Mantids (i.e. resembling a praying mantis) are now a commonly reported alien type, but, like Reptilians, they were not always so. Prior to the early 1990s, the only published abduction report to feature a hint of them was Whitley Strieber’s Communion (1987). In it, he shares his initial impression of his abductors as bug-like – specifically, their movements and their joints, which he described as “insect-like.” Other abductees prior to then had shared similar impressions of the Grays as somewhat “insectoid” in nature, especially their large “bug-like” eyes. For example, Jim Weiner, of the 1976 Allagash Abductions (Ray Fowler’s 1993 book), said of his abductors in a 1989 hypnotic regression: “They look like bugs!”
On March 14, 1986, however, Strieber underwent a hypnotic regression to an experience from 1967. In it, Strieber describes seeing “a real mean, fierce face,” “like a big bug.” The regression then moves on to an experience when he was 12 (ca. 1957):
It looks just exactly like a bug. A praying mantis is what it looks like. Only it’s so big. How can it be so big? […] Doesn’t really look like a praying mantis. They’ve got white eyes. This has got dark, black eyes.
Strieber quotes a 1983 letter from Dr. Robert Sarbacher (defense scientist and student of Einstein) to UFO researcher William Steinman, in which Sarbacher wrote: “I remember in talking with some of the people at the office that I got the impression these ‘aliens’ were constructed like certain insects we have observed on earth.” On December 29, 1987, John Lear composed his infamous statement on the UFO subject, which included the “horrible truth” known only to a select few: “they were indeed ugly little creatures, shaped like praying mantises and who were more advanced than us by perhaps a billion years.”
Reports published in subsequent years include some that allegedly occurred in prior decades. In the Proceedings of 1992’s MIT Abduction Conference (published in 1994), Brian Thompson shared a case of a Cincinnati nurse who encountered a 3-foot-tall mantis-like entity two days after a V-shaped UFO sighting in 1957. Crash-retrieval research Leonard Stringfield reportedly had two similar cases from that same time and place. Terry Lovelace describes vivid dreams from 1963, when he was 8 years old, which followed his sighting of a flying saucer:
Shadowy figures soon grab me, and I’m carried away by many hands. It was the worst kind of nightmare. […] I was taken away and held down by man-sized bugs that hurt me. Intelligent six-foot-tall praying mantis-like beings who ignored my pleas. It was impossible to abort the dream once the shadowy figures appeared.
In 1967, Paul Nelson, 12 years old at the time of an experience of missing time, recalled later under hypnosis being abducted by insectoid beings with large bulging eyes during a boat trip near Catalina Island. This was reported by Preston Dennett in his 2001 book Extraterrestrial Visitations. Also in 2001, Martin Jasek published an account from “Kevin” regarding an abduction experience that occurred in 1987 while the witness was on a hunting trip in Yukon, Canada:
I came face to face (about 20 yards) with 2 grey creatures in blue jump suits, about 5 ft. tall with big insect looking heads, pointy faces, big eyes, thin arms, body and legs. I immediately thought “they’re not little green men, they’re grasshopper people”.
He also reported being paralyzed by a beam, experiencing missing time and later finding scoop marks on his palms.
Linda Moulton Howe covered a few insectoid cases in volume 1 of Glimpses of Other Realities (1993), including those of Linda Porter and David Huggins, both of whom in 1988 recalled separate incidents as children involving Mantids (Huggins’s taking place in the 1950s), and Jeanne Robinson, who claimed in 1990 to receive telepathic messages from a Mantid alien who told her, among other things, that they were a variety of Gray. Howe describes Mantids like this:
Abductees say the creatures are six to eight feet tall. The skin is green and the eyes are enormous. Rust-colored irises flecked with gold surround large, black, vertical pupils. Abductees sense that these beings, although hideous to look at from a human point of view, are non-violent, extremely ancient in age, and have knowledge about “all details of human existence.” One man said he thought the “insect creatures were genetically engineered by a tall humanoid species.”
