by Alison Davidson
From Borderlands 1993-vol 49, No.2
A fiction no matter how bizarre, if repeated often enough becomes accepted as fact especially if it’s reinforced by the voice of some Authority or other. This goes on all the time, especially in the media and their propaganda bulletins passed as network news, to take an obvious example. But the frightening thing is that once a fabricated belief is established in the mass mind, anyone who tries to expose the original fiction is almost certain to be set up as a liar, a lunatic, or worse…
Fortunately for us there are still lunatics in the world who pan for truth in the polluted rivers of disinformation. Borderlands has long been one of those rare places where the odd, the avant garde and heretical have found their voice. For example, way back in the 1950s, long before UFOs became popular Borderlands was seriously investigating this phenomenon and over the years has observed and recorded all the extraordinary and bizarre developments in this field, always with a mind open to the infinite possibilities of a greater reality. In the early days of Ufology the extraterrestrial contacts claimed were usually of the benevolent space brothers type (Ashtar command), Adamski’s voluptuous blondes from Venus, etc. It was all rather harmless and the messages were even quite inspiring — never mind that the technical information on how to ‘get there’ never quite materialized. People believed what they wanted and reached out to other worlds and other possible states of consciousness, perhaps for the first time in their lives. It became a movement.
But over the past few years everything has changed. A disturbing element has entered the once bright arena of ufology and a shadow hangs heavy over the whole question of extraterrestrial contact. Somehow, since the mid-seventies, the storyline has been twisted, the stereotypical image of the ‘space people’ has been subtly and deliberately altered to reflect a very different mood. According to the proponents of this new wave of Ufology, extraterrestrial contact isn’t desirable anymore — unless you happen to be a masochist with a penchant for painful ‘medical’ examinations of a sick sexual nature. One thing is for sure — the space people aren’t benevolent any more; they’re cold and gray and their intentions are increasingly sinister — they want to control your mind, and steal parts of your body.
This about-turn in the field of ufology, I mean 180 degree turn, from the white voluptuous fantasy to the politically correct ‘grays’ (these aliens are neither white nor black) is quite remarkable. While claims of the earlier and more esoteric extraterrestrial contact were mocked by most normal people including the media, now the media is becoming saturated with stories of alien abductions and those same sane people are parroting all the latest details. There’s a belief here verging on hysteria; so where, we have to ask, are these stories coming from? And if they’re true — show us the evidence!
ENTER THE GRAY ALIENS
The two main images in the lurid ufology sweeping into public consciousness today are — gray aliens and abductions of humans by these aliens. Together they form the key components of a cosmic conspiracy theory with elements of high level government involvement and mass genetic manipulation, to say the least, and it’s a conspiracy that’s spreading. A postcard just received in the mail from Paramount Pictures states that “2.5 million Americans claim they have had an alien abduction experience”, as part of their promotion for the upcoming release of a major movie called Fire in the Sky very loosely based on the Travis Walton incident well known to ufologists, one of the early abduction cases which has been neither proven or refuted. The image of gray aliens is infiltrating the gray matter of the public like the sinister shadow reflex of those ubiquitous little troll dolls, insinuating itself into every level of the media. Grays are finding mention in television shows, such as the documentary A Strange Harvest, the TV movie Intruders, a recent episode of Star Trek the Next Generation, that well known prototype vehicle for the New World Order federation propaganda… advertisements, almost every new age consciousness publication, gutter press and otherwise intelligent magazines. Their mutated bland bug-eyed heads have sent ET back to kindergarten. Abductee has become a fashionable state of being and abduction seminars, workshops, support groups and private counselling for abductees are spreading like an epidemic.
Here at Borderlands under siege from the stacks of hype from the New True Believers, we have also received information from the other more skeptical side of the story and this article is an attempt to gather together some of the kernels of truth, if truth is to be found, from the bloated fiction being sold by the sensation hungry press to the ever gullible public.
