"You have a little cancer in your thyroid."

The doctor spoke gently. He had a slight accent, but his words were perfectly clear. My mind reeled. Cancer? Me? No way could I have cancer! I had homebirthed my baby less than two years before. I didn't take medication, ate healthy foods, and exercised every day. I was a healthy person, I'd always been a healthy person. The doctor's diagnosis was not making any sense to me.

What made more sense to me was the comment by the strange woman in a starched lab coat at the South Florida cancer center, where I had undergone a biopsy on a small lump on my neck. The psychic woman who appeared to know things about me, things I didn't know about myself. "You are perfectly healthy," the gravel-voiced stranger told me quietly while I waited for my husband to pick me up. "They will fill you with fear. Don't listen to them, it's just their business. You are the one who creates your reality. And you are fine."

Her words relaxed me at the time, and remembering them calmed me after the doctor's frightening diagnosis. Late at night when I tossed and turned, sleepless and worrying obsessively about the surgery, drug therapy, and other invasive procedures recommended for my "little cancer," the woman's words echoed in my memory. Maybe, just maybe, she was right and the traditional medical approach to treating my thyroid cancer was wrong--for me.

Two weeks prior to my scheduled surgery, I returned to the cancer center for a presurgical exam. I was hoping I would run into the woman in the lab coat, and as I sat in a plastic chair in the waiting area, she sauntered by and caught my eye. I grinned at her and asked her to sit for a minute, and she nodded in a knowing way as if to say, okay, this person listened to me.

Her name was Nancy and she would become my mentor as I learned about celestial healing. Although Nancy never suggested that I alter my medical treatment plans, she did offer to perform a special healing on me with an associate, another healer. "We will be using blue light," she informed me, "and we will look closely at the throat area for blockages." She told me that, with my permission, she would tap into and directly channel for me the extraterrestrial energies she and her partner often used in performing medical healings for emotionally and/or spiritually based imbalances.

The healing would be conducted long-distance, and Nancy warned me that the only side effect I might feel would be unexplained anger. I could handle that, I thought, so why not give it a try? What could it hurt? It sounded crazy, ridiculous, but so what? I was curious. And there was something about Nancy, something otherworldly and knowing, that inspired my interest and my trust.

A few days later, I flew into a rage and tossed a bowl out a window before locking myself in a bedroom and crying into a pillow. I was furious about my cancer and fearful that my fate would be the same as my mother's: she had followed standard medical advice for her cancer after the birth of my younger sister, but she had died before reaching the age of 50. Was that going to be my fate as well?

I knew from the reading I had been doing since my diagnosis that the most compliant patients did not tend to be the best survivors of fatal diseases. In fact, studies showed that patients who created their own healing programs, typically in conjunction with a doctor or alternative healer, did the best at recovery, remission, and renewal.

I decided that, if Nancy was correct, I was creating my reality by recreating my mother's reality as my own. Before leaving the bedroom that day, I vowed that I would create my own improved reality by seeking out alternatives to surgery and the traditional Western prescription for my type of cancer. I would stop being afraid of cancer: I had it, I was living with it, it wasn't even bothering me. I decided I would accept my cancer as a part of me and learn from it.

I canceled the surgery and called Nancy. When I informed her that I would be developing my own healing program, she laughed. "When we took a look at your thyroid area during the healing session, there was nothing there. We cut some old ties with your mother and focused a lot of blue light in your throat area. You will be talking about all this--and writing about it, writing stories, so many stories," she told me.

At the time, I had no idea what she was talking about. I was a health writer, not a novelist. It wasn't until I had completed my research into my own cancer and my own alternative therapy that I came to the realization that I wanted to share stories of celestial healing--my own experience, and that of others with far more dramatic healing experiences.

Nancy suggested books I might read on extraterrestrial healing, channelers of healing energy, and alternative practitioners I could consult. On my own, I found an alternative MD who advised herbal treatments and lifestyle changes instead of surgery and drugs. I went to a therapist. I learned how to meditate. On the day I had been scheduled to have the thyroid surgery, I received some material from the Thyroid Foundation of America stating that the form of thyroid cancer I had been diagnosed with was not, in most cases, fatal. I found it reassuring to know that many people have this form of cancer in the thyroid gland but never know it, ultimately dying of other causes. I knew I could live with that.

While I healed, I began to read other people's healing stories. I called some of them, or sent emails. They shared their experiences and we compared notes. I had some strange experiences of my own, including dreamlike visions. Things got weird for a while, but then everything returned to normal. My health was excellent. In December 1999, Penguin published my research in Celestial Healing: Close Encounters that Cure.

