• AP Magazine

    An alternative way to explore and explain the mysteries of our world. "Published since 1985, online since 2001."

  • 1
Alternate Perceptions Magazine, May 2017


An Interview with “Cosmic Ray,” Dr. Raymond A. Keller, Ph.D.

by: Brent Raynes



Author of two new Venus books to arrive on the 70th anniversary of the modern flying saucer era.

Dr. Raymond A. Keller is an adjunct professor of Greek and Roman Culture and Civilization and Greco-Roman Mythology at West Virginia University in Morgantown, West Virginia. Dr. Keller has lived and worked in 44 different countries and has been writing about UFOs and paranormal activity since 1967. He was the founder and director of the Outer Space International Research and Investigations Society (OSIRIS) of Hilmar, California, as well as the publisher and co-editor of the New Millennial Star, a monthly pre-Internet tabloid newspaper with a circulation of 7,500 copies.He received his doctoral degree from West Virginia University in 2011, focusing on various aspects of the Basque settlement of Venezuela and his master's degree from the same institution in 2004, majoring in foreign language with an emphasis on magic realism in Latin American literature.

Brent Raynes: This is exciting news for you, Ray! I'm sure a good number of folks have been patiently waiting for the sequels to Venus Rising. Most certainly didn’t think you could possibly top the first book, but it looks like you may have hit two grand slam homers with books II and III. When will the books become available for the public?

Dr. Ray Keller: The books will premiere at the 24 June 2017 gathering of the Warren Light Center, on a 243 acre sky watch site on the outskirts of Sandy Lake, Pennsylvania. Such luminaries as Daniel Fry, George King and other contactees have made appearances at the center, so I feel like I’m in good company.

I have to tell you, Brent, I was burning two candles at both ends trying to complete the books that now form a trilogy for the Concise History of the Second Planet. The second book is titled Final Countdown: Rockets to Venus; and the third book is The Cosmic Ray’s Excellent Venus Adventures.

Brent Raynes: Let’s talk about Rockets first. Like the first book, I'm sure that everything will be well documented. The premise seems implausible, but you present evidence that you state proves that the planet Venus is an abode for intelligent life in our immediate solar system. Can you give our readers an inkling of what they will find in Rockets, without giving any spoilers?

Dr. Ray Keller: Rockets details the race to send unmanned probes to our sister planet Venus by the various space-faring powers here on Earth. At the same time, I closely examine events taking place on Earth related to the intensification of flying saucer activity in our skies surrounding close approaches of Venus to our world. In addition, I analyze the FBI’s Counterintelligence Program (COINTEL) monitoring of contactees in all aspects of their lives. There are many never-before-seen classified documents in this book from the files of military and space agencies that clearly show that the powers-that-be knew a lot more about intelligent life in outer space than they were ever letting on, and for a much longer time than anyone may have previously suspected.

Brent Raynes: Everyone enjoyed your preview at Sandy Nichols’s home here in Tennessee last fall; and the Daniel Fry photos from out at White Sands, New Mexico. What can tell us about these photographs?

Dr. Ray Keller: Like many of the other photos in Venus II and Venus III, these have never been widely circulated or published anywhere before. Dan Fry was an Aerojet contractor attached to the White Sands missile range. He was working on the development of the A-4 AIM Falcon missile system. It was the first air-to-air radar and heat-seeking missile to supposedly be deployed against Soviet aircraft; but it was actually designed to be used against the flying saucers. The Venusians placed under intense surveillance American and Soviet bases and research sites experimenting with atomic and nuclear testing. At the same time, the Venusians were neutralizing deadly radiation effects with the deployment of green fireballs. A remote-controlled flying saucer landed at White Sands and flew Fry to New York City and back in thirty minutes, back in 1949.

Brent Raynes: How were you able to garner classified information from Russia about UFOs. Can you tell us anything about that?

Dr. Ray Keller: Well, Brent, I do have sources from throughout the world, correspondents who were affiliated with the 14 chapters of the Outer Space International Research and Investigations Society (OSIRIS), the group I chaired that published the New Millennial Star back in the 1980s and 1990s in California. I don’t want to jeopardize these sources, so all I can say for now is that some of the data was garnered from the files of Project White Stork, an Air Force operation charged with monitoring the Soviet Union’s search for extraterrestrial intelligence.

