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witchcraft, the ouija board, and so «n. Also involved, of course, are such obvious features as changes in clothing and hair styles... On,basic strategic grounds it is easier now for "them" to walk in our midst unnoticed (a long-haired blond malej for example, would now attract little if streets of most good-sized Western cities, nor would "strange" behaviour patterns be any particular cause for alarm in a culture born of nonconformity). - There are millions of people today who do believe that Venusians, Martians, angels, and demons are walking among us unnoticed, their long hair and peculiar dress and manners no longer attracting attention. Strange men in black turtleneck sweaters and wrap-around sun glasses (a favourite garb of our MIB) are being reported everywhere The black Cadillacs are on the prowl. Have we been invaded by beings from outer space or from some other space-time continuum as so many now believe, or is it that we are just beginning to notice the funny folk who have been in our midst all along? In any case it is understandable that so many researchers and investigators double bolt their doors at night and spend their days peering fearfully over their shoulders. Sometime around the year A.D. 421 a group of artisans from a now lost civilization painstakingly engraved a series of gold leaves or plates with cryptic symbols and buried them in a stone box on the west side of a hill near what is now the village of Manchester. New York. They remained there, unknown and untouched for fourteen hundred years. Then on Friday, September 21st, 1821, an eighteen-year-old farm boy named Joseph Smith awoke to a vision in his bedroom near Palmyra, New York, A personage appeared, he said later, '... standing in the air, for his feet did not touch the floor’. This being was dressed in a long robe 'of most exquisite whiteness', was surrounded by light, and 'his countenance was truly like light ring'. He identified himself as Moroni, a 'messenger sent from the presence of God", called the youth by name, and announced that he had been chosen for a special task. In subsequent appearances Moroni gave Joseph Smith the exact location of the box and told him that he was to dig it up when instructed to do so. Six years passed before Smith received word to unearth the tablets The date was September 22nd, 1827. That night the skies were aflame with a spectacular display of meteors, falling stars, and luminous spheres. One of the many witnesses was another young man who lived in northern New York but was unacquainted with Joseph Smith. His name was Brigham Young. Smith dug into the hillside, found the box exactly as Moroni had said, pried ofi the Ed, and discovered the gold plates along with crystalline devices which became known as the Urim and Tkammim. He spent the next three years translating the strange writing - although he had little formal education - purportedly with the aid of the lens-like objects. Eleven of his friends and any attention in the CHAPTER TEN RENDEZVOUS WITH THE DAMNED