(Karen Morgan, 9, 1958)
Aside from being missed by people, there are sometimes odd inaccuracies about the return trip that alert the abductee to the idea that something might have happened to her, although she has no idea what that might be. From time to time the abductee does not return to exactly the same place. It may be a matter of a few feet or some miles. When Patti Layne was floated back to her college dorm, she landed in her roommate’s bed. The startled roomie woke up with a jump, and a confused Patti made up a story on the spur of the moment, saying that she had received a crank call against her life and she was scared. After a later abduction in the same dorm room, she woke up on the bathroom floor. All her toiletry articles were scattered around the floor. What had happened was a mystery to her.
Others have come to consciousness driving their cars miles away from where they should have been—not just down the road but on a completely different highway. Steve Thompson had a far more frightening return with a friend of his while on a trip across Texas. They were sleeping in a car on a small street near a main highway outside of Dallas when they were both abducted. The next thing they knew, Steve, who had been in the back seat, was driving on the wrong side of the highway with oncoming traffic. His friend yelled, “What the hell are you doing?” and Steve, suddenly aware of where he was, quickly got back over to the right side of the road.
Lynn Miller came to consciousness many miles away from where her car had been stopped. She was outside of her car on a strange road in an area of New Jersey that she had never been to before. She got back in the car, started it up, and drove down the road for a few miles, not knowing where she was. When she approached a small town, she instinctively made a left turn at a flashing yellow light. That road got her back to a main highway, and she was able to eventually get home two hours later than she should have.
Many abductees have returned to find oddities about their clothes and bodies. It is not unusual for people to notice that their pajamas or nightgowns are on inside out when they felt certain that they had put them on the correct way the night before. Others have woken up to find their underpants folded on the foot of their bed after they had gone to bed wearing them. Some abductees have reported that their clothes were draped around a chair when they woke up in the morning.
Lynn was abducted from a tent outside of Los Angeles in 1988. The aliens took her right through the screen window inside the tent. When she returned she walked through the underbrush to get to the tent and then floated back through the screen window. She got into her sleeping bag and then took off her socks because they had picked up ground material from the walk. When she awoke in the morning, she was puzzled and surprised to find her socks outside of the sleeping bag and leaves and twigs inside it.
Karen had to wear a bite plate on the palate of her mouth for her teeth each night. She put it in with pressure, creating a vacuum on the roof of her mouth, then attached it to rubber bands hooked to her braces to keep it in place. One night she had an abduction experience and the focus of the abduction was the bite plate. The aliens took it out without too much difficulty, but when it came time for Karen to go, they were not able to put it back into her mouth. They tried and tried but could not achieve the suction necessary to hold it in place. Eventually they gave up. When Karen woke up in the morning, her bite plate was on her stomach. It was puzzling because she had never had it come out of her mouth before or since; one would expect that if it were to come out, it would fall onto her tongue, or into her throat, most probably waking her up, or it simply would fall on the pillow. But finding it resting on her stomach was disconcerting.
Sometimes abductees wake up in odd positions. They might come to consciousness sitting up in bed or slumped forward over their knees. They might regain full consciousness standing next to their bed and wonder how they got there. They might find themselves on top of the covers when they never sleep outside the covers.
Often abductees notice strange marks on their bodies the morning after an abduction. They find bruises, black-and-blue marks, and rashes, and they have no idea how they got there. One woman woke up in the morning after an event with fourteen black-and-blue marks on her legs. Nosebleeds in the middle of the night are another common occurrence after returning. With no discernible trauma, the abductee wakes up in the morning and the bed and pillows are covered with blood. This happens to both children and adults.
Sometimes women wake up with a sticky, clear substance running from their genitals down their legs. They are at a loss to explain this; the substance quickly dries. Other men and women have discovered unusual stains on their bedclothes. They were absolutely certain that the stains were not there when they went to bed the previous night. Almost all abductees wake up feeling tired, restless, agitated. They feel that they have not had a good night’s sleep and that they have been “through the mill.”
When the episode is over, amnesia sets in. Abductees might remember something for a few seconds or, in some cases, for a few hours, and, of course, some experiences are fully remembered, but generally the memory is blocked immediately afterward. We do not know how this is accomplished. It might be a function of the alteration in consciousness that all abductees experience as part of the abduction itself. There is little evidence to suggest that the aliens specifically tell the abductee not to remember something as if with a posthypnotic suggestion. Yet when abductees first begin to relate their stories to an investigator, it is often with a sense of guilt and betrayal. They feel that they should not be telling anyone about these experiences. This sense of guilt can occasionally be so deep that it effectively prevents an abductee from talking about his or her experiences.
