Reflections From “Raechel’s Eyes”

Helen Littrell

One thing that never lets go is the memory of my first meeting with Raechel. Even as I write this, the scene unfolds before my eyes, as it always does, and every time it’s always exactly the same. Nothing has changed in the more than 30 years since that seemingly innocent scenario with Marisa and Raechel on a warm summer evening in 1972. I still remember what each of us was wearing, where we stood, what we said. The moment I recall it, a portal opens to this vivid segment of the past and I instantly step through, again a participant.

I’d stopped by to visit my daughter Marisa. I was also hoping to meet her unusual roommate Raechel. The two were college students and had been living together only a short while. Marisa had already mentioned several bizarre things concerning Raechel and my interest was piqued, but it turned out Raechel wasn’t home yet from a late class.

As I was about to leave, standing in the open doorway, saying goodbye to Marisa, we heard Raechel’s footsteps coming up the stairs. Passing between us, she paused only long enough for Marisa to introduce us, then continued to her room to retrieve class notes she said she’d forgotten.

As she returned, something happened…the beginning of my awareness that Raechel was not an “ordinary” person. Even the manner of her participation in the introduction, with her measured, mechanical-sounding speech, was in itself a “red flag” that signified all was not what it seemed to be. Actually very little of what occurred during the next few minutes was what it seemed to be. Or, perhaps I should say, it was far more than it seemed to be…

Meeting Raechel for the First Time
Raechel returns through the living room, and heads toward the doorway where Marisa and I are still making small talk. Just before reaching the doorway she trips on the carpet and loses her balance. Making no effort whatsoever to catch herself, her body ramrod straight, she falls forward still clutching the papers in her right hand.

It looks as though she is going to land flat on her face so I reach out to save her. I turn slightly to my right, take a couple of steps toward her, and grab her left arm with my right hand. The sleeve of her long-sleeved jumpsuit slides up and I am holding firmly onto her left forearm. I return her body to an upright position. My fingers are grasping skin I immediately realize with shock is not regular skin, not human skin. It has a cool, spongy feel to it. It reminds me of the way mushrooms feel.

A sudden flash of memory reminds me of my doll, Beverly, a Christmas gift from my aunt many years ago when I was six. Her skin was advertised to feel “nearly human, you can hardly tell the difference.” The skin on Raechel’s arm does not feel human, and I can tell the difference.

I continue to steady her for a moment, at the same time noticing the large, dark, wraparound sunglasses that she is wearing have slipped down almost to the tip of her tiny nose. I am now very close to Raechel’s face, looking straight into huge, rounded eyes that extend clear around to the sides of her temples—huge green eyes the color of the inside of an avocado, with vertical black slits and no pupils. My eyes hold hers and I am mesmerized. Then I realize I’m staring, so I break the gaze, look away momentarily, and release my hold on her arm since she has regained her balance.

She thanks me in a mechanical voice and leaves hastily. I am confused by what I have seen, no longer able to say goodbye to Marisa and go home as I had planned. I know I have seen something not of this world and I am stunned. Briefly, when I first looked into those eyes, I was frightened, but now the fear is gone. Yet my mind is racing, with my emotions going every which way. I’ve never felt like this before.

Marisa suggests I sit down, says she has something important to tell me. I agree, since I’m in no condition to drive home. Marisa doesn’t appear to have noticed anything out of the ordinary, but she’s only partially-sighted. Maybe that’s the reason. Somehow, though, I think there’s more to it than that.

Memory of Daughter Marisa Spurs Me On
The events related above are exactly what I’d always remembered, before hypnosis, before I did the digging that was involved in writing the book Raechel’s Eyes. The memories had remained stationary for 30 years. I’d dealt with their strangeness by keeping them “locked in a little box” in my mind. Whenever I chose to take them out, which was not often, I felt safe in the knowledge that they could at any time be put back in the little box and locked up until I might choose to deal with them again.

It is now three years since Raechel’s Eyes was published. The book is the story of the events my daughter, Marisa, and I experienced with her college roommate, Raechel, a hybrid human-alien being, and with Raechel’s human adoptive father, Air Force Col. Nadien. It is also the story of my dawning realization that I had a hidden history as an abductee, and the mystery of what might be the interrelationship between that and the strange events involving Raechel.

Ever since 1972 I’d struggled with the question of whether I should go public with the story of Raechel. Then, in 1990, Marisa passed away suddenly from complications of diabetes. During the grieving process the story was constantly on my mind. It became evident the fear and apprehension that had plagued me all those years was something I needed to face. And I needed to do it now. I hoped the process of writing a book would help me through my grief. Besides, it was something Marisa and I had planned to do—someday.

