The 1963 Linda Porter Case: Mantis Aliens and Consciousness Transfer

This is the story of Linda Porter and her experiences with mantis type beings and what she described as soul transfer procedures. The account comes from material collected by investigative journalist Linda Moulton Howe in the early 1990s, decades after the events reportedly began. It has been referenced in UFO and abduction literature, particularly in Glimpses of Other Realities Volume II High Strangeness. The information is based on Porter’s own testimony, letters, audio recordings, and drawings, and is shared here for discussion and context, not as proof of any phenomenon.

According to Porter, the first experience occurred in 1963, when she was a teenager living in Covina, California. She described waking up in a strange, nonhuman environment without any memory of how she got there. The surroundings were unlike anything she recognized, with bright lighting that was not harsh and walls that did not resemble any human construction. She reported the presence of small nonhuman entities, about the size of children, with large heads and thin bodies. These entities escorted her into a larger room, and she claimed they communicated with her telepathically rather than using words.

In that larger room, Porter encountered a very tall insectlike being, which she compared to a praying mantis. She estimated the entity to be about eight feet tall, extremely thin, with long arms, an angular head, and large dark eyes. She described it as authoritative but not aggressive, and it appeared to be overseeing the smaller entities and the entire environment.

A central part of Porter’s account involves what she called soul or consciousness transfer procedures. She claimed the mantis being explained that her consciousness would be temporarily separated from her physical body and placed into another form. Porter emphasized that this was not a medical experiment in the human sense but rather a process intended to teach or allow her to experience something beyond normal human perception.

During the transferred state, she reported perceiving herself in a nonhuman body, experiencing altered senses, heightened awareness, and diminished emotional responses. She stated that the mantis being supervised while the smaller entities handled most of the interactions. Porter did not understand the full purpose of these procedures at the time, and the explanations she received were incomplete and cryptic.

These experiences reportedly occurred multiple times over several years. Each time, she returned to her physical body with missing time and partial memory of what happened. She did not report physical harm, but the experiences were psychologically intense and left lasting impressions.

As she grew older, Porter began recalling more details and decided to create drawings of what she remembered. These illustrations included depictions of the mantis being, the interior spaces she observed, and symbolic or procedural elements connected to the consciousness transfer. She later sent these drawings, along with letters and cassette recordings describing her experiences, to Linda Moulton Howe. Howe referenced the material in Glimpses of Other Realities Volume II, and it has been cited in discussions of mantis type entities in the UFO literature.

Supporters of the case point out that Porter’s experiences predate the popularization of alien abduction narratives in the 1970s and 1980s, and that mantis type entities were not a common archetype at that time. Skeptical interpretations suggest that sleep paralysis, dissociation, memory reconstruction, or imaginative recall could account for the experiences.

There is no physical evidence associated with the case, and it remains entirely testimonial. However, it is frequently discussed in the context of mantis type encounters, nonhuman overseer archetypes, and consciousness transfer themes, which appear in other abduction reports. The case is notable for the combination of early timing, detailed entity description, repeated events, and the production of visual material by the witness.

Even decades later, Porter’s story remains referenced in UFO communities for its unusual focus on consciousness transfer rather than standard medical or experimental abduction elements, and for the distinctive appearance and role of the mantis type entity.