During the writing of the book, I met many people who had experienced medical healings that they attributed to otherworldly, extraterrestrial, extradimensional, inexplicable influences. Their stories were much more exciting than mine. Here are brief summaries for some of these stories. Updates are provided in some cases.

An activist and community leader in New Smyrna Beach, Florida, Lynne Plaskett served as county councilwoman for Volusia County. But, after she appeared on national television in 1996 to openly discuss a UFO healing experience, she lost the reelection. At the time of her interview for the book, Lynne was 47 years old and the mother of 6 children. She told the following story.

At the age of 24, Lynne went for a routine checkup and was informed that she had cervical cancer. After undergoing presurgical tests including x-rays and physical exams, and a biopsy for the cervical cancer, Lynne was thrilled when the doctors said she would not need a hysterectomy. But they warned that she would never be able to bear children because of extensive scar tissue.

And then they told her the other bad news. She had a malignant tumor in her lungs, with cancerous cells in her kidneys, spleen, liver, and bone marrow. The doctors diagnosed her condition as convoluted T-cell lymphoma, a rare and aggressive type of cancer more common in young people. They advised her that, without immediate treatment, she would die within 3 months.

Lynne was floored. She had no symptoms. She was energetic and busy, a single mother with a 3-year-old son and a full-time course load in mechanical engineering. She went home to prepare for the treatment protocol the doctors wanted to begin at once.

When she arrived at the apartment she shared with her sister and her son, nobody was home. Lynne paced, she obsessed, she drew pictures, she stared out the window in shock. Finally, she lay down on her bed and wept until she felt totally numb from exhaustion.

And then it happened...

Lynne heard a strange buzzing noise and the room began to fill with a cold white fog. Her body was paralyzed and she began to levitate up off the bed. Yet, Lynne felt no fear. She was relaxed and calm.

A disc flew in the open bedroom window and hovered above her frozen body. The disc was small, less than a foot in length, and it radiated colored light. Lynne watched in fascination as the disc scanned her body, back and forth, never touching her. Then, as quickly as it had arrived, the disc departed. The smoke dissipated, and Lynne felt her body lower to the bed. The humming sound stopped.

During the experience, Lynne had lost all sense of time. Hours might have passed, or maybe only minutes. She felt that a kind of "veil of security" had fallen around her, so Lynne rolled over and slept. When she arose the next day, she felt revitalized and secure in the truth that she was not going to die.

The doctors told her she might live a full year if she followed the experimental protocol for her type of cancer. Within 4 months, Lynne was in complete remission. The doctors were surprised and pleased. Her oncologist attributed her success to Lynne's mental attitude, her certainty that she would not die from the disease.

Lynne returned to school and graduated in the top 10 in her class. She got married and had more children. In 1981, while watching a television show on UFOs, she recognized the odd buzzing sound she had heard that fateful night. It was only then she made the link between UFOs and what had happened to her 6 years earlier. She wanted to talk about her experience, but was not sure how to do so.

"My experience was a very positive one, but I told very few people about it. How do you tell people you believe you've been cured of cancer by a UFO without having them think you're crazy?"

In 1996, Lynne told her story on a daytime television talk show. She was in the middle of a reelection campaign at the time, and subsequently lost. However, Lynne remained optimistic. She believed that she had been given a gift, the gift of life, a miraculous cure from a fatal disease and the courage to talk about this incredible experience. She began writing a memoir about her experience and the insights her gift had provided.

Click here for UPDATE 2010 for Lynne Plaskett.

A sociologist, community organizer, and well-known specialist in race/cultural relations, John Hunter Gray served as chairman of the Indian Studies Department at the University of North Dakota. His father was Micmac/Abenaki/Mohawk Indian. Over the years, John received numerous awards and honors for his social justice work, and he had a long history of civil rights activism. At the time of the interview for the book, John was 64 years old. He agreed to share his views only when reassured that the emphasis of Celestial Healing would be on the positive aspects of contact with entities from other worlds, the ultimate "other races."

"I state candidly and at the outset that I see ET visitors, the so-called alien humanoids, as friendly and with positive motivations and beneficial effects. I am inclined to see them as essentially one race, quite similar to ourselves in many ways, but a good jump ahead evolution-wise."

