Remembering Erma Jean Staffen

Remembering Erma Jean Staffen

This morning, Facebook’s memories of past posts reminded me of a cute Ghostbusters/Dog-Shaming meme that my friend from the previous Reality Tunnels (pre-Pandemic / pre-Trump / pre-911 / pre-Y2k) had posted on my timeline back in 2016. That friend was Jean Staffen.

*Still photo from interview videotaped in the 1990s by SMiles Lewis at the “Oxford House.”*

*Jean Staffen on her Facebook page circa 2014.*

In 2016 we reconnected via facebook after many years. In 2017 she told me she was dealing with significant health issues. We exchanged brief messages until I stopped hearing from her in April of 2020. Today, because of that facebook reminiscence I did an internet search for her name…

Erma Jean Staffen

AUGUST 1, 1939 – MAY 18, 2022

Erma Jean Staffen, age 82, of Bastrop, Texas passed away on Wednesday, May 18, 2022. Erma was born August 1, 1939. — NeptuneSociety.com

I think I first met Jean at a meeting of the local MUFON (Mutual UFO Network) chapter sometime between 1990 and 1992 when she formed Austin’s UFO/Abduction Support Group. She had mysterious memories of anomalous childhood experiences at age 3, 9, 13 and onward that led her to form this group. These were heady days and I recall many fantastic public meetings and private conversations with her and other members of the Austin UFO community.

A couple of years after founding and running the local UFO support group, Jean “got the call to go West.” She asked and I accepted the role of continuing that support and study group. I led the monthly meetings for the next four years. Jean returned to Austin in 1998 and disbanded the group. She started a new group called Truth Seekers, or similar. This monthly group met to discuss all manner of esoteric, metaphysical, and conspiratorial topics. One of the few I attended focused on an area of particular interest to me, the health effects of electromagnetic energy.

Jean had contributed her own written thoughts on the subject of UFO encounters / alien abductions for Susan Lepselter’s UT dissertation and they both let me reproduce some of those writings in my print zine, E.L.F. Infested Spaces, back in 1994.

We lost track of each other for many years until reconnecting in 2016 when she’d retired to Bastrop, Texas. I never got to have a long talk with her and catch up on so much of Austin’ UFO history that she was a part of but it was nice at least messaging each other with links and cartoons every month or so until I stopped hearing from her.

Well, I now know that she passed on in May of this year. Safe travels my friend…

– Miles Lewis

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