Making Contact – CE5 Style

For nearly two decades this document was part of the official CSETI training materials. I believe many of the lessons described here still apply,

Let’s face it; it’s OK to be somewhat apprehensive when going out into the field for the first time. Vectoring in ET Spacecraft to initiate a citizen’s diplomatic mission with the ET visitors is not something you’ve done every day of your life. It’s not something you learn at home or in grade school or at the university. You can’t watch a “Do it yourself” program about it on educational TV, (hopefully that will change in the future), nor is it an activity that is just plain “intuitively obvious” which yields to a spontaneous “anything goes” approach.

Following the CSETI contact protocols can be extraordinarily helpful for simply one reason. They really do work! Dozens of successful Close Encounters of the Fifth Kind have been initiated by CSETI Working Groups in North America and in England by following these principles. So we invite you to follow our example and see if you can add to this growing body of experience. Remember these protocols are not cut in stone. They have been evolving constantly and are based on each attempt at contact. Without a doubt they will continue to evolve, hopefully with your contributions as well.

As the CSETI leadership has emphasized there are no true experts in the field of “extraterrestriology”(a term that I believe Dr Greer coined in 1993.) There are no tenured professors at major universities in “Saucer Studies” who are available for consultation if you have questions. Given the current level of general societal denial concerning the prescience of ET visitors, you will not likely be the recipient of major funding to finance your research.

Nevertheless you may be amazed at how successful you can be in establishing contact early in the course of your efforts (this contact worker certainly was), and you can do so with a minimal of equipment combined with the right attitude. Let’s start with the first step and that is forming a group, but as part of that discussion we should review how the initial CSETI research teams were organized. If you already have a team of friends who know each other well and are ready to go out into the field, you might want to skip over this upcoming CSETI history treatise and go on to the next section “Dealing with Fear”.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF CSETI CE-5 INITIATIVE WORKING GROUPS

CSETI working groups have formed in a number of ways. The first attempts at doing regular fieldwork started in North Carolina, where CSETI International Director Dr. Steven Greer resides. He started going out into the field with a number of local supporters in 1991. It was there in the Appalachian Mountains that these basic contact protocols were initiated, based on Dr. Greer’s preliminary investigations. Following this initial phase, he embarked on a 3 year effort that involved giving dozens and dozens of lectures and workshops in North America and in Europe to facilitate the formation of other CSETI Close Encounters of the Fifth Kind Initiative Working Groups, CE-5 I WGs.

The training process usually consisted of a public lecture on a Friday evening followed by an in depth all day workshop the next day. There the guiding principles of the Center for the Study of Extraterrestrial Intelligence were described. (For a detailed explanation of these basic tenets please review Dr. Greer’s monograph available from the CSETI national office. It is sent out as part of the new member packet..) In addition the workshop participants were introduced to the guided meditation techniques that form the basis of Coherent Thought Sequencing (CTS).

At the workshop Dr. Greer reviewed the contact methods that enabled CSETI members to start their CE-5 research that very night. Under starry skies, Dr Greer’s demonstrations of how the contact protocols are carried out sometimes produced amazing results. More often than not there were sightings of anomalous lights that astounded many of the participants and on one occasion a truly historic event took place.

It occurred March 15, 1992 when following an all day CSETI workshop at Gulf Breeze Florida, no less than 4 ET spacecraft interacted with 50 of the participants for 15 minutes(For more details please see the full report in Dr. Greer’s monograph.) This spectacular occurrence was captured by several home videos. They show how three of the craft, which were visible as discs through binoculars, broke out of a loose formation and then took the shape of an equilateral triangle. This maneuver was in response to the CSETI’s light work that consisted of tracing triangles in the sky with powerful signal lanterns. The videos provided CSETI with dramatic documentation that served to recruit future working group members. (This working group coordinator, Dr. Joe Burkes of the Los Angeles CSETI contact team, joined the CE-5 Initiative in part because of convincing quality of these amazing home videos.)

In spite of high initial enthusiasm following these dramatic fieldwork demonstrations, working groups faced considerable difficulties in organizing themselves to do regular fieldwork. Often composed of people who had met for the first time at the workshop, they had to go through a complex process of training and socialization before they could work as an effective team. There are however a small number of outstanding exceptions to this pattern of participation in CSETI. In these instances teams formed from groups that were already doing contact work on their own and they brought CSETI in only after they already had established an effective and positive working relationship among themselves.

These pre-existing groups had a much higher probability of coalescing than those teams initially composed of strangers or as casual acquaintances. It cannot be over-emphasized that a CSETI Working Group’s success is highly dependent on the level of unity and cooperation between members of the team. This may be difficult to understand for those researchers who cannot acknowledge the consciousness links between CSETI members and our presumed ET collaborators. Nevertheless, it is the judgment of the current CSETI leadership that our efforts are being monitored by the extraterrestrials. Those teams that are plagued by individualism, selfishness, disunity and bickering, are simply not likely to get much contact. If some manifestation of ET contact does occur, but the level of dysfunctional behavior is high, it is almost certain that ongoing contact will not be sustained unless the team is able to overcome its shortcomings.

