Poor Blooming Aliens!

    The philosophy behind this blog is that even the most fantastic report deserves its day in court. It may, of course, be genuinely bogus, in which case it will sit quietly in your files and eventually die of loneliness. However, there is always the possibility that, decades later and thousands of miles away, a similar report will independently float in to back it up. If so, you would be sorry you had thrown out the original report. After all, one of the first UFO societies, N.I.C.A.P. originally discarded all reports of UFO occupants as too fantastic to be worth consideration.
     Anyone who has followed UFOs for a long period will eventually arrive at two conclusions. The first is that, just because a story sounds far-fetched, even ridiculous, it doesn't mean it is not genuine. The second, unfortunately, is also correct: just because a single witness appears completely sincere and believable, there is no guarantee that the story is true.
    The following account is an oldie, but goldie. Like many others, it relies on the unsupported testimony of a single witness, so I won't say I believe it, and I won't say I don't. But I like it.   
    In 1978, the British journal, Flying Saucer Review received a letter, in German, from 50-year-old Josef Wanderka of Vienna. He said he had kept his experience secret for nearly a quarter of a century because the UFO societies of Austria were "all Nazis" - a sentiment the translator found unlikely. It was decided to merely summarise his story because:

Herr Wanderka's style is verbose in the extreme, and on top of that he is afflicted with a dreadful inability, so it seems, to write anything without lacing it generously with left-wing political propaganda.

    So, in summarising the summary, it appears that, during the mid-1950s, he used to enjoy himself puttering around the Vienna Woods on a motorcycle. In 1954, he happened to notice a silvery, cigar-shaped UFO the size of a modern airline slowly crossing the skies over Vienna, and commented on it to a group of Soviet soldiers nearby.
    Then, one mid-afternoon in August or September 1955, he was riding his bike along a path in the woods about 25 km south-west of Vienna, when he caught sight of something metallic among the trees. Turning off onto a side path, he found himself facing a smooth, metallic disc about 10 or 12 metres (33 - 39 feet) wide and 2½ metres (8 ft) high, resting on the ground. A door had opened in the side, and a ramp was stretched out in front of it. Being only 20 yards away, he suddenly followed his impulse to ride straight up the ramp into the machine.
    A pleasant, yellowish light illuminated the interior without casting shadows, but no signs could be seen of any instruments, or even a seat. But he found himself surrounded by half a dozen humanoids about 180 cm (5 ft 11 in) high, with clear, unblemished faces and fair hair secured with a coif. They wore loose, grey, one-piece garments without obvious seams. Their footwear was of one piece with their suits, and their gloves had no separate fingers.
    He apologized for barging in, and was amazed when they replied in clear, fluent German, their voices feminine, with a slight English accent. They told him they had learnt the language, and that they came "from the top point of Cassiopeia"(!)
    Still seated on his vehicle, Herr Wanderka then decided it would be a good idea to brief them on the problems of planet Earth, with all its inequalities and exploitation - which he proceeded to do, apparently, at great length, and with all the passion of an accomplished soap box orator. It apparently brought them to tears!
    Finally, they suggested that he might be the one to lead the human race in its liberation from all that inequality. He then bade them good-bye and, as they all bowed courteously towards him, he spun his bike around and drove back down the ramp and out of their lives.
    As I said, we have only one man's word for all of this, but think of what it means if it were true. Poor blooming aliens! They put down their spaceship in what looks like a beautiful, tranquil, and isolated site of another planet and, before they even have a chance to step outside, some crazy native rolls up and tries to get them involved in his own petty tribal conflicts! No wonder they don't try to contact us!
Reference: Gordon Creighton (April 1979), "A weird tale from the Vienna Woods", Flying Saucer Review, vol. 24, no. 6, pp 20 - 21.   You can read the original report in full here.