I'll just tell you the legend as I first heard it, since there's no solid factual foundation for most of the Star People concept. Many of the criteria are subjective and the Star People I've met share only a few fundamental qualities or life events. Those I know each derived complex stories from their triggered memories, but only superficially similar. Some based the tale in outer space, and some in ancient Egypt. The idea is intriguing, that a colony of space travelers -- humans -- crash-landed here a hundred thousand years ago or thereabouts and began the technological civilization we know today.

People were already here, since human civilizations have colonized this galaxy's habitable worlds for millennia and our species is scattered everywhere. The humans indigenous to this world had no advanced culture in the terms that the crashed ship's crew knew it. Faced with quick genetic dissolution in what were to them the ignorant hordes of savages around them, the scientists among them devised a patch. The patch was something that would continue after the artifacts and memories of the ship and its people were gone. Hidden in the DNA of the ship crew's descendants were packets of encoded information, designed to open at critical times in the lives of those who carried them, and guide their actions in ways which would carry on the culture of the ship. Over time the information has become sketchy and distorted, so those of us who receive the message interpret it in different ways, with only a few common points which seem solid. One of those common points is the memory of the crash itself.

Follow up:

Of course it seems like nothing more than a story, but if you do remember The Crash and your part in it, you have to give the rest of the tale a little bit of credit. I took notice for that reason, since my memories of the crash are fairly clear, if brief. If there was anything more to it, I wanted to know, so I followed the story of the Star People among us for many years. I took the questionnaire and scored nearly perfectly (questions involve physical quirks as well as mental and spiritual ones) and I could fit this pattern into my own life much better than any horoscope ever would. But, I've not been convinced it makes a huge difference. Is it in my best interest and the best interest of this world to support an authoritarian imperial government, a military culture, and an ancient religion based on an endless cycle of intentional creation and destruction? I decided against that. I feel more in tune with the humans who were already here and doing OK before the Empire crashed a big boat on the edge of our best desert.

But by all means, take the quiz and read about the Star People (links provided below). I've met several, one of them claiming to be the current Empress. According to her I am one of the three who is required to form the energy key that activates the buried ship that will take us home. She's a very nice person, and offered to knight me while I was visiting her and her family, but I declined. I've fallen out of favor with the Imperial Court since that time, because honestly I have no memories of the things she was talking about, beyond the point of The Crash. I remember some strange things involving ships and space, but all of it recently (and hard to prove). All I remember about the crash is being in it. I think I was a junior officer about to go on duty. I was straightening my uniform collar, looking at my reflection in the polished metal of my locker door when it happened. Soon afterwards I was dead. I wished I had been on the bridge, able to do whatever could have been done, but I was off duty. Stuff happens, sometimes ships go down. It's a rough universe out there.

That doesn't mean that these strange things haven't affected me. They have. Some of the marks are events, and I've had them. One of them, I'd been curious about for more than twenty years before it happened to me. I was curious because it hadn't happened, and nearly everything else had. If you're a Star Person you're supposed to receive a wakeup call. It could come in a number of ways, but the words are the same always. For me it was preceded by a warning. I woke up one morning with the clear memory of having been given a message sometime during the night. Something was going to happen at ten p.m. the next evening, and I was supposed to be watching for it. So at ten p.m. the next night I was sitting up in bed in a darkened room, waiting and watching the clock. At ten p.m. nothing happened. I always think that's pretty cool when nothing happens, it's a very calming experience. A few minutes later (maybe my clock was slow compared to Universal Time) when I no longer thought anything was pending, a man's voice boomed through the room, resonant and extremely authoritative, coming from a spot where there was nothing but empty air.

"Now Is The Time!" the voice roared. And that's the signal. It always has been the signal, for everyone who gets the message. Maybe most people aren't sitting up waiting for it, and don't receive it that clearly, but it comes to each of us. Just exactly what it's time for, well, I don't think anyone is sure. The information in the packet is kind of scrambled now; everyone puts it together slightly differently.

Years ago, Brad Steiger (author of Star People) received a letter from a well-known science fiction author who had also had the awakening experience and had written a book about its effect upon him, in a fictional novel format. Because the author feared for his career if he publicly declared this had happened, Steiger kept a pact of anonymity with him until his death a few years ago. I had read nearly every science fiction book ever written by the time I was thirty, and I'd guessed who it was, but I couldn't figure out which book he meant. The book turned out to be Valis by Philip K. Dick. It's one I found uninteresting and never finished, and although I've tried to read it several times my opinion hasn't changed. The experience didn't affect me in the same way.

LINKS:

No legitimate free sources of Valis or Star People that I know about, except your local public library.

The Star People by Brad Steiger and Francie Steiger

Valis by Philip K. Dick

Star People Characteristics:
http://theparanormaltimes.ning.com/profiles/blogs/star-people-by-brad-steiger

Star People Questionnaire
http://www.bradandsherry.com/TheBradSteigerQuestionnaire.htm