Category Archives: Smith, Willy

Deeper Into the Forest: Rendlesham Continued.
Willy Smith and Roger Sandell

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From Magonia 19, May 1985

 

Willy Smith writes:

It is regrettable that some who write reviews and/or critiques of books and papers do not take the proper care to read thoroughly the work they intend to analyse, either for lack of time (the charitable version) or because their animosity to the topic or the authors leads them to extract only those parts that fit their confessed or unconfessed bias (the vindictive version). The net result is that the commentary becomes a piece of disinformation, not helping the authors to see their own weaknesses, and decieving the potential readers about the value – or lack thereof – of the work under consideration. What prompted these thoughts is the review of Sky Crash by Roger Sandell that appeared in the previous issue of Magonia [1].

“First of all”, as Mr Sandell begins, it is true that the central theme of the book is the possibility of a high-level conspiracy surrounding the incidents in Rendlesham Forest. What is not so true is that the authors, “assiduous in finding evidence for the cover-up”, are trying to force their conclusions on the reader. On the contrary, as Mr Sandell should have noted in the preface (p.5), the authors say, verbatim [2]:

We may be right or we may be wrong. We have no vested interest to anything other than the truth, and this book merely provides the means for you to decide what the truth may be.

Of the eighteen eyewitnesses listed, Mr Sandell has singled out two for comments: Charles Halt and ‘Art Wallace’. About the first, “he refused to be buttonholed by the authors in his house at 11 o’clock at night”. I imagine this comment pertains to the events of 23rd February 1984, and had Mr. Sandell read the last chapter of Sky Crash (p.269), he could not have failed to recognise the marks of a setup, although Butler and Street brought this upon themselves for being naive. The reasons for Colonel Halt proceeding in that manner may be many and complex, but they are not relevant. What is relevant is that otherwise the authors are lying. Is that the message that Mr. Sandell is subtly transmitting?

As for ‘Art Wallace’, true enough he seems to talk like a character in a B-movie. But so what? he is young, presumably uneducated, and probably talks in that fashion all the time. In my view a sophisticated vocabulary on Wallace’s lips would have made him totally suspect. There are, however, reasons to distrust his testimony, but certainly not because of his speech patterns.

The authors did not conclude, as Mr Sandell wants us to believe, that the promotion of the officers was a reward for their silence. The point is that in the military those who do not follow established policy and/or make mistakes are committing profe sional suicide. Three of the high-ranking officers in the Rendlesham episode (Col. Charles Halt, General Ted Conrad and Brigadier General Gordon Williams) have been promoted. Hence, whatever they did had an official blessing, and their connection with the case and their conduct must be examined in that light.

As for Occam’s Razor, it has nothing to do with the ‘sinister’ or ‘mundane’ characteristics of an explanation, but rather its simplicity. If the authors indicate that a witnesses seemed to be frightened I am willing to accept this simple assessment from those who had direct contact with them rather than remote and convoluted reasons for their behaviour hatched by someone who was not there.

Again Mr. Sandell tells us that “there is no real evidence that he was even in the US Air Force”. Wrong again, Mr Sandell. Go and look on page 233, or better, read the whole book and find the several confirmations from various sources that ‘Wallace’ was indeed in the USAF during the critical period.

With reference to the radiation readings, they are mentioned explicitly in the Halt memorandum, including values of exposure in milliroentgens. As a copy of this memorandum is in Sky Crash, the statement that “we are given no data to evaluate their significance” is empty and in error.

We read on page 82 that “animals do not suffer hallucinations and if they do respond to something strange it is safe to assume that something strange really is happening”. This statement seems to perturb Mr. Sandell extremely, and one wonders if he has some documentary evidence that animals in fact do hallucinate. lie refers us to Allan Hendry’s well-known handbook [3] where in fact we find (p.160) a word of caution in establishing a cause-and-effect relationship between the presence of a UFO and animal behavior. But it doesn’t imply in any way that such a relationship does not exist, and moreover, Allan’s comments refer almost exclusively to domestic animals, not to cattle. More importantly, Allan Hendry does not provide us with a single clue as to whether animals hallucinate, which was the point that we were trying to resolve. Come on, Mr. Sandell, don’t you ever read any books before quoting them?

As for the ‘ideas’ of Ian Ridpath attempting to explain the incident with a moving lighthouse [4], the less one says the kinder one will be. However, what cannot be condoned is the doctoring of TV footage by using a zoom lens to make the lighthouse look like a glowing object, and by editing the dark pauses that would have given the game away. This is pure deception, and I wonder how the British audience of ‘Breakfast TV’ took it, although I know what would have happened in America to the prestige of such a programme. Well, I believe Mr. Ridpath sympathises with CSICOP (Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal), and his reputation will not be damaged any further by this faux-pas than it is already by his association with this group, whose members have not hesitated, on more than one occasion to distort the truth when it disagrees with their avowed purpose.

It is useless to continue, as I believe that I have made my point, i.e. that the critic left himself quite open to criticism by reading only superficially the book he was supposed to discuss. It is not my intent to write a review of Sky Crash, but having gone this far, I think I am entitled to express my opinion.

This book is what it portrays itself to be: a presentation of the information collected by the authors over an extended period of time with reference to the incidents in the Rendlesham Forest. It includes a detailed list of military and civilian witnesses (firsthand and incidental), impressions gathered during the different stages of the investigation, official documents (like the Halt memorandum), as well as several possibilities (other than UFOs) that could explain the occurrences. But it is up to the reader to draw his own conclusions. It is an interesting piece of research which indeed has some flaws, but not those that Roger Sandell has pounced on.

REFERENCES:

  1. SANDELL, Roger. ‘Down in the Forest Something Stirred…’, Magonia, no. 18, January 1985, p.18. 
  2. BUTLER, STREET and RANDLES. Sky Crash, a Cosmic Conspiracy, Spearman, 1984. 
  3. HENDRY, Allen. UFO Handbook. Doubleday and Co., 1979. 
  4. RIDPATH, Ian. ‘An Explanation of the Woodbridge UFO’, Magonia, no. 14, 1983.

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Roger Sandell replies:

Dr. Smith is indeed entitled to his opinions, and I do take the points he raises seriously, especially since, unlike most angry reactions to Magonia book reviews, his letter does not come from an outraged author with an axe to grind. However, I am still not convinced that I have been unfair. To take some specific points:

1.I did not express any doubts about the authors’ honesty, since I do not feel any. I made it clear that the authors provide data which permits readers to come to different conclusions. In any case, regular readers will know that Magonia reviewers do not engage in innuendo but, when they consider an author to be dishonest clearly say so (Vide Fontbrune, Magonia, passim.)

