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Flapjacks from Outer Space, the strange case of Joe Simonton and the Cosmic Pancakes...
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11:00 A.M. - April 18, 1961: While having his own breakfast, Wisconsin chicken farmer Joe Simonton is attracted
outside by a peculiar noise similar to "knobby tires on a wet pavement." Stepping into his yard, he faces a silvery
saucer-shaped object "brighter than chrome," which appears to be hovering close to the ground without actually
touching it. The object is about twelve feet high and thirty feet in diameter. A hatch opens about five feet from the
ground, and Simonton sees three men inside the machine. He estimates that these men are about 5 feet tall and
between twenty-five to thirty years of age. They wear clinging dark-blue uniforms with turtleneck tops and have on
apparently knitted headgear, such as is worn under crash helmets. None of them speak during the brief episode
that follows. One of them is dressed in a black two-piece suit. Smooth shaven, they appear to "resemble Italians" as
they have dark hair and skin.

One of the men holds up a jug apparently made of the same silver-like material as the saucer. His motions to Joe
Simonton seem to indicate that he needs water. Simonton takes the jug, goes over to his pump, and fills it up. As
he returns, he sees that one of the men inside the saucer is "frying food on a flameless grill of some sort." The
interior of the ship is black, "the color of wrought iron." Simonton can see several instrument panels and hears a
slow whining sound, similar to the hum of a generator. When he makes a motion that indicates that he is interested
in the food that is being prepared, one of the men, who is also dressed in black (but with a narrow red trim along
the trousers), hands him four pancakes, each about three inches in diameter and perforated with small holes. Still
hot from the griddle, Simonton tries one and says that it tastes like cardboard.

The whole affair lasts about five minutes. Finally, the man closest to the witness attaches a kind of belt to a hook in
his clothing and closes the hatch in such a way that Simonton can scarcely detect its outline. Then the object rises
about twenty feet from the ground before taking off straight south, causing a blast of air that bowed some nearby
pine trees.

Along the edge of the saucer, Joe could see some exhaust pipes six or seven inches in diameter. The hatch is
about six feet high and thirty inches wide and its shape is similar to two inverted bowls.














At about roughly that same time, an insurance agent named Savino Borgo is driving along Highway 70, about a
mile from Simonton's farm. He sees what he later describes as a saucer rising diagonally into the air and then flying
parallel with the highway.

Two deputies are dispatched to the Simonton Farm by Sheriff Schroeder (who has known Simonton for fourteen
years). When they arrive on the scene, they can not find any corroborative evidence. The sheriff affirms that the
witness obviously believes the truth of what he is saying and talks very sensibly about the incident.





















Astronomer J. Allen Hynek is dispatched by the US Air Force to investigate. He takes one of the pancakes away for
government analysis at the Air Force Technical Intelligence Center amid rumors that the wheat in the pancakes
was of an unknown type. But upon analysis, they find them to be made from flour, sugar, cornmeal, salt,
hydrogenated oil and grease.






Simonton turned one over to a local judge named Carter who, incidentally, vouched for his honesty and reliability,
as did everyone else who knew him. Dr. J. Allen Hynek was given the second one, and a third went to the National
Investigation Committee on Aerial Phenomena, which turned it over to a New York researcher, Alex Mebane.
Simonton held onto the fourth one.


Eagle River is in a thinly populated section of northern Wisconsin, just a few miles south of the Michigan border and
surrounded by forests and small lakes. About a month later, on May 25, there was a widespread power failure
throughout the area that also affected local telephone service. On February 24 of that year a B-47 bomber had
crashed near Hurley, Wisconsin, about sixty miles northwest of Eagle River. Another B-47 crashed on May 2 only
two miles from the site of the February accident. The pilot of the second plane was later quoted in the press as
saying that, "I felt this weightlessness and I was hanging by my straps," just before his craft went out of control and
headed for the ground. There were numerous other incidents and UFO sightings in the area during that period
which was the "lull" from 1959 to 1963.



Simonton's story got a big play in the national press, and NICAP capitalized on the publicity by issuing statements
about their "thorough investigation" which was "under way," etc. But when the press interest died, NICAP dropped
the whole thing. The Aerial Phenomena Research Organization investigators stuck with it, however, and when an
Eagle River businessman made a joking reference to Simonton having been hypnotized (he later denied this),
some leaped on that as the explanation. Cecile Hess, APRO's man in nearby Rheinlander, Wisconsin, didn't buy
the hypnotized theory.











