by Gary Bates
[32] Clifford Wilson, Crash Go the Chariots (San Diego, CA: Master Books, 1976), p. 95–96.
[33] Story, The Mammoth Encyclopedia of Extraterrestrial Encounters, p. 483–484.
[34] Ibid.
[35] Ibid., in articles by James W. Moseley and Joe Nickell, p. 469–476.
[36] “Real Lives,”
[37] Ibid.
[38] Quoted from von Däniken manuscript on file at the Christian Research Institute, Irving, California, cited in Alnor, UFOs in the New Age, p. 204.
[39] Alnor, UFOs in the New Age, p.200–201.
[40] Story, The Mammoth Encyclopedia of Extraterrestrial Encounters, in an article by Zecharia Sitchin, p. 661–663.
[41] “Is There a Planet X or 10th Planet?,”
[42] Alnor, UFOs in the New Age, p. 200–201.
[43] “The Meier Hoax,”
[44] “Billy Meier Hoax,”
[45] Story, The Mammoth Encyclopedia of Extraterrestrial Encounters, in an article by Randall Fitzgerald, p. 671.
[46] Dennis Stacy, “New Books,” MUFON UFO Journal, February 1987, p. 11, quoted in Alnor, UFOs in the New Age, p. 165–166.
[47] Ibid.
[48] “Sci Skeptic FAQ UFO’s and Flying Saucers,”
[49] Story, The Mammoth Encyclopedia of Extraterrestrial Encounters, in an article by Jenny Randles, p. 175–178.
[50] “Circlemakers,”
[51] “Circlemakers,”
[52] “Circular Reasoning: The ‘Mystery’ of Crop Circles and Their ‘Orbs’ of Light,”
[53] “Disease Brings Poor Crop of Circles,”
[54] “Circlemakers,”
7
Abducted — Close Encounters of the Fourth Kind
ET takes it up a notch
As we have seen, the “evidence” for alien intervention in human affairs has escalated to a new level in recent years. Today, the most controversial aspect of UFOlogy is the claim that people are actually being abducted by aliens. Research polls, such as the Roper poll, suggest that as many as four million American citizens, from all walks of life, claim to have been kidnapped against their will and subjected to medical and examination procedures aboard alien spacecraft, along with bizarre sexual encounters. This phenomenon is occurring all over the world, and if true, it is a far cry from the benign and friendly contacts that have been claimed in previous years. Have the aliens suddenly turned nasty, or is it that we just don’t understand their culture and methodology? Perhaps they don’t say “please” on Pleiades! Despite the allegedly (sometimes) horrific treatment of abductees, the overall message of the space brothers has remained the same. They still claim that they are here to help us, prophesying about the future events of the earth and mankind’s fate in general. In the next chapter, we shall examine these messages more closely, but before that let’s take a background look at this disturbing phenomenon of abductions.
First, it should be remembered that our investigation of UFOs (specifically unidentified flying objects) has revealed that there is no hard evidence for ET craft, and that the majority of sightings could be accounted for as man-made or natural phenomena. Within the small percentage of incidents that were unexplainable (in the natural sense), many respected researchers, such as J. Allen Hynek, Jacques Vallée, John Weldon, and John Keel, have noted that UFOs appeared to behave deceptively. Moreover, when people have claimed contact, the messages of the ETs have perpetrated falsehoods, as we shall see. Vallée was convinced that the entities were trying to alter our perceptions of reality — to induce a paradigm shift in our consciousness.
The abduction scenario is a giant leap from just having seen some lights in the sky. Most abduction accounts are based on individual testimonies rather than any physical evidence, and reports from abductees suggest that the behavior of the “space brother” abductors is similar in nature to the deceptive behavior of flying objects, albeit more dark and sinister.
One of the earliest claimed abduction cases occurred in October 1957. A Brazilian farmer by the name of Antonio Villas Boas, while driving his tractor, saw a light descending to Earth. As it headed for him, he noticed it was a shiny oval object, and although he tried to escape its path, it landed ahead of him. He claims that he tried to avoid capture, and that several small figures wearing suits and helmets seized him and took him aboard the spacecraft. While on board, he tried to resist further, but they apparently stripped him naked and performed medical-like experimental procedures on him, including the taking of a blood sample. A mixture of fear, cold, and a strange gas that was pumped into the room caused him to vomit. After they smeared him with some sort of aphrodisiac cream or lotion, a naked human-like female entered the room and seduced him. After having sex with Villas Boas, she pointed to her tummy and then the sky. Villas Boas believes he had been used for breeding purposes. When he was removed from the craft, he noticed that over four hours had passed since he was first abducted.
