Gonzalez, Oswald

Oswald Gonzalez is a relatively obscure contactee, and the available biographical information is limited. Most of what is known about him comes from his own account, published with the assistance of UFO investigator Wendelle C. Stevens in UFO Contact from Planet NEP-4. The case is nevertheless interesting because Gonzalez claimed that his experiences began before the modern UFO era, in 1936, and continued for more than three decades.

Biographical data

The published material describes Gonzalez as a Hispanic man who grew up with an identical twin brother. Both brothers are said to have become involved in the experiences. His twin brother died in middle age, but the available sources do not provide reliable dates of birth or death for either brother. This is one of the difficulties in reconstructing Gonzalez's biography: the sources concentrate almost entirely on his alleged contacts rather than on his ordinary life.

Gonzalez and his twin brother began their face-to-face contacts in 1936, when they were five. Gonzalez apparently began recording his experiences at a relatively young age. According to the published account, during his early high-school years he began keeping detailed records of his conversations with the alleged visitors. By 1949 he reportedly had accumulated more than twelve notebooks, containing notes about the contacts, conversations and related material. These notebooks subsequently became an important part of the case as presented by Stevens.

There is also an important family element to the story. Gonzalez claimed that his twin brother was involved in the contacts and that his mother was taken aboard a craft with the two brothers on at least one occasion. Thus, unlike many contactee accounts, Gonzalez did not present the phenomenon as something experienced exclusively by himself. The alleged involvement of family members is part of the internal evidential structure of the case, although it does not constitute independent verification.

The principal investigator associated with Gonzalez is Wendelle Stevens. Stevens maintained extensive archives of UFO cases, which are now held in the Wendelle Stevens Ufology Collection at Rice University's Woodson Research Center.

The Nep-4 contact case

Gonzalez claimed that his contacts continued from 1936 until 1972, making this a reported contact period of approximately 36 years. According to his account, the beings came from a planet called Nep-4, which he located somewhere in or near the Horsehead Nebula in Orion. The location should of course be understood as part of the contactee's cosmology rather than as an astronomically established identification of a planet.

The alleged encounters included occasions when Gonzalez was taken aboard a spacecraft. He referred to the craft as “Vimanos”, or a “Ship of Light.” Later descriptions give a surprisingly detailed account of its interior, including a control area, computer consoles, a navigational instrument, separate crew quarters and twelve octagonal windows or ports. The craft was also said to have been surrounded by a protective energy field.

Two of the alleged visitors were identified by name as Zeban and Liom. They were not physically identical. Zeban was described as approximately 5 feet 8 inches tall, with shoulder-length blond hair and blue eyes. Liom was considerably taller, approximately 7 feet 4 inches, with brown hair, dark brown eyes and a freckled face. Both were said to wear distinctive blue clothing. Other crew members were described as considerably more uniform in appearance and as wearing tan clothing.

An important aspect of the case is its religious and theological content. Gonzalez claimed that the visitors discussed biblical passages with him and offered interpretations that differed from conventional Christian teachings. Most notably, they allegedly told the Gonzalez brothers that Jesus had survived the crucifixion and subsequently lived in India and Kashmir. The contacts therefore combined alleged extraterrestrial encounters with a form of alternative biblical interpretation.

According to the account, the experiences also had a paranormal or psychic dimension. Gonzalez reportedly believed that contact with the beings had “awakened” his pineal gland and that he subsequently experienced clairvoyance, clairaudience and automatic writing. Much of the resulting material was said to concern biblical subjects and was recorded in his notebooks.

The case is therefore somewhat different from a simple UFO-sighting report. Gonzalez described a long-term contact relationship, beginning in childhood, involving alleged physical encounters, repeated journeys aboard spacecraft, communication with named entities, religious teachings, psychic phenomena and extensive written documentation.

The surviving online material ultimately traces the account back to Gonzalez's testimony and notebooks, as presented and investigated by Stevens.

Sources

The principal primary-source reference is Oswald Gonzalez and Wendelle C. Stevens, UFO Contact from Planet NEP-4. The bibliographical record available online describes it as an autobiographical account by Gonzalez, compiled and presented with Stevens.