SUBJECT: IN SEARCH OF ANCIENT ASTRONAUTS FILE: UFO2384
11/07/93
CHICAGO TRIBUNE
The human-like face seemingly carved into the surface of Mars made news in
August when a NASA mission to photograph the surface closeup failed. The
subsequent protests that the space agency was covering up the secret behind the
formation have died down.
But mysteries such as that formation and innumerable others on this planet
have kept Gene Phillips, 66, of Lake Forest and thousands of other people in
the Ancient Astronaut Society busy for 20 years.
Phillips founded the organization on Sept. 14, 1973, and it now numbers
10,000 members in 93 countries, including 1,500 in the United States.
Phillips, a lawyer who does corporate work through the firm bearing his name
and who is president of the society, also is editor of its bimonthly
newsletter, Ancient Skies, written at the headquarters of the organization at
1921 St. Johns Ave., Highland Park, which is also Phillips' law office.
What brings together these widely diverse people, ranging in age from 12 to
90-plus, is their common zeal to find evidence of what they believe to be the
truth of mankind's past.
Many members believe the human race may be descended from or was given
advanced technological knowledge by astronauts of a higher intelligence from
other planets who visited Earth before written history.
Other members believe certain human civilizations possessed sophisticated
technology that has been lost and most evidence of its existence destroyed.
Phillips subscribes to the former theory.
Recently the organization held its 20th Anniversary World Conference in Las
Vegas and attracted about 350 people from 15 countries, including theologians,
astronomers, physicists, archeologists, aerospace engineers, philosophers,
clergymen, doctors, lawyers, accountants, authors and journalists.
In his address, Phillips told them of his belief that only the ancient
astronaut theory can explain the sudden appearance on Earth of human
intelligence.
The theory, first popularized by Swiss writer Erich von Daniken in his
international best-seller "Chariots of the Gods?" (Berkeley Publishing Group,
$4.99 paperback), was the subject of a 1973 PBS television special called "In
Search of Ancient Astronauts," which Phillips saw and found convincing.
On the evidence of his background, Phillips does not seem like a man to be
easily influenced. He is an honors graduate of Virginia Polytechnic Institute
in Blacksburg, Va., with an MBA from Harvard Business School and a law degree
from Northwestern University, where he was an editor of the Law Review and was
awarded the Order of Coif for academic achievement. He is also a former Air
Force officer.
In other words, this man is neither stupid nor a wide-eyed flake.
Nevertheless, when Phillips saw "In Search of Ancient Astronauts," almost
immediately he became a believer.
"What I saw on that television show answered many of my questions about
religion and the origins of humankind," Phillips said.
Born to a poor family in Beaver, W.Va., Phillips was raised as a Methodist,
converted to Catholicism and has not gone to church in more than 20 years,
except for an occasional wedding or funeral. By his own admission, he is not a
religious man.
Inspired by that television show, he founded the Ancient Astronaut Society
"... to search for evidence to determine whether Earth was visited in the
remote past by intelligent beings from outer space and whether a highly
developed, technological civilization existed on Earth before our recorded
history," Phillips said.
That same year, 1973, Von Daniken came to Chicago to speak, and The Tribune,
which had covered both Von Daniken and Phillips, arranged for them to meet.
There was an immediate rapport between the two men.
"We liked each other right away," Phillips said, "I guess because we had so
much in common." Today, 20 years later, Phillips and Von Daniken are close
friends, Von Daniken is an officer of the not-for-profit Ancient Astronaut
Society, and he operates its European office in Feldbrunnen, Switzerland.
In a phone interview, Von Daniken said, "Gene was always very, very correct
and fair. Whatever we have done together in the society and in private, he is
perfect.
"In the beginning, he was very enthusiastic. He made the organization."
Von Daniken added that in the early days, the two agreed that an
international organization would be better than one limited to the United
States. Now both are glad they took that direction, because European membership
has been more active than the U.S. branch, prompted by Van Daniken's regular
television show, "On the Traces of the Almighties," which airs on the German
equivalent of an American cable superstation.
For the next two decades, Phillips, an outgoing, well-informed, articulate
and often humorous man, searched "for knowledge and truth," as he said, in
remote corners of the Earth where he examined, photographed and speculated on
the significance of archeological ruins and artifacts.
When not traveling, he reads exhaustively on the subject. His library
numbers 2,500 volumes and continues to grow.
