Star People

 

In 2012 our family went on a safari vacation to Kenya. I had long dreamed of going on safari, and, despite becoming disabled in 1999, I decided I could figure out a way to do this. Through a Google search for safaris for the disabled, I found GoAfrica Safaris, a company that specialized in vetting accommodations throughout Africa for accessibility since there is no Americans With Disabilities Act on that continent. I planned a 2 week trip for myself, my husband, and our young sons.

My husband, Dirk, had long been interested and involved in researching extraterrestrial phenomena. Sometimes I thought he was just crazy like the time he thought a UFO abduction experiencer was being wrongfully persecuted by our government limiting his ability to work or publish his books about his experiences therefore we should financially support him and his family.

It was through his relationship with this family and helping to publish their books that he met Greg, another UFO experiencer and author. Greg and Dirk became friends, chatting on the phone every few weeks or so.

Dirk called Greg three weeks before our departure date to catch up, and mentioned that we were planning a trip to Africa. Greg seemed a bit startled, then said, “Oh, so you’re the one”. Dirk had no idea what he was talking about. Greg went on to explain that a Nordic race of ET’s from the star system Aldebaran had told him that one of his friends would be going to Africa and Greg was to build a healing device that he should give to his friend to bring to a medicine woman on the Maasai Mara.

Dirk received the devices which Greg called “Brind generators” in the mail a week before our departure and called Greg to see if he had any more details. He did not. The Brind generators were very heavy and didn’t look like much more than blobs of spray foam insulation with glass marbles imbedded in the surface.

In a few days, Greg called Dirk and very excitedly told him that the ET’s contacted him the night before and gave him some details. The medicine woman’s name was Mokele and she has a very young body with a very old face. Dirk was surprised that that was all we were given to work with, but was confident that the ET’s would guide us to success.

Dirk carefully packed the Brind generators in his suitcase for our departure to Nairobi. We flew from New York to Istanbul where we had a long layover before our flight to Nairobi. We had to re-check our bags in Istanbul and put them through another security screening. Dirk stood behind the baggage screeners who were watching the bags as they were being X-rayed and noticed that at the moment the suitcase with the generators in them passed through the machine the two screeners were momentarily distracted by another employee and looked away. Dirk took this as a sign that the ET’s were assisting him on his mission. The generators looked suspicious to Dirk who was relieved no one else noticed. It was at this juncture that Dirk saw what was inside the blobs of foam. They were full of a tangled mass of wires, which could have sent up huge red flags with airport security.

After an arduous series of long flights through several time zones, we were greeted at the airport in Nairobi by our guide, Leonard, a native Kenyan, with vast knowledge about the country and its inhabitants. Dirk was anxious to start his quest to locate Mokele. He quickly told Leonard that Star people had given him technology to bring to a Maasai medicine woman. He acted like it was no big deal and told Dirk we would find her when we got there. We had more than a week to visit National Game preserves in Kenya before our arrival at camp in the Maasai Mara.

Leonard drove us through the big game preserves in Kenya and gave us a rich education on the plants, animals and customs indigenous to the region. We saw the “Big 5” wildlife sightings everyone seeks on safaris. GoAfrica had done a wonderful job finding accessible accomodations for us throughout our trip. I don’t generally use a wheelchair, but I do limp and walk with a cane so getting around was not easy for me. I felt fatigued throughout most of our journey in this very foreign country.

Our visit to the Maasai Mara was at the end of our tour, and when we arrived we weren’t quite prepared for the intense heat. I was a bit worn out already when Leonard asked Dirk for information about Mokele and how his friend met her. Dirk told him that his friend had not met her but had gotten her name from star people. His jaw dropped as he obviously did not understand the story when Dirk first told it. Leonard’s stunned response was “Do you have any idea how big the Maasai Mara is? We are here for three days! It could take three years to find this person!”

