The point cannot be more strongly made that ordinary, perfectly sane and rational people have these hallucinatory experiences and that such individuals are in no way mentally disturbed or psychotic. But neither are such experiences to be taken as incontrovertible proof of some sort of objective or consensual reality. They may be subjectively real, but objectively they are nothing more than dreams or delusions. They are called “hallucinatory” because of their heightened subjective reality. Leaving no rational explanation unspurned, Strieber is nevertheless forthright enough to suggest at one point the possibility that his experiences indeed could be hypnopompic. Moreover, in a summary chapter he speculates, correctly, that the alien visitors could be “from within us” and/or “a side effect of a natural phenomenon … a certain hallucinatory wire in the mind causing many different people to have experiences so similar as to seem to be the result of encounters with the same physical phenomena” (Strieber, 1987).
Interestingly enough, these hypnopompic and hypnagogic hallucinations do show individual differences in content and character as well as a lot of similarity: ghosts, monsters, fairies, friends, lovers, neighbors, and even little gray men and golden-haired ladies from the Pleiades are frequently encountered. Do such hallucinations appear more frequently to highly imaginative and fantasy-prone people than to other personality types? There is some evidence that they do (McKellar, 1957; Tart, 1969; Reed, 1972; Wilson and Barber, 1983), and there can certainly be no doubt that Strieber is a highly imaginative personality type. (See also IMAGINARY ABDUCTEE STUDY)
—ROBERT A. BAKER
References
Alcock, James. Parapsychology: Science or Magic? (Pergamon, 1981).
AMA Council on Scientific Affairs. “Scientific Status of Refreshing Recollection by Use of Hypnosis,” Journal AMA (April 5, 1985).
Baker, Robert A. “The Effect of Suggestion on Past-Lives Regression.” American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis (1982).
Baker, Robert A., Haynes, B., and Patrick, B. “Hypnosis, Memory, and Incidental Memory,” American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis (1983).
Barber, Theodore X. Hypnosis: A Scientific Approach (Van Nostrand, 1969).
Corliss, William R. The Unfathomed Mind: A Handbook of Unusual Mental Phenomena (Sourcebook, 1982).
Curran, Douglas. In Advance of the Landing: Folk Concepts of Outer Space (Abbeville Press,1985).
Frazier, Kendrick, ed. Paranormal Borderlands of Science (Prometheus Books. 1981).
Gill, M. M., and Brenman, M. Hypnosis and Related Slates (International Universities Press, 1959).
Hilgard, Ernest R. Divided Consciousness: Multiple Controls in Human Thought and Action (John Wiley & Sons, 1977).
_____. “Hypnosis Gives Rise to Fantasy and Is Not a Truth Serum,” Skeptical Inquirer (Spring, 1981).
Hilgard, Josephine R. Personality and Hypnosis: A Study of Imaginative Involvement, 2nd ed. (University of Chicago Press, 1979).
Loftus, Elizabeth. Eyewitness Testimony. (Harvard University Press, 1979).
McKellar, Peter. Imagination and Thinking (Cohen and West, 1957).
O’Connell, D. N., Shor, R. E., and Ome, M. T. “Hypnotic Age Regression: An Empirical and Methodological Analysis,” Journal of Abnormal Psychology Monograph 76 (1970).
Perry, Campbell, Laurence, Jean-Roch, Nadon, Robert, and Labelle, Louise. “Past-Lives Regression” in Hypnosis: Questions and Answers. Zilbergeld, Bernie; and Edelstein, M. G.; and Araoz, D. L., eds. (Norton, 1986).
Reed, Graham. The Psychology of Anomalous Experience (Houghton Mifflin, 1972).
Sarbin, T. R. and Andersen, M. L. “Role-theoretical Analysis of Hypnotic Behavior” in Handbook of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis, Gordon, Jesse E., ed. (Macmillan,1967).
Sarbin, T. R. and Coe, W. C. Hypnosis: A Social Psychological Analysis of Influence Communication (Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1972).