"Evolution does not explain how man could have evolved from the cave to the
stars in such a short time," Phillips said. "And when you see the immense
achievements of early civilizations, you have to conclude that they had
sophisticated technological knowledge-architectural, engineering, astronomical
and metallurgical, for example. That advanced knowledge had to come from
another source, and that source appears to be extraterrestrial."
To investigate firsthand and expand upon his theories, Phillips has taken
thousands of color slides around the world at the sites of what he calls the
"remnants of great civilizations . . . that utilized advanced technology which
has long since been forgotten," in more than 30 countries, including Mexico,
Guatemala, Honduras, Bolivia, Easter Island, Malta, Jordan, Egypt, Russia and
China.
The Sarcophagus Cover of Palenque, found in the ruins of that ancient Mayan
city in Mexico's Chiapas state, for example, is just one of countless
archeological objects or artifacts that confirm, according to Phillips, the
truth of his theory.
The 5-ton slab of stone, 7 feet wide, 13 feet long and 10 inches thick, was
identified by archeologists as a cover for the tomb of the Mayan king Pacal. It
bears an intricately carved picture of what Phillips describes as an ancient
astronaut in a spacecraft using hand controls and a foot pedal to operate the
vehicle. An object attached to the figure's nose is thought by Phillips to be
an oxygen mask, and what appears to be flames beyond the capsule look to
Phillips like rocket exhaust.
"Here's convincing evidence that ancient astronauts visited the Earth," said
Phillips as he points out each pictorial element on an exact scaled-down
reproduction of the sarcophagus cover, one of numerous original artifacts and
reproductions he has collected over the years and displays in his home.
"And how was it possible to carve so intricate and precise a design,"
Phillips asked, "in a culture which archeologists believed did not to have
metal tools? It was not possible. So obviously, they did have metal, and
apparently the archeologists are wrong."
But according to Lanny Bell, an Egyptologist and associate professor of
archeology at the University of Chicago, most establishment archeologists
dismiss the ancient astronaut theory. Bell, with a doctorate in Egyptology and
30 years of experience and research in the field, said, "Nobody I know in
archeology or Egyptology believes it. There just isn't any credible, scientific
evidence. One of the problems in archeology is the interesting, isolated
finding, which may be open to different interpretations. But if you look at it
within the context of the development of an entire culture, the finding becomes
understandable."
What would convince Bell of the validity of the ancient astronaut theory?
"If they were to find a mummified astronaut or a spaceship. Until then, it's
all just harmless fun."
In reply, Phillips laughed good-naturedly. "That's mild," he said of Bell's
criticism. "We've been attacked by Carl Sagan, Isaac Asimov, Thor Heyerdahl. It
doesn't bother me. I'm used to it."
Phillips was referring to a 1974 "Nova" show on PBS in which those
well-known popularizers of science presented evidence to disprove the ancient
astronaut theory.
"Von Daniken and his ideas were getting too popular," Phillips said,
explaining why the big guns of establishment science wanted his theories
destroyed. But even some members of the Ancient Astronaut Society find it
difficult to believe the proposition that Earth was visited by intelligent
beings from another planet.
Member Vince DiPietro, a senior systems engineer and image-processing expert
at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Goddard Space Flight
Center facility in Maryland, is known in Ancient Astronaut circles for the book
"Unusual Mars Surface Features," which he co-authored. Among the formations the
book discusses is the "Mars face," a mile-wide surface feature on Mars
photographed in July 1976 by NASA's Viking I probe. The formation appears to be
a human face, seemingly carved or formed in stone and looking to the sky.
"The face indicates to me that an advanced civilization once inhabited Mars
and became extinct," Di Pietro said in a telephone interview. "A half-billion
years ago, Mars was teeming with life. There's chemical evidence to support
this. Then life on Mars became extinct. I believe that life on Earth, because
of pollution and the disappearing ozone layer, could be headed for the same
catastrophe."
But does Di Pietro believe that this advanced Martian civilization or any
extraterrestrial civilization visited Earth in the past? His one-word answer
was, "Negative."
This diversity of opinion, according to Phillips, is what makes the Ancient
Astronaut Society so interesting. At their 20th Anniversary World Conference, a
vast array of professional and amateur experts spoke on such topics as gods in
the image of ancient astronauts, ancient astronauts in prehistoric Ireland, new
research on Noah's Ark, the war between Earth and Mars, and the spaceships of
Ezekiel.