Leonard explained that the total square mileage of the Maasai Mara was over 30,000. Wikipedia puts it at 1510 square kilometers in Kenya alone, and estimates the population at a million people. The census has a very tough time counting the inhabitants as the Maasai see the census takers as government meddlers. Some don’t want to be counted at all while others want to be counted ten times. Dirk was sure we would find Mokele as he firmly believed that the ET’s would not have gone to all of this trouble for nothing. After traveling countless miles in a stuffy van and trekking around on tours, I was becoming weary of Dirk and his nonsense. At the same time, the suspense was building as to whether or not we were on a wild goose chase.

We were given a tour of a typical Maasai village where the residents welcome visitors with traditional songs and dances dressed in their brightly dyed costumes and adorned by handmade beaded jewelry. They demonstrated the high jump contest they use to find the strongest warrior based on who can jump the highest. We were welcomed into a traditional cow dung hut where we learned that each home was identical in terms of the layout of the interior. The huts were constructed by the women of the tribe and set in a circle. These settlements were randomly scattered throughout the vast nothingness of the thousands of miles of dirt. I couldn’t imagine how the Masai navigated this land with what seemed like zero landmarks, but they did. They walked about with a sure sense of direction. In the language of the Maasai people, the word “Mara” means spotted which is how the land looks from afar: spotted circles of trees, scrub, savanna and cloud shadows.

Leonard proceeded to ask around the villages we visited to find out if there was a medicine woman named Mokele in the vicinity. He said he knew some people in a nearby village who might know someone who knew her. Perhaps the local medicine woman. A young warrior came forward and suggested to Leonard that he ask the medicine woman from his village.

The next day, our vehicle got mired in mud. Dirk and our sons had to step out of the van to gather grass to put under the wheels in order to gain some traction to get the van going again while looking out for predators. Next, we stopped to pick up the young warrior who knew the medicine woman.

I still couldn’t figure out how we were navigating through so much nothingness, but we did eventually arrive at another settlement where our young guide introduced Dirk to their medicine woman. She said she did in fact know Mokele and directed our guide to her village. Dirk asked her if Mokele was a common name among the Maasai. She replied that it was quite an uncommon name among her people.

We traveled another poorly marked short distance to a nearby village where we were introduced to a woman with a young body and an old face. She had closely cropped dark hair tinged with patches of gray. Her skin was a smooth map of wrinkles. She was a bit above average in height, and quite thin. Her front teeth were a mix of bright yellowish white, and a few looked like they were flapping in the breeze. A couple of them were clearly missing.

We were ushered into Mokele’s hut that looked exactly the same as the one we had visited earlier. We sat in a tight circle while Dirk tried to explain why we were there.

He explained through an interpreter that star people had sent him to deliver these healing devices to Mokele. She looked a little embarrassed at first, holding her hand over her mouth. The group as a whole seemed perplexed as to where in the hell this white American guy came from with this strange delivery. It took about an hour to get the point across, but in the end, Mokele appeared to understand what she was supposed to do with these devices.

When we went back outside, Mokele told us to wait for her. She returned with some beaded necklaces for me that were supposed to have healing powers.

The young warrior who helped us find Mokele spoke English fairly well, and was able to take down Dirk’s email address and explained that he occasionally was able to travel to the city where he could get online at an internet cafe.

I very skeptically witnessed these events unfold. It seemed like we were looking for a “needle in a haystack”, on a “wild goose chase”. I thought my husband must really be crazy. At the same time, I was not so egocentric to believe that humans are the only intelligent form of life in the universe.

There were lingering questions which could not be answered:

1. How did Dirk’s friend Greg concoct a scheme for inventing the brind generators, building them, becoming aware that a random friend was planning a trip to Africa?
2. How did Greg conceive of the name of an actual medicine woman, Mokele, who really lived somewhere in the vast expanse of the Maasai Mara?
3. How in the world did all of this coalesce into our family delivering the brind generators to a medicine woman named Mokele in the Maasai Mara?

Our young warrior friend sent Dirk an email about two months after we returned home. He said Mokele was using the healing devices in her work. There was no further word for about 5 years.

About 6 months ago Dirk received an email from our young Masai guide telling him that Mokele had healed about 100 people with his devices.