2. 1 am aware that the book does give figures for radiation; I merely stated that no data necessary to evaluate these figures were given. Knowing nothing about radiation, I did not know whether the amounts in question are or are not a significant deviation from normal. Having read Dr. Smith’s letter I still don’t.

3.On the subsequent promotion of Rendlesham officers, I certainly understood the authors to imply that this was a move to silence them. If I am wrong I can only point out that the MUFON Journal in a highly favourable review, also interprets the book as making that claim.

4. The statement on page 82 concerning animals hallucinating struck me as so manifestly absurd I left it to make its own impression on the reader. Perhaps Dr. Smith would indicate any way we could find out whether or not animals hallucinate. Tests of animal brain activity certainly suggests that they dream. Further, I have no idea what the term ‘strange’ means in this context. UFO reports are strange to us because there appears to be no obvious explanation for some of them. To an animal even the most spectacular close encounter would merely be a bright, noisy object, similar to a plane or car.

5. Concerning ‘Art Wallace’, the evidence for his presence at the base did not strike me as impressive. However Ian Ridpath tells me that the person using this pseudonym was in fact present at the time of the events in questions, so I stand corrected. However, the significant thing about his use of melodramatic clichés, as I should probably have made clearer, is not that he used them to express his own feelings, but that he put these B-movie phrases into the mouths of his superiors who he claimed were silencing him by death threats. In assessing his credibility, I would note that, since Ian Ridpath knows who ‘Wallace’ is, the USAF presumably does as well, but no dire consequences seem to have ensued.

6. I do not accept that I had suggested any “remote and convoluted reasons” for the silence of local witnesses. I leave it to readers whether it is more reasonable to suggest other commitments or aversion to publicity as a reason for witnesses’ reluctance to be interviewed, before postulating official cover-ups. While on the subject of cover-ups I can only trust that if, as is suggested, the British government is involved in this cover-up, whoever is responsible will shortly be promoted since their efforts have been much more successful than the recent inept efforts to suppress facts concerning the sinking of the General Belgrano and M15 phone-tapping.

7. I was not aware that Ian Ridpath was linked with the CSICOP. I would certainly be critical of some of the methods and conclusions of this organisation, but I would reject the guilt by association that Dr. Smith engages in. One cannot lump peoples’ ideas on different subjects into a package, to take or leave in this way. For instance, while I reject the conclusions of Sky Crash, I still feel that Jenny Randles’ Northern UFO News is a valuable source of investigations; and I imagine that while Dr. Smith approves of Sky Crash he would not share Jenny Randles’ belief in astrology or Nostradamus.

I must confess I also find it puzzling that after implying that Jenny Handles’ view of the witnesses is more valuable than mine, since I have not seen them, he is so quick to dismiss Ian Ridpath who, unlike him, has been to Rendlesham.

I would close with some wider observations. Sky Crash is labelled on the cover as being about “a cosmic conspiracy” and the jacket claims that it tells the story of “the world’s first officially confirmed landing and contact”. Later we read suggestions that the US government may be in regular contact with extraterrestrial. These are extraordinary claims that require extraordinary evidence, and when they are made it is surely responsible to consider alternative explanations, especially when one looks at the way some UFO cause celebres have disintegrated over the years.

I am especially alarmed by the readiness of some associated with the case to attribute bad faith or participation in a ‘cover-up’. A very serious example is the claim made by Jenny Randles in a recent Northern UFO News that a recent book sceptical about the case was under government sponsorship.

This, it would seem, is a reference to William Porter’s Lies, Damn Lies and Some Exclusives, a book on contemporary popular journalism that, as I mentioned last issue, includes criticism of the News of the World’s treatment of Rendlesham. Anyone who has actually read this book would find this suggestion ludicrous since a large part of it deals with press misrepresentation of the peace movement, pro-Conservative press bias in the 1983 election and ministerial attempt to manipulate the press. Hardly the sort of thing I can see the present government sponsoring.

Such tactics may have been all right for the late Senator McCarthy (or the current editor of FSR) but those who retail such baseless and unsubstantiated smears can hardly be surprised if others find such methods do not inspire confidence.

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Mattoon Revisited
Willy Smith

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From Magonia 48, January 1994

mattoon-gasser-cartoonThe main claim to fame of Mattoon, a central Illinois town of about 16,000 souls, is the alleged activity almost fifty years ago of a prankster never apprehended or identified. During a short period at the end of the summer of 1944, more precisely from 31 August to 12 September, this individual, and perhaps some copycats, terrified young women by releasing some kind of gas in their rooms, gas that was never identified, but that gained him the name of the Phantom Gasser of Mattoon.

It is truly remarkable how the episode of the so called “Phantom Anaesthetist” of Mattoon has become a stanchion of contemporary ufological (and other) literature, as a classic example of mass hysteria. Furthermore, it has been used to support opposite contentions. For example, one writer emphasises the differences between the onset of UFO waves and the start of mass hysteria flaps. (1)

Another quotes it to stress the thesis that cattle mutilations have a naturalistic interpretation, (2) namely, the hysteria of the farmers, rather than a bizarre explanation due to UFOs or other preposterous circumstances, thus denying the objective existence of UFOs. Years ago, in a series of papers appearing in the MUFON UFO Journal, the Mattoon incident was cited and used to maintain that “mass hysteria probably has nothing to do with UFO reports”. (3) Probably not, unless one is suggesting that the connection is that both are imaginary events.

Even now, the Mattoon Anaesthetist, like the phoenix, rises from his ashes and is offered again as a convenient example of hysterical contagious illness (4) and somehow associated with other forms of irrationality such as the Anti-Satanist panic.

I wonder how many of those who so freely talk about the ‘anaesthetist of Mattoon” in order to affirm one point or another have really gone to the original literature to inform themselves. Not to be like them, I secured at great cost a copy of Donald M. Johnson’s initial paper (5) and my investment has paid handsomely. Before going into the nifty gritty, I hasten to point out that from the very beginning the intentions of Johnson, who at the time was an undergraduate student at the University of Illinois, (6) seem to have been to “prove” a case of mass hysteria, regardless of the evidence that he himself had found in Mattoon. This is an impression that assaults the reader from the first line when, for instance, Johnson tells that:

“The story begins on the first night of September, 1944, when a woman reported to the police that someone had sprayed her.”

All the preceding remarks are false: the story did not start on 1 September, and she did not report it to the police, but to a friend and to her husband, who called the police.

Now to the details, all provided by Johnson. (5) According to him, and after a careful reading of his paper, the true chronology is as given in Table 1.

