David Bowie & UFOs
August 16, 2010Henry Baum 1 Comment »Nice post about David Bowie’s experience with UFOs and the occult.
Early in life, Bowie had established his interest in all matters extraterrestrial. As a Brit teenager, David had helped edit a flying saucer newsletter. He admitted to me that he loved science fiction and was fascinated with life in space and the possibility that quite a few cosmic visitors had ended up on our earthly shores.
During a conversation, Bowie had gone out on a limb revealing that he had once had a close encounter. In the book Laugh Gnostic, author Peter Koening paraphrases what Bowie said: “A friend and I were traveling in the English countryside when we both noticed a strange object hovering above a field. From then on I have come to take this phenomena seriously. I believe that what I saw was not the actual object, but a projection of my own mind trying to make sense of this quantum topological doorway into dimensions beyond our own. It’s as if our dimension is but one among an infinite number of others.”
This is perhaps the most striking anecdote from the seventies – when he was consuming mountains of drugs, but also piles of books about esoterica.
Feeling demonic forces moving in, David felt strongly that he needed an exorcism and asked that his new found friend white witch Walli Elmlark be called upon to lend her assistance to remove the evil from his surroundings….
“There’s no easy or elegant way to say this, so I’ll just say it straight. At a certain point in the ritual, the pool began to bubble. It bubbled vigorously (perhaps “thrashed” is a better term) in a manner inconsistent with any explanation involving air filters or the like.”
The rock and roll couple watched in amazement. Angie says she tried to be flippant – “‘Well, dear, aren’t you clever? It seems to be working. Something’s making a move, don’t you think?’ – but I couldn’t keep it up. It was very, very strange; even after my recent experiences I was having trouble accepting what my eyes were seeing.”
Angie insists that she would peak through the glass doors which lead to the pool every so often and was dumb founded by what she saw.
“On the bottom of the pool was a large shadow, or stain, which had not been there before the ritual began. It was in the shape of a beast of the underworld; it reminded me of those twisted, tormented gargoyles screaming silently from the spires of medieval cathedrals. It was ugly, shocking, malevolent; it frightened me.
“I backed away from it feeling very strange, went through the doorway, and told David what I’d seen, trying to be nonchalant but not doing very well. He turned white but eventually became revived enough to spend the rest of the night doing coke. He wouldn’t go near the pool, though.
Here’s more about Bowie and the occult. I sort of feel like I’m novelizing some of Bowie’s lyrical ideas – I mention “Five Years” in TABOTD – but there’s also “Oh, You Pretty Things” and the notion of Homo Superior, which people think has to do with homosexuality. Well, yeah, but also evolution:
Look at your children
See their faces in golden rays
Don’t kid yourself they belong to you
They’re the start of a coming race
The earth is a bitch
We’ve finished our news
Homo sapiens have outgrown their use
All the strangers came today
And it looks as though they’re here to stay
Immensely good live version:
In related news, apparently my novel is now with Bowie’s son Duncan Jones, director of the excellent “Moon.” The editor of his next movie is a friend of the family.
August 16th, 2010 at 11:40 am
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