Do you believe in life on other planets? If you do , you’re far from alone – a survey last year revealed that 36% of Americans believed in aliens. That’s 80 million people! 10% of respondents even think they have seen a UFO themselves. Whether that’s the influence of realistic-looking sci-fi films is debatable, but 55% of respondents would be afraid to report a UFO sighting because they believe Men-in-Black style agents threaten those who do.
So, it’s lucky we have celebrities who are brave enough to speak out about their alien encounters. Celebrities seem to be more prone to spotting UFOs and being abducted by aliens than us normal folk, but maybe that’s because aliens identify them as the leaders of the race. Or maybe it’s because they take more drugs than other people. Who knows? But lets take a look at the Top 10 celebrities who have had Close Encounters of the Alien Kind.
10. William Shatner
Now, here’s a man who believes his own publicity. Having convinced a generation of TV lovers that the future would look like the 60s but in space, Shatner found himself having his very own alien encounter. Following a bike crash in the Mojave Desert, he saw a shadowy figure beckoning to him and it led him to what looked like a silver disc hanging in the sky. He later denied that the incident ever happened, but the wording of his denial was so confusing that no-one knows for certain what he was even trying to say.
However, he is insistent that aliens do exist, saying “In my mind, there is no doubt that the universe teems – teems! – with life in all its forms.” He might have just spent too much time on the Star Trek set, but this is a man who’s sure that there is something Out There.
9. Mick Jagger
Now, I may have mentioned the possibility that some of these celebrities overindulged in drugs at some point in their career. The Rolling Stones frontman would be a prime example of that – at the height of their fame in the 60s, the Rolling Stones partied harder than anyone else. While camping at Glastonbury with Marianne Faithfull, he saw a “rare, luminous cigar-shaped mothership.” (according to Michael C.Luckma). Jagger subsequently installed a UFO detector on his estate, and it went off every time he left home, leading him to conclude that the surrounding area was full of electromagnetic energy.
Clearly, the aliens were as interested in Mick as he was in them. The year after Glastonbury, they visited him again, hovering over the ill-fated Altamont concert. Any correlation with the amount of Class-A substances in his system was purely coincidental.
8. John Lennon
Another musician who may have experienced drug-fuelled hallucinations is the Beatle John Lennon. In 1974, he was in New York with his companion May Pang, when they both saw a blimp-sized object, topped with a red light, moving down the East River. Apparently, they both knew it was a UFO.
That wasn’t John’s only encounter with extra-terrestrials. According to the British magician Uri Geller, John encountered some aliens in his New York apartment, who showed him his entire life in movie-form and gave him an object to remember them by. May Pang also says that John thought he’d been abducted by aliens as a child in Liverpool, and that’s what made him different to other people. So did he die in December 1980 or was it also a cover-up so that the aliens could come back and get him? Who knows?
7. Fran Drescher
Of course, it isn’t just celebrities from the 60s that have seen aliens. Actress Fran Drescher, of “Happily Divorced” fame, reckons that she saw an alien while driving down a road with her Dad in Junior High. The encounter left her with a small scar on her hand. But, this is the spooky part – her ex-husband Peter Marc Jacobson has the exact small scar, in the exact same place. Co-incidence? Fran thinks not. In fact, she sees it as proof that they were destined to meet – they had both had the same alien experience at the same time, before they knew each other.
Peter Marc Jacobson isn’t so convinced on the alien claims, and has claimed that Drescher scarred herself with a drillbit. But maybe he’s just covering up the aliens’ existence….his ex-wife certainly thinks so!
6. Muhammad Ali
Another acquaintance of John Lennon’s who claimed to have had paranormal encounters. The boxing legend saw several UFOs, but the most famous example is the one he saw while jogging in Central Park with his manager. He saw a glowing, bright light which he was convinced was a UFO. His manager claims not to have seen it, but still believes that UFOs exist, saying; “If you look into the sky in the early morning you see them playing tag between the stars.”
5. Olivia Newton-John
The Grease star is another believer in life on other planets. She told British newspaper The Sun that she’d seen a UFO as a teenager. It was silver and flew across the sky at “amazing speeds”. She also thinks that most British people share her belief in UFOs and that attitudes have shifted from cynicism, to a sense that it might just be true.
Her husband John Easterley owns a natural remedy company, called the “Amazon Herb Company”. I’m not saying that there’s any link between Amazon herbs and seeing aliens but it’s not impossible. Of course, it’s also not impossible that she genuinely did see something.
4. John Travolta
If anyone was going to believe Olivia, it would be her former co-star John Travolta. As a scientologist, belief in aliens is an integral part of his religion. Scientologists believe that beings called thetans created the universe and are re-incarnated all the time into new bodies, which have no memory of their “true selves”. Scientology aims – through its self-help materials – to rediscover these inner beings.
John Travolta has been involved with the church of Scientology since 1975 and one of its most prominent members. In 2000, he made a film based on a novel by the church’s founder, L. Ron Hubbard. The result was Battlefield Earth, a financial and critical disaster, which is widely regarded as one of the worst films ever made, scoring just 2.4/10 on imdb.com. His passion for thetans means that he would believe Olivia’s story, even if no-one else did.
3. Robbie Williams
British pop star Robbie Williams is another UFO enthusiast. After an intense year playing stadiums in 2006, he took a break and went into hiding, before contacting a journalist and asking him to go to a UFO conference in Arizona. The journalist feared for Robbie’s mental health at the time, as he’d cut himself off from the outside world and was obsessing about aliens. He even claimed to have seen an alien in his recording studio, shortly after recording a track called “Arizona”, about visitations. Every time he played the track, the ball appeared and disappeared every time the track finished. This was the inspiration he needed to become a full-time UFO hunter.
Luckily for middle-aged pop fans everywhere, that didn’t happen. After a while, he saw sense and decided to stop following aliens and start trying to win his fans back. He admitted that he was “weird and fat” during his UFO period and it wasn’t good for his career. I imagine it wasn’t good for his bank balance either. so no wonder he gave it up!
2. Elvis Presley
Robbie’s in good company when it comes to UFO-obsessed pop stars. The King of Pop himself had a lifelong alien obsession, following a strange sign in the sky the day he was born. His father Vernon had stepped out for a cigarette when he spotted a strange blue light in the sky. He took that as a sign that “something special was happening”.
Michael C.Luckman – who wrote about Mick Jagger – emerges again here, with his claim that aliens visited a young Elvis and showed him glimpses of his glamorous future. Elvis went on to have several UFO sightings, including strange lights moving in a field near Gracelands and more lights in the desert. Rumors persist that the King never really died, so perhaps the aliens came to collect him as well as John Lennon. They must have a great band going up there! Shame they left Robbie behind…
1. Sammy Hagar
All of our celebrities believe that they have sighted aliens, but only one claims to be controlled by them Sammy Hagar, of Van Halen, says he had a dream where aliens took him aboard their ship and downloaded information into his brain. Only it wasn’t a dream, it really happened. They took knowledge from him and left their own knowledge there in return. That follows an encounter at the age of 4 where he threw rocks at what he thought was a floating car but turned out to be a UFO. So, at least he had a bit of warning that the aliens were interested in him. And according to him, they’ll be back someday soon.
Make sure you’re ready!