Review by: KEN KORCZAK
The “little green men” trope has haunted the UFO community for decades.
It’s a classic bait-line for scoffers and trolls who fancy themselves “skeptics” as they usually go after the low-hanging fruit with mocking attempts to “scientifically debunk” encounters with The Phenomenon.
But not to worry. The author’s choice to feature a waving green alien on the cover of this remarkable book is about the only controversial choice he made in bringing forward a compelling and consequential story.
This is far less “a UFO book” than it is a profound meditation on the essential validity of every human being and the eternal validity of the human soul.
YOSSI RONEN derived this enlightened perspective of mankind’s place in Creation from a personal encounter with … um … what should we call them?
Transhuman entities? Transcendent intelligence? Interdimensional visitors? Aliens?
I suppose it doesn’t matter since “The Visitors” themselves told Ronen that their actual physical appearance was not important and, at best, is a kind of illusionary representation of their true nature.
Ronen was just 21 when he experienced his encounter with “The Others.” It was the early 1980s, and Ronen was an Israeli citizen spending a year in Los Angeles. He was in his apartment sleeping. His brother was his roommate was sleeping in the same room when things were about to get exceedingly strange.
Okay, I’m going to stop right there because I don’t want to give anything away. I encourage readers to buy this book and experience the encounter of Yossi Ronen with entities that were not only stranger than he could imagine – but stranger than any of us can imagine.
It’s one of the best presented and most intriguing descriptions of a human-other interaction I have read.
For Yossi, it would prove to be an event that would alter the trajectory of the rest of his life. Prior to his confrontation with the unknown, he was a grounded young man firmly rooted in the efficacy of material science. He was studying electronics in college and fully expected to embark on a tech-oriented career. That proved difficult and problematic after the mind-expanding fallout of his experience.
It would take decades for Ronen to process his encounter, come to grips with it and ferret out a larger meaning he could process and integrate.
The title he chose for his book, ONE, sums up his conclusions – in that, the Universe, or All That Is, or whatever you want to call it – is an infinite Singularity of Consciousness. The being he encountered on the day were not so much “Others” but aspects of himself – or all of us, really. That includes animals, plants, rocks, atoms, electrons, quarks, planets, stars, galaxies — everything.
I’ve been reading UFO books since the late 1960s. It’s fascinating to observe how this genre has evolved from a nuts-and-bolts “I saw a flying saucer” perspective to today a body of literature increasingly that more resembles transpersonal psychology and philosophy.
In her book, American Cosmic, University of North Carolina religious studies professor D.W. Pasulka suggests that what we are witnesses is the “birth of a new religion.” The only thing I don’t like about her hypothesis is her use of the word “religion” because of the baggage that comes with it. The experiences of Ronen and many others today who have confronted “The Others” seem almost inherently unfettered, unrutted and free of dogmatic trappings and rituals associated with formal religious systems – but I digress.
Speaking of other experiencers, in the past months I have reviewed a string of books by these people who come from all walks of ordinary life. The through-line between all of them is their uncanny “normality” in all other manners if we exclude their extraordinary encounters.
Here is a list of such folks and their books I have reviewed recently, and I think it incredibly important to point this out because it heralds a significant global transformational trend:
INITIATED by Matthew Roberts – A former lifer in the U.S. Navy who left his career as a military intelligence officer to tell his story of supra-human encounters.
BEYOND THE EXTRATERRESTIAL FIREWALL by Steve Boucher – A Canadian who has worked as a musician and design professional who has interacted with “alien beings” over a lifetime.
UFOs FIRST PERSON by Dave Shoup – A Ph.D.-level professor of agriculture who enjoyed a long and successful career as an academician and research scientist but kept a secret of his lifetime of UFO encounter his closest secret throughout the decades of his career.
UFOs ARE WITH US: TAKE MY WORD by Leo Dworshak – Blue-collar working-class man who grew up on a small North Dakota farm amid the Great Depression and began interaction with high human-like aliens in 1932. Kept intermittent contact with them until his death in 2007.
SYMBIOSIS — Nancy Tremaine – At age 12 in a small town outside of Detroit, she experienced an abduction scenario and kept it a secret for 50 years. She worked various jobs and led an otherwise normal life on the outside while experiencing fantastic events across the decades .
ENCOUNTER AT DEVIL’S DEN — Terry Lovelace – A retired attorney with a long successful career began experiencing visitations as a child and endured a massive abduction event while a young man serving in the U.S. Air Force. Kept his secret for decades until retirement when he felt free to speak out.
EXTRATERRESTRIAL ODYSSEY — Roger Kvande – Small-town Minnesota man who was born with a gifted IQ and superior talent for working with electronic systems and computers began experiencing high-strangeness alien contact as a child; these encountered blossomed as he reached adulthood. His accounts include being allowed to pilot and alien spacecraft. Enjoyed a successful, lucrative career in computers and electronics.
So much of the UFO community is still waiting for that magical and seemingly elusive Holy Grail they call “Disclosure.” But the people in the list above, including Yossie Ronen, have no need to wait for some lofty government entity to come out and announce: “They’re here!” These people already have Disclosure — and they’re working very hard to get the word out to the rest of us.
Are you listening #ufotwitter?
Ken Korczak is a former newspaper reporter, government information officer, served as an advocate for homeless people as a VISTA Volunteer, and taught journalism at the University of North Dakota for five years. He is the author of BIRD BRAIN GENIUS
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