For example, when Barbara Archer was sixteen, she suffered from anorexia and had lost a considerable amount of weight. This greatly concerned the aliens.
I feel nervous now because he’s angry with me for something.
At this time, were you in the middle of your anorexia problem, or at the end of it, or just beginning?
Toward the end.
So you were sort of at a lower weight, then?
Yeah. But I don’t think that that’s the problem. I don’t know. I feel that he’s concerned about the weight, but he’s more concerned about other stuff, too.
What do you think he might be concerned about?
Well, I think that’s he’s concerned about what losing the weight has done. He’s concerned about the problem, but I think that it’s not really the fact that I’m real skinny, it’s just that I think that he knows that my period stopped.
Did your period stop for a long time, or… ?
I guess it was about eight months. Maybe a little bit more than that. Not fully a year, I don’t think, but kind of a long time…. And [the Taller Being and the Small Beings) sort of talk or something. They sort of are in the corner of the room, and I know they’re talking about me.
Can you sort of get a sense of what they’re saying… ?
Well, I think that they’re saying, this is the feeling that I got, I feel that they know that I stopped menstruating, and they think that… I’m also so skinny they think that I’m sick or something. The taller guy seems annoyed again because I’ve lost weight. They keep saying I’ve lost weight. They don’t know why because they can’t see anything wrong. I’m not sick as far as… I don’t have any sickness, you know. They don’t understand why I lost all this weight. But all they do know is that I lost all this weight and it stopped my period…. They kind of left, I think, and it was just the taller guy.
What does he do?
Well, he comes over to me, and he wants me to, he wants to know why I lost all this weight. And I just said, “Because I want to be thin.”
How does he respond to that?
He says something like, “But you made yourself sick” or, “Now you’re sick,” or something like that. And I said that I just wanted to be thin, that’s all. I didn’t want to do anything else. But I feel like he’s kind of annoyed with me. And he tells me that I have to start eating because my body doesn’t function right if I don’t.
Okay, does he tell you this in a nice manner, or… ?
Sort of, but not really nice.
Is there an edge to it?
Yes. I feel like I’m messing things up. I feel like he’s not going to be nice to me the way he usually is unless I do…. He comes over, and he looks at me again. I feel so upset. I mean, I’m sorry that things are messed up but I can’t eat more. I don’t want to eat more…. I think that he’s sort of annoyed with me now. I get the feeling that I’ve ruined… things can’t be done now or something. But after he says that, he just starts looking at me again. And everything is pretty okay. I get those same feelings again, and I get the feeling he’s not really mad at me.
(Barbara Archer, 16, 1982)
We have no direct knowledge about the aliens’ lives—either on board the craft or elsewhere. Abductees have not only never seen food or water, but they have also never seen beds, or other “creature comforts.” They see no magazines or apparent entertainment devices like radios and televisions. Abductees do not report seeing aliens at rest. Witnesses see no art on the walls, and the rooms have no furniture, benches, tables, or chairs, other than those used for the abduction procedures. The rooms lack decoration. The wall colors are metallic gray, black, and white. Basically abductees cannot find any apparent indication of alien life or society outside of the confines of the craft on which the abduction is taking place.
When abductees have the presence of mind to ask direct questions about the workings of alien society, the aliens evade the questions. When abductees ask the aliens where they are from, the aliens usually either do not answer or say that this information is not for the abductee to know. Karen Morgan had a discussion with a Taller Being just as he was about to begin Mindscan.
And then I say, “Are you taking me with you? Where are we going? Where are you from?” And he says, it says, “We’re from…” I can’t remember—something like “very far away,” or “you wouldn’t understand,” or “it doesn’t matter,” but he’s not giving me a straight answer, and I’m really mad because I want to know.
(Karen Morgan, 30, 1979)
In 1983 a frightened and confused Patti Layne asked them if she were in hell:
I just go into this room, and I was just sitting there in this chair, more like a bench, sitting on this bench in this room and there’s this guy in there, he had these same eyes. And he said, “I have something to show you.” And I said, “Am I in hell?” Because that’s what I thought was happening, that I was dying in my sleep, and he said, “What’s that?” “That’s a lot of fire and stuff like that.” He didn’t say anything and just went away. I was just sitting there.
(Patti Layne, 20, 1983)
The composite picture that emerges from the many abductee accounts is of rational, logical, goal-oriented aliens who perform a variety of clearly outlined tasks with maximum efficiency in a detached, clinical manner. There is a hierarchical structure and a differentiation of labor. They are focused on human physiology, neurology, and reproduction. The aliens display very little sense of individuality. Their outward appearance is almost always the same, given the range of clothing types found. They volunteer no information about themselves. Although once in a while more complicated dialogue takes place, the consistency of their communication behavior suggests that they are carrying out a systematic policy of noninformation.