Writing a book seemed overwhelming, but I began it in tiny increments. Recalling one incident at a time, bit by bit it began to come together. Always, however, was the nagging feeling that everything I knew about Raechel was only the tip of an iceberg. If only I could recall more, I thought, the story would make more sense. To make matters worse, Raechel was a subject I had never been able to easily discuss with anyone but Marisa.

Now, Marisa was gone, and it was up to me. There was a little saying she used frequently that seemed appropriate now: “Whatever it takes!” That’s what she had always said.

Could Regressive Hypnosis Help Me Recover My Memories?
I had heard regression hypnosis could be useful in helping to recover memories. Would hypnosis help me fill in the gaps in the bits and pieces of information that periodically floated to the surface?

In early 1998, a colleague contacted June Steiner, PhD, and she graciously agreed to conduct several regressions with me in what she considered a fascinating case of possible human-alien contact, one of the areas in which she specializes.

At first a bit apprehensive about meeting June and undergoing regression, I ultimately decided that whatever I might discover couldn’t be more frightening or bizarre than what I already knew. Any remaining doubts were laid to rest the moment I met June, and her husband, who accompanied her to our first long weekend of several sessions.

Although the memories evoked during the regressions were stressful, most difficult of all was transcribing the taped regression sessions. Under hypnosis, I’d been in a trancelike state which cushioned the reliving of each event. However, as I transcribed the tapes, I was fully awake and aware, listening carefully in order to correctly capture each word and nuance, hearing the raw emotion in my voice as well as June’s. Frequently, tears streamed down my face until I could barely see. When this happened, I simply stopped for a few moments, listened to some calming music, had a cup of tea, and resumed transcribing. Looking back, I realize the truth of what a friend told me a few months ago. Reliving all the original events, bizarre as they were, had been good for me. I’d come out the other side unharmed, a much stronger, better person.

The Book Is Released—Worries Vanish as Support Grows
Once the book came out, my concerns were how it would be received and, more importantly, how I might be perceived. I have been a medical transcriptionist for many years. Would my clients now find me too controversial to do business with? Would my friends decide I was too “far out” for them? Would I begin receiving hate mail and threatening letters?

These worries vanished as the emails and phone calls arrived. Many were from readers who were fellow abductees and experiencers. Often, this was the first time they had dared to speak about their experiences, stating they’d never felt comfortable or safe in doing so. I understood the courage it took to contact me, a complete stranger, and I knew only too well the fear and reticence connected with stepping forth. Fortunately, they were not seeking advice, because I had none to offer. They simply wanted a compassionate listener, and they found one in me.

I now saw that Raechel’s Eyes had become an instrument of comfort and hope to many, and I knew that going public was the right thing to do after all.

Details Emerge Under Hypnosis
The first regression took me back to my initial meeting with Raechel in the apartment. June began by assuring me I was safe. Next she moved me back through time to the moment I first met Raechel. I relived the whole event in minute detail, down to the actual conversation with Marisa as we stood in the doorway saying goodbye, both of us wishing I could have met Raechel. When Raechel appeared, I described her in detail…the “big glasses, the scarf tied around her head and under her chin, her face extraordinarily small,” the light blue color of her long-sleeved, one-piece jumpsuit, her somewhat awkward body build, and her general “funny-looking” appearance. I re-experienced the queasy sensation I’d felt as she stood in front of me and I stared at her, powerfully compelled to keep looking at her huge, riveting eyes.

June next asked what Raechel’s hands looked like. Nausea kicked in as I described them as “not right.” I distinctly saw her hands as somehow artificial in appearance with only four fingers all the same length on each hand, and no fingernails. I’m again feeling that peculiar queasy feeling as I write this.

The session continued and I heard Raechel’s mechanical, expressionless voice speaking words during our introduction in a tone of voice that also was “not right,” although her words were entirely appropriate. At that point I began sobbing, but June once again comforted me, and in a few moments we continued.

Next we moved to the incident where Raechel tripped and I caught her. Now my feelings changed. I found myself staring deep into her huge, avocado-green eyes, mesmerized by the vertical black slits, initially terrified. I felt the slits themselves were pulling me deep inside them, and I felt from her a desperate effort to communicate something she was unable or unwilling to verbalize. Now my fear vanished. I realized Raechel was the one terrified. She was attempting to communicate telepathically that she meant no harm to me and hoped I meant none to her. My stare still unbroken but the apprehension gone, I then appreciated the real beauty of Raechel’s eyes as they pulled me so deeply into them, beauty I hadn’t realized existed until now.