She includes drawings from abductees, including one drawn in 1990 by “L.P.,” who told Howe she has seen them in abductions “since she was a teenager.” Another drew what he encountered on his Georgia farm as a boy: it shows mantis-type beings (with six legs) standing slightly taller than his 8-year-old self and roughly double the height of a Gray, “which he considered to be androids programmed to do work for the praying mantis beings and tall humanoids.”
In 1992, Karla Turner published Into the Fringe about her family’s experiences. After a regression on her son David conducted by Barb Bartholic in 1989, David drew a being he had encountered:
It bore no resemblance to the usual image of the Grays, nor was it especially reptilian. Instead, more closely than anything else, the creature David drew looked like a tall, pale-white praying mantis.
As I stared at the drawing, a vivid, frightening image from my childhood came back to me. I recalled being in a strange dark place, standing beside a tall creature whose hand rested on my shoulder. I remember looking up at what seemed to be a giant grasshopper and insisting, “You’re not my mother! You’re not my mother!” This scene haunted my nightmares for several years when I was very young, and it crushed me to think of the fear my own son must have felt as he lay helpless before such a being.
Two years later, Turner published Taken, a study of 8 abductees, 7 of whom reported encounters with “the Whites (insectoid) and the hooded figures.” (Mantids are often reported to wear robes or hoods. Mary, whose case appears in Yvonne Smith’s Chosen, describes the tall beings of her 1991 abduction as having “larger heads, wearing long white robes with raised cowl-like collars and wide sleeves.”) Ted Rice, the subject of Masquerade of Angels from the same year, also recalled Mantids. (Martin S. Kotttmeyer’s article “Graying Mantis” covers more of the initial Mantid reports, as well as precedents from art and popular culture.)
David M. Jacobs came to see Mantids (which he referred to as insectalins) as those in charge of the abduction process, superior in intellect and understanding compared to Grays and not involved in the actual process of abduction. While they are sometimes observed taking part in preliminary examinations of abductees, for the most part they oversee the operations conducted by Grays. They are more communicative than Grays, but limit their discussions to aspects of their program. Jacobs writes in Walking Among Us (2015):
Abductees report that some insectalins wear robes or cloaks with extremely high collars that rise above where ears would be on humans. […] It is possible that they have a higher status than other insectalins. […] Abductees’ descriptions of [insectalins’] personalities and communication patterns indicate that they care little about human civilization. To them, humans are an inferior species who are almost childlike in their ability to think and whom they can manipulate, not only individually, but societally as well.
Insectalins appear to have no sense of morality or ethics […] For them, abducting people is a logical means to an end. […] They express little guilt or regret about the disruption of human lives. They have little or no sense of humor, pity, or sorrow. They do, however, express a strong entitlement to do whatever they want to humans.
In Alien Agendas (2020), Richard Dolan cites the FREE Study, according to which, “Witnesses often claim to experience [Mantids] during out of body moments or after periods of extended meditation.” For example, artist Stuart Davis produced an excellent podcast about his visitation by an 8-foot-tall mantis on New Year’s Eve, 2010, following which his family experienced a UFO sighting, synchronicities, auditory anomalies (e.g. like a reversed tuning fork) and disturbing dreams. Davis had been meditating while sick with a high fever when he experienced the Mantid. In this state, he asked to meet his spiritual guides. The Mantid appeared at the foot of his bed, wearing a purple robe with a high collar.
It immediately shoots a powerful signal into my body, like being hit with an invisible fire-hose that – it’s not painful, but it’s electrifying. The signal contains clicks, pops, information, something akin to music, and it’s all nonverbal. This lasts 10 or 15 seconds. When it’s done, the thought “remember who you work for” lands in my head. Then, the Mantis disappears and this whole episode lasts less than a minute.
Davis considered the experience profound and transformative, reshaping his creative life and inspiring him to write a film script, Mant1s, about a Russian human-trafficking victim’s paranormal awakening triggered by a praying mantis. Numerous people involved in the film experienced mantis synchronicities prior to or while working on the project. At one point Davis has a Buddhist shaman facilitate a channeling session with the Mantis, which reveals that they are benevolent, ancient, interdimensional beings who work with Grays in abductions; the mantis synchronicities are a form of their “signalling”; and praying mantis insects serve as “nodes or physical echoes” of the Mantids and conduits for observation.