Up until March 20, 1988, John did not have any firm views on the matter. But that night, he embarked on a trip from his home in North Dakota, driving south to several speaking engagements in Louisiana and Mississippi. His 23-year-old son joined him for the long drive. Selecting an oddly illogical route, the two ended up lost in the woods of Wisconsin. Both suffered from amnesia and "missing time," where hours of their travel could not be accounted for.

The next morning, the two men saw a bright expanding light coming toward the car. They were driving through Illinois when the object suddenly appeared in the sky above them. Both men saw a saucerlike shape with a dome on top. Both felt the object was a UFO, and both believed that it was somehow connected to the bizarre lost time of the previous night.

It was not until 4 months later that John began to remember what had happened in the Wisconsin woods. His son started to recall the experience from the missing time after John did, and they were able to compare notes.

What they remembered was completely weird, but both men recalled that they had felt totally at ease with the events of that night as they unfolded.

Their truck had been forced onto a winding road and stopped. Father and son got out of the vehicle and were greeted by small, thin, friendly humanoids with quasi-slanted eyes. No one was afraid. All communication was conducted without speaking, thoughts being transmitted between the two races. John and his son accompanied the humanoids onto a UFO, where they underwent procedures in a room lit with a white light and a deep blue, glowing panel. John sensed that the medical procedures were beneficial to him, and he felt a strong bond with one of the humanoids. He believed he had a special relationship with this particular humanoid.

"Let me point out here that whenever races and cultures begin to come together, half-breeds play very important, often very critical, intermediary 'go-between' roles. I'm a half-breed Indian myself."

A second contact experience occurred in 1997, when the two men took another long road trip. Weird blue lights and missing time led them to realize that they had experienced another encounter. Subsequent recall led John to believe that they had been the recipients of some sort of "medical boosts" intended to strengthen the beneficial effects from the earlier contact event.

After the 1988 encounter, John observed a number of physical changes in himself. His son experienced some of the same changes, and also grew an inch (despite being long past the age when men have reached full height). None of the changes were seen by John and his son as negative. All were regarded as health improvements. In fact, at the time of the interview for the book, John had not been to a doctor in 10 years, nor had he suffered from any illness, not even a single cold or flu.

The physical changes John had noticed included: faster rate of hair growth, thicker and darker eyebrows, faster nail growth, quicker rate of healing for cuts and scratches, cessation of bleeding gums, fading of old scarring, improved skin tone, improved circulation, more energy, and enhanced immunity.

John began talking openly about his experiences. Over the years, he met hundreds of other people who claimed to have had similar experiences and viewed them in the same positive light John did. He viewed the negative press about "aliens" as racism due to public fear, familiar territory to this civil rights activist.

"Most of the close encounter experiencers I've heard from are also involved in meaningful social justice pursuits, that is, enhancement of the human condition with respect to material, libertarian, and spiritual factors; environmentally and ecologically positive activities; formulation of nonviolent approaches to human problems."

John Hunter Gray has long been an advocate of the philosophy that experiences with non-human races can offer us many advantages including health advances and longer life spans, as well as deeper insights into balancing collective and individual well-being. It is possible that our society might benefit from the close encounter experience as a way to make things better for the world around us.

Click here for UPDATE 2010 for John Hunter Gray.

Click here for UPDATE 2013 for John Hunter Gray.

A 39-year-old nurse pursuing a masters degree, Melanie Green was living in northern Virginia with her husband and two young children when she participated in the Celestial Healing book project. An extensive medical background allowed her to understand the miraculous nature of her own and others' celestial healing experiences.

At the time, however, Melanie had been feeling as if she'd long lived in two separate worlds: one the traditional world of contemporary family life and modern medicine, the other a forgotten dream world. It was only after her children began to recount nighttime visitations eerily similar to Melanie's own experiences that she awoke to the dormant, otherworldly aspect of her own memories.

Once Melanie acknowledged that her own and her family's nighttime encounters were not dreams but memories, she found others in her community who shared similar experiences. This understanding allowed her to open up to the possibility of what she called "creative energy" as a potentially healing force.

In late 1995, Melanie noticed an increasing pain in her abdomen associated with food intake. She ate less, lost weight, and grew frightened. Tests revealed a tumor on her liver, but doctors told her that a nonfunctional gallbladder was the source of her discomfort. They advised surgical removal of the organ, and Melanie was forced to schedule more tests.

Her pain was almost constant. She couldn't eat. When she confided in a someone she trusted, a man who had also experienced extraterrestrial contact, he said he would discuss her ailment with the ETs. Melanie did not take this comment seriously.