Finally, we should address the question of whether the aliens have more intelligence than we do. Although they have an extremely advanced technology, we have no indication that aliens have a higher or greater capacity than humans to learn or to solve problems. Nor have we yet uncovered evidence of creative, intuitive, or aesthetic abilities. Given the right amount of information, human beings appear to be capable of understanding everything that the aliens are doing. Alien activities that at first seemed incomprehensible have become logical and rational as we have accumulated more information from abductees. We have not found a situation where our ability to understand and to learn is clearly on a lower level than theirs as if we were a lower form of animal.
But one thing is clear—the Beings are not human. Their mental abilities and their physiology are very different from ours. They are, in the profoundest sense of the word, “alien.”
PART III
LIVING WITH THE SECRET
Chapter 9
Exploring the Evidence
Many abductees have adjusted well to the abduction phenomenon and are able to lead their lives free from the disruption that these experiences can cause. A few abductees feel that in some way they have been enlightened and even prepared for some future benevolent purpose. Some, who have not investigated their experiences, have successfully integrated the barely remembered events into their daily belief structure whether it is religious, New Age, or pragmatic (“Don’t strange things happen to all people?”), and the experiences become little more than a psychological irritant.
For other abductees, however, the effects of abductions can be terribly traumatic and destructive. Once these victims bring the memories to consciousness through hypnosis or unaided recall, and once they understand what has happened to them, they find little positive in the events. The experience does not improve their lives, give them mystical powers, or put them in touch with Universal Truth. They wish their abductions had never happened and are fearful that they will occur again. Their problems are compounded because few people will believe them when they confide their stories to them. They can produce no hard evidence to prove their contentions.
So far, the strongest evidence presented is the myriad of abduction reports tha
t have surfaced, with the congruence of narrative and the richness of exact detail. “Hard” evidence has been slow in coming, but it is increasing. Now that we know what to look for, the eventual discovery of evidence constituting irrefutable proof might be much closer than ever. In the long run, the hard evidence may be the most important supportive evidence, but currently it is the physiological and psychological effects of abductions that provide many of our strongest clues to the abduction mystery.
RESIDUE FROM THE OBJECT
Physical evidence for abductions is difficult to come by. Returning home with an artifact from the UFO is virtually impossible. It would mean having the physical ability and mental acumen to take something surreptitiously, hiding it while naked, keeping the theft a secret from the aliens, and then remembering where the artifact came from after the abduction. In spite of this predicament, UFO researchers have found some physical signs to support abduction claims. For example, from time to time people will say that they were abducted into an object resting in their backyard. When the area is investigated, a flattened or burned circle can be seen where the UFO rested. Budd Hopkins reported in Intruders that he found a circular ring and a forty-foot streak in the backyard in which the soil had been altered to such a degree that for several years nothing grew there.
Even stranger, someone might expel a tiny metallic ball from their nasal passage, although this has not happened to the abductees I have worked with. In all but a few of the cases the artifact has been lost or discarded. In the cases where they have been recovered, analyses have so far been inconclusive about their origin, or the analysis has not yet been completed. CAT scans, MRIs, and X-rays have been employed to detect supposed implants. In a few of these, a small, unusual mass has been detected in the upper nasal passages where abductees have indicated that an implant might be lodged. To date, no operations have been performed to remove the suspicious masses because the risks and problems inherent in surgery outweigh recovery considerations, or the object mysteriously disappears.
Stains
In early 1987 Melissa Bucknell called to say she thought something may have happened the night before because she found marks on her back and “blood” on her nightshirt. But, when examined, the stain on her nightshirt did not appear to be blood: It was not encrusted or oxidized, and it did not have the familiar dark-brown color; rather, it was a dark orange. Its location on her garment did not correspond to the area of her body that she said had been touched. The marks on her shoulder were not puncture or scratch marks, and there was no scab or apparent blood on her skin. Soon afterward Karen Morgan also came forward with a nightshirt that had a puzzling dark-orange stain on it. The stain had not come out in the wash, and she had even gone to the trouble of smearing makeup, coffee, and other substances near the stain to try to duplicate it, but with no success.
