To complicate matters, while the aliens are performing their procedures, young boys and girls sometimes see naked adults being examined and probed on other tables. Children watch as the aliens perform procedures on sometimes-erect male genitals. They see naked women enduring internal gynecological procedures. Children see their parents being subjected to gynecological and urological examinations. These events can induce a profound sense of shame and guilt in children, both for having seen them and for thinking that perhaps they caused these events to occur to their family members. Furthermore, the children learn that adults have no control over the situation and their roles as protectors cannot be fulfilled. Adults are powerless. Only the aliens have power, and the children are wholly and totally dependent upon them. This can lead to a deep sense of distrust and suspicion in young people.
The problems are made incalculably worse by the bonding and sexual-arousal procedures performed on all abductees. When the alien performs bonding on a young child who is lying naked on a table, the rush of pleasurable emotions in her is irresistible. She is completely defenseless. This is even more injurious when the Taller Being (“male” or “female”) elicits intense sexual arousal feelings, and even orgasm. Then, while bonding and/or sexual feelings are at a peak, the Being begins the gynecological or urological procedures and physically intrudes into her genitals or mechanically extracts his sperm.
These procedures can have devastating effects on the child’s psychosexual development. The sexually bizarre nature of the event is retained deep within the unconscious mind. Abductees are forced to have sexual feelings while they are focused on a nonhuman creature in a strange setting, and then they are made to forget these feelings so that they are unable to come to terms with them. When the alien is finished with a young girl, he coldly turns around and walks out of the room while she is lying there with the residue of sexual feelings. In other less-frequent scenarios, the aliens might urge the teenage girl to “breed”: They might conjure up mental pictures in her mind of humans having sexual intercourse, or they might flood her mind with clinical images of the physical details of intercourse to instruct her; they might bring in a man or boy to have intercourse with her for demonstration purposes. The psychological ramifications of all this can be profound—leading to guilt, shame, distrust, and other psychosexual development disturbances, as well as resulting sexual dysfunction.
These abduction events can influence sexual attraction and behavior. Some women abductees report that they prefer men who are small and dark, or they like powerful, dominant men who make love to them and then “just walk away.” Sexual fantasies for women may include odd science fiction themes. Some men and women who are psychologically accustomed to frequent violation, pain mixed with “pleasure,” and the inability to move on a table report fantasies involving masochism and bondage.
As a result of these procedures, some abductees lose interest in sexual relations completely. They might go for years without a sexual relationship. Any sexual contact is unconsciously viewed as another assault; therefore it is to be avoided. In one extreme case, an abductee’s avoidance behavior was so profound that not only was it impossible for her to have normal sexual function, but she was unable even to talk about her reproductive organs, refusing to admit that she knew their clinical names.
For men, impotence and difficulties with ejaculation are common. Some become obsessed with control. They try to control every aspect of their bodies, including ejaculation. Some men masturbate excessively, unconsciously trying to keep the aliens from having their sperm. Others have a feeling of shame and guilt when they are sexually active, unknowingly rekindling feelings that they may have had during the abduction experience.
The problems engendered by PAS lead both men and women to question their own mental stability. They are often extremely introspective, having continually ruminated about their odd behavior—both sexual and otherwise—for most of their lives. These problems can be so severe that thoughts of, and even attempts at, suicide are not rare for adults and even young children.
SEARCHING FOR ANSWERS
Many abductees engage in a lifelong search for answers to questions they cannot fully formulate. For some, the New Age movement (wherein spiritual and humanistic values are achieved through alternative pathways to conventional learning) provides an answer. In some way they know they are in contact with a “higher” or “cosmic” consciousness. They feel sure that they can communicate with other people by mental telepathy. They know that they have been in touch with another realm of existence.
Some unaware abductees become attracted to channeling and might even become channelers themselves. The personal, benevolent, channeled messages they receive from “alien spirits” give them a secure feeling that the ill-defined events they have been undergoing are benign, and they feel enriched and emotionally rewarded by the messages.
It is not unusual for a person to seek answers to the disturbing qualities of their lives through organized religion—usually evangelical Christian groups. When the abductee tells the minister that strange things have been happening to him, the minister frequently invokes “demons” or demonic possession. It is the devil’s work. Prayer and faith will vanquish the demons and allow the victim to lead a life free from harassment. For some abductees this explanation and prescription are satisfying because they give meaning to the experiences and dictate a course of action to control them. But for many others the demonic analysis does not quite ring true. When prayer fails, they look elsewhere for answers.
It must be emphasized that unaware abductees are trying to deal with the phenomenon as best they can. The internal pressure to discover the origin of their experiences can be tremendous. In New Age and psychic societies they find kinship with others who claim to have had the same type of experiences. They discover meaning in their half-memories that satisfies the “cosmic” implications for which they were searching. In religion they find solace and seek to master the events through faith and prayer. Often their quest is primarily to reinforce their hope that they are not mentally ill. They anxiously want to prove to themselves that their feelings and bleed-through memories are “legitimate,” and that they are not just fantasizing. They desperately want to exert intellectual and emotional control over fundamentally uncontrollable events in their lives.
