Visitors From Lanulos

By: Woodrow Derenberger

Narrated by: John N Gully

Length: 2 hrs and 54 mins

Publisher's Summary

New Saucerian Press proudly presents the Visitors From Lanulos! Initially published in 1971, this book became perhaps the rarest UFO contactee book ever. Prior to its 2014 reissue, there were only a half-dozen copies remaining in the world's library system, with the rest trading for thousands of dollars each.

Woodrow Derenberger, the author of the book, claimed to have had a series of strange adventures beginning on November 2nd, 1966. While driving home from Parkersburg, West Virginia, to his suburban home in Mineral Wells, he suddenly found the highway blocked by a large gray object. Someone emerged from the object and walked to the passenger side window of his car. The man introduced himself as "a searcher", and offered words of comfort to Derenberger.

After noting that he would come again, the spaceman, who called himself "Indrid Cold", stepped back into the object and it rose out of sight. Derenberger went home and told his story to his wife. He then called the police and the press. Soon after, other witnesses came forward to say that they, too, had seen Cold talking to Derenberger by the side of the road. (In time, several locals would have their own encounters with Cold.)

Two days later while driving in his car, Derenberger began to receive telepathic communications from Cold, who described himself as from the galaxy of Ganymede; Cold also supplied some information about his life, including the observation that people on his planet (Lanulos) lived to be 125 to 175 of our Earth years.

This indispensable special edition of Visitors From Lanulos features introductions by John A. Keel and Taunia Derenberger-Bowman (Woody's daughter), an epilogue by the publisher, Andy Colvin, and a special addendum from Gray Barker.

©2014 Andrew B. Colvin (P)2014 Andrew B. Colvin

Provocative

Too often UFO 'documentary' writings are perfect in their believability and character profiles of the witnesses and authors. This book's author is less than convincing and less than perfect, in some, but not all segments of his story, which, in the final analysis, convinced me that his experiences were real, even if imperfect. In fact I am convinced that there is enough valuable information in Woody's book to merit a re-read, note-taking, and further research into related events. It is those imperfections that have led in part to my conclusion that the story is not a polished masterpiece written and edited to convince, but likely is a true-to-life narrative written by a 'real person' to tell his story as honestly as an uncomplicated man could in the 1960's when faced with these experiences. There is enough anecdotal and collaborative detail to launch another whole book based on precent day retrospective research around Woody's named friends, events, and sightings.

2 of 2 people found this review helpful

Wishful Thinking?

Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?

Don't think so. The author trips himself up by inserting his own religious bias and by his descriptions of "friends he visited with Saturn and Venus."

Would you recommend Visitors From Lanulos to your friends? Why or why not?

Answered above

What about John N Gully’s performance did you like?

He was fine and easy to follow.

If this book were a movie would you go see it?

No, too ridiculous

Any additional comments?

At first, the book seemed rational and interesting. However, as it went on major flaws started to appear. First, if that many people, who he claims, were involved in these interactions and sightings were true, why did no one ever know about it? It would hardly seem possible to suppress that much activity. Second, Even back in the late 60's we already knew that both Venus and Saturn were absolutely uninhabitable, so this guy visited both and reported beautiful scenery and cities with many inhabitants??? Also, as the book goes on he repeatedly brings up how the "Lunutians" worship God and believe in Christianity and Jesus. So, he would like readers to believe that Christianity is not just another Earth based philosophy, but a universal one??? Excuse me, but that just doesn't make much sense as even Earth has many more spiritual philosophies than that one. Because so many of our wars are created by peoples' religious fanaticism and intolerance of other beliefs, I find it very hard to believe that an advanced extra terrestrial civilization would embrace one short lived Earth based religion or even any religion at all. People (even aliens) can be good and loving without being religious. As the book went on, it became evident that the author was using supposed UFO contact to further his own religious agenda.

4 of 5 people found this review helpful

First person experience of alien ufo & other world

After listening to John Keel's audio collection Flying Saucer to the Center of Your Mind (Audible) and Graham Hancock's book Supernatural (Audible) - plus a couple of other books on UFO/Dimensional experiences, there were some portions of the story, plainly and well-told, that reminded me of those 2 audiobooks.

This book is almost entirely a first-person account, while the other books are overviews that dip into specifics and then analyze and make some conclusions or theories. So, those portions of Mr. Derenberger's experiences that made me think about what other authors have written were the most interesting.

The epilogue addressed some of the similarities I wondered about.

The narrator was good, maybe a bit "dry" or mechanical but very clear and clean in voice.

The book's tone is honest and sincere and has a bit of humor in it. Some of the information given to the author may not have been true, but the experiences related ring true.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

I love old ufo stories

That being said, I really enjoyed this story, not that I believe it, but who's to say. Yes I believe in Aliens and contact, I just had a hard time fully believing that this happened. But yeah, I listen to it again, it was fun

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

An important entry in the history of Contactees

Whether you are a believer, or skeptic, Derenberger's story is an enthralling tale that gives us a unique look into the evolution of the Contactee and UFO phenomenon. Certain observations, like the aliens recording photos on punch cards, seem downright anachronistic by today's standards, though it would have been familiar to anyone working in computers at the time. What this says about the phenomenon, I'll leave to the reader (or listener for Audible), but the tale is full of interesting anecdotes like this that will ring familiar to students of folklore and forteana alike.
If Mothman was your gateway, Lanulos should be your next stop along the path.

credibility issues hard to take serious

This book seems interesting yet what is being claimed is astounding and very hard to take seriously. The fact that so many others encountered them not to mentioned some of Alien tech reminded me of 1960-70 era future dreams and visions. He also seems to accept based on appearance and wha they tell him. After our encounters we are not a sure we can rely on what we perceive with our senses and notions based on concepts we already understand.

Something is going on but I felt this book didn't share any info to assist, and also the planet stuff seemed very lame and made up. Often truth is stranger than fiction but in this case I feel a 16 year old in his basement could have crafted a better alien human society. I am very open minded though, he may have had some experiences but it didn't really convince me that his stories are credible considering the mountain of circumstantial evidence this case would almost be a smoking gun story.

Different spin on aliens and planets

Captivating holds your attention. This story is quite different from my experience with the grays as we call them.
This is a great effort to bring understanding and awareness that we not be afraid of Extraterrestrials.
Willa Adkins

Very good story!

Reminds me of some of my own expierences with other beings.

I'll recommend this book to every UFO & Aliens entusiasts (:

Alien Contact

Any additional comments?

This is a story of an early ufo contact and how it affected a man and his community.The story was well written.A very good short story read by John N Gully,who did a fine job reading in a professional 'x files' manner.I was gifted a copy for a fair review.

Visitors from Lanulos

If you could sum up Visitors From Lanulos in three words, what would they be?

It is an interesting fact or fiction about creatures that are alien here on this planet earth. The narrator was very good