MEN IN BLACK VAN WANT TO TAKE ME 'FOR A RIDE' -- THEN I SAW A UFO!
by Thomas M. Sipos, managing editor [November 21, 2013]
 [WeeklyUniverse.com] Ufologist Tom Baker (author of Midwest UFOs and Beyond) has long studied UFOs. But what's more -- he's seen his own share of close encounters!
Even more astounding, Baker suspects a connection between UFOs and what some people call "fallen angels"!
According to Baker, "Jehovah God cast certain personages away from him, out of 'Heaven,' for the crime of cohabitating with human women. This inter-breeding is where the corruption, or fall of mankind into a spiritually degraded state, began. With the corruption of the blood. The resultant hybrid race may have built many of the strange, enigmatic wonders of the ancient world -- probably started our civilization, and imparted spiritual gifts and occult knowledge to mankind.
"Since then they have become a 'hidden kingdom' with a foothold in this world, as well as the one 'beyond the veil.' They may exist in any manner of strange forms or guises, and practice genetic engineering.
"As to whether they have a kingdom in outer space, they may. Like Jacques Vallee, I would be surprised and disappointed if the truth about them turned out to be nothing more extraordinary than them just being 'space astronauts.' "
Apart from speculating about the UFO phenomenon, Baker has experienced "a number of close encounter sightings of UFOs" over the years. Speaking to the Weekly Universe, he related one childhood sighting from the early 1980s.
Baker says he was "riding in the back seat of my parents' car, coming home to Indiana from Texas. I was probably about six years old. I remember lying down and watching the night sky -- when a mysterious lighted object flew across the back window. I dismissed this object as an airplane -- until I remembered that airplanes weren't perfectly round!
"I shot up in the seat, but decided not to say anything to my parents. They would just dismiss it as an imaginative dream. I lay back down and went to sleep.
When I awoke again, my parents were screaming because, for some strange reason, the car headlights kept going on and off!
"Amazingly, I went back to sleep. When I awoke again, everything seemed fine, and the incident was never brought up again."
But that was just the beginning of a lifetime of close encounters. Several years after the above incident, Baker says that he "began to have sleep paralysis episodes involving hooded phantoms, preying mantis figures, shaking beds, etc.
"A year or so after those, I had an amazing UFO sighting while out walking at night, around an apartment complex with a relative. Two individuals in a black van drove up to us, and asked if we wanted to go 'for a ride.' " Baker declined their offer. "We walked away, past a field, to the front of the apartment complex. I saw something move out of the corner of my eye, but dismissed it as a conventional aircraft, and continued talking to my relative.
"Then she said, 'Hey, what’s that?'
"I relied, 'It's a helicopter.'
"She replied, 'Uh, it's not making any noise.'
"Coming from the field, across the street from a radio station, was a hovering object, cigar-shaped (looking a little like an old-fashioned submarine), suspended in mid-air, with incredibly bright lights on either end, and a lightening-like, flashing strobe on top. The object made no sound, but lifted at an angle until it was almost directly overhead. Then it exploded silently into a dark crimson glow and sped away -- quicker than anything I've seen in my entire life, before or since. It was instantly lost among the stars.
"After that, I knew UFOs were real."
Baker had another astonishing close encounter a decade later. "After dabbling in spiritualism with college friends one night," said Baker, "our car was followed by a dazzlingly bright ball of light." They had initially encountered that light "drifting over an old corn field down a country road. The only other vehicle we saw on that road was a black van -- just as in my encounter a decade ago!
"Since then, I can’t recall seeing a UFO so spectacular, though there have been strange incidents at night. But to go into everything would make this quite a long response!"
While Baker's Midwest UFOs and Beyond covers UFOs throughout history and across the globe, it focuses on UFOs in the American Midwest. "I did that to impress upon readers the humdrum, run-of-the-mill nature of the phenomenon, as it has been experienced, for decade, by average people," said Baker. "Also, there's all this open sky [in the Midwest], and long, flat empty stretches of fields. It's the perfect setting for many types of supernatural and mysterious happenings.
Baker describes his religious/spiritual views as "Christian, in so much as I believe that Jesus Christ is the son of Yahweh, and the only way back to God and away from being cast into outer darkness at the culmination of all things. Of course, I also have a deep interest in mysticism, spiritualism, the occult, the 'dark side,' and I feel that spirits can communicate with me and through me. I won't say there isn't some sort of conflict with that. I'm not sure how to resolve one with the other at times.
Baker says he "graduated from Ball State University in 2003, with a degree in English, and minors in Religious Studies and Classical Culture. Basically, literature, religion, and mythology were my preoccupations. I've worked as a substitute teacher. I have also worked at psychic exhibitions as a trance medium. I do a lot of experimental music and art. Otherwise, I have been preoccupied with UFOs since about the age of eight. Writing this book sort of brought everything full circle."
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