Lessons Learned from a Contactee: Part 1

By Dr. Raymond A. Keller

Lessons Learned from a Contactee:

Woodrow W. Derenberger (1916-1990)

First Encounter

Woodrow Derenberger’s extraterrestrial contact case came to the attention of the UFO

community, and the world, when his story was picked up by the wire services in the second week

of November 1966. Before that month was out, investigators from both the Air Force and the

planet’s largest civilian UFO group, the National Investigations Committee on Aerial

Phenomena (NICAP) in Washington, D.C., were interviewing Derenberger and searching for

evidence of the alien presence on Earth in the alleged landing zone of the flying saucer, just

outside of Parkersburg, West Virginia.

His initial experience with the flying saucer and a being from another planet took place

on the night of 2 November 1966. Derenberger, a salesman for a sewing machine company,

completed his sale in Marietta, Ohio, and was on the road, driving his pick-up back home to

Mineral Wells, West Virginia, on the outskirts of Parkersburg just off Interstate 77.

About halfway between Parkersburg and his home, a big saucer-shaped craft nestled

down on the South Hill Road in front of Derenberger’s pick-up truck. The object literally

covered the width of the highway from berm-to-berm. Surprisingly, Derenberger was more

curious than anxious about the UFO landing.

Derenberger noticed a hatch opening up on the side of the object. There was an intense

light pouring out from the open portal, and out stepped a slim, seemingly fit specimen of a man,

dark-skinned and middle-aged. Derenberger estimated him to be about 40 years old, plus or

minus five years.

The ufonaut started walking over to Derenberger’s pick-up truck. The mysterious craft

suddenly rose about 50 feet in the air, hovering overhead while the visitor approached

Derenberger’s truck, mentally transmitting the thought to him that he desired the experiencer to

roll down the window and have a friendly chat with him.

Derenberger complied, rolling down the window. The extraterrestrial self identified as

being one “Indrid Cold, a searcher of the cosmos.” Derenberger hesitatingly gave him his own

name. Cold could sense that Derenberger was now getting a little edgy. At first, the Earthling

thought the craft might be some kind of experimental aerial platform from the Air Force or the

space agency, but now he was worried about his physical safety. Cold reassured him, declaring,

“Have no fear. I am the same as you are. I sleep and breathe and bleed as you do. I wish you no

harm, only happiness.”

Derenberger also answered other telepathic questions from Cold about his employment

and his home. Derenberger mentally engaged the ufonaut and projected the thoughts that he

needed to work for a living and that he lived not too far from the landing zone. The contactee

also let the alien know that the lights off in the distance were the city of Parkersburg in the state

of West Virginia. Cold relayed some information about the social structure of his planet, as well.

Derenberger received a mental image from the ufonaut projecting a scientifically advanced

settlement on a distant world that was referred to by the local inhabitants as simply a “gathering

spot.” He also garnered from Cold’s thought transmission that his native planet was called

Lanulos, but that it did not orbit our Sun and hence could not be found anywhere in our own

solar system.

After a few minutes, the ship then descended just a few feet above Derenberger’s pick-up

truck. Cold backed away from Derenberger’s vehicle while the saucer landed back over at its

original position on the roadway. Another ufonaut then opened the portal again, and Cold got

back inside the ship, slamming the hatch behind him “just like a car door,” as Derenberger later

explained to a magazine reporter. 1 The contactee didn’t wait around to watch the UFO take-off,

but revved up his pick-up and sped home as quickly as possible.

Derenberger would later remark that, “The papers said the ‘flying saucer took off with

tremendous speed;’ but it really didn’t. I was the one who took off with tremendous speed!”

1 M. Spohn Marling, “Across the U.S.A. with UFOs,” Flying Saucers UFO Reports (October 1967), New York, New

York: Dell Publishing.

Disrupted Domestic Life

As many a contactee can attest, a close encounter of the third kind may do quite a bit in

expanding one’s cosmic consciousness, but it wreaks havoc with the maintenance of a peaceful

home life. “You should have seen him when he got home,” Derenberger’s wife, Ruby Nettie,

proclaimed. “He looked awful. I thought he’d struck and killed somebody with the truck. He

loves to play with the children, but not that night. I had to shoo them out. He just sat there in the

kitchen, grey-colored and saying, ‘You’re going to think I’m crazy,’ and ‘you’re going to laugh

at me.’ Then he told me what had happened.”