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ABDUCTIONS — WEAK LINKS IN THE CHAIN
One of the most rational and scholarly investigations into the claims of human abduction by extraterrestrials is a meticulously researched paper published recently by the International Fortean Organization, titled Demons, Doctors, and Aliens by James Pontolillo, subtitled: “An Investigation into the Relationships Among Witch Trial Evidence, Sexual-Medical Traditions, and Alien Abductions.” But don’t expect to find any serious review of this work in the mainstream ufological press, as James Moseley of the Saucer Smear cynically comments: “If it ain’t real-life aliens, true ufologists don’t want to hear about it!” The author is concerned about “the central role of cultural misogyny in the origin and development of the alien abduction phenomenon”… the shallow contradictions and misrepresentation of facts in the reports, and the lack of substantiating evidence… as he says, “nothing but the human imagination is required to produce an abduction narrative.”
He begins by questioning the numbers of alien abduction cases claimed by such prominent researchers as Budd Hopkins (100’s of 1000’s — or 1 million last count), or Donald Ware from MUFON (approximately 6 million Americans “whether they know it or not”). The figures claimed are extrapolated from individual cases (including friends and acquaintances) to the general population, and from a poll containing five leading questions that was apparently distributed to several thousand people, and quoted in Fate magazine. Have you ever experienced missing time… felt you were flying… awakened with a strange presence in your room… seen unusual lights… found puzzling scars on your body…? You might be an abductee and not know it. This is the theoretical basis of the abductionists’ extravagant claims (but they don’t ask if you take drugs, drink alcohol, engage in subtle energy practices, or watch too much TV…)
Skeptics, of course, deny that anyone has ever been abducted. Pontolillo goes on to question the evidence of which the overwhelming majority is unsubstantiated eye witness (and alleged eye witness) testimony from the purported abductee. Most abductees are anonymous and the crucial medical and psychological documentation on their cases is inaccessible. He questions the use of hypnotic recall procedures by pro-abduction therapists with little knowledge of the scientific literature on hypnosis and its proper application. Most of the abduction evidence hinges on hypnotic regression and, as Pontolillo points out, “a casual examination of all major pro-abduction books reveals the use of leading questions by researchers on their hypnotized subjects” — while Hopkins categorically states in UFOs And The Alien Presence: “You can’t lead people.” (Another question that presents itself here is: How is it humanly possible to conduct in-depth psychological tests for such a vast number of traumatized victims — if their claimed numbers are true?)
As there is no physical evidence or objective testimony the author digs more deeply into the psychological interpretation of the abduction phenomenon to seek out the underlying archetypal imagery. In doing so he draws a compelling thread between UFOs, abductions and ancient folkloric tradition, or as he puts it “The core abduction event, sexual and medical experimentation by extraterrestrials on unwilling human (primarily female) subjects, is only the latest variation in a time-worn cycle of misogynistic folk tradition endemic to Western civilization.” He takes the reader back to the first abduction story ever recorded, in Genesis, with the sons of God taking the daughters of men, beginning a cycle of domination and abuse of women not merely tolerated but aggressively pursued by the Judeo-Christian authorities. In the early days of the Church, intercourse between female saints and angelic lovers in male form was quite acceptable, as was the idea of human-angelic interbreeding, but later on woman was made into the evil seductress, the insatiable succubus depicted lewdly cavorting with demons. The sadistic trials of the Great Witch Hunt (15-17th century) with their countless victims, mostly women, were a direct result of this misogynistic mythology, and the physical and sexual torture of the mediaeval inquisitors with the lurid confessions extracted from their helpless victims were only a few steps away in time from the “scientifically proven” fledgling disciplines of crude gynecology and psychiatry. It’s chilling but true that normal female sexuality in the 1800s was ‘treated’ with flogging, clitoridectomy and female castration. As Pontolillo states, these are the roots from which much of our 20th century philosophical, intellectual and scientific modes of thinking grew. Under the cloak of science, intercourse with the supernatural faded from public view but in the mid 1950s it returned in another guise, the early contactees such as George Adamski, and an increasingly religious tone to the UFO encounter. It was in the 1960s that the claimed abductions of Betty and Barney Hill, Antonio Villas-Boas and Betty Andreasson-Lucas were reported, setting the theme for all subsequent abduction stories. While abduction proponents claim the media had no influence on the reports of these famous cases, Pontolillo points out the great tide of pulp sci-fi magazines and movies conveying “the paranoia about alien visitors that had permeated American culture and its resultant influence on the development of the alien abduction phenomenon” with examples like the ’39 novel Sinister Barrier where extraterrestrials artificially inseminate human women, or the ’57 film The Mysterians where alien men take human wives for breeding purposes.
