Orfeo Angelucci's Strange Predicament

Orfeo Angelucci

By the end of 1952, Orfeo Angelucci had completed the manuscript for his planned newspaper-style publication Twentieth Century Times yet—as he confessed in his 1955 book The Secret of the Saucers—"I couldn't get up the courage to have it published."  He recalled the reaction of his wife Mabel.

Mabel kept saying: "Orfie, if you publish that, people will think you are completely crazy.  Why don't you just forget it!  Nothing good can ever come of it.  Everything is going along so smoothly now; we're both working and the boys are happy — let's just leave it that way."

"But, Mae . . ." I'd remonstrate.  "Don't you understand; these things really happened to me!  It is my duty to tell what I know!"

"And just what thanks will you get for it?  Do you want to be ridiculed, laughed at and considered a crackpot or a psycho?  Think back!  Remember how everybody talked when you first told that wild story about a trip in a flying saucer.  What did it get you but ridicule!  Even if it did happen, Orfie, forget it!  Just forget the whole thing for your family's sake.  Let's be happy and enjoy life."

Angelucci had selected 'Neptune' as a nickname for the space being who had conversed with him on several occasions.  Angelucci commented:

Thus although I felt I was betraying Neptune, I let things drift and made no effort to get my story published.  In fact on New Year's Day, 1953 our lives were going along so smoothly and pleasantly that I had decided to forget it all insofar as the world was concerned and let those incredible experiences become a part of the dead past of 1952.

Further flying saucer reports in the news left Angelucci restless and he recalled —

Then I began to be ashamed of myself for having failed so completely the trust that Neptune had placed in me.  He had said: "The road will open, Orfeo; travel it as you will."  I realized that thus far I had refused to travel the road and except for the few talks I had made to small groups I had done nothing to help people understand the strange visitors.

Twentieth Century Times came off the press on February 19, 1953.

But the response was not entirely negative.  Some persons became genuinely interested.  About that time I resumed my weekly talks at the Club House and thus I was able to distribute the papers at the meetings.  As more and more persons became interested and ceased to take my Twentieth Century Times as a joke, I began to feel that all might not be lost.  And more important, I could face my reflection in the mirror again, happy in the thought that I had not entirely failed the space visitors.

Here are some of Angelucci's observations included in Twentieth Century Times.

As for Orfeo, the implications are clear.  Only with a measure of divine respect can he recall the events.  His own reference to the names, given by himself, to the beings mentioned will be only under the most dignified circumstances, or not at all.


From the very first experience with them, Orfeo was seized by strange neurological symptoms, right inside the aircraft plant.  Driving home his head and eyes felt those peculiar wellings up, and the night became somewhat lighter.  It was only then that the red object became visible to him.  The answer did not loom to him until the symptoms were repeated various times, and nothing else occurred to distract his attention from them.

The slightest contact between one world and another would surely result in opening the doors to the near ultimates of knowledge.  This is done, and there is absolutely no alternative.  The blueprint for the future is within these pages.  Feast on them, and develop them.  They are as profound as all space; given from space.

. . . much has been left to his [Orfeo's] imagination and mystification, as with everyone else.

. . . Orfeo feels they have been able to often merge his conscious forces with a degree of the sub-conscious forces.

The following excerpt is the beginning of Chapter VIII "My Awakening On Another Planet" from The Secret of the Saucers.

It was in the late summer of 1953 that the most beautiful and revealing of all of my experiences with the etheric beings developed.  My life had been a kaleidoscope of new understandings and changing patterns since the night of my trip in the saucer, but apparently the most profound of all had to be revealed to my conscious mind in gradual steps of understanding, because the experience itself actually occurred in January of 1953 while I was still on the job at Lockheed, but it was not until six months later that I had any idea of the tremendous experience that had been mine.  During those bewildering intervening six months I honestly believed that for the seven days of my life in January, 1953 I had been a victim of complete amnesia.  I told no one about it, not even Mabel, for so many confounding things had happened in the recent months of my life that I feared further complicating matters by relating an experience for which there seemed no explanation.

