Host of upcoming UFO convention describes his experience with extraterrestrials
Scotts Valley resident Robert Perala, 57, is in a rush today. At the top of his to-do list: preparing to emcee UFO CON, which will be held in Santa Clara on Sept. 15 and 16. Perala will introduce, connect and shepherd a guest list of hundreds of extraterrestrial enthusiasts—some of whom will come as lighthearted Trekkies; others, on serious business.
While hurriedly eating a sandwich at a local café, Perala does not hesitate to lean over the table, look me dead in the eyes and address me by name. He’s exacting in his dates and details—habits that lend intriguing specificity to his tales of extraterrestrial encounters.
“All right, the story goes like this,” he responds to the question, “how did you get here?”
The year was 1977. Twenty-one-year-old Perala, deep into books on transcendental meditation as well as one on UFOs, was staying at a ski resort with his family in South Lake Tahoe, Calif. From these books he gleaned that the Universe was “a very live entity. And if you send out a thought form out into the Universe … someone or something can hear that—and might even respond to it.”
The night after Christmas, Perala opened his arms to the sky and informed the stars that if anybody was out there, he would like to communicate with them and use the interaction for good.
“Of course, nothing happened,” Perala chuckles. He quiets for a moment before continuing, “At about 2:30 in the morning I was startled awake by what sounded almost like a train going through my living room … the room became very charged with … what looked like lightning, flashes of lightning—blue, green, violet, indigo, purple—and suddenly, out of nowhere, beams down three of these.”
Here, Perala holds up a photograph that depicts a human-like figure in a metallic suit. Perala discovered the photograph, which was taken in 1973 by Falkville, Ala. Police Chief Jeff Greenshaw, in UFO Magazine, months after his 1977 encounter.
“Somehow they were able to freeze me in a blue encasement of some kind,” Perala continues. He says he was terrified but unable to scream as he watched the side of the house open up.
“You ever seen the movie Contact? … That is a very accurate depiction of what it looks like to go through a wormhole,” Perala says. “All you are is kind of a particle point looking for an anchor for itself … I didn’t have any kind of physical form.”
Perala says that he finally arrived in a rounded room where he “interfaced” with a glass object, which somehow “absorbed” him—but he was abruptly yanked back through the “tunnel of light,” back to Earth and his bedroom, where he says three cosmonauts remained.
“And then, without warning, everything just sort of disappeared … and there was nothing,” he says.
Perala’s recollection shares some similarities with other alleged abductees, who often recount being abducted while sleeping and being unable to move.
Susan Clancy, a post-doctoral fellow of Harvard University, literally wrote the book (at least from the Western science point of view) on the subject, titled Abducted. Clancy believes many abductees are simply victims of sleep paralysis—a very common condition where people wake up while their brain is still stalling their motor control—and a bad dream. But in her book, Clancy also explains that the existence of extraterrestrial beings is “a matter of opinion,” because their potential existence cannot be disproved.
One point that Clancy emphasizes is that abductees are oftentimes “assisted” in retrieving their memories of abduction through the use of hypnosis under the spell of psychics, mystics and psychologists who she says are themselves familiar with or biased toward extraterrestrial interaction.
While Perala says he recalled the idea of throwing his hands to the sky in a “communication experiment” 15 years later while in deep hypnosis (his experience is detailed in his book, The Divine Blueprint), he insists that his memory of the actual encounter is as “extremely vivid” today as it was when he woke up and threw up over the bedside that day in 1977.
At first, Perala kept quiet about his experience for fear of ridicule at work. But eventually he turned to a community that he says has embraced him with open arms and shown him his purpose in life, which he describes simply as “to do good.”
The singer, guitarist and bass player wrote the score for the yet-to-be released documentary Just Sign Here, which details the recent turmoil of the banking industry. Perala was awarded the Certificate of Congressional Recognition in 2007 for his musical benefit work with UNICEF.
However, Perala says his purpose has mostly played out within the “UFOlogist” community. He has shared his story, as well as his message of the coming Earth “ascension,” on the lecture podium, the radio airwaves, and in print with his two books, The Divine Blueprint and The Divine Architect. He is currently converting Blueprint into a screenplay.
Executive Producer of UFO CON Brian Hall selected Perala to emcee the upcoming convention of over a dozen speakers and sought-after special guests. “The thing [Perala] stresses so much about the area is how socially progressive [UFOlogy] is,” says Hall.
Currently looking to stay a life-long resident of Scotts Valley, Perala continues to stand by his paranormal experience, but says that he doesn’t take skepticism personally—and that Western science and UFOlogy need not be mutually exclusive.
“Everybody has their beliefs, and you keep looking, keep searching … I think you should have your cake and eat it, too,” Perala says. “My mission is really to inspire people.”
UFO CON will be held Sept. 15-16 at the Marriot Hotel in Santa Clara. Visit ufocon2012.com for more information.