Brent Raynes: What about some of the other people, us Earthlings and the alleged Venusians, that we meet in Rockets?

Dr. Ray Keller: To name a few, Brent, there is the German “Rocket Man” who saved New York City in early 1945 and in the process crossed a mysterious rainbow bridge over the North Pole that carried him through the time barrier to the cloud- shrouded planet of Venus 18,500,000 years ago. Then there is the wife of a Japanese prime minister who traveled to Venus in another dimension aboard an ethereal beam ship; and a California contactee under constant surveillance by the FBI’s Counterintelligence Program (COINTELPRO) and his public revelations that smashed the Venus Conspiracy. I was very proud of this book, Brent, for while it retains its academic footnoting, at the same time it’s an easy and enjoyable read.

Brent Raynes: I know that you have an academic background in magic realism and mythology; but how does this inform your UFO investigations and writing?

Dr. Ray Keller: That’s an excellent question, Brent. I’d have to quote John Lennon on that. The former Beatle once declared that, “I believe in everything until it's disproved. So I believe in fairies, the myths, dragons. It all exists, even if it's in your mind. Who's to say that dreams and nightmares aren't as real as the here and now?”

Brent: Lennon makes an interesting point, Ray. In fact, that’s what Alternate Perceptions is about, exploring new and different ways to look at phenomena. In the April issue, in fact, we posted an article by Diane Tessman on the question of thought forms; what have been called “tulpas” in the East. Anything else you might want to add about Rockets, before we move on to the even more controversial Excellent Adventure?

Dr. Ray Keller: Why yes, Brent. Rockets also deals with the mega-stars of the Rock and Roll and Hollywood universe that have used various forms of magic to contact Venusians and other entities inhabiting the mysterious phantom zone known as “Dimension X.” In addition, I look at the enigmatic psychic Maria Orsic and the members of the Vril Social Club that inspired the early German science fiction writers and rocket scientists.

Brent Raynes: It’s interesting that you included Maria Orsic and the Vril. Isn’t this stuff of early science fiction?

Dr. Ray Keller: It is, Brent, but at the same time it is much more. I lived in Germany for five years and half of my ancestors come from Germany. I used to write a column for a German-American newspaper in the Cleveland area; and my favorite author is the German-American novelist Kurt Vonnegut. So I had this burning desire to get down to the truth about the Vril and any possible Venus connection. I’m also distantly related to the Swiss sculptor Heinrich Keller, who worked diligently in Rome to complete his famous “Birth of Venus” statue in 1799. I can’t help but think they must have been partying hardy back then, insofar as it was 1799.

Brent Raynes: Thank you, Ray, for that informative glimpse into Venus II. Now what can you tell us about The Cosmic Ray’s Excellent Venus Adventure?

Dr. Ray Keller: Without giving out any spoilers, I can tell you that I chose a name that so-closely parallels the movie title, Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure, because Venus III is about my inadvertent excursion across the time barrier. An accident in Dimension X propelled Dolores Barrios, the reigning queen of outer space, and I, into the past. We inadvertently altered your space-time continuum and provide documented evidence to prove this by way of photographs and newspaper clippings that never existed in this time frame/time line, until recently.

Brent Raynes: Yes, at Sandy's you shared with us the photographs that you explained depicted you and Dolores Barrios. What else can we expect in Venus III?

Dr. Ray Keller: Well, there is a Canadian defense minister who “spilled the beans” about Venusians and other aliens living and working among us.

There are scientists from around the world engineering new developments to explore and understand various outer space phenomena like magnetic reconnection, traveling faster than the speed of light, and the requisites for intelligent life on other planets.

In addition, we find a couple from Northern California who as the co-presidents of one of America’s first flying saucer clubs travel along with their group’s membership to every UFO meeting and sky watch in 1950’s California with the hopes of reconnecting with Venusians they once encountered in the Mojave Desert. Krsanna Duran of TimeStar reveals startling new revelations that will shake the ufology universe.

