Dr. Andrija Puharich, c. 1949

Did you know that a group of extra-terrestrial beings (who called themselves The Nine) made regular contact with a past owner of 87 Hawkes Avenue in Ossining through audio cassettes? And that the Russians may have directed Extra Low Frequency (ELF) radio waves to that very address to try and control the mind of its occupant? And that spoon-bender Uri Geller was a frequent guest there? And that a camp of “Space Kids” operated near there in the mid-1970s? And that in 1975, war between Egypt and Israel may well have been averted by this neighbor?

Well, if you’ve ever read any of Dr. Andrija Puharich’s books (and really, why would you have?) you would know all this to true.   Or at least stated in print.

I think now is the appropriate juncture to take the time to note the wild and woolly goings on that were reported to have taken place at 87 Hawkes Avenue in the 1970s. The white house in which Dr. Puharich lived and worked is now sitting vacant, waiting to be demolished to make way for Parth Knolls, a 53-unit rental apartment complex to be built by Anthony P. Beldotti Developers on the site.

Dr. Puharich and Uri Geller, c. 1973

Dr. Andrija Puharich (aka Henry Karel Puharic) lived at 87 Hawkes Avenue from 1961 – 1979. The American-born son of Croatian immigrants, he was born in Chicago in 1918. He joined the Army and they paid for his training at Northwestern Medical School. After graduation, he may or may not have participated in several top secret projects exploring ESP (Extra-Sensory Perception), mind-altering pharmaceuticals and ELF (Extremely Low Frequency radio waves.)  One such project might have been Project Penguin, a Navy undertaking whose purpose was to test individuals said to possess psychic powers. Another was the Stargate Project, a top-secret intelligence project whose focus was on how psychic phenomena could be used in domestic and international spying.

(As an aside, as I was writing this blog post, the CIA declassified a whole bunch of Stargate Project documents involving Puharich. No, seriously, they did. Check out the link here.  I have to wonder, did they know I was researching this? Did their ELF pick up my thoughts? Are the Nine still watching over Ossining? Is my microwave spying on me?? Excuse me while I make myself a tin foil hat.)

(And, as another aside, I wonder if Presidential spokeswoman Kellyanne Conway had heard of some of this recently declassified research when she said “There are many ways to surveil each other now, unfortunately.  There was an article this week that talked about how you can surveil someone through their phones, certainly through their television sets, any number of different ways. And microwaves that turn into cameras, et cetera. So we know that that is just a fact of modern life.”  Who knows, maybe the government DID do some experiments with microwaves and picture-taking?)

But back to Puharich – whatever you think of his research topics, it is undeniable that Puharich made a career of studying the paranormal, attempting to apply traditional scientific research methods to various phenomena to categorize and understand them.   There was Arigo (a Brazilian psychic surgeon who did impossible surgeries and cured impossible diseases with a dull, rusty knife), miscellaneous mediums who served as conduits to the extraterrestrial Nine, and Uri Geller. Along the way, Puharich acquired over fifty patents for items as diverse as miniature hearing aids and methods to use water for fuel.

But let’s talk about the extraterrestrials. As far as I can understand, and this comes mostly from reading Puharich’s book Uri: A Journal of the Mystery of Uri Geller, an extraterrestrial group called the Nine first contacted Puharich in 1952 through a medium named Dr. Vinod. They told him that they were the highest minds in the universe and rule over all. Later, through Uri Geller (also a medium for the Nine) Puharich learned that in fact the Hoovians are the direct controllers of Earth and other nearby planetary civilizations, but take their orders from the Nine. (You could call them the bureaucrats of extra-terrestrial government. But don’t confuse them with the Whovians from Dr. Who because they are different!) During the 1970s, a city-sized spaceship called Spectra hovered over the Earth and sent messages from the Hoovians fifty-three thousand light-years away to Geller, who was their emissary on earth.  And intermittently staying with Puharich at 87 Hawkes Avenue.

There’s more to it than that, but it’s all just so out there. Not only did the Nine communicate with Puharich through various mediums and through voices on a self-erasing cassette tape, they also directed the Hoovians to make the occasional visit to Puharich’s property. Below, is a description of an extraterrestrial flyover at 87 Hawkes Avenue from Puharich’s book Uri: A Journal of the Mystery of Uri Geller:

87 Hawkes Avenue, Ossining New York
August 27, 1972

At 1am, a large conch shell levitated and slowly fell to the floor. We waited for a voice to appear on the tape recorder monitor. Finally there came the voice of IS* on the tape at 1:03am as follows:

“We are Nine Principles and forces. The equation is Mi=m₀c²/√(1-v²/c²) . . . One of your earth scientists, Einstein, knew about us. Just before he died, he knew the secret. You will carry on the work. Then in centuries, another and another, to keep the data rolling – until man finds infinity.” As the voice said “infinity,” the tape recorder was switched off. . . .Through the north window of my study a brilliant white light suddenly flooded the room. (My house is in a forest – away from any automobile headlights.) The light was very much the quality of moonlight, but much brighter. We rushed to the window, but could not see the source of the light, which was beyond some giant Norway Spruce trees. We rushed outdoors, but the light had disappeared.” (Puharich, 175ff) 

*In the interest of clarity and brevity, Puharich began calling the voices he heard on his audio tapes “Intelligence from the sky.”

I’ve really fallen down a research hole, haven’t I? But they had an EQUATION! And they visited 87 Hawkes Avenue in 1972!  But here’s a photo of some of those Norway Spruce trees that still stand on the property:

Gene Roddenberry, the creator of Star Trek, was a frequent visitor to 87 Hawkes in the 1970s, and even supposedly wrote a screenplay entitled The Council of Nine, which may or not be preserved on a recently-discovered cache of his floppy disks. (Also, don’t forget that one of the Star Trek series was entitled Deep Space Nine. The connection is so obvious, right?)

I recently spent an interesting afternoon with Andy Puharich, Dr. Puharich’s son. A sensible, sensitive, open-minded fellow, he moved to the Netherlands at the age of five when his parents divorced. However, he told me that he had many happy memories of spending summers here with his Dad – even attending Ossining High School for a year. Whenever he comes to visit his sister, who lives in Westchester, he always likes to stop by 87 Hawkes. He remembered a summer he spent at the Turkey Farm on Spring Valley Road when his father was running the “Space Kids” camp, or a New Age-y place for adolescents whom he believe possessed extra-sensory powers.

It all seems crazy, right? But you know what? As I’ve been researching and writing this, I’ve gone from thinking that Dr. Puharich was a fanatical nutjob to developing a grudging respect for him. Because he really seemed to believe what he was researching. And he did try to use traditional, scientific methods to study the mystical and magical. (He apparently had a Faraday Cage in his lab at 87 Hawkes Avenue!  That sounds legit, right?) To me, there’s something compelling about that kind of dedication and wildly imaginative thinking.

Dr. Puharich moved away from Ossining in 1978 or so, after his house had been severely damaged by arson. Andy told me he fled to Mexico in fear for his life and died penniless in North Carolina in 1995. At the time of his death (from falling down a flight of stairs) he was working on his patented process to split water molecules for fuel.  Check it out here.

He just never seemed to stop.

Just because it interests me, here’s an interview that he supposedly gave to “Reality Hackers Magazine” in 1988. I say supposedly, because “Reality Hackers Magazine” sounds, well, dodgy. But it’s an interesting read . . .

There’s also a documentary film in the works – check out the website here.

So, when you see that the little white house at 87 Hawkes Avenue has been demolished, and the Parth Knolls apartment complex begins rising, remember the history of that site!

Andrija Puharich’s home at 87 Hawkes Avenue