The Eagle River case has never been solved. The Air Force believes that Joe Simonton, who lived alone, had a
sudden dream while he was awake and inserted his dream into the continuum of events around him of which he
was conscious. I understand several psychologists in Dayton, Ohio, are quite satisfied with this explanation, and so
are most serious amateur ufologists.


Two weeks after the sighting, Joe Simonton told a United Press International reporter that "if it happened again, I
don't think I"d tell anybody about it."


Pancakes in Magonia
Jacques Vallee
It was an unusual day for the Food and Drug Laboratory of the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare,
when the Air Force requested analysis of a piece of wheat cake that had been cooked ... aboard a flying saucer!
The human being who had obtained the cake was Joe Simonton, a sixty-year old chicken farmer who lived alone in
a small house in the vicinity of Eagle River, Wisconsin. He was given three cakes, ate one of them, and thought it
"tasted like cardboard." The Air Force put it more scientifically:

The cake was composed of hydrogenated fat, starch, buckwheat hulls, soya bean hulls, wheat bran. Bacteria and
radiation readings were normal for this material. Chemical, infra-red and other destructive type tests were run on
the material. The Food and Drug Laboratory of the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare concluded
that the material was an ordinary pancake of terrestrial origin.

Where did it come from? The reader will have to decide for himself what he chooses to believe after reading this ...
incident, ... a firsthand account, given by a man of absolute integrity. Speaking for the U.S. Air Force, Dr. J. Allen
Hynek, who investigated the case along with Major Robert Friend and an officer from Sawyer Air Force Base,
stated: "There is no question that Mr. Simonton felt that his contact had been a real experience."

The time was approximately 11:00 A.M. on April 18, 1961, when Joe Simonton was attracted outside by a peculiar
noise similar to "knobby tires on a wet pavement." Stepping into his yard, he faced a silvery saucer-shaped object
"brighter than chrome," which appeared to be hovering close to the ground without actually touching it. The object
was about twelve feet high and thirty feet in diameter. A hatch opened about five feet from the ground, and
Simonton saw three men inside the machine. One of them was dressed in a black two-piece suit. The occupants
were about five feet in height. Smooth shaven, they appeared to "resemble Italians." They had dark hair and skin
and wore outfits with turtleneck tops and knit helmets.

One of the men held up a jug apparently made of the same material as the saucer. His motions to Joe Simonton
seemed to indicate that he needed water. Simonton took the jug, went inside the house, and filled it. As he
returned, he saw that one of the men inside the saucer was "frying food on a flameless grill of some sort." The
interior of the ship was black, "the color of wrought iron." Simonton, who could see several instrument panels,
heard a slow whining sound, similar to the hum of a generator. When he made a motion indicating he was
interested in the food that was being prepared, one of the men, who was also dressed in black but with a narrow
red trim along the trousers, handed him three cookies, about three inches in diameter and perforated with small
holes.

The whole affair had lasted about five minutes. Finally, the man closest to the witness attached a kind of belt to a
hook in his clothing and closed the hatch in such a way that Simonton could scarcely detect its outline. Then the
object rose about twenty feet from the ground before taking off straight south, causing a blast of air that bowed
some nearby pine trees.

Along the edge of the saucer, the witness recalls, were exhaust pipes six or seven inches in diameter. The hatch
was about six feet high and thirty inches wide, and although the object has always been described as a saucer, its
shape was that of two inverted bowls.

When two deputies sent by Sheriff Schroeder, who had known Simonton for fourteen years, arrived on the scene,
they could not find any corroborative evidence. The sheriff affirmed that the witness obviously believed the truth of
what he was saying and talked very sensibly about the incident.

The Eagle River case has never been solved. The Air Force believes that Joe Simonton, who lived alone, had a
sudden dream while he was awake and inserted his dream into the continuum of events around him of which he
was conscious. I understand several psychologists in Dayton, Ohio, are quite satisfied with this explanation, and so
are most serious amateur ufologists.

[Editor's Note: Vallee further in his account variously refers to the food items given to Simonton as "cookies" or
"cakes" or "pancakes." Most U.S. researchers simply refer to the food items as pancakes.]