The return is the end of the physical abduction itself. But the abduction experience does not end there. Whether the abductees remember the abduction or not, their lives can be profoundly affected.
Chapter 8
The Abductors
Ever since the beginning of the UFO phenomenon, witnesses have claimed to have seen alien beings near UFOs. The majority described small aliens with large heads and eyes, although a variety of sizes and shapes of Beings were reported. It was nearly impossible for researchers to learn anything about the Beings simply on the basis of these sightings. Writing in 1969, a UFO research team could say only that the aliens appeared to be curious and cautious. Very little was known about the details of their appearance and still less about their behavior.1 However, the vast accumulation of abduction reports has now provided a wealth of detailed information about these aliens. At last we know enough about their activities and appearance to paint a preliminary portrait of these enigmatic Beings.
Aliens do things that seem like magic to us. They make humans and their clothes go through solid matter like windows, walls, and ceilings. They cause themselves, humans, and other matter to be invisible when they are outside the confines of the UFO. By using light beams, they transport victims and even their automobiles to their destination. They seem to have a monitoring ability that enables them not only to find their victims but also to determine the biologically appropriate time for an abduction.
Some of their greatest abilities come in the area of human mind manipulation. They alter consciousness and affect people’s anticipatory powers. They modify visual perceptions so that people have difficulty seeing objects close to them or discerning spatial relationships well. They interfere with people’s volition and force them to do things against their will—and they can do this from afar. They mitigate fear and stop physical pain. They institute selective amnesia, communicate telepathically, and create complex images and scenarios in people’s minds. They generate at will sexual arousal and emotions such as love, fear, and anxiety. They produce orgasm with mind manipulation. They make people love them. The ability of humans to control the situation and force their own wills upon their abductors is severely limited. In many ways the aliens seem all-powerful.
Yet they display an awareness of limitations. It appears that the aliens cannot proceed with the
ir breeding program without the involvement of human beings. For whatever reasons, they are fearful of being detected—hence they use clandestine methods of abduction. They seem to be afraid of human power. They treat humans gingerly, as if they were zookeepers handling sleeping gorillas, fearful that they might wake and become uncontrollable. They often assign two or more Small Beings to handle an individual human, and they are very cautious. They keep careful mental and physical control. They sometimes put restraints on their victims’ arms and legs.
The aliens are highly routinized. They seldom change their pattern of activity to suit the abductee. They are focused on their tasks, regardless of momentary circumstances. Some abductees have speculated that the general behavior of the aliens suggests they have difficulty doing several things at once.
Who—or what—are these aliens? No solid evidence exists to indicate whether they are living beings, manufactured beings that act as sentient physical beings, a combination of the two, or something entirely different. But they do have a physical being.
ANATOMY OF AN ALIEN
By far the most common types of aliens reported are the Small and Taller Beings. The Small Beings are from two to four and one-half feet tall, thin, slight, and even “delicate” in appearance. They have a head, a body, two arms, two hands, fingers, two legs, two feet. They stand and walk like humans. The Small Beings are light in weight. Taller Beings stand from two to six inches above the Small Beings and have most of the same gross physical characteristics.
Abductees are often vague about what the aliens wear. In many cases it is difficult to detect whether or not they are actually wearing clothes. Sometimes the color of their skin and the color of their clothes are reported to be exactly the same. Many abductees cannot see where the clothes end and the skin begins. They feel quite certain that the aliens are wearing something, but it is difficult to describe the “fabric” that the clothes are made of. Other abductees have described alien “garments” that fit so tightly that they look “spray painted.” They are able to describe the end of the “fabric,” the beginning of the skin on the hand and the neck, and so forth. On occasion the Small Beings are wearing robes or garments that are loose-fitting. Sometimes abductees report a belt around the aliens’ midsections, but this is unusual.
Abductees rarely describe bodily adornment. The Beings’ clothing has no personal touches, no expressions of individuality. Some Beings might have an insignia on their clothes that seems to resemble “serpents” or some sort of elongated shape. Sometimes it is simply a jagged line. In general, however, abductees see little or no diversity in the garments the aliens wear.
Descriptions of the aliens’ skin color vary from dark gray to gray to light gray to tan to tannish-gray to white (not Caucasian) to pale white. If an abductee reports another color (like yellow, green, or blue), it is almost always in conjunction with gray. The skin color is uniform, without darker and lighter spots or areas (often the lighting in the room will change the way the aliens’ color appears). By and large, most witnesses report the Small Beings’ skin as just “gray.” There is no visual evidence of a vascular system that might add streaks of other colors.
