From the (Portland, OR) Oregonian, Thursday, July 19, 1990

Why did 6 GIs desert posts in Germany? Apparently to meet UFOs
By Nolan Walters   Knight-Ridder News Service

WASHINGTON -- Six U.S. soldiers, who apparently deserted sensitive intelligence
posts in West Germany, may have believed they were chosen to greet alien
spaceships and lead humanity to a science fiction-style heaven, according to
friends and acquaintances.

The group has puzzled authorities since a note was found in their quarters that
contained Biblical referenced and the words 'End of the World.'

Mention of a possible 'End of the World' cult at a Pentagon briefing Tuesday has
spawned a frenzy of media speculation.

Now, after being detained at Gulf Breeze, Fla. -- the site of a rash of recent
UFO sightings -- the five men and one woman are being held in isolation and
debriefed by the Army at Fort Benning, Ga.

 'They Believe that Jesus is an astronaut,' said one man who sold them a van.

The group member, in fact, believed in an offshoot Christian belief called the
'rapture,' said Stan Johnson, a friend of the apparent group leader.  He
described it a a 'combination of science fiction and fundamentalist Baptist
beliefs.'

Rapture is the second coming of Jesus Christ, in which he returns to Earth to
take the believers with him and the rest of Earth would be destroyed.  This
group, though, believed Jesus was an alien and would return in a spaceship for
the chosen.

'How can I phrase this: Jesus Christ drives a spaceship,' Johnson said.

'They were apparently convinced that the aliens had chosen them as the chosen
few to be on hand when they reclaimed the Earth,' he said.

While the military is investigating the incident with apparent intensity, there
has been no evidence that national security was compromised.

'This does not appear to be an espionage case,' said a Pentagon spokesman.

The bizarre chain of events began in late May or early June when Johnson, a
Bybee, Tenn., photographer, got a cal from his longtime friend Kenneth G.
Beason, 26, from Augsburg, West Germany, where he was stationed.

Johnson said he had met Beason a few years ago when he'd asked to have some
spaceship models photographed.  They became friends and often talked of science
fiction and philosophy.

'Other than an interest in science fiction, he's perfectly normal,' Johnson
said.  'Basically what has happened is his imagination has interwoven with
reality.'

Johnson said he met Beason and another soldier, Michael J. Hueckstaedt, 19, at
the Knoxville airport and helped them buy a used Volkswagen van on July 7.

Bill Grant, a neighbor, sold them the van for $800, but now, 'I'd give them
$1,600 just not to have my name on it,' he said.

The two soldiers planned to meet the other group members in Chattanooga, Tenn.,
then drive to meet the first spaceship landing at Gulf Breeze on Aug. 6, then
continue on to New Mexico, where 'something else was going to happen,' Johnson
said.

The spaceship's arrival would be heralded by war in Lebanon and a shakeup of the
U.S. military, Johnson said he was told.

The group's plan was based on psychic messages being received by another group
member they identified as 'Vance,' Johnson said.

But they denied they were AWOL, or absent without leave, Johnson said, and they
became 'almost belligerent' when he tried to dissuade them from the trip.

The six were detained early Saturday, after Gulf Breeze police stopped their
van.  They put the driver's name through a national crime computer, and he
turned up AWOL, Police Capt. Kenneth Hicks said.

Gulf Breeze has recently been the focus of national interest by believers in
UFOs since the publication of a book called 'The Gulf Breeze Sightings.'