The first person to channel Commander Ashtar was George Van Tassel. He conducted a series of ET channeling sessions that ran from January of 1952 up until March of 1953. Up until July of 1952, the messages appear to come from a number of different entities, most of whom don't appear more than once. Ashtar first appears on July 18th of 1952, and basically takes over completely in late August.
So what kinds of things did Commander Ashtar say? Here are a few samples. On July 18th, 1952, Commander Ashtar introduces himself: Hail to you, beings of Shan. I greet you in love and peace. My identity is Ashtar, commandant quadra sector, patrol station Schare, all projections, all waves. (According to the channeled messages, "Shan" is the name for Earth used by these entities.) Ashtar goes on to proclaim that if Earth people don't stop developing and detonating nuclear weapons, they would intervene and shut down all nuclear weapons programs. Obviously, this never happened. On August 15th, 1952, Ashtar claims that hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, fluorine, carbon, and sodium are all "elements of living substance." This is a very strange grouping; life involves quite a few more elements than this (hello, iron, copper, calcium, and iodine!), and flourine is toxic to animal life. For a supposedly wise and advanced being, Ashtar sure is failing basic chemistry pretty hard here. On November 23rd, 1952, Ashtar declared that humanity's efforts to "conquer" (read: explore) space limited to the moon. The book reads, "Any attempt by man to extend space flight beyond the earths' vortice will end any possibility of returning to Shan, the earth." It seems Ashtar never foresaw our capability of sending unmanned probes beyond the moon. On January 32, 1953, Ashtar announced that humanity would soon be seeing the use of atomic weapons in warfare. Obviously this never happened, and quite blatantly contradicts what was claimed back in August.
On February 13th, 1953, Commander Ashtar claimed that they were about to create a "Light energy vortice" that would "create extensive damage to counteract the unbalance man has created on Shan." On February 27th, Ashtar followed this up saying that "We wish to instruct you to prepare for violent disturbances on Shan. We are having our first indications of success in arresting the attitude of Shan." On March 13th, Ashtar announced "Our three sub-stations, located around your planet, are instructed to take an active part in occurrences of violence that are about to occur on your planet." In the last message on March 20, 1953, it appears that Ashtar and the other extraterrestrials are now embroiled in a kind of apocalyptic conflict. He claims that people will be seeing more and more phenomena, and says "we have activated three and one-half million primary units around this planet. Our plans are taking shape." What's also interesting is what isn't mentioned in this book. It never mentions a Galactic Federation of Light or any other similar organization name associated with Commander Ashtar today. There's no mention of Pleiadians, no mention of an Arcturian High Council, and no mention of starseeds. There's also no mention of hostile alien forces, either - it appears that Ashtar is only here to save humanity from itself. I Rode a Flying Saucer! is definitely an interesting book, and a must-read for anyone looking to do deep research into the origins and development of New Age spirituality. You can see where some ideas are beginning to emerge but aren't yet married to other beliefs, and you can really start to appreciate how this movement has quite the history of failed prophecies.
