WORLD CATASTROPHES
4) A substantial share of the abduction subjects describe an impending geophysical disaster to befall the Earth, as shown or told to them aboard a ship. Predominant among that cataclysmic imagery are a tilting of Earth’s axis and/or earthquakes and volcanoes unprecedented in scope within recorded history, vast regions of the landscape on fire, and massive tidal waves inundating coastlines.
MILITARY INVOLVEMENT
5) A disturbing number of subjects in the project claim the U.S. military-intelligence apparatus is directly involved in, or has acquiesced in, an alien program of human abductions. They report (a) underground alien or shared government-alien facilities; (b) military personnel acting in concert with alien beings; and/or (c) military personnel abducting them, or aerial harassment by unmarked helicopters of their homes, in the aftermath of alien abductions.
Based on the repetition of unpublicized details arising in the transcripts he has reviewed, Wright concludes that human abductions by alien life forms are a reality. He is confidant that the various entity types described arise from multiple places and are not necessarily all working in concert. Short of a startling admission by one or more governments on our planet, he doubts that the full truth of alien intrusion can ever be known.
—ETEP STAFF
POSTSCRIPT: While “abductionists” such as Budd Hopkins, David Jacobs, and Harvard University’s Dr. John Mack have achieved fame (and fortune) as experts on the UFOabduction phenomenon, the efforts of little-known researcher Dan Wright have provided more scientifically useful insights into the true nature of the phenomenon than all other abductionists combined. Wright heads a MUFON (Mutual UFO Network) committee which painstakingly transcribes the tales told by abductees—typically under hypnosis—which Wright then analyzes in a search for patterns. The results of Wright’s latest analysis were reported at MUFON’s recent conference in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
Wright’s latest analysis is based on 906 taped transcripts of 254 alleged abductions obtained from 20 abduction researchers. These included David Jacobs, but Budd Hopkins and John Mack did not participate. Wright’s recent report reveals a significant gender pattern. Of the 254 subjects, 64 percent were female, 30 percent were male and 6 percent involved couples.
During the supposed abductions, 54 percent of the female subjects reported being subjected to some gynecological procedure. Of these, 19 percent reported having a fetus aborted, while 7 percent reported having an embryo implanted in their womb. Nearly a third reported having ova or tissue removed. (But 46 percent reported no ET interest in such matters.)
The transcripts also revealed that 32 percent of the male subjects reported having sperm extracted, or implied that such had occurred. (Seemingly, more than two-thirds of the male abductees failed to meet ET standards to “father” a hybrid.
4 percent of the female subjects reported being forced to engage in sexual intercourse with ETs, one by a “short greenish-brown reptilian” who was trying to arouse her with its “metal claws.” One male subject reported being forced to engage in sex with another male abductee.
11 percent of the female subjects reported they had breast-fed a hybrid baby, even though none of them had been pregnant or lactating at the time.
17 percent reported one or more of the following: underground government, alien, or shared government-alien facilities; government personnel acting in concert with alien beings; government intrusion or harassment during an alien abduction.
WRIGHT’S CONCLUSIONS
Although Wright acknowledges his belief in the reality of UFO abductions, he offers a wise caveat. “Regressive hypnosis, the cornerstone of the Abduction Transcription Project, offers only evidence—not proof—of alien abductions. Some of the people in the study might have a penchant for fantasies or a need to be part of an exclusive ‘club.’ Moreover, many were less than carte blanche subjects, having read one or more abduction-related books prior to undergoing hypnosis sessions.”
What convinces Wright of the reality of UFO abductions are the “details, sequences, cause and effect. These to the author are the proofs of an alien abduction reality.”
He cites the following as an example: “Dozens of subjects said they were shown one or more infants or a room full of incubating fetuses. But, if these were only copycat images, how is it that each person placed the ‘baby’ presentation sequentially after—never before—procedures on an examining table. No book or TV documentary has emphasized that.” However, this author suggests the contrary: that overall, most contemporary books and TV shows essentially do follow the traditional scenario with the examination first.
Possibly Wright’s most significant commentary appears early in his MUFON paper: “Regressive hypnosis cannot irrefutably uncover truth stemming from significant events in one’s life. Whether such episodes entail emotional or sexual abuse, a fanciful personality, or some other prosaic explanation, the subjects in this project nonetheless have concluded that unearthly beings are responsible for their recovered memories. Further, in that there are no conclusive means to discern fact from fiction in their recorded accounts, no greater weight is given to a particular case over any other.”
Thus, it is impossible to determine from the content of the tales whether all 254 abduction accounts are literally true, or if some are true and some are fantasy—or if all are fantasy. No “abductee” claim is so wild as to prompt Wright to label it as fantasy.
—PHILIP J. KLASS
abductions Also known as Close Encounters of the Fourth Kind (CE-IV events), these experiences typically include: (1) capture by alien beings, (2) time spent aboard a spaceship, and (3) bizarre, sometimes gruesome medical examinations.
Abduction reports are relative newcomers to UFO lore. John G. Fuller introduced the story of Barney and Betty Hill in his book, The Interrupted Journey, in 1966, making the Hill case the prototypical and most familiar abduction—though not the first on record.