Sometimes the stains are not on a garment. For instance, Janet Demerest sleeps in the same bed with her six-year-old daughter, Hillary. One night when they woke up after an apparent abduction experience, the little girl complained about pains in her arm and elsewhere. When Janet examined her daughter, she was horrified to find that Hillary’s genitals were red, swollen, and leaking a clear fluid. She had a brown substance painted between her thighs. Janet went into a panic and frantically began to wipe the substance off. As she did, she noticed that the substance simply dried up, turned white, and then “evaporated” until none was left. She found some flakes and a possible stain on the sheet. She stored the flakes in an airtight jar in the freezer, but within a few days they also had evaporated.
A month later the same thing happened again to Hillary. Once again she woke up with the brown liquid painted between her legs. This time Janet peeled off all the material that she could and put it in the freezer. Then she took some toilet paper and wiped the rest of it off. Once again, however, the substance simply evaporated within a few days, but some of it adhered to the toilet paper and is presently in storage.
Another woman had an abduction one night while she was taking a nap clutching a favorite teddy bear. She remembered without hypnosis that when she was about to return from the abduction, she was lying on a table and an alien came up to her with the teddy bear. He placed it on her chest, but it fell on the floor. He picked it up and “dabbed” at it a little bit as if he was cleaning it. After the abduction, when the woman remembered what had happened, she looked at the little shirt that the teddy bear was wearing and found orange brown stains on it.
Karen offered a glimpse into the function of the stain substance. She reported that during an event the aliens made her lie on a table and then a small alien came along with a “brush” of some sort and painted the brown liquid in wide swaths on her body. Next, they placed electrodelike devices on her elbows and thighs, and she was required to move her arms and legs one at a time while the aliens either observed or measured something. When I asked her if the aliens wiped the fluid off her when the procedure was completed, she reported that they did not.
We do not know what the stain substance is made of. It either sublimes or evaporates extremely quickly. We do not have enough of the stain substance to mount a viable chemical analysis. Crippen Laboratories of Wilmington, Delaware, attempted a Fourier Transfer Infrared analysis on three of the stains. For two, the analyses showed that they were not common substances such as iodine or caffeine. No analysis was possible for the third stain (from Janet’s sheet) because it had evaporated from the surface.
In 1988 the American Standards Testing Bureau of New York City attempted an analysis. It used a fresh stain from a shirt that Janet had been wearing during an abduction. A small team was assembled to attack the problem. The chief chemist decided that the best way to go about a more in-depth analysis would be through the use of High Pressure Liquid Chromatography (HPLC). The laboratory obtained an HPLC apparatus especially for the analysis, but the team members immediately began to encounter problems. The solvent needed to remove the substance from the garment had to be exactly right so that it would not dissolve the stain completely or alter it chemically. After employing different solvents, they decided that water, after all, would be safest, but the minute traces that they were able to obtain were not enough for anything approaching a complete analysis, even with HPLC. After eight months of sporadic trying, they gave up, unable to go further. Soon after that, a chemist at a Pennsylvania university attempted to analyze an abduction-related stain, with help from his graduate students. After trying for six months they, too, gave up. And there the matter stands. Until a complete analysis is possible, all we have is tantalizing but incomplete evidence. In the meantime the number of stain samples has increased.
PHYSICAL AFTEREFFECTS
The abductees suffer a variety of physical problems caused by abductions whether or not they have recovered the memories of their experiences.
Scars and Bruises
Many abductees notice mysterious scars on their bodies that they later realize are associated with abduction experiences. The scar may appear at any age, young or old. Abductees report no pain associated with such scars, nor do they describe blood, bandages, or a healing period. The scars range in shape from small “scoop” marks to elongated, thin scars. These scars are permanent records of abduction experiences and can be anxiety-provoking reminders for the victim.
Scarring is found not only on the body’s surface. It may occur internally as well. Abductees have reported anomalous scar tissue in their vaginas, bladders, gall bladders, nasal passages, and sinuses. None of the scar tissue found in these areas has been associated with conscious trauma.
A less harmful but disconcerting physical effect is the anomalous bruise. It is common for abductees to wake up with black-and-blue marks on their bodies. Men discover large bruises around their genitals. Both sexes find numerous black-and-blue marks on their arms and legs right after an abduction.
Vision Problems
Eye problems are also typical. Abductees often report red, stinging eyes, blurred vision, or swolle
n eyes after an abduction event. These difficulties can last for a few hours or linger for as long as three months and even, if there is nerve damage, be permanent. As part of a machine examination, Lynn was forced to look for an extended period of time into an apparatus that contained an extremely bright blue light. She could not blink her eyes, and they quickly became quite painful. When the abduction was over, her eyes were red and tearing, and the next day they were swollen. She had difficulty seeing printed material, and it became impossible for her to concentrate on reading. This condition was acute for about three months, and it then slowly subsided.
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