Dwight Connelly

Teleportation cases, while infrequent, are certainly not unknown in the field of ufology. Strictly speaking, the Australian case described in this issue is not a teleportation case, since the abductee was allegedly observed floating from the dwelling, rather than disappearing from one location and reappearing in another. In other words, in a true teleportation case an abductee, entity, or object would have to dematerialize, not merely be transported.

However, teleportation, a term apparently coined by Charles Fort seventy years go in his book Lo, has traditionally referred to ufological events in which the abductee or object has been picked up at one location and dropped off at another.

Thus the 1975 Travis Walton case would be considered perhaps the best known and best documented "teleportation" case, but there is also an element of teleportation in the well-documented 1993 Kelly Cahill case in Australia, as reported in her book Encounter (1996). The 1965 extensively-researched case involving Debbie Jordon and Kathy Mitchell, investigated by Budd Hopkins and reported in the books Intruders and Abducted, had an element of teleportation when the car driven by 16-year-old Kathy was reportedly lifted from the highway, taken into a UFO, and eventually deposited on a church parking lot.

Other teleportation cases, usually less known and less well documented, have been reported for many years. Those wanting a full book of such cases might try to find a copy of parapsychologist Dr. Nandor Fodor's Mind Over Space (1962), even though he did not cover the modern UFO abductee cases. In Exobiology: A Research Guide (1978), Dr. Martin H. Sable cited 53 references to UFO-related teleportations. In a foreward to the Sable book, Dr. J. Allen Hynek said, "These new empirical observations and phenomena no longer can be summarily dismissed."

Indeed there are several modern cases, most of which have not been thoroughly investigated.

In May of 1968, for example, Dr. Geraldo Vidal, a well-known Buenos Aires attorney, and his wife were reportedly driving between Chascomus and Buenos Aires, Argentina, and friends were traveling ahead of them in another car. The passengers in the two vehicles lost touch with each other at Maipu, and the other couple backtracked to see if they could locate the Vidals, fearing they had experienced car trouble.

According to Dr. Vidal's account of the incident, the Vidals had encountered a strange fog, and were unable to account for the next 48 hours. When they regained consciousness they were still inside their car (a Peugot 403), which was parked. They experienced pains in their necks, but otherwise appeared unhurt. The surface of the car, however, was burned, as with a blowtorch, but operated perfectly. Their watches had stopped. After inquiry, they discovered they were no longer in Argentina, but in Mexico, 4,000 miles from where they had encountered the fog.

The Vidals flew back to Argentina, where Mrs. Vidal was taken to a private clinic for treatment of a nervous disorder. She died the following year, a victim of leukemia. No hypnosis was done on either of the Vidals. On the same night the Vidals disappeared, a man (identity unknown) was reportedly treated at the Maipu Hospital after exposure to "a strange fog" on the same road traveled by the Vidals.

On May 31, 1974, in what was then known as Rhodesia, Peter, 24, and his wife Frances, 21, experienced the sighting of two UFOs, observed a strange individual alongside the road, experienced effects on their auto's lighting system, felt extreme cold inside their auto, and lost control of their auto as they traveled from Salisbury, Rhodesia, to their home in Durban, South Africa. Frances fell asleep, and Peter said he began to feel hypnotized.

When they arrived at Beit Bridge on the South African border, they were surprised to discover they had gotten there an hour earlier than expected, and Peter said he had no recollection of seeing the sun until they arrived. They had traveled 180 miles in an hour and 45 minutes, averaging 100 m.p.h.

In addition, when they refueled their auto it took only half a gallon of gasoline, which meant they got 360 miles to the gallon. However, the odometer of their Peugot had registered only ten miles instead of the 180 miles traveled. (There are several other aspects of this case, which was investigated by Carl Van Vlierden, MUFON representative for South Africa. A more detailed look at the case by Joe Brill and Dwight Connelly appeared in the March 1975 issue of Skylook, the original name for the MUFON UFO Journal.)

Another case involving loss of control of a vehicle allegedly occurred on Jan. 6, 1976, near Stanford, KY. Three women, Mrs. Mona Stafford, Louise Smith, and Elaine Thomas, drove out of Stanford, KY, toward what they thought might be a crashed aircraft, but encountered a saucer-shaped object that shined a bright light onto their car.

Suddenly, Louise, who was driving, realized she was no longer in control of the car. The speedometer showed a speed of 85 mph, but Louise said she did not have her foot on the accelerator. "It felt like we were crossing those grooves they have in the highway to slow you down before you reach a stop sign," said Mona. They quickly found themselves in Hustonville. "It was like something had picked us up in Stanford and set us down in Hustonville, " said Mona.

In addition to a period of missing time, Louise and Elaine had burns on the backs of their necks. Upon arriving home they contacted neighbors to show them the burns and to tell them what had happened. The neighbors suggested they separate and draw pictures of what they had seen. The women reportedly experienced physiological and psychological problems following the incident.

A well-documented case involving both human and entity teleportation is described by Raymond Fowler in The Andreasson Affair (1979), the story of Mrs. Betty Andreasson Luca. Rather than smoothly moving through the wall of the home, the entities seemed to be projected in a series of images (see drawing above).

A case considered fictional by mainline ufologists is reported in The Philadelphia Experiment (1979), by William Moore and Charles Berlitz. In this 1943 incident the U.S. Navy supposedly experimented in the attempted shielding of a ship from either magnetic mines or possible radar waves. The experiment supposedly teleported a ship and some of the sailors, injuring or killing them. Moore later suggested that teleportation was probably not involved.

