CHAPTER 1
SNOW DURING THE CALIFORNIA DROUGHT
The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the sourceof all true art and science.
Albert Einstein
They Were Eager to Discuss the Case
In February 1976, I visited the huge, military-industrial think tank, SRIInternational, in Menlo Park, California, at the invitation of physicists HalPuthoff and Russell Targ. In addition to their groundbreaking work in remoteviewing, or clairvoyance, which later became the basis for a twenty-yearmilitary intelligence program, Puthoff and Targ had also achieved fame andnotoriety for their experiments with Uri Geller. This work had been published inthe prestigious British journal, Nature, in 1973. When I arrived at theirlaboratory, I found the two physicists very excited, even flabbergasted, aboutanother case. They eagerly explained to me that they had been contacted by astrange man named Ted Owens, who signed his letters "PK Man" and proclaimed thathe was "the world's greatest psychic." Owens seemed eager to be used as asubject for parapsychological testing. Puthoff and Targ declined the offer butnevertheless for several years continued to receive correspondence from the PKMan that documented his demonstrations.
On January 30, 1976, Owens wrote to Puthoff and Targ telling them that he wasgoing to show them the extent of his powers by causing heavy storms over the SanFrancisco area and thereby ending the drought that was then approachingdisastrous proportions. His letter read:
Last night on 1V the evening news showed a stricken California. Crops are deadand dying and the animals are in pitiful condition. Now I, Ted Owens, PK Man,will change all of that. Within the next 90 days from the time of this letter Iwill pour and pour and pour rains onto and into the state of California until itis swimming in water and the dangerous drought is completely over. There will bestorm after storm, lightning after lightning attacks, and high winds....
It didn't take ninety days for Owens' demonstration to come off. A freaksnowstorm hit the San Francisco area on February 5. It was the first storm ofwinter, and many more were to follow. According to an Associated Press (AP)release, "The unexpected snowfall came as part of the first major Californiastorm this year in a season that has brought drought to farm areas and talk ofwater rationing in many communities." The last snowstorm to strike the SanFrancisco Bay Area occurred in 1887 and dropped 3.7 inches of snow. The onlyother snowfall in the area fell in 1962 when mild flurries were seen. TheFebruary storm left no less than 3.5 inches of snow on the ground. As thoughunintentionally acknowledging Owens' complicity in the affair, the AP story alsostated that "the storm featured lightning and sleet" and added that "a gianttelevision tower on Mr. San Bruno, south of San Francisco, was hit bylightning." Interestingly, lightning is very rare in the San Francisco area.
The storm hit San Francisco unannounced, delighting residents but mystifyingmeteorologists who were totally caught off guard by it. In fact, it was sofreakish that Claude Holmes, a representative for the National Weather Service,had to admit to the San Francisco Chronicle that he was baffled by it. Themeteorological aspects leading to the storm were "so complicated," he said,"that I'm not sure I understand all the details myself" Whatever the case maybe, the snowfall was only the beginning of the end to the drought. Just as Owenshad predicted, the storm heralded several weeks of snow, lightning and winds. AnOakland Tribune story on February 5 reported that the storm exhibited "nearlyevery phenomenon in the weatherman's book throughout the Bay Area" includingsnow, hail, sleet, thunder, and lightning. Gale warnings were issued innorthwestern California. The storm went on for several days and introduced whatwas to be one of the worst winters in California history. The rainfall wasunbelievable for the rest of the season as storm after storm meandered over thestate. These continual storm fronts produced formidable problems in SouthernCalifornia.
Los Angeles nearly became a disaster area when the constant moisture weakenedthe foothills that surround many areas of the city, and this led to hugemudslides that caused millions of dollars worth of damage as expensive hillsidehomes were completely destroyed by mud and structural damage. Resultant floodingeven took a few lives. The weather eventually became so freakish that, at onepoint, a tornado watch was called. This was the first time this had everhappened in recent history. Tornadoes are extremely rare in California, and nonehad ever struck Los Angeles.
Another peculiar aspect of that fateful winter is that there was considerableUFO activity reported in California right before the storms began. During thelast week of January, half a dozen law enforcement agencies logged calls about acigar-shaped object, complete with flashing lights and vapor trail, that wasseen traveling through southeastern California. After the storm, on February 8and 9, two scientists spotted a UFO flying over the Siskiyou Mountains inNorthern California. One of these witnesses, Paul Cerny, was a noted UFOinvestigator quite capable of distinguishing a genuinely mysterious airborneobject from a conventional craft. Since UFO activity was not rare in this area,these UFO appearances possibly had nothing to do with Owens' demonstrations.However, as we shall see, UFO phenomena often accompanied these demonstrations.