Brazilian farmer, Antonio Villas Boas, described an abduction to UFOlogists in early 1958, but they suppressed his report because of the sensationalistic claim that an alien woman seduced him. The Villas Boas and Hill cases share significant points in common even though neither case could have influenced the other. Subsequent witnesses have claimed abduction dates in the 1950s and earlier, but the Villas Boas and Hill reports were the first documented accounts.
Despite the popularity of Fuller’s book, abduction accounts remained scarce for many years. Herbert Schirmer received some media attention in 1967; and in 1973, a report from Pascagoula, Mississippi, made the national news when two shipyard workers, Charles Hickson and Calvin Parker, reported they had been captured by three mummy-like beings.
Then in November of 1975, Travis Walton of Snowflake, Arizona, disappeared for five days and returned with an abduction story destined for national notoriety.
After the mid-1970s a growing trickle of people stepped forward to describe fragmentary, half-hidden memories of troubling UFO encounters. Coral and Jim Lorenzen, Dr. Leo Sprinkle, Dr. James Harder, Raymond Fowler, Walter Webb, Ann Druffel, Jenny Randles, D. Scott Rogo and other investigators began to specialize in these reports. With the help of hypnotists they sometimes recovered abduction accounts from an hour or two when the witness’s memory failed.
A breakthrough came late in the decade when Budd Hopkins teamed with professional hypnotists to explore periods of memory lapse connected not just with sightings of mysterious lights but with less specific experiences, such as a stretch of roadway or a childhood recollection that provoked unaccountable anxieties. Where he found a memory gap, he often discovered an abduction, and this new realization that the phenomenon spread further than anyone suspected became the central message of his first book, Missing Time (1981).
Throughout the 1980s, the abduction phenomenon continued to rise to the forefront of UFOlogy. Investigation of Betty Andreasson uncovered not just one event but a lifelong series of alien encounters extending back into her childhood.
Another account, from the Tujunga Canyon area of California, led to the discovery of a series of abductions among five female acquaintances. In his second book, Intruders (1987), Hopkins told of a young Indianapolis woman being impregnated by aliens who removed the fetus, then later during another abduction introduced her to the child—a human-alien hybrid.
Author Whitley Strieber proved the famous were vulnerable as well and spread awareness of abductions further than ever before with his bestselling book, Communion (1987).
Strieber’s “visitor” became an icon
after its appearance in 1987
on the cover of Communion.
Some 300 cases had entered the literature by 1985, followed by another 500 over the next six years. An OMNI magazine survey in December 1987 drew some 1,200 responses from people describing abductions or abduction-like symptoms, while a Roper Poll carried out in 1992 found abduction-related experiences so common that a conservative extrapolation implicated some 2 percent of the U.S. population as likely abductees.
The subject attracted an increasingly distinguished scholarly following—both for and against—during the 1990s. Historian Dr. David M. Jacobs turned investigator and described the recurrent order he found among abductee accounts in Secret Life (1992); he then proposed hybridization and eventual alien domination of the earth to be the purpose behind these encounters in The Threat (1998).
Harvard psychiatrist, Dr. John E. Mack, also became an investigator convinced that the phenomenon is literally true, but found it benign: an interaction working to change human consciousness from materialism to a more spiritual orientation. He published his findings in Abduction (1994) and underwent a university-sponsored investigation by colleagues who suspected him of unscientific procedures.
Abductees, investigators, and researchers gathered for the Abduction Study Conference Held at MIT in 1992: an attempt to synthesize accumulated knowledge and plot future research summarized in the proceedings, Alien Discussions (1994). Noted writer, C. D. B. Bryan, observed the conference and presented his sympathetic impressions in Close Encounters of the Fourth Kind (1995).
Another trend of the decade has been a willingness of abductees to follow in the footsteps of Whitley Strieber and tell their own stories in print. The list includes Karla Turner, Katharina Wilson, Debbie Jordan, Travis Walton, Beth Collings and Anna Jamerson. Abduction research has become an organized subdiscipline of UFOlogy, with Budd Hopkins’s Intruders Foundation, John Mack’s Program for Extraordinary Experience Research (PEER), and the Fund for UFO Research sponsoring programs to explore physical and psychological clues to the nature of the phenomenon.
Most abduction reports originate in North America, but the phenomenon is worldwide with South America, Britain, and Australia producing numerous reports. A growing number of cases have emerged from continental Europe and the former Soviet Union, while Africa and Asia have begun to contribute reports as well.
Though most abductions involve a single witness, perhaps one fourth are multiplewitness cases, with three or more individuals sometimes taken at once. Abductees come from all walks of life, all levels of education, and all lines of work. Males and females seem about equally prone to the experience. Psychological tests of abductees have failed to uncover any overt mental illness—though their profiles indicate some of the insecurities characteristic of crime victims. Perhaps the most remarkable characteristic of abductees is their age distribution. Anyone from children to the elderly may be abducted, but by far the most abductees are less than 35 years of age when first taken.
