The Problem
Among ufologists, the term “abduction” has come to refer to an infinitely-confounding experience, or matrix of experiences, shared by a dizzying number of individuals, who claim that travellers from the stars have scooped them out of their beds, or snatched them from their cars, and subjected them to interrogations, quasi-medical examinations, and “instruction” periods. Usually, these sessions are said to occur within alien spacecraft; frequently, the stories include terrifying details reminiscent of the tortures inflicted in Germany’s death camps. The abductees often (though not always) lose all memory of these events; they find themselves back in their cars or beds, unable to account for hours of “missing time.” Hypnosis, or some other trigger, can bring back these haunted hours in an explosion of recollection — and as the smoke clears, an abductee will often spot a trail of similar experiences, stretching all the way back to childhood.
Perhaps the oddest fact of these odd tales: Many abductees, for all their vividly-recollected agonies, claim to love their alien tormentors. That’s the word I’ve heard repeatedly: love.
Within the community of “scientific ufologists” — those lonely, all-too little-heard advocates of a reasonable and open-minded debate on matters saucerological — these claims have elicited cautious interest and a commendable restraint from conclusion-hopping. Outside the higher realms of scientific ufology, the situation is, alas, quite different. In the popular press, in both the “straight” and sensationalist media, within that journalistic realm where issues are defined and public opinion solidified (despite a frequently superficial approach to matters of evidence and investigation) abduction scenarios have elicited two basic reactions: that of the Believer and the Skeptic.
The Believers — and here we should note that “Believers” and “abductees” are two groups whose memberships overlap but are in no way congruent — accept such stories at face value. They accept, despite the seeming absurdity of these tales, the internal contradictions, the askew logic of narrative construction, the severe discontinuity of emotional response to the actions described. The Believers believe, despite reports that their beloved “space brothers” use vile and inhuman tactics of medical examination — senseless procedures most of us (and certainly the vanguard of an advanced race) would be ashamed to inflict on an animal. The Believers believe, despite the difficulty of reconciling these unsettling tales with their own deliriums of benevolent off-worlders.
Occasionally, the rough notes of a rationalization are offered: “The aliens don’t know what they are doing,” we hear; or “Some aliens are bad.” Yet the Believers confound their own reasoning when they insist on ascribing the wisdom of the ages and the beneficence of the angels to their beloved visitors. The aliens allegedly know enough about our society to go about their business undetected by the local authorities and the general public; they communicate with the abductees in human tongue; they concern themselves with details of the percipients’ innermost lives — yet they remain so ignorant of our culture as to be unaware of the basic moral precepts concerning the dignity of the individual and the right to self-determination. Such dichotomies don’t bother Believers; they are the faithful, and faith is assumed to have its mysteries. Sancta Simplicitas.
Conversely, the Skeptics dismiss these stories out of hand. They dismiss, despite the intriguing confirmatory details: the multiple witness events, the physical traces left by the ufonauts, the scars and implants left on the abductees. The skeptics scoff, though the abductees tell stories similar in detail — even certain tiny details, not known to the general public.
Philip Klass is a debunker who, through his appearances on such television programs as Nova and Nightline, has been in a position to affect much of the public debate on UFOs. In his interesting but poorly-documented work on abductions,[4] Klass claims that “abduction” is a psychological disease, spread by those who write about it. This argument exactly resembles the professional press-basher’s frequent assertion that terrorism metastasizes through media exposure. Yet for all the millions of words expectorated by newsfolk on the subject of terrorism, terrorist actions remain quite rare, as any statistician (though few politicians) will admit, and verifiable linkage between crimes and their coverage remains to be found. For that matter, there have also been books — bestsellers, even — on unicorns and gnomes. People who claim to see those creatures are few. Abductees are plentiful.
Both Believer and Skeptic, in my opinion, miss the real story. Both make the same mistake: They connect the abduction phenomenon to the forty-year history of UFO sightings, and they apply their prejudices about the latter to the controversy about the former.
At first, the link seems natural. Shouldn’t our thoughts about UFOs color our thoughts about UFO abductions?
No.
They may well be separate issues. Or, rather, they are connected only in this: The myth of the UFO has provided an effective cover story for an entirely different sort of mystery. Remove yourself from the Believer/Skeptic dialectic, and you will see the third alternative.
As we examine this alternative, we will, of necessity, stray far from the saucers. We must turn our face from the paranormal and concentrate on the occult — if, by “occult,” we mean secret.
I posit that the abductees have been abducted. Yet they are also spewing fantasy — or, more precisely, they have been given a set of lies to repeat and believe. If my hypothesis proves true, then we must accept the following: The kidnapping is real. The fear is real. The pain is real. The instruction is 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. The abductors may not be visitors from Beyond; rather, they may be a symptom of the carcinoma which blackens our body politic.
The fault lies not in our stars, but in ourselves.