Dolan describes Mantids as being 6–8 feet tall “or possibly even taller.”
Their heads are triangular, with large, slanted, and extremely dark or black eyes. Their torsos are long and thin, and their necks, arms and hands have more joints than humans have. Their color is usually dark brown, but they have sometimes been described as green or black. […] There are obvious commonalities between the mantids and the tall grays, enough that it has made me sometimes wonder if we are talking about the same creature. […] although all communication from mantid to human appears to be telepathic, mantids themselves have been observed communicating with each other via clicking sounds.
Following Jacobs, Dolan describes their alleged ability to project vivid imagery into the minds of abductees. These visions usually depict apocalyptic scenarios (similar to those associated with the contactees and Marian apparitions.)
Recently, Lt. Col. John Blitch – a former Green Beret, DARPA scientist and cognitive psychologist – spoke publicly about his own abductions in interviews with Ross Coulthart and Jesse Michels. He describes a vivid “dream” which occurred several days or weeks after a suspected abduction involving missing time in 1995. In the “dream,” a large grasshopper or mantis being came into his third-story bedroom through its deck door. As Blitch describes it, the being was “chastising” and “lecturing” him in a condescending way to stop wriggling and squirming (presumably during abduction procedures).
He’s telling me, “Look, this body that you’ve got, it’s nothing but a soul container, and we can’t do anything to hurt that or steal it or damage it. We can do a lot of damage to your body if we want to. We don’t want to. We’re trying to help you.”
The being then somehow projected images and sensations of what they could do to Blitch if they wanted to:
His little triangle face opens up and these jaws open up and he starts tugging chunks of flesh off of me, you know, from my cheeks, my shoulders. And he’s flinging it and there’s blood spatter and everything, and it should have been absolutely terrifying. […] He wanted me to know that they could rip me to shreds if they wanted to, but they couldn’t get to my soul, and even if even if I died in that process, […] there’s a soul that’s gonna come back, and who knows, I might come back as one of them […] So that was all that, in a very intense moment, that lesson. […] And then boom, I was out. That was it.
Blitch subsequently underwent hypnotic regression for the suspected abduction event, where he saw a Mantid in a red uniform. He believes that the “dream” he experienced soon after was actually a memory: “It was all in that same [event].”
The C’s answers on this type are more contradictory than those relating to the others.
Q: (V) I had an experience with praying mantis beings. [This was uncovered with hypnotic regression.] Who are they?
A: Minturians. [Mintaka is the right-most star in Orion’s Belt.]
Q: (L) Where are they from?
A: Orion.
Q: (L) Are the Orions the bad guys?
A: Subjective.
Q: (L) Well, what group do they belong to?
A: Federation as do the Pleiadians. [This early answer seems to imply an STO nature, which contradicts later sessions. However, if “they” refers to “Orions,” it aligns with the statement from 1995-9-24 that “Orion Federation” is the name for all groups in this region of the galaxy, both STS and STO.]
Q: (L) Did they abduct me or what is the source of this memory?
A: It is a memory of a past life held in the deep subconscious level.
Q: (L) What did they do to me?
A: Retro-programming for learning purposes.
Q: (L) For what?
A: Lessons are to be learned by you not told by us.
Q: (L) Are the Minturians associated with the Lizzies?
A: Yes.
Q: (L) Are the Minturians assisting in abductions?
A: No.
Q: (L) Are the Minturians on the planet at this time?
A: No.
Q: (L) Are they nearby our planet?
A: No.
Q: (L) Are they in any way involved with the activities going on on the planet at this time?
A: No.
These last four answers contradict that given in 2024-4-27, which identifies “Minturians” as Jacobs’s “insectalins,” who give every appearance of assisting in abductions and being highly involved in the “activities” going on on our planet. Taken literally, however, the first answer is true in the sense that Mantids are not reported to assist in the actual abduction process; they are present only during the procedures that take place once the victim has already been abducted.
Q: (L) Are they slaves of the Lizzies?
