suddenly had large orange UAPs hover-
enced multiple apparitions in their home, including sightings ing outside at night. Aerial photos of his house were sent to his
of blue orbs outside the window of their place in Las Vegas. mobile phone from unknown numbers. And his pet dog once
Jim Costigan, a Marine who had accompanied Axelrod on disappeared (through multiple locked doors) while Eddie slept,
that first visit to the ranch, and his wife experienced a very close only to be found in the morning whimpering outside.
encounter with a blue orb in their quiet Maryland neighborhood After Robert Bigelow sold the Skinwalker Ranch to Utah
in September 2009. Her upper arm was briefly grazed by a low real estate mogul Brandon Fugal in April 2016, Fugal installed a
flying blue orb as it flew past her and disappeared into the neigh- multidisciplinary team of scientific talent and instrumentation on
borhood. Almost immediately she became ill and experienced a the property to continue the scientific investigations of the ranch
constellation of unusual symptoms before being eventually diag- anomalies. Brandon Fugal’s team corroborated many of the
nosed with Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis, an autoimmune disease in anomalies experienced by AAWSAP and by National Institute
which the immune system attacks the thyroid gland. for Discovery Science (NIDS) personnel. In 2020 the History
A number of other people who became “infected” at Channel began airing TV documentary episodes entitled “The
Skinwalker Ranch also began to experience autoimmune dis- Secret of Skinwalker Ranch.” Many anecdotal reports began
ease in one or more family or household members. These auto- emerging regarding individuals on Skinwalker Ranch “bringing
immune diseases included Graves’ Disease (thyroid), Sjogren’s something home” with them in the past few years.
syndrome (salivary and tear glands), Hashimoto Thyroiditis
(thyroid), Rheumatoid Arthritis (joints), and Lupus (heart,
lung, muscle). Blood dyscrasias, connective tissue and derma- The Hitchhiker Effect
tological abnormalities, including those of Systemic Sclerosis, This feeling of “bringing something home” and the subse-
were also diagnosed in this group of experiencers. It is impor- quent person to person transmissibility of paranormal phe-
tant to note that all of the medical diagnoses were made by at nomena, some of which can last for years, has been named
least three MDs and all brain scans and other clinical findings the Hitchhiker Effect. In an April 2022 interview, Skinwalker
were reviewed independently by more than one board-certified Ranch research team member Dr. Jim Segala addressed the
specialist physician. Hitchhiker phenomenon: “Over the past five years, it has been
George Knapp and I have separately interviewed more our experience that when people interact with the phenomena
than 10 security officers who had spent two-week tours of and do not treat the phenomena with respect, that’s when
duty on the ranch as a part of the AAWSAP/BAASS program, we see a higher rate of the Hitchhiker Syndrome. Symptoms
and each security officer confirmed that they had brought a experienced by people range from acute neurological injuries to
paranormal infection from Skinwalker Ranch with them. The chronic blood disease. Those who have told us that they have
officers confirmed that they or their partners had experienced brought home a souvenir often have some type of illness as well
poltergeist and other paranormal activity in their homes fol- as family members. The data again comes from years of track-
lowing their tours on the ranch. ing and collecting data from those who have come forward.”

