“Virtual Memory”: A Virtual Experience of the Third Kind, VE-3

Andrija Puharich MD and Uri Geller

J. Burkes MD 2015, edited 2023

“If this is true then all bets are off when it comes to human free will and all human history.” Statement concerning “Virtual Memory” made by a former US government scientist and prominent UFO researcher.

Contact Experiencers please note the following: The Virtual Experience Model doesn’t assert that all Close Encounters are “virtual” i.e., non-physical. Encounters are likely a combination of both virtual and physical elements that may be nearly impossible to tell apart given the awesome psi capability of UFO Intelligences.

Virtual Memory, VE-3: a false memory implanted into the mind of a contact experiencer by non-human psi technology. These false recollections might be so vivid that the experiencer is convinced that they are memories of physical encounters. 

A Virtual Experience of the Third Kind (VE-3) is the most controversial Virtual Experience category. Two decades ago, when I first formulated this theory, I circulated it among a handful of UFO researchers. The reactions were uniformly negative.  One prominent researcher, a retired government scientist, who is also an evangelical Christian, told me that if Virtual Memory by ET intelligence were operational, then as quoted above “all bets are off when it comes to human free will and all human history.” It was a sobering assessment that gave me pause. 

VIRTUAL MEMORY IS A VERY DISTURBING CONCEPT

The notion that an unseen non-human intelligence (NHI) might be creating false memories in UFO experiences is understandably upsetting. After all, each human being’s concept of self is determined to a great extent by the sum of their memories. Memory expert Julia Shaw describes the importance of memory this way,

“… memories form the bedrock of our identities. They shape what we think we have experienced and, as such, what we believe we are capable of in the future. Because of all this, if we begin to call our memory into question we are also forced to question the very foundations of who we are.”

Shaw, Julia. The Memory Illusion: Remembering, Forgetting, and the Science of False Memory (Kindle Locations 87). Random House. Kindle Edition.

The concept of Virtual Memory for some brings up their deepest fears of their being manipulated by evil forces. In Christian mythology, the Devil is known as “the great deceiver.” Some fundamentalist Christian writers have asserted that the intelligences responsible for UFO phenomena are demonic. In a certain sense, the UFO subculture may have helped reinforce this negative view by focusing of those that have had a very hard time during their interactions with the alleged ETs, (i.e., UAP associated NHIs.) These encounters are called “alien abductions” and are considered to be physical events that are criminal in nature. 

In “Abduction Enigma “published in 1999, authors Cone, Estes and Randle point out that mainstream UFO groups like MUFON focus almost exclusively on negative encounters, the alleged “alien abductions”, while at the same time dismissing out of hand the more positive accounts of the so-called contactees.  

One of the central themes that has emerged from alien abduction research is the existence of memory blocks, allegedly placed into the minds of abductees by “extraterrestrials.” These are referred to as “screen memories.” Alien abduction theorists claim that screen memories are used to block accurate ones of physical abductions. In addition, these investigators assert that by skillfully using hypnosis, they can overcome such memory blocks and retrieve accurate recollections. The abduction literature has documented many cases of contact experiencers having memories of owls or other birds that are much larger than they normally should be. Such recollections are considered to be examples of screen memories.  

COULDN’T THE ENTIRE ABDUCTION SCENARIO BE A “SCREEN MEMORY?”

Much of the controversy around alleged alien abductions centers on the use of hypnosis to supposedly break through alleged memory blocks. For me, the obvious question not adequately addressed by alien abduction theorists is, if the alleged “aliens” have manipulated the human mind so skillfully to block memory, why can’t the entire abduction scenario be an alien memory implant? The authors of “Abduction Enigma” make this point. Unfortunately, their attempt to debunk all Close Encounters of the Fourth Kind (alien abductions) is, in my view, “throwing the baby out with the bathwater.” I believe that this one-sided approach has caused their book to be ignored by the entire UFO research community.  Estes, Randle and Cone raise some compelling arguments about the how hypnosis can create false memories and how creating such false recollections can be extremely detrimental to the mental health of some contact experiencers.

EVIDENCE SUPPORTING THE NOTION OF “VIRTUAL MEMORY?”

