Something in the Air

Topanga Canyon is the kind of place where, due to its physical and cultural isolation, one can still bump into a levitationist or a past life regressionist at Joe’s Market.

True, the nature of the community is changing, having been discovered by people with big bucks who are building gleaming white estates--mansions about as out of place in the mountains as cat houses in Vatican City.

But it’s still the type of community where transcendental meditationists thrive alongside cranial sacral therapists, and where psychic healers and feng shui consultants are safe to walk the streets at night.

Just the other evening I was in Rocco’s, the neighborhood Italian restaurant, when I overheard a local swear he had hired a day laborer who used telekinesis to transport a pile of lumber from one part of his yard to another. It cost a little more but the effect was worth it.

I mention this spooky stuff because of a new book by Preston Dennett called “UFOs Over Topanga Canyon,” in which he interviews people who say they have seen, heard, felt or perceived flying saucers.

The dreamier among them claim to have actually communicated with the saucer people or in some cases been kidnapped by them. The abductees now walk around in white robes banging tambourines.

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Dennett, who is convinced that there are alien spacecraft hovering about the Santa Monica Mountains, is less theatrical in his beliefs. He doesn’t wear a white robe and, at least during the course of our conversation, didn’t bang a tambourine.

He is a slightly built, balding, soft-spoken man of 34, who in the real world works as an accountant for a collection agency. In the astral world he is a field investigator for the Mutual UFO Network and has published several books and magazine articles on the subject.

My interest in this book rests in his contention that many of the sightings have occurred right in my own neighborhood. They began shortly after a film director moved in and, while I don’t hold him directly responsible for the odd goings-on, I am made uneasy by the coincidence.

People in show biz often emit strange magnetic impulses likely to attract pretty odd individuals.

Dennett tells of one neighbor whose pregnancy with twins was apparently responsible for drawing the attention of some other-world aliens. One presumes they do not have multiple births on their own planet.

They landed their craft right outside her window. She became aware of them in a twilight dream-reality state during which she found herself in a round room being examined by strange-looking figures who were not from around here.

“I know this sounds funny,” Dennett said with a nervous laugh, “but they told her not to get politically involved. She was supporting Ross Perot at the time.”

With Jesse Ventura, Warren Beatty and Donald Trump all making sounds like they want to run for president, advice from another planet might be well worth listening to.

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The book cites several dozen instances in which Topangans have seen UFOs. Dennett, who once wanted to be a science fiction writer, admits there is no way of proving or disproving what he’s told but believes the sighters and alien abductees are telling the truth.

I know one of the sighters in the book. His name is Eric Beckjord. I met him a few years ago when he ran a Bigfoot museum in the back room of a Malibu bar and talked about communicating with one of the big, hairy creatures telepathically, which, I guess, is how all strange creatures communicate.

As Beckjord tells it, he was in a remote section of Northern California looking for Bigfoot when: “I received a mental message that said, ‘We’re here but we’re not here.’ I said, ‘What the hell are you?’ The voice replied, ‘We’re not real.’ ”

How he determined it was a Bigfoot was never clearly established, but somehow, given his paranormal abilities, he knew.

Beckjord seems to have an affinity for things unreal, and I suspect others in Dennett’s book are possessed with similar powers. That’s fortunate, because the canyon, as the author tells it, is a “hot spot” for UFOs.

They could learn from us. We coexist beautifully in Topanga. Writers drink with oracles at Willows. CPAs dine with hypno-visionists at the Inn of the Seventh Ray.

We all believe in different things. And if the people in Dennett’s book want to believe in space fairies, that’s all right with me. I saw the face of the Virgin Mary in a martini glass once and it changed my life. I was so shaken, I switched to scotch for a week.

Al Martinez’s column appears Sundays and Wednesdays. He can be reached online at al.martinez@latimes.com.