Brent Raynes: I’ve interviewed Krsanna for Alternate Perceptions; and I find that her writings and evidence are thought-provoking as well.

To our group in the Nashville area, you painted a very rosy, feminist, utopian and even communistic view of Venusian society. Have you learned anything that might alter that perception?

Dr. Ray Keller: No, Brent, I haven’t. In fact, everything I’ve come across in my travels and investigations only reinforces that perspective. In Excellent Venus Adventure, I relate the true and complete account of a Nevada road construction foreman at Mormon Mesa, Nevada, just outside a nuclear testing site, who encounters a female saucer pilot. Sporting a beret and looking quite the revolutionary, her name is Aura Rhanes and she is from the Venusian space base Clarion on the far side of the Moon. She’s monitoring atomic blasts in the desert. What the readers of Excellent will discover about Venusian society will literally transform their way of looking at the “politics as usual” syndrome down here on Earth. In addition, Venus III bolsters the feminist ideology where I introduce an individual who is possibly the second most powerful being from Venus posing as an aging, wannabe aspiring actress living in the North Hollywood Hills, but working behind the scenes for the empowerment of women and girls.

Brent Raynes: From what I understand, your recent appearance in Philadelphia caused quite a commotion.

Dr. Ray Keller: That’s right, Brent. New photos of Dolores Barrios, the Queen of Outer Space, and I, were displayed traversing Dimension X, and amazing details of the Venus conspiracy revealed. Every seat in the Mainline library was filled and people were lining up against the walls. A female reporter dressed all in white with whitish-gray hair asked a question from the back of the room, and when I moved to the back to hear her better, she had disappeared! Several others in attendance remarked that they had seen her as well when the meeting started, but never recalled that she had gotten up at anytime to leave the area.

Brent Raynes: Are you expecting a similar event to take place at the Sandy Lake, Pennsylvania, book premiere?

Dr. Ray Keller: An Abejan (Venusian) friend materialized at a sports bar I dropped in at while on the road with an associate for my book tour recently. This individual just returned from some work for the Angelic Hierarchy of Light on the Italian peninsula and might “beam in” to the PA shindig, should circumstances allow.

Brent Raynes: Ray, regarding the Dolores Barrios connection with George Adamski, how some speculated on her being a Venusian (which you've confirmed), and, in fact, being the "Orthon" that Adamski allegedly encountered in the California desert in 1952, you recently pointed out to me that you had come upon a statement that had been made by George Hunt Williamson, an alleged witness (among several) to that event, who saw Orthon as a female. Can you share a few details on that?

Dr. Ray Keller: Yes, Brent. In an article he prepared for "Valor: The Magazine of Soulcraft" magazine in December 1954, just two years after the incident, he drew a picture of Orthon as a girl dressed in a black outfit standing in front of a Venusian scout craft, albeit it looks a little larger and has some additional portholes. I am speculating that it may have been an observational patrol craft. Orthon/Lady Orda in the drawing is looking somewhat like she did in the photograph of Dolores Barrios and myself out on the desert floor. His drawing appears in the forthcoming "Rockets to Venus!"

Brent Raynes: Very recently, noted UFO author Jerome Clark mentioned how that observation happened a mile away and he wondered if it was possible for the witnesses to have seen a figure next to Adamski from that great a distance. Your thoughts?

Dr. Ray Keller: In "Rockets," I reported that Bob Grant, a correspondent of "Real" magazine, was the last to interview George Adamski, albeit his article appeared one year after Adamski's death in Real's "Flying Saucers Pictorial" in 1966. According to Grant, "Adamski's six companions were situated about a quarter of a mile away, safely tucked behind a small rock formation. They were taking turns, watching their friend and guru through powerful binoculars." I also published the drawing of another witness to the event, Alice K. Wells, also made in 1954, that depicts Orthon/Lady Orda as a girl looking very much like Dolores Barrios; and this drawing was made before the Skyline Lodge meeting on Mt. Palomar.