What kind of evidence would substantiate the virtual memory hypothesis? Supportive evidence might take the form of witnesses’ testimony describing totally different recollections of very specific recent occurrences. Memory is of course not an immutable snapshot of an event. From criminal judicial proceedings, we are familiar with the fact that eyewitnesses often give widely differing accounts. 

As an example, let’s say that a bank robbery has just occurred. Although the witnesses might disagree on details of what the robber might have looked like, or perhaps what type of handgun was employed,  the witnesses would not recall that they were somewhere else at the time of the crime. Witnesses should remember the major aspects of the event congruently. A bank robbery has occurred, and the witnesses state they were there during the crime.

Thus, to substantiate the Virtual Experience of the Third Kind (VE-3) theory, witnesses associated with the UFO phenomenon would need to give widely differing accounts of easily recalled recent events. Just such a case can be found in the UFO literature. 

“Uri: A Journal of the Mystery of Uri Geller” (1974)

In 1998, I discovered an extremely informative book, “Alien Dawn” written by the legendary Colin Wilson. A famous British man of letters with over 80 major works to his name, his “Alien Dawn” delves into some of the stranger aspects of the UFO phenomenon. Colin Wilson describes Dr. Andrija Puharich’s work with Uri Geller back in the 1970s. Puharich was an American physician specializing in the treatment of ear diseases. He patented a number of devices for the hearing impaired. While in Israel he befriended the young Geller. At that time Uri Geller was an Israeli stage performer who amazed audiences with his psychic abilities. He reportedly demonstrated powers of telepathy and psychokinesis. According to eyewitnesses, Geller repeatedly stopped watches by simply holding his hands near the devices. He was also alleged to be able to bend spoons and cut metal rings. In August of 1973, Dr. Puharich brought Uri Geller to the Stanford Research Institute (SRI). There his psychic abilities were reportedly confirmed. After several months of their working together intensively, in 1974 Puharich published “Uri, A Journal of the Mystery of Uri Geller.”

EXTREME HIGH STRANGENESS

Collin Wilson who wrote his own book about the Israeli psychic, “The Geller Phenomenon,” was clearly perplexed by Puharich’s experiences with Uri Geller. In Alien Dawn” pages 14-15 Wilson wrote, 

“I had found the book (Uri, a Journal of Mystery.) extremely difficult to finish. The problem, quite simply, was that it was too unbelievable. It was not that I felt that Puharich was an out-and-out liar, simply that I found it impossible to take him seriously.” 

The unbelievable happenings described by Dr. Puharich included:

1. the disappearance of a ring in a closed wooden box, only to have it reappear mysteriously later. 
2.  a strange metallic non-human voice that repeatedly was heard above Geller’s head during Puharich’s hypnotic sessions with the young psychic. There was no reasonable explanation for this phenomenon. 
3. In one experiment, Dr. Puharich scratched code numbers on several parts of an ordinary Parker pen. The pen was then placed in the wooden box for several minutes while under continuous observation. Upon opening the box, the pen seemed intact, however on careful examination the brass cartridge had disappeared. During a subsequent hypnotic session, the metallic voice claimed that it had the missing pen part and that it would be later returned. This subsequently happened.

Geller’s status as a contactee was revealed during one of Puharich’s hypnotic sessions that described strange events from the young man’s childhood. As Wilson describes it on page 14, 

“Under light hypnosis in a hotel room in Tel Aviv, Geller said that he was in a dark cave in Cyprus where he used to sit and absorb learning. ‘What are you learning?’ asked Puharich and Geller replied, ‘It is about the people who come from the space. But I am not to talk about these things yet.’”

While under hypnosis, Geller described an encounter that he had with a UFO when he was reportedly three years old. Uri Geller stated that while playing alone in a Tel Aviv garden he saw a huge bowel-shaped light in the sky.  Wilson continues, 

“It was at this point that I had begun to find Puharich’s book frankly unbelievable. For he goes on to describe how, in the midst of the hypnotic session, Geller stopped speaking, and a strange metallic voice began to issue from the air. It stated that ‘it was us who found Uri in the garden when he was three.’ “They” had programmed him to serve their purpose, although his memories of contact have been erased…”

Following this bizarre communication, while Uri and Dr. Puharich were driving in Tel Aviv, they reportedly saw a ‘round white luminous spacecraft with side fins’ in the sky just down the street.”