The deceptively tranquil appearance of Skinwalker Ranch (2008–2010). G. Knapp

 EDGESCIENCE #50 • JUNE 2022 / 21

(Sinclair, 2022) Segala’s description mirrors many of the additional cases, Darren R itson provides further evidence
Hitchhiker symptoms experienced by victims and documented that poltergeist contagion is possibly quite common and
during the AAWSAP program and provides additional details underreported.
on the medical sequelae of the Hitchhiker Effect.
But the Hitchhiker Effect is not unique to Skinwalker
Ranch. The A AWSAP research team found that even close Previous Evidence of Transmissibility
encounters with UFOs in locations unrelated to Skinwalker In 1973, when noted illusionist and psychokinetic practitioner
Ranch produced a version of the Hitchhiker Effect. This Uri Geller was undergoing a series of tests of his psychic abili-
was not always the case but did occur especially when the ties at the prestigious Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
experiencers were followed and regularly interviewed by the (LLNL), a series of bizarre events began to unfold both in the
AAWSAP team over long periods of time. lab itself and at the homes of the scientists who were conduct-
For example, biotechnologist Ron Becker and his daughter ing the studies. As with Skinwalker Ranch visitors, many of
were travelling outside Bend Oregon in May 2005 when his the researchers involved had the highest level of security clear-
daughter noticed three blue-colored objects moving randomly ances, including Special Access Program (SAP) clearances that
in a field close to the highway. The objects quickly flew towards necessitated polygraph testing as well as frequent personality
the vehicle, one went in front, one went through the car and evaluations.
flew across the dashboard, and the third entered Ron Becker’s Author Jim Schnabel, in his engaging history of American
shoulder, maneuvered through his thoracic area and exited his psychic spies (Schnabel, 1997), recounts the bizarre series of
shoulder as his horrified daughter watched. Ron Becker subse- events that unfolded at the lab when scientists began to “mea-
quently came down with a constellation of medical symptoms. sure” Uri Geller’s alleged psychic abilities. Writes Schnabel:
Becker’s daughter, although shocked and disturbed by the “Peter Crane and some of the others in the Livermore group
incident, was not medically injured. When she returned to the quickly found themselves involved in more strangeness than
home in Connecticut that she shared with her three college they could handle. In the days and weeks that followed, they
roommates, a paranormal frenzy seemed to erupt in the home began to feel that they were collectively possessed by some kind
with her friends waking up to find dark shadowy humanoid fig- of tormenting, teasing, hallucination-inducing spirit. They all
ures crouching over their beds and extensive poltergeist activity would be in a laboratory together, setting up some experiment,
in the home, especially heavy footsteps traipsing up and down or one of the fellows and his wife and children would be at
the stairs at night. Becker or her college friends had never expe- home, just sitting around, when suddenly there in the middle
rienced any activity in that home prior to her close encounter of the room would be a weird, hovering, almost comically ste-
with the blue orbs. reotypical image of a flying saucer… On the other hand, the
flying saucer wasn’t the only form the Livermore visions took.
There were sometimes animals—fantastic animals from the
Poltergeists and Contagion ecstatic lore of shamans—such as the large raven-like birds that
Darren W. Ritson’s recent thought-provoking book on pol- were seen traipsing through the yards of several members of
tergeists and contagion (Ritson, 2021) depicts evidence for a the group. One of them appeared briefly to a physicist named
transmissibility phenomenon that occurred with the infamous Mike Russo and his terrified wife. The two were lying around
South Shields, UK poltergeist case of 2006 and aftermath. The one morning when suddenly there was this giant bird staring
book described in great detail the disturbing effects of a pol- at them from the foot of their bed. After a few weeks of this,
tergeist that “infested” a home in South Shields, a small village Russo and some of the others began seriously to wonder if they
in northeast England during 2006 and 2007. Ritson and his were losing their sanity.” Other scientists and their families saw
colleague/co-investigator Michael Hallowell recounted many orbs and black shadowy forms in their homes.
anomalous events, the majority of which overlapped with phe- There are some interesting overlaps between the events
nomena that had been reported on Skinwalker Ranch, includ- at Lawrence Livermore in 1973 and those that occurred at
ing “windows opening and shutting repeatedly, appearances the Axelrod’s residence and at the homes of other Skinwalker
of anomalous black shapes, sounds of footsteps in the loft, Ranch visitors some 37 years later. In both, the central “vic-
banging and thumping noises in the bedrooms, people being tims” were individuals with highest level clearances and are/
pushed violently from behind, discarnate voices, objects being were working in senior position levels in several government
moved around.” agencies. In both, an initial “psychic” trigger (Uri Geller
Ritson goes on to describe “a process whereby the bizarre to Livermore and Axelrod’s or Costigan’s visit to the ranch)
antics of the poltergeist spread outwards from the home of plunged multiple people, and their families, into a netherworld
the principal witnesses and start to affect others around them; where high strangeness events unfolded. In both, balls of light
extended family members, friends, colleagues and investiga- presented unexpectedly to family members. In both, bizarre,
tors who choose, or accidentally wander into, the arena of archetypal, mythological animals and birds manifested. In
metaphysical conflict. Like a communicable disease, the pol- both, multiple poltergeist-like phenomena affected families. In
tergeist phenomenon can attach itself to others.” R itson’s both, the experiences appeared to be centered near bedrooms,
words echo the experiences of the AAWSAP investigators on hallways, and backyards of homes involved. In both, black rect-
the Skinwalker Ranch in detail. Through delineating multiple angles (Axelrod, Witt) or black cubes (Livermore scientists)
22 / EDGESCIENCE #50 • JUNE 2022

