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cultural beliefs.
    High Strangeness Case Number One: Moving Through Time
    In September 1982 I received a call from a man then in his early forties. His real name is Frank, but to protect his identity, I will not publish his last name. Frank had an outrageous story to tell and his claims seemed to be so fantastic that I felt no one—not even the most imaginative science fiction writer—could invent what he was to tell me. I agreed to meet Frank the next day in the afternoon at a restaurant in Darien, Connecticut. I arrived at the restaurant early and when Frank arrived, I invited him to sit at my table. The first question he asked me was “What day and year is this?” Frank claimed that since his interaction with an “alien” intelligence, he had been moving backward and forward through time. Frank said, “I was thirty years in the future and the towns from Norwalk to Greenwich were destroyed by an atomic explosion set by a terrorist who will soon become known only as “Carlos.” [2] I asked him to slow down and start his story from the beginning and tell me how this all started happening to him. Frank’s claim was so fantastic that I will present what he told me word for word. I was interested in what he had to say; according to my background check, he had until this point led a pretty normal life as a successful corporate executive and property owner in Connecticut.
    Frank’s Story
    “I guess you can say my life was normal until I had my first contact with what I thought at the time was an alien emissary from another planet. I owned my own home in Darien, had been happily married for ten years, and although we had no children it was still something considered for the near future. In December 1981, at about eight in the evening, I was watching television alone at home when suddenly the power went out. My wife was away visiting her mother who lived in New York City; the thought of spending the night alone without power did not sit well with me. I tried calling the electric company, but when I picked up the telephone there was no dial tone. I went and got a flashlight, looked out the window, and noticed that the power was still on in the neighborhood. I then started to go down to the basement to check the circuit breakers when the phone started ringing in short, loud bursts. It didn’t even sound like my phone, but as I picked up the receiver there were two voices: one of a man and the other of a woman, but they didn’t sound human. I think they were computer generated.
    “The voices took turns speaking and said: ‘Greetings. We are from another galaxy and have chosen you to communicate with. Do not be alarmed—we mean you no harm but we have neutralized the power to your home so that we could speak with you.’ I tried talking back and asked them what they wanted with me, but it was as if they used some type of pre-recorded message; they didn’t respond to my questions. The voices also said that in ten seconds after the communication ended, electrical power in my home would be restored and at that time I was to go back into the living room and sit by the television. This seemed like a strange request, but the voices did not sound threatening and were very polite; they often apologized for the inconvenience and they often said the word ‘please’ when they wanted me to do something.
    “The power came back on just after the voices stopped and the dial tone on the phone returned. I walked into the living room and sat near the television. As I sat there the set turned on all by itself and although the picture was fuzzy there was an image of a person. He had very large eyes that wrapped around his head, which looked almost like the shape of a pear. I could not see a mouth moving, but the being spoke and said, ‘Greetings to you from the light of the radiant ones. My name is Lomunk and I am projecting my image to you from a ship located behind your moon. I come from a race of beings called the Ashtar which has