Puharich’s adventures with the young Israeli were so strange that Collin Wilson describes his experience of reading “Uri, A Journal of the Mystery of Uri Geller” as causing “astonishment fatigue.” Years later when writing his own book about Geller, Wilson asked the young psychic, 

“whether everything described in the book (‘Uri’ by Puharich) really happened. Geller, I knew, had now broken with Puharich, not without some ill feeling. So, he would have no reason not to answer my question truthfully. In fact, he told me with obvious sincerity, ‘Everything happened as Andrija describes it.’”

SUPPORTIVE TESTIMONY FOR A VIRTUAL EXPERIENCE OF THE THIRD KIND

What follows is the only case in the UFO literature to my knowledge that gives support to the Virtual Memory component of the Virtual Experience Model. In Chapter Six of Puharich’s “Uri”, a dramatic and extremely strange sequence of events is chronicled. That chapter describes how two sets of witnesses had dramatically different recollections of recent events. For those who would like to read the complete account, Uri Geller has placed a link on his official web site to Puharich’s book.

https://www.urigeller.com/uri-a-journal-of-the-mystery-of-uri-geller/

A DISTRAUGHT YOUNG MAN REPORTEDLY PUT A PISTOL TO HIS HEAD

On December 28, 1971 Dr. Puharich was entertaining his friend Ila Ziebel. She had just arrived to Israel. He received a frantic call from Uri who asked his physician friend to come over to Uri’s apartment. With Ila in tow, Dr. Puharich went to see the young psychic who was clearly overwhelmed with emotion. With great difficulty Uri revealed that for five years he was having a secret love affair with a married woman. Uri, according to Dr. Puharich, had just been informed that, “she could never see him again.” So distraught was the young man that he told Puharich he had placed a loaded revolver to his head. As a medical doctor, Puharich knew how serious the situation was. He demanded to see the weapon. Uri produced a loaded .38 Rossi pistol that Puharich handled. His friend Ila was present and she witnessed the entire event. The physician then said,“ Uri, this gun in your hands really disturbs me. Please may I take it.”

Geller however refused stating that he was OK now. The doctor asked him not to stay alone and they agreed that Uri would spend the night at Sarah Bursac’s, a friend who lived close by. Uri reassured Dr. Puharich that he would be safe there. Dr. Puharich and Ila then walked Uri over to Sarah’s house.

TWO SETS OF WITNESSES APPEARED TO HAVE RADICALLY DIFFERENT MEMORIES OF THE LOCATION OF THE WEAPON

The next day Puharich called Uri Geller to find out how he was feeling after the difficult events of the previous evening. To his utter amazement, Geller claimed that he did not know what Puharich was talking about. Uri said that all he could recall from night before was that Ila and Dr. Puharich had stopped by and then they all together walked to Sarah’s house.  Dr. Puharich observed that Uri no longer appeared depressed. He decided it was OK to speak frankly to the young man that had been so distressed the night before. He told Uri that they had discussed his “secret love” and the revolver that Geller had shown him. According to the doctor, Uri was stunned by his explanation of events from the previous evening.

Uri replied, “Well, I don’t remember saying any of it. It is true about the girl, but it couldn’t be true about the gun. I haven’t had that gun for two months: it is at Shipi’s house (Uri’s best friend.) Please go over and ask him.”

Dr. Puharich brought Ila into the discussion. She reportedly, “agreed with him on every detail of what had occurred the night before.” They then visited Shipi. He confirmed Uri’s version of events. According to Shipi, for the previous two months the gun had been in his, not Geller’s possession. Shipi then showed the weapon to the doctor. It was the same .38 Rossi that he had handled the night before.

ANOTHER APPARENT INSTANCE OF MEMORY TAMPERING

Ila and Dr. Puharich then went to see Uri at his apartment.  The phone rang, and Uri answered it. He excitedly told Puharich, “It’s her, she’s calling from the Sinai!” 

     Puharich asked ”Who? Who is calling?”

     Uri replied, ”Yaffa, talk to her!” and he thrust the phone into Puharich’s hand.

A woman’s voice said in broken English,  “I am Yaffa. I do not speak English, only Hebrew.” 

