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PAUL VILLA - THE MODEST CONTACTEE
The contactee movement that started in the early 1950s was partly due to the growing media attention to the worldwide explosion of UFO sightings. In the beginning, it was feared that UFOs were some sort of advanced aircraft from a foreign power (the Soviet Union if you were American, the U.S. if you were Russian). However, this theory was pretty quickly dashed as reports poured in describing the objects incredible speed and maneuverability...which were far beyond anything, cutting edge science or not, that humans had accomplished at that point.
It wasn't long though before the idea started to spread that UFOs could be spaceships from some other planet; and very quickly, people came forward claiming that they were the recipients of interplanetary visitations. UFO researchers, who wanted more than anything for the subject to be taken seriously, loathed the contactees and the ideas that they represented.
Most of the major players in the contactee movement were a cross between new age shamans and carnival barkers. The Space Brothers were here to help us make that next leap in evolution, away from war, hate and atomic weapons...to peace and love, in preparation to joining up with other, friendly planets throughout the cosmos.
A few of the early contactees, like George Adamski, made money from their books and speaking engagements. However, if anyone became a "contactee" thinking it was their path to riches and glory, they were sadly mistaken. Adam Gorightly and Greg Bishop have written an excellent book on this subject, "A is For Adamski," and I highly recommend it.
Apolinar (Paul) Villa was somewhat of a late-comer to the whole contactee thing. Even though he claimed that his first meeting with the "spacemen" happened in 1953, it wasn't until the mid-1960s that his stow, along with his photographed became public.
From all accounts is seems that Villa was very much a reluctant contactee. His encounters are almost textbook examples of the "typical contactee meeting." In his interviews, Villa talks of friendly space people who are beautiful, almost angelic, in appearance, offering up explanations on how the universe works and what role planet Earth plays within it. But Villa didn't hit the UFO conference circuit to promote his experiences, or sell photos. He pretty much stayed quiet about the whole affair unless he was asked first.
Thanks to Gabriel Green and his "International UFO Journal", Villa's photographs became widely publicized, yet at that time, almost nothing was known about the man who took them. Col. Wendelle Stevens, the author of this book, actually took the time to visit Villa at his home and listen to his story without passing immediate judgment.
For the most part, Paul Villa shunned publicity, refusing to talk with the press, or with UFO researchers. He claimed that his life had been threatened and once someone even took a shot at him while he was in his pickup truck. Those who did talk with him found him credible. The late Bill Sherwood, who was an optical physicist and a senior project development engineer for the Eastman-Kodak company, said that "Villa never tried to use his unusual personal experiences for monetary gain. To me he seemed always humble and sincere; unimpressed by the attention he received from the Secretary-General of the United Nations, U Thant, who called him at his workshop to discuss his experiences with the extraterrestrials."
Researcher and author Timothy Good also spent time with Villa in 1976 and was told that there were three different groups of extraterrestrial beings visiting Earth, including "certainly one that is good." Villa stated that the space people had hundreds of bases within our solar system, including many of Earth, Mars and the moon. Some groups came here simply as tourists. Villa's group worked with about 70 contactees in the U.S. and about 300 worldwide. Unfortunately, there is still a lot of information about Villa's contacts that will never be known.
In his book. "Alien Bases," Timothy Good wrote about when Villa drove him and Lou Zinsstag to one of the sites beside the Rio Grande near Algodones. It was this location where he had taken photos of the craft and spoke with its occupants (who would not allow themselves to be photographed).
Good asked what the other members of the crew were doing while Villa spoke with the man he assumed was the pilot.
"Oh they were just bathing their feet in the river," Villa replied.
Good wrote that this matter-of-fact statement helped convince him that Paul Villa's story contained essential elements of truth. As with other contactees' stories, there seems to be a mix of truth and fiction and it can be almost impossible to find where one ends and the other begins.
Paul Villa passed away in 1981. Before he died, Villa had shown Wendelle Stevens a footlocker full of notes and unpublished photographs, promising that after he passed away, Stevens could have them. In one folder, there were allegedly photographs that Villa had shot on another planet (something that was never revealed in any detail while he was alive). Villa said that he had been taken to this planet by his space friends and had shot a series of photos that showed two dinosaur-like beasts, tan and brown splotched in color, with long necks and tails, grazing on the tops of moderate sized trees.
Stevens said the photos were so good that he could see the rippling muscles and wrinkles in the neck skin of the animal where it turned its head. The whole scene, including the other vegetation and sparse grass on a near desert ground was most realistic, and was certainly not a painting. There were three or four of these photographs in close sequence in that series.
Sadly, after Villa's death, his wife Eunis sold their trailer and furnishings and moved away. Stevens was unable to track her down and the fate of Villa's lost photos and notes is unknown.
Like many other UFO contact cases, we are left toe the strange circumstances of the reluctant contactee Paul Villa and his mysterious friends from beyond.
(By Tim R. Swartz )