Vernon Whiteside read the report carefully.
Through his position as sexton of the Spiritual Light Brotherhood Church he had access, as well, to most church records, including the taped archives of the Sunday worship services and Wednesday message services. He followed the Radiant Mother’s report to the congregation, in which she referred heavily to the séance of June 13, by borrowing and listening carefully to the tape of the séance
itself.
He also obtained a photocopy from Agency headquarters, of the latest issues of the
Vermont UFO Intelligencer
. These he read carefully, seeking to correlate any references in the newsletter with the Akeley family, or with any other name connected with the Akeleys or the content of the séance tape. He mulled over the Akeleys, Phillipses, Wilmarths, Noyeses, and all other references. He
attempted also to connect the defunct (or at least seemingly-defunct) Starry Wisdom sect of the New England region, with the San Diego-based Spiritual Light Brotherhood.
At this time it appears also that Elizabeth Akeley began to receive additional messages outside of the Spiritual Light message services. During quiet moments she would lapse involuntarily into her trance or trance-like state.
Because she was unable to recall the messages received during these episodes, she prevailed upon Marc Feinman to spend increasing amounts of time with her. During the last week of June and July of 1979 the two were nearly inseparable. They spent every night together, sometimes at Elizabeth’s house in National City, sometimes at Marc’s apartment on Upas Street.
It was at this time that Vernon
Whiteside recommended that Agency surveillance of the San Diego cult be increased by the installation of wiretaps on the church and the Pleasant Street and Upas Street residences. This recommendation was approved and recordings were obtained at all three locations. Transcripts are available in Agency files.
Excerpts follow:
July 25, 1979 (Incoming)
Voice #1 (Definitely identified as Marc Feinman):
Hello.
Voice #2 (Tentatively identified as Mrs. Sara Feinman, Marc’s mother, Bronx, New York): Marc.
Voice #1: (Pause) Yes, Ma.
Voice #2: Markie, are you all right?
Voice #1: Yeah, Ma.
Voice #2: Are you sure? Are you really all right?
Voice #1: Ma, I’m all right.
Voice #2: Okay, just so you’re all right, Markie. And work, Markie? How’s your work? Is your work all right?
Voice #1: It’s
all right, Ma.
Voice #2: No problems?
Voice #1: Of course, problems, Ma. That’s what they pay me to take care of.
Voice #2: Oh my God, Markie! What kind of problems, Markie?
Voice #1: (Pauses, sighs or inhales deeply) We’re trying to integrate the 2390 remote console control routines with the sysgen status word register and every time we run it against –
Voice #2: (Interrupting) Markie, you
know I don’t under-stand that kind of –
Voice #1: (Interrupting) But you asked me –
Voice #2: (Interrupting) Marc, don’t contradict your mother. Are you still with that shicksa? She’s the one who’s poisoning your mind against your poor mother. I’ll bet she’s with you now, isn’t she, Marc?
Voice #1: (Sighs or inhales deeply) No, Ma, it’s Wednesday. She’s never here Wednesdays. She’s at church
every Wednesday. They have these services every Wedn –
Voice #2: That isn’t what I called about. I don’t understand, Markie, for the money that car must have cost you could have had an Oldsmobile at least, even a Buick like your father. Markie, it’s your father I
phoned about. Markie, you have to come home. Your father isn’t well, Markie. I phoned because he isn’t home now but the doctor said
he’s not a well man. Markie, you have to come home and talk to your father. He respects you, he listens to you God knows why. Please, Markie. (Sound of soft crying)
Voice #1: What’s wrong with him, Ma?
Voice #2: I don’t want to say it on the telephone.
July 25, 1979 (Outgoing)
Voice #3: (Definitely identified as Vernon Whiteside): Spiritual Light Brotherhood. May the divine light shine upon
your path.
Voice #1: Vern, this is Marc. Is Liz still at the church? Is the service over?
Voice #3: The service ended a few minutes ago, Mr. Feinman. The Radiant Mother is resting in the sacristy.
Voice #1: That’s what I wanted to know. Listen, Vern, tell Lizzie that I’m on my way, will you? I had a long phone call from my mother and I don’t want Liz to worry. Tell her I’ll give her a ride
home from the church.
Feinman left San Diego by automobile, driving his Ferrari Boxer eastward at a top speed in the 140 MPH range, and arrived at the home of his parents in the Bronx, New York, some time during the night of July 27-28.