A: No. [In 2024-4-27, the C’s said that they are in fact slightly higher in “rank.”]
Q: (L) Are they living on a free will planet?
A: Yes. All are.
Q: (L) How tall are they?
A: 11 feet tall average but in 4th-density realm.
Q: (L) Do they eat?
A: No.
Q: (L) Do they reproduce?
A: Mechanically.
As noted about, Mantids are typically reported to be 6-8 feet tall, though Dolan notes some may be taller. In his book, he includes a drawing judged to be accurate by the witness on whose account it was based. The robed Mantid appears to be approximately 2 feet taller than the door frame, implying a height of at least 9 feet.
Q: (L) Who and what are the Mantid-type beings that were seen in Mexico and purportedly caught on film? [I have not been able to track down the source of this claimed sighting.]
A: Elapiddorian. [Elapids are a family of venomous snakes.]
Q: (L) Where are they from?
A: Orion.
Q: (L) What are they here for?
A: Interaction study, are project of Minturians, as they resemble physical profile. Is study to determine compatibility with 3rd-density surface equation.
Q: (L) They are trying to learn if they can manifest on Earth?
Q: (L) Now, tell me the name of the beings DM experienced as praying mantises in her hypnosis session [conducted on December 6, 1994]?
A: Her essence.
Q: (L) But, in that reality, don’t they have a name?
A: Too complex to answer adequately in this medium.
Q: (L) Well, you said that the beings that V. encountered were Minturians. Aren’t they the same?
A: No.
Q: (L) Is there a difference between essence beings and incarnate beings?
A: Yes.
Q: (L) So we have a distinct difference. OK, who were the ant/fly beings she described?
A: Her essence too.
Laura recounts this session in The Wave, including the direct transcript. (DM is there called “Ruth.”) Ruth sought out hypnosis not because of any suspected abduction, but because her life was falling apart. What came out in the session was a surprise: she saw herself as a giant insect devouring a human child, which she recounted in gory detail, and called Earth a “feeding ground.” She described this being at various points as resembling in some ways a grasshopper, an ant, a fly and a praying mantis. Oddly, she claimed that this represented a past life:
This is like… like… when I was in a past life… and I was a grasshopper! And I ate… I ate… something. Oh! I remember. I ate humans. And I had blood all over me. I think I must be one of them… but I’m not sure yet. […] The weirdest thing… They have on uniforms… but they’re insects. Insect-like people! Insects with intelligence. […] The head turns and… they’re just… I don’t know… Praying mantis sort of… but their hands aren’t like praying mantises… They’re just a different kind of insect… more like an ant.
In hypnosis sessions with Barb Bartholic, Ted Rice also recalled seeing Mantids consume children in an underground base. As Rice put it: “It’s still an insect, it still behaves like an insect, and it feeds on flesh of other creatures.”
The C’s differentiate Ruth’s experience, which she interpreted as being a past life, from the incarnate Mantids associated with abduction phenomena. They seem to be implying a metaphysics in which humanity is “linked” with certain archetypal (or something more than archetypal) essences – in this case, a predatory essence – perhaps similar to their explanation of a particular abduction-type experience as a “eclipsing of realities.” Recall the short discussion on “extratempestrial abduction” in volume 1, where the C’s asked whether some abductors might refer to possible future selves. We also included philosopher Christopher Langan’s explanation of NHI as “alternate realities” or “alternate futures” (or “soul essences,” perhaps?) “trying to displace or merge with ours using us as their vehicles.”
Perhaps related, Karla Turner writes that the sight of her son’s drawing of a Mantid triggered a memory of looking up at a giant grasshopper and insisting, “You’re not my mother! You’re not my mother!” This scene “haunted [her] nightmares for several years when [she] was very young.” Similarly, Linda Howe quotes a hypnosis transcript from a year later, August 6, 1990, where Cindy Tindle describes an abduction involving a large insectoid wearing a wig; it prompts her to think, “It’s my mom, but it’s not my mom.”