FIGURE ONE

mattoon-fig-1

A grand total of 25 cases in 13 days. However, the weight of all these cases is not the same: the case of Mr and Mrs B, for instance, occurring before the key case (Mrs A) supposedly triggering the total sequence, cannot be suspected, as Mr B was the one to feel sick and smell the gas. This was not hysteria, but a real event. As for Mrs C, she was with her daughter, so one could suspect a case of folie a deux but without a stimulus, as again this was prior to any publicity. It seems more rational to accept that this was also a real incident. Considering now Johnson’s key case, Mrs A and her daughter, it is also an episode with two witnesses and, moreover, Mr A coming home much later and unaware of previous events, saw a man run from the window. Hysteria, or plain fact? I think there is no doubt, unless we postulate that Mr A had obscure motives to gain public attention: a prowler was prowling, and scared Mrs A and her daughter. Thus, the sequence, if imaginary, was triggered by a real incident.

No judgement can be advanced for the other cases, as there are no more details. But we have made progress, as we have easily disposed of the totality of the initial incidents. Perhaps the others were prompted by the sensationalist handling by the media, particularly the local paper, the Mattoon Daily Journal-Gazette, the only paper with a large circulation in the city and, according to Johnson, read at the time by 97% of the Mattoon families.

In fact, there is a curious detail here, glossed over by Johnson: the story appeared on the front page (2 September) in a column headed “Mrs A and daughter first victims”. How come? Only one incident was known at that time, apparently considered by the paper and the police as a serious attack, and yet we find this “first” as if the reporter knew there were more to come. Johnson dismisses this as an error, but such a contention does not resist analysis. Too many people see the headlines of a newspaper before it goes to the presses. Was the whole thing an organised effort to bring national attention to Mattoon, otherwise a faceless community in the state of Illinois?

Fortunately, Johnson provides us with detailed statistics of the coverage, in square inches of newspaper space, devoted to the series of events. Although to judge the value or truthfulness of an issue by the press coverage in square inches of print is common usage for the practitioners of the soft sciences, it only indicates the editorial bias of the media, of which we have a daily example in the morning news. And in this case, if there was foul play behind the scenes, the statistics of the column coverage by the Daily Journal-Gazette seem to bear out this possibility.

It is interesting to correlate those numbers to the actual dates and the number of incidents, as reported to the police:

FIGURE TWO

mattoon-fig-2

The significance of this information in supporting a journalistic confabulation becomes glaring when presented in graphic form, where the points represent the newspaper coverage and the bars the number of witnesses:

FIGURE THREE

mattoon-fig-3

The press coverage started on 2 September, when Mrs A’s incident was reported on the front page with a sensationalist headline: “Anesthetic Prowler on Loose”, out of character for the rather conservative Mattoon newspaper, and continued unabated in every issue until 15 September when the story was dropped. The number of reported cases reached a maximum on 10 September, which was the peak of police activity in their efforts to catch the culprit in flagrante delicto. Only one further incident took place (12 September), and since the Daily Journal-Gazette was still carrying the story, it seems self evident that the prankster (and his copycats) were suddenly discouraged by the police attention.

Thus, contrary to Johnson’s assertion that there were two hypotheses (either a “gasser” or “hysteria”) to explain the facts, we have already three: (i) mass hysteria, triggered by an incident real or imaginary; (ii) an organised newspaper buildup, as a prank or for more serious unknown reasons; and (iii) a real “anaesthetist”.

Before discussing those possibilities in some depth, let’s take a moment to examine, as Johnson does, the nature of the reported gas used by the attacker. He says that it did not affect others in the room, a patent falsehood when one considers Mr B’s case (31 August), where the husband was the first to feel sick. Johnson also informs us that one of the effects reported, vomiting, was independently verified, but dismisses this as a symptom of hysteria, as was the excited condition observed in the victims. In fact, the original article (5) transcribes a pertinent passage by Janet: (7)

“I choose, for an example, what happens to a woman somewhat impressionable who experiences a quick and lively emotion. She instantly feels a constriction of the epigastrium, experiences oppression, her heart palpitates, something rises in her throat and chokes her…” (emphasis added).

What Johnson apparently did not realise is that this scholarly opinion requires the a priori existence of a stimulus and the fact is that the appearance of the symptoms as reported is prima facie evidence of the reality of the incidents. Had the victims remained calm and collected after going through such an experience the investigator would have been correct in suspecting foul play. Since the vomiting was a fact, as well as the independent testimony of husbands (or maybe husbands are not independent) that they had really smelled gas, it follows that at least the three initial incidents (31 August and 1 September), and perhaps some of the others had an objective reality.

From a perspective of almost fifty years, it is hard to make a guess as to the real nature of the gas, but from the details reported by Johnson, it is conceivable that the “gasser simply used natural gas, that he either carried or that he just released from sources existing at the homes he visited.

Johnson, whose experience in sociology was probably no more than an introductory course, (6) also considers the victims as a group, and marvels that there are few children in his sample, after he rejects some because of parental influence. We are given some demographic information which is partially transcribed in Figure 3

FIGURE FOUR

mattoon-fig-4

 
It follows that the majority of the victims were women of poor education and modest economic level, their ages peaking for the 20-29 group. No attacks were reported the two high-income areas of Mattoon and all the cases seem to have occurred within a uniform socioeconomic group. As shown in Table 3, the demographic factors are quite at variance with those corresponding to the population of Mattoon at large, as indicated in the last column.
The unavoidable conclusion is that the selection of the victims was not random. This peculiarity leads to two and only two possibilities:

• (1) selectivity by the perpetrator (i.e. hypothesis (iii) is correct);
• (2) selectivity due to the susceptibility of this group (hypothesis (i) is correct).

Let us go back now to the three possible hypotheses and by using Occam’s razor attempt to arrive at a reasonable solution.

(i) Mass hysteria

Johnson concludes that “the hypothesis of hysteria fits all of the evidence, without remainder”. This is only wishful thinking, because nothing is further from the truth if we are going to believe what the same Johnson has reported. The initial incidents,which indeed took place, have not been explained. The word ‘first” in the headline of the Mattoon Daily journalGazette remains cryptic and, in fact, opens even now interesting possibilities. The independently witnessed symptoms, like vomiting and a great degree of excitation, were unexplained then and now (how could they have happened if there was NO gasser to provide the stimulus?).

