What, then, are we to make of the 1930 comic strip story “Tiger Men of Mars” in the series “Buck Rogers in the 25th Century“? It adheres to Bullard’s structure most excellently. Wilma experiences:
(i) capture by a giant clamp leading into a spherical alien spaceship,
(ii) examination while lying on a table in an electro-hypnotic trance,
(iii)conference with a subordinate and then a leader,
(vi) theophany while gazing at the Earth from an off-world vantage point,
(vii)return,
In the aftermath, there is an instance of what Bullard calls “networking” in the aliens abducting Wilma’s sister, Sally.
There is also an apocalyptic finale in which the Martian moon Phobos crashes on Mars.[18]
Some idea of the structural impressiveness of this narrative can be gained from observing that only one abduction in the UFO literature has a greater number of these elements in the correct order. Two abductions have the same number of elements. The other 163 correctly ordered abductions have 5 or fewer elements in them.[19]
Obviously the presence of structure does not prove the cartoon is objectively real, and it must be granted that a long-forgotten cartoon is not a credible influence on present-day abductions. It is more likely they share an intuitive ordering principle subconsciously acquired from exposure to drama. A relabeling of Bullard’s elements should make the logic clearer:
(i) character introduced,
(ii) peril and conflict,
(iii) explanation and insight,
(iv) goodwill and attempt to impress,
(v) excitement,
(vi) climax,
(vii) closure,
(viii) sequel.
Examination, as the peril, is the downer part of the story and would ruin a happy ending if sequenced late. Even in deviant cases the examination is never put near the end. Pragmatically, putting theophany before examination might instill trust in the abductee and make testing go better. Dramaturgically, however, such an order would be stupid since it ruins the intensity of the peril and spoils the joy of the ending and the sense of closure.
Faceless terror makes for more primordial fear. Dramatically it
would be unwise to reduce the alienness before the peril by
conferring with the aliens or have them host a tour. It is also
bad behaviourism to place aversive stimuli after sending one’s
signal – the message and information in the conference, tour
and theophany.
The otherworldly journey is a form of excitement and can appear
any place between the capture and climax. Most of Bullard’s
deviant cases involve the otherworldly journey not staying in the
place he deemed correct, To put it simply, Bullard’s correct
order is the right way to tell a story. At the very least, his
evaluation that “Objectivity wins a big one” on the issue of
structure is problematic.[20]
The capture event in “Tiger Men of Mars” features an incredible
kid-inventor-type gizmo – a giant mechanical clamp which grabs
the whole body of the victim. It’s a grand cartoony contraption
appropriate to its venue in a Buck Rogers situation. How odd,
then, to note that such a thing appears in the Steven Kilburn
abduction in “Missing Time”. It seems such a ridiculously
impractical thing for a technologically superior culture to
bother with, yet Hopkins includes it with not an indication of
amusement. One can understand it in a 1930s cartoon, or even in
an early script draft of “War of the Worlds”. At least someone
realised it should be deleted. But in a real abduction? Lawson’s
suggestion that Kilburn was reliving a forceps-aided birth makes
tons more sense.[21]
I could have more fun demolishing Hopkins’s claim, but it really doesn’t deserve more attention than this. Time to turn to the last of our three historical allegations.
Thomas E. Bullard opens his massively impressive study of
the abduction mystery with a discussion of the
legendary status of the “interrupted journey” of Betty and
Barney Hill. It was the most sensational UFO story of
its time; a nasty little horror story which engraved itself
on the unconscious of a generation. The growth of UFO
abduction reports subsequent to their appearance on the
cultural scene is unsurprising.
The thing that puzzles Bullard is how _they_ got the idea. He points out that occupant reports were obscure items known only to the initiated in 1961. He believes the Hills had no knowledge they could construct a nightmare of this sort from, so he asserts “the odds are strong that the Hills went to their interrupted journey entirely unpredisposed.” It is a “continuing mystery” how they originated it and as long as it is unaccounted for “the cultural tradition explanation starts off handicapped.”[22]
Part of the mystery is solved by a careful reading of “The Interrupted Journey.” It is on record that Betty Hill had read Donald Keyhoe’s book “The Flying Saucer Conspiracy” shortly before she be an having nightmares of abduction. Keyhoe’s book cites nearly a dozen occupant cases.
Most of them are outright rejected by Keyhoe. These include such farces as zebra-striped spacemen, an elephant-faced entity, 6-armed, 13-ft tall entities, space-man monster tales and contactee hoaxes. Keyhoe practically endorses, however, a Pearl Harbor report of a flyer who frightfully proclaimed “I actually saw him” – the saucer pilot. Note the pronoun is him, not it. No doubt this would have impressed Betty as similar to Barney’s experience of seeing the saucer’s occupants.[23]
Keyhoe also expresses a measure of acceptance of a series of UFO stories from Venezuela involving Hairy Dwarfs. One of these serves as a closer starting point of Betty Hill’s nightmares. Two peasants first spot a bright light like a car on the nearby road. Hovering a few feet from the ground is a round machine with a brilliant glow coming from the underside. “Four little men” come out and try to drag Jesus Gomez toward the object. There is a struggle and the evidence of that struggle gives it a special credibility in Keyhoe’s eyes. Keyhoe next cites the experience of Jesus Paz who was found unconscious after being set upon by a Hairy Dwarfs.