Review: Uga Carlini's Beyond the Light Barrier (2023)
A solid documentary feature on early contactee Elizabeth Klarer with some preliminary spooky discoveries
On the recommendation of Weird Read with Emily Louise, I watched the documentary Beyond the Light Barrier last weekend, an exploration into the life and claims of South African contactee Elizabeth Klarer. The film is currently available on Amazon Prime for anyone interested. Uga Carlini, the director, has put together an impressive feature film replete with colorful graphics and engaging narration from South African actor John Kani. Tracking the life and claims of Klarer presents no easy task, but the film does a remarkable job of making the topic approachable. I was previously unfamiliar with Klarer’s story, a fact that shocked me after this introduction. A well-educated meteorologist and artist, Klarer claims encounters with UFOs from an early age in rural South Africa—before flying saucers or even foo fighters made their first appearances. Later on, the real thrust of the documentary emerges: Klarer met a ridiculously handsome Nordic spaceman named Akon who swept her off her feet and eventually had a space child with her. Akon was “a scientist from the planet Meton in the Alpha Centauri system” who took her to his peaceful, utopian world in a silver saucer, giving Klarer a sense of a great lacking on Earth and within humanity.1 The Fortean Times would later write of Klarer’s writings: “One has a powerful impression that she thinks humanity, on Earth, is nasty, brutish, obnoxious, and doomed.”2 The intricacies of Klarer’s mystical experiences are well-covered in the film through archival footage of Klarer herself, talking head interviews with her relatives and acquaintances, as well as “experts” of varying calibers.3 I would compare the semi-sympathetic portrait of Klarer to Brad Abrahams’ 2017 documentary on abductee-artist David Huggins, Love and Saucers. Unlike Love and Saucers, however, Beyond the Light Barrier suffers from an occasional lack of focus that is not debilitating but nevertheless makes the film drag slightly in the middle.
While Carlini’s coverage of Klarer is enjoyable and accessible, much of the narrative will come as old news to those more seasoned researchers in the UFO field. Aside from the novelty of Klarer’s encounters at the time, the story fits the contactee mold almost exactly: Beautiful Aryan space brothers live in peace and harmony on lush green planets, starkly contrasting the simple barbarianism of the human race. There are also the common racialized trappings of any Theosophy-inclined prophet or prophetess. However, the documentary does not necessarily place Klarer within this contactee context, instead examining her story removed from most other ufological cultural developments. This is perhaps the film’s biggest failing, instead spending a ponderous chunk of time looking at Chernobyl and the Ariel School event—the latter of which has been covered to excess in different UFO documentary projects of the past decade. The film at least addresses the racist implications of much of Klarer’s writing at the tail end of its 90 minute runtime, noting whole sections of her first book decrying the “black hordes” demanding self-determination and thereby stunting humanity’s development. These passages were subsequently removed from later versions. This information comes as a major shock following her apparent association with a native South African spiritual leader who vouched for the importance of her contact. However, the reveal risks being an undercooked “gotcha” moment that could have been more thoroughly developed from examining possible parallels with other contactee or theosophical movements. Klarer’s pseudoscientific racial theories attached to a narrative of otherworldly contact are not unique to her era or genre, but when removed from all possible context, the film makes these uncomfortable elements of her work appear out of the ordinary. On the contrary, Klarer is a carbon copy of other space brother believers before and after her time. On the whole, I would recommend Carlini’s documentary as a solid introduction to a forebearer of early UFO religions, yet I found myself wishing for a more thorough analysis of Klarer’s beliefs within a retrospective cultural framework. As it stands, it is still a well constructed film about one of the more unique tales of intergalactic contact.
