A Genealogy of the Extraterrestrial in American Culture

Ballard was told during his initial meeting with St. Germain to retire to the Royal Teton
Mountain on New Year’s Eve. Ballard did so, traveling with St. Germain inside the mountain to
a great cavern.
Once assembled, Ballard and 105 others became host to 12 Venusians who appeared in
their midst in a blaze of light. During the course of the visit, the Venusians played the
harp and violin much to the delight of all. On a large mirror they showed scenes from
their home planet of advanced scientific and technological achievements. They also
revealed a future dissipation of the dark forces threatening the earth and the gradual
coming of a time of peace and goodwill. 182
These 12 feet “tall masters from Venus” were collectively referred to by Ballard as the Lords of
the Flame, a title which directly references a section of the Great White Brotherhood as
delineated by Blavatsky. These ascended masters from other planets would continue to play a
central role in post-World War II saucer culture, with the only real addition being the saucer
itself. 183
In addition to being a variant on the earlier stream of Spiritualism, the Great I Am
would function as a sort of template for the later contactee groups, thus extending the influence
of Theosophy into the post WWII saucer boom.
The description of Ballard’s encounter with the Lords of Flame is drawn from Unveiled
Mysteries, a book published by Ballard under the name Godfre Ray King in the same year that
the Ballards began their coup against Pelley’s Silver legion. The description adds a new element
to the communication between human and Other. While the contacts we have discussed thus far
occur along spiritualist lines, i.e. via trance medium, astral travel or automatic writing, Ballard
writes of meeting both the Venusians and St. Germain in the flesh. Thus contact is made in this
case in a fully conscious state and with an embodied entity in real time. What would seem to be
a trend running counter to the Gnostic impulse begins with Ballard. It is with the Great I Am
that we begin to see a shift toward an emphasis on both embodied and conscious communication
182 Melton, “Contactees,” 2.
183 Melton.
108