Puthoff and Targ sent Owens a note congratulating him on his successfulprediction and received a telegram response from him stating that it was not aprediction, but that he, Owens, had caused the snowstorm! After all, that waswhy he called himself the PK Man, PK meaning psychokinesis, the ability toaffect matter with the mind. This was food for thought, and when I visited thephysicists some weeks later, they were eager to discuss the case.
Hyperdimensional Entities Affectionately Known as "Twitter" and "Tweeter"
Puthoff and Targ brought out Ted Owens' 1969 book How to Contact Space People,and with great interest showed me a drawing of two large, insect-like creaturesin the text, whom Owens affectionately called "Twitter" and "Tweeter." The bookclaimed that Owens had produced many demonstrations of his psychokinetic powersfor government officials and even named the officials he had interacted with ineach case. For the CIA, Owens had "used his powers" to cause ships to sink. ForNASA, he had demonstrated his "control" over lightning. Nevertheless, Owensbitterly complained, these agencies still refused to take him seriously.
Owens also described the visualization techniques that he used to communicatewith Space Intelligences (SIs), i.e., hyperdimensional entities who werecontinually in his view, monitoring the Earth from UFOs. He saw them as lookinginto a screen where his thought-forms appeared. Other people could communicatewith them using this same method, he stated. I experienced this some ten yearslater, when I took Owens' training program (see chapter 11). The SpaceIntelligences, Owens often claimed, were the ones who really had the power. Justas often, however, he attributed his powers to psychokinesis.
Because of the controversy that their research was already generating, Puthoffand Targ did not feel that they could afford to pursue an investigation of TedOwens. Nevertheless, the recent events had piqued their curiosity. The solution,it seemed to them, was simple: turn the project over to a promising younggraduate student. I was their candidate.
Owens liked to tell how the UFO entities captured him and operated on his brainto make him half human and half alien. He had a thick crease at the base of hisskull that, he said, resulted from this operation. In August 1976, some monthsafter I learned about Owens, he gave me an opportunity to inspect this creasefor myself at the City University of London where we were both attending aconference sponsored by the Parascience Foundation. All of this came aboutbecause Psychic magazine, a now defunct publication but once of somedistinction, ran a news item based on information gleaned from Puthoff and Targabout Owens' possible role in ending the California drought.
How a Drought Ended during the London Parascience Foundation Conference
In May 1976, Owens received a letter from Suzanne Stebbing, a British student ofthe paranormal and a friend of Professor John Taylor, a well known mathematicianat King's College in Great Britain and an ardent student of parapsychology.England was at the time suffering from its worst drought in 150 years, andStebbing, having read the Psychic magazine item about Owens' powers, waswondering if he could end it. In a return letter dated May 10, Owens informedhis admirer that he would begin work on the project but asked that Taylorhimself write to him asking for the demonstration. As part of his performance,Owens promised massive rainfall during the next ninety days as well as lightningstrikes, high winds, and UFO appearances.
Stebbing wrote back to Owens in early June, explaining that Taylor was too tiedup with other work to write to him. However, included in her letter was aninvitation for Owens to come to England where he could meet Taylor in order togive an address to a paraphysics conference scheduled to be convened at theUniversity of London. (Paraphysics is to physics as parapsychology is topsychology. Both fields engage in scientific inquiry into the paranormal aspectsof nature.) In this same letter, Stebbing advised Owens that the drought hadbegun to abate slightly but that it was still a serious condition threatening tocreate havoc across the country. Although some rain fell in June, these showersdid little to offset the deleterious effects of the prolonged drought.
Owens finally heard from Taylor towards the end of his self-imposed deadline.Taylor pointed out that, since so little rain had fallen during the last ninetydays, he considered Owens' rainmaking attempts to be a dear failure. Hereiterated his feelings in a letter to Owens two days after, in which he pointedout that British meteorologists had announced that there was no end to thedrought in sight.
This was all quite true. By August, when the paraphysics conference was slatedto convene, England was in bad shape. London residents were being asked toreduce water consumption by one third. In some outlying villages, water had tobe trucked in. By August 27, the London Times had to report that, according togovernment ministries, there still seemed no end to the drought in sight and itcould easily last through September. My friends in London joked that if I wantedto get my picture in the Times, all I had to do was appear in Piccadilly Circuswith an umbrella!
August 27 was also conspicuous since that was the day Owens arrived in London.Synchronistically, it rained there that very day. It was the first rain intwenty-eight days, and although it did not end the drought, it dampened theentire southeastern section of England. It rained again the following day, and,as typically happened when Owens was around, a mysterious power failure crippledthe London subway system and stranded thirty trains during the showers. The rainnever stopped. It continued throughout September, and on September 29, thedrought was declared officially over by government sources.