Following a full weekend of regressions wherein I revisited familiar and not-so-familiar places and different dimensions, my head was crammed full of details that had to be assimilated. Relief accompanied the realization that at last I was aware of some of the details buried so many years. I also learned that the reason I couldn’t fully remember them previously was that I’d been programmed not to recall them until the time was right. And that may have been a good thing, because during the period in 1972 when these events had taken place, I believe I wouldn’t have been able to handle them emotionally.

Another thing. At least now I knew the events had actually occurred—no more of the old, at best fuzzy, recall up to a certain point, followed by the old familiar brick wall. I was no longer fearful of what might have happened. Now I knew what really took place.

A Transformational Experience
After 30 years, my life was finally beginning to make sense, at least to me. And nothing would ever again be the same, and neither would I. There was also a sense of knowing that although many answers had been provided, many had not. But, perhaps there was no need for that.

Bringing Raechel’s Eyes to the public has provided the means to create dramatic, positive changes in how I feel, how I think, how I act, and most importantly, who I am. It has opened portals I never dreamed existed, guided me to worlds I could only have imagined, and allowed me to participate in experiences still hard for me to comprehend. The word “portals” is significant to me because one event during the summer of 1972 was neither a doorway nor a window, at least not as we know it, although it was an entranceway.

A dramatic episode revealed under hypnosis occurred on another afternoon when I stopped by Marisa’s apartment. Marisa was still at class. Raechel, however, was present and she immediately initiated an intense dialogue, emphasizing she wished I were her mother. I responded that there was no way I could be, but I’d love to be her friend. Apparently not satisfied, she restated her wish, adding that she wanted to show me the place where she’d been raised.

Raechel Takes Me on an Unforgettable Visit
At this point I remember standing in the kitchen leaning against a porcelain-topped kitchen table with my left hand on the edge of the table top. The apartment was hot and stuffy in the early summer heat, and the cool porcelain felt good. I distinctly recall that pleasant sensation on my hand even as I’m writing this. Raechel stood approximately five feet from me, in front of the refrigerator, at the side of which were lined up several large, clear jugs containing her drinking liquid, the only fluid she was allowed to consume. As she stared intently at me, I felt pulled into those vertical black slits in her huge, avocado-green eyes.

Suddenly I found myself standing in a large, oval, white-walled enclosure where windows surrounded an inner, smaller, oval-shaped room. I was on the outside of the windows while Raechel was on the inside. She instructed me to come inside with her, and I responded that I couldn’t; there was no doorway. She replied I didn’t need a door, that I should place the palm of my hand on the window in front of me, that she would place hers in the same location on the inside, and that I could then come through. I did as she asked and almost instantly found myself in the inner room beside her.

I clearly recall the uneasy sensation of passing through the glass. My body felt elongated and wavy as I passed through, similar to ripples created when one tosses a pebble into a pool. On finding myself inside the windows, standing beside Raechel, I was instantly back into my normal body.

Several extremely bizarre, unsettling events occurred once Raechel showed me what was inside the oval-windowed room, events that, as I relived them during regressions, were very emotionally disturbing, and continue to be.

Next, I was back in the kitchen, still leaning against the table, my left hand still in its position on the cool porcelain. Raechel was where she had been, near the refrigerator, facing me, but no longer staring at me. And Marisa still had not returned. I said goodbye and quickly left.

My outlook on life changed drastically from that moment. I may never know all the reasons Raechel took me to that room inside the windows, although I have my own ideas and they will forever haunt me. Of one thing I am sure. On that summer afternoon I journeyed through a portal to another dimension with her, to the place she called home. During one of the regressions in 1998, when I dealt with this event, I discovered it was a turning point in my life. In that most bizarre of all places I learned clearly from Raechel what my mission was to be and, in the course of writing Raechel’s Eyes, I have accomplished it. The whole experience has given me the incentive and ability to “be who I am.”

As a result, I’m able to lend strength and courage to other experiencers by listening quietly as they relate details of abductions, sightings, contacts, whatever disturbing memories they choose to share. I have no suggestions, no answers, nor am I sure there are any. What I do have to offer is a sympathetic ear, and perhaps most importantly, compassion, which may be the greatest gift I, in turn, have received from Raechel’s Eyes.