... Two weeks after the sighting, Joe Simonton told a United Press International reporter that "if it happened again, I
don't think I"d tell anybody about it." And indeed, if flying saucers are devices used by a super-scientific civilization
from space, we would expect them to be packed inside with electronic gadgetry, super-radars, and a big
computerized spying apparatus. But visitors in human shape, who breathe our air and zip around in flying
kitchenettes, that is too much, Mr. Simonton!

Jacques Vallee, Passport to Magonia: On UFOs, Folklore, and Parallel Worlds, Chicago, IL: H. Regnery Co., 1969;
reprinted, Chicago, IL: Contemporary Books, Inc., 1993. This same material also appears verbatim in Vallee's
Dimensions: A Casebook of Alien Contact, most recently, New York, NY: Ballantine Books, 1997.


Pancakes From an Ultraterrestrial
John A. Keel
Editor's Note: Much of the same material found in Vallee's account is recycled through John A. Keel's Operation
Trojan Horse. This book, and his The Mothman Prophecies, are two classics in Ufology, and are highly
recommended. No wide-eyed optimist is Keel ...

Simonton, a sixty-year old chicken farmer outside of Eagle River, Wisconsin, said he heard a strange sound
outside his farmhouse at 11 A.M. on Tuesday, April 18, 1961. He looked out of the window and was startled to see
a silvery metallic machine descending in his yard. As he stepped outside, some kind of hatch slid open in the upper
part of the object and three dark-skinned men became visible. He estimated that these men were about 5 feet tall
and between twenty-five to thirty years of age. They wore clinging dark-blue uniforms with turtleneck tops and had
on apparently knitted headgear, such as is worn under crash helmets. All were clean-shaven, and none of them
spoke during the brief episode that followed.

One of them stepped to the hatch, Simonton said, and held out a shiny bucket-like affair which had a handle on
either side, indicating that he wanted the farmer to fill it with water. Simonton took it, filled it from his pump, and
returned it to the silent man. He noticed that the interior of the craft was black, "like wrought iron," and that one man
was busy at some kind of instrument panel, while the other was working at what seemed to be a stove. A pile of
pancakes sat nearby. Simonton says he gestured at the pancakes, and the man with the bucket turned, picked up
four of them, and handed them to him. He then attached some kind of rope to his belt, and the hatch slid shut. Joe
Simonton stood with his mouth open, four warm pancakes in his hands, as the object, which had been humming
throughout, began to make a sound like "tires on a wet pavement" and rose slowly into the air, moving off to the
south.

At about that same time, an insurance agent named Savino Borgo was driving along Highway 70, about a mile from
Simonton's farm, when he saw what he later described as a saucer rising diagonally into the air and flying parallel
with the highway.

Eagle River is in a thinly populated section of northern Wisconsin, just a few miles south of the Michigan border and
surrounded by forests and small lakes. About a month later, on May 25, there was a widespread power failure
throughout the area that also affected local telephone service. On February 24 of that year a B-47 bomber had
crashed near Hurley, Wisconsin, about sixty miles northwest of Eagle River. Another B-47 crashed on May 2 only
two miles from the site of the February accident. The pilot of the second plane was later quoted in the press as
saying that, "I felt this weightlessness – I was hanging by my straps," just before his craft went out of control and
headed for the ground. There were numerous other incidents and UFO sightings in the area during that period –
which was the "lull" from 1959 to 1963.

So once again we have a series of sightings and incidents that corroborate an unusual story. But, unfortunately, we
also had those four miserable pancakes. Simonton turned one over to a local judge named Carter who,
incidentally, vouched for his honesty and reliability, as did everyone else who knew him. Dr. J. Allen Hyneck was
given the second one, and a third went to the National Investigation Committee on Aerial Phenomena, which turned
it over to a New York researcher, Alex Mebane. Simonton held onto the fourth one. He said he took a nibble out of
it, and "it tasted like cardboard."

Were the pancakes made out of exotic Martain mush? Of course not. They were plain old cornmeal, salt, and
hydrogenated oil. Simonton's story got a big play in the national press, and NICAP capitalized on the publicity by
issuing statements about their "thorough investigation" which was "under way," etc. But when the press interest
died, NICAP dropped the whole thing. The Aerial Phenomena Research Organization investigators stuck with it,
however, and when an Eagle River businessman made a joking reference to Simonton having been hypnotized (he
later denied this), some leaped on that as the explanation. Cecile Hess, APRO's man in nearby Rheinlander,
Wisconsin, didn't buy the hypnotized theory. "If I ever saw a sincere and honest man, it was Simonton," Hess
commented.