The lack of cases on 7 and 11 September represents an anomaly, compounded by the fact that the graph shown in Johnson’s paper apparently peaks precisely on 7 September, perhaps because he refers to telephone calls listed in the police blotter and not to verified incidents. As shown in Graph 1, the actual number of incidents peaked on 10 September and, in spite of hammering by the newspaper until 15 September, only one more case was reported (12 September).

The hysteria hypothesis is contrived, and not only fails to satisfy the evidence, but doesn’t explain how people who didn’t know each other, apparently belonging to the same socio-economic and educational level, and perhaps living in the same neighbourhood, could come up with similar descriptions (as, for instance, in the cases prior to 5 September).

All of this suggests the activity of unknown parties localised in a given area. Moreover, the victims were young females, all but one married (hence, friend psychologists, no great possibilities of hallucinations due to sexual frustration), corroborating selectivity by the perpetrator very unlikely to occur with an imaginary gasser.

Of course it may well be that initially, as supported by the evidence provided by the first cases, one or more unknown parties (the copycat is always a possibility), started to terrorise young women perhaps as a prank, perhaps for some obscure sexual motivations, but became scared when the community over reacted, and the state police came into the act. To this day, he is probably recalling with nostalgia these incidents of his youth, and maybe smiling secretly, if he reads the ufological press, every time he is mentioned in pro or con arguments on the existence of UFOs.

The later cases were very likely caused by the journalistic influence and no more than hysterical episodes prompted by the presence of prowlers, which during the period were reported at the rate of 8-10 a week. Author Johnson vehemently denies this, and states that “the hypothesis of hysteria fits all the evidence, without remainder”. Sadly, this points out that Johnson’s main goal was to document a ‘true’ case of mass hysteria come what may, even if it required ignoring that the initial cases were real, and doesn’t say much for his experience as an investigator 

(ii) A journalistic scam

The second hypothesis is daring but quite tenable. That word “first” in the 2 September issue cannot be lightly dismissed, and we must keep in mind that after all, the press controlled the publicity given to the affair, and finally spiked it when it got out of hand. It is quite possible that the original cases (which could have a simple explanation, such as a gas leak) inspired a young reporter to make a name for himself (remember, we are in 1944 during the war years) and devote considerable space to the phantom anaesthetist in the Mattoon Daily Journal-Gazette. The story was picked up by out-of-town newspapers, among others the Chicago Herald-American which, according to Johnson, handled the story most thoroughly and most sensationally, and pretty soon it was out of control.

Perhaps after a while the editor of the paper got wise, but what could he really do, except what he did? That is, backpedal and write “few real” in the 11 September headline, then change the tone toward the jocular (13 September), move the story to page 6 on 15 September and finally let it go by the board.

There is another piece of evidence in favour of this hypothesis: the lack of motivation. Nothing was stolen, the circumstances did not offer gratification to a peeper, and even the victims did not have a reason to come forward with false claims. Yet, our postulated ambitious newspaperman had everything to gain and nothing to lose, a true statement as demonstrated by time. Too bad we don’t even know his byline!

And finally, one must remember that prophetic “first” which appeared on 2 September!

(iii) A flesh-and-blood gasser

As we have already indicated, the first 3 cases (31 August and 1 September) definitely were real incidents, each one with two witnesses and, since they were not publicised until later, they could not possibly have triggered the incidents that followed. As I am not a psychologist, I can hardly argue with Johnson about the suggestibility of young females of low education and social status. But I can assert that items not printed in the local newspaper certainly could NOT have influenced anyone.

The arguments advanced by Johnson on the nature of the gas are specious, to say the least, and attempt to prove that since the characteristics of the alleged gas are impossible, so is the reality of the anaesthetist. However, when the complaints of the victims and their symptoms are considered in some detail, it becomes very likely that the gas could have been regular cooking gas, accidentally or otherwise released in the rooms. In fact, Mr B reported asking his wife if the gas had been left on when he woke up sick in the middle of the night. I rest my case.

The fact that people reported seeing a prowler who might have been the anaesthetist is dismissed without further ado by Johnson, since prowlers are frequently reported in Mattoon. I agree, but how can one distinguish on sight between a regular prowler and the gasser? The plot of police calls shown in (5) shows almost equal numbers for both events.

Conclusions

What is the bottom line?

Johnson’s conclusion that the Mattoon affair was “entirely psychogenic” is unwarranted and not supported by the evidence. The idea of a journalistic scam is very attractive, has possibilities, and should not be ruled out. It would be interesting to go back to Mattoon and dig in the morgue of the Daily Journal-Gazette to obtain further information about the reporter(s) covering the case. As for the third possibility, the existence of a real perpetrator, it follows from the details of the first three incidents, and perhaps could be corroborated by further study of the records. It is also clear that some of the later cases could have been prompted by the influence of the media, but I doubt that a true hysteria epidemic could have been turned off so suddenly. However, such an abrupt termination would be expected if we had a gasser that felt cornered by the police and decided it was safer to quit.

In a direct application of Occam’s razor, (8) I favour a combination of (ii) and (iii), as reasonable and fitting the information as it has reached us. But one thing is certain: it has been in Johnson’s paper for all these years for anyone to read. It was not a sequence of imaginary events triggered by another imaginary event, not even by a real one (made public only after some of the crucial cases had already occurred). If mass hysteria means what I think it means, and if there is such a phenomenon, definitively the case of Mattoon is not an example; in fact, it is no more than a “gasser”.

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References:

  1. BALLESTER OLMOS, V.J.’Tienen relation los avistamientos OVNIS con la poblacion?’, Stendek, 27, March 1977,31-39
  2. STEWART, J.R. ‘Cattle mutilations: an episode of collective delusion’, The Zetetic, 1,2,1977,55-66
  3. SWORDS, Michael. ‘Hysteria and UFOs: is there a connection?’, MUFON UFO Journal, No. 196, July-August 1984
  4. SANDELL, Roger ‘Satanism Update’, Magonia, No. 46, June 1993, 13.
  5. JOHNSON, Donald M. ‘The “Phantom Anesthetist” of Mattoon: a field study of mass hysteria’, Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 40, 1945, 175-86
  6. The official records of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign show that Donald Max Johnson was a student there, and that he graduated on 15 June 1952 with a Master’s degree in Education. In 1944 he was very likely a freshman, with rather questionable qualifications to investigate the Mattoon affair, which explains the shortcomings of his article. Dr R. P. Hinshaw, listed by Johnson in his acknowledgements, was an Instructor in Psychology during 1944-45, and therefore was able to guide Johnson during the critical period, sponsoring the publication of his article in the Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology.
  7. JANET, P. The Mental State of Hystericals, Putnam’s, New York, 1901
  8. William of Occam (d. circa 1349): English scholastic philosopher, a Franciscan, sometimes called the Invincible Doctor. He argued that reality exists solely of individual things and that universals are merely the signs by which the mind represents reality to itself. They are identified with abstract knowledge and do not touch reality. Logic, then, deals with signs rather than with realities. Some matters, such as the existence of God, immortality and the existence of the soul are the object of faith alone (The Columbia Encyclopedia). Occam’s razor can be expressed as: “The simplest explanation that covers all the facts is the right one.”