Von Daniken lectured on proof of the ancient astronaut theory. Phillips
presented a lecture using color slides he took at various archeological sites
in Central and South America, Easter Island and China, showing ruins, glyphs,
artifacts and stone figures that he claims support the theory that some ancient
civilizations were highly developed technologically.
Among the enemies in this quest for scientific respectability are the
supermarket tabloids. For example, when they run lead stories saying that First
Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton has adopted an alien baby or that President Clinton
has consulted with the infirm JFK (and you thought he had died!) about aliens,
it tends to undermine the public's perception of organizations such as the
Ancient Astronaut Society.
"That kind of thing does give a bad name to our activities. There's a
tendency to lump us all together," Phillips said.
But what of Phillips the corporate lawyer, who by his own count has formed
more than 500 corporations for doctors and dentists?
Ancient Astronaut Society member Jimmy Onan, a construction firm executive
who built and lives in a pyramid-shaped home in Wadsworth, said, "Gene is one
of the sharpest lawyers I ever met. He's represented me on several occasions,
and other lawyers have told me he's brilliant."
One attorney who would agree with that assessment is John Bure of Deerfield,
who has worked on cases with Phillips. "I've worked with him on a number of
involved, sophisticated corporate matters. I don't think there's a better
corporate attorney in the state of Illinois. He's technically skilled."
Bure added that Phillips was ahead of his time even in the simple matter of
office equipment. "Way before people had word processors, he had them," he
said. "He was so mechanized."
"It's very unusual for someone to be doing the Ancient Astronauts with his
background," Bure added, explaining that this helps lend credence to his
avocation. But in all the years Phillips has been involved with the
organization, "he's never pushed me to join, and I appreciate that. He doesn't
wear it on his sleeve."
Despite Phillips' devotion to the Ancient Astronaut Society and his work as
a corporate lawyer, his family life has not suffered.
Married 38 years to wife Doris, they have four adult children: Carlos, a
trader on the Chicago Board of Trade; George, an accountant in Barlett;
Gregory, in the State Department diplomatic corps in Hamburg, Germany; and
Pamela Talley, a homemaker in Albuquerque, N.M.. Doris and Gene have traveled
together extensively over the years on Phillips' frequent expeditions to
foreign lands.
Doris, of Peruvian-Basque ancestry, is involved in the daily operations of
the society as secretary of the organization and as Phillips' associate in the
editing and publishing of the society's newsletter, Ancient Skies.
"Our family life is good," Doris said, "because Gene has always included me
in the activities of the society: meeting the people, going on the expeditions.
I'm happy to be a part of the movement."
Doris' four brothers, who are physicians, encouraged Phillips to study law
when they were newly married and living in Rochester, Minn., where they met. At
the time, Phillips owned a Chrysler auto dealership, which a friend at the
Harvard Business School had helped him establish.
But at his wife's urging, he decided to go to law school at Northwestern,
bringing them to the Chicago area.
Though Doris is a Catholic and raised the Phillipses' children in that
faith, she said, "My belief in ancient astronauts poses no religious conflict.
In fact, there are many Catholic priests and other clergy in the society."
Phillips added, "Oddly enough, the religionists have not opposed us much.
Most of our criticism comes from the scientific community. Eventually, in 50 or
100 years, our theories will be proven and accepted.
"As a minister told me once, Well, this just proves God is bigger than we
thought he was.' "
Even the late celebrated J. Allen Hynek, an astronomy professor at
Northwestern who started as a debunker of UFO sightings, later became a
believer in their existence and was described in his day as "the world's
leading expert on UFOs."
Writing of the UFO mystery and of Steven Spielberg's film "Close Encounters
of the Third Kind," in which aliens visit Earth, Hynek said in his book "The
Hynek UFO Report" (Dell, unavailable), "Spielberg has succeeded in capturing on
film the essence of the UFO enigma, the mounting evidence that intelligence
other than our own not only exists but, in a manner peculiarly its own, is
making itself known to the human race."
To that, Phillips might add, "Amen," if he were a religious man.
Though Phillips believes strongly that there is life on other planets, he
does not enjoy science fiction. Giving a capsule critique of the film "2001: A
Space Odyssey," he said, "The ending was too far out."
Next year Phillips intends to retire and devote himself full time to the
Ancient Astronaut Society and also to write a book.
But what of the question that has intrigued Phillips for more than 20 years
and for which there is still no proof persuasive enough to convince
establishment science? The answer, you might say, is still up in the air.
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