The media hype following the Betty cases saw a phenomenal upsurge in reported abductions and with them a return to the mythic theme proposed by the author. The blatantly sexual medical procedures practised by aliens on the abductees uncannily echo the reports of the demonic liaisons extracted under the inquisitor’s torture — the icy demonic phallus becomes a cold instrument inserted by aliens; the ‘pricking’ of the accused witch becomes a recurrent needle motif in the alien ‘medical’ examinations; some of the aliens copulate with the women but there is no pleasure involved, and human interbreeding with fairies or demons is transcribed into alien genetic manipulation, forced interbreeding, the stealing of ova and sperm and brief pregnancies with the fetus mysteriously vanishing into yet another unverifiable report — while the experiences of male abductees have received very little attention.
As Pontolillo states: “The abductee testimony of various medical and sexual experiences is a convoluted mix of lurid dream imagery, confabulated medical and sexual experiences, and iatrogenic effects.”While he focuses on the psychological aspects and the mythic quality of abduction reports the author also brings up the subject of devices allegedly implanted in abductees’ bodies by aliens for purposes of tracking and mind control, although it seems none of these implants have been made available for independent scientific evaluation — they have the habit of “vanishing mysteriously, being lost in the mail, misplaced, stolen by unknown entities or seized by unnamed federal agents as the ufological worldview usually requires.”
THE SINISTER WORLD OF “SPY-CHIATRISTS”
Another nail in the coffin of the gray alien syndrome is added by Martin Cannon in a manuscript entitled The Controllers: A New Hypothesis of Alien Abductions, in which the author asks some pretty basic questions that seem to be conveniently overlooked by the abduction proponents. Firstly, “How do we know that the abductors are alien at all? And if the abductees are placed under some kind of mind control through implanted memory as claimed by Budd Hopkins and others: How can we trust the perceptions of someone whose perceptions have been altered? What if the kidnappers were actually human beings, using advanced hypnotic techniques to create the ‘alien’ screen memory?” Cannon doesn’t question the validity of the abductee experience, but rather he seeks to unravel the deeper layers of the mystery from a pragmatic and definitely Earth-oriented approach. With a formidable list of resource references he puts forward his case that the claimed UFO abductions might well be a continuation of clandestine mind control operations including hypnosis, drugs, psychological conditioning, microwaves, brain implants and even more disturbing technologies. Having spent a great deal of time reading, researching, contacting other researchers and conducting interviews, Cannon has come up with shocking evidence of the sinister and covert world of the “spy-chiatrists” who have been experimenting with mind control technologies for decades.
He says: “If my hypothesis proves true, then we must accept the following: The kidnapping is real. The fear is real. The pain is real. The instructions are real. But the little grey men from Zeti Reticuli are not real; they are constructs, Halloween masks meant to disguise the real faces of the controllers.”
And who are the controllers?
“Substantial evidence exists linking members of this country’s intelligence community, including the Central Intelligence Agency, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and the Office of Naval Intelligence, with the esoteric technology of mind control.” He traces clandestine behavioural research going back to World War II with the developing tools of hypnosis, truth drugs and a pharmacology of chemicals. After the war the Navy continued this research, then in 1950 the CIA began its own mind control program with Project BLUEBIRD, which became ARTICHOKE and later MKULTRA, regarded by some as the most heinous of all the CIA’s disreputable covert operations — with its most secret area of study being psychoelectronics. That these programs existed is an established fact, as the author states “…the existence of mind control was verified in two (heavily compromised) congressional investigations and in thousands of FOIA documents.”
For those who doubt the power of mind control over unsuspecting victims, he includes this anecdote about a MKULTRA veteran and author on warfare hypnosis George Estabrooks, who “once amused himself during a party by covertly hypnotizing two friends, who were led to believe that the Prime Minister of England had just arrived; Estabrook’s victims spent an hour conversing with, and even serving drinks, to the esteemed visitor.” As Cannon asks “If the Mesmeric arts can successfully evoke a non-existent Prime Minister, why can’t a representative from the Pleiades be similarly induced?”