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A Schematic Chart of Ufology.
William Smith.

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From MUFOB New Series 6, Spring 1977

After years of neglect by the scientific establishment, ufology has finally attained some degree of respectability. Whether this is as a consequence of the abomination that has become known as the Condon Report – a true denial of the method and spirit of science – is hard to say, but the fact is that in the last few years the study of UFOs as a worthy discipline has become increasingly respectable within the scientific community. Physicists, biologists, chemists, astronomers and other men of science no longer seem afraid of evincing open interest in the phenomena, and in some colleges and universities of the United States the subject is seriously considered, and research on it encouraged.

In this moment of changing public opinion I had the opportunity of offering, in the college where I am a member of the Department of Astronomy and Physics (Lycoming College, PA), a short course on UFOs which was well received by both the acedemic enclave and the community at large. In organising my material for these talks I was faced with the problem of finding a frame of reference, a suitable outline that would allow me to define properly the UFO phenomenon. Thus the schematic chart shown overleaf was engendered, and I am presenting it here in the hope that it might be helpful to other investigators and lecturers in disseminating the little – or perhaps I should say the much – that we know about UFOs.

The chart is entered at the upper left corner. An UNUSUAL EVENT attracts the attention of the incidental WITNESSES who may be so affected by the event that they decide to report it to the “authorities”, whoever they might be. Following the event we may be left with ambiguous marks on the ground, vivid impressions on the minds of the witnesses, and the report produced by the initial investigators, be they police or other bodies. This is the starting point for the UFO investigator, who is indeed in a better position to determine whether the occurence was really exceptional, or if on the contrary there exist CONVENTIONAL EXPLANATIONS or other circumstances that compromise the authenticity of the case. Although the list shown on the chart is by no means complete, it does give an idea of the many negative considerations that can contribute to the rejection of a particular sighting. As Dr Hynek put it, the essence of the UFO phenomena is constituted by those cases that survive the scrutiny of the expert, and which cannot be explained within the frame of reference of conventional science. Notice that this definition is entirely contrary to the definition set forth by the Condon group, according to which the UFO instances are those that the witness himself fails to explain – in many cases due to his lack of scientific “baggage” – and which, of course, are easily eliminated later, with trivial or far- fetched explanations.

Tus we arrive at the BASIC CATALOGUE to be used by scholars as the starting point for their research. The spurious cases eliminated, those not so easily dismissed remain to challenge science. And the STUDIES are to be made using the scientific method, seeking the correlations and similarities that would lead to the discovering of the invariants and the laws of the phenomenon. The STATISTICAL approach is just one of many possible, and undoubtedly in my eagerness to establish order I have ommited more than one method of attack. As a physicist I am primarily concerned with tangible aspects, like the effects observed in combustion engines and electrical equipment, as well as in the UFO’s dynamic and kinematic chatacteristics, and for that reason I plead guilty to emphasising PHYSICAL studies.

The important thing is to consider the chart as a whole, because it then becomes clear that ufology has many branches, each highly specialised, and requiring much study and effort if we are going to increase our understanding of the problem. It is of course to that endthe enhancement of our knowledge of the UFO phenomenon – that this outline, incomplete as it is, is offered; if it contributes in any way to the establishment of a scientific formulation of ufology, it will have served its purpose.

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A Second Look at Hypnotic Regression Experiments
Willy Smith

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First published in Magonia 6, 1981.

In the last few years the UFO literature has been permeated by papers (1,2,3) under the signature of A H Lawson predicating the analogies, if not the identity, of real abductions with experimental abductions created by the author under laboratory conditions. Although some ufologists, like Druffel, and Rogo, have pointed out (4) the lack of validity of Lawson’s research for numerous and elementary reasons, his claims have considerable impact on the lay public, as some of his contributions have appeared in popular publications.If Lawson’s opinions and arguments were to be taken at face value, all that hypnosis has accomplished from the days of Mesmer could be considered only as a mixture of bunk and fantasy, and relegated to the reject file without further ado. This is also a disservice to ufology, which, although badly needing to streamline its techniques, will gain nothing by supporting research devoid of proper scientific methodology, as seems to be the case here.I will deal with some of the issues arising from Dr Lawson’s most recent paper in Frontiers of Science (5), but my criticism will also encompass other published papers which, I admit, I have used to gather ammunition.

As stated by Dr Lawson, the great majority of entities described as associated with UFO sightings can be classed into six categories: humans, humanoids, animals, robots, bizarre beings, and ghostly creatures. What Lawson does not say is that the indidence of the reports of these six types is essentially different, and as far as the abduction cases are concerned, the predominant form is definitely humanoid, as shown by considerable research that has been done on the point. The Brazilian investigator J. U. Pereira has made a remarkable study (6) of 333 cases of crews associated with UFOs and after rejecting 103 cases from his original sample due to insufficient or dubious information, concluded that only 4.2% of the remaining cases showed nonhuman forms. More recently, David Webb made an analysis of 51 abductions (7), and his results show that the great majority of the reported entities were humanoids. Likewise, Ted Bloecher’s (9) report of 60 close encounters of the third kind for 1977 also seems to confirm that the vast majority of the observed entities were humanoid.

Considering the exuberance of human imagination, one would expect that if the source of the UFO reports was internal, the described entities would be extremely varied and numerous, perhaps never repeating themselves. Yet, although Lawson’s six categories are omnipresent in the fantastic literature, science fiction, TV programmes, comic books, etc., the UFO witnesses’ reports evidence a limited taxonomy, as one would expect to be the case if the percipients were responding to an external and very real stimulus.In Lawson’s experiment with imaginary abductions, it was found that six of his eight first subjects described entities in each of the six categories previously indicated, and this even distribution was interpreted as underlining a parallelism with real abductees. This is a non-sequitor. If anything, this result points out a fundamental difference with the real abductions, where the predominant forms are humanoids and moreover, clearly indicates that Lawson’s subjects extracted the categories from the surrounding cultural milieu, in which indeed the six categories are present with similar incidences. This is, accepting the basic premise that the subjects of the experiment were really illiterate in ufological matters.