“I was in shock,” said Derenberger, adding, “That’s what the doctor told me.”

After Derenberger arrived at his home following the first encounter, Mrs. Derenberger

states that, “He tried to make a report to the police and he couldn’t even hold the phone. I had to

make the call and when I reported it, the officer said it was the third call like that they’d had that

night.”

City and state police, as well as an Air Force sergeant and representatives from local

media swarmed about Derenberger on the day following his encounter. “I consented to a TV

appearance,” said Derenberger; but if I had to do it over again, there would be none of that.

As a matter of fact, Cold appeared two nights later and we had another talk. I never mentioned it

around here.”

No doubt, a seemingly unending stream of pressure and confusion has been brought to

bear on Derenberger’s wife since her husband’s extraterrestrial encounter began to be the focus

of a media blitz. Ever since the contactee’s appeared in the newspapers, the Derenbergers’

telephone has rung around at all hours of the day and night. The beleaguered couple had to have

their phone number unlisted; but still inquisitive people kept calling. Mail keeps coming in on a

daily basis from all over the world. Mrs. Derenberger clutched a fistful of letters from Germany,

Japan and Okinawa that still remained unopened, as neither she nor her husband could read or

write in any of the languages pertaining to those countries.

Derenberger himself also lamented that there were ten to fifteen callers almost every

night, “just driving right up, some making all-night trips to get there, coming in the house. They

think they’ll see the ship. It comes in often. Some of them see it, some don’t. We had one

NICAP investigator out there who was carrying so much equipment, cameras, tape recorders,

etc. he could scarcely get through the door. He didn’t see the ship.”

As time rolled on, however, it appears as though Derenberger paid a steep price for all the

media attention his case had brought down on his household. The ongoing invasion of the

Derenbergers private life was enough for Mrs. Derenberger to leave her husband, taking their

two children (a son Greg and a daughter Taunia) with her. Taunia Bowman, Derenberger’s

daughter, once remarked that, “Out at our farmhouse I was scared to go to sleep at night because

there were guys with guns in the trees wanting to see what was going on and wanting to see the

spaceships.” 2

Second Encounter

The inquisitive ufologist M. Spohn Marling from Flying Saucers UFO Reports asked

Derenberger to provide an account of his second meeting with the mysterious Indrid Cold.

Derenberger related the following: “That night, 4 November 1966, I was driving home from

Pomeroy, Ohio, with a friend. I got these messages telepathically that Cold was there and then I

saw the ship. My friend saw it, too, and several people in the area saw it that night; but nobody

knew about my talk with Cold.”

Derenberger continued, “You see, Mrs. Marling, I wasn’t the person Cold planned to

contact the first time. He’s told me since that he was really homing in on a car ahead of me, a

fellow he’d kept under watch for several days and believed would be a good communicant. But

2 Xavier, “Strange Case of Indrid Cold. Alien from Planet Lanulos,” Ghost Theory (12 June 2011), Retrieved from

http://www.ghosttheory.com/2011/06/12/the-strange-case-of-indrid-cold-alien-from-planet-lanulos (Accessed 5

May 2020).

the man’s car was so close to a busy intersection that Cold was afraid there might be an accident

if he dropped down in front of him, so he chose me instead. He wasn’t sorry. He told me I’m

receptive, a good communicant.”

Then Mrs. Derenberger interjected, “They aren’t making contact only around here. They

are doing this all over the country. But they find the people in West Virginia more receptive.”

Lanulos and the Extraterrestrial Life Style

For the article in Flying Saucers UFO Reports previously cited, Derenberger opened up

much more about conditions on the planet Lanulos, as well as the life styles of that distant

world’s indigenous inhabitants. Perhaps this was because he realized that the readers of the UFO

magazine weren’t going to laugh at him, since a good many of them had seen the mysterious

objects zipping across the skies or maybe a few even experienced direct physical contacts with

the ufonauts. This was evidenced in the letters to the editor which appeared in the previous two

issues of that publication. Or then he could have considered the softer touch of the interview

afforded by the female journalist, M. Spohn Marling, who didn’t press him as hard to answer

questions he felt uncomfortable with, especially concerning his wife and children.