In the early morning hours of May 3, 1996, Melanie awoke with a start. She immediately knew that her gallbladder would not be removed. The next day, she found herself able to eat without pain. Suddenly and for no apparent reason, the abdominal pain that had been plaguing her for more than 6 months had disappeared. Melanie celebrated with a bacon cheeseburger and onion rings, the greasiest test she could devise. Her abdominal pain did not return.

Melanie attributed the sudden cure to an extraterrestrial intervention on her behalf. She did not understand why this would happen, but wondered whether the ETs had made a kind of investment in her physical health. She believed that these otherworldly beings had been studying her for her entire life for some unknown purpose. Many contactees share this view.

Melanie was able to recall conscious healing experiences in which she interacted with what she described as tall, shimmering beings in a medical-type setting. She began to find new, inexplicable scars on her body, and odd marks and puncture wounds. She eventually concluded that ETs had been conducting tests on her, diagnosing and treating her with more advanced medical techniques than medical science had access to at that time.

Discussions with scientists working in the field of ufology confirmed her suspicions that she was not the only person to report such experiences. Melanie chose to speak publicly of her own experiences in the hope that this would ease the burden of fear and isolation on her fellow contactees.

"People who experience extraterrestrial encounters often experience great isolation. I have spoken to hundreds of experiencers and it is the isolation that is the toughest part of the lives of most experiencers, including those of us who view our experiences as positive. Experiencers feel as if they have 'come home' when they finally find others to talk to about their encounters."

When Celestial Healing was published, Melanie was studying alternative healing and mind-body medicine. She had much hope for the growing community of experiencers of extraterrestrial encounters because of the substantial increase in public awareness and acceptance. But she was not naïve in her views on the ultimate meaning of the celestial healing experience.

"The abduction phenomenon is deep and complex. The physical aspects of the abduction experience are only the tip of the iceberg. There is a profound, yet unknown purpose behind what is going on here. By definition, it is likely to be beyond our understanding: The purpose is alien to us."

Of Native American descent, Ron Blevins lived for a time on an Eastern Cherokee reservation in North Carolina. He was working for a security firm in Virginia and was 48 years old when the Celestial Healing book project was underway.

Extensively trained in Native American traditional beliefs, Ron had been open to the ways of other races and cultures all his life. He had been having interactions with otherworldly beings since childhood, but he was very fearful of this secret aspect of his history until a peak experience changed the course of his life in 1989.

After serving in the U.S. Army in the late 1960s, Ron had spent 1970 in Vietnam. He'd returned to the U.S. with a chronic case of post-traumatic stress disorder. Ron developed a sleep disorder that included horrific nightmares about Vietnam. He also suffered from a patchy red skin disorder he had picked up in Vietnam. By 1989, Ron had not had a good night's sleep in more than 15 years. He had begun to experience blackouts during the day due to his prolonged lack of sleep.

One night as he sat in his apartment drinking alcohol, which he was using to try to induce sleep, a light appeared. There in the room stood an otherworldly being, a tall ET Ron recognized from previous interactions. The tall humanoid with large dark eyes shocked Ron. It had been a long time since he had interacted with the ETs, and he felt, as usual, an overwhelming sense of fear.

A kind of screen appeared and holographic images depicting the nightmares Ron had been suffering flashed on it in a series of scenes. Ron felt his consciousness altering as he entered physically into the nightmares, finding himself in a dark alley in the rain. There he was, face to face with the people from his nightmares. Friends killed in the war, enemy soldiers torn and mutilated as a result of their war injuries. Ron was frozen in fear.

Behind him in the alley, the ET appeared. Communicating through mental telepathy, the tall being advised Ron to change his distorted view of reality. The people in the nightmare were not pursuing him, nor were the ETs. In actuality, Ron was fleeing from them. The ET told Ron to acknowledge the reality of what had occurred in Vietnam, and the reality of the ETs in his life. Ron was paralyzed as he stood facing the two biggest fears of his life.

The ET advised Ron to acknowledge the reality of the otherworldly beings in his life. The ET told Ron to touch his hand, and he reached for Ron. There was no way out of that alley, no way out of the nightmare Ron had been living in. So he did it. He touched the ET.

As soon as he touched the being, a brilliant light flashed and Ron found himself back in his apartment. It was dark, so he stood up to turn on a light. And he immediately realized that he felt different. He was no longer depressed, he was no longer afraid.

