Some more UFO stuff

[EndtheMadnessNow]

June 3, 1993: Allen Ross last film, "Ordinary Conversations about Extraordinary Matters," premiered at the Gene Siskel Film Center of the School of the Art Institute. He was a co-founder of Chicago Filmmakers, a refuge for artists where they can screen their works and rent film equipment. While holding down his day job as an editor on the television series "Wild Kingdom," he would work on his own films and help others with their projects. He is survived by a twin brother, Bradley (wife Susan) Ross of West Chicago and a brother, John Ross of Portland, Oregon.

George M. Eberhart, "Postcards with a UFO Theme," International UFO Reporter, Vol. 29, no. 2 (Summer 2004):

This culture is skeptical of tales of unidentified flying objects, yet quite fascinated by them. “The believability of the claims is less important than what we (as a society) make of them,” says Allen Ross, a local filmmaker whose latest video documentary, co-directed with Sharon Sandusky, takes a candid look at a cast of such “storytellers” and UFOlogists.

A self-styled ethnographer, Ross has built a cult reputation with experimental works that demystify the seemingly strange. His latest effort is no exception.

“I got interested in the UFO phenomenon,” he explains, “because the experiences are basically unfilmmable, so we have to rely on and interpret the contactees’ recollections the way anthropologists learn about an unfamiliar culture’s customs through native informants.”

A few years ago Ross got together with Sandusky, a fellow graduate of the School of the Art Institute, and decided to document the personal accounts of selected “experiencers” and “data collectors.”

Sandusky ferreted out the most credible witnesses and researchers. Then in 1991, the pair, with video gear in hand, located the ones they wanted to interview at two UFO conferences, in Laramie, Wyo., and the Hyatt Regency O’Hare in Rosemont.

The result is “Ordinary Conversations About Extraordinary Matters,” an artful compilation of stream-of-consciousness monologues that shed light on the community of UFO believers and researchers. The feature-length video will be screened at the Art Institute’s Film Center at 8 p.m. Thursday and at 6 and 8:15 p.m. June 12 (phone 312-443-3733). Ross and Sandusky will be on hand for questions after each show.

“According to a recent Roper poll, at least 3.75 million people in this country believe that they’ve experienced abductions,” Sandusky points out. “And many more claim to have seen UFOs. Statistics show that these `percipients’ (those who claim encounters with UFOs) cut across all socioeconomic strata, with as many men as women.”

Yet, Ross adds, few are willing to talk in front of a camera. “We had a great deal of trouble convincing men to talk on the record, so we ended up with mostly women interviewees,” he says. “Men seem to be afraid of ridicule and losing their jobs. Interestingly, the researchers we interviewed-Budd Hopkins, David Jacobs and John Carpenter-are all men. They are scientific types, but they’ve gone out on a limb, in terms of their academic credentials, investigating phenomena sensationalized and cheapened by the mainstream media.”

The documentary’s narrative unfolds slowly as Skye Ambrose, a young woman who claims to have been abducted by aliens as a child, goes through a hynoptic regression. “There is a belief that most abductees suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, like rape victims and war survivors,” Sandusky says. “They are ordinary, credible people who happen to be troubled by a singular event in their lives. Hypnosis helps them to overcome the pathology.”

Ambrose’s remembrance of being shepherded into a metallic “spaceship” by amorphous-looking beings who communicate through telepathy is echoed by other interviewees. “These are victims of the missing-time syndrome,” Ross says. “Should we trust their stories more because they were told under hypnosis? Also remarkable are cases of double amnesia. Two or more people, usually father and son, who think they might have been abducted together, can recall similar events, corroborate each other, during hypnotic regression.”

A Wyoming couple, C.J. and Ione Allison, claim to have stayed in touch with their alien friends for a long time. “The Allisons are contactees, not abductees; they and their family have had pleasant experiences,” Sandusky says.

Ross and Sandusky, whose next collaboration will be on exorcism, agree with researchers that UFO accounts are open to religious interpretations. “The experience forces contactees to look inward, to grasp for spiritual significance,” Ross says. “Despite their strangeness and curiosity, the aliens ultimately have a benign message. They warn us not to pollute the planet, they want to help us evolve. I realize that most skeptics-especially hard-core science types-demand solid evidence, like a piece of a saucer, or a dead alien.

“But who am I to judge? Life is full of strange improbabilities.”

Beyond Belief; Chicago Tribune

Filmmaker Allen Ross married Linda Greene and followed her cult, the Samaritan Foundation, based in Guthrie, Oklahoma. The couple moved from place to place following her instructions. Following Allen's murder on November 22, 1995, the group disbanded. Prosecutors believe that Linda Greene committed the murder. She died of liver failure in 2002 and was never charged. A cult member, Julia Williams, was found guilty of being an accessory after the fact to murder, by helping to bury the body in the basement. She was sentenced to two years in prison.

Ross' remains were found in July 2000 in his Cheyenne, Wyoming home.

A 2017 episode (S14E3) of Ghost Adventures, entitled "Samaritan Cult House" features an investigation of the former prison building in Guthrie, Oklahoma, in which the cult resided from the 1990s to early 2000s.

For years I been intrigued by the mega huge Masonic Scottish Rite Temple in Guthrie for a small town of ~10,000.

Back in 2020 U.S. customs officials seized a shipment of counterfeit $100 bills in Milwaukee, Wisconsin...the shipment—from Shenzhen, a port city in southern China—was headed for Guthrie, Oklahoma.


I find many of these UFO characters & UFO cults of the 20th century as fascinating as the phenomena itself.  So, so many turned out to be charlatans, cult members or leaders, and damn counterintel spooks. Though a few were genuine but got slandered into oblivion.

I'll leave you with a good interview...

Binnall of America: S4 E9: Stanton Friedman



Checkout his Channel for more interesting UFO & high strangeness interviews.

Sidenote: Binnal's video/audio editor is the guy who maintains Coast to Coast AM website.