: Inspite of Clark's skepticism, he nonetheless saw Williamson as "an unusually intelligent man and a sincere one," although he felt that his "creative imagination" didn't always occupy the same space as actual "consensus reality." [ForteanTimes, March 2017, pg. 60] He did acknowledge that more than a decade before Erich von Daniken made ancient aliens popular, Williamson was already deeply immersed in it, lost civilizations, channeled alien communications, etc. In the late Harold Sherman's book, You Can Communicate with the Unseen World (1974), in a chapter entitled Technological Breakthrough in Spirit Communication He described the then newly emerging field of radio and tape recorder retrieved EVP (Electronic Voice Phenomena) and how he commissioned Dr. Walter Uphoff, a noted American parapsychologist, to prepare a report for him to include in the book. In that report, he noted how none other than George Hunt Williamson, back in 1952, had been collecting a lot of this data all across the USA.



Comments?

Dr. Ray Keller: Yes, Brent, beginning in the late 1940s, Meade Layne, Mark Probert and others began communicating with Venusians and other extraterrestrial and ultra-dimensional beings through psychic channels. This was largely done under the auspices of the Borderland Sciences Research Association in San Diego, California. Adamski himself, a Theosophist and master of the mystic arts of the Grand Order of Tibet, may have also been in psychic contact first, or perhaps receiving direct transmissions to his brain through a sort of tensor beam. Adamski often stated that he knew when and where to expect the arrival of a Venusian spaceship. Also, before he wrote any of his books on flying saucers, he first wrote a science fiction novel about life on the Moon, Mars and Venus, of which I have a copy. Adamski was also a member of the Greater Los Angeles Science Fiction and Fantasy Society, along with L. Ron Hubbard and Jack Parsons, two others who later went on to experience direct contact with a Venusian woman in the Mojave Desert. There was a great flurry in Southern California by the mid-1950s to contact Venusians through standard electronic equipment; and Paul Vest, another Theosophist, wrote about this in "Mystic" magazine, which I detail in "Venus Rising." Attempts were even made over commercial radio stations by Richard Miller, George Van Tassel, Gabriel Green and many others. By the way, many people do not know that Gabe actually had a doctoral degree in physics and built several pieces of communications equipment with the aid of advanced beings from the cosmically nearby Alpha-Proxima-Centauri system. In all of these cases, however, including G. H. Williamson, the psychic communication came first. The Venusians search the heart and touch you on the spiritual plane first; and then when you are ready they will make physical contact in a way that seems most apt. This is important because in some cases the first physical contact with an other than Earthly entity or presence can be quite frightening to some. But the spiritually aware individual will not be afraid to embrace the darkness in order to pass through it and emerge into the marvelous light. This is considered an initiatory process. Those wishing to "break on through to the other side," so to speak, should be aware of this before attempting contact or penetration of the ethereal plane.

There are many who cannot handle this. When I speak of the "occult" worlds, I am only referring to those realms that remain invisible, but nevertheless exist all around us in time and space. Radio is one bridge to connect to these worlds, and there at least 60 of them in our solar system. There is also substantial information about this in the first book, "Venus Rising." Williamson was definitely tuning into this, Brent, and thus able to predict the coming of the grays, reptilians and other entities a decade before the proliferation of abductions and other negative scenarios in the ufology universe.

At this point, Brent, I am only speaking for myself here, and giving an opinion. While I admire Williamson on many levels, especially for his groundbreaking work with the flying saucer phenomenon, I was sorry to see him drift off into the fringe of right-wing politics. Racism, sexism, homophobia, anti-Semitism, religious extremism and all that rot is just excess baggage. Those are the chains that bind us and keep us from our own self-realization. If he had to reincarnate again on Earth instead of moving up in the celestial hierarchy on Venus or some other sphere, it is only because he's hanging around like Marley's ghost in Dickens' "Christmas Carol" because he chose to waste his time making life miserable for others. It's good to keep in mind the words of those avatars who've helped us along the way: "The servant of all is the greatest in the Kingdom of the Most High."

Brent Raynes: You told me in a recent phone conversation, that on the same date that Dolores Barrios allegedly disappeared mysteriously from the contactee gathering in California in 1954 that Adamski had organized, magnetic field instruments at Wilbert Smith's Canadian laboratory detected unusually strong readings?