Just then Uri’s friend Sarah Bursak walked into the room. Uri said to her, ”It’s Yaffa on the phone from the Sinai. Talk to her!” Puharich observed Sarah speaking excitedly in Hebrew. The conversation between the two Israeli women lasted for several minutes. Sarah then handed the phone to Uri, who talked on for a few more minutes in Hebrew. According to the American doctor’s account, no one discussed the phone call after it concluded. He and his friend Ila left soon after, speculating that Yaffa must have been Uri’s secret lover. 

The next morning Uri and Puharich spoke on the phone. Andrija Puharich asked him about the call from Yaffa the previous evening and who she might be. According to Andrija, Uri said, “There was no phone call last night!” Puharich immediately described in detail what both he and Ila had witnessed. At this point Geller became agitated and insisted that Puharich call Sarah to confirm what he was saying was true. Dr. Puharich did just that and Sarah reportedly backed Uri’s contention that there had been no call from Uri’s lover. Sarah reportedly said, “Dr. Puharich, I like you very much, but I think you are very strange. This is not a good joke.”

Puharich’s description of these bizarre events continued. He acknowledged to Uri that Sara indeed had denied there was a phone call and then reminded the young man that Ila confirmed the doctor’s version of the events.  To this Uri stated, “Andrija you dreamed the whole thing, and Ila is just going along with you. Forget the whole story!”

However, Uri called him back in an hour and said, “I don’t believe there was a phone call, but how did you find out that my secret love’s name is Yaffa?”

UFO INTELLIGENCE WAS HELD RESPONSIBLE FOR CREATING FALSE MEMORIES

Dr. Andrija Puharich concludes this strange account with the following statement:

“These two days’ events numbed me. Sarah and Uri experienced one sequence, and Ila and I experienced another, in the same time frame. I had discovered the truth about Uri’s deepest secret, had held a gun in my hand that felt real, and had had a phone call experience that is real in my mind to this day. But most of all I realized that the four of us had had an experience imprinted on our minds by what could only be the agency of IS” (Puharich’ abbreviation for Intelligence Spectra, i.e., Extraterrestrial Intelligence)

“I finally learned that, given the existence of IS, I could never again know which of my experiences were directly imposed upon me by IS and which were not.”

One objection to this account is that Uri Geller simply may have perpetrated an elaborate hoax with his young friends to successfully fool the doctor. Against this accusation is the fact that years later, Uri Geller maintained that Puharich’s account was totally accurate. If he had played a joke on his then ex-friend, why not admit the hoax and reveal his success at fooling the old man. After all, as Colin Wilson pointed out, Dr. Puharich and Uri Geller were no longer friends when he interviewed the Israeli psychic. 

Based on this account, I have postulated following:

1. UFO intelligence can not only induce missing time repeatedly in subjects all over the world, and
2.  use screen memories to cover up such anomalous events, but also that 
3. the entire “abduction scenarios” elicited from experiencers can be “alien” memory implants that are recalled spontaneously or with hypnosis.

These two examples provided by Dr. Puharich certainly don’t conclusively prove what I call Virtual Experiences of the Third Kind, (VE-3) are a mechanism of contact. This case can, however, serve to encourage both UFO investigators and experiencers to seek out additional examples in which this mechanism of implanted false memories might apply. In a subsequent blog I will describe one such case that took place in the US Midwest several years ago. 

THE ROAD AHEAD

My hope is that this model will circulate through the UFO experiencer community and additional confirmatory cases will surface. Investigators may benefit from designing questions that might help experiencers identify memories of events that feel “real”, (i.e., happened physically) but the witnesses may have reasons to suspect are false. 

If this mechanism of contact that I have proposed is ongoing, then the implications for humanity are colossal. What I am suggesting is that an unseen intelligence, possibly extraterrestrial in nature, can create entirely false belief systems concerning “alien abductions.”   If subsequent investigations confirm the VE-3 Model’s validity, the UFO research community will be faced with a great challenge. How can we responsibly describe to the world this awesome psi capability of the non-human intelligences associated with flying saucers that are targeting human consciousness?