Spanos, N. R, and Barber, T. X. “Toward a Convergence in Hypnotic Research,” American Psychologist (1974).
Strieber, Whitley. Communion (William Morrow/Beech Tree Books, 1987).
Sutcliffe, J. P. “ ‘Credulous’ and ‘Skeptical’ Views of Hypnotic Phenomena: Experiments on Esthesia, Hallucinations, and Delusion” Journal of Abnormnal and Social Psychology (1961).
Tart, Charles, ed.. Altered States of Consciousness: A Book of Readings (Wiley, 1969).
True, R. M. “Experimental Control in Hypnotic Age Regression States,” Science (1949).
Wilson, Ian. Mind Out of Time (Gollancz, 1981).
Wilson, Sheryl C. and Barber, Theodore. X. “The Fantasy-Prone Personality: Implications for Understanding Imagery, Hypnosis, and Parapsychological Phenomena” in Imagery: Current Theory, Research and Application. Sheikh, Agnees A., ed. (John Wiley & Sons, 1983).
I
iatrogenesis One of the real tragedies of modern medical practice is the unintentional creation of a new, or, in many cases, a more serious and disabling disorder by the therapist’s misguided efforts to heal. Such disorders created by the physician or therapist are called iatrogenic from the Greek iatros meaning “healer.”
Sadly enough, the prevalence and extent of such disorders is much greater than is generally thought, especially in the area of psychiatric and psychological disorders. During the late 1980s and 1990s a number of misguided psychotherapists and pseudothearpists have been persuading people they are victims of “alien abductions.” The engineering processes and procedures used to accomplish this iatrogenic feat of construction are fairly easy.
The needed materials are: a person with a problem of some sort seeking an answer; a therapist, counselor, or guru; social compliance on the part of the person with the problem; a number of suggestions from the therapist; and finally, a total relaxation of the reins of the client’s imagination. This combination results in what is usually referred to as “hypnosis” or “trance”—terms which are both inaccurate and misleading, since creating or using “the hypnotic ritual” is unnecessary. In most instances, most people can be persuaded to relax, close their eyes, take slow deep breaths, and follow the therapist’s suggestions. Nearly everyone possesses some degree of intelligence, imagination, and memory; and although some individuals are more suggestive than others, all of us, without exception, are prone to being influenced by suggestion. When these factors are combined with a therapist’s stimulation of memory (which is virtually indistinguishable from imagination), what emerges ninety nine times out of a hundred is a mixture of both fact and fiction. Our memories are never 100 percent accurate, and the further away in time we are from the event we are trying to recall, the less accurate our account will be.
When a dominant and persuasive therapist suggests to his patients who are in a relaxed and susceptible state that they were “abducted by aliens,” the ideas become “memory” and a an iatrogenic disorder is born.
—ROBERT A. BAKER
Imaginary Abductee Study The Imaginary Abductee Study is one of the few scientific experiments ever conducted in the history of UFOabduction research. We developed the 1977 imaginary series for several reasons. We needed more information about abductions, and the study promised us narrative data from fantasized CE-3s (close encounters of the third kind) in a convenient synthetic form. We also wanted to learn more about using hypnosis effectively in such cases. Above all, we were dissatisfied with several inconclusive previous real CE-3s, and we sought ways to determine whether or not abductees were fabricating.
My colleague Dr. W.C. McCall and I were increasingly doubtful about abduction claims, which had proliferated during and after the 1973 UFO flap. We still remembered the 1975 Garden Grove abduction hoax, which had changed us abruptly from believers to skeptics. Neither of us cared whether abductees’ claims were caused by aliens or not, yet we continued our investigations with new enthusiasm.
Over the spring and summer of 1977, we found sixteen volunteers who knew relatively nothing about UFOs or CE-3 literature, hypnotized them, and gave each an imaginary abduction. We asked them eight simp
le questions (derived from events in a few dozen published and manuscript CE-3 cases then available) and directed them to respond fluently:
1) Imagine you are in a favorite place, and suddenly you see a UFO. Describe that UFO.