Paranormal investigator Paul Eno includes some speculation in his book Dancing Past the Graveyard that may be relevant. When discussing the idea of “bonding” in relation to demonic possession, he writes: “From what I’ve seen in possession cases, it’s clear that parasites and their hosts bond because they literally are different facets of each other. At some point in the multiverse [Eno’s favored explanation], Chall [the demon] is Barbara [the host] and Barbara is Chall.” Eno also quotes an email he received from “Meg” describing some odd experiences: “First, I feel all tingly, then it’s like a black-out for a minute, and I become something else, somewhere else, and sometimes it’s even like I’m in another world.”
On one occasion, Meg said she was in the consciousness of an unnaturally tall, thin figure that I immediately recognized as a member of a benign neighbor race Ben [Eno’s son] would eventually come to call the “clerics” because of their mode of dress.
Q: [Continuing the questions about beings depicted in “Pulsar Project.”] (L) OK, now, this is what they call a replica: “They are protosyntozoid form of humans, whose specific job is as a special outside agent. Observation: Face and body change shape at will.” This is like [the X-Files] shape-changer. Is this a correct concept? […] I mean of course you have to draw them in an ambiguous way…
A: Close. […]
Q: (L) OK, these are real friendly looking. I love these guys! […] “They are originally from the Draco constellation and their job is to complete research. They are plus or minus four feet tall.” Are these accurately represented here, both in terms and drawing?
A: Yes.
Q: (T) Are these the [blue] ones that Whitley Strieber has seen?
Now this next drawing is from the Communion movie. And it’s sort of what they look like. Except, with the difference that the drawing you’re about to see, you won’t run screaming or anything. But I assure you, if you were face to face with one of these individuals, it would be a very, very different experience and a very much more powerful one. They sort of look like this. Like little frog-like figures. Like workers. Worker bees of some kind. They’re recovered with little patches and pockets and things. They have a long history in the human imagination. In the Middle Ages, they were called kobolds [a German faerie, also called “goblins”].
In Turner’s Taken, Anita describes a similar creature accompanying a typical Gray, which was leading her down the corridor of a UFO: “this dude had a short, squatty-looking blue creature with him. I nicknamed him Grimace.” (Most likely a reference to the McDonald’s franchise character.)
Q: (L) OK, now, the degenerative clone form, which is the bottom image, is this also an accurate representation?
A: Close.
Q: (L) What is the color of the skin of these friendly-looking little guys?
A: Variable.
Q: […] (L) OK, this is one called “a race of insectoids from Casiopea [sic], whose specific job is genetic research.” Is this an accurate description and drawing of this critter?
A: Yes.
The Blue Planet notebooks are alleged to have first circulated in 1991. If true, this would make the above drawing among the first published visual depiction of a mantis-like alien in the UFO literature, which had otherwise only been publicly described by Strieber and Lear in 1987.
Q: […] (L) What star in Cassiopeia?
A: Region.
Q: (L) […] Is there any star in particular that you would identify as their home star? They have to have a planet with a home star somewhere, so where is their home star?
A: No.
Q: (L) They don’t have to have a home planet? In other words, they could be riding the Wave? (SV) Well, are they coming here? […]
A: All are already.
Q: […] (T) What about the one below? […] (L) Well, that’s just a biological android. “The Nordics and Oranges normally use inorganic, high-tech servants.” Is this an accurate representation[…]?
A: Yes.
Q: (T) What are all the hieroglyphics? (L) It’s supposed to be one of their alien languages. What does this business say here?
A: Scrambled.
Q: (L) […] So it’s a combination of the various different languages they have back there.
A: Yes.
Lawyer Danny Sheehan was granted access to the still-classified Project Blue Book files in 1977. In them, he saw photographs of a UFO crash retrieval. The saucer in the photographs had writing on it, which Sheehan copied. While he does not have his original drawing in his possession, he drew approximations of the symbols from memory for researcher Joe Murgia:
Q: (L) Chloe called today, and […] she asked me, was I aware that in the Ra material, they designated Cassiopeia as the residence of some […] Orion-type STS aliens? [Ra had said there was a 4D STS planet “in what you know as Cassiopeia.”] […] Also, the picture of the Mantid-type beings in that document […] has these beings designated as “Casiopeans.” Who are these “Casiopeans”? […] Where do the Mantid-type beings come from? The ones that we’re aware of?