When abductees touch alien skin or are touched by the aliens (usually when being escorted down a hallway or into a room), they report it to range from a rough, leathery feel (for the Taller Being) to a soft rubbery or plastic quality (for Small Beings). The skin is extremely smooth, without the pores, hair, freckles, bumps, ridges, discolorations, warts, moles, scratches, wrinkles, and other common elements found on human skin.
It is difficult to tell whether aliens grow older. The abductees are unable to discern the slightest change over time in alien facial features or physical demeanor. When abductees have had experiences for thirty or forty years with presumably the same group of aliens, they report that the aliens look the same during the last experience as they did during the first.
The Small Beings all look basically the same. Their faces do not betray a readily detectable uniqueness that might distinguish one from another. Nor do they seem to have any sort of emotional characteristics that can be seen on their faces. For instance, one does not look “happy” while another looks “sad.” Although abductees cannot tell one Small Being from another, they commonly report that they in some way “know” that they are dealing with the same Taller Being during all their abductions.
The physical frames of both the Taller Beings and the Small Beings do not reveal any boniness. Most of the contours on their bodies are smooth and rounded, with no hard angles. Witnesses do not report bones, such as the clavicle or sternum, apparent under their skin. They do not see evidence of ribs or wrist bones or the like. Nor do they see any form of apparent musculature.
The heads of the aliens are, in human terms, disproportionately large for their bodies. Their craniums are bulbous, especially above the eyes. There is no indication of cranial, facial, or neck hair, or hair anywhere else on the body. The neck and face are smooth with no wrinkles. The Small Beings’ heads are also smooth, with no indication whatever of any external markings.
The aliens’ faces somewhat resemble humans’. They have eyes approximately halfway down the face, an area where a nose might be, a small mouthlike slit, an area where one might envision “cheeks” (although none can be seen), and a chin. Using humans or higher primates as a model, all of the features are in the correct position. But the resemblance is merely in the general effect, and each organ and feature differs markedly from that of humans.
The huge eyes are the single most striking feature of the aliens. They span the entire width of the broad forehead. They are largest in the center and taper off to a tip on the side of the head. They contain no pupils, irises, or corneas. When people look into their eyes during Mindscan or other staring procedures, they see black, usually opaque organs. The eyes have no gradation in color, and they do not move from side to side as would a human’s. At times abductees see some hint of liquidy “movement” inside the eyes. A few witnesses have reported a “sparkle” or “light” inside the eyes. Some aliens’ eves can “move”: They can squint and turn on their axes so that the outside tip can be raised or lowered. This is done mainly in Mindscan procedures. Other aliens have eyes that are more rounded and not as almond-shaped as the others. A few abductees have thought that the external eye might be a covering for an eye inside.
Witnesses generally do not report eyelids. Although some abductees have said that they have seen the Beings blink in unison, this may be confabulation; blinking is usually not reported. The aliens do not have eyebrows, although it is commonly reported that they have a ridge that might be caused by a “bone” around their eyes.
A few abductees report noses on the Small Beings, but the overwhelming majority of the reports indicate that the Small Beings have a slight raised bump but no nostrils or openings that might be interpreted as nasal passages.
The aliens’ slitlike mouth does not have lips. Witnesses are ambivalent about an opening for the mouth. Most do not see one, but some have mentioned seeing a “membrane” over an opening. (A small number of abductees report that the mouth is perfectly round, forming an “O”.) Abductees do not see teeth, a tongue, or saliva. The aliens do not use their mouths for communication.
A small and pointed chin lies below their mouths. Sometimes the mouth is so low that there is the appearance of no chin at all. The aliens do not appear to have a jaw or jaw hinge below where the ears would be. They seem to have no muscles attached from anywhere on the face to the top of the head for mastication. The overall look of the face, then, is that of a large forehead leading down to a tiny pointed chin. When they look at the face, some witnesses are reminded of a light bulb, a skeleton head, or a parking meter.
Aliens sometimes may have a small raised feature where human ears would be, but without an opening. Abductees can find no evidence of a device for collecting sound waves on alien heads.
Aliens do not have a thick neck with the head fitting on it in a huma
n fashion. Instead, the head is attached to an extremely narrow, tubelike neck that seems too thin to support the head’s weight. The head does not fit into the neck as human heads would. The neck is short and sticks into the bottom of the head much like, as one abductee put it, “a pumpkin on a stick.” Witnesses see no throat movement denoting a tongue or a swallowing mechanism. The aliens do not appear to have an epiglottis. When Ken Rogers was twelve years old, he was able to reach up during the Mindscan procedure and grab a Taller Being by the throat. He reported that the neck seemed solid, as if it contained material inside, but it did not have the feel of moving muscles. No Adam’s apple is evident in their throats, and there is no indication of vocal cords since communication is telepathic and abductees usually do not hear sounds coming from the aliens.
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