Despite the fact that Owens' London demonstration was not a clear-cut success,it was curiously impressive to me, as I was in London at the time and well awareof events in California earlier that year. The rain that ultimately ended theBritish drought began the day Owens arrived in London, even though no end to itwas officially in sight. The fact is that Owens specialized in trying to causepower failures, as shall be shown throughout this book. This, coupled with thefact that such a failure occurred the day of his arrival, was also toosynchronistic for comfort.
In any event, no matter what role Owens played in the rains, at least Englandhad been saved from disaster, but whether by Owens, chance, nature, or God, onecannot say.
During my 1976 summer trip to England, I was able, for the first time, to meetOwens at a conference convened at the City University of London by the Instituteof Parascience, a small, private parapsychology research facility in London.Owens was an invited speaker on the program, and spoke to a somewhat stunnedaudience—an impressive speaker with a booming voice that rang through theauditorium. Yet, paradoxically, despite his large frame, he seemed like a child.He even pulled behind him a red toy wagon stacked with newspaper clippingsdocumenting his exploits, and he spoke about the hundreds of demonstrations thathe had conducted for scientists. He shocked the audience with his claims that hehad direct contact with UFO beings, that they had endowed him with psychicpowers, that he was being used by the Space Intelligences to end worldwidedrought, and that he could be useful in psychic warfare against the SovietUnion.
Despite Owens' bizarre claims and wild theatrics, I was intrigued by him. Hiswords were dear and articulate. His manner was confident. His eyes sparkled withcharisma and precocious genius. He rocked the audience with his claim that hehad established telepathic contact with other dimensional Space Intelligences.He described how they, the Space Intelligences, had guided his career frominfancy to adulthood through over fifty different occupations—bodyguard,bullwhip artist, judo expert, jazz musician, knife thrower, dance instructor,shorthand expert, high speed typist, parapsychology researcher—so that his mindwould be flexible enough to manipulate their complicated symbolic system.
Owens held up a signed letter from Dr. Max L. Fogel, the director of science andeducation for Mensa, who had testified that he had received a written predictionfrom Owens, two days prior to the event, accurately forecasting the appearanceof a UFO in Chase City, Virginia.
Owens, however, explained to his London audience that he had caused the sightingand not merely predicted it. He also produced an affidavit from a radio producerin Dallas, Texas, verifying the accuracy of a claim that Owens would produce amajor demonstration of his powers by wreaking havoc with the local weather.Owens' pronouncement was followed by some of the most intense and unseasonableweather in Texas history. An earthquake measuring 4.5 on the Richter scalestruck, tornadoes came fast and furious, the coldest temperatures in Texashistory followed suit, and fierce, hot winds capped the ordeal by destroyinghalf the Texas wheat crop.
Because the conference was running behind schedule, the moderator asked Owens tofinish his talk early. This abrupt news shook his self-assured manner. He leftthe podium like an obedient but bitter child, without taking advantage of thefew minutes remaining.
It was a scientific conference and, in this context, Owens was out of place. Hewas speaking as a psychic to scientists who are by profession and natureskeptical of all psychic claims beyond those that they have personallyinvestigated or that have been reported in the scholarly literature, and eventhose claims are subject to intense and often hostile scrutiny. To make mattersworse, another psychic preceded Owens on the speaker's podium—Susan Padfield,the wife of noted British physicist Ted Bastin. Padfield, whose psychokineticabilities had been extensively tested, spoke about "psychic support figures."She claimed that when she first started doing PK, she assumed that UFOintelligences were working through her. Since then, she had come to realize thatthe powers were her own; and the notion that UFO intelligences provided psychicsupport might have been initially necessary to satisfy her emotional needs butdid not explain her PK abilities. Other psychics who claimed to work with spiritguides, saints, or deities were also satisfying the same emotional need, sheclaimed.
When Owens got up to speak, the cards were clearly stacked against him. Even ifthe audience would accept the seemingly outlandish claim that he could causelarge-scale weather changes, it was not inclined to believe that he did sothrough the agency of UFOs. They were not inclined to embrace his desire to usehis talents in psychic warfare with the Soviet Union; and they were not inclinedto accept his messianic claim that he was the supreme Earth ambassador of UFOintelligences. Owens was a liar or a madman, an evil magician or an egotisticalcrackpot. Few people saw him as a fellow human struggling to share with them themethods by which he had cultivated powers so rare they seem either chimerical ordemonic.
The Parascience Foundation Conference was not prepared to handle a characterlike Owens. Those attending the London conference had mixed reactions to him,ranging from exasperation and incredulity to fascination. Many felt that ifOwens wasn't an outright liar, then he was a dangerous character. His claimswere difficult to accept, yet the documentation was there for all to view.