A poorly-documented case reportedly occurred in 1968 or 1969, involving Sr. Marcilo Ferraz and his wife, who were driving south from San Paulo, Brazil. Like the Vidals, the couple reportedly encountered a "white cloud" near the Uraguay border, passed out, and awakened in Mexico. Both reportedly experienced traumatic shock, and the husband allegedly consulted a doctor a few weeks later, and was told he had a brain tumor. Shortly after this, he reportedly shot himself.

Another "cloud" case involved a single witness, an 11-year-old girl, Graciela del Lourdes, who lived in a suburb of Cordoba, Argentina. As she looked out the front door of her home on Aug. 4, 1968, a "white mist" appeared on the front path and gradually came toward her, she said. "I could no longer see the other houses, and I couldn't move or call out to Mummy," she explained. Then she allegedly found herself on the crowded Plaza Espana in Cordoba. She reported feeling "intense cold." No other details are available.

A 1968 case with few details involves a newly-married couple who had stopped their Volkswagen in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, for a rest. They were reportedly suddenly overcome with drowsiness. When they regained consciousness they found themselves and their VW in Mexico, apparently a favorite dropping off point for teleported people and objects.

Another case involves Sr. Dolor Roque, who on April 20, 1969, was allegedly riding his horse near Itaucu, Brazil, on his way to a pharmacy when he saw "some lights" and lost consciousness.

When he awakened he found himself, without his horse, on some rocks on the bank of the River Paranaiba at Itumbiara, 250 miles by road (or 150 miles in a straight path) from Itaucu. He reportedly took a bus back home, where he found a worried family and his horse.

Another case allegedly occurred in the early morning hours of Jan. 5, 1975. According to the newspaper La Razon, 28-year-old Carlos Alberto Diaz claimed to have been blinded by a light, was "unable to move a muscle," and "something like a strong wind raised me up through the air" into "a spherical chamber not provided with any furniture, and whose walls seemed to be made of translucent plastic material."

Diaz reported that three small humanoids climbed on him and began taking samples of his hair by painlessly pulling it from his head. He passed out, and found himself in Buenos Aires, 300 miles away, and it was now daylight. His watch had stopped at 3:30 a.m. With him was a newspaper he had bought in Bahia Blanca, as well as a duffel bag containing his work clothes.

In the early hours of Sept. 23, 1978, two participants in the South American Rally, Carlos Acevedo and Miguel Angel Moya, suddendly noticed a bright light behind their Citroen GS 1220, just west of Salina de Piedra, Argentina. Thinking it was another car about to overtake them, despite the fact they were traveling 60 mph, Carlos pulled slightly to the right.

Suddenly the car was filled with light, and seemed out of control, moving about six feet off the ground and continuing to climb. Moya reports he was "seeing everything like through a yellow fog, as if I were at a distance, someplace else. I couldn't hear anything. I looked at Carlos and I saw him rigid. Suddenly the light engulfed everything and I couldn't see anything, not even my hands."

The witnesses then seemed to lose all concept of time, then felt a bump and noticed the car was back on the road. The yellow light lost some of its intensity.

Acevedo reported, "The light left the interior of the car, and I observed that to the west something like a cone of yellow light was disappearing, but it didn't end at that point, it was cut off. It was about 4 or 5 meters (12 to 15 feet) at the base, 2 or 3 at the cusp, and 6 meters, maybe 7, in height. The base lighted the surrounding area, although I couldn't tell what it was illuminating; in other words, you couldn't see through it. A few seconds later the light retracted itself; it just went up like a curtain, from bottom to top, and the only thing that was left in view was a white/yellowish light, oval in shape, that continued its west heading until it disappeared in the distance."

Acevedo and Moya were stunned, but decided to resume their journey. After traveling for 15 minutes they arrived at Pedro Luro in the province of Buenos Aires, but the trip from Carmen de Patagones to Pedro Luro had taken about an hour longer than it should have. In addition, the car's odometer indicated that the car had traveled 71 km (42 miles) less than the distance between the two cities, indicating teleportation of the vehicle.

But in contrast, they discovered that their reserve gasoline tank was completely empty, despite being filled with 40 liters of gas in the city of Viedma. Additional details may be found in an article by Guillermo C. Roncoroni in the October, 1979, issue of the MUFON UFO Journal.

In another Argentine case, this one on July 16, 1972, Mssrs. Brunelli and Prochietto were reportedly traveling from Arroyito to Cordoba, but could not remember traveling a 50-mile section of the highway, and the trip was reduced by nearly 40 minutes, again suggesting teleportation, but no missing time.

Still another case with few details and no investigation allegedly occurred in Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, in 1968. Two young men were reportedly in a Jeep when they ran into white fog near Porto Alegre. They passed out, and when they awakened they found themselves in Mexico.

A final case, also with spotty detail, allegedly involved two individuals (names unknown) traveling on the President Dutra Motorway in Brazil, who were allegedly transported to an unnamed town in the U.S. near the Mexican border, according to the Jan. 15, 1969, issue of the newspaper Diario de Noticias in Rio de Janeiro. The auto in which they were riding "bore marks made by the hooks of the transporting vehicle." (While this seems unlikely, the use of hooks in snagging victims has been reported elsewhere in Brazil by reliable investigators.)