Secret Life

by David M. Jacobs

  Throughout the history of the abduction phenomenon, it has been the abductees who have taught the researchers. The abductees have outlined the major events of the experience and set its parameters. The investigators, hypnotists, and researchers have learned about abductions not by imposing some sort of purposeful structure on abductee accounts but by patiently listening to what the abductees say. Furthermore, a significant percentage of abduction accounts are related by the abductee without the aid of hypnosis. Their stories are essentially the same as those related while under hypnosis.

  A comprehensive study of abduction accounts written by Dr. Thomas E. Bullard demonstrated that the “same key traits” (examination, table, etc.) showed up in accounts regardless of how the information was retrieved. He found no significant differences between material collected by experienced hypnotists, inexperienced hypnotists, and by hypnotists who believed in abductions and hypnotists who did not. His findings indicated that “hypnosis makes far less difference than critics have claimed.”7

  In 1978, Alvin Lawson, a professor of English at California State University at Long Beach, conducted an interesting study using eight volunteers to see if the abduction phenomenon was psychologically built into the unconscious minds of individuals. He screened each subject to filter out those who knew something about the UFO phenomenon (although he did not screen for abductions, a serious error because one of his subjects may have been an abductee) and had a physician hypnotize them; then he told them that they were to relate a UFO abduction event. They then proceeded to describe their “abduction.” The stories they told were all different from each other. The details within the stories were also different from each other. The aliens all looked different from each other. One looked like a lizard, one was cone-shaped with no head, one had an asymmetrical head with no eyes, one looked like a wise man with a beard. The subjects reported no egg or sperm sampling. They had no secondary or ancillary experiences. Except for one, the subjects felt no emotional content in their stories. They described no natural progression of events during the course of the “abduction.” For example, they were told that they would be taken aboard a UFO and were encouraged to describe how they got on board. They then described the interior and the aliens. Lawson specifically had to tell them that they were going to have a physical examination. Although a few details resembled those found in real accounts (e.g., they lay on a table, a machine was used to X-ray one, and a few said they could not move), the majority of them were not related to abductions and did not match what is known. Lawson showed that imaginary abductees were just that—imaginary.8

  Hypnosis has been used to explore claims of “past lives.” Under hypnosis, subjects deliver accounts of living lives in the past, complete with details about geography, society, and significant areas of personal life. Thus the case can be made that abductions are akin to past-life regressions in which subjects remember long, sometimes complicated scenarios about their former status. But past-life accounts are all different, more akin to “channeling.” They lack the great mass of confirmatory detail that abductees report. They are personally idiosyncratic. Critics who claim that past-life stories and abduction accounts are related fail to take into consideration multiple abductions, the physicality of the event, psychological trauma, and the remarkable similarity of detail.

  In truth, there are sincere people who are not channelers who make extravagant claims about being abducted that fit only loosely into the scenario that researchers have developed. These people might indeed be abductees but have not had the opportunity to undergo competent hypnosis. Therefore they carry mental images of atomic destruction, pollution problems, and kindly Space Brothers more typical of contactee accounts. Only competent hypnosis can reveal the origin of these images and feelings. When the hypnotist does not have an adequate knowledge of the subject, the true nature of the abduction may never be revealed.

  Stigmata

  Finally, it has been posited that the physical effects associated with abductions—scars, internal injuries, blood loss, and gynecological and urological sequelae—are a form of “stigmata” very much like the stigmata that can result in rare cases when a person is so extraordinarily obsessed with the crucifixion of Christ that he develops the wounds from it.

  If abduction sequelae are stigmata, however, then stigmata or other psychosomatic physical symptoms can achieve a life of their own apart from the conscious thoughts and activities of the victims. For example, the abductee may have only a passing and vague concern with abductions, but she may develop marks on her body associated with them even though she is not in any way obsessed with the subject or aware that she might be an abductee. Far from being obsessed with it to the point of incorporating some functions of the abductions into the physical structure of her body, the aware abductee usually desperately wants the abductions to end. Moreover, scars are often found by accident: a friend will notice it behind the abductee’s knee, or the abductee will feel something “funny” on her body and then notice the mark. Thus the physical aftereffects of an abduction do not conform to our knowledge about stigmata.

  PSYCHIATRIC EXPLANATIONS

  Psychiatric explanations of abduction accounts suggest that they originate either from organic brain problems or from serious mental disorders.