“It was at the second meeting, the night of 4 November, that Cold told me about

himself,” explained Derenberger. The contactee continued, “He’s from a planet called Lanulos,

orbiting a sun much like our own in the Genemedes star cluster. They have woods, streams,

fields and oceans, the same as we do. They’ve taken samples of our vegetation and animals.

Ours are much like theirs.

“Cold is married. His wife is named Kimi and he had two sons at that time. He has three

children, now; one was born right around Christmas time, a little girl.”

At that point in the conversation, Mrs. Derenberger added that, “They’re time travelers.”

“That’s right,” Derenberger affirmed. “They’re in the fourth dimension. One reason they

can’t stay here too long at a time is because they get younger down here instead of older. Their

life span is 125-175 years; but if they stayed here too long, I think they’d go back in years so far

that they might possibly forget how to manipulate their craft.”

Mrs. Derenberger told Marling that, “They have nine scout ships in this area,” providing

the lead in for her husband to follow up with the details.

Taking the cue, he replied, “Yes, two men to a craft, except one ship that had four. On

one craft there is a husband-wife team, Jitro and Elvara Cletaw.”

Marling wanted to know if Cold was still insisting that his visits to Derenberger were of a

friendly nature, and that Cold had promised that no harm would come to him or his family in the

future. “He reassured me,” said Derenberger. He’s told me on several occasions that the people

on his planet travel and trade with other planets all the time; and that’s what they want to do

here. Lanulos has many things that would be of value to us and we have many things that would

be of value to Lanulos. Cold wants to have a friendly exchange.

The reporter/UFO investigator wondered if the Earth and our solar system weren’t too far

away for a working trade agreement to be set up with the planet Lanulos. Derenberger replied

that, “There is a landing base on the Moon, which is shared by many interplanetary civilizations.

Those from Lanulos also have a mother ship up there, big as a football field and nine stories

high, equipped with berthing docks. The scout ships land there and are taken aboard the mother

ship.”

NASA Knows All About the Space People

Somewhat skeptical, Marling opined that, “If there’s something like that up there, I

should think that scientists over at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)

would be interested in it.”

“Oh,” exclaimed Derenberger, “NASA knows all about this, knows more about it than I

do. I took my family down to Cape Kennedy not long ago and we were talking with some of the

NASA people. I told them Indrid had seen all the devices we have put on the Moon, has even

waved at the cameras. He’s seen every astronaut who’s ever gone up and has waved at them and

they’ve waved back. NASA said they knew all about it. I’d told them nothing new.

“And when I told them there were people on Venus and Mars just like us, they knew that,

too,” the contactee affirmed.

“You remember that space probe to Mars, when we went off course?” Derenberger

questioned his interviewer. Marling nodded and then Derenberger explained that, “Cold was

responsible for that. You see, our scientists down here had stocked that with unsterilized

equipment and the people of Mars couldn’t risk germs and foreign matter being brought in. Cold

had to misdirect the craft.”

Further Visitations by Indrid Cold

Derenberger explained that Cold frequently visited his home when the weather was bad,

or it was snowing or pouring rain. The extraterrestrial timed his visitations during these times

because most of our aircraft were grounded. Reporter Marling wanted to know if there was a lot

of Air Force activity around Derenberger’s home, to which he replied that, “We’re told the

authorities and the Air Force aren’t out there; but we’ve seen some uniformed and armed men

there often. We don’t know who they are.”

As far as anyone else being in touch with Indrid Cold, Derenberger replied, “Yes, there is

a group that gets together. They know him. There’s a doctor, a minister and several

businessmen. You see, Mrs. Marling, Cold comes here often. He’s brought me bread from his

planet. It’s richer and coarser than ours, like old fashioned biscuits. He even brought some

spirits, Yucatan brandy in a wooden bottle.

“I’m not a drinking man, mind you, but I drank some of this. My father-in-law said it

was like eggnog. But I thought it was syrupy.”

“How did you react?” Marling inquired.

“I really got high.

“I tried to keep that wooden bottle. I’ve tried to take things several times to have the

evidence that Cold was here. I even tried to steal something; but I never got away with it.”

By Dr. Raymond A. Keller, author of the international awards-winning Venus

Rising Trilogy, available on amazon.com while supplies last.

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