extraordinary%20encounters

fingertips, the fingers had needlelike tips and
suction cups. Its slender body looked like the
stalk of a plant, and so did its color: green.
Suddenly the entity gripped Frederick’s
hand. Before he realized what was happening,
it was drawing blood from it. Then its eyes
turned red, and they began to rotate like spinning
orange circles. The effect was hypnotic.
Frederick no longer felt any pain from the extraction,
which lasted a minute or so. Afterward,
a restored Vegetable Man bounded up a
nearby hill, each of his steps covering twentyfive
feet.
Frederick’s pain resumed. As he started to
walk home, he heard a humming sound. It
made him panic because he thought the entity
might be coming after him in its flying saucer.
He ran as fast as he could and got back home
unharmed.
Frederick was friends with Gray Barker of
Clarksburg, West Virginia, a publisher and
promoter of outlandish saucer materials.
Barker was also a self-confessed hoaxer and
encouraged other hoaxers. For a time, Vegetable
Man played a large role in Barker’s promotions.
No one else has ever reported an encounter
with him.
See Also: Tree-stump aliens
Further Reading
Steiger, Brad, 1978. Alien Meetings. New York: Ace
Books.
Venudo
Dan Boone, the son-in-law of George W. Van
Tassel, a leading figure in the contactee movement
of the 1950s and 1960s, was in a Yucca
Valley, California, liquor store early one Saturday
evening when he heard a group of people—two
men and two women—ask for directions
to Giant Rock. He offered to lead
them there, and they followed him to the site.
Boone assumed they were there to attend the
weekly channeling and discussion group Van
Tassel held. He was right. The leader, who
said his name was Venudo, sat near Boone
and Van Tassel while the other three rested on
a couch nearby.
Villanueva’s visitors 257
Venudo casually produced a device that had
been hanging around his neck. He tapped it
and, in full view of about thirty witnesses, he
vanished instantly. A minute later he became
visible again. Boone asked him if he could do
that once more, and Venudo obliged. This time
Boone reached over and felt Ve n u d o’s shoulder,
though he could not see it. Ac c o rding to
Boone, Venudo and his friends we re space people
checking in on Van Ta s s e l’s activities.
See Also: Channeling; Contactees; Van Tassel,
George W.
Further Reading
Hamilton, William F., III, 1996. Alien Magic: UFO
Crashes—Abductions—Underground Bases. New
Brunswick, NJ: Global Communications.
Villanueva’s visitors
In 1953, Sa l vador Vi l l a n u e va Me d i n a’s claimed
encounter with friendly men from another
world sparked international excitement. Fo ll
owers of the emerging contactee move m e n t
saw it as evidence that the space people we re
n ow expanding their mission to Latin America,
and for a time Vi l l a n u e va became something of
a hero in that re g i o n’s occult world.
As the story went, Villanueva, a taxi and
limousine driver, was contracted to drive from
Mexico City up to Laredo, Texas. He and his
two passengers from Texas left Mexico City
on the morning of August 22. In the late afternoon,
the car’s differential gave out, and
Villanueva managed to roll the car to the side
of the highway before it came to a complete
stop. The two passengers decided to walk to
the nearest village to see if they could find a
mechanic. The driver stayed with the car and
did what he could to get it running again. He
jacked up the car and crawled underneath it
and began tinkering. There was little traffic,
and he felt very much alone.
Darkness had fallen when he heard footsteps.
From beneath the vehicle, he saw two
legs covered in what look like corduroy. He
crawled out uneasily and stood to face the
man. The stranger had a pale white face. He
was dressed in a one-piece suit and had a