Secret Life

by David M. Jacobs

  I don’t really remember that. I just remember kind of drifting off. They told me, “You’re going to sleep.” It’s like they put emphasis on “You’re going to sleep. You’re going.” I’m thinking, “Yeah, but where?” They said, “To sleep.” Now I feel real drained. I feel like I’m a battery that’s been completely discharged, extremely weak. I feel like I’m shutting down.

  (Will Parker, 33, 1988)

  Another common form of resistance is for the abductee to try to get up from the table when she is lying on it. Barbara Archer tried it, and the aliens handled it by calling over the Taller Being.

  I sat up. I don’t want to be there anymore. They kind of looked upset when I did that.

  When you sat up?

  Yes. And the other one came in.

  How do you know they were upset?

  Well, they sort of rushed over, and then in a few minutes I guess they told the other one or something, because he was there. I just have this feeling like I wasn’t supposed to sit up.

  Do you continue to sit up, though?

  I sat up until the other one came in…. The other one came in, and I felt a little bit better. He came over. He touched me.

  Where does he touch you?

  Well, at first he touched my hand, but then he moved his hand to my head.

  Are you still sitting up, then?

  Well, when he came over and touched my hand, I lay back down again.

  (Barbara Archer, 22, 1988)

  One of the most bizarre episodes of resistance during an abduction occurred when Jason Howard was drunk. He had gone to bed having had too much to drink, and then was abducted. The aliens were performing procedures on him when he simply decided to get up off the table. They tried to calm him down and asked him questions such as “How do you feel,” but he would have none of it. He laughed, swung his arms around wildly in mock karate chops, and managed to stand in the middle of the room. The Small Beings immediately backed up against the wall. The Taller Being tried to reason with him, but to no avail. Then the Taller Being came up to him, stared in his eyes, and the next thing he knew he was standing in his underpants on the grass of his college campus about a mile from where he had been abducted.

  Jason’s experience was typical of how the Beings act when the abductee gets out of control: The Small Beings immediately back off and allow the Taller Beings to deal with the situation; they do not try to intervene, nor do they try countermeasures; it is up to the Taller Being to remedy the situation.

  Unquestionably the greatest opportunity for resistance comes when the Beings force the abductee to hold a baby. Many women and men want nothing to do with the baby. The baby looks strange, and they may be reacting negatively to the suggestion that it is their baby. In any case, many women simply refuse to hold the baby. When Lynn refused, they put the baby in her arms; one Being pushed the baby toward her chest, while another Being stood behind her with his arms in her back preventing her from backing up.

  Melissa wanted nothing to do with the baby, but this time the Beings did nothing.

  It’s a baby. Little baby. It’s ugly…. It’s not mine.

  Is it a little baby or a big baby?

  I don’t want this thing. I don’t want anything to do with this species.

  Is this baby a human baby?

  Gross baby.

  Does it have normal eyes?

  No. It’s… an ugly one like the little creatures. I don’t want anything to do with this species, nothing at all. I’ll kill it. I swear to God I’ll kill it if you bring it near me. I hate you. I hate it. I hate this. It’s so fucking unnatural. Fucking stupid. Disgusting thing. I’ll kill it if you bring it near me, I swear. Move it away. They just stand there with it. I’m not looking at it. I’m not going to look at it. I hate it….

  Do they take it away?

  They try to put it in my arms. I push it away. I’m getting really pissed off. If they keep doing this I swear I’ll smash it. I hate it already. I get really angry. I hate you when you do this. Don’t you ever listen to me? Don’t you ever listen to me? Don’t you ever listen to what I’m saying to you?

  Do they respond?

  No.

  (Melissa Bucknell, 27, 1987)

  Karen Morgan has been perhaps the most resistant to the aliens. She rarely misses an opportunity to exert her own individuality by refusing to do what they want. She has, at various times, walked too slowly down the hall, with the Small Beings frantically urging her to move faster while they pushed and pulled her. Once when two small aliens walked her down the hallway, she stopped suddenly and the alien behind her bumped into her. She dropped to the ground, forcing them to carry her to the table. In one remarkable event, as two small aliens were leading her into a large examining room, she hooked her left arm into a panel on the doorway, and she could not be easily dislodged.

  I came in from the little anteroom, maybe it’s a big anteroom, but there’s a room where they undress you…. I’m really putting up as much of a fight as you can under the circumstances, and I’m refusing to do anything at all because I have more muscle tone than I usually do…. I remember coming in through a door and grabbing onto the panel, and they can’t get me away from it. And I’ve got my arms sort of locked around the panel. I just want to see how far I can push them.

  What do you mean by panel?

  There’s a panel, a door, except I don’t see the door, and I think they open it somehow, but I don’t see that part either. It’s just not like a normal door. And you walk into this big examination room from this area, and usually they lead you right through the middle of it, but this time there’s one on my side, leading me, and [one is pulling me by my arm].