were involved. Intriguingly, physicist Hal Puthoff was a central Social Contagion Model
player in both the Lawrence Livermore and, as an AAWSAP A n interesting paper by Ben Green, Thibaut Horel, and
BAASS consultant and contractor, in the Axelrod and other A ndrew V. Papachristos published in the Journal of the
post Skinwalker Ranch incidents. American Medical Association in 2017 showed that gunshot
violence follows an epidemic-like process of social contagion
that is transmitted through networks of people by social inter-
Infectious Agent Model actions. The objective of the study was to evaluate the extent
During 2020 and 2021 everyone in the world became familiar to which the people who will become subjects of gun violence
with the jargon of coronavirus infectious disease modelling. in Chicago can be predicted by modeling gun violence as an
After thousands of newspaper, TV, and digital media reports epidemic that is transmitted between individuals through
detailed the first COVID-19 index cases in Washington state, social interactions. According to the results, “social contagion”
Wuhan, California, and New York, the concept of an index accounted for 63.1% of the 11,123 gunshot violence episodes
case for an infectious disease became familiar to everyone. in Chicago; subjects of gun violence were shot on average
Just as the Wuhan Institute of Virology or the wet markets in 125 days after contact with their “infector,” the person most
China may have been the source of the COVID-19 outbreak, responsible for exposing the subject to gunshot violence. Some
could Skinwalker Ranch be the source of an infectious agent subjects of gun violence were shot more than once.
of some kind? The authors write: “Our findings suggest that the diffu-
The experiences of Axelrod and others have led me to sion of violence follows an epidemic-like process of social con-
consider an infectious disease model to try to shed some light tagion that is transmitted through networks by social interac-
on the phenomena, as they bore a striking resemblance to the tions.” In other words, the transmission of violence, although
transmission of an infectious agent between individuals. The not an infectious entity, follows a predictable social conta-
“symptoms” of the “infection” comprised the eruption of pol- gion model that is amenable to analysis and, subsequently, to
tergeist and other paranormal events in the immediate environ- intervention.
ment of the newly infected individual. Regardless of the epidemiological model utilized (infec-
Utilizing this terminology, Axelrod was the index case tious agent or social contagion), the central point is that the
who was first “infected” on Skinwalker Ranch and carried A AWSAP program on Skinwalker Ranch was the f irst to
the infectious agent 2,000 miles home to Virginia with him. unmask a transmission-like phenomenon that was occurring
Within a few days or weeks, the agent had spread from Axelrod in individuals who visited the ranch, and that this transmission
to his wife and both his teenage sons, and all three began expe- is probably amenable to analysis utilizing standard infectious
riencing a bewildering diversity of anomalies in their home. disease or social contagion modelling. Further, in some cases,
Within a few more weeks the infectious agent had spread to the transmission into some households was correlated with the
the neighborhood and infected two teenage friends, probably emergence of autoimmune disease in family members. Hence
at school, who lived within a couple of miles of the Axelrod in these post-Skinwalker Ranch contagions, if social contagion
home. It should be noted that the symptoms of infection is the appropriate modelling template, then social contagion in
from Skinwalker Ranch are not respiratory distress or death, these cases has biological consequences.
as with COVID-19, but rather profoundly altered perceptual
environments.
In standard infectious disease parlance, the basic repro- Other Models of Social Contagion
duction number (denoted by R0) is a measure of how trans- A number of authors have sought to develop or challenge
missible a disease is. It is the average number of people that the simple network model of social contagion. Those seeking
a single infectious person will infect over the course of their to develop this model have suggested that a more satisfying
infection. In the “Axelrod outbreak,” the basic reproduction model of contagious social behavior requires a more layered
number R0 could be denoted as 3. Therefore, any study of account of the nature of social contact (Thompson, T., Personal
the putative transmission of the Skinwalker Ranch infectious Communication). Harvard University’s Damon Centola and
entity would be very amenable to standard infectious disease Cornell University’s Michael Macy (2007) distinguished
modeling. The tools of infectious disease modelling are well between “simple” and “complex” social contagions, arguing that
established. the latter requires contact with more than one infected carrier.
It goes without saying that the number of people involved British mathematician Iacopo Iacopini and colleagues
in these observations are too few to draw any firm conclusions, developed a model that combines stochastic processes of simple
but the metaphor of an infectious disease could be a useful one contagion and of complex contagion occurring through group
for future research on the Hitchhiker Effect. interactions in which an individual is simultaneously exposed
Obviously, in order to drill down into this infectious dis- to multiple sources of contagion (Iacopini et al., 2019). These
ease possibility, a much larger epidemiological modeling effort authors created simulations from contact data from four sepa-
would have to be initiated, one in which every individual and rate real-world situations: a workplace, a conference, a hospital,
their family members who spent time on Skinwalker Ranch and a high school. These higher order interactions of social
could be followed closely and interviewed every few months contagion might eventually be applied to model data from
over a several year period. hitchhiker attachments.
 EDGESCIENCE #50 • JUNE 2022 / 23