In the absence of Marc Feinman, Akeley took agent Whiteside increasingly into her confidence, asking him to remain in her presence day and night. He set up a
temporary cot in the living room of the Pleasant Street house during this period. His instructions were to keep a portable cassette recorder handy at all times, and to record anything said by Mother Akeley during spontaneous trances. On the first Saturday of August, following a lengthy speech in the now-familiar male New England twang, Akeley asked agent Whiteside for the tape. She played it back,
then made the following long-distance telephone call:
August 4, 1979 (Outgoing)
Voice #4 (Tentatively identified as Ezra Noyes): Vermont Bureau. May we help you?
Voice #5 (Definitely identified as Elizabeth Akeley): Is this Mr. Noyes?
Voice #4: Oh, I’m sorry, Dad isn’t home. This is Ezra. Can I give him a –
Voice #5 (Interrupting): Oh, I wanted to speak with Ezra Noyes. The editor of the
UFO Intelligencer
.
Voice #4: Oh, yes, right. Yes, that’s me. Ezra Noyes.
Voice #5: Mr. Noyes, I wonder if you could help me. I need some information about, ah, recent occurrences in or around Townshend.
Voice #4: That’s funny, what did you say your name was?
Voice #5: Elizabeth Akeley.
Voice #4: I thought I knew all my subbers.
Voice #5: Oh, I’m not a subscriber, I got your name from—well,
that doesn’t matter. Mr. Noyes, I wonder if you could tell me if there have been any unusual UFO sightings in your region lately.
Voice #4 (Suspiciously): Unusual?
Voice #5: Well, these wouldn’t be your usual run-of-the-mill flying objects. Flying saucers. I hope that phrase doesn’t offend you. These would be more like flying creatures.
Voice #4: Creatures? You mean birds?
Voice #5: No. No.
Intelligent creatures.
Voice #4: People, then. You mean Buck Rogers and Wilma Deering with their rocket flying belts.
Voice #5. Please don’t be sarcastic, Mr. Noyes. (Pauses) I mean intelligent, possibly hominoid but non-human creatures. Their configuration may vary, but some of them, at least, I believe would have large, membranous wings, probably stretched over a bony or veinous framework
in the fashion of bats’ or insects’ wings. Also, some of them may be carrying artifacts such as polished metallic cylinders of a size capable of containing a—of containing, uh, a human—a human—brain. (Sounds of distress, possible sobbing)
Voice #4: Miss Akeley? Are you all right, Miss Akeley?
Voice #5: I’m sorry. Yes, I’m all right.
Voice #4: I didn’t mean to be so hard on you, Miss Akeley.
It’s just that we get a lot of crank calls. People wanting to talk to the little green men and that kind of thing. I had to make sure that you weren’t –
Voice #5: I understand. And you
have
had –
Voice #4: I’m reluctant to say too much on the phone. Miss Akeley, do you think you could get here? There have been sightings. And there are older ones. Records in the local papers. A rash of incidents
about fifty years ago. And others farther back. There was a monograph by an Eli Davenport over in New Hampshire back in the 1830s, I’ve got a Xerox of it….
Shortly after her telephone conversation with Ezra Noyes, Elizabeth Akeley appealed to Vernon Whiteside for assistance. “I don’t want to go alone,” she is reported as saying. “If only Marc were here, I know he’d help me. He’d go with me. But
he’s with his family and I can’t wait till he gets back. We’ll have to close the church. No, no we won’t. We can have a lay reader conduct the worship services. We can suspend the message services ’til I get back. Will you help me, Vernon?”
Whiteside, maintaining his cover as the sexton of the Brotherhood, assured Akeley. “Anything the Radiant Mother wishes, ma’am. What would you like me to do?”
“Can you get away for a few days? I have to go to Vermont. Would you book two tickets for us? There are church funds to cover the cost.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Whiteside lowered his head. “Best way would be via Logan International in Boston, then a Boston and Maine train to Newfane and Hardwick.”
Akeley made no comment on the sexton’s surprising familiarity with transcontinental air routes or with the
railroad service between Boston and upper New England. She was obviously in an agitated state, Whiteside reported when he checked in with his superiors prior to their departure from San Diego.
Two days later the Negro sexton and the Radiant Mother climbed down from B & M train #5508 at Hardwick, Vermont. They were met at the town’s rundown and musty-smelling station by Ezra Noyes. Noyes was driving
his parents’ 1959 Nash Ambassador station wagon and willingly loaded Akeley’s and Whiteside’s meager baggage into
the rear cargo deck of the vehicle.