A: The ones you are speaking of come from active human imaginations!
Q: (L) Are there Mantid-type aliens that we’re not aware of?
A: Yes, there is damn near everything that you are not aware of!
The first answer contradicts the answer from the prior session, which affirmed the accuracy of the drawing/designation.
Q: (Approaching Infinity) Previous sessions make reference to two types of mantis-like beings: “soul essences” and “Minturians” who were said to be associated with Lizzies in some way, but not to assist in abductions (1994-10-23, 1994-12-9). It was also stated reptoids and Mantids are real beings and not screen memories. Based on his work with abductees, David Jacobs concluded that Mantids are in charge of the Grays and reptoids, and direct the abduction and hybridization program. Are these Mantids “soul essences,” “Minturians” or a third group?
A: Minturians. But soul essences can also be Minturian via reincarnation.
Q: (Approaching Infinity) How do they fit into the STS hierarchy already described, in which Nordics control reptoids?
A: Minturians are generally genetics specialists only slightly higher in rank than reptoids. Nordics control both.
Hybrids
The final chapter of volume 1 contains most of the session transcripts relating to so-called hybrids, and additional features will be covered in the upcoming series on crash retrievals. As Dolan summarizes in Alien Agendas:
[…] there is broad agreement that at least some of those hybrids have slipped into the general human population, many of them for years. At the same time, an unknown but probably sizable amount of other hybrids remain with the grays […] Abductees who deal with these hybrids often comment on their lack of genuine emotion, their cold manipulation, and behaviors that we would normally consider to be psychopathic or sociopathic. Not necessarily violent, but certainly manipulative and uncaring, and also able to emulate human emotions like any good psychopath.
David Jacobs credits Budd Hopkins with first discovering “that aliens were using human sperm and ova and adding alien biological material to create a mixture of the two species.” (Others had suggested the same thing as early as 1967.) He writes in Walking Among Us:
The gestation of these hybrids begins with an insertion procedure. Female abductees report that aliens inserted a hybrid embryo into the uterus and removed a fetus nine to eleven weeks later. During subsequent abduction events, these abductees saw the offspring (although not necessarily their own) as infants, toddlers, adolescents, young adults, and adults. (Oddly, I have heard no reports of abductees seeing hybrids as elderly adults.)
Some abductees contend that the embryo itself, formed by combining male and female gametes, is altered, perhaps modified with alien DNA.
While Dolan and Jacobs see this hybridization as a recent phenomenon, Joshua Cutchin points out the many correlations with faerie and changeling lore in Thieves in the Night. Changelings were most often boys, weak or sickly, thin and fragile-looking, with their eyes sometimes described as large or bulging. “Whether changelings or hybrids, they almost always inspire the same revulsion and rejection in their ‘parents.’” In medieval times, faeries were believed to be infertile, and changelings served the purpose of incorporating fresh blood into the faerie bloodline. Cutchin asks if ufologists perhaps take hybridization reports too literally: “could hybridization take place on a metaphysical level?”
Q: (L) I want to ask about one thing from the Matrix material. […] who and what are the “Essessani”?
A: Hybrids, new.
Q: (L) They are new hybrids? And what are they a hybridization of? What are the sources of the material for the hybridization?
A: Humans and Grays.
Q: (L) Are the Essessani positively oriented beings, as has been suggested by some?
A: Split.
Q: (T) Some STS, some STO?
A: Yes.
Valerian claimed to have received information about the “Essessani” from channeling/communication with an entity he called “Bashar.” In Matrix II, he writes:
Some species, such as the Essessani, claim that they are the result of hybrid genetics that are being performed at this time. We’re seeing a lot of hybrid species, as well as species in different stages of their own evolution. […]
The Essessani are a hybrid race that functions outside our linear time track. It is apparent from reconstructions of their physical appearance that their genetic structure has components that are common to both Reptilian and Homo Sapien. They are considered to be advanced in both Technology, the Mind, Service To Others, and have the capacity for group awareness and knowledge of other time streams relative to both themselves and others.
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