"If it happened again," Simonton told a UPI reporter in early May, "I don't think I"d tell anybody about it."

John A. Keel, Operation Trojan Horse, New York, NY: Putnam, 1970; reprinted: Lilburn, GA: IllumiNet Press, 1996.


SPACE PANCAKES
A Fortean Breakfast Story
by Loren Coleman
On April 18 1961, three humanoids in a silver craft landed in Eagle River, Wisconsin and gave Joe Simonton some
pancakes. They didn't speak English, and all communication was in the form of gestures.

"I've always wondered why they were called pancakes," mused Bill Jacobs at Boston University on the Fortean List
recently, "as the one Simonton is holding in the classic photo looked more like a pizelle to me. Did Simonton use
the term 'pancake' in his original statements or did that characterization start with the UFO researchers?"

Jacobs' question was a good one, so I decided to look into it. There's a new regional book out I'd just read entitled
The W-Files: True Reports of Wisconsin's Unexplained Phenomena by Jay Rath (Wisconsin Trails, PO Box 5650,
Madison, Wisconsin 53705; 800-236-8088; $14.95). The very first story in the book is about a respected local man,
Joe Simonton and his "Pancakes from Space".

Let me review briefly the evidence that stacks up (sorry, I couldn't help myself) in favor of "pancakes" vs "pizelles"--
whatever they are. Though being from the Midwest, I must say "pizelle" is not a word you would have heard in 1961.

Joe Simonton was having a late breakfast at 11 AM when some low, jet-like noises disturbed him and he went
outside. (He probably was "thinking" about pancakes.) Seeing a disc land, hatch open and a nonthreatening being
get out, Joe apparently telepathically picked up a message to get some water in a jug for the entity. Then,
according to the Air Force report: "Looking into the [saucer] he saw a man 'cooking' on some kind of flameless
cooking appliance." As Rath notes: "The alien was preparing pancakes."

Rath goes on: "In return for the water, one of the aliens...presented Simonton with three [actually four--LC] of the
pancakes, hot from the griddle....Each of the pancakes was roughly 3 inches in diameter and perforated with small
holes....Simonton ate one of the pancakes....'It tasted like cardboard,' he told the Associated Press."

Astronomer J. Allen Hynek was dispatched by the US Air Force to investigate. He took one of the pancakes away
for government analysis at the Air Force Technical Intelligence Center. They found them to be made from flour,
sugar and grease. Rath writes: "It was rumored, however, that the wheat in the pancake was of an unknown type."

Jerome Clark in his High Strangeness: UFOs from 1960 through 1979: The UFO Encyclopedia, Volume 3 (Detroit:
Omnigraphics, 1996) gives a more detailed rundown of the Joe Simonton case under "Eagle River CE3" on pages
168-175. Clark's comprehensive report on the case does not talk about anything but how the objects were seen as
"pancakes." The FDA who also analyzed one of the objects called them all "pancakes". Clark also does note the
"pancakes" were "still hot" when Simonton bite into one of them.

The official Air Force verdict for the Simonton Pancake Incident: "Unexplained." Jerry Clark basically concurred:
"There was, and is, no evidence to suggest that Joe Simonton cooked up--in the literal sense--a bogus UFO story."
Which I guess is my way of saying, from my reading of this very intriguing case, they were "pancakes." However, in
an attempt to be "balanced," it is interesting the good Bill Jacobs would use the phrase "pizelle" as Simonton said
the aliens looked "Italian-looking". Hummm.

Well, it's time to go have breakfast, I think I'll have....English muffins and tea. While being a Midwesterner, no one
said we couldn't be civilized, now and then. Portions Reprinted from The Anomalist


Another Perspective

Pancake Day in the Superior Uplands
Thanks to Steve
Website: www.geocities.com/heavenlykey2002/index.htm


If there was ever a case that looked too crazy to be real, it was the Joe Simonton UFO encounter. Crazy? The trick
here is to think about the UFO phenomenon in terms of it being a deliberately contrived phenomenon. What is
going on in the UFO phenomenon owes nothing whatsoever to coincidence. Like everything else in this game, the
only thing that the observers are seeing is what extraterrestrial intelligences want them to see.

"A man will meet you, carrying an earthen pitcher of water".