As far back as the 60s, he states, and possibly earlier, scientists have had the means to create implants similar to those claimed by abductees. Around the late 50s a neuroscientist named Jose Delgado invented a device known as a “stimoceiver” — a miniature depth electrode which can receive and transmit electronic signals over FM radio waves. With this the controller can wield a surprising degree of control over the response of the subject, playing the emotions electronically “as easily as a musical instrument.” Delgado stated quite clearly in 1966 that “motion, emotion and behaviour can be directed by electrical forces and that humans can be controlled like robots by push buttons.” Other researchers have induced memory, sexual arousal, fear, pleasure and hallucinations in their subjects, and devices have been created for tracking people over long distances, leading to “electronic house arrest” devices approved by the courts. (Mind machines of a supposedly more innocent nature have also become commonly used in New Age circles, such as the Synchro-energizer, TENS machine etc.) The early implants were soon replaced by tiny miniaturized intracranial receivers, which in turn have been superseded by microwaves and other forms of electromagnetic radiation to elicit mind control. How far the technology has progressed is hard to monitor, Cannon admits, as the press stopped reporting on brain implantation in the early 70s, but journalists have asserted that the CIA now has mastered “Radio Hypnotic Intracerebral Control” and “Electronic Dissolution of Memory” — being able to induce hypnotic trance, give suggestions, and erase memory (“missing time” is a common claim of abductees), all at a distance and “triggered at will by radio transmission” surpassing even the sophisticated horror of The Manchurian Candidate. Intramuscular implants have also been developed with the small resultant scars reminiscent of abductee reports. Perhaps the most ominous proposals for mind-management, says the author, come from people like Joseph A Meyer of the National Security Agency who proposed implanting tens of millions of “subscribers”, as Meyers put it, (about half of all Americans arrested) who could be under constant computer surveillance wherever they went. As this frugal fellow stated, “implants are cheaper and more efficient than the police.” And the operation can be done right in the office taking less than 20 minutes, as a Florida doctor brags, who also suggests implanting children with transmitters for constant monitoring for their own safety! With such sophisticated techniques at their disposal Cannon asks the key question: Why are ‘advanced aliens’ using old Earth technology?
It all sounds very fishy and yet the lure of the little gray alien has been swallowed by otherwise intelligent people, hook, line and sinker. “Perhaps,” says Cannon, “one purpose of the UFO abductions is to engender and maintain the legend of the little gray aliens. For the hidden manipulators, the abductions could be, in and of themselves, a propaganda coup.” (It may be mere coincidence but “ex”-intelligence agents are very prominent in such highly sophisticated disinformation schemes as the ‘cosmic conspiracy’, the UFO and alien abduction plot, e.g. John Lear, William Cooper, Bob Lazar, etc — although on a recent radio show both Lear and Cooper were both heard back-peddling on the alien angle of the conspiracy caper). But for what purpose? One chilling possibility put forth by Cannon concerns “the disposal problem” of the mind-control experiments, or “What do we do with the victims?” Another possibility is to prepare earthlings for a simulated alien invasion which could bring into effect an international state of emergency — remember the film The Day The Earth Stood Still?
CATTLE MUTILATIONS
Another atrocity that has been linked to alien abductions by the thinnest threads of evidence (so thin as to be practically invisible) is the disturbing cattle mutilation enigma. In one case a young woman claimed she was taken by aliens to a facility where they were processing the body parts of a mutilated calf. In the New Mexico area where cattle mutilations have occurred, strange lights have been repeatedly seen in the sky along with other unusual activity such as helicopters that can be seen but not heard, or heard but not seen. Common in abductee accounts is the memory of a helicopter turning into a UFO. According to George Earley who in a Fate interview with Hopkins is surely fantasizing about equipment on an alien space ship: “Such equipment might function in a manner similar to the Klingon cloaking device in the Star Trek TV series.” And in a similar vein Linda Moulton Howe, creator of the TV film A Strange Harvest, and a major media proponent of alien abductions, states “…they (the grays) have the technology to camouflage themselves however they want to.”
