Howard Menger Passes
Menger with a model of a free energy device
Famed UFO contactee Howard Menger died at his home in Vero Beach Florida on February 25th, 8 days after his 87th birthday. He is survived by Connie Menger, his wife of over 50 years, four children, (two by a former marriage) and many grandchildren.
At the age of 19, Menger enlisted in the Army and saw service in the Pacific during WWII in a flamethrower unit flushing the Japanese out of caves and other hideouts. He was wounded and received the Purple Heart. Retuning to his native New Jersey in 1946, Menger started a sign painting business and a family.
This changed in 1956, when he appeared on the Long John Nebel radio show, along with contactee George Van Tassel. He talked about contacts with space brothers (and more specifically -sisters) who appeared to him beginning when he was ten years old. Some of his later published descriptions sound distinctly sexual in nature, although he carefully couched them in language that could be construed as platonic.
He also started taking pictures of the space people and their ships, although most who saw the photos say that they are quite indistinct. On August 4th of 1956, Menger said he was invited on board one of the flying saucers. The next month he said that the space people took him for a joyride where he saw alien civilizations on other planets and structures on the Moon.
Later that year, an attractive young woman named Connie Weber appeared at one of Menger’s gatherings. He thought that she was the reincarnation of a blond spacewoman that he had known (in the biblical sense) in a previous life on Venus. He soon left his first wife an family to begin a new life of lectures and touring on the Contactee circuit. Many investigators visited the Menger home and interviewed witnesses whose stories varied with the telling or did not match each other.
From Outer Space To You, Menger’s 1959 entry into the contactee fray, made him a regular at Van Tassel’s annual Spacecraft Conventions in Southern California. Connie wrote a book entitled My Saturnian Lover about her previous interplanetary relationship with Menger.
In 1960, Menger appeared on a TV show with Nebel and basically recanted his entire story. He later said that he was involved in some sort of Army test of public reaction to possible alien contact. Fortean writer Ivan Sanderson arrived at the Menger residence in the late 1950s and claimed that Menger got very angry with him when Sanderson discovered some equipment and crates in a storage area with “U. S. Army” stenciled on them. (My source for this obscure story was the late Dr. Mario Pazzaglini.)
After this, Menger retired from the public eye and worked on electronic devices he said were designed to harness free energy and allow mankind to build their own flying saucers. He received no widespread publicity for these inventions. Jim Moseley recalled that Menger attended a UFO convention in the 1970s and “blew out all the fuses in the hotel” with one of his contraptions.
Despite the claims and controversy, Howard and Connie Menger seemed to be genuinely in love with each other and apparently raised a reasonably happy family. If nothing else, Menger will be remembered as a unique personality who tried to leave a positive message as his legacy.
This entry was posted
on Monday, March 2nd, 2009 at 12:23 am and is filed under Breaking News, Contactees, UFOlogy, Wake Up Down There. You can follow responses via RSS 2.0 feed.
You can leave a response or trackback from your site.
- Related News Stories:
- Clark on Psychic Martians »
- UFOMystic at BoA »
- R.I.P »
- Contactees & Venus Synchronicities »
- Dana Howard: Contactee »
- Albert K. Bender Speech From 1967 »
- Flying Saucer Music #35 »
- Radio Misterioso Up And Working »
- What About Female UFO Contactees? »
- UFOs, Balloons & More… »
|
Mar 02 2009 
March 2nd, 2009 at 8:44 am
“He later said that he was involved in some sort of Army test of public reaction to possible alien contact.”
What is the source of this statement? Pazzaglini as well?
March 2nd, 2009 at 9:29 am
NA,
My source was Clark’s UFO Encyclopedia. I thought it made sense in light of the Pazzaglini story.
I was putting this out there to see if anyone had more supporting evidence, even though I still doubt that Menger had anything to do with any sort of “army psychological tests.”
March 2nd, 2009 at 10:04 am
I guess outerspace, probability-wise, will always be the best past-life dating service around.
March 2nd, 2009 at 10:34 am
Mario Pazzaglini- he had a fantastic article in the first issue of The Anomalist. I sensed he was doing groundbreaking research.
March 2nd, 2009 at 11:16 am
This is sad news indeed. Aside from Bob Short, can there be many of the originals left???
March 2nd, 2009 at 2:09 pm
Interesting.
Id like to know more about his alleged ‘coming-out’ as an Army disinfo guy doing a test.
I wonder if he ever got in trouble for saying this in public. It would seem to lend credibility to the story if indeed he WAS reprimanded by the Army.
If they just flat out ignored him he was probably just a kook.
March 4th, 2009 at 12:25 am
[...] Howard Menger R.I.P. From UFOMystic [...]
March 6th, 2009 at 5:32 am
Alas, anoteher personality from the Golden Age of Ufology passes. Don’t forget Howard’s contribution to the music scene. I still have his 331/3rd
“AUTHENTIC MUSIC FROM OUTER SPACE” album
Narrated and played by Howard Menge. It is what it claims it is. The Song of Saturn.
Does anyone know what ever happened to the Americian Astro Nautical Society? Apparently Marla Baxter, who worked with Howard was a proud memeber of such.
Where has all the fun gone?
July 21st, 2009 at 1:50 am
[...] resident expert in such matters, Greg “Spacebrother” Bishop, notes that “an attractive young woman named Connie Weber appeared at one of Menger’s [...]