  Psychosis

  It is possible that abductee claimants are mentally disturbed people whose fallacious stories are an integral part of their illness. Psychiatrists believe that mental illness affects, in one degree or another, a significant percentage of the population of the United States and probably the world. To some debunkers the mere fact of claiming an abduction is prima facie evidence of mental illness. Even the eminent physicist Philip Morrison has said, “Go into a state hospital and every tenth person will tell you the same [abduction] story.9

  It is true that mentally ill people will sometimes claim contact with Beings from other planets. But their claims are usually part of their psychoses and are consistent with a whole range of bizarre and confused thought patterns and behavior that characterize their lives. Their stories are inconsistent and incoherent. The details in their stories do not match the details in any other people’s stories. Sometimes broad patterns of psychotic thought disturbances are similar (“The FBI is plotting against me,” “Voices are speaking to me”), but even within this context the details are confused and jumbled.

  Legitimate abductee claimants do not mistake fantasy for reality in the normal course of their daily existence. Most are productive members of society and are not mentally ill.10 They claim events have happened to them that are inconsistent with anything else in their lives. For most of them, the abductions are unprecedented events that do not fit a pattern of other bizarre or unaccountable experiences.

  And even though some of the abductees might seek psychological help, no evidence exists to show that they are schizophrenics, manic-depressives, or have delusionary personalities (although people with these traits may also be abductees). “Blind” psychological testing of nine abductees, including the administration of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory, has shown that they exhibited characteristics of people who had been “violated,” e.g., raped, and were more “wary” than usual. All the abductees were well within the psychologically “normal” range and exhibited no pathology.11

  Multiple Personality Disorder

  In spite of the lack of evidence for mental disease, some critics have said that the serious illness of disassociated personalities, or “multiple personalities,” may have a bearing on the abduction phenomenon. The people who suffer from this unusual disorder may have one or more personalities separate from their dominant one, and they may or may not know about the others. The alternate personalities may engage in antisocial, immoral, or just different behavior from the other personalities.

  In no case has an abduction researcher uncovered an individual who exhibited traits of multiple personality disorder. No abductee has spontaneously shifted into another personality during a
hypnosis session, as if the abduction were happening to someone else. Nor has an abductee displayed other personalities independent of the regression session. When an abductee remembers the abduction, it is fully integrated into the structure of her life without resistance; it would not be if it were another person’s problem.

  Generally, people with multiple personality disorder come from backgrounds filled with severe and prolonged sexual abuse. Their disassociated personalities can be understood as a psychological attempt to escape from the traumas of their “real” existence. Although some abductees have been sexually abused, we have no evidence to suggest that the frequency of abuse is any higher among abductees than among the general population. Moreover, the abductees’ accounts of abductions do not occur in response to the abuse and are exactly the same as those made by people with no known history of sexual abuse. Thus multiple personality disorder does not seem to be a likely candidate as the causative factor in the reports of abductions.

  Psychogenic Fugue State

  Psychogenic fugue state is a condition that has parallels with multiple personality disorder and with the missing time episode. In a fugue state, the individual will inexplicably travel to another geographic location, assume a new identity, and conduct her affairs with no recollections of what has happened in the past. A fugue state takes place when the individual is under a severe amount of pressure and stress. Usually a major conflict has just ensued with another person and the fugue victim lapses into this state. The act of going into a fugue state is an attempt to replace intolerable affairs with ones that are more psychologically manageable. Each experience is unique to that individual. The details of one person’s life in a fugue state differ from the details of another person’s life in a fugue state.

  As with a fugue state, an abduction often takes place without the victim remembering the events. But the similarity ends there. People do not change their identities during an abduction, nor do they travel to another geographic location where other people see them. They consider themselves helpless victims of the abduction rather than new personalities forging new experiences. Their accounts contain no personal elements and are remarkably consistent with the accounts of other abductees. Finally, their memories are often filled with fear and terror. They wish to escape from the memories of the abduction rather than from any precipitating causative event.

  Temporal Lobe Dysfunction

  Dr. Michael Persinger, a professor of neurobiology at Laurentian University in Canada, has theorized that abduction accounts might stem from dysfunctions in the brain’s temporal lobe. He says that the temporal lobe could be stimulated by electrically charged particles in the atmosphere unleashed as a result of the earth’s geologic tectonic plate stress (sections of the earth’s crust rubbing against each other). These electrical discharges might stimulate temporal lobe instability that could lead people to hallucinate. Or, says Persinger, abduction accounts might also be triggered by temporal lobe epilepsy. When the temporal lobe is electrically stimulated in a laboratory, he says, the subject will have a series of perceptual experiences that closely parallel abductions. For instance, they might have a sense of a “presence” around them; they might feel that they are having a mystical experience; they might interpret unusual events “as being meaningful or as special, personal messages,” and they might have feelings such as a sense of unreality, internal vibrations, rising sensations, erotic thoughts, and anxiety. Persinger has even claimed that, with medication to control temporal lobe dysfunction, he has been able to “cure” an “abductee” of her “abduction” experiences.