2) Imagine you are aboard the UFO. How do you get there?
3) Imagine you are inside the UFO. What do you see?
4) Imagine you see some beings in the UFO. What do they look like?
5) Imagine the beings give you a physical examination. What is happening?
6) Imagine they give you a message. What does the message say, and how do you get it?
7) Imagine you return to where you sighted the UFO. How do you get there?
8) Imagine an aftermath. How were you affected by your abduction? (Subject is awakened.)
We assumed the imaginary subjects would need much prompting but they had been selected for creativity and high verbal skills and were good hypnotic subjects, going readily into deep trance and responding well to questions. McCall never deliberately cued them beyond introducing each situation, and then let them talk freely with no more guidance than an occasional “What’s happening now?” Almost all sixteen imaginary subjects gave us detailed and often intriguing narratives that were fully comparable to those in CE-3 case reports.
Word-by-word comparisons with real abduction transcripts showed many similarities and few major differences. All of the imaginary subjects described typical CE-3 images and incidents, ranging from the obvious (disk-shaped craft) to the unusual (two alien types on a single UFO), to rare details of high strangeness (projecting/retracting light beams with cut-off ends). The hundreds of similarities are too numerous and characteristic to be dismissed. One Imaginary subject described a (nonexistent) “scoop mark” on her arm put there by an alien—years before such abductee body scars became fashionable. Further, all six types of aliens commonly described by pre-1980s CE-3 witnesses appeared in just the first eight imaginary sessions: human, humanoid, animal, robot, exotic, and apparitional. There were no bug-eyed Grays among these entities.
Responses to the Imaginary study generally followed predictable paths —abduction skeptics welcomed it, while those abduction proponents who did not ignore it attacked us variously for cueing our subjects, for finding trivial imaginary/real parallels, or for flawed methodology, among other things. The objections seemed to us then as now to be mostly nit picking by true believers. The study’s core assertion, that CE-3 claims are mental events, remains unsullied—particularly in the absence of any serious attempts at replication, even after a near quarter-century.
One of our critics agreed with us in part. In 1989 longtime proponent Thomas Bullard called for a replication of the Imaginary Study, then concluded: “Imaginary cases thus pose a vexing question—how can non-abductees tell stories even broadly like those of real abductees?… More to the point, how can the hypothesis of an objective abduction survive if anyone can tell the abduction story, no experience required?”
How indeed? Some maintain that the general outlines of a CE-3 are “in the air”—in TV, film, and print versions of abduction cases. But in 1977 such sources were far fewer, and can not account for the capacity of nearly any imaginary subject even today to fantasize a fully detailed CE-3 yarn, including specifics that few abductees describe, about any given segment of the abduction sequence. The imaginaries seemed to possess intuitive knowledge of an abduction sequence they had never consciously experienced. The origin of such knowledge must be innate, and I think it almost certainly has to relate to perinatal memories.
The Imaginary Study’s significance is that it provided the first persuasive demonstration that claims of abduction are nonphysical experiences, i.e., hoaxes or fantasy/hallucinations rather than physical events. The study continues to perturb abduction proponents, but even independent replications if they occur are unlikely to modify its skeptical conclusions.
—ALVIN H. LAWSON
All six types of aliens commonly described by pre-1980s CE-3 witnesses appeared in the early imaginary sessions: human, humanoid, animal, robot, exotic, and apparitional. Missing were the big-eyed Grays that became so prominent in the late 1980s.
implants, alien For many years the subject of alien implants in humans has not only intrigued abduction researchers, but attempts to isolate and study these objects have been fraught with disappointment and failure. The situation changed in 1995 when I became acquainted with Derrel Sims, a longtime researcher in the alien abduction field.
On August 19, 1995, the first set of surgeries was performed for the removal of objects from the bodies of two individuals who were subjects of the alien-abduction phenomenon. The recovered objects were subjected to scientific analysis of both the biological and nonbiological material, and the findings were baffling. There was a second set of surgeries performed on May 18, 1996. The total number to date is now eight surgeries which has netted nine objects.