Dr. Ray Keller: Pioneering UFO researcher and director of the Cleveland Ufology Project (CUP), Earl J. Neff, was a frequent guest on Michael La Riche's "Youth Power" radio broadcast during the mid-to-late 1960s on WZAK Radio 93.1 FM, broadcast out of studios of that primarily ethnic music and news station in Cleveland, Ohio. In a series of five radio interviews with La Riche in the first few months of 1969, the two discussed the UFO situation in Canada and Neff went into detail about Canadian radio engineer Wilbert Smith, the director of Canada's top secret "Project Magnet" at Shirley's Bay, Ontario, and the amazing research and discoveries taking place there that Neff had learned about first-hand from his close friend and associate, Gene Duplantier of Willowdale, Ontario. From old tapes of the broadcasts, this is what La Riche and Neff discussed in one segment (Presented with permission of the author,

From the pages of my forthcoming "Cosmic Ray's Excellent Venus Adventure"):

Mike: What was the Shirley’s Bay station equipped with, and what did the technicians there discover about the flying saucers?

Neff: That’s a great question, Mike. In October 1952, Smith set up his observatory at Shirley's Bay, outside Ottawa, to study reports of flying saucers from all over Canada, and the world, for that matter.  This new facility was dubbed by the press as the “world’s first flying saucer sighting station.”  It was equipped with an abundance of expensive, highly sensitive equipment, including a gamma ray detector, a magnetometer, several radio receivers, and a gravimeter; with each of these being wired to a graph paper device to record the fluctuations they might find, and an alarm system to alert personnel to any such notable fluctuations.

Smith operated from the assumption that UFOs would emit physical characteristics that could be measured. A number of sighting reports were investigated by Project Magnet, but in 1954, the project’s funding was shut off just two days after a unique occurrence transpired at the Shirley’s Bay facility, causing all the equipment to go haywire.  After that, Smith was allowed to use the Shirley's Bay facilities on his own time with his own funding and did so until his death in 1962. Mike: What incident was that, Earl?

Neff: At exactly 3:01 in the afternoon of 8 August 1954, the instrumentation at the Shirley’s Bay station registered a most unusual disturbance, quite unlike anything that the equipment there had ever registered before. Smith literally jumped out of his socks, yelling that “The gravimeter went wild!”  What it indicated was clearly impossible.  There was such a great deflection noted that it could not logically be explained by the conventional interference generated by passing aircraft.  Smith and his team raced outside but only viewed a heavy, overcast sky.  Smith told his associates, “Well, I guess whatever is up there must be hiding in the clouds.”  The only evidence that something out of the ordinary had happened that day was the registering of the deflection on the chart recorder paper.

Of all this, I write about: The California Synchronicity

At the same time, but out in California, it was only 12:01 p.m.  The contactee conference at the Skyline Lodge on the slopes of Mt. Palomar in California, sponsored by George Adamski, was coming to an end. In a grove of trees and down an undulating hill to the west of the lodge’s main parking lot, Brazilian photographer Ed Keffel from O Cruzeiro magazine, at last took some photographs of Dolores Barrios and her posse for publication in the upcoming October issue. But as word got out that the “Venusians were being photographed there,” people who normally would have been getting into their cars or buses to go back home started streaming out of the parking area and down the hill with cameras in hand. At that point, Dolores pulled out of her sweater a small, circular device, looking something like a shiny metallic tennis ball. As she rubbed her thumb over it, a halo of ionized air suddenly formed over their heads as they disappeared into a cloud of light behind the trees and out of sight....

Pure coincidence? I don't believe in coincidences.

Brent Raynes: Before we close out, how can our readers get copies of Venus II and Venus III?

Dr. Ray Keller: Thank you, Brent, for this timely interview and these engaging questions. The readers of Alternate Perceptions can call Headline Books for advance copies at (800) 570-5951 or wait until they come out on amazon.com and order through that outlet. Or better yet, when I appear at any event, I offer the books at a discount since they do not have to be mailed. Individuals interested in sponsoring a Venus presentation can call Cathy Teets, President of Headline Books, to arrange for me to come out and speak, or call me direct at (304) 594-0454 and leave a message on my home phone.


Thursday, March 28, 2024