This brings us to the crucial flaw in Lawson’s work. In non of the published articles that I have seen is there a description of the exact proceedure followed to elimitat from the experimental group those subjects knowledgeable about the UFO topic. To simply say that the subjects were quizzed before and during the hypnosis to verify they possessed no significant UFO knowledge (5, p.33) is far from enough. Some addition­al details are provided in a previous paper (2), as well as in a more expanded version that appeared in UFO Phenomena. (3) The sub­jects were unpaid volunteers from local colleges and communities, recruited by an advertisement in a student paper asking for “creative, verbal types for an interesting experience (sic) in hypnosis and imagination”. The group ranged in age from 12 to 65 (3), and the selection was made by screening those who seemed informed about UFOs. We are kept in the dark about how this fundamental step was taken in practice, ex­cept for ambiguous reference to an informal questionnaire, which creates the impression that the selection was rather perfunctory. Yet, I dare say that at this time it would be impossible to find several or even one individual in a student community in the United States who had not been exposed, consciously or subconsciously, to the UFO folk lore. With the billing given the experiment it is easy to guess the type of unpaid vol­unteers who would be attracted. Must I say any more?

Lawson recognizes that “no hypnotic session can entirely avoid unconscious bias and cueing” (3, p.321), but asserts that the imaginary series was generally free from such flaws. How can this be? The experimental protocol necessitated the creation of a suitable scenario for the abduction sequ­ence, which Lawson admits was obtained by organizing the questions in eight steps par­alleling the events usually found in real ablutions. To do this, the subjects only had to add details, which they did to their hearts’ content. Add on to this the well proven desire of hypnotic subjects to please the hypnotist, and the results obtained in the experiment are almost to be expected. In fact, the opposite would have been surpri­sing. Finally, but not least, is there not a bias in the care with which Lawson calls the real abductions “real”?

Next, Dr Lawson brings into play Karl Jung’s archetypes, and what he calls abduction analogues, that is, altered states of consciousness, such as near-death experien­ces, hallucinations, birth trauma, and rel­igious ecstasy. He attempts to correlate the imagery associated with all of this to the imagery reported in real and imaginary abductions, as indeed it seems that the same elementary components are present, such as, for instance, bright lights, geometric pat­terns, doors, and many others. But do they appear in the same context, as a common de­nominator in all of those phenomena? I do not think so, and the ‘reality’ seems to be that those elements, instead of contributing to classing all of the categories named above into the same pigeonhole rather tend rathto make the UFO experience quite separate and distinct. As it would take too long to dismember all the supposed analogies, and moreover, as the Jungian archetypes are a little pass€, I will briefly discuss only one of them: the bright lights.

In the context of UFO encounters the lights are invariably described by the per­cipients as attached to a definite some­thing, which can be a solid object, or a vague structure dimly viewed through the haze created by the same brightness of the lights. But the light is undoubtedly real, whatever it might be, often turns on and off, and is clearly remembered in the after­math of the episode. In the other types of experience, altered states of consciousness if you please, the lights are there they are bright, but they are hard to pin down, they change position and shape, they are not att­ached to specific objects, and all that is left after the experience is the concept: bright light. In a near death experience we know quite well that theme is not a real light, so the light perceived by the subject was in his brain, with no real existence, and he will not remember, a posteriori, a proper source for it. So, where is the sim­ilarity? I see only differences, and rather important ones at that. The same can be shown for most of the patterns developed in Lawson’s encounter matrix, and it is point­less to continue, as the astute readers has by now recognized the drift of my argument.

All that Lawson has “really” shown is that the imaginary abductees describe the experiences containing the same task ele­ments as in the birth trauma and other alt­ered states of consciousness, which is only to be expected, as the source of all of them seems to be the same and internal to the individual. On the other hand, the victim of a true abduction, although s/he might re­fer under hypnosis to the same basic ele­ments appearing in the imaginary abductions displays in addition numerous indicators that neatly set aside the real experience from the induced one. Among others we have the emotional content that is evidenced by physical syndromes difficult to fake when the experience is revived; the fact that a recollection of the UFO previous to the ex­perience exists; the physical traces that are left behind; the frequently suspected and often verified presence of a time lag, and, more important, the almost universal description of humanoids. All of these factors point to an external and objective cause like a real UFO, which on occasion we have managed to photograph, while Jung’s archetypes, of course, have never been caught by the camera.

But all is not lost! One thing we have learned from Dr Lawson’s work is that we should be very cautious in how and by whom we obtain information from abductees, real, “real”, or imaginary by using hypnotic re­gressions, as the problem is not a simple one. His efforts have helped in separating the real cases from the “real” stories and, by recognising the fundamental elements in each case, in validating the new cases that might come down the road.

It is questionable whether Dr. Lawson has done a service or a disservice to ufo­logy with his collection of assumptions and opinions, lacking in scientific rigor. From the viewpoint of the layman, unfortunately, when he states that “all of the dual and multiple witness abductions I have studied seem either incompletely investigated, or lacking in independent corroboration”, (5) he creates unwarranted doubts about the seriousness of the research done in cases like those of Betty Hill, Betty Andreasson, Hickson and Parker, and many others, plan ting the idea that all we have learned about abductions is either incorrect or worthless. That is not the case, and it is then fair to ask Dr Lawson: “Promoter or Debunker?”

References:

1. LAWSON, Alvin H. “Hypnotic Regressions of Alleged CEIII Encounters; Ambig­uities on the Road to UFOs.” Proceedings of the 1976 CUFOS Conference.
2. LAWSON, Alvin H. “What Can We Learn from the Study of Imaginary Abductees?” 1977 MUFON UFO Symposium Proceedings.
3. LAWSON, A. H. “Hypnosis of Imaginary UFO ‘Abductees” UFO Phenomena, 3,1, 1978/9, Bologna, Italy.
4. DRUFFEL, A. and 8000, D. S. The Tujunga Canyon Contacts, Prentice Hall, 1980.
5. LAWSON, ALVIN H. “Archetypes and Abductees”, Frontiers of Science, 2,6, Sep/Oct 1980.
6. PEREIRA, J. U. see: Phenomenes Spatiaux, No. 24, June 1980.
7. WEBB, David. “Analysis of Humanoid/Ab­duction Reports”. Proceedings of the 1978 CUFOS Conference.
8. BLOECHER, TED. “A Survey of CE III Re­ports for 1977″. 1978 MUFON Conference Symposium, Dayton, Ohio.