Future Research University professor Jeffrey Kripal (Kripal, 2019), microchip

Following the June 25, 2021, announcement by the Office of inventor Federico Faggin (Faggin, 2021), University of Virginia
the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) that UFOs are professor Edward Kelly (Kelly et al 2015), and stem cell biolo-
real and may constitute an air safety threat and even a national gist Robert Lanza (Lanza et al. 2020) may be relevant. The
security problem, much public interest has been focused on proposal that consciousness is “prime” and actually undergirds
what a future program investigating both UFO performance physical reality and is not emergent from neurochemical traf-
and UFO effects on human beings might look like. During ficking in the brain is fundamental to this new viewpoint.
such a study, if additional examples of a Hitchhiker Effect One implication of the new perspective on human con-
were discovered, several paths for future research could be sciousness is that the brain may act as a “filter” of conscious-
explored. ness, as proposed by Aldous Huxley (Huxley, 1954). Bernardo
An epidemiological infectious agent model could be Kastrup emphasizes that psychedelics decrease brain activity
adopted. Provided the number of cases was sufficiently large while the individual paradoxically undergoes extremely intense
in a new study, formally measuring the basic reproduction perceptual activity (Kastrup, 2021). He writes: “…in all cases,
number (R0) of the hitchhiker “infections” would be feasible. the physiological effect of the psychedelic is to reduce brain
Such a study could utilize some of the most useful epidemio- activity, particularly in the so-called ‘default mode network,’
logical parameters defined for COVID (Gallo et al 2020). For which is correlated with our ego or sense of individual identity.
example, measurement of time between infection and onset of The phenomenological effect, on the other hand, is one of the
symptoms (aka incubation period) will be possible. The defini- richest and most intense experiences a human being can possi-
tion of the contagion’s transmissibility period, the time dur- bly have. If one’s brain is effectively going to sleep during those
ing which an infected person transmits the infectious entity to experiences, where are the experiences then coming from?”
other people, would also be achievable. Definition of any ill- Kastrup’s question is a good one, and measurable brain altera-
nesses in families, school friends, or neighbors associated with tions, including quiescence, may be one investigative readout
hitchhiker transference would add to the research picture of the for looking at Hitchhiker Effects on the human brain as a part
transmissibility phenomenon. of a future UFO program.
The links between biological and social contagion could Once the hitchhiker “attaches” to or infects a new vic-
be explored. Social contagion is similar to biological conta- tim, can it play a role in manipulating or inhibiting the normal
gion—both spread through a replication process that is heed- mode of the brain in filtering out reality in much the same way
less of the consequences for the individual, and if each person as psychedelics allegedly reduce the brain’s screening capabil-
transmits to more than one person, the rapid pace of exponen- ity? (Luke, 2022; Swanson, 2018)
tial growth creates an epidemic (Bauch and Galvani, 2013). In a future research program, assuming a sufficiently large
In the Skinwalker Ranch cases cited above, the development number of cases with adequate statistical power, researchers
of autoimmune disease in several of the families suffering could test and measure the effects of a hitchhiker infection on
the Hitchhiker Effect was observed by A AWSAP research- victims. The brain imaging studies on experiencers and fam-
ers. Whether autoimmune disease development in these fami- ily members conducted as a part of the AAWSAP 2008-2010
lies was caused by “hitchhikers” is unknown, although links program could be significantly expanded to specifically test
between stress-related disorders and autoimmune disease are whether experiencers and family members showed unusual
well known (Song et al. 2018). brain activity or structure when compared to controls. Issues of
Future research could also allow us to test various hypoth- looking at brain biomarkers have been ongoing, and a number
eses on the mechanism involved in the Hitchhiker Effect. The of papers have already been submitted for peer reviewed publi-
common denominator with people who experience the effects cation (Green, C.C., Personal communication).
of bringing something home is not respiratory distress, hemor- The Pentagon’s secret AAWSAP program pioneered a dual
rhagic fever, or other symptoms of viral infection. Alterations track approach of investigating UFO performance and tech-
in a person’s perceptual environment appears to be the most nical characteristics while simultaneously researching effects
common manifestation. Symptoms include waking up with of UFOs on humans and thus suc-
black shadow humanoids standing over their beds; various cessfully created a new innovative
types of poltergeist activity; colored orbs flying through peo- template for future US Government
ple’s bedrooms and homes at night; apparitions of dead chil- UFO programs. Whether this tem-
dren or adults; unexplained loud noises around the house; and plate is capable of being utilized
much more. again remains to be seen.

