Elkins, Donald T. (1930-1984)

Donald T. Elkins, engineer, pilot, and paranormal researcher, was born and raised in Louisville, Kentucky. He grew up in a family of Christian Scientists, though he departed from the faith as a young man. He served in the Korean War, after which he completed his education at the University of Louisville. He earned three degrees in engineering, completing his last degree in 1960. He took a job at the University of Alaska and created its mechanical engineering program during his year there. In 1961 he accepted a position at his alma mater and returned to Kentucky.

Elkins had become interested in the paranormal and in flying saucers in the mid-1950s. In 1962 he called together a group to practice meditation and attempt contact with extraterrestrials, an idea he had gotten from a UFO contactee group in Detroit, Michigan. The experiment proved successful, and in 1963 he published an initial report, Telepathy Data Collected by Extraterrestrial Communication. In 1965 he left the university for a higher paying job as a pilot with a major airline based out of Atlanta, Georgia.

Among the original members of the group was Carla Rueckert. Following her divorce in 1968, they became close friends and he began to work with her as a channel, and she assisted him in his continuing research. Together in 1970 they founded L/L Research to provide structure for their ongoing work. Through the 1970s Elkins developed a new group of channels, the first result of his observations being a volume coauthored with Rueckert, Secrets of the UFO.

In 1980 Elkins invited a member of the meditation group, James McCarty, to work more closely with Rueckert and himself. As a result, Rueckert experienced an intensive period of channeling an extraterrestrial who called himself Ra. He claimed to have come to Earth many centuries ago, to have introduced monotheism into Egypt, and to have built the pyramids. He taught that the basic truth was that All are One. The material was gathered together and published over the next years as The Law of One (1981-83).

At the same time as the Ra material was being received, Elkins' work was requiring more time. In 1983 he and Rueckert moved to Atlanta to be closer to his working center. However, he soon developed a severe mental health problem. They moved back to Louisville, hoping that it would help. It did not, and in 1984, he committed suicide. Rueckert and McCarty have continued to operate L/L Research and periodically bring out new material, including a fifth volume of The Law of One in the tradition of Elkins' research.

Sources:

Elkins, Don T. Telepathy Data Collected by Extraterrestrial Communication. Clarksburg, W. Va.: Saucerian Press, 1963.

Elkins, Don T., and Carla Reuckert. The Crucifixion of Esmerelda Sweetwater. Louisville, Ky.: L/L Research, 1984.

——. Secrets of the UFO. Louisville, Ky.: L/L Research, 1977.

Elkins, Don T., Carla Rueckert, and James Allen McCarty. The Law of One. 4 vols. Louisville, Ky.: L/L Research, 1981-83. Reprint, Norfolk, Va.: Donning, 1984.