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The first complete psychological study of a percipient took place in the 1890s, when Theodore Flournoy, a professor of psychology at the University of Geneva, investigated the strange phenomena surrounding a girl known as Helene Smith. Beginning in March 1892, Miss Smith started to receive messages through automatic writing {a process in which the percipient merely holds the pen, and some other force moves it). Soon she was going into trances and speaking in a man's voice with an Italian accent. He identified himself as Leopold and proved to be something of a rascal, prefacing his communications with phrases such as, 'I am here. I wish to be master of this sitting.* Then all kinds of poltergeisttc activity would begin. Later, however, Victor Hugo, the deceased author, came through the medium and offered advice on how to handle the evil Yo L414 Leopold. The clash between Leopold and Victor Hugo escalated into a classic ultraterrestrial game, just as the modern UFO contactees are caught up in the games waged between the spacemen and the evil Men in Black. Then at 3.15 ajn. on the morning of September Sth, 1896, Helene woke up and had a strange vision. She viewed, she said, a foreign landscape with a 'beautiful blue-pink lake* whose shores were, joined by a transparent bridge. A crowd of ‘peculiar people’ approached the bridge. A man ‘of dark complexion, carrying an in- strument somewhat resembling a carriage lantern in appearance, which, being pressed, emitted flames and which seemed to be a flying machine* stood on the centre of the bridge. Using this instrument, he flew off the bridge, touched the water, and flew bade again. By the end of that September the dark compksioned man had become a part of Helene's life. He appeared and disappeared suddenly when she was alone and fully conscious. Often he spoke to her in a strange unknown tongue. His name was Astane, and he was from Mars, he told her soberly. He looked more Wee an Oriental or last Indian. On a number of occasions he guided her to Ms home on Mars (at least in her visions and hallucinations). Usually he was dressed in beautifully embroidered robes. Miss Smith described at length the vehicles on Mars, stating they had neither wheels nor horses, and people seemed to fly about in them. Helene quickly learned to speak the strange Martian language. Her automatic writing also developed a new twist. She began writing in unknown symbols but was able to decipher them and translate Martian into French. These symbols had the Oriental characteristics which have Lee 22 me ae ALL. 2-2 al et Le a ee eee sD ee Se Se RS Oe been so often described by modem flying saucer con-tactees who claim to have been aboard the craft. In later periods Helene would sometimes lapse into this language in the course of normal conversation without realizing she was doing so. It was not, Hournoy noted, the kind of gibberish that children make up when they are playing at being Chinese ot Indian. It was an actual - language which could be broken down and studied. Other Martians turned up answering to the names of Ramie and Esenale. Soon Helene's world was peopled with strange beings with long hair and long fingers (both common characteristics of the UFO entities described by contactees) who led her off on spiritual trips to other planets. contacts begin. Investigators, however, are still debating which came first in some cases - insanity or contact.