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If they visit us, at least we must acknowledge their leadership in The Ummites claim to have sent documents in the first place to science and technology. Their planet is 14 light-years away from high-ranking scientists in different countries, including Spain, to Earth, but the journey only requires a few months, thanks to arouse their curiosity. Having encountered polite but clear rebut- hyperdimensional foldings of which they know how to take tals, they then tried another strategy. They decided to focus on advantage. Their spacecraft materialise and dematerialise thanks people more open to these questions, and to search for UFO ama- to their mastery of antimatter and twin universes... But exactly teurs, journalists and writers. Soon a group gathered around how far ahead of us are they? Their acute sense of ethics, derived Sesma in the Merry Whale Room for readings of Ummite docu- from a unified understanding of the universe which unites science ments. Letters sent at the time to several countries had been and spirituality, is at the origin of the letters. indiscriminately posted from anywhere on the planet. According to one of these letters, a spacecraft first landed in A few weeks after the first dispatch to Sesma, a sighting took March 1950 in a low mountain zone in the French Alps. The place in Aluche, near Madrid: a spacecraft landed, and the story "Ummite task force" then watched and inspected the surround- was told by local press. Another sighting subsequently occurred ings, and went so far as to have a close encounter with a young in similar conditions in San José de Valderas in June 1967. These shepherd, taking advantage of a morphological similarity which cases have been widely exposed as unsubtle put-ons (see box, makes them resemble the Scandinavian type. Soon realising they "Faked Photographs?"), yet marks and objects were left... had better be discreet, they decided to carry on research and In 1975, Jean-Pierre Petit, a French engineer, learned about the observation secretly. texts. He is one who has lent credit to the Ummo story, in France When they judged that they knew enough and beyond, through several books he has about us, they decided to make contact with a written on the subject. J.-P. Petit studied the few individuals in order to spread scientific material in the letters, particularly information (as a payback for that collected everything that concerns the structure of the on us), and also to evaluate our reactions to . . universe, antimatter and other information their statements. Thus in 1965, or probably The Ummites claim to that led him to develop what is called the sooner, the first letters arrived, opening with: have sent documents magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) propulsion "We know the transcendence of what we . . mode. Some of his work is published in are about to tell you. We are aware that such In the first place peer-reviewed journals in physics and astro- a statement could only come from a joker, a to high-ranking physics and presented at international con- mentally ill person, or some journalist or . . . . ferences. Showing both nerve and humour, advertising executive aiming at exploiting it scientists in different he even goes so far as to mention an Ummite for his own profit. When some news item countries, including sender in one article's references! Then, in turn, Petit started to receive letters. One of them is published in his most recent book, UFOs and US Secret Weapons (OVNIs et Armes Secrétes Ameéricaines, Editions Albin Michel, Paris, 2003), demonstrating that he is still at it. [See his website, http://www. jp-petit.com, and article in and Science News 9/05; Ed.] But Petit, who is an excellent popu- lariser, has a strong personality and denounces the Spanish group's propen- sity to hold almost in reverence those "blond beings from outer space" and to obey, though not always "to the letter", the strict conditions required by the escapes the usual framework of veracity, and in the absence of ways and means to check its reality, any balanced and intelligent mind has the right to, and should, adopt a sceptical attitude. Bare testimony should not be accepted, even less when its origin is unknown and thus open to deception. For us, what we are going to tell is true. But accord- ing to all logic we cannot ask you to believe such amazing affirmations. We admit that we would do the same if we were you..." Then, further on, they write: "We come from a planet whose ver- bal or phonetic formulation could be Spain, to arouse their curiosity. Having encountered polite but clear rebuttals, they then tried another strategy. transcribed as: UM-MO [in Spanish, (UJ)MMO]". Ummites concerning the spreading and collective readings of the They then proceed with scientific data concerning distance, documents. Later they explain that they conducted an experiment mass, size and many other things about their planet and its inhabi- on the level of acceptance of brand new ideas in a given net- tants. The tone is set: the letters will henceforth have this sort of | work... Petit will not rest until he has a real contact! neutrality and precision, and will be filled with scientific and technical data, sometimes calculations and formulas, often draw- HOAX THEORIES ings. In fact, each letter's content is adapted to its addressee. The Up to this point, the file is inextricable enough, and almost recipient is sometimes confronted with a 40-page document. everything has been written or said on the subject. The hoax the- oo in m. hla in the first place to high-ranking scientists in different countries, including Spain, to arouse their curiosity. Having encountered polite but clear rebuttals, they then tried another strategy. HOAX THEORIES Up to this point, the file is inextricable enough, and almost everything has been written or said on the subject. The hoax the- sis prevails and comes in many versions, blaming students, scien- tists, spies, CIA agents, KGB, etc. That was up until that day in 1993 when Luis Jordan Pefia, who is linked to the story with the sighting in Aluche, admitted that he'd set it all up—though he later retracted this admission in pri- vate, saying that "they" told him to confess. Eventually, in 1998, he reconsidered his assertions but said he had acted with the help- ing hand of "a North American organisation"! French journalist Gildas Bourdais, brought around to the hoax MAKING SENSE OF THE DOCUMENTS In Spain, the first "official contact" to receive such a letter is Fernando Sesma, in Madrid, in 1965. This man is interested in esotericism and UFO stories, and claims that at the time he was in actual contact with ETs. He periodically gathers a small group of amateurs in the basement of a famous café (Le6n), a room called "The Merry Whale". As new letters come in, motivations and methods of these dispatches can be pieced together. 58 = NEXUS The Ummites claim to have sent documents www.nexusmagazine.com FEBRUARY — MARCH 2004