alleged phenomenon of humans being kidnapped and detained by the (apparently extraterrestrial)
occupants of unidentified flying objects (UFOS). Believers in the alien abduction phenomenon range
from self-described abductees to psychiatrists and professors at prestigious universities. Their critics—some with equally impressive scientific credentials, others simply professional naysayers—insist that such reports are the result of deliberate hoaxes or mental illness, with the latter (typically long-distance) diagnoses running the gamut from FALSE MEMORY SYNDROME to full-blown psychosis.
Reports of UFOs—which may be any airborne object unidentified by its immediate observers—are as old as human history. “Close encounters” with UFO pilots or passengers are a more recent phenomenon, with reports from Europe and North America apparently beginning in the 19th century. The best-known cases of alleged alien abduction include the following:
September 1961—Barney and Betty Hill reportedly experienced a “missing time” phenomenon while driving near Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Under hypnosis they later recalled an alien abduction that included medical experiments. Their case went public in 1966 in a two part series in Look magazine and in John Fuller’s book The Interrupted Journey. The case was subsequently dramatized in a made-for-television movie, The UFO Incident.
January 25, 1967—Betty Andreasson was allegedly taken by five-foot-tall aliens from her home
in South Ashburnham, Massachusetts, while relatives stood paralyzed and helpless to assist her. She later recovered fragmentary memories of the event.
December 3, 1967—Police Sergeant Herbert Schrimer lost consciousness after seeing a UFO in Ashland, Nebraska, and woke with “a red welt on the nerve cord” behind one of his ears. Two months later, under hypnosis, Schrimer described his conversation with “a white blurred object” that descended from the UFO.
October 11, 1973—Mississippi residents Charles Hickson and Calvin Potter were night fishing along the Pascagoula River when they allegedly sighted a UFO and were carried aboard by three of the craft’s occupants. They were released 20 minutes later, after the aliens told them, “We are peaceful. We mean you no harm.” Hickson reportedly passed a polygraph test administered by private investigators on October 30 and appeared on Dick Cavett’s TV talk show in January 1974. Parker, meanwhile, shunned publicity and moved out of state.
November 5, 1975—Logger Travis Walton was allegedly beamed aboard a hovering UFO near Heber, Arizona, in full view of six coworkers. He was found five days later, nude and incoherent, but later recovered fragmentary and horrific memories of his captivity aboard the UFO. In Walton’s absence the six witnesses (suspected by police of murdering Walton and hiding his body) sat for polygraph tests. Five were rated “truthful” in their description of the incident, while the sixth—a convicted felon—yielded “inconclusive” test results. The incident was later dramatized in the motion picture Fire in the Sky (1993).
August 26, 1976—Four fishermen were allegedly abducted by aliens near Allagash, Maine. Their case was later detailed by author Ray Fowler in The Allagash Abductions (1994)—and may well have inspired Stephen King’s best-selling novel Dreamcatcher (2001).
December 1977—Bloomington, Indiana, resident Debbie Jordan was reportedly abducted from her home. A decade later, author Budd Hopkins described the incident in his book Intruders (1987). Jordan maintains an Internet Web site with details of the case at www.debshome.com.
1987—Best-selling science-fiction author Whitley Strieber published Communion, the first of several
“nonfiction” books detailing his own alleged experience with alien kidnappers. Strieber’s background (and the profits derived from his books) prompted skeptics to suggest a long-running hoax.
September 1990—Three anonymous witnesses (said to include an elected official and two government agents) allegedly saw a woman “floating” from a 12th-story apartment window in Manhattan, accompanied by three small aliens who steered her levitating body toward a hovering UFO. When all were safely aboard, the craft nose-dived into the East River. Author Budd Hopkins reported the case in his book Witnessed (1996).
By June 1992 the alien abduction phenomenon was regarded seriously enough in some circles to rate a five-day conference at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), chaired by MIT physicist David Pritchard and Harvard psychiatrist John Mack. One topic of discussion was the so-called missing embryo/fetus syndrome (ME/FS) that was reported by some female subjects who claim unexplained and prematurely terminated pregnancies following their abductions. Although such incidents are “now considered one of the more common effects of the abduction experience,” according to author David Jacobs in his book Secret Life (1992), a report to the MIT conference found no confirmatory evidence. “By now,” Dr. John Miller told the gathering, “we should have some medically well-documented cases of this, but we don’t. Proof of a case of ME/FS has proved entirely elusive.”
The same is apparently true of other physical “evidence” reported by alleged abductees. Such phenomena as bloody noses, cuts, bruises, burns, and “scoop marks” are cited as proof of alien contact, but all have plausible explanations in everyday life. Various subjects report surgical implants in their heads or other parts of their bodies, but again none are confirmed. Alleged abductee Richard Price submitted a tiny object, surgically removed from his penis, for testing at MIT as a suspected “alien implant.” Laboratory analysis concluded that the object consisted of “successive layers of human tissue formed around some initial abnormality or trauma, occasionally accreting fibers of cotton from Price’s underwear that became incorporated into this artifact as the tissue hardened.”
Such verdicts do not faze believers, including many who suspect an intergalactic conspiracy of
silence surpassing anything seen on The X-Files. In 1998, author Ann Druffel published a book titled
How to Defend Yourself Against Alien Abduction, with the recommended defensive techniques including mental and physical struggle, “righteous anger” and “protective rage” (both “best employed before the onset of paralysis”), and prayers to divine entities (named by Druffel as “the most powerful technique yet discovered” for repelling alien kidnappers). If simple attitude proves ineffective, Druffel’s readers are advised to employ various flowers, herbs, crucifixes, metal fans, and “bar magnets crossed over the chest” to discourage abduction. Failure to be kidnapped by a snatch squad from beyond the stars presumably suggests that the repellents are effective.
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