Drawn into this highly contentious area was Peter Jordan, author of The Psychometry of Cattle Mutilation, and founder/director of the Association for the Study of Unexplained Phenomena. As an independent investigator Jordan, with a fair amount of skepticism, took photographs of mutilations to four separate psychics, each with a well established reputation for accuracy. He was amazed by their independent analyses which showed a stunning similarity of impressions, each describing a military or paramilitary operation involving helicopters, sharp surgical instruments, the necessity for fresh animal samples, hovering craft with lights to give the impression of UFOs, and a strictly terrestrial but massive covert operation. In one way or another each of the four psychics insisted that “phenomena suggestive of extraterrestrial involvement had been introduced to create confusion.”
So we have two diametrically opposed stories — UFOs manned by “advanced” aliens cloaking themselves as helicopters — or — military helicopters cleverly disguised as UFOs. What would you believe?
WHO CONTROLS THE CONTROLLERS?
While Pontolillo and Cannon present enough evidence between them from a psychoanalytical and physical standpoint to deflate the gray alien bubble, there still remains a nagging feeling that something strange is going on.
Deep within the ancestral memory of every race lies the tradition of space contact, of communication with divine or other-worldly beings and it seems that at certain times, perhaps during powerful planetary alignments, the barriers which separate humans from other worlds and states of being become more tenuous, more easily crossed. During the 1960s and ’70s for example an intense occult revival began to surface across the planet inspiring individuals and groups to alter their modes of perception, to penetrate other dimensions and extraterrestrial spaces and make contact with ‘those beyond.’ Occult technologies for accelerated spiritual development became suddenly available and so did a strong desire for freedom from the prevailing and intensifying state of global materialism.
It was also during this time that the alien abductors made their first much publicized appearance. Was it a deliberate attempt to close down the newly opened ‘doors of perception’ — to make people fearful of something beyond the control of earthly powers? Or was it merely coincidence?
One of the major influences on this occult revival were the prolific writings of the English magician Aleister Crowley, who was instrumental in merging the occult knowledge of the orient with the western mystery tradition, and who could be called one of the first contactees — in particular a book transmitted by a ‘trans-mundane’ intelligence called Aiwass in Cairo in 1904. Several years later in America Crowley made contact with another extraterrestrial entity called Lam and the reason I mention this is because a portrait drawn by Crowley of this entity bears a startling resemblance to the modern ‘gray alien.’ In recent years others have also made contact with this entity which is regarded by the respected occultist and contemporary author Kenneth Grant, as a potent “Gateway to other dimensions, other worlds or aethyrs.” And, he says, this image of Lam is “fast becoming a focus for those interested in the occult implications of ‘Ufology’ and intradimensional psionics.”
From The Magical Revival (1972) to Hecate’s Fountain, his latest work, Grant has explored the occult ramifications of extraterrestrial contact throughout human history, through “dimensions that scientists are only just beginning to explore.” He identifies the ‘gateways’ through which alien forms of consciousness are manifesting and the reasons why a rapidly growing number of people are experiencing an explosion of consciousness, felt as disturbing because most are without any occult, metaphysical or scientific discipline.
Through the manipulation of natural forces such as nuclear and electrical technologies man has unleashed certain energies (or from an occult point of view, has invoked certain entities) over which he has lost control and is now totally unprepared to face the consequences. The elemental constituents of the material world have been blown apart, the ‘gateways’ have been opened once again between the worlds and real contacts are being established between the inner consciousness of evolving humans and outer, or inner, space intelligences. For those who can’t detach themselves from a materialistic world view these subtle contacts are translated in material terms as physical beings, ‘the grays’ with their equally solid space ships (of which no material evidence exists), rather than being recognized as grossly deformed shadows reflected into the subconscious from cosmic individualities beyond the ken of the rational mind.
It’s obvious that our world is undergoing a violent transformation. All concepts of what constitutes a stable universe are daily being swept away. Who can say with all certainty what is real, or what is not? As for the ‘grays’, the only ones I’ve seen with sinister intent are the gray faced, gray-suited politicians on the network news deciding your fate. As to whether they’re human or not — well, that’s another story…