"Joe Simonton, a master plumber from Eagle River, Wisconsin, received four 'pancakes' from the hands of one of
the occupants of a UFO that hovered over his yard. Simonton tells of hearing a sound, on April 18, 1961, like
"knobby tyres on a wet pavement" before seeing a silvery object like "two wash bowls turned face to face" just a few
inches off the ground. When he approached, a six-foot-high hatch opened and he saw three "men" inside. They
appeared young and about five feet tall with dark hair and hairless dark faces. One of them handed Simonton a
silver-coloured jug with two handles and indicated with a motion that he wanted water.

Simonton filled the jug and handed it back. He then saw a man "cooking" on some kind of flameless stove. Seeing a
stack of small, perforated cookie-like objects next to the "griddle", Simonton motioned that he wanted one. An
occupant picked up four of the "pancakes" and gave them to Simonton. Then the UFO took off at a 45-degree
angle, creating a great rush of wind that bowed over the pine trees nearby. Simonton ate one of the cookies. He
said later that it "tasted like cardboard". He kept a second one and gave the remaining two to various UFO
investigation committees. The group from North Western University apparently said that the cookie they had
checked contained "flour, sugar and grease".. (From the 1982 Reader's Digest book, 'Mysteries of the
Unexplained', pages 231 & 232, from 'The Encyclopaedia of UFOs', Ronald D. Story, ed., pp.107-08; 'The
Humanoids', Charles Bowen, ed., pp.161-63)


On the face of it, this story sounds quite preposterous. After all, it would be a remarkable quirk of fate to find some
alien cooking pancakes in his spaceship whilst it's hovering in your own back yard. Not only that, but the food itself
provided no evidence, as it could have been produced by anyone, anywhere. Looking at it from another direction,
however, I would suggest that there may have been some unspoken reason why this activity should been shown to
Simonton. Indeed, there is a religious emphasis in 'Pancake day' (Shrove Tuesday), as it is the day before 'Ash
Wednesday', which, in turn, is the first day of 'Lent'. Tradition has it that 'Lent' is a period of fasting and penitence
that lasts from Ash Wednesday until Easter eve. In other words, the action was quite deliberate and entirely
symbolic.

I would, therefore, hypothesize that Simonton was being shown the connection between extraterrestrials and
religion, not simply aliens cooking an 'Earth like' meal to aid them on their long journey. If that's not enough, the
date of the encounter (April 18, 1961) provides another clue. As a matter of fact, 'April 18' (a possible, but hardly
constant, date for the celebration of Easter) converts to 4+1+8, which equals 13 (6+7). At one and the same time,
1+9+6+1 equals 17, where 7-1 equals 6. Indeed, adding all the digits in the date provides yet another clue, as
(4+1+8)+ (1+9+6+1) equals 30, where 3+0 equals 3.

With regards to the human participant, there is some appropriate symbolism to be found in his name. Firstly, the
name 'Joe' (shortened version of 'Joseph' [Hebrew]) means: 'He shall add' and, rather appropriately, the name
features in both the Old and New Testaments. Secondly, Simonton told of hearing a sound like "knobby tyres on a
wet pavement" and, also rather appropriately, the name 'Simon' (also Hebrew) means: 'He Who Hears'. Further to
that, Simon (called Peter), and Simon (the patriot) were two of the twelve apostles named in Matthew 10:2.

This list can also be found in Mark 3:16, 17, 18, & 19, Luke 6:14 & 15, and Acts 1:13. Examining other biblical
references, and with respect to my observations regarding Shrove Tuesday, I noted that the name 'Simon' had an
exceedingly direct link to Easter. Indeed, Mark 27:32 states:

"As they were going out, they met a man from Cyrene named Simon, and the soldiers forced him to carry Jesus'
cross".

This character is also spoken of in Luke 23, which states:

"[26] The soldiers led Jesus away, and as they were going, they met a man from Cyrene named Simon who was
coming into the city from the country. They seized him, put the cross on him, and made him carry it behind Jesus.".

This was a very interesting case, further complicated by the fact that the name 'Joe Simonton' is composed of two
biblical names. Having found links to Easter through the name 'Simonton' (Simon), I also noted the potential
connections provided through the name 'Joe' (Joseph). As with the name 'Simon', there are many references in the
bible to people named 'Joseph'. For example, John 19:38 states:

"After this, Joseph, who was from the town of Arimathea, asked Pilate if he could take Jesus' body. (Joseph was a
follower of Jesus, but in secret, because he was afraid of the Jewish authorities.) Pilate told him he could take the
body, so Joseph went and took it away."