Ron fell into bed and slept deeply. No nightmares that night, and none during the wonderful night after night of normal sleep he would experience after the encounter. Ron no longer used alcohol as a sedative. He felt better than he had in decades.

Ron opened himself up to the ETs, and the nature of their interactions changed. The beings began to instruct him on improving untapped abilities such as psychic skills and healing techniques. Most of the technology and methods taught to him were based on energy work, and on the use of the energy fields of various crystalline forms.

Ron was directed to a deposit of quartz crystals in the bank of a dry stream. He dug out a bed of more than 500 of these crystals, which he was instructed to use for healing purposes. He was also told to give the crystals away to those who requested them.

Ron shared these crystals with others.

"After the event in 1989, when the most intense torment I can describe and the years of living in terror were removed almost instantaneously by whatever source, I was put into a position where I HAD to acknowledge the reality of what had occurred. But, to be perfectly honest, I have tried every possible way to disprove what the beings have told me since. Yet I cannot argue with the results. The results seem to assist so many people that I would feel I was doing a disservice NOT sharing the information with others at this point."

After Celestial Healing was published, the author received many emails requesting contact information for Ron. Readers were intrigued by the crystals and wanted to try them in order to heal various illnesses and ailments, or to enhance psychic abilities. Ron advised users that the crystals were not magical amulets, but a kind of amplification system for one's own energy system.

It was Ron's belief that humankind in general was reaching a point in development where we were getting ready to come into contact with other civilizations, and that we were being prepared for this next stage. Ron shared his finding that many of the people who received his crystals experienced lucid dreams of the ET beings. He saw this as more evidence that, if his own experience is any lesson, we all need to confront our fear of the unknown.

"I know there are individuals who have negative experiences, fearful experiences with extraterrestrials of one type or another. I know this occurs. But a lot of the experiences that are fearful in nature perhaps arise from our own inability to understand what is happening."

When the Celestial Healing book project was underway in the late 1990s, Connie Isele was a college student in Colorado. After recovering from a near-fatal car accident, Connie had made some life changes, remarrying and going back to school to study psychology. Her UFO awareness had blossomed in 1992, when she first realized that her own unusual experiences might have an extraterrestrial explanation.

As a child, she saw what she believed were angels. As a young woman, she felt the presence of what she thought of as "spirit beings." In the early 1990s, Connie was forced by a series of bizarre events to come face to face with a new reality. In conducting research and talking with others, she overcame her fear about her otherworldly experiences and accepted the beauty of the mystery in which she found herself.

Uncomfortable as they might have felt, Connie's ET encounters appeared to provide her with notable health benefits. After one middle-of-the-night "health checkup" in which a gel was injected into her by ETs, Connie awoke with a jellylike substance on her body. For the next 8 years, she did not suffer from a single cold or flu. Other extradimensional treatments resulted in the cure of an arthritic knee and the dramatic repeal of a diagnosis of cervical cancer.

One cold November night in 1995, Connie was the passenger in a truck that skidded out of control on an icy mountain bridge. Feeling herself falling through the air toward the cliffs below, Connie saw a brilliant light ahead. She described it as "a rip in time and space" and felt herself enter into it.

In this place without time or space, Connie felt at peace, one with the universe. She was able to communicate with others there, who she called "the light beings." Connie knew that she had to return to the earthly reality, however, and awoke to find herself sitting in the truck, which was stalled near the end of the bridge.

When she climbed out to inspect the damage, an approaching car slid on the ice and smashed into the truck, dragging Connie 8 feet and launching her over the guardrail. After falling 6 feet onto a cliff below the bridge, Connie was stopped by a safety fence. If she had fallen over the guardrail at any other spot along the bridge, Connie would have fallen 400 feet or more.

At the hospital, a chaplain spoke to her as if she were near death. A doctor told her she might lose her leg. For the first time, Connie appealed to the ETs for help in saving her life and, hopefully, her leg.

Both were saved. Several times, she felt the presence of the ETs as she struggled to survive and recover.

At the hospital, Connie was called "little miracle" and "miracle legs." She was soon walking again, and recovered fully without a limp.

During her long recuperation, Connie reevaluated her life. She discovered a deep interest in emotional and spiritual healing. Her ET experiences, as well as the near-fatal accident, provided her with insights that added new dimensions to the way she thought, felt, and lived. Although she was not sure what she would be doing with the gift of her life, Connie was pleased to be able to share her own strange and wonderful experiences with others.

Click here for UPDATE 2010 for Connie Isele.