Ezra chauffeured the visitors to his parents’ home. The house, a gambrel-roofed structure of older design, was fitted for a larger family than the two senior Noyeses and their son Ezra; in fact, an elder son and daughter had both married and departed
Windham County for locales of greater stimulation and professional opportunity, leaving two surplus bedrooms in the Noyes home.
Young Noyes proposed that he invite the full membership of the Vermont UFO Intelligence Bureau to attend an extraordinary meeting, to convene without delay at his home. Both Elizabeth Akeley and Vernon Whiteside demurred, pleading fatigue at the end of their transcontinental
flight as well as the temporary debilitation of jet-lag.
Noyes agreed reluctantly to abandon his plan for the meeting, but was eager to offer his own services and assistance to Akeley and Whiteside. Elizabeth informed Ezra Noyes that she had received instructions to meet a visitor at a specific location near the town of Passumpsic in neighboring Caledonia County. She did not explain to Noyes
the method of her receiving these instructions, but Vernon’s later report indicated that he was aware of them, the instructions having been delivered to Miss Akeley in spontaneous trance sessions, the tapes of which he had also audited.
It must be again emphasized at this point that the voice heard on the spontaneous trance tapes was, in different senses, both that of Miss Akeley and of another
personage. The pitch and accent, as has been stated, were those of an elderly male speaking in a semi-archaic New England twang while the vocal apparatus itself was un-questionably that of Elizabeth Akeley,
neé
Elizabeth Maude Pelley.
Miss Akeley’s instructions were quite specific in terms of geography, although it was found odd that they referred only to landmarks and highway or road facilities
known to exist in the late 1920s. Young Noyes was able to provide alternate routes for such former roadways as had been closed when superseded by more modern construction.
Before retiring, Elizabeth Akeley placed a telephone call to the home of Marc Feinman’s parents in the Bronx. In this call she urged Feinman to join her in Vermont. Feinman responded that his father, at the urging of himself
and his mother, had consented to undergo major surgery. Marc promised to travel to Vermont and rendezvous with Akeley at the earliest feasible time, but indicated that he felt obliged to remain with his parents until the surgery was completed and his father’s recovery assured.
The following morning Elizabeth Akeley set out for Passumpsic. She was accompanied by Vernon Whiteside and traveled in
the Nash Ambassador station wagon driven by Ezra Noyes.
Her instructions had contained very specific and very emphatic requirements that she keep the rendezvous alone, although others might provide transportation and wait while the meeting took place. The party who had summoned Elizabeth Akeley to the rendezvous had not, to this time, been identified, although it was believed to be the owner
of the male voice and New England twang who had spoken through Elizabeth herself in her trances.
Prior to their departing Windham County for Caledonia County, a discussion took place between Akeley and Whiteside. Whiteside appealed to Elizabeth Akeley to permit him to accompany her to the rendezvous.
That would be impossible, Akeley stated.
Whiteside pointed out Elizabeth’s danger, in view
of the unknown identity of the other party. When Akeley remained adamant, Whiteside gave in and agreed to remain with Ezra Noyes during the meeting. It must be pointed out that at this time the dialog was not cast in the format of a highly trained and responsible agent of the Federal establishment, and an ordinary citizen; rather, the facade which Whiteside rightly although with difficulty maintained
was that of a sexton of the Spiritual Light Brotherhood acting under the authority of and in the service of the Radiant Mother of the Church.
Akeley was fitted with a concealed microphone which transmitted on a frequency capable of being picked up by a small microcassette recorder which Whiteside was to keep with him in or near the Nash station wagon; additionally, an earphone ran from the recorder
so that Whiteside was enabled to monitor the taped information in real time.
The Nash Ambassador crossed the county line from Windham into Caledonia on a two-lane county highway. This had been a dirt road in the 1920s, blacktopped with Federal funds administered by the Works Progress Administration under Franklin Roosevelt, and superseded by a nearby four-lane asphalt highway built during the
Eisenhower Presidency. The blacktop received minimal maintenance, and only pressure from local members of the Vermont legislature, this brought in turn at the insistence of local residents who used the highway for access to Passumpsic, South Londonderry, and Bellows Falls, prevented the State from declaring the highway closed and striking it from official roadmaps.