 

Abduction Absurdities
Willy Smith

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From Magonia 52, May 1995

Dr. Willy Smith discusses John Mack’s new book with a passing Devil’s Advocate:

One more book (1) about abductions has appeared, but this time with a significant difference: the author is a distinguished Harvard psychiatrist and has the background and credentials that previous dilettantes (2,3) lacked. Thus, one would expect a more precise and scientific presentation of a controversial issue, establishing a solid platform from which a rational treatment of the subject matter could be launched.

Unfortunately, that is not the case, perhaps because the topic itself is unameanable to scientific discourse. As in previous attempts, all we find is a collection of anecdotes obtained mostly by hypnotic techniques from witnesses whose personalities, occupations, training and position in our society are barely sketched. The narratives are interesting, unusual, bizarre more often than not, with an abundance of detail that, instead of increasing their ontological validity, only emphasises the absurdity and physical impossibility of what we are told.

As in previous works, not a shred of evidence is provided to substantiate the stories, even in instances where apparently corroborating information could have been obtained. As one of Mack’s critics (4) has perceptively indicated, the author is content with whatever he obtains from the witnesses in his office and does not go into the real world to validate his contentions. In fact, one has reason to doubt that he has done his literature research with enough care, when, for instance, he uncritically repeats (Ref.1, p.12) that abductions have taken place in 17 countries, among others, France, Spain and Uruguay. The truth is that only one totally discredited abduction report in France is found in the literature, that the three or four cases allegedly occurring in Spain are very dubious and that – as far as I know – no abduction has ever been reported in Uruguay. The reality is that the abduction aspect of the UFO phenomenon occurs typically and predominantly in the US, not surprisingly considering that its main advocate, former artist Elliott Budd Hopkins, is a resident of that country.

The absurdities

From the viewpoint of the hard sciences there seem to be two options mutually exclusive: either the whole abduction structure has no foundation in reality, in which case we are wasting our time, or, alternatively, the stories reflect real events, although at times they may be somewhat distorted and diffuse. We will assume that the latter is true, and see where reductio ad absurdum will lead us.

(a) Provenance: The basic tenet of Hopkins et al.’s ideas is that we are presently visited by aliens whose world is coming to an end, and who are engaged in an all-out effort to save their race from extinction by applying their more advances genetic knowledge to engineering a hybrid race that eventually will take over Earth.

Since our spatial probes have visited most of the planets able to support life in our solar system and found no indication of life, it follows that the aliens must come from exterior space, bringing into focus the difficulties of interstellar travel. The abductees describe huge crafts, sometimes of the order of hundreds of yards, with large crews of at least two types of aliens, which have to be fed and lodged. But more important, the energy requirements to displace such a craft through distances of the order of light years would be staggering. Yet, we are led to believe that more than one of those interstellar crafts prowl in our atmosphere.

What does the Devil’s Advocate say about this?

DA:

  •  i) The crew could travel in suspended cryogenic animation, thus requiring few provisions;
  • ii) fuel could be obtained by sweeping hydrogen atoms from space while travelling;
  • iii) or, the ship could transit through a white hole, except that the magnitude of the gravitational forces would make survival impossible;
  • iv) a planet threatened with final obliteration would not hesitate to use all the available resources in a last interstellar fling, or even to mount expeditions to several neighbouring stars of the right spectral type; but it would be against its interest to send all crafts to the same destination;
  • v) the aliens arrived in the solar system a long time ago (ref. 1, p. 227) establishing a base on Mars (don’t forget that alleged head there!) or on the moon, and have to travel only short distances, an easy feat that even we, with our chemical fuels, can perform.

Only (v) above has some merit, but then the expectation would be to see smaller crafts better adapted for the Earth-Moon milk run, contrary to the data. The first absurdity is thus firmly stated.

(b) The familiar aliens: Since the pioneer work of artist E B Hopkins, passing through the entertaining book of historian Dr David Jacobs, and terminating with the respectable efforts of psychiatrist John Mack MD, we have been confronted with a parade of aliens having some surprising common characteristics: i) they are overwhelmingly humanoid, exhibiting two arms, two legs, one head, two big wrap-around black eyes, and the rudiments of mouth and nostrils; and ii) they move unencumbered in the Earth’s gravitational field, without requiring breathing apparatus.

Probabilistic considerations indicate that it is quite likely that among the large number of stars which form the galaxy, many will have the correct conditions to harbour planets capable of supporting life. But life, as we know it, is possible only within a very narrow range of physical parameters, and a small percentage change, say in the value of the solar constant, would wipe out life from our planet. Consequently, humanoids as described by the abductees must come from a planet almost identical to Earth, another absurdity. Such a planet indeed can exist, but can be anywhere in the galaxy, and the question is: why would the aliens select our insignificant star in a remote galactic arm as the destination of their quest for a new home?

D.A.: If the aliens reached the solar system many millennia ago, and settled in a base on Mars or the moon (say), they had a long adoption period, and only in modern times were capable of implementing their genetic plans.

(c) Alien multiplicity: The aliens described by the witnesses studied by each researcher (Hopkins, Jacobs, Mack) might be similar in form but the three authors make quite clear that their attitudes toward the abductees are remarkably dissimilar, although their genetic efforts seem to be the same.

We can safely reject the notion of three groups of aliens from the same remote planet, but having diverse philosophies, not only because of its absurdity, but also for the fact that the aliens described to each specific researcher seem to have the same attitude in spite of the random witness selection process.

D.A.: The descriptions of the aliens seem to be similar, thus establishing a common origin, which could be even a single planet, but might equally well result from the fact that latter-day abductees have unquestionably read previous books (Hopkins, Jacobs) and have subconsciously adjusted to the pattern.

Each abduction book is the end product of the interaction of a certain group, the abductees, with one specific analyst. An exact statement of the protocol is not given, but since the hypnotic sessions were lengthy and extended over many months, the influence of the
analyst is not only expected but unavoidable. This influence is not reflected in the physical descriptions of the aliens, but in their moral and ethical attributes, mirroring the political or other bias of the authors. While Jacobs’s aliens are indifferent to issues not related to the breeding activities, in the words of one critic (5) “the abductors have the same relationship to abductees that laboratory technicians have to white rats”. Mack’s witnesses are terrified by the entities, which inflict intense physical pain and torture with sadistic unconcern.

This dichotomy is an absurdity. For if the aliens have a common provenance and a common operational goal, it would inflexibly control their behaviour in all cases. Thus, the diversified perception of the entities by their victims, not randomised but sorted out by researcher, only decreases the potential reality of the abduction experiences.

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The aliens are by far more advanced than we are in biology and particularly in genetic engineering, and have no difficulties in inter-species breeding, as shown by their activities, which otherwise would be senseless. It is anthropomorphic to attribute to them our own limitations.