  One is leading you, and one is pulling your arm?

  Right, and the one who’s on my side has my arm like this, and there’s one sort of in front of me…. The one gets ahead of me…. I have enough muscle tone to pull my arm away from him and lock my arm like this into the panel. So I put my arm like that and it’s surprised. It sort of turns around like, “What just happened?” And so I have my arm like that, and I sort of look at it [the Being]. And the other one is pulling my other arm, but I won’t let go and I’m stronger than they are. They must be very weak.… I’ve got my arm hooked in such a way that I’ve got more leverage than they do, and so there’s creatures in the room….

  Do they say anything to you?

  They’re impatient. They say, “Come on! Come on!” sort of. I’m not really sure those are the words. And I say, “No, I’m not going anywhere.” Then there’s these other Beings in the room that are doing the… examinations, and they sort of look up like, “What is going on?” And I just look at them and smile. And they look at the two little ones and say, “What’s happening here?” And now it’s not so funny anymore because it looks like the little ones are getting scared, and I wonder what they’re going to do if they’re scared. But then I say, “So what? Who cares? Let’s find out.” I just won’t let go of the door. So they come back to me, and one is still pulling on my arm, and the other comes around behind me and pulls my arm like that, which explains, I think, why I have such a sore shoulder for a couple of days after. He pulls my arm away like that. But they got scared for a minute, they got frightened. I think they thought that they really messed up. And then they bring me into the room, and there’s two other creatures, the ones that have the big eyes, and they’re sort of looking at each other like, “What was this disturbance?” And then they put me up on the table, and they tie me down real fast.

  You mean, your whole body or your arms… ?

  My arms and my legs, real fast. They do everything so fast that I can’t respond.… Ever since the door thing it was like… right into the table. And they tie me down, and I don’t know how I know this but I think they drug me more…. I’m getting woozier and woozier, and I think they drugged me. I think that they just hadn’t given me enough. That’s why I was able to do that. Maybe not, but most of the time you don’t get to do those kinds of things b
ecause you don’t have that kind of muscle tone….

  So they get you down on the table, and you feel yourself getting a little bit woozy. Do they then begin the examination, or do they wait a while?

  I lie there for a while, then the creature comes over and he puts his hand on my chest, and he says through my mind, “Well, that was quite a little scene,” or something like that. But… he says it in such a condescending voice, like he’s talking to a three-year-old. And I say, “I’d like to kill you guys, every one of you.” He says, “I know, you don’t like us,” or something like that, “but just relax, but just relax.” And I say, “I don’t want to relax. I don’t want to be relaxed when I’m here.” And he says, “It’s much easier if you relax, it’s much easier.” And I say, “It’s much easier for you, but it’s not easier for me.” And he says, “Now, now, you know there’s nothing to be afraid of.” And I say, “There’s a lot to be afraid of, and you had better stop doing this to me.” And he says, “Don’t resist, there’s no point in resisting.” And I say, “Yes there is, there’s every point in resisting. I don’t believe you, I don’t trust you, I know that nothing you say is true.” And then I say something I’ve forgotten. All those years I’ve forgotten about it. And I say, “You’re a shapeshifter.” And he looks puzzled. And I say, “You’re a shapeshifter. You can take any shape that you want, and you can make us think you’re anything that we want to believe that you are, but I know what you are.” And then he sort of shrugs and takes his hand away. He’s indifferent really. But when I said he was a shapeshifter he looked puzzled, and then when I sort of explained what it was, there was just sort of a flash of recognition…. For all these years in literature people have been writing about the shapeshifters. Maybe that’s where they got it from. And somehow I feel better knowing what he is. Being able to put a name on it. And now I think he puts his hand on my head, they’re always doing this. And he looks into my eyes, and because they drugged me they think they can do this now, and he tries to suck me, pull me into his eyes. And he says, “Look at me, look at me.” And I say, “No, you can’t give me enough drugs to make me go along with this, you’ll have to kill me.” And he says, “We don’t want to hurt you. This can feel very good, this can feel good.” And I say, “No it won’t because I won’t let it happen. It won’t work with me.” And then I say, because they always say to me, “Why do you resist,” I say, “Why do you keep doing this? You know it’s not going to work,” in the same way that he always does it to me. And then he looks at me like he’s wondering something, and somewhere in the back of my mind I think, “Maybe I really have him thinking for once,” and then I think, “No, they’re not capable of that.” But that’s good because now I’m really not in any danger of having him be able to pull me into his mind. But he keeps his hand on my forehead and the pressure gets more and more intense. Starts to hurt.

  (Karen Morgan, 38, 1987)

  Karen has consistently balked at holding a baby. She invariably does hold it, but not without a mental struggle. Her thoughts and actions have pushed the aliens further than most. In one episode, the Beings took her into an incubatorium and then wanted her to hold a baby.