Although this occurred in 1957, it was not well publicized until some years later, mainly due to the sexual nature of his story (not repeated in full here — the source in the footnote has more details). His claims initially gained him much notoriety, but he later withdrew from public life, studied, and became a lawyer.[1] Many UFOlogists doubt that this was a “real” abduction. As bizarre and disturbing as it seems, this was to become a forerunner for millions of similar abductions in the future.
Under the influence
Although the Villas Boas abduction has many similarities to modern cases, it differs markedly in that he had a lucid recollection of events. The majority of modern abductees only recall their experiences after hypnosis — a method that in itself has become controversial.
Most commentators would agree that the first “classic” abduction case involved a mixed-“race” couple, Barney and Betty Hill. In September 1961 the Hills were driving home one night when they observed a bright-colored object which seemed to be following them. Barney stopped to observe the object through binoculars, and was shocked to see faces staring back at him from windows in the craft. Scared, Barney got back into the car and drove off. Soon after, the couple heard beeping sounds emanating from the back of their car. That was the last thing they remembered before they arrived home feeling a bit disoriented after a journey that took nearly two hours longer than expected. The “missing time” is very common among abductees.
Betty and Barney Hill
Betty started to read books on UFOs and also began to experience disturbing dreams about having gynecological medical procedures performed on her while inside a flying saucer. This included the insertion of a long needle into her navel, which she remembers being told was a pregnancy test. Barney was also having problems. He started suffering from stomach ulcers and genital complaints. Both Barney and Betty now linked their problems to the UFO sighting. Some years later, they visited a hypnotherapist, convinced that they had been subjected to experiences that they could not consciously remember.
After being individually hypnotized over many hours, the Hi
lls recalled their alleged experiences, both telling fairly similar stories. After hearing the initial beeps in their car, Barney remembered that he was telepathically controlled and instructed to drive to a nearby forest area, where aliens led them from the vehicle into their ship. They both described the beings as around five feet tall (152 cm), having the classic dark and large wrap-around slanted eyes, with a small, narrow mouth (although Betty recounted them as having big noses, which Barney did not claim). Medical procedures ensued, including the removal of sperm from Barney. Betty apparently asked one of the beings where he was from, and he produced a star map. Later, under posthypnotic suggestion, she was able to recall details of the map, which, even today, some claim is a valid diagram of a star system surrounding Zeta Reticuli.
At the time, many people offered explanations about the reasons behind their recollection of such incredible events. Their psychiatrist believed that they were subconscious images based on emotional conflicts (due, he thought, to their mixed-“race” marriage), and that these had been brought to the surface through fear resulting from the UFO sighting. The implication was that their ailments were probably purely psychosomatic. Others have claimed that Betty’s dreams were the result of her indulgence in UFO books after the original sighting, and that during the time elapsed between the alleged event and their hypnotherapy, she had told Barney about her dreams, accounting for the similarity of his stories when under hypnosis.
Another popular theory arose suggesting that their subconscious memories were merely recounting aspects of the 1953 movie Invaders from Mars, as it bore marked similarities to their own experiences. Although a low-budget movie, it was a terrifying tale for its day, which portrayed aliens with large, slit eyes and large noses. These aliens kidnapped humans, being able to pacify them with strange lights. The captives then had implants inserted into the backs of their necks with a long needle — the implants serving as a sort of mind-control device. Given that accounts of abduction experiences were not commonplace yet, this is a strong argument because the movie would no doubt have been featured on television by the time of the Hills’ abduction experience. It should also be remembered that such “out of this world” movies were regarded as horrifying for their day, and likely to have a greater impact on the viewer compared to today, when such themes are commonplace. Some also believe that the differences in Barney’s story also drew a close parallel with an episode of The Outer Limits called “The Bellero Shield,” which aired on TV only 12 days before their first hypnosis sessions.[2] The Hills’ abduction has served as a stereotype for the myriad of alleged occurrences that were to follow, and their own experiences formed the basis of a TV movie called The UFO Incident (1976).
A mirror of cultural beliefs?
As we have already demonstrated, there can be no doubt that science fiction is a major factor in influencing the beliefs of the masses. Most skeptics would attribute the UFO phenomenon as a whole entirely to this influence. Skeptic Robert Todd Carroll writes:
There have been many reports of abduction and sexual violation by creatures who are small and bald; are white, gray, or green; have big craniums, small chins, large slanted eyes, and pointed or no ears. How does one explain the number of such claims and their similarity? The most reasonable explanation for the accounts being so similar is that they are based on the same movies, the same stories, the same television programs, and the same comic strips.[3]
Yet, the abduction phenomenon is occurring all over the world, including Third World countries. If millions of people have been abducted, as polls supposedly claim, then in medical terms this would be regarded as an epidemic. It is unreasonable to assume that everyone involved is a sci-fi buff. Demographically, people are being abducted across the social, political, economic, ethnic, intellectual, and geographical spectra. It is fair to assume that most people have read or seen some form of science fiction at some point in their lives (remember, it is overwhelmingly the most popular entertainment genre of today). But the fantasy-driven explanation cannot account for every individual’s experience.