(Other statements regarding this episode appear in Matthew 27:57-61, Mark 15:42-47, and Luke 23:50-56.)

With regards to the business with the jug of water, I noted that John 2:7 to 2:10 provided a reasonable connection,
as it states:

"Jesus said to his servants, "Fill these jars with water." They filled them to the brim, [8] and then he told them, "Now
draw some water out and take it to the man in charge of the feast." They took him the water, [9] which now had
turned to wine, and he tasted it. He did not know where this wine had come from (but, of course, the servants who
had drawn out the water knew); so he called the bridegroom [10] and said to him, "Everyone else serves the best
wine first, and after the guests have had plenty to drink, he serves the ordinary wine. But you have kept the best
wine until now!"

But perhaps more aptly, Luke 22 provides a direct Easter-time link to a man carrying a jug of water:

Snippets from Luke 22: 'Jesus at Gethsemane'

"[22:7] And the day of unleavened bread came, in which the Passover was to be killed. [22:8] And he sent Peter
and John, saying, Go and prepare the Passover for us, that we may eat [it]. [22:9] But they said to him, where wilt
thou that we prepare [it]? [22:10] And he said to them, Behold, as ye enter into the city a man will meet you,
carrying an earthen pitcher of water; follow him into the house where he goes in; [22:11] and ye shall say to the
master of the house, The Teacher says to thee, Where is the guest-chamber where I may eat the Passover with my
disciples?

[22:31] And the Lord said, Simon, Simon, behold, Satan has demanded to have you, to sift [you] as wheat; [22:32]
but *I* have besought for thee that thy faith fail not; and *thou*, when once thou hast been restored, confirm thy
brethren. [22:33] And he said to him, Lord, with thee I am ready to go both to prison and to death."

Needless to say, the four pancakes couldn't possibly provide incontrovertible evidence for alien contact. Indeed, a
pancake would, by technical default, be a pancake wherever it was produced, even if it did taste like cardboard. As
I have shown, my argument about this case didn't depend upon the non-earthly nature of some edible matter, but
upon the cultural background determining their consumption.


Even More

Why was Joe Simonton
Given Pancakes?
Peter Stenshoel
Robert Larson's article, "Flying Saucers, the Mind, and Other Absurdities," in the first issue of The Excluded Middle,
concludes with a question. The question concerns one Joe Simonton, a Wisconsin chicken farmer near Eagle River
who encountered a UFO landing on his property on April 18, 1961. The entities within it gave Joe a "silver-colored
jug," which he filled with water and returned to them. They then fixed and gave him food. The food consisted of four
pancakes. This has always been one of the more colorful UFO encounters on record. The surrealist juxtaposition of
such harmless everyday stuff as pancakes presented by "scientifically impossible" entities in a flying machine is
one inducing high humor and a kind of humorous high. The more astute among us will recognize that the claim of
being given pancakes is exactly not what one would expect were the story a hoax. Especially in that time period, a
hoaxer would likely invent a fancy sounding name of a concoction that tasted "out of this world!" On the contrary,
Mr. Simonton stated that the pancakes "tasted like cardboard."

This has long been my favorite UFO report, but it was not until Larson's challenging question that I delved into it
deeply. His question is, "Why was Joe Simonton given pancakes?"

Here is my answer. The name "Joe" is synonymous with "the common man." Politicians speak of "Joe Six-pack,"
meaning the every day worker. "Simonton" is more interesting: "Ton" can mean "town," or "the place from." "Simon"
is, of course, Simon Peter, the apostle of Jesus, the rock (Peter means rock) or foundation of the Church, the man
to whom Jesus, as Christ, gave "the keys to the Kingdom." Therefore, "Simonton" is, broadly, the Christian Church,
that which is "from Simon." Joe Simonton would mean, "your average human raised within the Christian milieu."

Now we get to the crux of the matter. A pancake is, yes, bread of a kind. But it is the appearance of the name,
"Pan," the god of the Earth, the god of paganism, the dweller of Findhorn and other magical spots upon this planet-
arguably the child or consort of Gaia-that provides us with the key to this scenario. In UFO reports, visits,
abductions, contacts, and what-have-you, Pan is giving us a gift, his own version of the bread of life, a communion
wafer. This particular report gives us our own key to understanding the phenomenon. Pan rules the Earth Kingdom.
Simon Peter has the keys to the Kingdom of God, or the Next World, if you prefer. The churched of the Earth are
being given a new sustenance from Pan, a cake to chew on. The real meaning of Whitley Strieber's book,
Communion, is thus explicated. When the world of the Air and the world of the Earth are joined (through vehicles of
Fire) by means of a bread made with Water, then are two worlds joined together by means of a sacrament involving
the four magical elements.