Although mostly unmentioned in the documentary, I discovered some background on Klarer that I found quite important, very much requisite findings for Getting Spooked: During WWII, she worked for British Air Force Intelligence in what the Johannesburg Sunday Times called “a responsible position.”4 In Lauren Beukes’ 2005 book Maverick: Extraordinary Women from South Africa’s Past, Klarer’s position is expounded upon further, revealing curious experiences and interactions from a parapolitical standpoint: “Elizabeth was employed by the Royal Air Force as a meteorologist and was trained to observe aerial anomalies, as many women were during the war.”5 Furthermore, she was apparently acquainted with Air Chief Marshall Hugh Dowding prior to WWII who had specifically praised her abilities at sky observation. Dowding later, she claimed, recruited her into an early UFO research program preceding the postwar Ministry of Defense study, the Flying Saucer Working Party. Dowding had been a member of the Theosophical Society since 1942, so Klarer’s seemingly prophetic contactee tales may be more indebted to theosophy (big surprise) and her friendship with the burgeoning spiritualist Dowding than often intimated.6 In fact, Klarer’s alleged acquaintance with the future Lord is never brought up within the documentary even though this element seems an important touchstone to understanding her beliefs. Regardless, Klarer claimed that she continued to work for Air Force intelligence even after her move back to South Africa in 1943, though this is unconfirmed. She was present at Ysterplaat Air Force Base in 1944 when she and her husband received injuries from an exploding fuel tank—but this is not hard proof of her continuing intelligence work.7
To extend the seemingly omnipresent military or intelligence networks involved in UFO culture from its earliest rumblings, several of Klarer’s husbands were also employed by RAF or British Intelligence. Her first spouse was W. Stafford Phillips, an RAF pilot who would later become an experimental pilot for de Havilland. Phillips and Klarer were both friends with Lord Dowding, but it is unclear who gave first introductions.8 While this union ended in 1946, Klarer would remarry twice, the second time to Major Aubrey Fielding, ex-British Intelligence. Their relationship began, Klarer insisted, after Hugh Dowding “sent (Fielding) to look after her”—an odd assertion to say the least.9 Major Fielding would later write the foreword to her first book, Beyond the Light Barrier, though is oddly credited as Anthony Fielding. In this front matter, he would claim to have spent time “fighting the communist bandits hidden in the vast jungles” of Malaysia.10
While these findings of a military and intelligence backdrop to yet another contactee are weird to say the least, I am not asserting that Elizabeth Klarer was engaging in psychological warfare, some kind of infiltration, or intelligence gathering. There is no evidence of these admittedly tempting speculations, only unsettling background information. However, Klarer does seem representative of the peculiarly intelligence-adjacent contactee movement gurus such as George Adamski, George Hunt Williamson, or Daniel Fry. I believe Klarer’s background, beliefs, and supposed contacts speak to the apparent credulity of personalities within the western military apparatus, as well as the despicable politics or ideologies that can often result from this credulity combined with such a background. All said, I am thankful that Carlini’s film pointed me to a possible nexus of parapolitical high strangeness in South Africa and I hope it does the same for others. The histories of Klarer, her husbands, and Lord Dowding present tantalizing future topics for this publication.
Thank you for reading Getting Spooked. If you’ve enjoyed what you’ve read, consider upgrading to a paid subscription. Doing so supports this research and allows you to gain access to archived posts. My sincere gratitude to everyone who has done so already. Thanks to Rich Reynolds at UFO Conjectures for linking to this publication recently. Reach out to me at gettingspooked@protonmail.com with any questions, comments, recommendations, requests, spooky stories, etc. You can find me on Twitter at @TannerFBoyle1 or on Bluesky at @tannerfboyle.bsky.social. Until next time, stay spooked.
Beukes, Lauren. “The Woman Who Loved an Alien.” Sunday Times Books Live. 19 February 2010. http://laurenbeukes.bookslive.co.za/blog/2010/02/19/the-woman-who-loved-an-alien/.
The Hierophant’s Apprentice. “Building a Fortean Library: No 49. Across the Milky Way with Mills & Boone.” Fortean Times 384. November 2019. Page 59.
Do they just let Jim Hurtak be in any documentary?
Allan, Jani. “And meanwhile, back on Flying Saucer Hill…” Sunday Times (Johannesburg). 13 March 1983. Page 15. Available from the Archives for the Unexplained here.
Beukes, Lauren. “The Woman Who Loved an Alien.” Sunday Times Books Live. 19 February 2010. http://laurenbeukes.bookslive.co.za/blog/2010/02/19/the-woman-who-loved-an-alien/.
Clarke, David and Andy Roberts. Flying Saucerers: A Social History of UFOlogy. Loughborough: Alternative Albion, 2007. Page 60. Available here.
Beukes, Lauren. “The Woman Who Loved an Alien.” Sunday Times Books Live. 19 February 2010. http://laurenbeukes.bookslive.co.za/blog/2010/02/19/the-woman-who-loved-an-alien/.
Klarer, Elizabeth. Beyond the Light Barrier: The Autobiography of Elizabeth Klarer. PDF published by www.universe-people.com, 1980. Page 21. Available at the Internet Archive.
Beukes, Lauren. “The Woman Who Loved an Alien.” Sunday Times Books Live. 19 February 2010. http://laurenbeukes.bookslive.co.za/blog/2010/02/19/the-woman-who-loved-an-alien/.
Klarer, Elizabeth. Beyond the Light Barrier: The Autobiography of Elizabeth Klarer. PDF published by www.universe-people.com, 1980. Page 9-10. Available at the Internet Archive.