Hypnosis became standard operating procedure to probe a period of missing time with Barney and Betty Hill, and this technique remains the most successful way to lift amnesia or remove an apparent mental block and release memories of an abduction experience. Some two-thirds to three-fourths of the known cases have included this controversial procedure, though some witnesses, such as Charles Hickson, recall everything clearly from the start.
In other instances lost memories return spontaneously within days, weeks, or months; or emerge in dreams or nightmares. Many witnesses retain some memories with hypnosis serving only to fill in minor details.
However the story emerges, the accounts seem remarkably alike. Reports contain a maximum of eight episodes:
1) Capture. Alien beings capture a human to take aboard a spaceship.
2) Examination. The beings subject their captive to a medical examination.
3) Conference. A meeting, lecture, or schooling session follows.
4) Tour. The witness is treated to a sightseeing tour of the ship.
5) Otherworldly Journey. The beings fly the witness to an otherworldly environment.
6) Theophany. The witness meets a divine being or has a religious experience.
7) Return. The witness returns to Earth and resumes normal activities.
8) Aftermath. Aftereffects of the abduction influence the witness for weeks or years to come.
Complex order extends to the capture and examination episodes as well. The capture scenario begins with some abductees taken while driving, usually in a remote area; others while at home or in bed; still others while outdoors in the open.
Aliens or their UFO first appear, then silence and stillness settle over the physical world while abductees lose the will to resist and paralysis creeps over their bodies. The beings float their captives to the ship or a beam of light draws them up and they enter suddenly, with a momentary lapse of memory.
Once the examination begins, it also follows a set course as the witness undresses and lies on a table, then the beings perform a manual examination and an eye-like device scans the witness’s body. Instrumental procedures follow, then the beings take samples of bodily materials and procedures concerned with the reproductive organs, neurological system, and emotions or behavior follow in sequence.
The neurological examination may include placing an implant within the body, often the head region of the witness. One being stares into the eyes of the witness at close range and for a prolonged period during the examination.
The beings usually communicate by telepathy and limit the conversation to instructions until the examination is completed. A conference allowing for some degree of talk may follow. This conference may simply extend the behavioral examination and explore human reactions to projected images or dramatic scenes.
In other cases a formal and distinct conference episode brings the witness face-to-face with an alien for questions and answers or to a lecture hall to hear some sort of lesson. The beings often warn of a time of tribulation ahead and prophesy disasters to come, and may school the witness for an obscure mission to be performed “when the time is right.”
In recent years some abductees have reported visits to a room filled with fetuses floating in tanks, or being presented with a hybrid infant or child and encouraged to hold, play with, or “nurture” it. If the witness travels with the beings, the destination is otherworldly—but not necessarily another planet. A short trip brings the ship to an underground or undersea location: a subterranean world of great beauty but no sunlight, only a uniformly lighted sky. If the otherworld is another planet, it is often dark and desolate, showing signs of ruin and destruction.
Three stages of aftereffects make up the aftermath episode. (1) Immediate aftereffects last a week or so and include physical conditions such as reddened eyes, sunburned skin, puncture wounds, dehydration, and nausea. (2) Intermediate aftereffects follow in a week or so and are mostly psychological, with nightmares and anxiety attacks being the most common. (3) Longterm consequences may span years and include a major restructuring of the abductee’s personality, for better or worse. Abductees may develop psychic powers and experience paranormal events; in time they develop new interests and habits leading to a change of careers and lifestyles. Further abductions are common sequels.
Few reports contain every possible episode or every possible event within an episode. Out of 300 reports, capture and examination were by
far the most common, while theophanies occurred in only six cases. A remarkable consistency characterizes one report after another. Whenever an episode or event occurs, it follows the prescribed order in most cases, despite the absence of any logical obligation for a conference to always follow an examination or a scan to precede sample-taking. The reasonable expectation that a fantasized story would reflect the creative imagination and personal needs of the storyteller is not realized in abduction accounts. Their fidelity to a fixed order seems an integral part of the phenomenon.
The descriptive content also persists from report to report. The craft is usually a thick disk with an examination room inside. This room has rounded walls and a domed roof, a uniform fluorescence, and misty or heavy air accompanied by a chilly temperature.
Doors often open out of nowhere and disappear when they close, leaving no seam. Humanoids, humans, and monsters occupy the craft. Monsters are quite rare and humanlike entities appear in no more than a fourth of the crews. Most occupants are humanoids, some tall and some short, but by far the majority represents a single type: the “standard” humanoid.
This being is three to five feet tall and has a fetal appearance, with a large rounded cranium tapering to a pointed chin and a face dominated by enormous eyes that extend around the side of the head in a “wraparound” effect. The other facial features are vestigial—the mouth is a mere hole or slit, the nose only air-holes, the ears nonexistent or holes at most. The skin is usually gray and fungus-like, as if never exposed to sunlight, and completely hairless.
Sexual distinctions are seldom reported and most of these beings seem neuter. Some humanoids are robust but most appear frail, sometimes with unusually thin necks and long arms. They walk with stiff or clumsy steps but more often glide or float, and use telepathy to communicate with captives. One being is usually a little taller than the rest and serves as a leader or liaison, and may become familiar to the abductee.
The Mammoth Encyclopedia of Extraterrestrial Encounters Page 4