Eagle River, the nearby town, is a wonderful name in that it conjures up divinity of the Air and the chi of Water.
Eagles are known as sacred creatures, and according to some traditions, rivers are natural carriers of chi
(kundalini) energy. Here again we see the confluence of Earth and Spirit, the sky-god meeting the earth-goddess,
a yang and yin balancing. The sorry footnote to this splendid story is that NICAP, the National Investigations
Committee on Aerial Phenomena, who actually obtained one of the pancakes, could not be bothered to analyze the
contents, since "the affair had had too much publicity." J. Allen Hynek, then with Project Blue Book, also got a
pancake, but I am not aware what he did with it.


And Last But Not Least...
Cosmic Jokers Have This To Say

"Ufology is essentially a new system of belief, not a new system of scientific fact."
John Keel
"I will be disappointed if UFOs turn out to be nothing more than spaceships."
Jacques Vallee
"If there is a Universal Mind, must it be sane?"
Charles Fort


Frying Saucer
Classification: CE3.
Witness: Joe Simonton.
Time & Place: 11am, April 18 1961; Eagle River, Wisconsin.
Entities: Humanoids.
Craft: Flying saucer.
Summary: Farmer unimpressed by alien cuisine!
The Interrupted Breakfast
Sixty-year-old chicken farmer Joe Simonton was disturbed whilst eating breakfast by a peculiar rumbling sound "like
knobby tires on a wet pavement". Stepping outside to investigate, he discovered a 30ft long flying saucer, "brighter
than chrome", hovering in his front yard. A hatch was open in the side of the craft, and through it Simonton could
see three dark skinned humanoids "resembling Italians."


Joe Simonton ponders his breakfast
Click image to enlarge
The entities, who were around 5ft tall, wore blue knitted turtleneck uniforms complete with knitted helmets. Stranger
still, they were sitting around a "flameless grill" busily cooking something. The interior of the craft was lined with
instrument panels which emitted a whining sound like the hum of an electrical generator.

One of the little men came to the hatch and held out an empty jug. It was, remembered the farmer, "a beautiful
thing, a Thermos jug-like bottle quite unlike any jug I have ever seen". Guessing that he was being asked for water,
Simonton took the jug into his kitchen and filled it up. Handing it back to the humanoid, he received in return the gift
of three small pancakes. Their business with him apparently concluded, the entities closed the hatch. The craft
rose slowly into the air till it reached a height of 20 feet, then sped into the distance at breakneck speed, bending
some nearby pine trees with the force of its backdraft.

Eating the Evidence
Simonton reported the incident to the US Air Force, who forwarded one of the pancakes to the Department of
Health for analysis. The tests revealed it to be a perfectly ordinary buckwheat pancake, but for the fact it was
completely lacking in salt. Tests carried out on another pancake by a UFO research group produced identical
results. Simonton analysed the third pancake himself - by eating it! "It tasted like cardboard," he declared, adding
"if it happened again, I don't think I'd tell anybody about it".

The Gentry
Dr J Allen Hynek, investigating on behalf of the Air Force, concluded that Simonton had experienced a vivid waking
dream whilst cooking his breakfast. The more philosophically minded Jacques Vallee pointed out that this bizarre
story is reminiscent of the Celtic folklore surrounding 'The Gentry', or fairy folk. Like Simonton's 'Italians', the
Gentry often made small gifts of food to those who encountered them, which inevitably turned out to be
disappointingly tasteless. Coincidentally, they also had an aversion to salt. Vallee even discovered a reference to
fairy pancakes in William Allingham's 1910 poem, The Fairies.
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Joe Simonton holds up one of the pancakes given to him.


Up the airy mountain,
Down the rushing glen,
We daren't go a-hunting
For fear of little men.

Down along the rocky shore
Some make their home;
They live on crispy pancakes
Of yellow tide-foam.
The report above may seem quite unbelievable unless you take into account that incredible flying machines seem
to have been in the possession of human hands for at least  over half a century. This account bears witness to this
very fact. Early saucer programs and the evidence of their existence are now almost common knowledge. FRJ