During those six months I experienced many very strange and disquieting hours.  Vivid dreams of a hauntingly beautiful, half-familiar world troubled my sleep.  Sometimes I would awaken trembling and bathed in perspiration feeling that I was close to conscious remembrance of an exquisitely beautiful experience that would explain many things.  Also, frequently during the days, fleeting tenuous memories drifted into the borderland of my consciousness.

Even more perplexing were those occasions when, while speaking to groups of persons at the Hollywood Hotel, I felt as though I were being somehow overshadowed by another greater personality; a personality who thought neither in my familiar English or Italian, but in a strange language which it seemed I once knew but now could no longer remember.

In order to clarify the experience itself, I must go back to that day in January, 1953 when it began.  I did not go to work that afternoon as I was just recovering from the flu, but I was feeling so much better that I believed I could go back on the job the following day.  Mabel was at work at the cafe and I was alone.  About four o'clock a rather strange, detached feeling came over me.  I was aware of a familiar odd prickling sensation in my arms and the back of my neck which usually announced the proximity of space craft.

I discounted the strange symptoms thinking they were only the result of my illness.  Then suddenly I began to feel so drowsy that I could scarcely keep my eyes open.  I remember staring toward the divan to lie down for a nap, but I later had absolutely no recollection of reaching that divan.

My next conscious perception was a peculiar "awakening" or regaining consciousness while on my job in the Plastics Department at Lockheed.  Stupefied and bewildered, I looked uncertainly about the factory.  Dazedly, I recognized the familiar faces of my co-workers . . . and noticed the tools in my hands.  I caught my breath sharply and an icy shiver quivered over my entire body as quite involuntarily I recoiled with a shudder from the entire scene.  I didn't know why then, but everything seemed  hopelessly wrong, primitive and crude.

In a daze I rubbed a hand across my eyes hoping to eradicate the scene.  Then I was seized with a blinding vertigo and thought I was going to lose consciousness.  Dave Donnegan, my working partner, looked at me sympathetically, and there was genuine concern in his eyes.  He didn't say anything, but quietly took the tools from my hand and in his quiet, understanding way went ahead, carrying on alone.

Taking a break, he recounted what happened next.

I got a cup of coffee.  Never before had I needed one so badly.  My hands were shaking and every nerve in my body was quivering.  As I drank the hot, aromatic stuff I tried to think back, to remember why I was so shaken and upset.  But my last recollection before my strange, perturbed "awakening" on the job, was walking toward the divan in my apartment.  The intervening period was a total blank.

Noticing a copy of the Los Angeles Times on one of the tables, I nervously picked it up and glanced at the date.  Perspiration broke out on my forehead; the date of the paper was January 19, 1953.  Seven days had elapsed of which I had absolutely no recollection!  But even the date on the paper couldn't convince me.  Trying to keep my voice casual, I asked a worker at a nearby table.  He confirmed the date on the newspaper.

My body was bathed in cold perspiration.  I was on the edge of panic as I sat there, my hands trembling so that I could hardly take a sip of coffee.  I couldn't believe that seven days and nights had passed, leaving not a trace of memory in my mind.

Later in the afternoon when I was feeling a little better I went back downstairs on the job.  But it was a real effort to behave in a normal, rational manner with my thoughts in turmoil.  Cautiously and discreetly I questioned Dave and other fellow workers about those seven precious days.  From their replies I gathered that I had been on the job every day and had apparently behaved in my usual manner until my strange "awakening" and violent outburst that afternoon.

At home I didn't mention my inexplicable loss of memory to Mabel.  And apparently she had noticed nothing unusual in my behavior during that entire week.  It seemed that in every way I had behaved in my accustomed manner.  I had eaten my meals, slept, gone to and from work and helped Mabel at the Snack Bar, as usual.  It was fantastically incredible!