  Persinger’s theory is based on precarious ground. The electrical effects of tectonic plate stress are extremely controversial and not yet accepted by the geologic community. The effect that the electrically charged particles might have on people’s brains is highly conjectural and not accepted by the psychiatric community. Persinger presents no direct evidence to the contrary. Furthermore, the tiny population sample that Persinger worked with to obtain his abduction material was, by and large, not composed of abductees. Rather, it consisted of channelers, followers of mystically oriented Eastern religions and philosophies, and people with a few highly dubious “visitor” accounts that have never been fully investigated. And finally, their narratives, which he says contain “substantial fantasy,” do not match the narratives of the abductees.12

  CULTURAL EXPLANATIONS

  Cultural explanations maintain that abduction accounts originate from the influence that prevailing culture and society have upon the individual.

  Desire for a Baby

  Some critics have stated that the abduction phenomenon is related to the societal awareness of new fertilization methods, such as in vitro fertilization, artificial insemination, and surrogate motherhood. Women, and presumably men, who desperately want children might unconsciously internalize these ideas and bring them forth in obsessive fantasies based on their desire to have children.

  But the abduction phenomenon was known long before the new fertilization techniques were developed. And if abductions represent the unconscious longings of women for a child, then their reports of not wanting to hold or touch babies during the abduction would not make much sense. Also, teenage boys and men are shown babies and have sperm taken with no evidence that these men so want to have children that they are inventing fantasies around the event. Furthermore, the new fertilization techniques almost exclusively focus on women. Of the fifteen women in this study who were shown babies, ten already had children and had no plans for more, one was planning on having a child in the near future, and four had no desire to have a child at that time. Finally, young children are often shown babies and their concern with the new fertilization techniques must be assumed to be negligible.

  The Influence of Science Fiction

  Other critics claim that people pick up their ideas about abductions from science fiction motion pictures. While it is true that science fiction movies are popular, none has been released with themes or events similar to abduction accounts. No science fiction movies have been made that portray invading aliens as being uncommunicative and refusing to give information about their origin, mission, or methods. Nor have any shown aliens collecting eggs and sperm from their human victims with the intent of producing hybrid offspring.

  Science fiction movies have recognizable and even formulaic plots: Aliens come here to wreak destruction; aliens come here to take over the planet; aliens come here to help mankind, etc. The three most widely seen science fiction movies of all time, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, E, T., and Star Wars, were not at all similar to the abduction accounts (although Close Encounters did have an off-camera abduction suggestion). Even Star Trek, which has been seen probably by more Americans than any other science fiction television show, had no plots that resembled the abduction scenario. Moreover, many abductees are not science fiction fans. They do not see science fiction movies or television shows. They do not read science fiction literature. They are not involved with the world of science fiction at any level. Thus to dismiss their abduction accounts as coming from science fiction is unwarranted.

  Folklore

  Some researchers have suggested that so-called abduction stories have occurred all through recorded history and that they are found in myth, legend, and folklore. However, these skeptics generally lump together all folklore accounts of “little people,” gnomes, trolls, dwarfs, and so forth, no matter what the context, into the abduction phenomenon simply because these characters are small or because they are said to have supernatural powers. The adherents of this theory disconnect such folktales from their original social and cultural context and then present them as fact in a completely different milieu as if they have a life of their own. The only difference, they claim, is that abduction stories are now more technologically advanced. But they present only vague and general similarities to show that the abduction phenomenon is related to myth, legend, and folklore such as superficial stories about “changelings,” little
people, or gods who live in the heavens. For adherents of the folklore hypothesis, facile resemblances become complex modern duplicates.

  The folktales also become evidence that the UFO abduction phenomenon has been going on for centuries. Of course, hundreds of folktales have been collected about little people, giants, gods, flying machines, people being kidnapped by trolls, and other material that the uninformed might decide were like the UFO and abduction phenomena, but the actual content of myths, legends, and folktales has almost nothing in common with abduction accounts. Typically, folktales, myths, and legends have been orally transmitted. They have been changed and altered over the years depending on the “spin” that the teller puts on the tale. That alteration is determined by the personality of the storyteller and the culture in which he lives. Folklore is a dynamic process that is constantly changing. Getting at the kernel of truth that may lie behind the tale is often quite impossible.13 The victims of abductions are not telling stories that they had previously heard from other people. They are relating accounts of sometimes ongoing events that they believe happened to them.

  EXOTIC THEORIES

  Let us suppose that abductee claimants have no discernible psychological or psychiatric dysfunction and that they are not internalizing cultural events but are still relating episodes that have no basis in objective reality. Given this presumption, how can we explain these claims? Critics have often dipped into the exotic and bizarre to explain these accounts, as they try to replace one strange set of circumstances with another.