The skeptic Carroll also noted something very important concerning UFO beliefs:
The delusions of the ancients and the medievals are not couched in terms of aliens and spacecraft because these are our century’s creations. We can laugh at the idea of gods taking on the form of swans to seduce beautiful women, or of devils impregnating nuns, because they do not fit with our cultural prejudices and delusions. The ancients and medievals probably would have laughed at anyone who would have claimed to have been picked up by aliens from another planet for sex or reproductive surgery. The only reason anyone takes the abductees seriously today is because their delusions do not blatantly conflict with our cultural beliefs that intergalactic space travel is a real possibility and that it is highly probable that we are not the only inhabited planet in the universe. In other times, no one would have been able to take these claims seriously [emphasis added].[4]
This quote notes that strange phenomena have been going on, as far as we can determine, for hundreds of years (and, as we shall see, these early phenomena link strongly to many aspects of modern “abductions”). With regard to Jacques Vallée’s “multiverse” (interdimensional hypothesis — IDH), both he and other researchers have recounted “abduction” stories of fairies, goblins, elves, and the “Good People” who snatched away children and adults, taking them to fairyland. Vallée also claimed to have studied many religious traditions, folk stories, and even occult texts, and found other similarities, such as missing time, the abductee’s perceptions of reality being profoundly altered, and stories of a place where “changelings” (offspring that are half-human, half-goblin, etc.) are born, midwifed by the abductee (the person who has been abducted).[5] Vallée wrote:
I pointed out in Invisible College that the structure of abduction stories was identical to that of occult rituals.
I had shown in Passport to Magonia that contact with ufonauts was only a modern extension of contact with non-human consciousness in the form of angels, demons, elves, and sylphs. Such contact includes abduction, ordeal (including surgical operations), and sexual intercourse with the aliens. It often leaves marks and scars on the body and the mind, as do UFO abductions.[6]
Some abductees even acquire psychic powers, and as we shall see, these are similar characteristics to those featured in what is now known in UFOlogy as the Classic Abduction Syndrome (CAS).
Carroll’s earlier quote alludes to two popular cultural ideas that are integral to abduction accounts. They are that intergalactic space travel is a possibility (highly unlikely, if not impossible, and based on sci-fi beliefs), and the belief that evolution is true and could account for life elsewhere in the universe (another unprovable belief). No one is immune from the influence of their bias or world view when they view the “evidence” for UFOs. The skeptic, who already “knows” that UFOs cannot be real, might say that all sightings are potentially explainable in “naturalistic” ways (e.g., cases of mistaken identity by inexperienced observers), and that all abductions have a medical or psychological explanation. Similarly, a UFO believer might regard virtually every experience as a real alien encounter because that is what he is looking for and wants to believe. It seems that most people want a “one-size-fits-all” explanation for what is occurring. An open-minded inquirer will realize that the whole UFO phenomenon is a complex issue, involving a variety (and often a mixture) of explanations and factors. Commentator Mark Pilkington highlights the symbiosis between sci-fi and UFO experiences, but also notes a deeper issue:
… UFO lore can be traced back to various visual and thematic elements from science fiction. In my view, however, rather than being reason to dismiss the entire UFO problem as a fantasy generated in human psychology, the relationship demonstrates the overwhelming complexity of such phenomena. At most it shows that what people see in the sky is to some extent governed by the popular cultural motifs of the day, in our case flying saucers and little gray aliens, but it does
n’t solve the problem of what is happening in the first place… . But it is the CAS which is most visible and media friendly, its proponents attempting to standardise the abduction experience by pushing [them] aside as “screen memories.” … Reports from countries other than America, and to a lesser though increasing extent Britain, feature an amazing variety of colourful creatures, often rooted in the cultural history of the area. But America’s cultural dominance of the world is fast spreading into the realms of UFO experience and the “grays” [classic “gray”-looking aliens] have started to proliferate elsewhere.
There is no doubt in my mind, however, that something extremely strange is happening to these people; the narrowing down and categorising of their experiences is just a human way of dealing with what we do not understand, and it is here that the influences of popular culture are felt most strongly.[7]