Months passed and Angelucci assumed that for those seven days he had suffered from complete loss of memory, mentioning: "Except for the disquieting thoughts and vivid dreams, I had no intimation of what was coming until that memorable night in the first week in September, 1953."  Then:

An astonishing thing was happening: I was beginning to remember, faintly, hazily, at first, like the sun's golden rays breaking through black clouds.

As memory flooded back I clearly recalled again that Monday afternoon.  I was walking toward the divan . . . my eyes were so heavy I could scarcely keep them open.  In a daze I sank down upon the divan and immediately fell into a deep sleep!

Only now I could remember waking from that sleep!  My awakening was in a strange and wonderful world!  I was no longer upon Earth; some fantastic transition had taken place.  I awoke in a huge, fabulously beautiful room; a room the substance of which glowed ethereally with soft, exquisite colors.  I was lying upon a luxurious couch, or lounge.  Half awake, I glanced down at my body — but it was not familiar!  My body was never so perfectly proportioned or of so fine coloring and texture.

I noticed that I was wearing only a fine white garment, closely fitted and covering my chest, torso and upper part of my thighs.  A finely wrought gold belt was about my waist.  Although the belt appeared to be made of heavy links of embossed gold, it was without weight.  My new body felt amazingly light and ethereal and vibrant with life.

Angelucci observed, "Lost horizons, deep-buried memories, forgotten vistas were surfacing to my consciousness."  Angelucci's description of the interlude that followed is found in the book and in an article from the October 1954 issue of Mystic Magazine.  During his sojourn after his 'Awakening On Another Planet,' Angelucci encountered 'Lyra' and 'Orion' — who interacted with this new incarnation of Angelucci while calling him 'Neptune.'

When he declared to them that he was not 'Neptune,' Orion is quoted as having explained: "You will recall that Neptune was the name you gave to our brother who first contacted you upon Earth.  That name has always held a strange, deep significance for you, perhaps because it was once your own name . . . We are, you might say in terms of Earth, staging a dress-show reception for you, our lost brother.  Before the destruction our existence was much as you see it now; that is why you seem to remember all of this.  In that phase of the time dimension you were known as Neptune."

Angelucci described the "glorious world I looked upon" —

A dream world, beyond the wildest flight of imagination.  Ethereal, scintillating color everywhere.  Fantastically beautiful buildings constructed of a kind of crystal-plastic substance that quivered with continuously changing color hues.  As I watched, windows, doors, balconies and stairs appeared and just as miraculously disappeared in the shining facades of the buildings.  The grass, trees and flowers sparkled with living colors that seemed almost to glow with a light of their own.

A purpose of Angelucci's visit was found to be his learning about the destruction of the planet that had been called 'Lucifer.'  Orion and Lyra utilized "the strange crystal control panel" to instruct Angelucci about the cataclysmic events.  Afterward, Angelucci described how he returned to his Earth life after Lyra touched the mysterious crystal panel.

Immediately the incredible, huge, three-dimensional screen became active again.  But no longer were we looking into the boundless depths of space and time.  Instead, I saw the familiar outlines of the Lockheed plant in Burbank.  There was the shop in which I worked.  The scene shifted inside the plant.  I saw the radomes and my working companions, Dave Donnegan and Richard Butterfield.  An unpleasant sensation came over me as though I were fainting, as though I were fading into the huge screen and becoming an active part of the scene I was viewing.  Terrified, I turned to call to Lyra, but she was no longer there, only a mist.  Then I blacked out!

My next conscious perception was my strange "awakening" on the job at Lockheed with all of my incredible experiences of those seven days seemingly obliterated from my mind.

Thus six months passed with only hazy, troublesome intimations of what had happened to me in those lost seven days.  But that night as I rested my head upon the rock down in the Los Angeles River bed, it all came back to me crystal clear.