Rather than joining New Age groups or religious sects, many abductees turn to mental health professionals for help. They know that there must be something “wrong.” A few abductees have even checked themselves into hospitals because they think that mental problems are causing them to imagine the bizarre events in their lives. Others seek conventional psychological or psychiatric help.
The vast majority of professional therapists are not trained to help abductees. “Standard” therapy not grounded in the knowledge of what actually happened to the abductee rarely dissipates anxieties, and the problems continue unabated. Well-meaning therapists try to convince abductees that their problems stem from familial relationships in childhood, or that their vivid dreams originate in repressed sexuality or in childhood sexual abuse. When the abductee says that her problems might have something to do with seeing a strange object in the sky, a “monster” in her bedroom, or an unexplainable lapse in time, the psychologist or psychiatrist tries to convince her that these are just fantasies and the problems are psychological. Some less conventional therapists who have attempted to deal with the residual effects of the problems regardless of their cause have had the best success. A few have referred abductees to competent abduction researchers.
Hypnotic regression—and special counseling by an individual familiar with hypnosis, psychological techniques, and the abduction phenomenon—affords the best opportunity for the abductee to come to terms successfully with the predicament that she finds herself in. Few people are trained for this work.
Recognition that a PAS symptom is related to UFOs often starts with a memory that suddenly wells up. Casual reading about abductions might trigger a memory. Gl
ancing at a book with a representation of an alien in it might cause the terror and anxiety of forgotten incidents to come rushing back. The same anxiety might be triggered by viewing a television show on abductions or even just engaging in idle conversation about the topic with a friend. Or one day an abductee simply remembers a piece of an incident with no obvious activating mechanism.
For some abductees, knowledge of the abductions finally gives them the answers they were seeking, and they let go of previously held belief structures that were never fully satisfactory. But, for many others, awareness of their involvement in the abduction phenomenon brings about a new set of problems.
The first problem is emotional isolation. Although the abductee desperately wants to discuss the phenomenon with friends and relatives, she finds it very difficult to tell anyone about her experiences. The person that the abductee confides in may think she is “having a breakdown” or is mentally unstable. She may be ridiculed outright. It is not uncommon for an abductee’s spouse (particularly a husband) to disbelieve her. The same is true for parents of children-abductees; these parents tend to think that it is a phase the child will outgrow. (Yet most abductees manage to find at least one friend or relative to believe them or to take them seriously.) If an abductee is not married, then she wonders if she can ever get married. Will she put her spouse in danger? Can she lead a normal married life? Does she have a responsibility to her future spouse to warn him of the danger?
Knowledge can also bring a new round of nighttime fears. The abductee becomes extremely anxious when she goes to bed. Any unusual sound in her house or apartment sends her into extreme fear. Driving at night can be frightening, especially in isolated areas. She is constantly aware that an abduction can take place at any time.
Abductee parents are concerned for the safety of their children. They fear that they can do nothing to protect them. They may even have seen their children during an abduction, and they suffer intense guilt feelings because they were powerless to help them.
For some abductees, the idea of being taken against one’s will by nonhumans and undergoing a variety of physical and mental procedures is overwhelming. They prefer to think of their experiences as fantasies or dreams. They want the phenomenon to be benevolent and insist, against all evidence, that it is. This is why many abductees, after discovering what is happening to them, continue to embrace channeling. The thought that they might be victims of abductions rather than “chosen people” who are looked after by Space Brothers is difficult to cope with. They willingly retreat into the comfortable scenario of channeled information from kindly and benevolent aliens, in which, instead of being victims, they are cooperative participants who have some measure of control over their destinies. Other abductees face the facts squarely. They know what has happened, and after wrestling with the fear and the terror and coming to terms with their predicament, they want to get on with their lives.
It must be emphasized, finally, that PAS does not occur in all abductees. In fact, most people find a way to cope with these incredible experiences. Whether they know what has happened to them or not, they find a way to lead normal lives with only minor repercussions from the events that have occurred to them. The fact that a person has had abduction experiences does not automatically mean that she is suffering from the most psychologically destructive aspects of them.
No matter how they handle the experience, all abductees have one thing in common: They are victims. Just as surely as women who are raped are victims of sexual abuse or soldiers can be victims of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, abductees are victims who require sensitivity and, if needed, help in understanding what has happened to them and the possible consequences that abductions have had for their lives.
Chapter 10
The Struggle for Control
Abductees desperately want the abduction experience to stop. They have tried by pleading with the aliens, threatening them, and being willfully uncooperative. They have moved to another house, to another city, to another state, trying to get away from them. They sleep with a knife or a gun. They stay up all night—fearfully waiting, hoping that they can defend themselves. But the abductions continue.