This excerpt is adapted and ex­panded

The Role of Consciousness from Skinwalkers at the Pentagon:
Alterations in human perception as a result of being “infected” An Insiders’ Account of the Secret
suggest that some of the new models of human consciousness Government UFO Program by James
proposed by luminaries such as philosopher-computer scientist Lacatski, Colm A. Kelleher, and
Bernardo Kastrup (Kastrup 2019), University of California George Knapp, 2021, (Henderson,
Irvine professor Donald Hoffman (Hoffman, 2020), R ice NV: RTMA).
24 / EDGESCIENCE #50 • JUNE 2022

Acknowledgements K astrup, B. (2019). “The Universe as Cosmic Dashboard;

The author is grateful to Dr. Todd Thompson for fruitful Relational quantum mechanics suggests physics might be
discussions on social contagion. The author also thanks Dr. a science of perceptions, not observer-independent reality,”
Christopher C. Green for insightful discussions. Scientific American. https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/
observations/the-universe-as-cosmic-dashboard
Kastrup, B. (2021). “A rational, empirical case for postmor-
COLM A. KELLEHER, Ph.D., is tem survival based solely on mainstream science,” Bigelow
a biochemist with a long research Institute for Consciousness Studies. https://www.bigelow-
career in cell and molecular biolo- institute.org/contest_winners3.php
gy. Following his Ph.D. in biochem- Kelleher, C.A. & Knapp, G. (2005). Hunt for the Skinwalker:
istry from the University of Dublin, Science Confronts the Unexplained at a Remote Ranch in
Trinity College, Kelleher worked Utah. Paraview Pocket Books
at the Ontario Cancer Institute, Kelly, E., Crabtree, A., & Marshall, P. (2015). Beyond Physicalism:
the Terry Fox Cancer Research Towards Reconciliation of Science and Spirituality. Rowman
Laboratory, the National Jewish and Littlefield

Stephanie Flaherty
Center for Immunology and Re- Kripal, J. (2019). The Flip: Epiphanies of Mind and the Future of
spiratory Medicine, and Prosetta Knowledge. Bellevue Literary Press.
Biosciences in San Francisco. Lacatski, J.T., Kelleher, C.A., & Knapp, G. (2021). Skinwalkers at
Between 1996 and 2004, he led the Pentagon: An Insiders’ Account of the Secret Government
the research program at the National Institute of Discovery Sci- UFO Program. Henderson, RTMA
ence, using forensic science methodology to unravel scientific Lanza, B., Pavsic, M. & Berman, B. (2020). The Grand Biocentric
anomalies. He then served as the Deputy Administrator running Design: How Life Creates Reality. BenBella Books
the US Government’s UFO program at Bigelow Aerospace Ad- Luke, D. (2022). “A nomalous Psychedelic Experiences: At
vanced Space Studies. Between 2013 and 2020, he was Vice t he Neu rochem ica l Ju nct u re of t he Huma n ist ic a nd
President & Chief Scientist of Environmental Control & Life Parapsychological,” Journal of Humanistic Psychology 62,
Support Systems at Bigelow Aerospace. Kelleher has authored 257–297
and coauthored 40 peer reviewed research papers in virology, Of f ice of t he Di rector of Nat iona l I ntel l igence .(2021).
biochemistry, and immunology, as well as three books. Preliminary Assessment Unidentified Aerial Phenomena,
https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/assessments/
Prelimary-Assessment-UAP-20210625.pdf
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