A frequent claim by those asserting communion with Altarian visitors is that the Altarians had at some point in the past met with the leaders of the Earth in the late 1960’s and offered to uplift Humanity early, but they declined. A claim many use as evidence of how “bogus” the entire narrative is, given that no national leader, or member of their staff, from the alleged time has ever claimed to have encountered an alien life form, directly or indirectly.

However, ufologist William Roberts mentions in his book “Burning Chariots: the true history of alien encounters” that this claim may tie into an unusual event that occurred near the city of Temecula in California in 1969. According to Roberts, at the time there was a “Harmonious World Ranch”, a commune established by a small number of hippies who referred to themselves as “the prophets of Aquarius”, located just outside of Temecula. They would testify that they were visited by beings from outer space in what ufologists aware of this encounter refer to as the “Altarian Exchange Event” due to the fact that the descriptions of the visitors bear strong similarities to how some other, more credible eyewitnesses have described Altarians looking like. The claim is that the visitors came down offering to teach the members of this commune how to “spiritually ascend” and live as they do. An arrest report on what is believed to be the first night, of an individual who went by the alias “Joe Crow”, a known associate of the Prophets of Aquarius, does give credence to this claim, being arrested on the 15 freeway towards Lake Elsinore for speeding and reckless driving, according to the arrest report he claimed that “unnatural things” and “skin walkers” were “coming down onto the ranch” and “no way he’s sticking around”. The report noted that Joe Crow appeared to be sober at the time but was given the story he told officers, was held in county jail believing he might’ve been drugged.

This period of visitation is believed to have gone on for a little over a week, based on coinciding reports by local residents of strange lights in the sky from the direction of World Ranch. In his book, Roberts notes that it seems strange that Temecula police wouldn’t attempt to investigate the claims of residents prior to the full moon arrests and raid, speculating that this may be evidence of either a greater conspiracy, or possibly of an overly complacent and dismissive police force. Though Roberts does acknowledge that these would’ve been 50-year-old reports from before electronic records existed and could’ve just been lost; however from limited testimony of witnesses and the few photographs recovered from the world ranch site imply that the visitors made no attempt to hide their presence during this period so a police investigation where no encounter with the paranormal occurred seems unlikely.

As mentioned, the Full Moon arrests mark the end of the event. This was where members of the commune, while in a manic and delusional state, ran amok through the city, threatening locals and causing thousands of dollars in property damage. Members were arrested and a police raid was done on the World Ranch. At the ranch, police found, quote: “evidence that an illegal grow operation had recently occurred on the premises” however no contraband was ever recovered and no charges made; besides that, police found a 2-acre pit averaging 3-4 feet in depth, along with the group’s Volkswagen bus buried halfway into the dirt, nose-down.

As for the members of the Prophets of Aquarius group, of it’s 19 known members, 14 would be arrested, 2 were killed in police standoffs, and the last 3, Brendon Smalls, Jessica Winthrop, and Donald Wright, were never found and remain missing to this day.

Due to their erratic behavior, The arrested 14 individuals of the commune (referred to in the book as the Temecula 14) were examined by doctors who believed them all to be suffering from severe schizophrenia and had them all committed to various asylums throughout Southern California. While these symptoms did eventually disappear, few of the Temecula 14 would be released before the 1980s when testing failed to find any of the biological identifiers of schizophrenia. However, by then many were suffering from side effects of antipsychotics and refused to talk in detail about what happened, and those that would had only scattered recollections.

Interest in the event didn’t resurface until 2003 when Ufologist Thomas Pratts acquired a box containing photographs from the event. The box was uncovered by construction workers who were building new housing developments on what used to be the World Ranch site. Pratts would take the photographs back to his home in Galveston Texas where he’d upload images of the photographs to various paranormal chat rooms and discussion boards. However, the photos would ultimately be destroyed in 2005 when Pratts home was flooded by hurricane Katrina. With the loss of the original photos and the negatives having never been recovered, the only proof left of the event are the alleged testimonies of former psychiatric patients and a few online images. Which has lead most to dismiss the photos as being digitally altered as part of either a hoax or some kind of poorly implemented ARG.

Only a handful of ufologists and paranormal investigators give the Altarian Exchange Event the attention it deserves…