Comments: 

Yossi Ronen is an Israeli Contact Experiencer. He is author of the book “One: Face-to Face Contact, Experiencing ET Consciousness, and Human Consciousness.” We met via a series of Skype calls several years ago. Rey Hernandez brought us together when Rey asked me to help edit the experiencers’ section of the compendium “A Greater Reality.” (Volumes One and Two of “A Greater Reality” were published in the fall of 2022.) 

Yossi’s unique interpretation of contact with the non-human intelligences associated with what are now called Unidentified Aerial Phenomena is based on a transformative event that occurred in 1981. Yossi was working in the Los Angeles for several months to save up money to attend college. He was sleeping in an apartment in the San Fernando Valley. Yossi was having a very pleasant dream involving several extraterrestrial beings (typical small Greys) who were in the bedroom where he was sleeping. They were extremely friendly and in the dream were like childhood playmates with much joking and merriment that one experiences with familiar friends. The setting of the dream looked exactly like the room Yossi in which he was sleeping with the placement of furniture and personal items very accurately portrayed. This “dream” can also be interpreted as an “out-of-body experience.”

Suddenly Yossi woke up and discovered that the beings in his dream were now physically in the bedroom and this triggered a powerful “fright-flight” reaction. Surprisingly Yossi was able to overcome much of his fear and what followed was a truly remarkable encounter and its aftermath  that is the subject of his book “One.”

Below is Yossi’s edited comment on the above narrative. 

Yossi Ronen

Hello Joseph, my dear friend.

This is my approach to the possibility that VE-3s: false memories are being implanted into the mind of a contact experiencers by non-human psi technology.

As you know, my approach to the subject stems from my personal experience of communicating with the visitors in 1981 and the many years after that where I spent a lot of time trying to understand the experience in all its aspects including this possibility.

Since the experience of meeting those guests in my room was on two levels, initially in a state of out-of-body consciousness (communication with the guests without the mediation of the body) and immediately afterward when I was fully conscious, awake, with my eyes open face to face with the visitors (communication through the body) it seems that I had an opportunity to experience the difference in the way I (we as human beings) understand and interpret the experience.

There is a fundamental difference in the experience of the encounter between these two states of consciousness (out of body), in a kind of dream state followed by a physical face to face event. 

In the situation where the communication between us was in a dream like situation, but my consciousness was awake and experiencing the reality in the room outside the body, it was clear to me that I knew the visitors, and I clearly sensed that they knew us intimately. This was because they were related to us in a certain way that I do not understand and cannot sharply define. 

Yet their openness to me allowed my consciousness to experience their consciousness. Fully, fluently and without any barrier on their part, thus, allowing me to experience their positive essence, their purity, and innocence.

This communication was not one-sided, it took place with reciprocity and joint choice of the content of the communication and how it unfolded. Moreover, I experienced appreciation and respect from them from a deep and fundamental place. I learned that they treated us as beings similar to them, but in contrast we had chosen to live as humans in a physical body and in a reality that greatly limits our essence, understanding, and abilities.

But as soon as the perception of reality outside the body stopped, (I “returned to my body”), I saw them in fully physical state, fear permeated, and paralysis gripped me. Everything I had experienced with those visitors a moment before, when I was in an out of the body, almost completely disappeared. This change was due to instinctive physical fear. Those beloved guests that I had experienced so intimately a moment ago, now seemed to be unfamiliar creatures. Death threats! 

In that moment of terror, they experienced my instinctive fear but did not try to do anything. They were just standing there in the same place waiting for me. They didn’t try to interfere with my thoughts or feelings, they allowed me to try and overcome the fear myself. It seems that thanks to the fact that I still remembered the pleasant experience in front of them a moment ago, I allowed myself to try and overcome the enormous fear that I was experiencing. That inner struggle to understand the fear was very subjective. The fact that it and came only from me, helped me overcome it.

After overcoming the instinctive fear created by the encounter through the physical body, mutual communication between us became possible again. Even now, my communications with the visitors are different from everyday human to human communication that we know is based on sending or receiving messages to one another. In contrast my communication with them is based on a natural and simple connection of consciousness to consciousness. It seems that this is a basic ability that exists in all humans, but at the moment we are not aware of it.