The first surgeries were performed on a male patient whose x-rays demonstrated an object in his hand and one female with two obvious metallic objects in a toe that were also demonstrative in x-rays. There was an additional surgery following the first set that yielded a small grayish white ball. This was followed by a set of three surgeries. Two were female and one was male. Both females showed radiographic signs of objects beneath the skin on the front of the left leg, whereas the male patient had a metallic radiographic object in the left jaw area. Following this set of surgeries another independent procedure was performed on a female who had an object in her left heel. The last surgery to date was performed on August 17, 1998, and was filmed by NBC to be included in their two-hour prime-time special, which aired on February 17, 1999.
Because of the expense incurred from the scientific analysis in world class laboratories, a method had to be devised to raise money. All the surgical procedures performed were without charge to the patient, and the scientific data found eventually becomes the property of all the Earth’s inhabitants. Derrel Sims and I have formed an organization, which serves both functions. It is a nonprofit organization called: The Fund For Interactive Research in Space Technology, (F.I.R.S.T.). The Website address is www.Firstevidence.org.
Another nonprofit organization deals with the matter of scientific analysis. This is The National Institute for Discovery Science (N.I.D.S.), headed by Robert Bigelow who is solely responsible for looking at our scientific data and finding it worthy of inclusion in their studies. The board of directors of N.I.D.S. is composed of some of the finest scientific authorities in the United States. Our findings to date have been as follows:
Of the eight surgeries performed, we have four that were metallic rods covered with an unusual biological membrane not found in the medical literature. This membrane tightly wraps the metallic rods and is dark gray and shiny. Mysteriously, it cannot be cut through with a surgical blade. The analysis of this tissue shows that it is composed of three substances most probably belonging to the recipient of the implant. These substances are a protein coagulum, hemosiderin, and keratin.
In addition, we have found two other biological mysteries. The soft tissue surrounding the objects demonstrates microscopically that the area has a high quantity of small nerve receptors called proprioceptors. Secondly, there is a stark and surprising absence of any inflammatory response to these objects, although we all know it is virtually impossible to have something enter the body without it responding by inflammation. We believe that the reason for this has to do with the formation of the membrane. The metallurgical findings are also earth-shaking.
Scientists who have examined the “implants” compare them to meteorite fragments because they contain isotopic ratios consistent with nonearthly isotopic ratio numbers.
Three of the objects appeared to be small grayish-white ovoid balls. These were in turn attached to an abnormality of the skin, which is commonly associated with the abduction phenomenon called a “scoop mark”. When the surgical procedures were performed, the entire segment was removed and sent in for pat
hological analysis. The ovoid balls are still being examined, but preliminary results on one of the objects. shows that it is composed of eleven complex elements.
Photograph of an alleged alien implant
Some of the biological findings associated with these skin abnormalities include such things as Solar Elastosis, a rare exposure of the dermal layer of the skin to ultraviolet radiation. Last but not least is the object removed from the heel area, which appeared to be glass or crystal. After careful and continued analysis, we found that the object was brown bottle glass made by Dow Corning.
However, the other objects seem to be structured as if designed for a purpose. This purpose has not been determined yet. We hope that further study will provide answers regarding function. One possibility is that the objects are tracking devices. This would enable someone or something to find individuals anywhere on the globe. Another possibility is that they are behavior-controlling devices. I believe a more plausible purpose might be a device for monitoring certain pollution levels or even genetic changes in the body. This may be similar to the way we monitor our astronauts in space. Only more time, effort, and study will answer these questions.
Many believe that we are on the verge of a great scientific discovery: that mankind is actually being tampered with by extraterrestrial intelligences. Also, based on the work of Zecharia Sitchen, Allen Alford and others, I personally believe that alien intervention in the development of mankind has been going on for thousands of years and that man’s consciousness has undergone a systematic process of expansion and greater awareness. This in turn gives rise to our conscious awareness of the abduction phenomenon.
—ROGER K. LEIR
The Mammoth Encyclopedia of Extraterrestrial Encounters Page 49