 

 

(d) Technical contradictions: The abduction researchers have asserted that the aliens are able to penetrate solid obstacles such as walls, (6) specifically during the initial stages of the events. There is no evidence for this except the testimony of the witnesses, but when one abductee arrives at the waiting craft, she is brought inside “through a hole in the floor”. (7) When the same victim is ready to be returned, the floor “sort of disintegrates beneath us”, (8) which is not the same as penetrating solid matter.

The main and apparently only objective of the aliens is the creation of a hybrid race, and to that effect they have mounted a vast operation to obtain sperm and ova from human victims, selected at random and transported to their ship(s) for the purpose. This implies not only a great deal of effort, but also entails a definite operational risk of detection. Yet, the same ends could be obtained by raiding a sperm bank or similar facilities where the desired items are stored without stringent security. This would be easy to accomplish by aliens capable of transversing solid walls, and yet, we don’t see any signs of such activity.

D.A.: The aliens endeavour to keep their activities covert, and the sudden disappearance of stock from a sperm bank would undoubtedly trigger an in-depth investigation. Forensic examination of the place would reveal the visit by non-human entities, something the aliens can’t afford. Besides, time is on their side, and their present method is less likely to attract attention, as so far there is no incontrovertible evidence of the abductions.

Alien visits to specific indoor spaces are sometimes a daily occurrence, as was the case with Melissa Bucknell, Dr Jacobs’s star witness. (9) An attempt was made to record the event using a TV camera, but it failed, as could be expected considering how easy it was for the aliens to circumvent the trap. It would have been a completely different story if someone had thought about doing an in-depth forensic sweep of the “scene of the crime” after the fact. Yet, absurdly, this was not done, perhaps because negative results would have been the kiss of death for abduction research.

D.A.: Indeed, immediate examination of the location of an abduction by forensic techniques could provide incontrovertible proof of an alien presence in a room But the staggering cost indeed was and is a powerful deterrent. Perhaps the Fund for UFO Research should consider setting aside the necessary resources and have them available at once if the occasion presents itself again.

(e) Craft size and multiple humans: Abduction researchers (Hopkins (10), Jacobs (11)) have repeatedly asserted that the crafts described by the witnesses are extremely large and display a constellation of lights. The huge dimensions are confirmed when the abductees tell the investigator that they were taken into gigantic rooms, with hundreds of tables where they saw other humans, “between one hundred and two hundred”, on whom procedures were being done (Mack (12)).

The absurdity of such a possibility is twofold. First, a large illuminated craft hovering over a fixed location for the duration of the procedures – which we are told is of the order of an hour or so – hardly would have escaped detection not only by the public at large but by the authorities monitoring our air space. And second, if the craft remains at a fixed place, the simultaneity of the procedures for ‘a hundred or more persons seems to demand that the abductees were taken from a limited geographical area, again an event that could hardly go unnoticed.

D.A.: The craft doesn’t have to remain stationary at a given location, but moves continuously to lift and return the abductees. If the lights are off, and the aliens have stealth technology, those motions will not be recorded by radar, and their chance of escaping detection is excellent.

The absurdity is then in the scheduling. To collect and return each abductee of necessity requires some time that, from the given narratives, one could estimate at two minutes, each individual at a different location. Thus, 100 abductees demand 200 minutes, to which a prudent man would add a transit time between stops, say another 2 minutes, for a grand total of 400 minutes, or more than 6 hours, just for the logistics of the operation. No matter how we look at it, the concurrent presence of one or two hundred abductees in a single room in an alien craft is almost a physical impossibility.

The hybrid question

According to Hopkins et al., we are being visited by one or more alien races in decline, whose purpose is to shore up their genetic pool by using the human reservoir. The abductions are aimed at obtaining sperm and ova for hybridisation processes.

Two things do not seem to fit this hypothesis. First, in the accepted view of present-day science the issue of mixed species is not fertile, and thus the resulting human-alien hybrids would not represent a definite solution for the long-term survival of the aliens. But perhaps the real purpose is different as, for instance, just to create a work force which could easily adapt to local conditions and perhaps eventually melt into the earth’s population and go undetected. This would explain the need for the continuous aggressive programme that the abduction experts believe is taking place.

The second point is just an observation. In subsequent visits to what are apparently the same craft, the abductees are often shown human-alien babies which are their own, but no mention has been made in the published material of full-grown hybrids. There are two possible explanations for this omission: the alien breeding programme is failing, and babies do not reach adulthood or, on the contrary, the programme is a success and the grown-up hybrids are shipped elsewhere to do what they were designed to do in the first place.

I am not a biologist and only offer the above suggestions for completeness, in an attempt to give sense to those relentless activities which the abductionists believe are covertly taking place in our midst.

D.A.: The aliens are by far more advanced than we are in biology and particularly in genetic engineering, and have no difficulties in inter-species breeding, as shown by their activities, which otherwise would be senseless. It is anthropomorphic to attribute to them our own limitations.

ConclusionsThe absurdities loom in spite of efforts by the Devil’s Advocate to eliminate them, a clear indication that the interpretation given by the abduction experts to the bizarre narratives of their clients must be ontologically incorrect. Until such a time when and if physical evidence of the abduction phenomenon becomes available, those events have only anecdotal value at best, although the many books on the topic, even if of dubious scientific value, make entertaining reading and are a source of revenue for their authors.

References:

  1. MACK, John E., Abduction, New York, Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1994
  2. HOPKINS, Budd, Missing Time, New York, Marek Publishers, 1981 and Intruders, New York, Random House, 1987
  3. JACOBS, David M., Secret Life, New York, Simon & Schuster. 1992
  4. CLARK, Jerome, ‘Big (space) Brothers’, International UFO  Reporter, March/April 1994, p. 7
  5. Reference 4, p. S. col. 2
  6. Ref. 1, p. 170: “she described passing through her window, the porch and a tree” riding the beam of light.
  7. Ref. 1, p. 170
  8. Ref. 1, p. 174
  9. Ref. 3, p. 258
  10. HOPKINS, Budd, ‘The Woman on the Bridge’, MUFON UFO Journal,  298, December 1992, p. 8. Since the alleged witness (known only as Janet Klmble) “stated that it was wider than the size of the building”, an estimated diameter of 100 ft is conservative.
  11. Ref. 3, p. 82. “Abductees describe UFOs that range In size from thirty-five to hundreds of feet in diameter.”
  12. Ref. 1, p. 182. ‘Catherine’ was led naked into an enormous room “the size of an airplane hangar”.