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Greta Woodrew
Born	(1929-12-16)December 16, 1929
Died	September 1, 2010(2010-09-01) (aged 80)
Resting place	Greensboro Hebrew Cemetery, Greensboro, Guilford County, North Carolina, USA

Greta Andron Woodrew Smolowe (December 16, 1929 – September 1, 2010) was an author, psychic and healer, ^[1] and purported contactee of extraterrestrial beings. ^[2] Her books, On a Slide of Light and Memories of Tomorrow, and newsletter, The Woodrew Update, ^[3] addressed her purported alien encounters, while her foundation, the Space Technology and Research Foundation (STAR), was established to carry out philanthropic work, including broadcasting messages she received from alien life; ^[3] Woodrew would later become a donor to philanthropic organizations like Conservation International ^[4] and the Sierra Club Foundation. ^[5] Woodrew also published a children's book in her lifetime entitled Hear the Colors! See the Music!: A Tomorrow Book for Today. ^[6] Some of her papers are held in the Department of Special Collections and University Archives at Stanford University. ^[7]

Personal life

Woodrew was married to Richard E. "Dick" Smolowe. They had four children together, Allan, Jonathan, Jill, and Ann. ^[8] Woodrew was the granddaughter of Alexander Schlang and Blanche Cohen-Schlang-Nirenstein, the latter of whom was deeply involved in social and charity work in New York. ^[9] Woodrew was the great-granddaughter of David and Wilhemina Cohen, the former of whom was a founder and funder of the Eldridge Street Synagogue in New York City. ^{[10] [9]}

Education

Woodrew attended the University of Florida, graduating with honors and a B.A. in 1951. She was the first woman to graduate from the university's four-year program and to receive the Phi Beta Kappa Achievement Award and Dr. Allen's Award for Excellence. ^[11] In 1979, William Penn College granted Woodrew an honorary Doctor of Laws degree. ^[11]

Contact with extraterrestrials

Woodrew claimed to first come into contact with "extraterrestrial intelligences" in 1976. In her 1981 book On A Slide of Light, she described her encounters as taking place initially "under laboratory conditions with a leading medical doctor and scientist." It was her "impression that once [she] left the lab, [she] would also leave [the extraterrestrial intelligences] behind, but this was not to be the case. Once [she] exercised [her] free will in allowing extraterrestrials into [her] life, they quickly became a regular part of [her] experienced reality. [She] could be sitting at [her] desk at, say, 10 a.m., getting ready to phone a client about a prospect, [she] dialed the number and once again glanced at the clock, and to her confusion, it would read 10:45..."(The Saucer Life podcast; March 18, 2020 episode; 7:10)

Woodrew attributed these time discrepancies to a "continuing dialogue with extraterrestrial intelligences transcending time and space and the third dimension." (The Saucer Life podcast; March 18, 2020 episode; 7:54) The beings with which Woodrew claimed she had contact with were supposedly from another solar system located astronomically on the Messier list at M-92. The place of origin, Woodrew claimed, was called Ogatta, ^[12] "part of a binary, or twin star, system, which comprises what they call a jorpa, and we call a solar system, of five planets in another galaxy." Woodrew claimed the five planets were called Ogatta, Arshan, Arka, Mennon, and Tchowvie. (The Saucer Life podcast; March 18, 2020 episode; 8:26)

The "leading medical doctor and scientist" through whom Woodrew had initial extraterrestrial contact was doctor, medical inventor, and medical and parapsychological researcher Andrija Puharich. ^[13] The experiments the two undertook, leading to Woodrew's alien contacts, took place at what Puharich called Lab Nine on his estate in Ossining, New York. ^{[13] [14]}

During her lifetime, Woodrew also had contact with author and psychical researcher Harold Morrow Sherman; she and husband Dick Smolowe visited Sherman at least once at his home, Ark Haven, in Arkansas. ^[15]

Healing abilities

Woodrew claimed to be a healer, with extraterrestrials' healing abilities channeled through her. One such instance of healing was for ballerina Virginia Rich Barnett for whom Woodrew, "in minutes, cured [...] of a knee injury so severe doctors told her she would never even exercise again, let alone dance." ^[16]

The Woodrew Update

Woodrew and husband Dick Smolowe began their newsletter, The Woodrew Update, ^[17] in 1980. They continued publishing it until 1997. ^[6] The publication was national and international, with subscribers from across the United States, Canada, and 14 other countries. ^[11]

Legacy

The University of Florida offers the Dr. Greta Andron Smolowe Scholarship; she also holds a place in the university's Hall of Fame as First Lady of Student Body Dramatics, Service and Leadership. ^[11] In addition, the American Biographical Institute honored her for International Contribution to the World of Psi. ^[11]

Woodrew's North Carolina compound, the home base of her STAR Foundation, became home to Save the Animals Rescue. ^{[18] [19]} Additionally, her life and career were covered in the March 18, 2020 episode of podcast The Saucer Life. ^[20] Her books are still in circulation. Woodrew's son, Alan, went on to earn an MBA from Lehigh University, a PhD from the University of Orlando, and an Ed.D. from Barry University. Son Jonathan and daughter Jill attended Princeton, ^[21] and daughter Ann graduated from Dartmouth. Jill became a journalist, holding the post of foreign affairs writer for Time ^[22] and Newsweek. She also served as a senior writer for People ^[23] and published two books, Four Funerals and a Wedding: Resilience in a Time of Grief ^{[24] [25]} and An Empty Lap: One Couple’s Journey to Parenthood. ^[23]

Bibliography

• Hear the Colors! See the Music! A Tomorrow Book for Today (1992), Dublan Press
• Memories of Tomorrow (1988), Doubleday ^[26]
• On A Slide of Light (1981), MacMillan Publishers ^[27]

References