In those few minutes of face to face contact in 1981, they also conveyed to me mental images, and thought messages that can be described in the way you chose Joseph (as a false memory implanted into the mind). This type of communication was one way, coming from them directly to me. It was a message that many experiencers describe receiving. It calls on humanity to take responsibility for the state of the environment and all the  living creatures on our planet. It is the message that we are in existential danger if we do not act to stop the process that leads to self-destruction.

So, these are my conclusions about it:

The visitors can indeed interfere directly with our consciousness, but it is necessary to understand their intervention more broadly and in doing so also consider how we translate this intervention as we currently experience it through the limitations of the physical body.

Since we are not used to experiencing our communication with others or the environment directly and fully, through a mutual sharing of consciousness as the communication occurs with the visitors, we can interpret the sudden connection with their consciousness as a threatening and even violent invasion into our consciousness. We are not aware of our ability for mutual communication and interpret it as a unilateral invasion.

Joseph Burkes MD responds:

 Yossi Ronen, thank you so much for your comment to my posting. I am honored to receive your comment. Your interpretation of Virtual Memory (VE-3) is based on that poignant contact event of four decades ago and subsequent communication with the so-called aliens. The perspective you offer is a perfect counterbalance to the opinion expressed by the retired senior NASA scientist who is quoted in the beginning of my narrative.  I believe that his response was one of fear and dismay to the VE-3 mechanism that I have proposed. I suspect that he only saw control and manipulation, in contrast you see communication, caring, commitment and potentially a blissful state we can describe as “communion.”

This comment is by a Reddit member who has given me permission to post it.

There are three sets of memories, not two.

1. Physical abductions

2. Astral abductions (consciousness only)

3. VR experiences induced when in altered consciousness mode

I have experienced all three, and I believe you can differentiate if something really happened physically or not. Because all your senses were involved, the memory/information is written down “differently”. You do remember it as a real thing. The other two are remembered more like 50% to 75% lucidity. More than a dream, but less than fully awake.

However, #3 can be induced very quickly after a physical encounter, because the person is put in altered state ASAP.

These VR experiences are stories/tests of scenarios they have conjured up, but how they ultimately look like it depends in the interconnection of their AI and our consciousness. They feed us things we expect to look normal, since their AI is generating that information based on our expectations.

Having said that, there are DMT sessions where the tripper mentions that their world feels more “real than real”, so there’s that too.

Additional Information on the Virtual Experience Model can be Found at the links below:

The Virtual Experience Model, an Overview

Joseph Burkes MD 2019. INTRODUCTION As the result of carefully studying numerous interactions with the intelligence responsible for Unidentified Aerial Phenomena UAP, I have developed a new paradigm for understanding the important role of illusion as a mechanism of contact. In proposing this model, I must emphasize that both physical and illusory contact experiences likely … Continue reading The Virtual Experience Model, an Overview

The Reasons why Flying Saucer Intelligences might stage “Virtual” Instead of Physical Encounters

J. Burkes MD 2021 Important Proviso: The Virtual Experience Model doesn’t propose that all encounters are holographic or psychic. In my judgment, interactions are occurring via both virtual and physical means.  The Virtual Experience Model describes what I believe are the illusory mechanisms of contact employed by flying saucer intelligences. The model is as follows: … Continue reading The Reasons why Flying Saucer Intelligences might stage “Virtual” Instead of Physical Encounters

Statement by Bigelow Aerospace Validates the Virtual Experience ModelA Statement by Bigelow Aerospace in 2018 “multiple eyewitnesses co-located in the same vicinity frequently reported seeing widely different events.”  Joseph Burkes MD 2021 Introduction During the 1990s, I was a contact team coordinator for the CE-5 Initiative. In the course of that volunteer work, my team had numerous sightings of what are now called Unidentified … Continue reading Statement by Bigelow Aerospace Validates the Virtual Experience Model

Why might UFO Intelligence “hoax” shooting star displays? Reflections on the Virtual Experience Model

  Joseph Burkes MD 2020 In the course of fieldwork, sky-watchers have observed bizarre visual displays of what appear to be shooting stars. These sightings are anomalous because ordinarily meteors don’t change direction in flight, do zigzags, fly upwards or horizontally. I have suggested that these events might be part of the creation of illusions … Continue reading Why might UFO Intelligence “hoax” shooting star displays? Reflections on the Virtual Experience Model