  And that’s when we go to that place with the bench. And she’s fighting with me about taking this baby. I say, “I don’t want the baby.” And sometime during the discussion, which really isn’t a discussion because she’s going to win, but sometime during this she’s trying to make an illusion, she’s trying to create an illusion in my mind. She’s trying to make me feel something that I’m not going to feel. And I say, “No, sorry. But we’re not all alike, and you’re not going to get to me through a baby because I don’t care.” And I’m so angry, and I hate them so much, that I think for a minute that I’ll take the baby and I’ll throw it down on the floor. And then what are they going to do to me? But she knows I’m thinking that. You can’t think anything because they know it.

  Does she do something now?

  Mm-hmm. She says, “You won’t hurt the baby. You won’t do that.” And I wouldn’t. She’s right, I wouldn’t. But I never feel anything for it.

  (Karen Morgan, 30, 1979)

  Karen has continually upset the aliens by her constant refusal to hold the babies. They become exasperated. But no matter how irritated they become, their exasperation does not escalate into more than that. Abductees do not report aliens using violence or threats of violence to get their way, and they usually get their way. On one occasion when Karen refused to hold the baby, they forced her hand onto the baby’s lower abdomen.

  And she says, “All right now, touch, rub the baby. Touch the baby.” And I say, “Oh, come on, will you? This is ridiculous.” And she picks up my hand and she puts it on the baby’s skin. Ugh! It’s creepy.

  Does it feel like skin?

  Ugh! No! Ugh! I can’t stand to touch it. I pull my hand away. I probably don’t move it that fast because I’m drugged, but ugh! It was on my lap but I don’t remember feeling it that way… ugh.

  How did it feel?

  Soft. I mean, it has no tone.

  It wasn’t firm like a baby’s tone is firm?

  No. No. They’re so thin, their skin is like paper. I don’t like it. She says, “Oh, you mustn’t do that,” or something like that, some stupid thing. “Oh, no, no, no, no,” and she puts my hand back and I don’t like the way the baby feels at all.

  Does the baby respond at all when you touch it?

  A little bit. It does. It sort of, I can feel it respond. I can feel it respond…. I don’t really like what they’re doing to me. I don’t care about this baby. I don’t like what they’re doing to me. They’re putting my hand on it. She’s putting my hand on it. She’s forcing me to touch it. Their hands are very strong when they want them to be…. And this one holds my hand down and I can’t move my hand…. I’m really mad now. I’m really pissed off because she won’t let go of my hand. And I say, “Let go. How dare you touch my hand?” And she says, “You have to touch the baby.” She’s very stern. “The baby needs you, you have to touch it.” I say, “No I don’t. You can make me touch it, but I don’t have to touch it.” She says, “You’ve got to touch the baby.” And then I say, “If you keep pressing like that you’re going to kill the baby.” And she says, “It won’t hurt the baby.” And I think, “These people, things, don’t know what they’re doing. She’s got my hand pressed into the kid’s stomach.” But maybe they do, I don’t know. And I say, “Fine, go ahead. Keep pressing it.” But you know what, maybe she really does know what she’s doing. If you pressed a human baby this hard it would scream. It would scream. But what she’s doing is, I’ve got it now. I’ve figured it out. She’s pressing my hand into its stomach… because they wanted to get energy from us. So she’s pressing my hand really hard into its stomach. Real low on its stomach, almost by its genitals. She’s pressing my hand there really hard so that it will get energy…. But at the time I thought, “Boy, she’s sure pressing hard. A human kid would cry.” And I’m really mad that she’s pressing that hard. Then she takes her hand away and she says, “There, there. The baby needs you.”

  (Karen Morgan, 38, 1987)

  In all, the abductees’ ability to resist during the abduction episode is limited. The aliens meet resistance with either patience or exasperation. Because they can physically and mentally control humans, they treat resistance as a nuisance. If the abductee gets out of control, the Small Beings usually back off and let the Taller Being deal with the situation, and the proper procedures for regaining control are instituted. Yet some abductees have learned the areas where defiance and self-assertion are possible. When they do resist or at least throw the aliens off their routine, they briefly enjoy a sense of control and mastery of the situation that allows them to feel they are fighting back and are therefore less victimized.

  PART IV

  THE SEARCH FOR MEANING

  Chapter 11

  Answers

  Suppose that all of the abduction accounts have their origin in the
minds of the people relating the stories and not in objective reality. They must, therefore, be explainable in conventional terms. In fact, a great variety of explanations have been proposed, all of which attribute the abduction phenomenon to subjective rather than objective causes. An analysis of these conventional explanations for abductions—psychological, psychiatric, cultural, and exotic—might be helpful in evaluating whether or not any of them can truly solve the mystery.