Even biology has no effect. Physiological changes in a woman’s reproductive cycle do not prevent abductions. Women who have had tubal ligations and hysterectomies and who have had their ovaries removed continue to be the victims of abductions, although they are spared the typical gynecological procedures. We have not had enough experience with men who have a low sperm count or who have had vasectomies to know whether these conditions forestall abductions.
PREVENTION AND INTERVENTION
Little headway has been made in preventing abductions, although we have had some success with the use of a video camera. The camera makes it impossible for the aliens to maintain secrecy during an abduction, and in some cases it is able to effectively forestall the experience. For example, Melissa Bucknell began to have abduction experiences almost on a daily basis. We decided to use a video camera to try to “catch” the aliens in the act. We set up a camera and a VCR on a dresser top pointed at her bed. Melissa had been abducted the night before we set up the equipment. But after we installed it, days went by with no activity. We viewed all the tapes and she was sleeping at all times. Then one day she reported that she thought “something might have happened” to her that morning. She had gone to sleep very late the night before and had slept until noon. The tape had run out at 6:00 A.M. Investigation revealed that the abduction took place sometime between 6:00 and 12:00. I thought this was a near miss and the taping continued. Weeks later she had another abduction episode. This time she had slept on the living room couch to get away from the noise of her neighbors arguing upstairs—once again it was impossible for the camera to record the abduction.
A few months later Karen Morgan agreed to use a video camera and a similar pattern began to emerge. As long as the camera was trained on her, no abductions took place. But when Karen was away from the camera her problems began. When she went out of town to visit friends or relatives, she would be abducted. When she went to Michigan for a wedding and to Virginia to spend a night on a friend’s yacht and to New York to visit relatives, she had abduction experiences. When she “forgot” to set up the camera or VCR for the night, there was a good possibility that she would be abducted.
More abductees wanted to use the camera, and, as we gained experience with it, we began to notice that the video equipment would sometimes mysteriously malfunction or be turned off—and an abduction would follow. Unusual power outages that affected only the immediate surroundings (sometimes not even other rooms) would cause the VCR to go off and an abduction would take place. After one abduction Karen noticed that the camera wires had been pulled from the back of her VCR. Another time she noticed in the morning after an abduction that the video camera was off when she had specifically remembered turning it on and seeing the red light indicating that it was in the “record” mode.
The problem that the camera was generating for the abduction was overcome in other ways as well. For example, an abductee felt the urge at 5:30 A.M. (her camera put a time stamp on the tape) to get out of bed, walk over to the VCR, and turn it off—all of which was duly recorded on tape. She later remembered seeing Small Beings who were standing just outside of camera range directing her to do it. In another case, a young woman abductee felt very nervous one night and had the irresistible urge to get out of bed (and out of the camera’s field of view) and sleep in her parents’ room. As soon as she was away from the camera, she was abducted. One woman had the urge to go to bed three hours before she normally did. An abduction took place before the VCR was programmed to go on.
Six people have used a video camera and all have had similar experiences. The video camera does not stop abductions from happening; it only forestalls them. Nevertheless, the video camera is the only mechanism known that brings relief to the abductee at night. It helps to alleviate feelings of helplessness and gives the abductee a s
ense of fighting back and a slight measure of control over her life. It is a form of intervention that forces the Beings to contend with a detection device—something that they do not want to do.
A video camera has its drawbacks, however. It quickly becomes a crutch, and abductees feel that they cannot sleep without it. If they go on a trip and do not have the video camera with them, they can become beset by fears that an abduction will occur. Furthermore, sleeping for long periods of time under a video camera is something that no one looks forward to.
There are other methods of intervention that can be employed during the abduction itself. These appear to be able to affect the course of the procedure, and to switch control of the situation, if only for a moment, to the abductee. For example, several abductees have planned in advance to ask the aliens a question. It does not matter what the question is; the act of asking is most important. During the actual episode, the question is often extremely difficult to remember because of the changes in the abductees’ consciousness, but some abductees have managed to do it. The aliens’ answers have been vague and singularly lacking in information, but the important thing is that they seem to be caught off guard. This has given the abductee a sense of control, no matter how small. For a few minutes the abductee calls the shots and might even slightly change the course of the abduction.
During one abduction Karen Morgan was able to ask her question as the Taller Being was beginning Mindscan. As usual, the situation is more revealing for the way in which the alien dealt with the question than for the information imparted to Karen.
And then I ask it the question, “How long have you been doing this?” And it says, “That knowledge isn’t given to you.” And I say, “Jesus Christ, will you answer a question for the love of God? How long have you been doing this, and stop with those stupid answers.” I’m so pissed off at it. And it sort of just smiles and doesn’t answer. And I say, “Have you been doing this forever?” I don’t think it understands forever. And then I ask what it’s doing. “What are you doing?” It wants me to give it my mind, and then it will show me what it’s doing. I say, “No dice, I don’t care that much. No thanks, I’m not that interested.” It says, “Why are you afraid? Why are you worried? Don’t be afraid.” All the same bullshit that it always wants to give you.
Secret Life Page 26