First – Her childhood was anything but normal, with Lizard-man faces peering in windows, a stepfather kidnapping and four-day disappearance and a sense of unique-ness that comes from feeling different. We may see the hurricane incident at 14 as a suicide attempt, if true, and a compensatory fantasy if not. Either way, the picture emerges of a child with many deep-rooted emotional problems.

Second – Between the ages of 14 and 37, we are told nothing of Laura’s history except that she was suicidal again in her 20s and that she met Lewis at the local community college. The implication is that she met Lewis, fell in love and started a family. The "truth," as Laura herself has revealed in her voluminous and on-going autobiography Amazing Grace, is quite different.

Third – Between 1989 and 1993, Laura had several experiences that convinced her that she was even more special, culminating in the second of the three "miracles" in her life, her UFO sighting.

Four – From these events came the core of the Cassiopaean experience. Laura had made the ouiji board work for her in the Montana affair, so naturally she would prefer that as a way to "channel." And of course, the whole issue of UFOs and so on would be at the center of the developing belief system. Hence, her coming out party, so to speak, at the local Mufon meeting where Tom French met her can be seen as a very significant event.

In his article, Tom French does address the trauma in Laura’s childhood and the possible pathology arising from it. However much we might wish that he had insisted on that psychological examination, given the events of the past few months, it was his choice and ultimately he was right. The St. Pete Times article was not meant as an expose on the pathology of talking to aliens on a ouiji board.

However, it is less understandable why he ignored an entire 23-year period of her life. We can be sure that if there had been anything in those years that was of value to Tom French’s main thesis – how well Laura coped with her belief system and fantasy world - he would have mentioned it. Since these years are lightly glossed over even though Tom informs us that he questioned her about them, we can only suppose that the details are such that, if they had been brought to light, the focus of the article would have inevitably become the pathology of someone who believes they talk to aliens via a ouiji board.

Indeed, from her autobiography, which spares no one any of the details that Laura can make seem significant, we can see that there are many truly pathological episodes indicative of a very unusual personality, to say the least, in those missing years. Even with Laura’s attempts to spin-doctor and put the best light on everything by constantly blaming everyone else for her mistakes, there were apparently things so bizarre and pathological that even "Amazing Grace" couldn’t explain them away.

On one such incident Laura herself has recently seen fit to supply the long suppressed details. In an article curiously titled "What is Laura Hiding? The Cassiopaeans Answer," found at cassiopaea.org/cass/tallahassee.htm, Laura reveals what may be the pivotal moment in her development.

Since the reader will quickly note that in addition to her usual slanderous comments about me, Laura has now decided that I somehow am blackmailing her, because her guilty conscience determined that my "sordid saga" comment could only mean that I had discovered her deepest (?) darkest secret and was going to use it against her. Never mind that the sordid saga referred to was the complete unedited transcripts, or that the story of my own involvement with her is sordid enough a saga in and of itself, in Laura’s mind, it could only be the "secret."

Yes, I had indeed heard a rumour through a source that wishes to remain anonymous that Laura had such an incident in her past. When I located Mr. Irland and asked him about it, he confirmed only that Laura had told him a version of the story. He added that he didn’t really believe it because of her long record of inflating the facts and confusing them with her own fantasies.

And there the matter rested until one of Laura’s intelligence sources informed her that I was asking questions on the subject. She immediately produced the article, complete with comments from the now omniscient Cassiopaeans, and her version of the story, supposedly the very one she emailed to Ark early in their email romance. However, as there have now been at least three versions that original email – each version adds just a touch here or there – one must wonder just how honest she is really being. A story that changes, three times over the course of two days, in response to reader comments and a need to appear even more sympathetic, simply can not be considered credible.

Here’s the latest version, as of 3 pm EST, Sunday, January 13, 2002:

"As I noted, my mother was a bookkeeper who had contracted with several local businesses to do their books. One of these businesses was owned by a man who was also something of a local politician. He ran for a State office and was elected so spent much of his time in Tallahassee, the State Capitol. Mother ran his business for him.

"He was sort of like a local "big wig" who had a home in the county, and an apartment in Tallahassee. When he was in residence here, he would come to the house and discuss the business with mother and drop off and pick up the accounting and checks and deposits and so forth.

"During this time, I was spending many hours a day practicing the piano. I would practice in one room while they would spread out papers on the table in the other room.

"One day mother announced that this man had expressed an interest in me and wanted to send me to school in Tallahassee where he could oversee my care. She thought this was wonderful and a great opportunity!"

< This is very curious, but most bizarre is the third paragraph. This is an image taken directly from Doctor Zhivago, a movie that was popular a few years earlier whose main character was another "Laura.">

"It was agreed that this plan would be put into action, but I had to finish school first. So, I attended locally from September 1969 to December 1969. At that point, the plan was that I would go to Tallahassee and finish high school there in an accelerated class, and then be enrolled at the University. So, in January I went.