This concept implies that the extraterrestrials are actively monitoring the progress of CSETI Working Groups. This is an idea that both our harshest critics and open-minded skeptics would have great difficulty with on face value. Nevertheless it is CSETI’s impression that we have entered into a collaborative relationship with the extraterrestrials by initiating this citizens’ diplomatic movement. This notion is based on the fact that CSETI field teams regularly witness anomalous nocturnal lights and structured craft that interact with them.

In addition many individuals associated with CSETI will have sightings of craft and anomalous lights after they initiate plans for doing fieldwork. This can be quite amazing to some investigators because the sighting often occur over or near their homes.(On line subscribers please see upcoming article titled “CSETI, Sightings and Synchronicity” that describes this phenomenon in detail.)

As a results of Dr. Greer’s initial organizing efforts that involved many dozens of lectures and workshops from 1991 to 1994, a large number of teams coalesced and started doing field work. Of those initial teams put into the field, few were able to sustain ongoing research activities for more than a few months. Although each team’s success and failure can be analyzed in terms of the specific history of that group, a number of important lessons have emerged from this growing body of experience. The following suggestions are offered in the hope that they will help you maximize your chance of building a successful CE-5 Working Group.

Business meetings play an important role to a new CE-5 team. During the first few meetings in addition to reviewing the basic protocols, prospective field workers will need to share some details about themselves, especially why they are interested in contact work. This socialization process is essential in terms of building unity within the research team. The WG coordinator may want to carefully take note of the particular details of each new researchers story, as the better the WG coordinator knows her/his team, then the better she/he is able to lead the fieldwork.

Careful attention should be paid to the stated personal goals of prospective researchers, always keeping in mind the high ideals and goals of CSETI to facilitate a mutually beneficial, peaceful relationship with any and all ET civilizations visiting earth. Those who express fear-based assumptions about the visitors’ intentions may need special assistance and support from the group. The WG coordinator, who has the paramount responsibility for the maintaining cohesion of the team, will likely play a very active role in these preliminary discussions. It should always be recognized that CE-5 contact work is not for everyone and WG s are primarily research teams focusing on doing regular field work to investigate ET intelligence and spacecraft visiting earth. We are not a support group for those who believe they are contactees, “abductees” or want-to- bees.

Following brief business meetings, I suggest that the team should immediately go out to do field work. A recommendation of 2 or 3 outings the first month can help build the unity and camaraderie so necessary for building a successful team. A less rigorous schedule of fieldwork may prevent the development of team unity. Don’t be surprised if considerable attrition occurs within the ranks of the team during the first month or two of field operations. Expect perhaps a minimum of 50% of those who attend a workshop or the initial meetings to drop out.

For some it will simply be that fantasizing about fieldwork is far more attractive than actually doing it. Some individuals may want only to talk about UFOs, rather than doing something about an ET presence on Earth. After all, staying up late at night, at times in adverse weather, to engage in an activity as strange, audacious and exciting as vectoring in ET spacecraft, may be too difficult for couch potatoes.

For other prospective field workers the obstacles they face may be interpersonal. Let’s face it, not everyone is a team player. The UFO field has more than its fair share of strange birds that may not have the social skills to work effectively in a group. The more stable and the more secure an individual is in terms of having a steady well paying job, family support for CSETI research and having adequate amounts of free time to dedicate to this important work, the more likely heshe will be able to persevere and successfully integrate into a CSETI Working Group. Delaying going out to do field work, and staying with discussion type of business meetings during the initial formation of the team, has been fatal for a number of Working Groups. They could not coalesce as a team in part because of poor leadership that failed to grasp the urgency of initiating research activities.

When subjected to a seemingly endless series of discussions about things theoretical, those prospective CSETI investigators who are eager to go out into field, will understandably loose their enthusiasm. This armchair type of “research” unfortunately occurs far to often in the UFO community. A steady diet of wild speculation is constantly being dished out instead of obtaining solid information based on prospective scientific investigation. CSETI has launched the CE-5 Initiative to remedy this sad situation. Thus a rigorous schedule of fieldwork early in the development of the group, will help separate the talkers from the doers and at the same time help add important new experience and scientific research to CSETI’s growing data base. Not unexpectedly, the big talkers may simply drop out when an active schedule of fieldwork is initiated, and the team’s identity will happily coalesce around the most highly motivated researchers.

END OF PART ONE, PART TWO “DEALING WITH FEAR” to follow.

Joseph Burkes, MD