I would imagine that I have read more books on aliens than most sensible people, but in truth, I have only scratched the surface of UFO literature. Within ufology, there are texts that get mentioned again and again, and there are certain cases that many UFO writers expect their readers to be familiar with. One of the foundational texts of the field (maybe because of its role in John Keel’s Mothman Prophecies, another classic) is Woodrow Derenberger’s Visitors from Lanulos.

In truth, it has been many a twelvemonth since I read Keel’s Mothman book, but one of the things I do remember from it was the name Indrid Cold. Indrid Cold was a spaceman from a planet called Lanulos. He appeared and spoke telepathically to a salesman named Woodrow Derenberger when Woody was driving one night. After this Woody’s life changed forever. This book tells Woody’s story.

The first half of the book describes Woody’s encounters with Indrid Cold and his alien buddies and their trips around the universe in the spacemen’s spaceship. The latter half is mostly rants about how the government can’t be trusted because they are covering up the existence of our benevolent space brothers. Here’s my summary:

Ch.1
Woody meets an alien on the road and has a telepathic chat. The alien is nice. Woody tells his mates and becomes famous.
Ch. 2
NASA won’t disclose their alien info to public in case it causes a wave of suicide and women throwing their babies in front of trains.
Ch. 3
Indrid Cold and his buddy show up on the author’s doorstep and tell him about their world’s religion. They have no wars because they communicate telepathically and everyone loves everyone. Humans can learn telepathy too. The author can talk telepathically with 2 of his mates.
Ch. 4
Woody goes for a ride on a spaceship. They go to the Amazon, then Saturn and then Indrid’s mother ship. Woody meets lots of nice people there and eats alien potatoes. They take him to their planet but don’t let him get off because he’s not immunized. They tell him that they can let him live on Mars or Venus if he wants. It’s strange to me that these aliens are just men.
Ch. 5-7
Woody goes back to Lanulos and goes to Indrid’s home and meets his kids. Indrid has a daughter who was born shortly after Christmas. How that makes any sense to an alien is confusing. Woody goes out for a walk. The streets have built in escalators like at the airport. All the aliens are nude, and when Woody takes his clothes off to fit in, they stare at him because they have never seen a fat person before. Their existence is paradise. These aliens from a different planet eat beef and drink coffee. They don’t have sex outside of marriage. They are Christians and believe they will be with jesus when they die. A bit odd…
Ch. 8
Woody tells of the humanoids, a different race of aliens who like to steal things from people. Indrid Cold and his buddies chase these pesky (although not malicious) aliens out of the universe for annoying woody.
Ch. 9
Another alien takes Woody for a spaceship ride around the world. Their first stop is Iraq.
Ch. 10
Woody recounts some amusing events including the time that John Keel fell into a cowpat in his garden and having to deal with a rumour that the aliens had impregnated him.
Ch. 11
Woody describes the alien’s relationship with his family. His wife and kids were initially terrified, but once Indrid and his buddy dressed up as salesmen and tricked his wife into letting them into her home, she came to trust them… Woody boasts how he would get the space people to track his wife when she left the house alone. Quite a creepy thing to think about. Was he just following her himself and gaslighting her for fun?
Ch. 12
Woody goes to Venus. It is covered in vegetation and rivers and lakes. It’s always 100 degrees there. (It’s actually usually over 800 degrees and has no water.)
Ch. 13
Woody and his wife go to a party with a bunch of other freaks who constantly see spaceships. Unsurprisingly some aliens come to spy on them but run away when the partygoers start making spaceship noises.
Ch. 14
A few stories from other contactees including a mentally ill housewife who was cured of her neuroses on a trip to Lanulos and a doctor who gets telepathic advise from a Martian doctor on how to treat his patients. At one point aliens broke into this doctors house and scared his children when he wasn’t home.
Ch. 15
A race of dwarfs from the planet Jammu come to Earth and take blood samples from people under the orders of a dwarf named “Marma”. Men in Black are members of government agencies who want to maintain the status quo.
Ch. 16
The Government knows all about the aliens, but they keep it secret for control. They are liars. At this point the book is taking a very conspiratorial turn.
Ch. 17
Details a bunch of UFO sightings
Ch. 18
Men in Black call Woody and his family. There are no bad aliens visiting Earth because bad aliens wouldn’t be able to get a flight license from the Intergalactic Federation.
Ch. 19
Some more UFO reports
Ch. 20
The government know everything and are keeping it all a secret.
Ch. 21
Government scientists can’t be trusted. The military have alien crafts, but these weren’t from crashes or shot down. The aliens gave them to the military.

Obviously, the whole book is a bunch of nonsense. The visits to Lanulos were only marginally less ridiclous than Cecil Michael’s Round Trip to Hell in a Flying Saucer. I know that John Keel had a reputation for being willing to twist facts to suit his narrative, but it’s hard to believe that any sensible person would give any credence to Derenberger’s insane ramblings. This is cuckoo- crazy rubbish. Much of the attention paid to this book nowadays comes from Derenberger’s description of Indrid Cold’s creepy smile, but I don’t recall that being mentioned in the book, and if it is, it must have been a brief mention. The only part about Indrid’s face that I can find is where in the first chapter it says his expression changed sometimes. Maybe Derenberger did mention it, but it seems that the internet has really blown that tiny detail out of proportion. According to Woody, ol’ Indrid was a super-genuine, nice fellow.