"An apartment had been reserved for me in the same building this man lived in when he was there doing his legislative duties, whatever they were. Everything had been arranged. So, I went to school, met new people, and things were fine for a few months - through April. The apartment building had a nice pool, and I enjoyed studying by the pool... or, for me, at least reading. A friend of mine came to stay with me because I was lonely and her mother knew this man also and thought this would be fine for her as well."

< This is the spring of 1970, and two high school girls are living alone in an apartment hundreds of miles from home under the care of an older man and no one notices anything unusual? I just don’t believe it as presented. There must be more to the story than that. >

"One night he came to our apartment and asked me to come down so he could talk to me privately since he had something very special to tell me and it was a surprise.

"So, in an hour, when I was done with my homework, I walked down the outside walkway and knocked on the door. He answered wearing a robe and smoking a cigar and with a glass of liquor in his hand.

"To make a long story short, it became clear that the man expected "payment" for his help. I was so dumb that I actually thought that he was just being a nice guy with a "fatherly" interest in me. But that wasn't the case."

< This scenario is at least possible. But - and here we must try to remember back 30 years - well brought up young ladies, who have just finished their homework upstairs, didn’t enter a gentlemen’s apartment if he was drinking and only partially clothed. However, such things do happen…>

"When I said "no," he got rough. When he got rough, I fought back. When I fought back, he became enraged and started choking me. Since we happened to be standing in the kitchen, and I was being pressed back against the counter and was starting to lose consciousness, I threw my hands back to grab the counter to keep from falling. When I did, my hand landed on a heavy object with a handle. I grabbed it and hit him with it. He loosened his hold momentarily, but then started squeezing again and I hit him again, only harder this time since I had been able to get a breath. I hit him again in the head, and it was sort of a nightmare where he was totally enraged and I was totally determined to hit him until he let go of me."

<That makes three heavy blows with what? A sauce pan? An iron skillet? The kitchen is such an awkward place for a seduction that our suspicions are aroused once again. Komerovsky certainly treated Laura in the movie better than that… >

"At this point, he was bleeding on me, still refusing to let go, so I hit him again. I think I must have landed about 4 or five good ones before he let go to try to protect his head from another, and when he did I ran like hell. I was sure that he was after me, and I made it to my apartment, banged wildly on the door for my friend to let me in. She did and was utterly horrified. We were both just hysterical."

< That makes seven or eight good solid shots, hard enough to lacerate the scalp, with a heavy object. He let go because he was probably unconscious. Note however what happened next: >

"She was hysterical at the blood all over me and we didn't know what to do... so she made me take off my clothes and go take a shower... then, while I was in the shower, still shaking with the thought that the man could force his way into the apartment, she told me that police cars and an ambulance were in the parking lot outside. Apparently the man had gone out to the balcony and yelled "rape" or some such nonsense, and someone heard him and called the police. I was dressed and shaking violently when the knock came at the door. He had made a statement to the emergency crew that I had attacked him for no reason after coming on to him sexually!!"

< Now, Laura has left the guy for dead, run to her apartment, taken a shower and changed clothes, all before the cops track her down. And of course, her roommate made her do it… Never once, although she has been attacked, almost raped perhaps, and has almost killed her attacker, does she make that 911 call. The police have to come to her door to question her. Note also that in her original version of this paragraph, the man "crawled to the balcony and called ‘help,’ " not rape, and the last sentence is missing. This changes the tone of the paragraph. >

"I told them what really happened, and they were satisfied but told me not to go anywhere for a while until they investigated further."

<Yet she still didn’t file any charges against her attacker. >

"And, seemingly the incident was closed. But, three days later, I was called out of my English class to find a message that the police department wished to ask me a few more questions. So, after school, I took the bus to the police headquarters. When I walked in, expecting to answer questions, handcuffs were immediately place on me and I was arrested for "Assault with a Deadly Weapon With Intent to Commit Murder." The guy had created a fantastic story in which he was the "innocent" victim of a crazed teenager."

<This paragraph has also changed to highlight her victimhood. The last sentence is new, and is designed to support her victim status. But the reality of the situation seems to be clear from a law enforcement point of view. She beat the man senseless and left him for dead, then went to her apartment and destroyed the incriminating evidence. How could they not arrest her? >

"And I was taken and locked in a cell.

"There is no way to describe such a transition. None. If a person is of a nature that they deliberately break laws, there is some idea in their mind that this could be a result. But, for a person who has, essentially, done nothing wrong but be stupid and naive, someone who has been betrayed by someone she trusted, who has been viciously attacked, and then, instead of anyone realizing that I was the VICTIM, I was put in jail on the word of a psychopath and charged with trying to murder him! All women who have suffered this way understand that such an event is in a class by itself especially when the realization comes that grandfather cannot fix it, mother cannot fix it, no one can fix it. And, when the realization came that this was a "capital crime" and just having someone come and pay money to get one out of jail was not possible, well... just imagine it."

