5 days ago
The mysterious 3I/Atlas revives fascination with alien encounters and abductions
Elizabeth Klarer wtih a bust of her intergalactic lover, Akon.
Image: Independent Media archives
As scientists try to make sense of 3I/Atlas - the mysterious object hurtling towards Earth - it's unleashed fears of an alien invasion and brought back to the surface numerous supposed alien abduction cases that have never been disproved.
An American couple, Betty and Barney Hill, went to their deathbeds convinced they were abducted and probed by aliens and had their memories of the 1961 encounter erased.
Closer to home, Elizabeth Klarer of the KwaZulu-Natal Midlands even wrote a book about her intergalactic romance with a starship commander who got her pregnant in 1959.
These two alien abduction stories are among dozens that have resurfaced as people ponder whether there could be any truth behind their extraordinary experiences, now that 3I/Atlas - bigger than Mount Everest - hurtles toward Earth in a way scientists describe as "not natural".
This image from NASA shows the fast-moving interstellar object that has got many to wonder about alien encounters that have been reported over the years.
Image: Supplied / NASA
The object is moving at a speed of 209 000 kph, and has no tail, a telltale sign astronomers say distinguishes it from a comet.
It was first picked up by a telescope in Chile and then photographed by the Hubble Space Telescope a few weeks ago.
This visitor is bigger, faster and behaves differently from the two previous visitors to our galaxy - Oumuamua and Borisov - and is shielded behind the sun as it hurtles in our general direction.
Professor Avi Loeb of Harvard University thinks the visitor is unlikely to be a natural object and believes governments around the world should formulate a treaty so they know how to handle a possible hostile alien invasion.
Klarer had no such negative thoughts. For her, it was all about peace, love and understanding - things she tried to convey from her lover from the planet Meton in the Alpha Centauri System, according to earlier reports by "Independent Media".
Elizabeth Klarer's sketch of Akon, with whom she claimed to have had a child with, named Ayling.
Image: Independent Media Archives
Klarer, who was a meteorologist, claimed to have had the most intimate encounter with extraterrestrials, writing in her book "Beyond the Light Barrier", published in 1980, that she bore a son with her alien lover, Akon.
Klarer claimed her sightings at what became known as Flying Saucer Hill were witnessed by a Zulu manager, Ladam, as well as her sister, May, on the family farm in Rosetta.
Various articles in the "Sunday Tribune" over the years reported that on April 7, 1956, she visited the hilltop again after further reports from her family that Zulu workers had seen the "lightning bird" appear there again.
This time, Akon took her aboard his scout ship, a craft some 18 m in diameter, before transporting her to the cigar-shaped mother ship.
During the encounter, kisses were exchanged, and he told Klarer that she was a reincarnated Venusian and a long-lost soulmate.
He further explained that they occasionally took women from Earth as partners, as the offspring strengthened their race. He also claimed that several Venusians were living among us. She was returned to the hilltop thereafter.
In 1959, Klarer claimed she visited Meton with Akon, orbiting Proxima Centauri, where she gave birth to their son, Ayling, before returning to Earth because the planet's vibrations played havoc with her heart.
Klarer's main thrust throughout her life, and in the pages of her book, she strived to convey a message of peace, love, understanding and environmentalism, which she credited to the superior wisdom of an advanced and immaculately utopian Venusian civilisation.
Klarer often commemorated the April 7 anniversary of her union with Akon by returning to Flying Saucer Hill, sometimes aided by others as she grew frail.
Her interstellar love story inspired a stage production, and Jimmy Neversink even penned a tune on the unexplained affair across the Universe.
When this reporter covered Klarer's funeral in Pietermaritzburg in February 1994, her sisters expressed profound loss, but were also at peace now that her battle against scepticism had come to an end.
One, however, twirled her index finger about her head, indicating that her youngest sibling may have had a mental health issue.
Betty and Barney Hill claimed they were abducted by aliens in 1961 while returning home from a visit to Niagara Falls.
Image: CNN Archives
