Phil Krapf

Phillip H. Krapf is a former Los Angeles Times Metro Desk editor who wrote the 1998 book The Contact Has Begun (Hay House, Inc.), in which he alleges to have been taken on board an extraterrestrial craft and introduced to details of an elaborate plan to introduce humans to the fact of extraterrestrial civilizations.

Krapf graduated college in 1963 and began work as a reporter for a local newspaper in San Fernando, California, where he progressed to the rank of managing editor, receiving several journalism awards. His work for the Los Angeles Times spanned 25 years of a 30-year career and culminated in his sharing a Pulitzer Prize with other members of the Metro team for the paper's reporting on the 1992 Los Angeles riots.

According to Krapf's account, he went to bed on the evening of June 10, 1997 only to be awakened by a blue light in the room he could not trace to a television or any other source. The light constricted and became the vehicle for his abduction. In seconds he appeared on an examination table in a large room on an alien spacecraft and was introduced to some of the aliens he would spend several days conversing with and learning from. These individuals, with reference to a lushly vegetated home planet, called themselves the Verdants and identified themselves as the largest of numerous thousands of civilizations in the travelled universe.

Krapf, hitherto a self-described skeptic, accommodated himself to the shock and came to learn through an introductory orientation program about the aliens, their non-hostile intentions (he described himself as reconciled to his own taking), a complex intergalactic federation of sovereign planetary civilizations, and the general protocols surrounding a civilization's approach to its first exploratory steps into space. He was also informed that while earth was an uncharacteristically internally diverse civilization, preparations were underway to introduce its population to the new concept that extraterrestrial life was a fact, involving close cooperation between the Verdants and humans of general respect and credibility.

Krapf was asked to write a white paper regarding the plan, as a reference resource for individuals unfamiliar with the preparatory efforts. He turned the account into a more personal factual narrative report, including his individual reactions to the new culture shock and intensely interesting nature of the experience. The plan, while likely to meet with fear or hostility in many human quarters, is described as predictably fascinating in its putative unfoldment scenario details.

The book makes unusual claims but also includes intriguing discussions of technical details, a discussion of a purportedly 600 million year old civilization with maximal or "perfect" intelligence, having bioengineered themselves to a ceiling lifespan of approximately 20,000 earth years. Krapf further describes discovering to his own shock (being an atheist) the extraterrestrials' civilizations' individual yet unbiquitous theism, reportedly involving direct scientific evidence but only sketched in general description. He also relates the brief episode of being sexually propositioned at one point by a particular individual, a surprising turn which he politely declined and relegates to part of an intercultural learning process between the characters. He also attempts to anticipate several normal prospective objections to the credibility of his account.

In a followup book, The Challenge of Contact (Origin Press, 2003), Krapf amplified on his post-experience life, two follow-on visitations, and the freeze on the disclosure program which the September 11 attacks resulted in, which took place only weeks prior to what would otherwise have been the beginnings of the first steps of disclosure. Among other things he alludes to clandestine politico-economic entities with specific disinterest in any progress toward a worldwide awakening to the reality of the extraterrestrial phenomenon. He alleges that the human race was effectively assessed as borderline in its collective moral development, would be contained if it were to attempt to seriously explore space while still warlike, and is essentially at the moment now on probation as to whether its good and decent elements will prevail in containing and arresting its sociopathic elements.

Subsequent to his first book's publication, Krapf made several popularly received appearances on late night talk radio programs such as the Mike Jarmus show and Coast to Coast AM.

External links:

• http://www.thechallengeofcontact.com
• The Contact Has Begun: ISBN 1-56170-506-3
• The Challenge of Contact: ISBN 1-57983-009-9