<This paragraph has undergone several subtle changes to make it match more closely the comments given on the Reader’s Comment section of the article. Note that she feels she has done nothing wrong, even though she almost killed a man left him for dead and went and destroyed the evidence. She feels completely innocent and justified in her behavior. She is the "VICTIM" even though someone else is in the hospital. >

"A week later I was taken, in handcuffs, to court and stood before a judge who read the formal charges. I was just 18 years old, and I had to walk down a public street, between two policmen, in chains.

"The judge asked me if I had legal counsel. I started to cry and said no. But, a man sitting in the row of attorneys jumped to his feet and came forward and said: "Yes she does, your honor! I am offering my services!" He then asked me if I would accept him as my attorney and I said yes. So that was settled. I had an attorney. His name was Brian T. Hayes. He was assisted by a cracker jack Private Investigator, Joseph Aloi, and both of them were literally Knights in Shining Armor."

< Mr. Haynes was hired by Laura’s maternal grandfather, according to my original sources, and was well paid for his services. >

"What they discovered about my "benefactor" was shocking. It seems that I had been the prey of a very sharp operator who had been trying to gradually draw me into a very ugly operation. [Sounds a lot like the situation with Vincent Bridges, eh?] And only my instinctive refusal to be used had saved me. Indeed, my resistance had plunged me into a somewhat serious problem, as it has repeatedly in my life. The Powers of Darkness don't like it when you resist their attempts to control you or draw you into their plans. It is the same now as it was then."

< She reveals just a glimpse of her pathology here, as she confuses me with the Komerovsky figure in her past. >

"You see, as a minor government official, my "benefactor" had a little side-line: he made home movies used for blackmail. Apparently, he had plans for me. He wanted to use me as the "star" in movies that would be filmed by a secret camera set up in an A/C vent. These movies would then be used to extort money, favors, and probably even for a special brand of "lobbying."

"All of the evidence of this little "business" was discovered while the guy was in the hospital, desperately trying to lie his way out of the mess he was in. He even tried to change his claims that I had assaulted him for no reason, he was so desperate to avoid scrutiny. But it was no go. Once the State decides to prosecute, it doesn't matter if someone who formerly claimed to be a victim has now changed his mind. The State is a juggernaut, and the trial DID take place.

"Well, the bloodbath in the courtroom was actually worse than the one at the time of the incident. The guy, like all true psychopaths, lied himself black in the face, even when confronted with hard evidence of his intentions, his actions, his perfidy - in his own writing - and the end result was a resounding return of the verdict of "Not Guilty By Reason of Self Defense." And the only reason he wasn't proscuted for his own crimes was that he was so pitiful and swore he had learned his lesson, and also because he still had a few people in government offices who would go to bat for him (probably because he was blackmailing them.)"

< A verdict of not guilty by reason of self-defence means that the charge is true, she did try to kill her attacker, but that the person was justified in that action. In other words, she got away with it. Her attacker was not prosecuted because she did not, ever it seems, file any charges against him. This, in and of itself, is very curious.

And so, we are left with a story of a very disturbed young woman in very serious trouble. This pivotal incident in Laura’s life was apparently researched by Tom French and then glossed over in the article: "moments where she had made a mistake or done something she regretted." But, as Mr. French must surely have realized, this one event so coloured Laura’s reality that much of what happened in the following years is directly attributable to the beliefs she formed from it.

Most obvious perhaps is the fact that this disrupted her senior year of high school and she in all likelihood didn’t graduate. From this slight would come a burning desire to continually prove herself smarter, better read, than anyone else around her. Eventually, this knee-jerk reaction would lead her to attempt to re-write history, geology, physics and so on to match the received knowledge, so much better than an education anyway, of the Cassiopaeans.

Less obvious, but even more powerful, is the sense of entitlement and invulnerability this close call gave her. She got away with it, she was not held accountable. The jury decided she was justified in her actions, which is an even stronger reinforcement of a sense of entitlement. So not only did she get away with it, but in her mind, it felt as if it were a gift of complete invulnerability, a get out of jail free card that was meant to last her the entire length of the game, perhaps even for life.

And, at the deepest level of all, it convinced her that there was something very confusing and wrong about herself. Even now, more than thirty years later, the guilty pleasures and confusions of the episode rise to the surface in her ever-changing description of the incident. Her title says it all "What is Laura Hiding?"

Well, it isn’t just that she prefers not to discuss this event. No, Laura is hiding the deep dark secret of herself, the wounded and abused child who has finally created a fantasy big enough and all encompassing enough to subsume all the lesser dramas of a life rich with such emotional feasts. The Cassiopaeans, and the cult arising from the material, are in a way an artistic expression of Laura’s deeply repressed fantasies of power, revenge on the abuser, and the titillation of psychic exhibitionism laced with the adoration of the faithful.

It is this heady psychological brew that is threatened by any objective appraisal, even one as positive as Tom French’s, of Laura’s life or work. No wonder she wanted to go out and raid news boxes. Any depiction of her life, but her own, is absolutely forbidden.